Guild Wars 2

Mirta.5029:

IF you know that this existed in all MMOs and continues to exist in all MMOs, then attaching it directly to WoW is simply foolish.

Actually, for a simple reason it is not: Profit.

GW1 did not move towards MMO style because EQ or most MMOs outsold it. GW1 had 4-6 million players. WoW had between 8 and 12. Thats around 2x times the number over its life. WoW was essentially the only store-box MMO that outsold GW1 and proceeded to make a killing on subscriptions.

You’re looking at their decision as an art form. It was a business decision. They abandoned the CORPG platform because they thought they could make WoW style profit if they were just a little more similar to WoW.

Mirta.5029:

And like I said, you’re talking about world’s first CORPG there that is not the same as an MMO. However if you take the amount of world bosses GW2 has, the amount of instances GW2 has, the amount of world bosses Everquest had, the amount of instances Everquest had and the amount of instanced GW1 had, GW2 would be closer to Everquest than to WoW and WoW would be closer to Guild Wars 1. So why use an MMO that does not fit your argument?

Because GW1 and WoW are far less similiar than WoW and GW2, or WoW and Everquest in system/world/concept design… which is where your argument falls apart.
That’s obvious to anyone who played GW1’s systems for years.

GW1 had literally no open world. Not just a little, none. Entirely instanced. Entirely just your party of 4-12 players on the map, always. You never see someone outside your party except in PVP arenas, which cap out at 24 for alliance battles, and are usually 4v4 or 8v8.

WoW even having an open world makes it closer to GW2 than GW1, because what you’re talking about doesn’t even exist in GW1.

If the proportions are realistic then you’re talking about a completely different art style all together, no matter the amount of races. And like I already said, it’s hard to find a single RPG or an MMO that would be mono race, because to simply put mono raced games are boring. They have no variety and people tend to like variety. Once again it has nothing to do with WoW.

The art style in GW2 is far different than the art style at the beginning of GW1: More cartoonish. If it were a linear progression, the line of gw1 to gw2 art style is becoming more cartoonish over time, most noticeably in eye of the north, when asura and norn were added. The fact that one race was done semi-realistically does not eliminate the rest of the game increasing cartoon art style.

Especially when you consider it was only done after it was obvious WoW was winning the player-base and profit number race.

Mirta.5029:

In my opinion you have no point, because you’re talking about:
1. Normal MMO mechanics that are in all MMOs and WoW wasn’t the first one to do them.
2. Things that WoW isn’t heavy on (see open world PVE. It has world bosses sure, but nowhere near as much as Everquest. WoW is very instanced in its end game (just like GW1 was! See I can make ridiculous claims as well!))
3. Updated Art style that is actually realistic rather than cartoonish. (look at the human proportions, compare them to real life humans and then compare them to WoW humans)
Combination with other things makes it an MMO. So like I said your point is that it’s an MMO. If you don’t like MMOs CORPG market has expanded greatly since the times of GW1.
4. Multiple playable races that every single fantasy RPG and MMO in existence were heavy on, because to simply put humans are boring. (See Dragon Age, Elder Scrolls series, pretty much all fantasy MMOs for reference)

Note that I’ve never said GW2 was a perfect WoW clone. Merely far closer to being one than GW1 was, both due to genre and design.

1) Yes, they may exist in all MMOs, but WoW set the profit/performance standard for all MMO’s in the last decade, so its natural to take after said MMO in design queues if you want to boost profit. Guild wars 1 had roughly 4-6 million players at peak. WoW topped out at what? 8 million? 9 million? The most I’ve ever heard was 12 million. Everquest never even got slightly close to either of those numbers. Few hundred thousand at best.

2) WoW took certain queues from Everquest, which was a whole 5 years before WoW. But, WoW has no were near as many instances as GW1 did… the entire game was instanced. There was NO open world at all. So your assertion falls flat, and is somewhat ridiculous. GW1 and Wow released only 6 months apart, so its highly unlikely they changed the game substantially in development to beat WoW

3) The proportions on Humans are fairly realistic… but the other races are entirely cartoonish, and they did not exist at the start of gw1, besides charr. They were added because another game with multiple playable races did far better than GW1 2 years after release… and is the game it was most compared to for years… and they wanted to catch up.

4) See 3.

Any gw1 player knows Prestige armor, AKA 15k/obsidian/vabbian armor, had no performance difference over regular armor. The only difference was their skin, the base defensive stats were the same. Therefore there was no vertical difference. Copied directly from your link:

Prestige armor is no different from any other max armor apart from its appearance and cost.

Ascended gear was added, alongside a long grind time, over a year after GW2’s release to keep/attract/placate vertical grinders from other games who are used to constantly grinding for the next tier of gear. It has a big enough difference to be attractive to min/maxers, but not so huge you automatically lose if you don’t have it.

Asura were added in EOTN, alongside Norn, and the plotline which became the Slyvari, as a business decision that would be used in GW2 as playable races. EOTN was the expansion that set the ground for GW2, in august 2007 release. Those 3 things did not exist until ANet wanted to “get competive” with other MMOs, and especially blizzard, by adding playable races… Their addition was a business decision in order to attract more players from other MMOs to the franchise especially WoW. Only the Charr existed before, so they were a natural addition to the selection… they only needed a storyline that set them at peace with the humans to connect those dots.

So the fact that we can be other races that were present in Guild Wars 1 and not just humans, makes it WoW?

No, but in combination with the other things, it makes it closer, which was the point. Notice they didn’t exist until 2.5 years+ into GW1 and weren’t playable until GW2? It became more like WoW to capture money and playerbase as a business decision, which was probably hammered in by NCsoft, which owns Anet… and to some degree Nexon which is affiliated.

