Guild Wars 2

Sorry Izzy, but I just don’t agree with time-gating full-stop, and your lists of pros and cons are all very well from a developer’s point of view, but from a player’s point of view?
Yeah, that’s a different story.

Firstly, why don’t I agree with time-gating at all?

On release, it wasn’t even in the game.
Nothing at all was time-gated.
That’s the game I bought and enjoyed playing.

Now why your pros and cons are messed up:

- Time gates help players with less time (If I can only play an hour a day, my time is more rewarded.)

Less time might mean less days per week or per month. If you miss one day with the current time-gating systems, you’re falling behind.
If you miss a month or more, you stand no chance of catching up with those people who are able to log in every day.
For me, this has created the very real scenario that no matter how much interesting content is released, I am unlikely to ever play the game again as long as time-gating is in effect.
The longer I stay logged off, the wider the gap grows between my characters and those of others still logging in. This actively decreases the appeal of Guild Wars 2 to me as time goes on.
There is no quick way to catch up thanks to all the time-gates in place.
Actually, from what I’ve read, you can buy a lot of the materials for Ascended gear from the trading post which will help you catch up. I don’t know, I stopped playing just before SAB2. So if I want to start playing again I suppose I could dump a whole truckload of real-world cash into gems.
Yeah, a huge pay-gate’s probably even worse than a time-gate.

Thanks to the above, it puts this con of yours into an entirely new light:

- Time gates hurt players with more time (by this I mean players with more time run up against time gates more and their time becomes less rewarded over time.)

I would argue that people with more time on their hands, those able to log in every day of every month? These are the ONLY people time-gating benefits.

Let’s look at time-gating from a philosophical point of view.

When it comes down to it, MMO developers need to keep people interested in their games so that they keep playing and hopefully, paying. This is the way you earn your living and the way shareholder’s earn a profit.
I get that; you need to earn a buck as much as I do.
When it comes down to it, there are two ways you can try to retain the interest of your audience.

1. Regularly release more content that relies on creation of artistic assets, such as new armour & weapon models, new areas, new dungeons, new jumping puzzles and new story elements.

2. Artificially increase the amount of time a player stays logged in through adding activities that have to be completed on a regular basis.

Point 1 is more expensive for developers, and if it’s to be in any way meaningful and satisfying to the players, it has to be substantial.

Point 2 is all round cheaper and easier for developers, yet runs the risk of alienating players, especially more casual ones.

To ArenaNet’s credit, they’re actually trying to do both.
But I think they’d be better off ignoring point 2 completely.

Look, let’s face it, when it comes down to it, you’re hoping that by increasing the amount of time people play, you’re also maximising their exposure to your monetisation systems.
The thing is, I would argue that your current system alienates your most valuable customers; those with less time to play because they’re more financially stable, most likely because they have commitments outside of the game.

The people logging in every day and playing 5 or more hours?
They can buy gems with gold. They have found all the best ways to make money in game.
Anything desirable that becomes available through the gem store, they can buy with gold. They’re not generating any revenue for you.
They’re hitting their time-gates and staying ahead of those unable to log as much time as them.

The people with less time available want something more meaningful than a shopping list of activities they need to repeat on a daily basis. They want to log in and experience something new and fun. In all likelihood, they’ve just finished work. The last thing they want at the end of the working day is to be presented with more tasks they have to complete.
That’s the kind of pressure they play games to get away from.

If you shift focus to pure content creation, you end up making things that everyone can enjoy. And if it’s permanent, they can enjoy it at their leisure, with no pressure to complete it in a mad 2 week rush.

Hobotron spoke of ‘consortium programming’ once….I stopped donating after that….

Those sleazy money makers cannot be trusted.

Chris,

From our point of view, creating a full ascended armor takes hundreds of gold, thousands of mats. I’m happy since I have to build the heavy armor, I can farm the ori/mithril needed. But the light-armored have much trouble finding the right mats.

Why did you decide that it would require that much components to get the ascended armor for, regarding stats, 60 armor, 14 major, 11 minor (or 1% if crit dmg). Ok, we get the infusion slots, but that’s only really useful for the fractals.

Also, at the moment, on my main I have 4 sets of armor (1 for pve, 1 for wvw, 2 I use based on situation in both wvw and pve). Do you really want me to upgrade those to ascended given the time investment it represents? Also, because of ascended, I need to decide now which alt I want to play in which environment.

