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The smart (and devious) thing ANET is doing though is slowly leaking this tier in a sense of dangling just a piece of the carrot in front of these people.
Yes. It will feel quite natural by the time they slide the level cap increase in and actually invalidate all the current gear.
It’s quite an effective method of covering up the fact that they’re implementing the same gear cycling WoW employs, but without all the premiere content (raids, elite mode dungeons, etc).
Now, back to adding item tiers. You’re making it such a big deal when it’s not. At the rate GW2 introduces it’s “gear treadmill” (note that I put it in quotes because that’s not a real gear treadmill when compared to WoW and other games that actually use it extensively), you’re probably get an increase in top level stats of 10% every year or more.
The biggest step is always with the level cap increase, not so much with the gear at cap. That’s the step which invalidates all that you’ve been working on up til this point. That’s when you begin repeating the motions and it officially becomes a treadmill.
It’s not exactly horizontal, but neither is it a treadmill requiring you to keep moving up and up with the fear of being left behind.
Actually, that’s exactly where it’s going. At some point, you won’t be able to find the fractal groups necessary to get your backpack, or have enough dailies left to farm laurels before the level cap increases, and so on with each ascended slot they release.
I’m just saying, "Dude, think what you want, you’re neither right nor wrong in this case.
Your wall of text says otherwise.
A living mmo? Possibly."
That was just a marketing line.
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In the case of eve, sub’s don’t achieve what you’re saying they achieve since they are still having to view every little change through a prism of maintaining subs (either cash shop or subs, it’s just about maintaining $$$)
The option to even be the players’ kitten is more than most developers get these days. Meanwhile, they still have the option to make changes, but they’re forced to temper it with realistic expectations about how the playerbase might respond. Finally, their actions only reflect the confidence they lacked in the changes they made/were looking to make.
I would hardly call CCP’s penance indicative. Actually, it’s about as extraordinary a case as I would expect from a developer who has so far managed to successfully fight the one trend all MMOs face.
But back to your objection of my original point; yeah, all MMOs are about generating revenue, but subscription has the option to otherwise not remind you of it, whereas cash shop needs to always remind you that you have the option to spend.
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I have a somewhat different experience. I dropped by a F2P and rediscovered that I sometimes enjoy text quest systems. Not when they’re wasted on “kill 6 wolves” or “find 10 chicken eggs,” but when they’re used well.
All I mean to say is, while Anet did find some alternatives, if you tried to build an entire game around heart quests, lets say, then it would still be an underwhelming experience. In fact, the process of completing all of the heart quests in this game reached a point where they started to feel homogenized, so I can only imagine how poorly they’d come across in a game which solely employs them the way older MMOs solely employed quest text.
There’s a place for both, and cutscenes too.
To be honest, no matter how they package “kill 6 wolves,” it’s going to feel stale after years of MMO experience.
Crafting items with materials you can buy from the vendor standing next to the station?
I’d honestly just rather have them mail me the one token per day, and then I’m free to play how I want.
In a sense, but it still goes against your initial post about a sub allowing dev’s to be more free to do what they want since everything doesn’t come down to how to get $$$ which in the case of eve at least isn’t the case.
Fair enough, but I never said it was a guarantee. Developers are free to totally kitten up their subscription based game. Developers are also free to totally kitten up their cash shop based game, but at the same time they’re always required to push the cash shop.
They’ve basically become slaves to the player base without the freedom to explore.
Is that a problem? We did mention that it’s the only MMO to show any net population growth over the very long term.
One wonders why certain bugs never get fixed, or other areas never get touched up; I guess it’s because developers are too busy “exploring.”
I’m unfamiliar with EVE and its history, other than that I’m aware it’s practically the only MMO which experienced net population growth over the very long term. In fact, I wasn’t even aware it was subscription based.
You could elaborate, maybe?
They were adding things to the game that a large part of the player base believed the game was shifting away from what it was. (sandbox) in an attempt to pull in new players. A big cosmetic overhaul happened also which (while very pretty visually) didn’t sit well with the player base (since it wasn’t necessary). Add in the cash shop being added and well nerd rage, 40K (at the time over 10% of the player base) subs cancelled in protest, etc. Since then nothing has been added to the game that hasn’t been specifically been asked for by the community.
