Guild Wars 2

How many of you will buy the game if we only get world events (though i cant see mordremoth being a world boss only). And also if we dont get them how will new armors be distributed only via events or ?

I don’t really care about dungeons. I’d enjoy them a LOT if they were made to be played solo, at least in story mode, whenever you want. As they are now, though? Meh, pass, unless it’s to unlock a reward track in PvP.

(I really don’t like PvP, but I’d rather do it than dungeons.)

How will new armors and the like be distributed? Well, we already know that there’s a couple of new races that we’ll have to develop our Masteries to talk to and trade with. I expect them to each have something new to sell. I also expect to see some events that briefly unlock merchants when completed, and those merchants may sell some interesting things. Combine that with the other tricks they’ve been using, and I think they’ll have enough ways to put new things out there.

Its a expansion ofc we get dungeons

I couldn’t care less about dungeons. They never worked well, and ANet seems perfectly willing to forget about them, which is fine with me.

Killface.1896:

Its a expansion ofc we get dungeons

Pretty sure they said that we aren’t, at least not tied to the expansion.

The question is will their “challenging group content” actually live up to it’s name in a way that it’s a reasonable replacement?

Killface.1896:

Its a expansion ofc we get dungeons

All of the major features have been announced. Dungeons were not on the list.

Challenging group content

purecontact.1680:

Challenging group content

Use flamethrower to burn vines with your party.

I don’t think it’s acceptable to not maintain dungeon content in an MMORPG. TYou cannot get the same type of immersion from open world content that you get in dungeon content, end of story. They need to hire some people to work on it and get it right.

Jerus.4350:

Killface.1896:

Its a expansion ofc we get dungeons

Pretty sure they said that we aren’t, at least not tied to the expansion.

They didn’t say that. They didn’t say anything either way. Which most people assumed means no.

I would love a dungeon so long as it is an improvement over the current dungeons. I do my runs for the gold, but I never really found them to be fun. That isn’t really a fault of the dungeons themselves or their design, but moreso over how gimmicks are the meta and completely ruin the challenge/flow of the dungeon. Examples being stacking, running past mobs, and using glitches to skip steps in a path. And this has become the normal. It isn’t just some people doing it, but you can’t do a dungeon normally, how it was intended.

So I wont mind if there aren’t any new dungeons and instead I’ll stick with the more engaging openworld events. Of course, if the can find a way of creating a truly interesting/challenging dungeon that doesn’t have players defaulting to gimmicks, then I’d love to see it implemented.

Killface.1896:

Its a expansion ofc we get dungeons

Of course I would ><

Fractal content is likely, dungeon content really not.

If we get no new dungeons or fractals or at least something instanced then i am out.

Dungeons never really interested me. I play MMOs because they are massively multiplayer and dungeons aren’t. It’s a different thought process.

I have beaten every dungeon in the game and if dungeons were introduced, I’m sure I’d play them. But at the end of the day, the very thing that makes an MMO an MMO is the persistent world. Almost every MMO I’ve played prior to this has been centered around dungeons.

I’m really happy to find at least one MMO centered around the open world.

I love me some dungeons, but if the story-instances we most likely will get are anything like LS2, I’ll be enjoying the hell out of it. And even without that, I’ll definitly enjoy playing the Reaper. And as mentioned above, Fractal content is very likely.

Vayne.8563:

Dungeons never really interested me. I play MMOs because they are massively multiplayer and dungeons aren’t. It’s a different thought process.

I have beaten every dungeon in the game and if dungeons were introduced, I’m sure I’d play them. But at the end of the day, the very thing that makes an MMO an MMO is the persistent world. Almost every MMO I’ve played prior to this has been centered around dungeons.

I’m really happy to find at least one MMO centered around the open world.

There’s a reason they’re centered around dungeons, open world content has major flaws (zerging and conflicting player goals/competition being the main ones).

If ANet had a solution for those problem I’d be right there with you, but so far they’ve failed to make any real headway on either.

It certainly is the open world that makes an MMO an MMO. Large scale events, an expansive world, all cool things. But when it comes to the content that you want to push your players with, it simply can’t be open world… unless ANet has come up with some new never before tried idea to implement this “challenging group content.” I can’t help but feel it’s goign to be another TT or VW, which just doesn’t live up to that title.

