Showing Posts For DeviantBias.3627:
I definitely do enjoy the prospect of having PvE Hard Mode out in the open world as organized open world “raids” instead of instanced closed off dungeons. OP’s suggestions succeed in tackling the lack of good, challenging content in the game, but ignores the problem of deserted starter and mid-level zones – the resolution of which would really be the only reason to have Hard Mode PvE content in the open world in the first place. Yes, you have a Hard Mode shard…but what about the actual shard below? It’s still deserted, it’s no different than a mass instanced dungeon. New Players still see the signs of a “dying” game when really it’s just a lack of good rewarding content in the zone. I think there would be a more elegant solution to these problems without making it so complex.
Let’s take a page from the old Korean P2W MMO Trickster Online. The game itself was a crappy Korean 2.5D isometric powercreep money-milker, but in its old age the game came up with a couple of interesting ideas to retain its player base. Trickster Online experienced the same problem as GW2 is experiencing right now: Too many unhabited maps and a “map of the month”. It was a shame really. The maps were beautifully designed. For awhile the Devs put out map after map, but the players kept devouring what content they offered at an insatiable rate…then came the “Shadow World” update.
What the update did was launch a new quest line for characters Level 285+ to learn about another world (the titular Shadow World) out of phase with the real world, but was creeping into it. Dark malevolent spirits from The Shadow World began to phase into the real world and began to roam the maps from starter to endgame. Players embarked on a quest to learn a skill called “The Mind’s Eye” which would apply a buff that would reveal these dark spirits and allow combat with them, while at the same time making normal mobs too timid to fight them. Only players with “The Mind’s Eye” buff active could hurt/be hurt by the dark spirits that roamed the maps, but other players could see them fighting said spirits. The Dark Spirits of course, were fully decked out stat-wise, had advanced AI, and had advanced skills out the wazoo; WAY more difficult than the mobs that were on existing max level maps. This would lead to hilarious instances where a full party of Level 300’s could be found wiped on a level 10-15 map.
The results of “The Shadow World” update reinvigorated the previously dead maps and increased newbie-veteran interaction drastically – newbies would stumble across Dark Spirit hunting parties, Dark Spirit hunting parties would run into newbies, etc. Map chats suddenly became active, and the community became closer for a time.
Could such a “shadow world” system be done with Guild Wars 2 with (relatively) low resource cost? Yes. As demonstrated with the Silverwastes bandit camp, GW2 has the capacity to switch individual player’s mob aggro from friendly/passive to foe/hostile on SPECIFIC mob units and varieties by means of a buff. GW2 “dark spirits” could appear as translucent passive images to newbies who do not have the buff, and appear as hostile mobs and turn solid when aggroed for veterans who have the buff.
How would this fit in lore-wise? Heck there’s different levels of The Mists, Mursaat phasing in and out, yada yada. They could easily make it fit. (Jeff Grubb or Ree Soesbee, if you’re reading this, I’m the Asian NA player you met at the Chinese Beta Festival in Beijing. I was badgering you guys all night with Mists-related questions. I have my own theory in how this could be implemented lore-wise if you’re interested…message me pls <3)
OF COURSE there’s the issues of economic instability, increased mob complexity and the server consequences, I know, I’m not going to address those because I have no good possible solutions, I’m just here to offer an alternative to a separately instanced “Hard Mode” <3
On the case of Blobbing Mentality and zerging the content…I have a potential solution. Make the “Dark World” content daily map assignments based on the number of players already assigned to maps. Instead of having all of the “Dark World” accessible to everyone, how’s about making it a daily variety? There are a plentiful number of maps in GW2 – if one were to evenly spread out the population of players who are actually interested in Hard Mode content throughout these maps, one could potentially decrease zerg size from a 50 man blob to a 15 man group per map. One day a player could be assigned Queensdale, the next, Fireheart Rise, both of which’s “Dark World” is the same difficulty and etc. The assignment system would do it’s best to equal out the Hard Mode-goers of each map as to make blobbing a rarer occurrence.
Anyways! Just my two cents. I doubt this will ever be implemented so I’m not going to defend these suggestions. Just putting it out there as a possibility!
(edited by DeviantBias.3627)
This isn’t at all an important issue in the wider scope of Guild Wars 2, but I feel like it needs to be addressed.
From my recent binge of Solo Queue spamming, I’ve noticed a depressing trend that is increasingly common. New players with little-to-no experience joining Solo Arenas are causing a disturbing rise of venomocity in the sPvP community (more so than usual). This is in no way their fault, as they honestly don’t know any better. The fault lies in the structure of entry for Solo Arenas. By far, Solo Arenas are the easiest way people can get into sPvP, and while convenient for frequent sPvPers, it is a serious fault for these reasons:
1. Solo/Team Queuing can be accessed from anywhere at any time. They have their own tabs and are huge, whereas the “Go to The Heart of The Mists” dialogue is comparatively small, and offers no explanation of what it actually is. It is very likely a new player will see these join buttons first and will be greeted by a harsh first experience with GW2 sPvP.
2. By design, Solo Queue/Team Queue are ranked matches that are primarily composed of much more skilled players than your average hotjoins. When a hapless noobie ends up in a match with high tier players, venomous comments are sure to follow.
This is less an issue about fair matches and more an issue about community well being of sPvP. New players ending up in ranked matches not only alienates their experienced team mates, but also gives the new player a very bad first impression of GW2 sPvP.
I know for a fact that the dysfunctional matchmaking system is at fault for this, but fixing that is a far off dream at the moment. At present, I propose a fair solution: Implement a fair rank requirement for entering Solo/Team Arenas, not so much that it will guarantee that players who queue up are good, but at least ensure that they know what they’re doing, and not get discriminated on for something that’s not their fault. Something like Rank 10 will do.
tl;dr: Newbies in Solo Queue cause rage but it’s not their fault, put in a low rank cap requirement to protect both newbies and skilled players from rage.