If anything, that sounds like a defense of subscriptions, because the playerbase was able to effect change through mass cancellations.
I probably still wouldn’t yet have one, but I’d kitten sure be working towards it if the precursor wasn’t an issue.
They really should have just handed them out for hitting level 80 or for completing your personal story, or something similar. The process of stacking the mats would keep legendary weapons somewhat exclusive, and while not as exclusive as the current process, they also wouldn’t be tainted with all kinds of stigma.
There’s many more but these are what stuck out for me.
Does JDPower give awards to car manufacturers because they include power steering?
Minor and obvious in hindsight improvements are never recognized, only copied.
Personal nodes will be standard in any AAA MMO from here on, to the point where you’ll probably even see unique nodes re-introduced specifically for players to “fight” over.
Still, not as hilarious a claim as the guy who said Anet is the only MMO developer to care about the art direction of its game. Every development studio cares about its art direction, except for BWA with SWTOR; they cared so much that they outsourced it.
I like subscriptions because then the developer has no need to view every little change through the prism of increasing cash shop sales.
Depends on the community, if you look at eve (the only sub game left that’s increasing in player base as all others are decreasing/have adopted a different payment model) you have to reconsider your quote given what happened in 2011. You can pretty much tell the dev’s there aren’t going to do anything the player base doesn’t want anymore given all the updates since then.
I’m unfamiliar with EVE and its history, other than that I’m aware it’s practically the only MMO which experienced net population growth over the very long term. In fact, I wasn’t even aware it was subscription based.
You could elaborate, maybe?
400g doesn’t mean anything when a stack of ori costs 2000g.
Buying from the AH is no substitute for harvesting the nodes. The point is to get people out in the game world, not huddled around one NPC. And protecting the gold piles of a few AH barons is hardly laudible. This is not the real world; there’s no need for that level of efficiency.
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What most probably happened was that they had one part of the Lost Shores patch ready, but not the other. Either the dungeon wasn’t ready, or the agony resistance mechanic buggy, who knows. Judging from how empty SCove is, my money is on unfinished maps/dungeon.
The dungeon was probably in design before release. Whether they originally intended to employ the stat padding ascended received is unknown. Whether the dungeon was even intended to use the agony mechanic is unknown; the level progression makes sense if you remove agony and view it simply as a “endless” dungeon, or it makes sense if you pull a Jay Wilson and take your current gating mechanic and “double it,” but it doesn’t make sense if you’re designing agony from the ground up and aren’t looking to intentionally screw with players by pulling the Wilson.
The zone was obviously thrown together at the last minute in order to facilitate the release of the dungeon. Unless F&F revamps it, it probably won’t receive an update for a very long time, because redesigning a throwaway zone seems like a low priority compared to designing brand new zones.
Eye of the North was received with very mixed reactions but it petered out because people actually quit rather than hung around saying how much it sucked.
They probably stuck around saying how much it sucked and then quit.
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Pay a sub just to do dailies?
This is what I mean when I say that development took a dive when they started chasing the WoW-model.
No, I wouldn’t pay a subscription fee to play a game which relies on the daily crutch.
But if one of them needs to go, it’s the dailies.
I think subscription fee games have gone the way of the dodo.
Development has really taken a huge dive for the worse ever since copying WoW became the formula for “success.”
Subscription fee is fine; the reality always was that most MMOs weren’t worthy of the $15 per month.
@OP: Yeah, this game would have been panned as a flop if it had been subscription based. The only really quality thing it has going for it is 1-80, but that only serves as the foundation of a good game (and hence why I still think the game has potential, even after uninstalling it over a month ago).
Neither the boxed PvP nor boxed PvE were up to industry par, there was no dedicated raid endgame, and WvW faces several major issues before it could carry a game.