CureForLiving.5360:

Jerus.4350:

Killface.1896:

Its a expansion ofc we get dungeons

Pretty sure they said that we aren’t, at least not tied to the expansion.

They didn’t say that. They didn’t say anything either way. Which most people assumed means no.

Could have sworn I saw an interview article where they said that the content wouldn’t be done with dungeons or fractals but there would be challenging group content. Can’t be bothered to find the link with the forum’s “search” feature. IIRC they said dungeons/fractals are something that may come later, but it’s not part of the content for the expansion.

Jerus.4350:

Vayne.8563:

Dungeons never really interested me. I play MMOs because they are massively multiplayer and dungeons aren’t. It’s a different thought process.

I have beaten every dungeon in the game and if dungeons were introduced, I’m sure I’d play them. But at the end of the day, the very thing that makes an MMO an MMO is the persistent world. Almost every MMO I’ve played prior to this has been centered around dungeons.

I’m really happy to find at least one MMO centered around the open world.

There’s a reason they’re centered around dungeons, open world content has major flaws (zerging and conflicting player goals/competition being the main ones).

If ANet had a solution for those problem I’d be right there with you, but so far they’ve failed to make any real headway on either.

It certainly is the open world that makes an MMO an MMO. Large scale events, an expansive world, all cool things. But when it comes to the content that you want to push your players with, it simply can’t be open world… unless ANet has come up with some new never before tried idea to implement this “challenging group content.” I can’t help but feel it’s goign to be another TT or VW, which just doesn’t live up to that title.

I don’t know about this. The marionette fight did push players. Admittedly it’s harder to find that balance in the open world and it’s more frustrating for some people because you have to depend on strangers.

On the other hand, I have many of the same problems with instances in games. I hate pugging because there are enough bad eggs in the community to ruin my enjoyment of games. I’d prefer to run dungeons with my guild.

You’ll find a whole lot of people who have, and have always had, problems with instanced content.

My biggest problem with it is that it’s always the same and unchanging. Even in Guild Wars 1, when I walked into the “open world”, I knew exactly what would spawn where. When I did vanquishes repeatedly there were no surprises.

The first season of the Living Story, which a lot of people complained about, changed the open world.

So I’d say that there’s a division in the playerbase on many levels here. For example, some people only care or mostly care about being challenged. I don’t think that’s the largest percentage of the player base, but those players are there. If that’s your main concern, it’s something that’s harder to do in the open world.

However, there are a lot of players (not sure again how many, but a lot since I have a guild full of them) that don’t play for challenge. They play for experience and exploration and hanging out with friends.

Some people like to solo (a lot more than most think) and those people generally don’t prefer dungeons.

Start adding the groups together and I wonder if there are more people who like/play dungeons, or more people who avoid them?

I don’t have a direct answer, but again, the open world in this game, though less challenging, is infinitely more entertaining to me than any of the dungeons.

That’s why they should do it all A little flavor in different directions.

And I don’t think people are one dimensional either. Just because I enjoy dungeons the most doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the fact that there is a ton of other content available. I’ve done all the LS stuff, not all the achievements though because I find many of them boring and I don’t care about AP and not overly fond of the rewards. And that also why I think metrics are tricky and misleading, because I’ll show up on the metrics for a lot of stuff, but if it weren’t for dungeons I wouldn’t have even bought the game much less still be around.

That’s what makes MMOs so great though, the vast gameplay. Every solid MMO I’ve played has their PVP with different types even, and their open world PVE stuff as well as instanced PVE stuff for more of a challenge, some large scale, some meant to solo. Just a diverse set of options that keeps people logging in and playing because even if they get bored of whawt they’re doing right then, they have options within the same game.

Jerus.4350:

That’s why they should do it all A little flavor in different directions.

And I don’t think people are one dimensional either. Just because I enjoy dungeons the most doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the fact that there is a ton of other content available. I’ve done all the LS stuff, not all the achievements though because I find many of them boring and I don’t care about AP and not overly fond of the rewards. And that also why I think metrics are tricky and misleading, because I’ll show up on the metrics for a lot of stuff, but if it weren’t for dungeons I wouldn’t have even bought the game much less still be around.

