Guild Wars 2

Condas is right, you’ve got to measure everything and then also factor in long-term sustain which is sort of a buffer room to make mistakes in.

Guardians have a higher buffer room to make mistakes in, but they deal less damage so if they get kited they would just die the same if they can’t kill the enemy target.

Warriors, are a balanced class, but they also require spot-on calculations in regards to having to either kill the guy, run away, or die yourself with no buffer room whatsoever to heal in (shouts heal is an exception). But the advantage is they do more damage and thus contribute more. This isn’t to say Guardians contribute less (although the harsh reality is they probably contribute slightly less in terms of offensive capabilities). Guardians help their teammates more and probably defend and control locations better since they don’t die much and have to run all the way back.

The thing is if things were perfectly balanced then every role would be balanced and would just differ in dynamics. But the thing is, there are imbalances due to either poor game design, or the dynamic factor when a human being is performing intuitive actions since it’s hard to calculate everything dead-on.

So if you’re saying which is harder to play, I’d go with Guardian in terms that a Guardian really doesn’t contribute that much other than heal or tank or provide control for his team, but in terms of not ever dying a Guardian is also easier to play then.

However, this is a solo-type game and it isn’t impossible for a Guardian to do substantial amounts of damage and contribute offensively. This is where GW2 differs.

how about just introducing new shouts

OP, I believe you are a veteran, however if you’re going to turn this game into WoW, you might as well have the developers give you the Sword of Judgement at lvl 1 and just turn everything you see in front of you into dust in a matter of seconds.

The point is not to make the game easy, to the contrary, it’s to make the game as challenging as possible but still balanced for all skill levels.

Don’t you want to feel a sense of accomplishment when you achieve something? Sure, you’ll be let down from time to time, but that’s in the nature of things.

Yeah, this is what a lot of people don’t get, because in the end ANet can do things the WoW way and even better since their level-scaling is more linear and moderate. It’s very easy for ANet to just do things the regular vertical progressive way and just introduce higher and higher level caps with new encounters. But obviously, this is not the way to go.

The real issue is if they can sustain their current design with their business model, which I believe is possible, but they’d have to sort of first figure out how to go about this new business model effectively and gain even more than just a regular-sub based model which is sort of a selfish thing. If i come up with a solution as to how to effectively go about with this new business model i’ll post it but they have their business people on this.

Actually, it’s less grindy, because you’d be doing the same thing for each individual new encounter or content release. Isn’t this what people want anyway, just more content to do? Think about what I’m saying, because it’s the truth. If those raiders really wanted the levels upon level and stats upon stat increases it’s more of a glory points issue isn’t it? So ultimately, if you think about it, my ideas offer an entrance to a whole new method for dealing with vertical progression, while still giving it the same essential quality.

This isn’t artificial at all, it’s essentially the same. I don’t think my ideas are all too bad, they offer some insight into a new direction. So don’t just take them word for word superficially.

Ascended is wrong, I’m not sure what you’re trying to get at with your last few words. Vertical progression is wrong period, the only way to promote more equality for the different play styles is to have it intrinsically built-in from the start. All that increasing levels upon levels would do is make it so that lower levels can no longer catch up, also you would be one-shotting older content eventually. This is highly unstable and ruins things. Well aside from just talking about vertical progression which I think a lot of people realize the extreme wrongness of.

How about this, for every additional level they would’ve gained beyond the fixed level cap, they get a new stat called Phantom Accumulated Level. The effective level would be the fixed level cap or the effective level at which they have been scaled down to match the new boss encounter. The accumulated or true level assignment would be their total accumulated levels that would’ve happened over time and this can be capped too and is merely cosmetic.

The idea is that increasing stats upon stats is wrong, and it does nothing but destroy things, literally. I hope you understand what I’m saying here, because it literally does nothing to bolster gameplay. If you want the same stat feeling it can be shown and even hovered over your character, however it is completely wrong to reintroduce vertical progression and continue developing on that premise as an mmo dev.

The way to make a character still have progression, but have a stopping point would be to
stress the issue of power development as a means not to increase power for the sake of power but to balance the game ultimately
This acts like a slope, early on you play more, you get more increases you become more OP than the other guy who plays less, later on it gets more and more slight but you still get power but it serves not to throw the game out of balance but to balance it. Also this slope mixes well with skill because by then you’d have a lot of practice.

adding dynamic skills to balance out the game while intentionally making some things early on imbalanced, serves as a process to not only balance out the game for the future, but to make it so that character progression can serve to enhance the power of said character and also to progress it. But these would be slight changes that favor balance rather than strictly for adding power, the power is fixed, but the idea is to intentionally put in some imbalance early on, to allow for character progression later on which ultimately serves to balance the game through slighter and slighter changes with dynamic loot.

This also acts in the inherent nature of horizontal development.

check this kitten out: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/The-Integration-of-Holy-and-Solo-Trinities-1/first#post978759

Note that for all of these new mechanics, it wouldn’t be a problem even if some random guy did a run-by and decided to tag you with a heal because the premise is that you would be doing more damage than the mob does to you in the first place if you wanted to kill it. It would probably be frustrating and annoying since it would draw out the time required to kill the mob if the tagger exploited it continuously, but then you can just set an option to deny all heals from said player. Same with a dpser helping bring down a mob for his solo friend all too quick, as long as you make the mobs/bosses tougher it should solve this exploitation problem. The issue once again is not making OP mixes of soloers/trinity classes. For the tank, once again the mob would gain the hardened attribute and this is in line with the principle that if you want to gain more significantly more protection, you’re also drawing the fight out significantly longer.

Once again, the holy trinity characters would be able to lvl just the same solo. The holy trinity simply emerges at endgame, where the discrepancy materializes. Do not get this wrong, you can definitely still lvl up like in WoW. Still, the holy trinity issue has already been solved by ANet by introducing the solo-trinity.

The traditional holy trinity roles should probably be introduced by the way of new classes. (think Purifier, Protector, and Sage as prototypes)

Also, separate the solo classes from the holy trinity classes, this way there’s a distinct barrier. The solo classes will be called The Heroics. The holy trinity classes would be called the something like The Trendsetters, or The Trinities. Ultimately, the idea is that an ideal raid group of all highly skilled solo players will require a lot of skill. And yes, in the end the “trio” characters will require assistance from either solo players or a complete holy trinity formation. This is not bad because it’s what the holy trinity players wanted in the first place anyway.

This is all balanced.

I think given enough time I would also be able to solve questions revolving around the rock, paper, scissors issue in RTS games such as the original starcraft: bw. However, for now solving major issues in mmos is fine enough for me.