Maybe you should just make ascended “unlocks” and require only a few, more common, components to build a piece of the unlocked category. Now I feel like when I had only 1 gold and decided who would get it first, making me look more than one year back.

This way, I also don’t feel like I’m progressing, but regressing. I have the BiS, then you release something new and suddenly I don’t have the BiS anymore. So from my point of view, I’m losing. I now have 3 pieces of ascended armor in addition of everything else ascended, meaning that I can beat level 50 of fractals right now. You’ll open levels up to 60? When that happens I’ll already have the rest of ascended armor. Then when you’ll open levels until 70? I’ll already have the 3 +10 infusions. So for the next 2 releases of new fractal levels, I’ll be ready.

The vertical progression in this game just doesn’t make any sense.

You know what, just get rid of the levels and stats all together. And of the vertical progression while we’re at it. I’m very happing collecting skills, skins, utilities, etc.

This way you can reassign the people on it to make fights more challenging, because so far, all fights are really easy. The hardcore community doesn’t ask for better gear: only better fights.

You want this game to be accessible to casuals again? Well, the current vertical progression is not an option. Also, don’t make the rewards for skills-based fights vertical-progression-items: make them nice cosmetics items. In that regards, your pvp section is perfect.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Note I ‘Look’ like a DPS war because i use a great sword (greatsaw) and a Longbow (Arthropoda). I like you believe that Horizontal Progression should be about role differentiation, however I feel like this system is already very core to the game but that we could do a better job of teaching how it works to a broader audience.

The problem here is that the Vertical Progression is ripping this very core straight out of the game. We all know how it works. To switch roles, you change traits, weapons, and armor/accessories. Everyone is clear about how role differentiation works and how stats and traits influence skills.

The problem is that it is way too expensive to switch roles.

I cannot afford to snap my fingers and get a new set of ascended armor, rings, amulet, trinkets, back piece, and weapons every single time I want to switch stats. It just ain’t happening. With the way the system is set up, I have to spend months assembling Best-In-Slot gear for one character running one build for one single role. If I want to start using a condition build instead of my current power setup, that’s fourteen to sixteen different items I have to make or purchase from scratch to fill armor, accessories, and weapons. Not to mention, every single time I work on achieving a new build, that’s resources I could spend gearing up an alt.

Making Vertical Progression expensive is fine. Moving from Exotic to Ascended should feel like a serious challenge. The core flaw, however, is that it is equally expensive to go from P/V/T to P/Pre/Crit with a single tier as it is to get your very first weapon of that tier. This system discourages diversity, chokes off the ability to switch roles, hinders gearing up alts, and is generally a royal pain in the posterior to manage anything besides one set, one build, one role play.

Horizontal Progression is being strangled. You don’t need to teach us how it works, you need to give us quality of life improvements to let us breathe freely once we’ve achieved a given tier.

Dev’s asked: What’s fun about Vertical Progression?

Answer: When it ends. It’s not supposed to be a joke (well, not only). VP only has a purpose and feels meaningful to me when it ENDS, when your each a peak and then it starts branching out horizontally. Initial VP IS fun, but it has to PEAK to be fun. If it doesn’t peak forever in the story of the game then it becomes just a never-ending pain in the kitten of having to accomplish something you already did over and over.

THE GLITTERING LEGACY
“I have had a vision of times to come, when heroes will once again face horrors greater than mortals can bear… Horrors I know all too well. To them I bequeath these secrets…”
— Inscription above the entryway to the Lost Armory of Glint

The portals to the Eye of the North open for all of Tyria’s mightiest heroes! Join us as Guildwars 2 reveals Glint’s secret plan for the survival of Tyria, expanding on the Eye of the North instance with new tools to manage end-game gear in this permanent Living World release for Guildwars 2!

A World of Choices
Journey to the Eye of the North and assist teams from the Three Orders of Tyria in unlocking the Armory of Ascension. Inside the Armory a new locker will allow you to spawn additional copies of any Ascended item you have ever acquired, account-wide. No longer do your alternate characters have to dwell in the shadow of your main hero. No longer do you have to overwrite Runes, Sigils, and Infusions as you seek the perfect balance for your newest concept-build. As you acquire new Ascended gear – by any means – they are added to your Armory, ready for use.