That’s what makes MMOs so great though, the vast gameplay. Every solid MMO I’ve played has their PVP with different types even, and their open world PVE stuff as well as instanced PVE stuff for more of a challenge, some large scale, some meant to solo. Just a diverse set of options that keeps people logging in and playing because even if they get bored of whawt they’re doing right then, they have options within the same game.

Sure, except that every MMO I’ve played has ceased to satisfy me because of their focus. I believe that GW 2 has evolved to provide what the other MMOs don’t focus on. And sure it would be nice if Anet could provide everything, but I wouldn’t want to take away work from one thing to bring in something other games are doing fine.

I’m thinking Anet is trying to strengthen what makes this game different.

They were advertising challenging group content. Hopefully these will be good enough.
I just feel if such content is not instanced, it will hard to make it truly challenging.

Vayne.8563:

Jerus.4350:

That’s why they should do it all A little flavor in different directions.

And I don’t think people are one dimensional either. Just because I enjoy dungeons the most doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the fact that there is a ton of other content available. I’ve done all the LS stuff, not all the achievements though because I find many of them boring and I don’t care about AP and not overly fond of the rewards. And that also why I think metrics are tricky and misleading, because I’ll show up on the metrics for a lot of stuff, but if it weren’t for dungeons I wouldn’t have even bought the game much less still be around.

That’s what makes MMOs so great though, the vast gameplay. Every solid MMO I’ve played has their PVP with different types even, and their open world PVE stuff as well as instanced PVE stuff for more of a challenge, some large scale, some meant to solo. Just a diverse set of options that keeps people logging in and playing because even if they get bored of whawt they’re doing right then, they have options within the same game.

Sure, except that every MMO I’ve played has ceased to satisfy me because of their focus. I believe that GW 2 has evolved to provide what the other MMOs don’t focus on. And sure it would be nice if Anet could provide everything, but I wouldn’t want to take away work from one thing to bring in something other games are doing fine.

I’m thinking Anet is trying to strengthen what makes this game different.

Ehh, EQ would (and still does I believe) put out about 12 open world zones with each expansion, this is where most people spend most of their time. In those they’ll have 1-3 group instances which only a handful get their own art, most are simply cutouts of the open world areas. Then on top they’ll have 1 raid per zone and a final raid zone only for raids, again most raids are done in instanced versions of the open world.

They put out a lot more content than GW2 (old graphics I’m sure are much cheaper/easier), but the point is they give a little bit of everything, and cut corners by doubling up on art.

Imagine if they took the Glint’s Lair zone and reworked it into a fractal/dungeon, no need for art time, big dip in resource costs. They could do the same with a cutout of the Maze portion of SW. I imagine they could have reworked all of Silverwastes into a Borderlands option for WvW as well, and maybe even found a portion to make a new PVP map out of.

This is the type of stuff I’d like to see. And GW2 is not the only game to have a focus on open world

The lack of tanks and healers or any replacement of those roles (what happened to support/control???) mean that this game never really had compelling dungeons in the first place (at least compared to other MMOs) but on the other hand what it has is pretty good for world events because anyone can jump in and help when an event happens, while in other games a group would restrict from doing a hard world boss because there is no tank or healer.

I’m 100% behind Arenanet focusing on more complex and challenging dynamic events instead of more dungeons because I want them to exploit what this game is good at. People who bought the game expecting compelling raids and dungeons probably quit years ago anyway.

Anyway, for those absolutely wanting new dungeons and raids, the devs have said many times that they are/were/thinkof brewing and experimenting with raids so I’m sure it will happen some day. My bet is that they want to see if the new game mechanics (such as the defiance bar and the taunt condition) enable more fluid cooperation between players and break the monotonous meta of all-DPS in PvE: if that’s the case I could see them importing that in dungeons and hopefully raids and try to create compelling instanced PvE experience.

We need instanced content. But not dungeons, we need raids. And actually I would qualify most world bosses as raid bosses but they are far too easy and the fact that randoms can ruin these for you (by upscaling/interacting with wrong objects) makes “challenging” world bosses no fun.