That said, they would have been better poised to leverage the 1-80 content into a better game if they had gone with subscription based. Cash shop is like an aggressive cancer that can’t be cleanly cut out or safely blasted with radiation/chemicals; it taints and diminishes even good systems to the point that they seem inferior.
I actually believe in supporting companies I believe in with my hard earned cash. Yes, real money.
My family owns a few software companies, and others work in the “data” end of the tech world, and I believe in paying these people what they are worth in expertise, schooling, and creativity.
I like the idea of vanity items sold via an in-game store that allows me at intervals to plunk down cash not only as a way to keep my characters looking spiffy, but as a way for me to support a company and game that I wish to continue long term.
I have in my home budget a set amount that is used for “entertainment” and because I had waited 5 years for Guild Wars 2, I had every intention of using this monthly allotment to purchase things and thereby support the game—-and the people who make it. (They are, actually, real people with homes and families to support)
If Guild Wars was to change some of its policies and try to shake off a bit of their tunnel vision about the “perfect in game real economy”—-where they seem to protect this concept over and above the actual enjoyment of the player, then I would feel more prone to clunking down even more money —-given that my time was not wasted and I was still being “entertained” for my entertainment dollar.
I just wanted to say that it’s refreshing to see the “developers are human too” sentiment alongside a conclusion of “the customer is always right.”
I love GW2.
I hate subscriptions.This question was on mmorpg.com…and I assume it’s intended to make it seem that if people would not sub to a game, then the game must be bad.
Actually, the intent is probably to “confirm” that subscription based MMOs are forever dead.
I like subscriptions because then the developer has no need to view every little change through the prism of increasing cash shop sales.
Of course, that’s no guarantee that they’ll make a good game. But it’s that much tougher to make a great game under the F2P model.
Hence my comment above; if this had been subscription based, it would be easier to salvage. Cash shop just adds an extra and unsightly burden when trying to climb out of what’s basically the same hole.
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What I believe has happened is that the original playerbase (aka those who bought all the manifesto copypasta) weren’t enough for Anet so they made the game more traditional MMO-esque to get more people. Of course this means gear treadmills and the like.
I don’t think you’re incorrect; I think the bulk of those 3M in sales were to the ~2M “content locusts.” While developers’ friends and family deride them as such, most of these players are really just looking for a long-term PvP-oriented home.
I think you’re right that Lost Shores was an attempt to redirect the focus of the game, away from PvP and towards PvE. I can think of a few reasons why they might do this, but speculation would only serve to cloud what I think is something we can agree on.
a total lack of e-sport features on a game they promoted as an e-sport, etc.
What ever happened to that?
I mean, they’ve totally abandoned any pretense of chasing e-sport status, as far as I can tell.
But all you really need to qualify as an e-sport is 1) PvP, and 2) enough activity such that e-sport sponsors are interested. Any other qualifications are pointless, because they’ll be readily overlooked provided the game has a large enough PvP community.
Did we get gear progression because the PvP community so readily bailed on this game?
huh? I don’t care when they put it in.
So was the game unfinished, or is Ascended just the last minute hack job some of us recognize it to be?
Because the quote I read suggested that they intended to have it in at release, so either they’re lying to cover their kitten (most likely) or the game was unfinished at release.
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Also sounds like we’re playing different versions of the same game because I can assure you that I received a product that wasn’t “half finished”.
So you find the statement that Ascended should have been in at release to be a pile of dog kitten as well?
I think whats become even more obvious is that for all bombast about wanting something different. People actually don’t. They want vertical progression, the trinity, rewards, rewards, mounts, gear progression and raiding…they want the game to give them goals instead of finding them on their own.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. I watched hundreds of players leave because of a dissatisfying PvP experience. I can’t recall anyone who left because of any of the reasons you list above, though at least one of them, the trinity argument, has merit (it enhances the experience of rolling an alt).
I think there’s something which is lost in all this; what happened to PvP? I’ve always heard GW1 was a PvP oriented game, and ostensibly WvW/PvP was the bulk of the endgame prior to Lost Shores, and yet the near total failure of PvP in this game goes unnoticed.