In addition to crafting Ascended armor and weapons, vendors in the Armory offer Ascended Gear Chests to expand your armory, trading Guild Commendations, Badges of Honor, Dungeon Tokens, Fractal Relics, and most importantly Skill Points for these coveted chests. No matter how you choose to crush evil, the Armory of Ascension will reward you handsomely.

Apex Predators
With Ascended gear serving as the final plateau for stat progression, your journey into legend takes a new turn – look for new challenges to your skill, your cunning, your creativity as Guildwars 2… and the Elder Dragons… advance into 2014!

I am strictly against any vertical progression. But if it has to be, anything that even only slightly increases the power level of player characters needs to be easily obtainable (I’m talking days here, not weeks or even months). This remains true for a skill progression system. More potentially powerful skills mean more build diversity and more power for the player. A stable power curve is especially important in PvP (namely WvW) where imbalance created by more powerful items or skills destroys competitive play.

That said, progression should only be driven by cosmetic or convenience concerns. Weapon and armour looks, mods and sigils that you can change on the fly outside of combat, customizable weapon effects (make it glow pink or green, make it drop footprints or leave a cloud, etc.), bank tabs that you can unlock through quests or other means (limited to 1 or 2 tabs, I can see people go out of their minds for even only a half one), an increased wardrobe space unlocked by the same means (if we ever get one ), heck why not even “omni weapons”: a dual wielded “omni weapon” can become any dual wielded weapon in the game, some for single handed weapons, etc.

Anything that increases the power level becomes mandatory and forces the player to grind for the item with the better mods.

Tranassa.4968:

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Art Progression
Art progression! It’s horizontal why not do it more!!! Well we do this a lot all ready and a lot of it’s constraints comes down to costs. Every single piece of art we make is not liked by everyone and so the amount of art you have to make to give everyone a smooth art progression curve is very high. The cost of making some pieces of art is also very high (Armor especially) sense very pair of gloves = 10 pairs of gloves due to race/sex. We think art is a great horizontal progression system but not something that can stand 100% alone due to constraints of creation.

I’m pretty sure if you would do a design contest, maybe even with ingame reward for the winners, you would receive tons of nice stuff! You did this once in gw1 and, no offense, but the weapons that were coming out there, where the best looking weapons in the game! Bone Dragon staff, Emerald Blade,… All the high end dungeon rewards!
I think such a contest would give you excelent feedback AND would also lower your costs for designing a weapon/armor.
I also like the concept of cultural armors, a huge amount of players the t3 is the best looking armor. I love the Norn, and the curltural armors are just way better, than all the other armors, because they fit into the norn “feeling”.
And i think the most players want a armor that fits to their character and to the gw2 world, rather than a good looking high tech armor from a science fiction film, which does not fit at all into the gw2 world.

Just try a design contest

Just giving my support for this idea, I really like it.

I would love to draw armor design for this game, because unlike some older MMOs, the armors in this game are not just texture reskins so I feel that you can really be creative. I remember a thread on the Sylvari forums there the players were exchanging Sylvari hair ideas with Kristen Perry and there was some high-quality art in there, so I’m pretty sure that there would be some some really cool stuff if there was a design contest… or just a forum post asking for suggestions.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Brainstorm statement.

I am assuming that you wouldn’t want a progression system in which new skills and traits superseded/replaced existing skills and traits.

Thus all progression must be complimentary, enhancing your current roles, perhaps creating new ones rather than just making you more powerful.

So therefore the idea of statistical power creep is redundant?

Unfortunately, at this point you’re really asking the question “how comfortable are we at overthrowing the efforts of player who have already committed massive time, resources, and gold?” Early adopters have been taking a beating recently, from Fractal-Delvers to folks that bought the Flame-kissed armor.

Ironically, I find the new system to be extremely punishing on a front I haven’t seen mentioned yet. I like crafting. Specifically I like building/collecting complete recipe books. I suffered the double-whammy of having my old collections of Exotic recipes wiped AND the introduction of a new tier that ignores the idea of ‘discovering recipes’. Instead of a sense of discovery, you have to buy every possible slot/stat combination.

It now takes 306 laurels to fully train a single armor-making crafter (along with 510 gold and 357,000 karma). Was it really the intent that master crafters sink the larger part of a year’s worth of Laurels into nothing else?

I’d really like to see the emphasis within crafting go back to the joys of discovery and collection and away from the buying-your-way-to-completion…

…As long as the mountain of ascended recipes I’ve already bought are FULLY refunded .