1. The pure dps-role has alot more damage, but only one dodge bar and very low endurance regeneration. Work out the aggro tables on this one. However, he has a “third unique aspect/ability” which is to be able to reduce aggro on himself thereby making the boss run to his location while giving other people time to damage it and then making the boss run back to his location. However, this again has to be balanced out because what we want is stability and not OPness. So, whenever the dps-role reduces aggro on himself the boss becomes pacified for a moment and the dpser is safe and it seems to be about aggro control. I’m not sure how the dps aggro works in WoW raids or traditional holy trinity mmos but it’s something like that however I’m missing the details but ANet should be clear on the dps role mechanics in holy trinities. It should be about the same, because in the end the dpser is going to have no tank to draw aggro away from him if he’s only combining himself with a solo class. But if you’re still worried, then incorporate a mechanic where the boss once again is made tougher by gaining the longevity attribute which increases his health pool. But at this point you absolutely wouldn’t introduce a mechanic where he’d do more damage to the surrounding teammates. That would be an undesirable mechanic for the dpser’s solo teammates. Once again, this isn’t OP if the mob gains longevity because mobs are measured so that they’re defeatable and not impossible. So for dpsers essentially they’re sacrificing a solo slot for a dps character and if the dps character does enough damage while having the solo classes still be able to control the mob/boss, then the dps character can outproduce the longevity buff the mob/boss receives with higher damage. Once again the drawback however is you’re sacrificing a balanced solo slot and you’re also running the potential of drawing lots of aggro to you if you only party with solo members because you have no tank drawing it away from you.

2. The tank role would be extremely tough and have no dodge and re-introduce the taunt, but then also make it so that whenever the mob/boss is successfully taunted he’d gain a buff called anger and gain hardened attribute which would grant him armor and make him take significantly less damage overall as long as the aggro is still on the tank (you could make it so that the buff remains activated a little while longer even after aggro shifts from the tank to prevent distance manipulation), this might seem like the same thing but in reality it’s not because the dynamics are still there as a differentiating factor and you’d still have rely on your solo/holy trinity teammates as a result of your choosing one of the holy trinity characters (which rely on other characters supporting them, remember). (low chance for taunt to fail and result in the dismissal condition where the mob builds high continuous aggro on the tank’s teammates). But even if the tank setup proves to be invincible it’s not really an issue as it’s going to be infinitely slower anyway and you could argue that killing a chicken repeatedly would get you to lvl 80 just the same. It’s the dynamics that matter.

3. For the healer role you’d have alot of heal and regen for all party members. However, to prevent this from being exploited by soloers, the solo classes will have reduced healing and regeneration the more burst heals and more heals over time they get from the designated healer. This is called pride, and it’s unique to the solo class, but it also goes away after awhile as long as the healer stops healing for awhile. This means the soloer will still have to rely on skill. Also, the healer wouldn’t be contributing any damage at all. Also, the mob incurs a fountain attribute meaning the energies flowing from nearby heals has affected the monsters and has allowed him to heal slightly also based on how much healing was done. This means the soloers will still have to dodge. This allows the healer to not just be able to freely heal anybody while everybody just solos and dodges the boss with the current solo-trinity.

Let’s take a look at what the holy trinity implies. The holy trinity implies that the dps role makes sure that the boss is taken down before the tank dies and goes straight for the dps guy and wipes the entire raid. That’s his role, to do damage. The tank makes sure he sucks up damage by keeping the damage on him rather than his party. This is his role, to soak up damage. The healer makes sure the entire party has heal sustain. This is his role, to add back missing hp. These are all #‘s, but the holy trinity has for a long time created depth and dynamics and made it fun. The idea is to create a boss that’s defeatable by the holy trinity, based on #’s calculation, and not make it pure mathematical which would be impossible since pros let alone beginners would have a hard time making perfect calculations. This is why the holy trinity existed, to give people an easier time to make calculations and to add depth because they have things to fall back on instead of making it a pure 2-dimensional #"s game. With the holy trinity of the past, you could not defeat a boss without relying on all three. But now with the newly emerged solo trinity, you can defeat a boss by yourself. But, combined with the holy trinity it adds even more depth given the correct mechanics, because the holy trinity combined with the solo trinity adds a unique third element: that is that the boss itself becomes stronger in some way/shape/or form, see below. The real ideal here is that if the solo character or a group of solos are able to do it alone, then the holy trinity characters able to do it too. The only difference is that the holy trinity characters do it slower, but they are more certain with their victory. Thus, solo characters will forever remain a skill-based class, whereas the holy trinity characters will remain a stat and numbers calculation class in order to succeed.

The tricky thing here to consider is how to balance out the holy trio with the solos so that they don’t end up in an OP mix: simple mechanics to balance this so that it mixes well with the current solo trinity and not break the game would be:

The dps role really has slightly lesser OP effect when combined with solo classes because all it does is take down the boss faster while not affecting the overall survivability of the group, it still remains the same because you’re sacrificing a would-be solo teammate slot. Tank and healer roles however are different and must be measured because they allow for the tank or healer to continuously provide OP support for the solo classes.

I think with this post, I am just theorycrafting at this point:

I think a third option is available as long as the devs make it so that skill-based characters have the same twitch-based HP pool that they currently have which is low and that the new holy trinity characters have either more damage/less hp, a lot more hp/armor but medium damage, and high heal or regen but low damage/medium hp. It doesn’t mean they have to draw out fights or make the hp bars bigger, but they do have to stabilize it some for the holy trinity characters and I’ll explain why because these trinity characters will rely more on stability than on skill, it’s only a very slight and minor difference however.

I don’t think it has to be an either/or issue, for example:

A pure dps trinity character, would do well lvling on early game in the current GW2 structure (prior to HP pool stabilization/modification that would be required), but slow down later on, since they have a lower health pool. The tank role would be a balanced class I guess sort of but still slightly slower than skill-based solo classes. The healer class would be slow overall, but more steady. These are all just examples.

Currently it is an either/or issue: however,

The holy trinity characters should be reintroduced on the basis that for solo content, they should be able to do it solo as well, but for bosses that require more players the holy trinity would have to work with other solo/holy trinity members in order to succeed. For instance, if a boss requires two people, then the holy trinity character either works with an added solo member, or another holy trinity character. The difference here is that all characters are still soloable, including holy trinity characters. This modification is necessary since it would be unfair for holy trinity characters since there exist soloers. But holy trinity characters will excel in their own roles, but at a slower, more drawn-out pace in order to reintroduce boundaries. How slow the pace becomes in the end is not an issue because it’s just a matter of the length of time ANet wants for HP bars to go down.

The solo trinity should still require skill just like it currently is. The ideal solo players would be highly skilled in order to take advantage of this and be able to play a great solo class. The holy trinity can be reintroduced and the ideology behind that would be that it would be a back-up plan, be slightly slower, but be easier to control and more certain and give more time for players to think instead of continuously dodging. This would allow for PUGS to be made more easily, and a more steady method for acquiring wealth over time. However it would be more of a stat calculation game once again like in WoW raids.