Mirta.5029:

but what you named is “closer to WoW” is the games genre.
Other than that how about let’s look at GW1 – WoW comparison? Old school combat style for example, check. Healers, tanks, damagers? Check. 10 man instances? Check.

No. They purposefully moved GW2 closer to WoW:
1) More vertical progression and grinding for gear, see ascended,
2) More open world zerg PVP combat (world versus world)
3) More open world zerg non-instanced PVE content
4) More cartoonish game art style
5) More cartoonish racial selections (granted they wisely don’t lock you into a faction)

WoW came out 6 months before GW1. Neither intentionally attempted to clone the other. When GW2 was in development, WoW had already set the standard in profits and MMO design. GW2 moved closer to WoW style for obvious reasons: $ and player base.

I do HM clears with a full party of light armor classes, literally no tanks. Holy trinity is not essential in GW1 unless you want it.

Lastly, all of GW1 had 8 man instances. Literally every PVE map outside of starter zones was almost a 10 man instance… so that’s completely irreverent.

Mirta.5029:

Enokitake.1742:

Whereas GW1 had a maximum of 8 players in most common PVE maps, and 12 in elite PVE, and 24 in highest population PvE modes. But yes, GW2 aimed to be more of an MMO style than GW1… but that also means its more of a WoW clone.

So you’re unhappy about everything including the genre choice? In that case why not to play some other CORPG’s like Monster Hunter?

No, I’m simply pointing out the truth: GW2 is far more like WoW than GW1 was, so its somewhat contradictory to say ANet was moving away from a WoW style game in GW2. That… doesn’t make sense. They are doing some things differently, but it’s still closer.

Gilgalas.7860:

People are unhappy because they don’t get an extension, just as they are unhappy with everything that departs from their little habbits.
Yet I am very happy that ANet is willing to experiment with a lot of new things with GW2. That is how we will have fresh air and hopefully an end to an endless stream of empty WoW clones.

Had not nature experimented for 3.5B years, there would not be anything more than bacteria around.

The problem with your statement is GW2 moved far closer towards being a World of Warcraft clone than GW1 was. Several formulas changed: Ascended Armor/Weapons/Gear (more vertical progression despite being fairly optional), open world zerg versus zerg PVP for objectives, and open world zerg based PVE. (world versus world/open world bosses/meta-events).

Whereas GW1 had a maximum of 8 players in most common PVE maps, and 12 in elite PVE, and 24 in highest population PvE modes. But yes, GW2 aimed to be more of an MMO style than GW1… but that also means its more of a WoW clone.

Gilgalas.7860:

I have yet to see a game which expansion keeps me really busy more than one month, while LS kept me busy for one year.

And as someone mentioned elsewhere, keeping on adding new content just dilutes the playerbase overtime. What they are doing here is smart in that they keep the playerbase focused on ever changing content, hence reinforcing the feeling of taking part to a MASSIVELYmorpg.

Just show me another MMORPG where you can consistantly find hundreds of players playing the same content at once for one year.

To me it is quite obvious that ANet has chosen the path of emphasizing player cooperation through massive events, be it PvE or WvW. I won’t say it is a good nor bad choice, it is a matter of personal taste. But for the moment they don’t show sign of departure from that line since the release and you should better spend your energy adapting to it than crying on the forum. You will start enjoying it after a while, when you finally accept that a game can be enjoyable despite not following the “classical” model.

People aren’t crying simply because it doesn’t follow a classical model, they’re complaining because they did a very poor job with their non-classical model.

People are complaining about the storyline, because it was poorly written. People are complaining about the characters, because many (not all) were underdeveloped, bland, Mary-sue types, or trite. People are complaining about LS being zerg after zerg, because almost every patch was based on large groups of people spamming skills indiscriminately and occasionally dodging, with a few exceptions based on instances and a couple of bosses (teq upgrade, marionette).

Its not a “you shouldn’t have done this at all” its a “you did so bad with it you should’ve just done it the old way, and if you’re going to continue doing it this badly you should just go back to the old way”.

If they had done it well the complaints would either not exist or not with the vitriol that they do. Just because its an experiment, doesn’t mean you won’t get bad feedback for not doing it well.

Mirta.5029:

Enokitake.1742:

2) Anet has 300 roughly employees. If they focused more attention on campaigns and less on LS, we’d easily have an expansion already, much like we had 2 after only 1.5 years after initial release.

And where do you know from where they’re allocated and what projects are they doing?

The answer is it doesn’t matter: If you’re directing manpower away from one project (expansion) for another (LS) you’re going to finish the first project slower simply because less people are on it. You have to carefully choose in advance.

Mirta.5029:

And how do you know whether GW2 ends up with canceled side projects or not? There were mentions in topics about how much content that was written and voice-acted gets cut out of the living story.

Things always get cut out of any game, usually pre-development or very early into it. That doesn’t really mean anything.

Mirta.5029:

Flytrap.8075:

…how is Guild Wars not an MMO?

Even by Anet’s description it was a CORPG. MMO would imply massively multiplayer and everything besides the cities being instanced that you can take at most 16 people (I think?) in makes it not so massive.

Actually, considering that GW1’s design demands you re-create a map hundreds of times, if not thousands, every time a 4 to 24 player group was in it, i’d say its far more resource demanding than a permanent map holding a hundred players.

Instead of one 100 player map, you’d need 8-10 maps with 8 players.. which automatically spawn and despawn on command, each of which have the full group of mobs/bosses/npcs even if they’re dead in another map.

That’s harder, not easier, and tougher on resources.

Mirta.5029:

Enokitake.1742:

Campaigns:
Guild Wars Prophecies (April 2005)
Guild Wars Factions (April 2006)
Guild Wars Nightfall (October 2006)

Expansions:
Guild Wars Eye of the North (August 2007)

1. Not an MMO
2. Campaigns were being developed by separate teams at the same time because they all wanted to get their vision in there
3. After Eye of the North the waiting period was full 5 years. Meaning that spacing of the games wasn’t completely right.