Malediktus.9250:

I think the game needs more statistical character progression. More item tiers, higher level cap, more traits. Ascended is not very useful. 5% extra stats is not worth the effort, I suggest making it 20%.

Arbitrary number increases are just an illusion.

If you’re fighting a Level 80 Icebrood Wolf with 100,000 HP and your Ascended Greatsword that deals 1000 damage per hit, then one year later fighting a Level 120 Icebrood Wolf Lord with 1,000,000 HP with an Epic Greatsword that deals 10,000 damage per hit……absolutely nothing has changed. The only difference is the amonut of time it takes to get to that Epic Greatsword to “earn” the right to access the content.

If they add Level 90, nothing will change. We’ll advance to level 90, break previous builds and make new ones, fight Level 90 monsters that use the same AI and mechanics, and grind for new gear. Then someone will get bored and ask for them to spice things up by increasing the cap to 100. Rinse, repeat.

I don’t understand why people feel the need to progress their characters with extra stats? If the game keeps increasing your damage by +1 over time, wouldn’t you eventually encounter a problem where NPC’s die in 1 hit? Won’t NPC health pools have to inflate in order to fix this?

What does this create other than inflated numbers popping up on the screen?

Ascended gear shoud be kept the top tier, now regarding horizontal progression:

- make an alternate skill tree, you earn alternate skill points through quests, pvp, dungeons, dailies, etc. and put those points in that tree – divided between DPS, Tanking & General stats – more variety in builds, more reasons to experiment (you would have an alternate skill point limit of course)

- Specialized weapon tree where you can choose a weapon and specialize in it – either gaining 1 or 2 extra skills or more power with it – part of the Advanced tree system

- houses – what you do daily could reward you with quest house items, pvp/dungeon house rewards – houses would have at least 3 tiers & sizes

- with player houses come guild Halls – bonuses to players as house progresses, items that give special bonuses, etc – new rare items for house as well

- crafting options for house items – market would be more dinamic

- Solo dungeon versions – that reward players at a slower pace, but reward them still.

Group dungeons would provide better items than Solo ones (could exist in Solo but more rare), reward faster XP / Money than Solo and reward guild unique items both in looks & usefulness

- Pet rewards that you can feed & develop with special rewarded items – then you can compete with them in tournaments – yes a mounted tournament could exist, if you had a mounted Pet and develop it

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Ascended Gear
So then why did we add ascended gear, well the reason is we wanted sometime between the transition and what we shipped with was very little time turns out global trading post has a lot more effect on this then we had original thought which made us need a non-tradable gear step. We still have some progression to smooth out around the rare -> exotic area as mostly you just jump from leveling greens to exotics and rare is really only used for salvaging into ecto. We have been spacing out adding each slot of ascended gear to make sure we don’t make our original mistake again and I’m sure we’ll need to continue to evaluate the time to gain this gear like we do all things.

The problem for me is that you saw this as a problem. Easy acquisition of max stat gear was touted as a benefit, pre-release, and that’s one of the reasons me and many other players bought into this experience. Horizontal and vertical progression simply do not work well side by side, and in my opinion, pandering to both very different goals has resulted in a very muddy character progression system that I feel I will never be on top of until it narrows its focus and decides which way it wants to go.

I almost feel like you guys need to decide who your audience is before you will effectively sort this out. A jack of all trades may shallowly pander to a diverse audience, but it can’t grip anybody the way that GW1 gripped its devoted audience.

Ok ANET here is your problem in a nutshell:
You made and marketed a game with no real grind for max stat gear to please a subset of players.
You then added the grind to please a different subset of players.
And now you want to please the first players again by making it less of a grind?

Before you lies the impossible task of trying to please everyone.

You had the throne as the no grind MMO all you had to do was get us REAL content. Instead the last year could be summed up as: GW2 2013 – Scarlet and the grind for ascended gear.

