Let's discuss "Gating"

Let's discuss "Gating"

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Posted by: Xytor.1267

Xytor.1267

Gating isn’t necessary a bad thing. There, I said it. And here is why.

  • It’s a different form of progression. Not one most players of GW2 are used to obviously, but it is progression. There is excitement in being able to access new things after properly earning them. This is a popular game philosophy, not Anet trying to waste your time and money.

Example 1 – Dust: An Elysian Tail. Not an mmorpg, but there is a lot of gating, forcing the player to revisit old levels when new skills are learned and keys are earned. This isn’t bad, it’s satisfying. I presume Anet was going for the same feeling.

Example 2 – World of Warcraft attunment (classic and Burning Crusade). This was a lot more time consuming and a lot more hardcore than GW2 gating, but again none the less satisfying being one of the few players to unlock harder content.

Now to get to the heart of the argument, does gating work with GW2? Yes and no.

The good: Unlocking masteries is satisfying, at least to me. And no grind is required unless you’re desperate to unlock them faster than the majority of the player base. If you’re that kind of person and are complaining about grinding, that’s on you, not Anet. No one is making you grind the same events over and over again. I’ll say again: grinding is not necessary. Go around doing what you would normally do in GW2 and watch your masteries slowly, but surely, unlock. Take notes of things you can’t access yet and return when you can.

The bad: How elite specializations are unlocked. This is the only gating I see a serious problem with. I don’t mind the gating behind story because that goes hand in hand with the lore. Elite Specializations on the other hand are necessary in most cases if you want to be a boon to your party. Because of the gate, not only is it going to take the casual player weeks to unlock it, but even more time to figure out the new stats that will be most beneficial for said player and his/her group.

How I think elites should be handled: A challenge in each new zone. After completing each challenge, 4-5 points are awarded toward that specialization. Elite Specializations should be unlocked in a few hours for the hardcore, and a weekened to the casual.

So in conclusion: I think most of the gates are fine. If players care about the content then they’ll unlock it. If they don’t like the content, well, removing gates isn’t going to help much. The gates behind elite specializations however are pretty ridiculous and the long road of roaming and events necessary to unlock them feels like overkill. At this rate, the player will be burned out from the new zones by the time it’s unlocked.

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Posted by: RyuDragnier.9476

RyuDragnier.9476

The only problems I have with HoT masteries is that they have to be leveled up in HoT maps, and the events don’t give anywhere near enough exp to level them up (and I’ve cleared all I can from the maps so far, still need a lot more to continue).

[hS]
PvE Main – Zar Poisonclaw – Daredevil
WvW Main – Ghost Mistcaller – Herald

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Posted by: BrotherBelial.3094

BrotherBelial.3094

Yeah, trying to find events or grinding out the same “challenge” missions is about as much fun as poking my self in the eye.

I’m not saying I dislike HoT. It reminds me alot of kanigcenter what ever the city part of Factions was called. I Hated that place, and it’s still not a place I’m fond of. But factions is my second favorite campaign from GW1. So I’m in the camp of, once I get to know my way around, HoT will not be that bad, and at least once I’ve done the masteries with one character, I’ll never have to do it again. That alone is a god send. Sorry but I thought the masteries would be things to work on as and when, or something for once you where finished with the story of HoT. Not be a slowing tactic of ANet to make HoT last longer.

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Posted by: Kaiser.9873

Kaiser.9873

I think a quest should be the “gate” behind which the elites are locked. What kind of ridiculousness makes a core concept of the expansion gated behind essentially finishing the expansion? I will almost certainly have to play through every map before I am able to unlock 1 elite. Why would I play through it again on that elite? Poor design on ANet’s part imo.

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Posted by: Loki.9412

Loki.9412

The whole new system is bullkitten. Ive only been playing a few months and spvp is my game mode, but i do like to do the occaisional pve dungeon/fractal, so im forced to kitten about trying to get map completion and new skill points only obtainable through stupid glider or mushroom hopping to unlock my game. I paid for this expansion only to be forced to kitten about actually earning it. kitten you Anet

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Posted by: Anakita Snakecharm.4360

Anakita Snakecharm.4360

Personally I don’t mind having some gating, I just think some of the XP walls are set a bit too high, especially in situations where the gates limit which content you can do to earn the XP you need to progress.

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Posted by: Amroth.2170

Amroth.2170

The fact that we’re discussing this at all is just depressing.

It’s so fundamentally counter to how the game was originally envisioned. Death by a million cuts. GW2:HoT plays nothing like vanilla GW2 and I for one am not happy about that.

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Posted by: Xytor.1267

Xytor.1267

The fact that we’re discussing this at all is just depressing.

It’s so fundamentally counter to how the game was originally envisioned. Death by a million cuts. GW2:HoT plays nothing like vanilla GW2 and I for one am not happy about that.