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It’s a bit annoying, but I was able to manage.
Don’t say that, or you’ll be “managing” when they remove even more stat combinations from the next Ascended item offerings.
Don’t worry, one day they’ll claim they’re “listening to the players” and introduce the missing stat combinations for some of the older Ascended items, after everyone has blown a few months of laurels on gear they’re not totally satisfied with.
It’ll come in a “major patch” and they’ll call it “new content,” and fanboys will vilify you if you suggest that it’s wrong in the slightest.
Have fun with that.
It’s like watching a slow train wreck
Indeed, and only the force of QQ can generate enough friction to stop the train, or at least de-rail it before it hits the elevated curve in Scranton.
With a full ascended knight’s set a player could obtain a large amount of attack, armor, and critical chance which would allow a player to be tanky while doing high DPS.
This makes them very susceptible to condition damage.
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New gear has to have some sort of increased overall effectiveness to justify the amount of grind. If ascended gear was only exotic stat gear with an infusion slot, the current price for it would have had to be lowered, which would make the gear as easy or even easier to acquire than exotic gear. The whole point of ascended gear being prestigious exclusive end game gear would then become moot.
I was under the impression that the content itself was enough for these players (the ones demanding “endgame”).
Now you’re telling me that they need superior shinies?
Sure sounds like the WoW approach to me.
Could you elaborate on what “monstrosity” you are referring to?
That it has increased stats at all? That would be my guess.
As far as I’ve been told, Ascended gear and agony resist were put in to create some sort of challenging end-game content for heavily PvE focused players. Agony resist alone carries the mechanic.
All the extra stats serve is to make the gear attractive to less heavily PvE focused players. Basically, all the extra stats serve is to generate the QQ we see on the forums.
That’s not what this topic is about. This topic is about Fractals and agony resistance, specifically Jade Maw 50.
Are you in the wrong thread? Or was your thread merged into this one?
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Comparing GW2 to any other mmorpg would be wrong, however if you wish to do so, be free. I’m curious how you would compare GW2 and WoW considering they share absolutely nothing apart from the same genre.
Both have a leveling process, both have crafting, both have PvP formats, both have instanced PvE formats (dungeons, and in WoW’s case raids as well).
How are they different?
As far as expectations go, do have them, however these expectations should probably be the same as they were before GW2 was released. If they are, I don’t see why you’re unhappy now.
I had no expectations, because I paid no attention to the game’s development.
GW2 was created with something entirely else in mind than WoW did.
What, exactly? Other than revenue, which they both share with every other MMO ever made.
and in these 150 hours I have clocked in
Well now that makes sense.
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The most likely thing that will happen is current legendaries will become pre-cursors for the next tier of lengendaries this makes the most sense in the demented mind of the great gear treadmill god.
Hey, that’s a good one.
I’d sooner trust second guessing of the “demented mind of the great gear treadmill god” than anything Anet says.
As countless of people have said it so far, if you see GW2 as anything other than fun, artistic, and casual video game in which you’re supposed to focus on the uniqueness of its features, you are DOING IT WRONG.
So what you’re saying is, if we try to compare GW2 against any other game, or hold any expectations for or about GW2, then we’re doing it wrong.
Is this really how the dev team thinks?
Maybe just maybe they wont lie to people in the prelaunch about their intentions with the game to get money from them.
That’s unlikely to happen. Pre-launch hype is easy to generate; actually developing a game good enough to generate post-launch hype is difficult.
All they’ve said is that Legendaries will always be top-tier, they probably haven’t worked out the details yet.
Tier =\= Level
The “tier” (purple color) will remain the top one.
The obviousness of this seems lost on so many.
A level 70 exotic pre-Ascended was still the top tier of loot, even if it wasn’t the top level.
Did they mean that they will be BiS for level 80 and that there will be new level 90 Legendaries that will have level 90 stats.
Of course there will be new level 90 legendary weapons, with new mats so that you can’t craft them days after a level cap increase. It’s their entire endgame.