You can add back in the holy trinity, and keep the current “solo” trinity to (dps/control/support) to develop a perfected trinity: dps+dps dodge/tank+control/healer+support. Obviously the key thing to note is that dps dodge/control/support is the current unique-solo role, and dps/tank/healers would be the traditional roles that rely on each other to succeed. It would just be a matter of balancing so that one doesn’t become invincible through any particular role (such as an OP healer which in theory would be able to kill any boss given enough time unless that boss has regeneration as well, or a pure-dps role which would be OP since there are too many control skills in the game which would allow for an OP mix.

Ridgeblader.7135:

Whats so great about waiting around for three hours trying to get the right group or even an interested group together that then goes to kill a giant frost worm for exclusive gear that you can’t get besides raiding which in turn locks people into having to raid for gear…..its a vicious cycle that is many hours of tedium followed by a few brief moments of pleasure. If I wanted that I would go back to work for another 8 hours instead of heading home to play guild wars.

Fanatic is right, except he is simply not providing an accurate enough answer:

If you solve the issue of Vertical Progression, then the treadmill problem will no longer exist, raids can happen, and anything can happen: check out my thread on a reverse engineering approach, why aren’t people looking at my thread I don’t get it?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Solving-the-issue-of-vertical-progression/first#post977704

From this quote:

By the way, I made a post on the WoW forums a long time ago, concerning level scaling. I’m glad that ANet has incorporated this into their game thus far. But I believe it can be stretched even further than just an enjoyability factor for older content. Older content can give renewed loot and purpose. The higher level you are the more it scales to give you better chances to kill easy mobs to get higher-end loot matching your level. This plays on dynamics very well.

Furthering the abilities of the lvl-scaling innovation:

In order to renew and provide continued interest in older/lower-lvl mob areas permanently:

For instance, the drop rates would be modified so that they would be extremely low, however if a character is able to chain dynamic skills very well he could take advantage of those low lvl areas as a lvl 80 and gain more than the steady rate of drops offered by regular lvl 80 mobs. This is a generic play on dynamics. And it is also quite balanced. Skillful players will be rewarded accordingly, and less-skilled players will suffer a bit more, but this is generally how it is. As with any design work, the devs will balance such skill discrepancies out themselves so as to prevent balance from going through the roof. This is the concept of depth-design. The idea presented with “evening the playing field” as found in some previous game designs such as Starcraft 2 was incorrect because it eventually didn’t allow for skill progression at all. The way you even the playing field for more skilled and less skilled players is essentially just an ordinary balance problem, if highly skilled players are rewarded too much and it generates too large of a gap, that is just a mere balance problem. This is not really an issue.

Taisia, that is a horrible idea that doesn’t solve anything, take a look at this thread:

In it I briefly mention what you’re talking about.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Solving-the-issue-of-vertical-progression/first#post968528

In it it says:

By the way, I made a post on the WoW forums a long time ago, concerning level scaling. I’m glad that ANet has incorporated this into their game thus far. But I believe it can be stretched even further than just an enjoyability factor for older content. Older content can give renewed loot and purpose. The higher level you are the more it scales to give you better chances to kill easy mobs to get higher-end loot matching your level. This plays on dynamics very well.

For instance, the drop rates would be modified so that they would be extremely low, however if a character is able to chain dynamic skills very well he could take advantage of those low lvl areas as a lvl 80 and gain more than the steady rate of drops offered by regular lvl 80 mobs. This is a generic play on dynamics. And it is also quite balanced. Skillful players will be rewarded accordingly, and less-skilled players will suffer a bit more, but this is generally how it is. As with any design work, the devs will balance such skill discrepancies out themselves so as to prevent balance from going through the roof. This is the concept of depth-design. The idea presented with “evening the playing field” as found in some previous game designs such as Starcraft 2 was incorrect because it eventually didn’t allow for skill progression at all. The way you even the playing field for more skilled and less skilled players is essentially just an ordinary balance problem, if highly skilled players are rewarded too much and it generates too large of a gap, that is just a mere balance problem. This is not really an issue.

By the way, why does a post like this garner more views than my engineering thread?

My thread: Solving the Issue of Vertical Progression is very important, I highly suggest people including the devs to take a look at it, it might just work or offer some insight on the treadmill problem overall (and not only renewed interest in older areas problem), I too also knew about lvl-scaling way back then already, and I’m glad the devs have incorporated it to make older areas more interesting.

Please take a look at this post Tigirius, it solves the treadmill problem:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Solving-the-issue-of-vertical-progression/first#post968053

In this case, however it’s not reinventing the wheel, it’s just improving on it and correcting inherent mistakes.

Would you rather have a wooden wheel, then a fully automated tire nowadays?

The treadmill problem isn’t impossible to solve, you’ve got it wrong.

The point is not to reinvent the wheel, but eventually perfect it. Who doesn’t want that? Game companies have always been evolving and innovating new formulas, so what you’re saying makes little sense. The goal is to perfect a certain formula, and I think this is scientific enough.

Once again refer to my formula for solving the treadmill problem via conceptual reverse engineering:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Solving-the-issue-of-vertical-progression/first#post968528

HAHA, so you were the ones Gate of Madness were banging up on, man we almost had you too along with the entire map if it wasn’t for some self-appointed lunatic who wiped our group out after the more skilled commanders left.

THANK YOU, finally a rational poster ^.

Everybody knows this, especially those who come from WoW.

Well if it’s a jack of all trades, but does nothing particularly well, then it excels in everything :/ so I don’t get what you’re saying here.

What it excels in is trying to bring in horizontal progression and solve the treadmill problem, I think that’s a pretty big deal.

Your analysis is a bit skewed and off, and it’s not really on spot.

I think the real point here is, what people are saying is at the moment this game is slightly broken, but what about future balance changes. You gotta factor that in.

Saying that something is fundamentally flawed, and thus forever incorrectable, is a fallacy.

I can tell you this as a fact, because I’ve seen it, and I know what it means to build something correctly from the get-go. I don’t think GW2 is an example of something that’s fundamentally flawed however.

And I’m definitely not some sheep.

Tigirius, you have a very incorrect viewpoint on things, casuals will like something as long as it’s very good, people all want the best things and they will take time to play it and earn things regardless of whether or not they’re casuals. What you’re trying to implement is artificial, and appealing to one-side or another while not looking at the overall balance is very bad.

Take a look at my post tigirius, would it solve your problem?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Solving-the-issue-of-vertical-progression/first#post968528

Metalripper.5406:

I don’t agree with this sentiment at all, GW2 is NOT like Ultima online or Everquest. GW2 pretty much does everything in it’s power to make grouping irrelevant. Which is completely the opposite of Everquest.