The best thing anet could do is to continue to make open world bosses (and even maps) AND add instanced versions of them with a difficulty setting (with better loot). Everybody will be happy.

People who like to mindlessly farm world bosses by pressing “1” with strangers can do that and people who want challenging content can do the same bosses which deal more dmg, have more hp and have harder mechanics with their guild, friends or community .

No, no we don’t.

^^ This. Why does everyone conclude we NEED things that other MMO’s have? This game breaks all kinds of MMO stigmas. Dungeons are no different. I do think we need content where people need to team and co-operate with others, but that’s not necessarily instanced content. In fact, I think instanced content is the most ‘expensive’ approach to implement a co-operative team environment.

Dungeons in this game were dead once the trinity was thrown out the window. To Anet’s credit, it would have been hard for them to predict that without these specific roles for players in the team, Dungeons would have ended up simply being 5 people swapping aggro.

On the other hand, Fractals is more successful in engaging people in co-operative team play, probably because of the experience gained from the termed dungeons flop. I suspect they will continue to develop ‘dungeons’ along the Fractals path.

Obtena.7952:

I do think we need content where people need to team and co-operate with others, but that’s not necessarily instanced content. In fact, I think instanced content is the most ‘expensive’ approach to implement a co-operative team environment.

But instanced content is the best and FAIREST way to add “challenging content”. I have no problem with open world content but you usually play though that content quite fast and the only thing you do then is mindlessly farming.
Sure if you like that do that. But adding challenging content in there results in exploits because there is no system that backs it up. People go afk or do nothing but auto attack.
When you do an organized Triple Trouble you want to have an empty map that gets filled with all the people in your Teamspeak. You actually create your INSTANCED map. But that’s a hassle and takes way too much time.

It’s the best and fairest?

I don’t get your point. I played through dungeon content just as fast as any other and it resulted in the same thing you talk about happening in Openworld; mindless farming.

I don’t see how instanced content results in the best way to implement challenging content because the challenging content depends on the team. Anet could easily implement challenging team content in openworld and it would take less effort and less complex to do so than making an instanced map.

I also don’t see how it’s more fair. How would making challenging team content instanced be more fair? Perhaps I don’t get for who it would be more fair to?

@Neox

Again, no. There’s so much level and asset work that has to go into an instance that simply doesn’t have to exist for a non-instanced encounter.

It’s a lazy/easy way to force difficulty by limiting numbers, that I’ll grant.

Obtena.7952:

^^ This. Why does everyone conclude we NEED things that other MMO’s have? This game breaks all kinds of MMO stigmas. Dungeons are no different. I do think we need content where people need to team and co-operate with others, but that’s not necessarily instanced content. In fact, I think instanced content is the most ‘expensive’ approach to implement a co-operative team environment.

Dungeons in this game were dead once the trinity was thrown out the window. To Anet’s credit, it would have been hard for them to predict that without these specific roles for players in the team, Dungeons would have ended up simply being 5 people swapping aggro.

On the other hand, Fractals is more successful in engaging people in co-operative team play, probably because of the experience gained from the termed dungeons flop. I suspect they will continue to develop ‘dungeons’ along the Fractals path.

I disagree with much of what you said, but I do agree with Fractals being better (just generally more intricate), and the need for group based content.

The problem is without instances it’s hard to create a situation where it’s your team up against a challenge. Open world just has a lot of problems because it’s hard to create a controlled environment.

Seeing Wyvren in the stress test did give me a little hope in that it seemed like it was a sub-zone where less people were allowed in. This allows more control as you can set it to be X people can participate. If they handle the way the “instance” is created in such a way that you can go in with just your friends if you hit the cap I think they could do it. But really then you just have pseudo instances just that they are more “natural” feeling.

I think it can be done in Open World. Nightmare tower was really close to getting that challenging team content in an Open world setting. True it wasn’t a SINGLE team but if such a thing was scaled up to a whole zone with some gating, I think it would achieve that challenging aspect for a team without being instanced.

I like to think it would work similar to a golf course.