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That said, the Warrior has a huge advantage over the Thief in high-end PvE in the form of tankability, party-wide Fury/Might, tons of Vulnerability stacks, heavy armor class, highest base HP of any class (tied with Necro), etc.
That’s not much of an advantage, especially not in a game which makes little to no use of endgame PvE.
What I try to make clear is that the Legendary is a long-term goal, you should not waste hours & gold trying to get it in the MF, just do what you were doing (except sPvP) and you might find a precursor yourself.
There’s literally nothing else to do at 80, and with the hundreds of hours I already put in, yeah I expect one just handed to me at this point because I would have found one already if it had any reasonable sort of drop rate.
They could set about redesigning sPvP and WvW so that there actually is something to do at 80 besides work on a precursor, but I bet they’d sooner just hand out free precursors (because even the most expensive ones are still only a fraction of the effort required to make a legendary).
And that is exactly it. No matter how many changes, if and when, come down the pipe, until they are given free for anyone that wants one, there will ALWAYS be folks clamoring to make it easier/cheaper. It’s the way of the world lol…
Bull kitten.
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Maybe in the big picture there has to be constant demand for rare and exotic crafted weapons in some form, as heavy handed as it may be.
They’d be better served redesigning crafting than trying to force onto everyone else a use for that crafted junk.
Just because you crafted it doesn’t mean anyone is interested in it. I bet you didn’t even look to see if it would sell for a profit before you crafted ten of them consecutively.
The “joy” of RNG loot based systems …..
Not all RNG loot systems pin their entire endgame on a <0.2% drop chance.
Pain Inverter..
Instanced homes are used for a reason, unfortunately, and this is one of them.
You don’t just plop them down 1000 to a map. Even DAoC didn’t do that, instead breaking them into several zones before further segregating them into sub-divisions with terrain.
But you need something that other people can actually interact with. Personal instances, even if you can invite people over, don’t cut it.
I’ve noticed nobody talks, nobody answers questions nobody does anything social. This seems to be the least helpful MMO I’ve played.
It’s not the game, it’s the general MMO community. The more experience the average player has with MMOs, the less likely they’ll participate in the inane banter that is map chat.
Add to this the fact that developers have been designing down the difficulty curve for years now, and not only is their no interest in interacting with other people, but there’s also no need.
The most sociable in-game experiences I had with this game were when I was running SE explore, during the 15m downtime window created by the Inquest Grenadier packs that patrol just inside the entrance of path 1. Then Anet went ahead and removed that downtime, and ravaged that path (and introduced a huge bug in path 2).
Why did they do this? Who knows. They could have been working on Southsun (this was just prior to the Lost Shores event), but instead they felt a need to change a perfectly reasonable dungeon.
Either start power-trading if you want money, or just farm, but…precursors and legendaries…are never gonna change from what they are right now.
That much I can agree with.
But in a massive multiplayer game, wouldn’t player homes just segregate the player base?
If they use the home instance, then yeah, it’s worthless.
If they do it DAoC style with player housing suburbs, then it’s worth the effort.
@OP: Finish your exotic set however you see fit. See the sights, experience a little bit of WvW, realize you’ve “beaten” the game and re-assess exactly what you enjoy about it.
If you don’t like dungeons then you don’t really need exotic armor anyway.
Only because WvW amounts to little more than a mini-game.
Wow. Take a chill pill.
He doesn’t seem overboard at all.
Besides, Anet doesn’t need Sir Oreoz to be their white knight.
It seems like nobody remembers that GW2 was going to have an infinite level cap with diminishing power as you leveled.
That could have been interesting, though it’s more likely to follow the WoW pattern of expansions than any alternative.
There’s no QQ in any of my posts, only in those of kitten fanbois.
I didn’t call your comments QQ. I said that they’re reason for more QQ.
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The “GW2 takes everything you love about GW1 and..” is clever marketing (maybe a little shady)
It doesn’t sound good but forget anything you’ve read in the manifesto.
I wouldn’t call it clever, so much as misleading. Purposefully misleading, at that.