So what is the big problem with ascended? Well in case you didnt read any of the numerous posts in the last 13 months:
-it devalues peoples efforts that have previously had BIS gear
-it creates more inequality in WvW
-it destroys balance
-it promotes elitism
-it necessitates the need for harder content
-it necessitates the use of transmutation stones
-it makes the game revolve around it and makes it seem the focal point of everything you do in the game

So what doesnt do the above?
Well there s a certain almost 8 year old game that has the answer:
horizontal – variety/skin progression and/or vertical progression that only affects certain areas in PVE (ie: lightbringer, GW2 agony)

But wait… i thought you already knew this?
http://web.archive.org/web/20130201042944/http://www.arena.net/blog/is-it-fun-colin-johanson-on-how-arenanet-measures-success

When I first played Gw2 on that last beta weekend prior to launch I was on the fence about buying and getting into yet another standard MMO, so I did some research and once I saw the Dev comment “Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game. We want everyone on an equal power base. The rare stuff becomes the really awesome looking armours. It’s all about collecting the unique looking stuff and collecting all the other rare collectable items in the game: armour pieces, potentially different potions…” I was sold, I was so tired of stat progression type games that I have been playing for 10+yrs. So I started playing and I was hooked instantly, I loved being able to try new builds and earn gear sets quickly on all my characters without the worry of being behind statistically, sure many of my sets were ugly looking at first but it would just lead me to the gem store to buy transmutation stones and skins.

Once Ascended gear was announced I felt like I was kicked in the ding dong and was immediately saddened knowing that if i were to attempt to earn this gear I would be unable to play around with gear sets at a max statistical level, I would now be forced into one character using only one build forever until I was able and willing to put forth the heavy time gated grind to earn another set. Now this grind would be worth it IMO if it was ONLY for the convenience of being able to change your stat setup at anytime and anywhere not for a stat increase. Many players say its only a small stat increase and not needed to play the game, exactly the point the stats are not and were not needed in the game.

I personally feel all progression should be horizontal, ones boost in power should be based on their skill and experience not by the +5 power on their axe.

Expand upon the Home Instance for horizontal progression. Let us customize the home instance to benefit from and reflect our character’s accomplishments. Do it account-wide.

How about meaningful, unique skills from each order? Say, use Luxon / Kurzick models, but with some more variation reflective of an order’s nature? Have us do order-unique quest for cosmetic and skill achievements?

Our character should reflect our chosen order.

The world should reflect our character’s progress. If I’ve helped slay an elder dragon, people should notice.

Give us more armor and weapon skins that reflect in-game accomplishments, as opposed to our ability/desire to buy things.

More skills, earned in-game, to show that we have done something. Don’t assume everyone has hundreds of skill points unspent from grinding champs.

Give us skill choices (earned via points or gameplay). Surely my character has learned some new moves / attacks / skills in the last year, showing that I know more than a fresh level 80.

Have the personal story progression grant skills, and PvPers can buy those skills?

Do not add another tier of gear with arguable “improvements” in stats. Ascended / legendary gear is enough grind, and does not reflect character accomplishment.

No more vertical progression. No more levels. I quit WoW because I got tired of chasing an ever-moving target. Let me chase new things. Don’t throw away my existing progression to give me and illusion of progress.

Damaskinos.1263:

The OP is one of the most generous people I ever experienced. And his ability to be happy for others is unmatched. A paragon of virtue…

P.S.: It’s a game. Seriously. Nothing you do or achieve here really matters. It’s only for fun. If you hate what you do, stop it…

After what happened with flamekissed armor i think being generous with this community is a total mistake…

By a player giving many exotic and many other stuff for free since he got to 80…..

With the recent patch we saw the total shift in the community… So now winning means other should fail :| compared to the first months of the game where people would pay money to help Others >.>

You just know 100’s even 1000’s of Nerds are busy on the keyboards right now writing out Kasmeer/Marjory and Kasmeer/Tentacle fanfics now because of that dialog.

This all makes me wonder if Anise is just as powerful.

tbh I think people exaggerate the term “casual” already… no one that is, in my eyes, casual even plays every day, let alone 3-4 hours a day. Casual to me is someone who comes and goes, plays maybe 2-4 days a week maybe an hour or 2 each time.. the problem is that most people don’t realize theres a middle ground between casual and hardcore being the “serious” crowd… serious enough about the game to want to get some of the high end shinies but not hardcore enough that missing something is the end of the world to them.

I don’t have a routine and I don’t play every day. Far less burn out and much easier to find fun things to do in game when I’m playing. I login and just pick what seems fun at the time. No worry about dailies, no worry about ascended gear, no worry about getting the latest living story done, no missing out on real life because the game is low priority to me. The game is much more fun when it is easy to click logout without feeling stressed over missing out on something. It will be there next time I login and the worst that happens is I miss out on a laurel or living story reward I can still enjoy the game without anyway.