Obtena.7952:

It’s the best and fairest?

I don’t get your point. I played through dungeon content just as fast as any other and it resulted in the same thing you talk about happening in Openworld; mindless farming.

I don’t see how instanced content results in the best way to implement challenging content because the challenging content depends on the team. Anet could easily implement challenging team content in openworld and it would take less effort and less complex to do so than making an instanced map.

I also don’t see how it’s more fair. How would making challenging team content instanced be more fair? Perhaps I don’t get for who it would be more fair to?

More fair to the people who try because the people who don’t try can be warned or even be kicked. Right now there is almost no open world challenging content and the reason is quite obvious. And in the one example I mentioned you could see the problems.

Windsagio.1340:

@Neox

Again, no. There’s so much level and asset work that has to go into an instance that simply doesn’t have to exist for a non-instanced encounter.

It’s a lazy/easy way to force difficulty by limiting numbers, that I’ll grant.

Just read what I wrote earlier 5 posts above you. Also the numbers can be the same as in the open world.

Windsagio.1340:

@Neox

Again, no. There’s so much level and asset work that has to go into an instance that simply doesn’t have to exist for a non-instanced encounter.

It’s a lazy/easy way to force difficulty by limiting numbers, that I’ll grant.

Can you give me an example of any game that has overcome the issues of zerging, conflicting goals, and allows people who want to play together to do so?

I honestly can’t think of one.

I played EQ way way back in the day before instanced content even existed in any MMOs (I guess you could call the diablo style an “instance” but I wouldn’t consider that an MMO without an Open world where everyone was present). We had some awesome stuff, but eventually we figured out how to trivialize encounters by exploiting the issues with Open World the same ways we see today, and that’s why instances were born.

It may be the “easy” way out, but I just don’t know of any alternative as I haven’t seen any done and can’t think of one myself, nor have I heard of any good ideas that solve all the problems.

We’ve seen some attempt to discourage zergs with CP, Dry Top and SW, but they still have the problem of grouping random people together who may not have the same goals in mind, and have issues with allowing people to play together.

I imagine if they created some areas that were smaller player cap zones, that would create new zones for multiple guild members or group members zoning in, such that you could get your own zone for your team of 10-15 or whatever, then we’d be solid, but the intricacies of such a system would be hard to nail down perfectly without resorting to typical instanced play.

I hate to bring up the dinosaur that is Anarchy Online but they had a most awesome way to create an instanced ZONE and allow anyone that created the zone to control the number of players in it as well as WHO those players were. Admittedly it was clunky to do so … but it worked , resulting in an open world feel with challenging team content. If Funcom can do this with a 15 year old game, Anet can do this as well (unless there is some patented idea there I’m not aware of).

I can imagine that with some clever programming, a player, or a group could ‘instance’ a new version of a zone, specify how many people they want in it and then off to the races. That would give players and instanced, open world zone where they could restrict how many players they want in it (if you want zerg, you can have it) and still be challenged.

That’s wishful thinking because I doubt that’s how HoT will work but … I think it’s not out the question to have openworld, team challenging content, fair and done well.

CureForLiving.5360:

Jerus.4350:

Killface.1896:

Its a expansion ofc we get dungeons

Pretty sure they said that we aren’t, at least not tied to the expansion.

They didn’t say that. They didn’t say anything either way. Which most people assumed means no.

No. More. Dungeons. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umpR6LhBhW4 @4:15

Neox.3497:

More fair to the people who try because the people who don’t try can be warned or even be kicked. Right now there is almost no open world challenging content and the reason is quite obvious. And in the one example I mentioned you could see the problems.

Still a little unsure … so instanced content is more fair to people that try because if it’s not instanced, you get people who don’t try and you can’t kick them? That’s easily dealt with on loot rights. No need for doing a whole instance just to prevent leechers.

Obtena.7952:

Neox.3497:

More fair to the people who try because the people who don’t try can be warned or even be kicked. Right now there is almost no open world challenging content and the reason is quite obvious. And in the one example I mentioned you could see the problems.

Still a little unsure … so instanced content is more fair to people that try because if it’s not instanced, you get people who don’t try and you can’t kick them? That’s easily dealt with on loot rights. No need for doing a whole instance just to prevent leechers.