And yes, quotes from months ago at the time they introduced a ton of content that they admitted was horribly flawed and are now in the process of fixing, those are outdated. A game is constantly changing, and viewpoints on it are constantly in need of adaptation.
Then that’s all the more reason to fill the forums with QQ.
That should satisfy whatever part of the rodent brain is satisfied by this illusion of “progression”.
Levels are easy to design and design around; few developers are able to safely abandon them. Anet has shown no ability to do so, either (allegedly did so in GW1, but we all know this isn’t GW1).
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To a lot of players it’s an email blast and splash page created to market what appeared to be an incredibly small in-game scavenger hunt. Should have held off on the marketing push until whatever this Living Story was got well under way.
Marketing makes that patch day hype go boom.
And the community go bust when developers are unable to deliver.
It’s a pretty good way to give players a sense of meaningful progression
Only because it’s generally used as some sort of universal gating mechanism.
I don’t understand why we get two extremes of the RNG spectrum; either guaranteed through some sort of token currency, or <0.1% drop rates. What happened to killing a dungeon boss and having a 20-30% chance at a particular item off his short list of drops?
There is a good reason why financial advisors don’t recommend buying lottery tickets to increase wealth and certainly wouldn’t advise just buying more to increase your chances.
Ha.
Yet financial advisors recommend investing in the stock market. It’s exactly the same except for one difference:
No it’s not. I’ll eat the infraction just to ask, are you stupid?
In fact there would be a bunch of hedge funds that pool money to buy tickets.
Wasn’t a hedge fund, but it’s already happened, and it was promptly outlawed.
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I think we have been trained to expect this beast called ‘end game’ to be about tackling harder challenges, scoring more points, reaching higher levels, etc.
Leveling has run it’s course, and there are plenty of other progression systems in MMOs today to fill it’s place.
By it’s definition, “end-game” is merely MMO content without the classical leveling process.
Sadly, GW2 makes absolutely no effort to achieve this. That claim about the whole game being endgame was just some marketing fluff. Whoever said it is probably laughing at the community at the moment.
and we lose the ability to enjoy an activity for its own sake.
There are other gaming genres which do this so much better. What you’re looking for would be hyper-niche, so unless you plan on funding it yourself you can keep dreaming.
Many MMO players seem to have forgotten that there are other goals than PHAT LOOTZ!
No, not really. But there are many ways to offer PHAT LOOTZ! besides the same tired ideas most MMOs rely on.
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They were not fun because first they were hacked to death, second if you were down the orb buff just buried you.
This, and sadly, you’ll never avoid the former problem even if you solve the latter one.
Possible Orb buffs:
-25% reduced equipment repair cost.
-10% reduction in upgrade costs.
-10% reduction in cost of siege.
Equipment repair costs, upgrade coin costs and siege coin/badge costs should all be removed anyway. Equipment repair costs are unnecessary in WvW, whereas upgrades and siege would still be subject to supply, making supply more important.
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As for this guy I’ll wait till the scavenger hunt is made and save my coins.
Is that even happening? Last official word I saw (red post from about two weeks ago) is that they’ve only considered the idea of a scavenger hunt, but no actual work has begun on such a thing.
Did they say something more recent, and something more concrete? Did they give any sort of timeline as to when we can expect it?
*Result: * Emotionally damaging / disheartening (LOL! But no kidding!). It’s like going to casino with a lot of cash in hand and then go home empty handed.
You forgot to add it’s a great reason to say to yourself, “screw this game.”
But don’t worry, they’re busy banning some people who abused a broken recipe, the worst results of which would have at least reduced (albeit only slightly) one of the other major costs on the legendary checklist.
I’m amazed ANET thinks this is a good system in the first place.
Let’s be bold here. They had years to work on GW2. In the years of working on this game, not once did it occur this is a stupid idea to make such a horrible RNG simply to start the endgame?
Of course it occurred to them; they want suckers to go dump hundreds on gems to buy the things.
They’d probably make more in the long run by offering something more accessible to the masses, but it’s their own choice to focus on short-term paydays versus a long-term revenue stream.