1) Doesn’t have to be an MMO, as an online game fielding millions of players, with regular balance patches, world updates/fixes, and slight content updates, it is/was similar enough in development demands.

2) Anet has 300 roughly employees. If they focused more attention on campaigns and less on LS, we’d easily have an expansion already, much like we had 2 after only 1.5 years after initial release.

3) GW2 took 5 years for a very simple reason: GW2 was originally another campaign. It was canceled mid-development, and they decided to beat the rush to the “new-wave” of MMOs. The ACTUAL gw1 list looks like this:

Campaigns
Guild Wars Prophecies (April 2005)
Guild Wars Factions (April 2006)
Guild Wars Nightfall (October 2006)
Guild Wars Utopia (cancelled) — added note: and rescheduled/redeveloped as GW2.

Expansions
Guild Wars Eye of the North (August 2007)

Other
Bonus Mission Pack (November 2007)

Content updates
Sorrow’s Furnace (September 2005)

Mirta.5029:

you also forgot to mention quality of life like the LFG tool and one unified wallet.

Having in mind that the first expansion took 3 years for WoW we’re doing pretty fine for a 1.5 year mark

Campaigns:
Guild Wars Prophecies (April 2005)
Guild Wars Factions (April 2006)
Guild Wars Nightfall (October 2006)

Expansions:
Guild Wars Eye of the North (August 2007)

Silvercyclone.1462:

I really hope the rise of Mordrimoth isnt showing what going to happen in season 2 but rather a preview of the next part of personal story. I would hate to be a player that came in late and find out you can’t kill the Jungle Dragon cause it was temporary content.

It would be nice to have the White Mantle return in the next LS and maybe bring the bloodstones back too.

Agreed. If killing mordrimoth is apart of LS, there needs to be a lead up that is instanced re-playable content, before you kill him in an instance with a lot of npcs to compensate for not being able to do it with live players.

No Walking.6349:

Rocky skin, rocky looking teeth, it’s Kralkatorrik.

No crazy theories here, we’re gonna go fight Kralk now. Not sure why Scarlet was so crazy to wake up Kralk, or why there was such a build-up when we all knew we would go off to fight the other elder dragons some day, but whatevs. Was nice killing Scarlet.

Kralkatorrik is/was already awake. He was responsible for the giant purple gash that goes through Ascalon into the crystal desert, where he killed glint from guild wars 1 when he woke up. Now he’s down there just chilling until LS/expac gets around to him.

Its Mordremoth, and he was underground. What you’re seeing is energy/magic from the ley lines flowing into his mouth as he wakes through his teeth. I’ve heard, but don’t know exactly where he is, since he is the jungle dragon responsible for “husks” and corruption of plant-type beasts, by theme he’s probably in magumma wastes or tarnished coast area.

See here: Mordremoth

Edit: This resulted in a magical chain reaction, culminating with the awakening of a previously unknown Elder Dragon slumbering underneath Magus Falls.

Mirta.5029:

siralius.9517:

The last time Anet did an improvement to GW2 that wasn’t blatantly geared to you using the gemstore was when they put the game on store shelves. Everything since then has been nothing more than half hearted attempts at getting ppl to use real life money. These LS’s are sorry excuses for content.

really?
So new PvP maps
new WvW map
a new zone
achievement rewards
daily rewards
LFG
new fractals
fractals
new bosses
old bosses redone
boss rewards
champion rewards
etc
do not count? There were like a million quality of life updates and you did not see a single one?

People won’t care about this for a very simple reason: Its not enough quality of life. They want an expansion. New continents/multiple new permanent areas/new dungeons/new dungeon skins/new weapon skills/new utility skills/new elites/new weapon sets/new spvp modes AND maps/new WvW battleground maps (that actually affect server status, which edge of the mists, while a GREAT map, does not)

Additionally, some of your list (the 2 spvp maps, daily rewards, LFG, champion rewards) should have been in the game at launch and was only added because people complained about them not being in game or having too little to do. You don’t get credit for adding spark plugs to a car a year after you sold it.

Other things on your list is mostly temporary content that, if its lucky, gets reslotted into the game as permanent content fractals… but its completely out of context, with little to no storyline, lore, or background information provided unless you played it in LS already.

Terrible story line, I played it more for achievement points than story line.
Terrible mary-sue “i can do anything just because, no matter how poorly it fits with established game lore” villain, even with dragon influence.
Most of the heroes somewhat bland, a few somewhat developed over time.
Way too much throw bodies at it zerg content.
A few great boss fights, and good upgrades to previous boss fights.
Some decent sub-expansion content additions, like fractals, edge of mists, southsun… pretty much it.
Too much of the content disappears in its original form only to be added in disjointed other modes, no really good method for new players to relive that content.

4 out of 10.

(But if I factored in that its directs manpower away from, and thus slows development of things like new campaigns or expansions that add new weapon sets, new weapon skills, new dungeons, new continents, new utility skills, new elites, new pvp modes, etc… it’d be lower. Opportunity cost and all that stuff.)

MastaNeenja.1537:

Then why do you refer to it as non-zerker support? There is only one kind of support in this game. You said it not me, it’s your perception of how you think support should be as opposed to utilizing the tools given to you in the game.

You do the same support skills with any set of armor and it won’t make a bit of difference. You can’t separate support based on gear, thankfully.

So why wear armor that is going to reduce your damage when you don’t have to? Exactly why do you need healing power and extra vitality if you rarely get hit because of careful blinds, dodges, and blocks? The answer is you don’t.