Loot rights? Really? You can simply go into a group and when everybody simply sets 1 to auto and presses it once everybody gets gold. VW is full of leechers just as an example and map hopping doesn’t really make it better. Everybody wants as much loot as possible without having to work for it and it’s sadly possible.

i personally dont care about the dungeons, i just want to work on my precursor questline and my specialization

Vix.6730:

CureForLiving.5360:

Jerus.4350:

Killface.1896:

Its a expansion ofc we get dungeons

Pretty sure they said that we aren’t, at least not tied to the expansion.

They didn’t say that. They didn’t say anything either way. Which most people assumed means no.

No. More. Dungeons. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umpR6LhBhW4 @4:15

That wasn’t the interview I was referring to, the one I was referring to was specifically talking about HoT content, but yeah… that interview…

Neox.3497:

Loot rights? Really?

Yeah, really. Loot right calcs or the mechanincs of how players get loot can be changed. Much easier than making instances for all team content as well.

Zypher.7609:

Killface.1896:

Its a expansion ofc we get dungeons

All of the major features have been announced. Dungeons were not on the list.

The only thing I dont like about this argument is that we dont know, in Anets eyes, what constitues a major feature. For all we know, to them, Dungeons are a minor feature, and this wont be hyping them. Compared to Elite Specs, New Class, Trait Revamp and Legendary Collections— a dungeon does seem minor

We’ve seen some attempt to discourage zergs with CP, Dry Top and SW, but they still have the problem of grouping random people together who may not have the same goals in mind, and have issues with allowing people to play together.

What about the old school MMORPG approach of mobs having a Lair?

Pre-instancing, I never felt a conflict of interests in my open-world endgame encounters. Sure, I might not want another guild to get the claim, but even my rivals were on the same page about what we were there to do. Like, nobody was off picking daisies next to the world dragon.

I think that’s because the space you found these endgame mobs in just didn’t have any other activities around. So if you were at that physical location, you were on-board with the activity by default.

It seems so simple, but I think it’s something they haven’t been able to explore until now.

Dynamic Events are largely unscheduled and there isn’t a quest chain to point you towards them, so there’s pressure to locate them where player can ‘stumble’ across them. Putting dynamic events in high traffic locations lends itself to divided goals and easy access zerging.

But now they have Vertical Space.
Events could be seen in progress across an impassible span, and could advertise their existence without putting it in a space with dual purposes or granting people access.

arakkune.1429:

How many of you will buy the game if we only get world events (though i cant see mordremoth being a world boss only). And also if we dont get them how will new armors be distributed only via events or ?

The are more players interested in open would stuff as opposed to dungeons, hence why dungeons are on the least important table.

There are many methods to introduce new armors and for players to get them.

Vox Hollow.2736:

We’ve seen some attempt to discourage zergs with CP, Dry Top and SW, but they still have the problem of grouping random people together who may not have the same goals in mind, and have issues with allowing people to play together.

What about the old school MMORPG approach of mobs having a Lair?

Pre-instancing, I never felt a conflict of interests in my open-world endgame encounters. Sure, I might not want another guild to get the claim, but even my rivals were on the same page about what we were there to do. Like, nobody was off picking daisies next to the world dragon.

I think that’s because the space you found these endgame mobs in just didn’t have any other activities around. So if you were at that physical location, you were on-board with the activity by default.

It seems so simple, but I think it’s something they haven’t been able to explore until now.

Dynamic Events are largely unscheduled and there isn’t a quest chain to point you towards them, so there’s pressure to locate them where player can ‘stumble’ across them. Putting dynamic events in high traffic locations lends itself to divided goals and easy access zerging.

But now they have Vertical Space.

Fights could be seen in progress across an impassible span, and could advertise the event’s existence without putting it in a space with dual purposes or granting people access.

Your name is a good example of the issues with Open World. Lady Vox in EQ. you could rez/rush her, or zerg her and that’s how people farmed her. Yes they limited the windowlickers by hiding her behind an army of tough enemies, but we still found ways to exploit the Open World mechanics to make for an easier fight.