What do you mean when you say ‘envisioned’? I’ve been around since the 3-day headstart and followed the game a few years before release. As I recall, a big sell point for them was huge world bosses, meta events, explorable dungeons, and underwater combat. Although I agree this expansion is radically different than Vanilla GW2, it still captures the essence of what they were going for at release, minus the shift from dungeons to fractals and raid, and leaning away from underwater areas (for now). The only major difference is the gates to unlock said content, which never previously existed.

If you don’t like the gates, I get it. No one asked for them and I see where the backlash is coming from. I just don’t think it’s that terrible a thing because most everything is still there. Also, maybe gates aren’t the problem? If you’re going around exploring new zones and participating in meta events, the masteries will unlock themselves pretty much. Not to mention they aren’t necessary early on. The most crucial things you learn quickly anyway. So again, I fail to see the major issue with these gates.

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Posted by: DeltaZero.6310

DeltaZero.6310

I think a quest should be the “gate” behind which the elites are locked. What kind of ridiculousness makes a core concept of the expansion gated behind essentially finishing the expansion? I will almost certainly have to play through every map before I am able to unlock 1 elite. Why would I play through it again on that elite? Poor design on ANet’s part imo.

This, I am fine with everything else, but not allowing me to play the expansion with the classes I have been looking forward to is a bit of a bummer.
Would have been much happier with a “mentor” that wanted gold or something

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Posted by: Blaine Tog.8304

Blaine Tog.8304

I don’t mind a degree of gating per se. The Elite Specializations should not be gated. It’s ok to make us work a bit to unlock Elite specs but we shouldn’t have to grind out a crazy amount of XP on top of beating a bunch of difficult, hard-to-reach hero challenges just to play through the content with a fresh spec.

The Elite Specializations are a big part of what makes the new content exciting. I want to play through the new areas in a new way, not grinding it out with the same old builds.

I main Ele and Necro, though I have an alt of each profession at level 80.
How to Condi Reaper on a budget
Everything I say is only in reference to PvE and WvW.

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Posted by: Victuswolf.5286

Victuswolf.5286

The fact that we’re discussing this at all is just depressing.

It’s so fundamentally counter to how the game was originally envisioned. Death by a million cuts. GW2:HoT plays nothing like vanilla GW2 and I for one am not happy about that.

What do you mean when you say ‘envisioned’? I’ve been around since the 3-day headstart and followed the game a few years before release. As I recall, a big sell point for them was huge world bosses, meta events, explorable dungeons, and underwater combat. Although I agree this expansion is radically different than Vanilla GW2, it still captures the essence of what they were going for at release, minus the shift from dungeons to fractals and raid, and leaning away from underwater areas (for now). The only major difference is the gates to unlock said content, which never previously existed.

If you don’t like the gates, I get it. No one asked for them and I see where the backlash is coming from. I just don’t think it’s that terrible a thing because most everything is still there. Also, maybe gates aren’t the problem? If you’re going around exploring new zones and participating in meta events, the masteries will unlock themselves pretty much. Not to mention they aren’t necessary early on. The most crucial things you learn quickly anyway. So again, I fail to see the major issue with these gates.

The problem with putting GATES on content is it’s only ever implemented as a way to make content last longer than it should by making you replay some of it to the point of tedium while not adding any new content to the game itself.

In most cases the GATES themselves are artificial that add NOTHING to your character’s over all progression. Just look at fractals and the USELESS agony system. You farm the same few fractals for countless hours to the point your burned out just to get enough agony resistance to get to the higher level fractals where you might get a slight increase in gear stats. Agony resistance has no use at all outside of fractals. It’s a GATE that shouldn’t be there. It should be replaced with NEW harder game content that requires organised group play.

In every MMO I have played EVERYONE has HATED content gating. It’s killed many MMO’s including Dark ages of Camelot.

Over the last few months leading up to the HOT expansion the developers have removed interesting game content that was fun. Hunting for your traits in the open world like it was some epic quest was a lot of fun. They took that away from us and gave us a spec system that is far more shallow. There is far less choice of traits and abilties and now you are FORCED to spec into all 5 spec lines just to get your elite spec.

So now we have spec GATING where we can’t even choose which specs we want to put hero points into. We have to fill up all 5 even if we have no intention of ever using certain spec lines just to use the elite spec. Another choice taken from us and turned into a GATE.

Even the fractal rewards we previously had have been GATED behind Mastery’s and some of the event/boss rewards are GATED in HOT even after completing that event.

Mastery GATES that are useless outside of HOT
Agony GATES that are useless outside of fractals
Spec GATES that force you to spend hundreds of Hero points on spec lines you will never use

No one asked for any of this and this is what will drive players away from Guild Wars 2. A lot of MMO players moved to Guild Wars 2 to get away from gating, grinding, and artificial content stretching.

For years RPG’s were about going hunting in deep dark dungeons for the best loot. Taking a skilled party of adventurers into the dark depths of a dangerous dungeon that required team work to get significant loot rewards and shiny gold coins.

In GW2 they killed dungeons and nerfed the loot by 66% and pointed us towards a gate. The same gate players have been trying to get away from in MMO’s for years.