I don’t mean it like those two things are inherently entwined. When I said it i meant “support from X utility in berserker gear” as opposed to “support from X utility while in clerics gear”… It’s supposed to clarify which build I’m referring to?

If I just said support, OP might assume I meant support builds in PVT/Cleric/Celestial build, like tapdatmouse, or something? That’s why I’m saying it that way.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

We aren’t arguing that. We don’t want them to be the same effectiveness. A guy on crutches shouldn’t be able to beat a healthy person in a footrace. A guy who needs defensive gear to survive content shouldn’t be able to out DPS someone who doesn’t. We like the state of affairs where more skill = faster and better. We don’t want the same effectiveness so I wonder what you’re reading in our responses that makes you think we do.

That’s more an argument directed towards the general “why isn’t PVT/Clerics/whatever not as effective as zerker, and how can we make it so” then the speed clearing crowd.

Why the fk would you redesign the game in order to force tie support to tank builds. Just so some nub stacking loads of toughness can be part of “da speed clear groupz!”?

If people are not capable of grasping the fact that they can provide support and do damage (not saying that is you as you have obviously pointed out that zerk groups do use support), or if people are unable to “go dps” and have to take crutch stats/builds. Then they should not expect to be anywhere near a speed clear team.

Pointing out you’d have to redesign the game from the ground up to do it, is intended to be an argument against it, not for it… :P

hendo.1940:

Why should a more defensive build be more viable than an offensive one? The inevitable progression in video games is that as you become more familiar with content, you slot out more defensive gear for more offensive pieces as you know better how to actively counter fight mechanics rather than having to rely on passive damage mitigation.

Which is actually exactly my point, and I agree. They’re not equally effective. Anet would have to redesign the game to make it so.

hendo.1940:

I still find it absolutely hilarious that you tried to tell members of two elite dungeon guilds that support and control doesn’t matter though, when we use it in abundance every day.

MastaNeenja.1537:

So this becomes a personal definition of what support is as perceived by you, VS what actual support in the game is.

No, its all support, I never said it wasn’t… in fact, I included it in my post under support. I’ll repeat it since you missed it:

Non-zerker Support builds (Basically support builds that are not: zerker reflect aegis guardians, zerker blind field stealth theifs, zerk banner+offensive shout warriors, zerk timewarp reflect glamour mantra mesmers)

So, if you actual read the post:
I never said ALL support/control wasn’t viable. I said that outside of the current meta, which is offensive – utility derived support in zerker gear (which I then proceeded to fully list in my post) its not worth it since its too slow.

And your responses are posting a Lupi drop in 1 minute using almost exactly what I’m talking about with only a few utilities changed. Granted, I was talking more fractals meta and not lupi speed drops at the time.

In case you haven’t noticed, they’re are almost exactly the same thing. Same classes, Same gear, same general weapon sets, mostly same utilities, mostly same elites… so… ???

As shown by the Lupi video: They wouldn’t have done that time in clerics or PVT gear using defensive trait support.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, but you can’t argue those are even close to the same in effectiveness in PVE. .

Fenrir.3609:

The fact of the matter is that “tanky” specs are capable of doing the content, they are more viable for less skilled players to learn with and they do have a major role in all the content outside of instanced pve. But there is zero reason for them to be included in speed run groups or be part of the pve speed meta simply because someone thinks his facetank shout heal warrior should be as optimal as zerkers.

That’s EXACTLY my point… lol. You’d have to redesign the game to make it so.

hendo.1940:

that support and control is viable and used in GW2. Yet every single time are ignored.

Well I’m sorry if you don’t consider might stacking, fury stacking, aegis, blind, protection, reflect, mob positioning, crowd controlling bosses and then shaving defiant stacks off for the next CC, immobilising/crippling/chilling bosses as support and control, but I’m afraid your concept, “healing” just isn’t a part of support in GW2. For control you also do not need to use mace/mace + hammer warriors with sigils of paralyzation, you just need to use the appropriate utility skills and weapon skills.

Actually, you don’t seem to be listening. We’re not saying they’re not viable at all. We’re saying that compared to zerker-offensive support derived from utility builds, they’re significantly less viable.

hendo.1940:

Guardian uses stability for the p1/2 transition to prevent knockdown, phase2>3 transition gets reflect and aegis up so no stray projectiles can harm us, there’s might and fury stacking before the fight, and banners for extra support. How you can say there isn’t support here is beyond me.

I specifically categorized support builds as meta (mostly fractal meta): “zerker reflect aegis guardians, zerker blind field stealth theifs, zerk banner+offensive shout warriors, zerk timewarp reflect glamour mantra mesmers”… If you were reading, we’re talking about the same thing there. The only thing missing is a stability shout (or whatever you had him use, derived from utilities either way) on the guardian…

We’ll come back to this next paragraph:

Your lupi video: You’re clearly wearing zerker gear for your 1 minute drop, which is the point of the thread. Yes, You’re stacking might, vulnerability, weakness, protection, fury, which the builds i just listed above can easily do by swapping only utilities. But the point of the thread is talking about non-zerker not being as viable or effective as zerker.

You’re only proving his/my point by posting 1 minute zerker drops of gigi lupi .

haviz.1340:

Enokitake.1742:

Edea liae says hi.

Control builds aren’t useful due to “IMMUNE”/defiance, which is terrible and has needed a redesign since forever. To quote someone else, “The only really viable CC in GW2 dungeons is death”, aka zerker.

Non-zerker Support builds (Basically support builds that are not: zerker reflect aegis guardians, zerker blind field stealth theifs, zerk banner+offensive shout warriors, zerk timewarp reflect glamour mantra mesmers, etc) aren’t useful, you kill too slow, and mobs do too much damage. Or, defensive supports don’t scale enough in PVE from traits or base stats to be useful.