There’s a reason EQ moved to instances in late PoP/GoD, and it was to control those elements and the whole loot/killsteal issue, which I admit GW2 has done a good job of addressing.

If we were in the business of pointing fingers at game-modes just because they can be exploited, how do instances get out of that unscathed given the state of dungeons?

Yeah, I’m sure sure game-mode has some impact..but I think at some point you just gotta’ start pointing fingers at the exploits themselves.

Vox Hollow.2736:

If we were in the business of pointing fingers at game-modes just because they can be exploited, how do instances get out of that unscathed given the state of dungeons?

Yeah, I’m sure sure game-mode has some impact..but I think at some point you just gotta’ start pointing fingers at the exploits themselves.

Exactly, point out the exploits, implore the devs to find ways to make them not work, but fact is instances were done for a reason, failures in GW2 dungeons or not.

There’s a reason every game I know of puts their more serious content in instances, and it’s because of the issues with Open World content.

Look at the pre-release Wildstar discussions about even the size of instances. They make great points about the size of things, and how large groups take away from individual effort and dumb things down. These are valid points. While I disagree that large size can’t be done, inconsistent and sizes above what it’s designed for surely create an issue.

Open world in this game is:

- too easy (you can get away with spamming skills even during TT or teq, when there are a few who perform the crucial roles)
- too rewarding (you can get better rewards for this easy spamming than any other thing. for example SW surfing)
- riddled with the innate problems of open world that have been mentioned above

People brought up the marionette as a good example. Yes, i liked that fight but i’m sure every one of us have participated in a few marionette fights where the whole encounter failed because of a single person not knowing what to do. You cannot expect everyone from this “spam 1 to win” zerg of people to learn everything about the encounters in open world. They “play how they want” after all.

Designing a challenging group content for condition/support necros (i’ve met some who said they were that), bearbow rangers, nomad’s warriors, celestial mesmers and the likes who only know how to stand to on the crates at the golem mk. 2 and press autoattack must be a pain in the behind.

But since developers have to design with them in mind, what we’ll get is either a TT-level “difficulty” which is basically a challenge of organisation or shatterer level difficulty…

Jerus.4350:

Vayne.8563:

Jerus.4350:

That’s why they should do it all A little flavor in different directions.

And I don’t think people are one dimensional either. Just because I enjoy dungeons the most doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the fact that there is a ton of other content available. I’ve done all the LS stuff, not all the achievements though because I find many of them boring and I don’t care about AP and not overly fond of the rewards. And that also why I think metrics are tricky and misleading, because I’ll show up on the metrics for a lot of stuff, but if it weren’t for dungeons I wouldn’t have even bought the game much less still be around.

That’s what makes MMOs so great though, the vast gameplay. Every solid MMO I’ve played has their PVP with different types even, and their open world PVE stuff as well as instanced PVE stuff for more of a challenge, some large scale, some meant to solo. Just a diverse set of options that keeps people logging in and playing because even if they get bored of whawt they’re doing right then, they have options within the same game.

Sure, except that every MMO I’ve played has ceased to satisfy me because of their focus. I believe that GW 2 has evolved to provide what the other MMOs don’t focus on. And sure it would be nice if Anet could provide everything, but I wouldn’t want to take away work from one thing to bring in something other games are doing fine.

I’m thinking Anet is trying to strengthen what makes this game different.

Ehh, EQ would (and still does I believe) put out about 12 open world zones with each expansion, this is where most people spend most of their time. In those they’ll have 1-3 group instances which only a handful get their own art, most are simply cutouts of the open world areas. Then on top they’ll have 1 raid per zone and a final raid zone only for raids, again most raids are done in instanced versions of the open world.

They put out a lot more content than GW2 (old graphics I’m sure are much cheaper/easier), but the point is they give a little bit of everything, and cut corners by doubling up on art.

Imagine if they took the Glint’s Lair zone and reworked it into a fractal/dungeon, no need for art time, big dip in resource costs. They could do the same with a cutout of the Maze portion of SW. I imagine they could have reworked all of Silverwastes into a Borderlands option for WvW as well, and maybe even found a portion to make a new PVP map out of.