Players want character progression that’s meaningful, choice of character design/Spec, dungeons, phat loot and exciting new content that we don’t have to repeat to the point we burn out.

Now every class is the same. Every thief has had to fully spec all 5 lines just get get Daredevil. There is no character choice. You can’t choose which lines you don’t want to spec into or what Mastery’s you don’t need. You need everything and your character is just like everyone else’s.

(edited by Victuswolf.5286)

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Posted by: Eponet.4829

Eponet.4829

The major issue with the elite specs is that in a large number of cases, the playstyle of the elite spec is actually a weakness of the base class.

For instance, guardians are regarded as having some of the worst ranged ability in the game, while getting a purely archery focused elite spec. People who want to play a dragonhunter could very well be the sort of people that hate melee, and thus, quite reasonably want to avoid base guardian like the plague.

Taking WoW as an example, as people seem to be doing on the forums of late, you don’t have to level up as an arms warrior in order to unlock the marksmanship hunter.

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Posted by: Zoltar MacRoth.7146

Zoltar MacRoth.7146

The major issue with the elite specs is that in a large number of cases, the playstyle of the elite spec is actually a weakness of the base class.

Exactly my thinking when I heard of the tempest. The point of an ele, I understood, was the flexibility to jump between attunements. That’s our weapon swap. The exact opposite of that is to stay in one. Hello tempest.

Even so, I’m working up to getting my tempest. I’m dubious of the mechanic and I want to see how it actually plays. I want my suspicions to be proved wrong.

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Posted by: Victuswolf.5286

Victuswolf.5286

The major issue with the elite specs is that in a large number of cases, the playstyle of the elite spec is actually a weakness of the base class.

Exactly my thinking when I heard of the tempest. The point of an ele, I understood, was the flexibility to jump between attunements. That’s our weapon swap. The exact opposite of that is to stay in one. Hello tempest.

Even so, I’m working up to getting my tempest. I’m dubious of the mechanic and I want to see how it actually plays. I want my suspicions to be proved wrong.

They also took away a lot of class flexibility with the spec line updates. They killed a few of my builds in that update and removed the fun and adventure of hunting down your traits in the game world.

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Posted by: Xytor.1267

Xytor.1267

The problem with putting GATES on content is it’s only ever implemented as a way to make content last longer than it should by making you replay some of it to the point of tedium while not adding any new content to the game itself.

The oldest gate in MMORPGs is a leveling system, and no one ever complains about that because it’s expected. Masteries is just another type of leveling system. You can’t do things until you unlock certain masteries just like you can’t usually progress in higher level zones because you can’t contribute. If there is a problem, it isn’t with masteries, rather with either a lack of content in said zones, tedious leveling, or difficulty accessing content due to not know where to go. In the case of GW2, it’s possibly a combination of the last two. There seems to be plenty of events I haven’t had a chance to do yet, but getting to them or slow mastery unlocks is preventming me. I like the masteries, and I think the gate is necessary. Leveling them however can be tedious.

Mastery GATES that are useless outside of HOT
Agony GATES that are useless outside of fractals
Spec GATES that force you to spend hundreds of Hero points on spec lines you will never use

I don’t disagree with most of these. Personally I’m against spec / ability gates and my argument is more in favor of the masteries. I’m the type of player that likes having access to all of my abilities, or doing quicker, yet challenging unlocks for “elite” ones.

No one asked for any of this and this is what will drive players away from Guild Wars 2. A lot of MMO players moved to Guild Wars 2 to get away from gating, grinding, and artificial content stretching.

You say a lot of MMO players, but do you have a source or is this just you? Guild Wars (1 & 2) has plenty of artifical content stretching. After people hit 80 for the first time, a lot of the player base left because if dungeons, pvp, wvw, or grinding out legendaries didn’t interest them. When collections were added, the ultimate form of content stretching IMO, a lot of players returned and participated in previously thought mundane tasks to get all they could.

For years RPG’s were about going hunting in deep dark dungeons for the best loot. Taking a skilled party of adventurers into the dark depths of a dangerous dungeon that required team work to get significant loot rewards and shiny gold coins.

In GW2 they killed dungeons and nerfed the loot by 66% and pointed us towards a gate. The same gate players have been trying to get away from in MMO’s for years.

Players want character progression that’s meaningful, choice of character design/Spec, dungeons, phat loot and exciting new content that we don’t have to repeat to the point we burn out.

I didn’t like the dungeon nerf. If an expansion wasn’t coming out, I would have quit. That’s what my group liked doing and that’s almost all we did when we were on. With that said, the new zones and collections added to the game are too much to pass up for me. Instead of going into “deep dark dungeons” to get loot you’re going for collections, which in turn gives you loot.

Masteries aside, this game is more about completing collections once the main story is over with. Turn this game back 3 years, there was a lot less content. Collections didn’t exist and there was a finite amount of skins. The device used to expand content was legendary weapons. Now, we have collections, more legendary weapons, a legendary backpiece, and legendary armor. Also raids. Yes there are gates, but passing said mastery gates is rewarding in itself and opens up tons of content.