Tank builds aren’t viable since aggro swaps often , and toughness is super unreliable for aggro draws. Plus, bosses do so much damage in dungeons like arah, CoE, aether path, and fractals 50, they’d just 2 shot instead of 1 shot if you were wearing that gear anyway. Plus, Dodge and a party that’s not terrible makes bunker tanks unneeded. Plus, zerker gaurdians/warriors are such great DPS there’s no reason to bring them on full support/bunker in dungeons.

This leaves straight DPS, aka zerker.

Anet needs to make Control/Defensive Support viable in tough PVE if you want build diversity.

They are already viable and being used.

Not in fast clears they’re not.

Edea liae says hi.

Control builds aren’t useful due to “IMMUNE”/defiance, which is terrible and has needed a redesign since forever. To quote someone else, “The only really viable CC in GW2 dungeons is death”, aka zerker.

Non-zerker Support builds (Basically support builds that are not: zerker reflect aegis guardians, zerker blind field stealth theifs, zerk banner+offensive shout warriors, zerk timewarp reflect glamour mantra mesmers, etc) aren’t useful, you kill too slow, and mobs do too much damage. Or, defensive supports don’t scale enough in PVE from traits or base stats to be useful.

Tank builds aren’t viable since aggro swaps often , and toughness is super unreliable for aggro draws. Plus, bosses do so much damage in dungeons like arah, CoE, aether path, and fractals 50, they’d just 2 shot instead of 1 shot if you were wearing that gear anyway. Plus, Dodge and a party that’s not terrible makes bunker tanks unneeded. Plus, zerker gaurdians/warriors are such great DPS there’s no reason to bring them on full support/bunker in dungeons.

This leaves straight DPS, aka zerker.

Anet needs to make Control/Defensive Support viable in tough PVE if you want build diversity.

I really want to see screenshots from the gains in inventories of people saying a specific way is more rewarding from a single run. How many alliance supply bags did you get in a single run doing it your way? Was your inventory completely filled with loot when you left? Yes, loot. Its the only thing you keep.

The reason for this is obvious and non-sarcastic:
If I go from my 120-150 bags per run average with full inventory to 70 bags average with a +30 reward at the end so you can go from +10 bag reward to +30 bag reward and barely clear 100 bags in small group and 75% full inventory, then… zerging it is indeed the most effective way, you’re just doing it wrong.

But you’re getting 150-180 bags in small group and full inventory than small group is the most effective way.

Yes, small group split up may get more bonuses, but if the amount of loot I get from tag, aoe loot, warp to next zerg exceeds the amount of loot I get from the event “coordination” bonuses, the design is irrelevant after i finish APs. Anet needs to consider that.

ThiBash.5634:

Yes, that’s right…she does what the Charr, White Mantle, Undead, Karka and the Elder Dragons could not.

For some odd reason, the devs think adding more impossible things to her resume is the answer to people complaining about her being too perfect and being able to do anything.

And did it super easy mode too, even though, you know, notices should have been sent to pretty much everyone this would happen instantly cause we have warp gates and can beam small armies + cannons from 5 racial capitals to lion’s arch’s center directly.

But it goes alongside having scarlet’s lair beneath the priory who digs everywhere but overlooks their own caverns, aetherblades hiding a factory in the mountains outside lion’s arch, and the complete silence/unawareness of destiny’s edge (especially Logan/Rytlock) even though scarlet previously failed to assassinate the queen whose survival tediously holds the human-charr peace alliance (and thus the pact needed to kill the elder dragons) together.

Scarlet writing is bad, but everyone else’s in the LS is equally bad, because literally everyone except marjory and kasmeer are grossly unaware and incompetent.

It’s not because we’re not following, its just bad writing.

Signed cause game needs some awesome pistol skins.

killcannon.2576:

You’re still trying to discuss the difference between skill based and gear based combat. Those don’t determine progression. They are a symptom of the degree of it and whether a designer chose to use gear based combat. Not even sure what you are going on about any more. You can have entirely skill based combat and it could still have vertical progression to get to the fight in the first place.

I won’t have to find any examples. My whole argument has been about whether a mmorpg could function without VP. I said there were no good examples of such, and it would not succeed without some form of VP. As yet, I have seen no examples of such.

On that I agree, because no game can, except maybe very specific genres. You can only marginalize it.

killcannon.2576:

And I say again, it is the same thing. “Depending on which skills you are using” Can be replaced with “Depending on what gear you are using” “I have to do X content to get this skill” “I have to do X content to get this gear” Each one leads to being able to do more content, more efficiently.

Wrong. Non-equivalents due to nature of their function.

The skill is active. The gear is passive. You equip the gear and forget about it. You have to ACTIVATE the actual skill in combat. You might. You might not. But it has no effect if you don’t use it, unless it comes with a passive effect (see signets).

If I hit you with spiked gloves my strike will hit harder… but it will deal no damage at all unless I choose to hit you. The choice to hit is a skill. The glove is a passive gear-piece.

You may be able to overcome the hit with a block that negates all damage (active skill), a dodge that means it never lands (active skill), or a helmet that absorbs the spikes (passive) but those aren’t categorically the same function of skill mitigation.

Your argument is really lacking.

killcannon.2576:

Progression does not deal with the outcomes of battles or how you fight the battle, but with the mechanics in how you got to the battle in the first place. Was the player always able to fight this battle from the beginning, or did they have to acquire things in order to fight it? In both cases from your examples, they had to travel vertically to get there.

We already said unlocking skills is vertical unless you’re given every skill at the start. So you’re arguing a moot point you already agreed on to boost a bad argument.