GW2 is mostly a themepark MMO, with attractions, and while the dungeon running is still a populated part of the game, WvW is the main attraction for many players. WvW is in a fundamentally different format from the rest of a game, more sandbox than themepark. And it proves that players want to effect their environment and they want the environment to effect them. It proves that players will group together because they want to achieve something, whether it be attacking a stronghold or running supplies to upgrade strongholds. I think it’s time Anet takes the training wheels off.

As for your “gear treadmill” comment, the players want what the “gear treadmill” represents, Progression. GW2 is a themepark where “everything is endgame” and you just keep going on the same rides over and over again, with no progression to speak of.

The fundamental concept of “everything is endgame” is solid, look at Battlefield and Call of duty, people spend hours and hours fighting each other. Why? There’s next to no progression.

I get what you’re saying metalripper, but try this: keeping the level cap fixed will allow players to max out all classes, this encourages newcomers.

Check my post out concerning the issue of solving the treadmill problem and introducing true horizontal progression. It involves keeping bosses at a fixed level wherever difficulty you want to place them and then artificially scaling down your character level and gear in order to simulate the added difficulty from a treadmill progression boss. The only difference is you wouldn’t be fracturing the lower levels by continuously raising the bar on stats (which in reality are only #’s). You can then scale your stats back up as a loot drop and this serves as a mechanic to simulate the feeling you get when you acquire ever-higher gear such as in WoW.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Solving-the-issue-of-vertical-progression/first#post968528

nofo.8469:

FaRectification.5678:

nofo.8469:

FaRectification.5678:

Comparing this game to Diablo 3, is like comparing Jesus to Satan, now please be quiet and be more objective. Man, I think I’m done reading these forums.

They both want to come and obliterate the human race?

Listen, the only reason why communities prefer certain games, is because they’re all kittens and they have no sense or reasoning or rational thoughts.

Check this out, they stick to each other and will stand by a game regardless of whether’s it’s bad or not simply because they’re kittens.

GW2 is a much better game than LoL, give it some time. It will build a massive community.

Know why? Because unlike other places, this community is actually a friendly one.

Lol, now I know why people keep posting the word kitten.

The only reason people prefer certain games is because people have different preferences as to what they enjoy.

In what way do you feel as though GW2 is a better game than LoL? One is a competitive PvP game the other is a themepark PvE treadmill.

I will admit the community here is rather friendly.

Why do you feel as though GW2 will build a massive community? ArenaNet hasn’t exactly shown interest in improving the unique aspects of this game or even polishing their current content.

They also hadn’t shown any signs of just how good this game turned out to be while they were giving feedback during development stages back then. I was surprised how talented they turned out to be as well.

Don’t ever judge a book by its cover.

nofo.8469:

FaRectification.5678:

Comparing this game to Diablo 3, is like comparing Jesus to Satan, now please be quiet and be more objective. Man, I think I’m done reading these forums.

They both want to come and obliterate the human race?

Listen, the only reason why communities prefer certain games, is because they’re all kittens and they have no sense or reasoning or rational thoughts.

Check this out, they stick to each other and will stand by a game regardless of whether’s it’s bad or not simply because they’re kittens. They will refuse to point out mistakes no matter what. LoL is a good game, and it has had time to smooth out its kinks, but it’s still nowhere near as innovative as GW2 currently is and will be. Also, LoL is a very very twitch-based game, and it’s kind of a little too fast-paced. But despite that it’s still balanced.

GW2 is a much better game than LoL in a very distinct aspect: namely, it’s not just trying to be different, the team behind this game actually has the talent to pull it off. Granted LoL has had more time to smooth out the kinks. Give it some time. It will build a massive community.

Know why? Because unlike other places, this community is actually a friendly one.

Do you have any idea, and have you stopped to consider just how innovative this game really is? This game is really pushing the envelope on a lot of aspects. It sort of reminds me of time I played Everquest a little. Everquest was simply astounding.

I believe with enough work they can balance things out and stabilize things.

Why don’t you stop screaming for one second, and give it some thought, do you realize how talented the devs are? Same thing goes for people just denying every aspect of Blizzard Entertainment’s true-skill matchmaking formula and just calling the overall package dumb, they call it simple stupid math when in reality it’s very unique.

Lol, now I know why people keep posting the word kitten.

Comparing this game to Diablo 3, is like comparing Jesus to Satan, now please be quiet and be more objective. Man, I think I’m done reading these forums.

Metalripper.5406:

Rift is a much different game than GW2, It’s not really a good comparison.

Has GW2 lost a chunk of players? Yes, but it’s expected as the game comes out of it’s launch. So much for GW2 being “different”.

GW2 will be okay though, there will be enough casuals and lite gamers to sustain and fill the servers, as well as the super diehard Anet fanboys, but apart from those groups, I really don’t see anyone else calling GW2 “home”.

The problem of the low level zones being completely empty presents it’s own challenges, and I’m sure ANet will figure out how to deal with it.

Just ignore these types of posters, they just exist to stir up trouble. Why don’t you give some basis to back up your claims?

I am a casual, and I’ve never really gotten into anything like this before, but this is really fun so I’d appreciate it if you’d start looking at things in the world more objectively.

Khemizt.5104:

I would highley suggest returning the game if you still can, the game is dying at an incredible rate, hacks and bots are blatantly being used, and the amount of bugs is just insane, this game is NOT a good buy in it’s current state.

Why can’t you be a little more optimistic honestly, the world isn’t such a bad place. Well, maybe I take that back, but still.

Read the above posts before typing nonsense, the game is very much alive.

If it were at all bad, I’d post it regardless of whether I’d get banned by forum mods or not. This is because I am just that honest of a guy. So why don’t you just give it a rest and give it some time.

Corvindi.5734:

FaRectification.5678:

Ryltair.2857:

The game is very much alive. I have no problem getting dungeon groups, structured PvP is filled with people, WvW always has battles going on and there’s not a zone that is empty.

The forums are a bit of a cesspool with a few people who think just because they don’t enjoy the game, it must suck for everyone.

Internet 101: Never judge a game based on the official forums.

Well said, well said.

Don’t trust the forums at all, for anything, at all. There are a lot of uneducated people here.

Actually, don’t trust the internet at all.

Don’t go trusting educated people, either. Ever heard of Enron?

Once again, well said. Try going to gokgs.com and you’ll see what kind of trash lives there, despite the fact they all come from Ivy League schools. They have no boundaries to their harassment, wonder how they can manage to keep doing the things they do at their schools and not get kicked out. It’s a board game server for an ancient Chinese board game called Go or WeiQi, where you surround stones. I went there thinking it’d be an intellectual place, came out wondering what happened to the world.

Ryltair.2857:

The game is very much alive. I have no problem getting dungeon groups, structured PvP is filled with people, WvW always has battles going on and there’s not a zone that is empty.