This is the type of stuff I’d like to see. And GW2 is not the only game to have a focus on open world

It may not be the ONLY game to focus on the open world, but it’s surely the only themepark MMO that’s not centered on open world PvP combat that I’ve played. See I’m a PvE’er. I want a PvE MMO that focuses on the open world. I haven’t found many.

EQ isn’t focused on the open world. You can’t get max anything from the open world. The best gear isn’t from the open world. Eventually most people are funneled into dungeons and raiding. At least that’s how it was when I looked at it.

Vayne.8563:

Jerus.4350:

Vayne.8563:

Jerus.4350:

That’s why they should do it all A little flavor in different directions.

And I don’t think people are one dimensional either. Just because I enjoy dungeons the most doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the fact that there is a ton of other content available. I’ve done all the LS stuff, not all the achievements though because I find many of them boring and I don’t care about AP and not overly fond of the rewards. And that also why I think metrics are tricky and misleading, because I’ll show up on the metrics for a lot of stuff, but if it weren’t for dungeons I wouldn’t have even bought the game much less still be around.

That’s what makes MMOs so great though, the vast gameplay. Every solid MMO I’ve played has their PVP with different types even, and their open world PVE stuff as well as instanced PVE stuff for more of a challenge, some large scale, some meant to solo. Just a diverse set of options that keeps people logging in and playing because even if they get bored of whawt they’re doing right then, they have options within the same game.

Sure, except that every MMO I’ve played has ceased to satisfy me because of their focus. I believe that GW 2 has evolved to provide what the other MMOs don’t focus on. And sure it would be nice if Anet could provide everything, but I wouldn’t want to take away work from one thing to bring in something other games are doing fine.

I’m thinking Anet is trying to strengthen what makes this game different.

Ehh, EQ would (and still does I believe) put out about 12 open world zones with each expansion, this is where most people spend most of their time. In those they’ll have 1-3 group instances which only a handful get their own art, most are simply cutouts of the open world areas. Then on top they’ll have 1 raid per zone and a final raid zone only for raids, again most raids are done in instanced versions of the open world.

They put out a lot more content than GW2 (old graphics I’m sure are much cheaper/easier), but the point is they give a little bit of everything, and cut corners by doubling up on art.

Imagine if they took the Glint’s Lair zone and reworked it into a fractal/dungeon, no need for art time, big dip in resource costs. They could do the same with a cutout of the Maze portion of SW. I imagine they could have reworked all of Silverwastes into a Borderlands option for WvW as well, and maybe even found a portion to make a new PVP map out of.

This is the type of stuff I’d like to see. And GW2 is not the only game to have a focus on open world

It may not be the ONLY game to focus on the open world, but it’s surely the only themepark MMO that’s not centered on open world PvP combat that I’ve played. See I’m a PvE’er. I want a PvE MMO that focuses on the open world. I haven’t found many.

EQ isn’t focused on the open world. You can’t get max anything from the open world. The best gear isn’t from the open world. Eventually most people are funneled into dungeons and raiding. At least that’s how it was when I looked at it.

But who cares about best gear when the gear you can get accomplishes the goal just fine. In fact one of my big issues with the game was that getting raid geared trivialized the open world (which even as a raider was where I spent most of my time). Raid geared groups would pull half a zone and slaughter it just to keep entertained. And, it wasn’t “ohh they can get so many more rewards” it was more “man this is lame.”

I will say that the general player who were in open world hated my groups because as a raider we did lockdown half the open world. If we had multiple groups in the zone we basically locked it all down and they had no room to play. Again one of those issues with open world, but the stigma wasn’t as much about “kitten those raiders getting everything” as much as “this is pretty stupid that raiders don’t have their own zone to play in that’s fit for them.” Which they actually did for a few expansions until it became too much of a burden on the development.

I don’t meant to paint EQ as perfection, but Open World was where pretty much everyone spent most of their play time. Though as I said before, it wasn’t everyone’s focus, everybody loved different play types and kept playing for their particular preferences. That game also killed PVP by about 4 years in through poor choices and the refusal to split PVP and PVE skills/effects, a mistake I think this game is making as well but in reverse.