You can’t progress past the battle if you don’t have the damage from your skills AND your passive stat gear in … World of warcraft, Aion, Ragnarok Online, Tera… So unlocking is a vertical, gear is also a vertical…

But the choice of how you execute skills is a horizontal which also determines win or loss, but you WON’T EVER beat the DPS meter if your item score is -500 points under required item score, no matter what combination of skills you use.

killcannon.2576:

If Horizontal, then I could get there whenever I want, without doing anything extra. For you it’s about “How much?” or “How steep?” When instead it’s a binary choice.

If EVERY game has BOTH aspects, then the ONLY question is HOW MUCH of each aspect do they have.

It isn’t a binary because you can’t play a video game that doesn’t have both aspects unless its an RNG version of rock paper scissors or a fighting game with all characters pre-unlocked.

Name a purely vertical video game, where any skill combination makes no difference.

Now name a purely horizontal video game, where any gear combination makes no difference (it has to have a gear system… no “street fighter”).

You’ll find both somewhat difficult. You can play with semantics as much as you want to, your argument is still terrible. Because its not binary and you know that. It’s categorized by which system takes precedence.

As an example to the last point: A person in Tera/WoW with an item score of 50 will never beat an evenly skilled person playing the same class with the same skills and an item skill of 150. They might kill someone severely less skilled (to the point of moronic-ness) but they will simply never overcome the passive difference against same class, same skill, same experience with combinations/rotations. That’s vertical.

In gw1 they would have had a chance to do that, all else equal, since the gear score was completely even in PVP arenas. That’s horizontal.

Hell even need for speed has vertical progression. If i’m racing someone exactly as good on seabring as me, and they roll bugatti and I have only civic unlocked, i’m going to lose. Its only when we’re both in equally upgraded bugatti’s that you’ll see horizontal come into play due to “power up” (EMP, shockwave, spike strip, etc) selection.

killcannon.2576:

Sorry, but you’re the one who changed the yard stick.

You’re saying it’s ONLY VP when it’s gear, and NOT VP when it isn’t. Even if both amount to the exact same thing.

If I need X skill in order to complete content or if X skill makes it easier to complete content and if not everyone has X skill from character creation, that is indeed vertical progression. Just not stat gear based.

You gave an example of gear based Vertical progression, which is only a type not it’s entirety.

Whether it is shallow VP or steep is irrelevant.

Wrong. Read again.

I didn’t say its ONLY VP if its gear… I said its VP if its ONLY gear. Unless you’re playing a game where the only factor is what weapon you have and its passive attack power, you’re not playing a purely vertical game. All games have both horizontal/verticle elements.

What defines the category is which one primarily determines the outcome of competition.

" If I need X skill in order to complete content or if X skill makes it easier to complete content and if not everyone has X skill from character creation, that is indeed vertical progression. Just not stat gear based."

You just said EXACTLY, what I said when I typed…

“Yes, You may have to UNLOCK said abilities in horizontal games, making them slightly vertical in nature depending one what requirement is placed on acquisition but…”

So… ? Again, it is which one primarily determines the outcome of competition.

Oh… and almost no game is purely vertical or purely horizontal. Even games like mass effect, half life, counter strike, battlefield, etc… have both arguably vertical and horizontal elements.

Because people in this thread keep trying to change the yardstick to fail at making points:

Vertical Progression… is most widely/commonly defined in the gaming industry as gear or level based differences in player ability. See Aion, Tera, Ragnarok Online, World of Warcraft, which make you swap out entire gear sets each patch to retain competitive viability even if you used the same skills.

Horizontal Progression is most widely/commonly defined in the gaming industry as ability/skill/attribute combination based differences in player ability. See GW1 (to some degree), see LOL, see EVE, which made you swap out skill combinations (aka builds) to retain competitive viability even if you used the same gear.

Yes, You may have to UNLOCK said abilities in horizontal games, making them slightly vertical in nature depending one what requirement is placed on acquisition but…

The horizontal games still shy away from gear for power and more towards making the result of combat or competition, be it pve or pvp, a result of “what skills are you using, and how are you using them”, and NOT “what are you wearing, and how much power/critical rate/critical damage/vitality/PVP damage/PVP defense”. That’s where vertical games are.

Horizontal games rely primarily on active skill/experience/combination to show differences in power. Vertical games rely primarily on passive effects, such as gear or level based statistics to show differences in power.

Stop trying to be clever by changing the yardstick, when everyone here has made it pretty clear they’ve played enough MMO’s to know better, RPG based or not.

Also: Any game which shows a degree of power creep which can not be eliminated by using the game’s original development skills wisely, leans toward being a vertical progression game.

Lévis.5489:

The funniest thing is if you want to do anything in the city, you need to slip the zerg . And yet people just try to zerg everything.

Miroe.2054:

1. In “escape” you can search for survivors solo or in a small group
2. If your class is “boring” to solo, accept the zerg or reroll
3. I you want rewards, spread out, look for survivors and converge at events when they appear near you, then spread out again. The reward scales with the number of rescued citizens

How to “Escape from LA”:
1) Character Select: Guardian
2) Equip Staff. Follow the Zerg.
3) Spam 1 + heals + virtues + stability/aegs/regen shouts
4) Collect tons of loot. (138 Bags of Alliance Supplies last run + Full inventory normal drops)
5) Bring Mystic Salvage kit + black lion merchant + Storage Golem/Access Key.

No skill. All zerg. All reward.

Would trade it all back in for an expasion of Cantha, Elona, or the rest of Tyria (ring of fire, magumma wastes, deldrimor front, blood legion homelands, far shiverpeaks, scavenger’s causeway, crystal deserts, Isle of janthir) at exclusively L80 content…

plus new pvp modes that aren’t conquest with gimmicks or zerg vs. zerg.

Story line was terrible, content temporary, mostly no skill button mash to get credit on mobs for achievements, super zergy.