The forums are a bit of a cesspool with a few people who think just because they don’t enjoy the game, it must suck for everyone.

Internet 101: Never judge a game based on the official forums.

Well said, well said.

Don’t trust the forums at all, for anything, at all. There are a lot of uneducated people here.

Actually, don’t trust the internet at all.

Jski.6180:

cesmode.4257:

AcidicVision.5498:

The gear treadmill that was mentioned doesn’t exist.

Edited for brevity.

You are wrong.

Take the following into consideration:
1. According to anet, they have always planned to introduce Ascended gear.
2. According to anet, people reached legendary weapons and exotic weapons far faster than anticipated.
3. To offset #2, they introduce Ascended gear, which kind of contradicts #1. They also say that ascended is meant to bridge the gap between exotic and legendary. Exotic = Legendary. No bridge to gap. They have said this in many video interviews. Look them up. A fact. They went against their word here.
4. Assuming I dont care about the above three items, every so often..maybe 6+ months, they will introduce more ascended gear. Replacing your exotic gear. A step on the treadmill?
5. They say that they might increase the level cap for big expansions in the future. Along with that comes new gear with new stats and “ilvl”. Treadmill. A different form of treadmill, in that it is accompanied by new level, but treadmill nonetheless.

My point: It is a treadmill. They are going to increase the stats of items and upgrades in the future without increasing the stats of the gear itself. Still a treadmill, dont be naive.

With that said, still a great game even though I dont trust this developer at all to make good on their word.

That like saying reading a new story is a treadmill like thing or if they add any type of update its a type of treadmill by doing the new content.

If you do not truth them how can you trust any game to even work when you start it? Heck how can you even think that the game may not be here come the next day if you do not trust them? Lets put it this way your ONE person who has no more info then any other person other then the makers of the game how can WE trust you?

Any way ya treadmill is a compel lie that ppl have jumped on and cant get over the fact that they been proven WRONG. Its an ego thing or a trick they know to troll.

I think you’re the real troll here.

You’re not being creative with your ideas.

You’re not offering any ideas.

You’re not thinking clearly.

I’m not even going to answer this.

1. The holy trinity setup (dps, tank, healer) was thought to be mandatory in the past in the construction of a traditional MMO. I believe this to not be the case anymore. This is because with balanced development and not adding stats upon stats anymore, you no longer require the same structure as you did in the past. This might be one reason.

2. This game has a lot of potential, and this is an objective statement and not because i’m kissing up to anybody. I could care less about kissing up because I’m not a fanboy of anything. If this game really were a failure, I would say so just the same but it’s really not.

3. This is not just an action game, sure it was advertised as such, but at any time they could turn around the health pools and give it more of an EQ feel (where everything was drawn out ridiculously). You have to realize what this game is trying to accomplish, and not just look it at superficially.

4. I believe the business model, and development ideals to be sound.

5. Finally, stop saying such and such is crap or that this game will ultimately fail when it’s only your personal opinion and doesn’t account for the masses, or even take into account future gains. You can’t see into the future, you are not a prophet.

The real issue is the evil of vertical progression, with enough time they can balance out dungeons enough significantly to remove this negative aspect altogether. If they keep developing in a vertical direction, things will fly out of control, wealth-wise as well.

Wow, you’re mumbling and I have no idea what you’re saying, pls read my post before commenting as it already answers all of your questions. Thank you.

My ideas actually expand the mechanics range, and not limit them, if you read my post the point to horizontal progressive development is to expand diversity. Vertical progression is the exact opposite and just raises the bar on stats every now and then. If you just “want something to get” then read the bold text I posted above as that also answers your question. The feeling from getting more powerful loot can be easily achieved without the need for vertical progression. Horizontal progressive development stresses a new direction and “feel” for powerful loot (a simple outfit change is an example and would match similar outfit changes found in new WoW raids without the need for the actual stat increases) instead of just increasing stats blindly which accomplishes nothing. The key here is to play on dynamics and mechanics like you said.

As for your final comment, that I can agree with, but I already talked about that also in my original post (OP). They need to stabilize and draw out the lvling time span so that it’s similar to Everquest. But by doing that, you’d need a world at the same size and scale as well. For now, a simple fix solution would be to implement a system where highly-skilled players do less (in other words, scaled-down) damage to your character. The more skilled they are the more the diminishing returns on the effective increase of damage they do. This way highly skilled players are still rewarded for being skilled and they are allowed to do more damage, but then it’d also be moderated and also slow everything down and stabilize it so that the skilled player won’t be one-shotting you (or you one-shotting your way to lvl 80).

Pls note, this is not gating, and gating is a wrong concept for the most part in and of itself., except for special circumstances. Gating is something artificial and undesired and does not stress freedom for skilled players to show-off in a sandbox environment. What is ideal is to allow skilled players to progress more rapidly, but also to account for the skill factor by balancing it out accordingly and giving increasingly skilled players diminishing returns on their actions.

Ascended gear is a wrong concept, and to answer your question, you don’t solve the lvling issue by introducing ascended gear. You solve it by balancing out the actual lvling issue directly by making it slower.

Solving the Issue of Vertical Progression:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Solving-the-issue-of-vertical-progression/first#post968053

The Integration of Holy and Solo Trinities:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/The-Integration-of-Holy-and-Solo-Trinities-1/first#post978759

An exacting punishment of growth on death:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/An-exacting-punishment-of-growth-on-death/first#post983503

The importance of power in the wealth

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/The-importance-of-power-in-the-wealth/first#post990903

Character progression must have a stop-point

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Character-progression-must-have-a-stop-point-1/first#post995110

Legendary Weapons and Timeless Decay:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Legendary-Weapons-and-Timeless-Decay/first#post994347

There is also a small trick here, if you want content with an even more vertical progressive feeling, then simply apply this reverse engineering and down-scaling to a more extreme degree.*

What people don’t realize about my post here, is that this reverse engineering is just for stat-based items that you normally see in WoW, and all those do is just apply a higher tier of stats. You can still introduce new loot with interesting dynamic applications, but the idea is not to make the loot more powerful.

The key idea here to increase the power of said character is not to endlessly and vertically progress, but once having achieved said amount of vertical power (of which I believe GW2 still has room to work on such as more stable/larger health pools), perfect the smaller dynamic aspects to give said character increased versatility in a minor and balanced way. However, GW2 still needs to work on creating a game that’s not as “twitchy” in a sense by scaling down how much damage can be done by increasingly skilled players.

Vertical progression is not wrong, however the ultimate purpose when it comes down to vertical progression is merely to find the correct lvl at which to cap things and give the entire game enough staying power. After that, it’s all about horizontal progression and introducing new dynamic elements to increase interest or to push the buttons of skilled players. Increasing the power of the character even further would do nothing and would be a repetitive development direction. Giving a character more power can also be done by increasing effects.