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Yet I am to find this spykit you mention.
As far as I know, there are two of them. Check gw2db.com and search for “spy kit” (two words, not one). Or just google “gw2 spy kit”.
They function differently, but the one you want is in the Charr starter zone, IIRC.
EDIT: Google ftw; it’s the Ash Legion Spy Kit sold by Kyra Sharptracker in Plains of Ashford, which is indeed the Charr starter zone.
For example, a system that provided a reward buff on dungeon completion to the people who provided above average DPS, boons, healing, etc.
I found a mechanic like this really attractive in a F2P MMO I’ve been playing lately. To give a rough analogy using a “contribution” metric, first would receive two exotics, second would receive one exotic, third would receive one rare, fourth and lower start pushing into current rewards (probably using greens as a minimum reward).
It gives you something to aim for when you’re wearing your try-hard hat, and there are otherwise sufficient static rewards that you’ll still make progress when you approach it more lackadaisically (making it easier for the try-hards to achieve their goal at the same time, generally improving PUG morale).
I’ve spent a few hours looking up anti-farm code and that anet as deemed it as a bug.
lol wut?
Now they say it’s a bug. These guys…
Hey Anet, if you wish hard enough for your game to be awesome, it will come true. You just have to wish really really hard (and be careful not to kitten yourself).
Could you include some examples of the “lots of ideas”?
You could probably fill several forum pages with just suggestions on how to improve the loot system.
I’ll leave you to dig through the forums and find them, though they’re there.
It’s expensive to jump to other maps and I don’t want to waste my money on that.
You wouldn’t pay between 2-3 silver in order to go to a spot where you can finish it faster?
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Exploration is worthwhile on its own in this game.
Been there, done that, got a title for it. The lore never pulled me in, but I’m willing to say the fact that I didn’t play GW1 plays a role in this (those awful cutscenes don’t help, but I’m thankful they saw the need to prioritize and felt cutscenes were low on the list).
You also have all the varied instances, which you can do for reasons other than “grinding kittening tokens”. They have a story mode and, while some are more interesting than others, they’re generally interesting enough to explore.
Pretty much did all of those, and the ones I didn’t I really had no interest in (I did love me some SE before they took a hammer to the place for no reason other than they could).
You have WvW, where I’ve personally spent entire days not only exploring the land but my own builds as well. Testing, tweaking, adjusting, rebuilding my builds and strategies. Joining massive zergs or going on small group raids.
Done and done. Sadly, they’re taking it in the opposite direction of where I think it should go; they’re sticking with one week matches, and looking at longer ones, while I think shorter matches structured in some sort of season formatting would have been far better given the relative lack of individual goals in WvW. Even DAoC needed realm ranks to keep people interested.
You can go to sPvP, which I haven’t fully explored yet. You can do this at any time, with no need for anything even remotely resembling gear or level grind at all, ever. Everyone’s level 80, with everything unlocked, and max stats gear freely available.
Skipped. I normally love boxed PvP, and rely on it for 100 hours or more of playtime in other MMOs, but sPvP really fell flat. I don’t know if it’s the extreme lack of maps, the level/gear normalization or the poor class balance, but I never found sPvP appealing in the slightest.
This was most shocking when I found myself one day start reciting Huttball quotes.
You can do jumping puzzles, ranging from “very easy” to “stupid, random and unfair” (kitten you Gryphoon Rook Run), and even some quite clever that involve no jumping at all (<3 to whomever thought of the lab one).
See: world exploration. They were fun though, along with the mini-dungeons.
…I could go on, stuff like crafting and playing the market, but I think I made my point.
I don’t do either; crafting is extremely shallow (so typical these days), and I sadly don’t play MMOs to stack currency, much to my detriment.
Just running down this list, I’d say the area for greatest improvement would be sPvP; tPvP is fine with the level/gear normalization, and anyone tackling tPvP would be better skilled them me and less phased by class balance, but greatly expanding the sPvP map offerings and allowing me to use my acquired gear in sPvP are two huge improvements they could make.
(edited by Ansultares.1567)