If they made living story releases group-instances that picked up where personal story left off, required completion to start the next one, and was re-playable… then maybe. They could still have added in open world boss things like 3 wurms or Teq update. But they didn’t.

Copying this post from that thread made by “Trivia” on the second page because accuracy.

Trivia

I study literature. I’m a critical writer. I know a thing or two about storytelling. You want to know how I would do it better? Alright, here goes, some points off the top of my head in no particular order:

1. I would make Scarlet react to the player and address them directly to give them more sense of involvement and immersion. This was their chance to make up for the whole Trahearne situation where he took away the role of the protagonist from the player. Instead they chose to have several protagonists, which in practice means no protagonists, and the player just feels bloody invisible.

2. Making a villain seem super smart by making everyone else idiots is no way to establish her as a threat. Seriously, how did the Whispers not got onto her? How did Lionguard not notice bloody airships flying out of a secret factory located behind the waterfall? How did the Krytan engineers not notice that their robots were being tampered with on such a level?

3. Speaking of robots, I would not make my killer weapon of murder a giant robot with huge kittens and high heels because that’s a) ridiculous and b) unnecessary fanservice that’s not even sexy, it’s just creepy

4. Monologuing is a crappy way for a villain to express her achievements. It feels crass, overdone, and clumsy. If you want us to see that Scarlet is awesome, show it. Have other people talk about her. Make the players witness a war council where the important people discuss the threat. Let them take part. It doesn’t even have to be voiced, it needs to be well written. Let us find notes from the people she duped. Let us talk to a Fire Legion shaman before a climatic point where he rages about how she duped him. They did a bit of that in the Tower of Nightmares where you could overhear npcs talking about her. That was the step in the right direction.

5. MAKE HER DO SOMETHING GODkitten SIGNIFICANT. Kill an important character. Anything. Do not just let her come with unlimited resources and get defeated for no reason. God.

6. Stop her from appearing so much. Bloody hell. If she’s meant to be behind the scenes schemer, keep her behind the scenes. Make her appearances something rare and menacing. Right now she’s just a cheap annoyance that does stupid taunts. That’s not threatening. That’s not plucky. It just makes my ears bleed.

I can go on. Really.

Yes. This is why the LS is a mess. Also…

ZigZag

Oh and don’t forget:

7: Under no account allow your villain to escape a confrontation by casually walking away and vanishing through a portal while everyone else stands by doing nothing, only to have them remark on how awesome she is for escaping! It is never ok to mock the player for a failure they couldn’t have possibly avoided if the failure is as logic defyingly stupid as standing there slack jawed while the villain monologues and escapes.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Both of you are a big part of the problem. Anet only looks at metrics, then interprets them incorrectly.

Repeat that sentence to yourself.

They’re interpreting it incorrectly …but we are the problem?

(This of course ignores the dozens of “living story sucks” threads we’ve seen and had dev response to on the forums which proves they don’t only look at metrics)

And no I won’t sacrifice AP points/laurels/chests. I’ll be part of the massive negative feedback they’re getting. I shouldn’t have to pick between AP and quality content, that’s stupid.

Cassio.9507:

It was packed for the wrong reasons. The majority of the player base, even mildly interested in AP accumulation, were forced to go in there and participate. I hardly enjoyed it, but considering the truckload of achievement points I would’ve otherwise missed, it would put my other efforts related to AP accumulation to shame. It’s sad when a game starts to become about achievements, but let’s face it, most of the LS zerging was sadly only about just that…

This is me. I’m currently farming the LS for achievement points so I can get through chests faster, so I can get the laurels that come from chests, so I can get ascended armor/weapons on my guard/theif/mesmer.

The storyline is horrid and I’ve spent it wondering what happened to the team responsible for gw1.

cheshirefox.7026:

trahearnes coffin :0 that dastardly wench

If scarlet killed trahearne and then I got to kill scarlet…

best living story update. perfect ending 10/10.

Belzebu.3912:

Humans have a lot of cultural references, the Krytans specifically are more like south americans imo, darker skin, near a forest region and beaches. Ascalonians are the europeans, Orrians are more like arabic culture, Elonians are Africa based and Canthans are asians.

I agree with this with one particular disagreement.

In Elona, Vabbi was Arabic. Its easily seen in their clothes buildings and armor. Kourna was Sub-Saharan+Ethiopian, and Istan was some carribean/egyptian. The desolation was very Egyptian.

My Thief in her brand spanking new ascended armor. Looks great in the right dye channels but looks so horrible in the wrong ones.

9/10. Looks like a Prince from a Disney Movie.

My thief main, Rinoa Liae. I wanted her to look cute but serious, and like she’s Tyrian but like her ancestors had a bit Canthan in them.

My Thief in her brand spanking new ascended armor. Looks great in the right dye channels but looks so horrible in the wrong ones.

I hope not. But probably yes. If I am done with ascended gear and legendary I will rage quit the day I hear of it and have to regear my mesmer/guard/thief from scratch at a new level. I didn’t buy guildwars to gear treadmill.

Ursan.7846:

Enokitake.1742:

You don’t have to … if you’re willing to be at a power disadvantage in most of gw2’s content.

Whereas before you did not have to, and were never at a real power disadvantage in GW1 except a very limited selection of minor content that wasn’t really important.

I’m sorry, but I mained an IMBAGon. Rocked it in practically everything I played. Your insistence at calling the PvE skills “minor” is very, very annoying.

You keep on trying to insinuate that the power creep in GW1 is somehow minor and unimportant. No sir, it was very important.

“Real” power advantage? A r4 IMBAgon was clearly inferior to an r6 IMBAgon. A r4 Asuran would deal less DPS than an r6 Asuran due to Asuran scan. Is this not a “real” power advantage? Of course I didn’t need r6 in the majority of the content (Missions, vanquishes), but I don’t need ascended for the majority of content in GW2 either (Dynamic events, world bosses).