The ultimate ideal goal for any dev would be to create a situation where perfect skill/stat calculation/depth planning or whatever you want to name it is required to beat the ultimate endgame boss. This is ideal.

This is true horizontal progressive development.

To maintain a horizontal progression development ideal, and to perfectly solve the problem of vertical progressive content:

I also made a suggestion about normal lvl scaling a long time ago in the WoW forums, and I’m glad to see ANet has implemented it, but it can be stretched even further.

The key aspect here to maintain the difficulty involved when you face a new encounter with same level gear is to scale down that gear just as they scale down your levels in lower-lvl areas. Also, the primary element to new encounters is the challenge and all that acquiring new and more stat-heavy loot does is to give a sense of power or to be able to beat the next level. It is all skill-based in the end, and introducing new dynamics to challenge the players is the way to go. When you’ve beaten the same boss enough times, then you earn points to scale your armor gradually back up as a lootable drop, and this is a customization system in and of itself because you will have to choose which stats matter more. This is essentially a simple reverse engineering approach to WoW’s lackluster vertical progression approach. In the end, it’s also about a feeling of power and cosmetics, so as new content pushes old content back, old content can still be doable by introduction of horizontal development cosmetics or enjoyability loot. There is also a small trick here, if you want content with an even more vertical progressive feeling, then simply apply this reverse engineering and down-scaling to a more extreme degree.

What people don’t realize about my post here, is that this reverse engineering is just for stat-based items that you normally see in WoW, and all those do is just apply a higher tier of stats. You can still introduce new loot with interesting dynamic applications, but the idea is not to make the loot more powerful.

The key idea here to increase the power of said character is not to endlessly and vertically progress, but once having achieved said amount of vertical power (of which I believe GW2 still has room to work on such as more stable/larger health pools), perfect the smaller dynamic aspects to give said character increased versatility in a minor and balanced way. However, GW2 still needs to work on creating a game that’s not as “twitchy” in a sense by scaling down how much damage can be done by increasingly skilled players.

Vertical progression is not wrong, however the ultimate purpose when it comes down to vertical progression is merely to find the correct lvl at which to cap things and give the entire game enough staying power. After that, it’s all about horizontal progression and introducing new dynamic elements to increase interest or to push the buttons of skilled players. Increasing the power of the character even further would do nothing and would be a repetitive development direction. Giving a character more power can also be done by increasing effects.

This way the level cap remains forever fixed, and no tearing occurs. This way the artificial difficulty can be introduced in a safe and natural way without introducing vertical progression.

The ultimate ideal goal for any dev would be to create a situation where perfect skill/stat calculation/depth planning or whatever you want to name it is required to beat the ultimate endgame boss. This is ideal.

This is true horizontal progressive development.

yes it would rehashed, the way to do it is to save all your jugs of karma or liquid karma drops and then get a karma booster and use them all at once. I am sitting on karma boosters at 20k karma at lvl 40, while having completed only a few dailies, tons of events, and 1 map completion.

So essentially keep doing dailies, as that is how you will get the jugs of karma (nearly 5k armor a shot) and karma boosters. Otherwise, this is the reason people farm karma events and go to one as soon as it’s called out.

@ASB

Well, for the progressive feeling that you’re implying, there is a workaround for that too. You could try cosmetics, as that is the last remaining element other than the technical aspects I mentioned. Am I not correct in this regard? For instance, add a fake glory bonus to your items, that would be the same as having Onyx such and such amulet for killing a great boss, or having super stats. It’s all reverse engineering, my friend.

@CMF: The idea is that the drop rates will be lowered significantly. But, if you can manipulate certain aspects well enough, such as take advantage of an intentionally placed low-level mob that will yield you high benefit if you can manage to chain attacks on it, then it will be more rewarding. More rewarding than simply attacking a lvl 80 boss in order to get legendary materials to craft a legendary, which is said to be the ultimate fixed reward. Albeit, the lvl 80 boss would give you a more steady chance overall. This is a play on dynamics. This is all theory. Of course, skill is rewarded, but skill is also a measure of exploiting dynamic elements, and the developers know this. They intentionally place things in certain locations in order for higher-skilled players to benefit and lower-skilled players to suffer if they cannot take advantage of it. This breaks things apart into high and low tiers of players. This also does not inherently ruin any balance if it was intentionally planned.

In the end, it’s all discrete. Abstractness is just a method to get there.

As for your percentage-based thing: I believe your idea is simply a different concept for regular item scaling. But of course, they could always introduce percentages into their damage calculations and level scalings.

Sorry, mods, but this might be an important post for the devs. This is why I reposted from general. You might want to sticky or save for personal use.

All aside, to solve the issue of vertical progression that has plagued many a game developer (if you want the TL;DR version skip to the bold below):

To begin,

By the way, I made a post on the WoW forums a long time ago, concerning level scaling. I’m glad that ANet has incorporated this into their game thus far. But I believe it can be stretched even further than just an enjoyability factor for older content. Older content can give renewed loot and purpose. The higher level you are the more it scales to give you better chances to kill easy mobs to get higher-end loot matching your level. This plays on dynamics very well.

I think the idea here is to perfect the game.

If higher health bars are needed, to give it an Everquest grind feel, then so be it. If it makes the game more stable and enjoyable to have mobs that take forever to kill, then so be it (especially if it gives the entire world scale and grandeur).

After this game has fulfilled what Everquest couldn’t do in its time, then we would move on.

This is the type of model all MMO development companies should take, and it is a correct approach.

When ANet has enough money and resources to work on Guild Wars 3, that’s when they can start pumping out a new Everquest type game with massive worlds, scale, and a long-long time to hit level cap just like in the original EQ. Until then I highly doubt they had the resources to do this in the beginning with GW2.

But agreed, I think it’s a bit easy to level and it doesn’t feel like an achievement, they need to stabilize that by factoring in skill adjustment. Scale how much additional damage can be done when a highly skilled player exploits all his skills to the max. This way there’s an ultimate balance with lvling speed. Not only this, but the leveling pace overall is a bit too fast, it needs to go back to EQ roots. EQ’s leveling system was very flat all-around and slow, when combined with gw2’s skill-based rewards system, it will be a good match. It’s just that the skill-based rewards to be tweaked down a little

As to how much additional vertical progression is actually needed, to perfect the game, that is up to the developers to decide on in the future.

In this vast universe of space and time, it’s hard to say whether things are limited or unlimited, but anything can definitely be perfected. Very zen and hard to swallow, but just my personal philosophy.

It’s also hard to analyze WoW’s future, as they are relying on the fact that they will be able to hold onto veteran players who will just keep doing the newest endgame content. This might be harmful in the end though, as it prevents new players from coming in.