I mean, player A has grinded out titles, and a few of his skills are more powerful than player B, who didn’t grind out titles. Player A is objectively more powerful than player B. This is a fact, just like how ascended gear, despite being only a 5% stat increase, is still an objective advantage in terms of stats.

“You don’t have to grind titles…If you don’t mind being at a power disadvantage due to some of your skills doing less in GW1”

“You did not have to, and the power disadvantage really doesn’t matter unless you do this minor content called WvW in GW2.”

I understand you dislike GW2’s grind and prefer GW1’s grind, but can you please stop spreading this misinformation?

I don’t deny power creep existed in gw1. And yes, a R4 imbagon was clearly disadvantaged to an R8. But what he was disadvantaged at is a far smaller amount of content than ascended armor. I don’t think you get why I’m saying it’s “minor”.

The skills were used to farm items that were exactly the same in performance as every other item in the game. The items didn’t do more damage. The items didn’t kill better. They weren’t better in alliance battle. The end result was the same, only prettier.

So you max the titles to do well in PvE, you PvE to get cash, other titles, and items that are exactly the same as everyone else’s except for looks. It’s very easily skipped.

The skills/titles were limited in other ways, like you can only have 3 on your bar, sometimes only certain mob types will take damage, etc.

You didn’t need imbagon for the missions/vaquishes in gw1. Just like you don’t need ascended gear for the majority of casual PVE. But we said before that the problem was how far beyond that ascended gear goes.

It would be like going into speed clears at R4. Then going into dungeons hard mode at R4. Then going into fissure at R4.

…Then going on your R4 into Alliance Battle/Jade Quarry/Fort Aspenwood and fighting teams with R8 Imbagon.

How fast do you think they’d ask you to rank up? How big a disadvantage do you think you’d be at?

That’s what I was getting at with the “minor”. The grind is still optional, but the consequences for not doing one are far higher than they are for the other. One was far more optional than the other. Especially when the end result for GW1 was a reward that was the same.

Of course in GW1 even ANET realized even adding those things was a mistake and lowered the amount of work you had to do to cap out sunspear/kurz/luxon skill effectiveness.

Phy.2913:

I haven’t compared the two at all, I’ve only stated that it existed (grind in GW1). I’ve been discussing the grind in GW2, and the perceived “forced” grind of slightly higher stats.

I said multiple posters, which does not mean only you. I should’ve said when we’ve discussed it. My bad.

Phy.2913:

The comparison is irrelevant.

…been made relevant since being mentioned multiple times by multiple posters. Its too late to call it irrelevant when you’ve discussed it for 2+ pages.

Phy.2913:

It doesn’t matter how much or little grind GW1 had, it’s completely irrelevant to GW2.

…until they’re being directly compared.

…in a thread.

…on the GW2 forums.

Phy.2913:

Once again, this isn’t GW1.

…except it doesn’t matter, because it’s still relevant to original post’s topic. You’re in a GW1 thread, you should expect to read about it.

Phy.2913:

You don’t have to grind for anything, and if you can buy your way through it negates the complaint.

Being able to buy power is a completely different argument.

You don’t have to … if you’re willing to be at a power disadvantage in most of gw2’s content.

Whereas before you did not have to, and were never at a real power disadvantage in GW1 except a very limited selection of minor content that wasn’t really important.

Which is why the grind between gw1 and gw2 is completely different.

…which is the counter-argument of the original post of the thread.

That difference still exists EVEN WHEN you can skip it by dropping $500 in the gem store.

Do you need it explained again?

Phy.2913:

So then nothing in the game is a grind, and you can buy power. What’s the problem again? If you want to play GW1, go play Gw1.

No. Read better.
1) You have to grind for power differences that affect almost every area of the game, whereas gw1 you didn’t and it was ultimately only for cosmetics, or optionally for another store of currency like said.
2) You can buy your way OUT of grinding for power differences with a credit card.

There’s the problem.

Phy.2913:

Enokitake.1742:

Phy.2913:

You can buy exotics and skip the crafting part.

And still be at a power disadvantage, moot point.

Anyone at 79 or lower is at a disadvantage.

Can’t buy level 80 with gold or credit card …Or actually you can from gem -> gold -> crafting, gg.

Either way they shouldn’t be in WvW, and they’re not in sPVP. Already said that.

Gw1 max Level was 20, and you could only pvp in level capped arenas. Your pvp chars were perma 20 and used only max stat gear.

Ashabhi.1365:

I am talking about endless speed clearing of UW for ectos, or running Gates of Anguish for Armbraces of Truth, or grinding for Zaishen keys….Why? To use them as currency for other items.

You didn’t have to grind for them.

I hit 100k several times, you know what I did?

I sat in town and bought ectos, ruby, sapphires, obbys, and minis.

Other people grinded them for me.

Everyone that grinds it out, chose to do it.

Phy.2913:

You can buy exotics and skip the crafting part.

And still be at a power disadvantage, moot point.

Phy.2913:

You can buy your way to 500, but you can only buy a small portion of the actual materials. Besides, if it’s so easy, why the complaints?

…Because you shouldn’t be able to buy power differences with mom and dad’s credit card?

(hey, there’s another difference in the game, no convert to gold option, can only buy skins)

Type in deldrimor steel ignot, deldrimor steel plated dowel, elonian leather square in the trade broker and see what comes up. There’s your bulk of materials. The only thing you can’t buy is the vision crystal, but you can get it pretty easily if you follow champ trains, WvW trains, and PvE boss trains. I did my theif’s second ascended dagger two days after her first, cause I said kitten grinding and dropped 60g.