If you want a game that will continue making money even way into the future, and not have an early sugar crash, then you have to follow moderation.

As it stands, Blizzard Entertainment has lost all respect and reputation from its players if you check the forums.

As for solving the issue of vertical progression, there are always new ideas you can try. For instance, for new content patches, xpacs, and ultimately dungeons: it has always been about the newly introduced and difficult mechanics has it not? So what can be done about this here, let’s think: you can keep your items/stats/lvl at the fixed cap and keep it remaining there. But, you introduce new and difficult things you have to do to beat the encounter.

The key aspect here also to maintain the difficulty involved when you face a new encounter with same level gear is to scale down that gear just as they scale down your levels in lower-lvl areas. Also, the primary element to new encounters is the challenge and all that acquiring new and more stat-heavy loot does is to give a sense of power or to be able to beat the next level. It is all skill-based in the end, and introducing new dynamics to challenge the players is the way to go. When you’ve beaten the same boss enough times, then you earn points to scale your armor gradually back up as a lootable drop, and this is a customization system in and of itself because you will have to choose which stats matter more. This is essentially a simple reverse engineering approach to WoW’s lackluster vertical progression approach. In the end, it’s also about a feeling of power and cosmetics, so as new content pushes old content back, old content can still be doable by introduction of horizontal development cosmetics or enjoyability loot. This way the level cap remains forever fixed, and no tearing occurs. This way the artificial difficulty can be introduced in a safe and natural way without introducing vertical progression. This is true horizontal progressive development.

There, your vertical progression problem is solved both on an abstract and discrete level

Enjoy.

All aside: to solve the issue of vertical progression that has plagued many a game developer (if you want the TL;DR version skip to the bold below):

By the way, I made a post on the WoW forums a long time ago, concerning level scaling. I’m glad that ANet has incorporated this into their game thus far. But I believe it can be stretched even further than just an enjoyability factor for older content. Older content can give renewed loot and purpose. The higher level you are the more it scales to give you better chances to kill easy mobs to get higher-end loot matching your level. This plays on dynamics very well.

To begin,

I think the idea here is to perfect the game, when they’ve fully perfected this game, they can move onto a new game model.

If higher health bars are needed, to give it an Everquest grind feel, then so be it. If it makes the game more stable and enjoyable to have mobs that take forever to kill, then so be it (especially if it gives the entire world scale and grandeur).

After this game has fulfilled what Everquest couldn’t do in its time, then we would move onto Guild Wars 3, and beyond.

This is the type of model all MMO development companies should take, and it is a correct approach.

When ANet has enough money and resources to work on Guild Wars 3, that’s when they can start pumping out a new Everquest type game with massive worlds, scale, and a long-long time to hit level cap just like in the original EQ. Until then I highly doubt they had the resources to do this in the beginning with GW2.

But agreed, I think it’s a bit easy to level and it doesn’t feel like an achievement, they need to stabilize that by factoring in skill adjustment or something. Scale how much additional damage can be done when a highly skilled player exploits all his skills to the max. This way there’s an ultimate balance with lvling speed. Not only this, but the leveling pace overall is a bit too fast, it needs to go back to EQ roots. EQ’s leveling system was very flat all-around and slow, when combined with gw2’s skill-based rewards system, it will be a good match. It’s just that the skill-based rewards to be tweaked down a little

As to how much additional vertical progression is actually needed, to perfect the game, that is up to the developers to decide on in the future.

In this vast universe of space and time, it’s hard to say whether things are limited or unlimited, but anything can definitely be perfected. Very zen and hard to swallow, but just my personal philosophy.

It’s also hard to analyze WoW’s future, as they are relying on the fact that they will be able to hold onto veteran players who will just keep doing the newest endgame content. This might be harmful in the end though, as it prevents new players from coming in.

If you want a game that will continue making money even way into the future, and not have an early sugar crash, then you have to follow moderation.

As it stands, Blizzard Entertainment has lost all respect and reputation from its players if you check the forums.

As for solving the issue of vertical progression, there are always new ideas you can try. For instance, for new content patches, xpacs, and ultimately dungeons: it has always been about the newly introduced and difficult mechanics has it not? So what can be done about this here, let’s think: you can keep your items/stats/lvl at the fixed cap and keep it remaining there. But, you introduce new and difficult things you have to do to beat the encounter.

The key aspect here also to maintain the difficulty involved when you face a new encounter with same level gear is to scale down that gear just as they scale down your levels in lower-lvl areas. Also, the primary element to new encounters is the challenge and all that acquiring new and more stat-heavy loot does is to give a sense of power or to be able to beat the next level. It is all skill-based in the end, and introducing new dynamics to challenge the players is the way to go. When you’ve beaten the same boss enough times, then you earn points to scale your armor gradually back up as a lootable drop, and this is a customization system in and of itself because you will have to choose which stats matter more. This is essentially a simple reverse engineering approach to WoW’s lackluster vertical progression approach. In the end, it’s also about a feeling of power and cosmetics, so as new content pushes old content back, old content can still be doable by introduction of horizontal development cosmetics or enjoyability loot. This way the level cap remains forever fixed, and no tearing occurs. This way the artificial difficulty can be introduced in a safe and natural way without introducing vertical progression. This is true horizontal progressive development.

There, your vertical progression problem is solved both on an abstract and discrete level

Enjoy.

I think the idea here is to perfect the game, when they’ve fully perfected this game, they can move onto a new game model.

If higher health bars are needed, to give it an Everquest grind feel, then so be it. If it makes the game more stable and enjoyable to have mobs that take forever to kill, then so be it (especially if it gives the entire world scale and grandeur).

After this game has fulfilled what Everquest couldn’t do in its time, then we would move onto Guild Wars 3, and beyond.

This is the type of model all MMO development companies should take, and it is a correct approach.

When ANet has enough money and resources to work on Guild Wars 3, that’s when they can start pumping out a new Everquest type game with massive worlds, scale, and a long-long time to hit level cap just like in the original EQ. Until then I highly doubt they had the resources to do this in the beginning with GW2.

But agreed, I think it’s a bit easy to level and it doesn’t feel like an achievement, they need to stabilize that by factoring in skill adjustment or something. Scale how much additional damage can be done when a highly skilled player exploits all his skills to the max. This way there’s an ultimate balance with lvling speed. Not only this, but the leveling pace overall is a bit too fast, it needs to go back to EQ roots. EQ’s leveling system was very flat all-around and slow, when combined with gw2’s skill-based rewards system, it will be a good match. It’s just that the skill-based rewards to be tweaked down a little

As to how much additional vertical progression is actually needed, to perfect the game, that is up to the developers to decide on in the future.

In this vast universe of space and time, it’s hard to say whether things are limited or unlimited, but anything can definitely be perfected. Very zen and hard to swallow, but just my personal philosophy.

It’s also hard to analyze WoW’s future, as they are relying on the fact that they will be able to hold onto veteran players who will just keep doing the newest endgame content. This might be harmful in the end though, as it prevents new players from coming in.

If you want a game that will continue making money even way into the future, and not have an early sugar crash, then you have to follow moderation.

As it stands, Blizzard Entertainment has lost all respect and reputation from its players if you check the forums.

As for solving the issue of vertical progression, there are always new ideas you can try. For instance, for new content patches, xpacs, and ultimately dungeons: it has always been about the newly introduced and difficult mechanics has it not? So what can be done about this here, let’s think: you can keep your items/stats/lvl at the fixed cap and keep it remaining there. But, you introduce new and difficult things you have to do to beat the encounter.

The key aspect here also to maintain the difficulty involved when you face a new encounter with same level gear is to scale down that gear just as they scale down your levels in lower-lvl areas. Also, the primary element to new encounters is the challenge and all that acquiring new and more stat-heavy loot does is to give a sense of power or to be able to beat the next level. It is all skill-based in the end, and introducing new dynamics to challenge the players is the way to go. When you’ve beaten the same boss enough times, then you earn points to scale your armor gradually back up as a lootable drop, and this is a customization system in and of itself because you will have to choose which stats matter more. This is essentially a simple reverse engineering approach to WoW’s lackluster vertical progression approach. In the end, it’s also about a feeling of power and cosmetics, so as new content pushes old content back, old content can still be doable by introduction of horizontal development cosmetics or enjoyability loot. This way the level cap remains forever fixed, and no tearing occurs. This way the artificial difficulty can be introduced in a safe and natural way without introducing vertical progression. This is true horizontal progressive development.

There, your vertical progression problem is solved both on an abstract and discrete level

Calling a target (ctrl+t default) locks the target too. Some people told me this in PvP and it works against an enemy mesmer also. Usually a mesmer will clone himself and you lose your target and you won’t ever be able to find the mesmer again because all he will do will keep cloning. With target calling it’s essentially a target lock because even if you do lose the target the mesmer will still have a giant reticle over his character.

I’m actually not sure if this was intended, probably not. But they need to add some sort of target lock otherwise call target is the only available lock for melee characters atm. Melee characters really need target lock and I’m pretty sure call target wasn’t intended to be a lock.

Also, with the OP’s post about how you should apply strafe to a+d keys, you’re going to have to use the right mouse button to turn with your mouse because the left mouse messes up your movement ’cause it “immobilizes you” (it locks your character sort of).

The idea is there’s always a best way to do things Naoko, once again, you don’t necessarily have to develop the game in a vertical direction. You can develop it in a different manner. Your evidence is useless, because you don’t take into consideration for new ideas and new ways to do things.

ahaha, i just looked up altitis, and the only definition i could find was from urbandictionary.com. this was a good laugh thank you.

Naoko, you really don’t know what you’re talking about. TLDR, once again, read my above posts, GW2 does not necessarily have to be an action game. You have got the wrong idea.

From one of my above posts:

“This isn’t to say you can’t fix lvl caps, for instance if lvl caps were set too low, then you could always set them higher in a content patch or an expansion and that would fix the issue. But that isn’t vertical progression, it is just raising the lvl and stat cap to meet the original balance plan. If they wanted longer lvling times, they could always raise the caps at any time they wanted to. Same goes for larger health pools on mobs (so that they die slower) to give it an Everquest feel, but combined with action-oriented components as well.”

Think a little before you attack those who speak the truth Naoko, or you’ll regret it.

These are the purists, and the theorists. These guys were at work long before, and they have the correct approach, so you guys should listen to their ideas (I’m not talking about ANet, I’m talking about the WoW newbs out there). They knew the correct direction to take things in long before your time.

Horizontal progression is this theory. It also balances things overall right from the get-go, and you wouldn’t have all the hassled balance problems Blizzard has with WoW.

By incorporating perfect overall theory, you already have perfect initial balance. From there you can add variety and more detailed components to perfect things even further and add interest. It is the correct direction to take things.

With vertical progression, you’re not adding additional detail, you’re just raising the level caps and focusing on that content, and not making your existing world even more interesting or building upon it to introduce new elements.

So all in all, vertical progression is completely wrong, and horizontal progression allows for a world to be detailed further constantly. This would make for a much more detailed mmo than realized with certain past games. It would also live up to past ideals/visions. So this is nothing minor or trivial, and ANet has to get this right if they really want to take things to a new level.

Who really wants a lackluster environment with no details such as found in WoW with only vertical progressive content to participate in?
Nobody.

And I am typing all this because it is interesting to talk theory. Having perfect theory down gets rid of the need to fuss over all of the messy details.

Someone once told me, that theory and practice was a dialectical. If I was to at least apply pure theory, without the need for practice, then he said we could finally agree. Try and think about what this means, and don’t be like those arrogant jerks out there who only take practice to be important.

this is incredibly funny, and also ridiculous, please don’t make this happen

Horizontal progression isn’t impossible. People who aren’t smart enough don’t realize that a game can develop in a different direction other than just raising levels constantly and destroying it in the end by throwing things out of whack. This isn’t to say you can’t fix lvl caps, for instance if lvl caps were set too low, then you could always set them higher in a content patch or an expansion and that would fix the issue. But that isn’t vertical progression, it is just raising the lvl and stat cap to meet the original balance plan. If they wanted longer lvling times, they could always raise the caps at any time they wanted to. Same goes for larger health pools on mobs (so that they die slower) to give it an Everquest feel, but combined with action-oriented components as well.

This is the benefit to having a moderate lvling approach, it solves many issues such as grind and it also offers flexibility for future changes.

puffintoast.6501:

FaRectification.5678:

Yes, to turn around my original post I believe all of your opinions and ANet’s original no-sub plan is correct.

It is a good ideal to maintain and will enable them to profit in the long run.

I was wrong sorry.

… but in light of what has transpired, particularly since mid-year, there are actually some amongst us who would almost rather a subscription-based direction, if it also entailed a removal of the travesty that is the gem store, and all that the monetization drive has engendered.
You shouldn’t feel the need to alter your original post as though an overwhelming majority of clearly presented arguments have made you ‘see the light’, so to speak.
I thought it was a fine idea for a discussion.

No, really, it was my honest opinion. As someone has said before, people don’t learn from positive lessons, they learn from negative ones (not that this is right). If ANet continues in a direction that’s harmful to its users its obvious which direction that will go in. Ideals are a very important thing to maintain no matter what you are doing. Time and time again it’s been shown that those who keep to positive avenues and don’t get sidetracked will benefit. It’s just a matter of time before WoW crashes.

Yes, to turn around my original post I believe all of your opinions and ANet’s original no-sub plan is correct.

It is a good ideal to maintain and will enable them to profit in the long run.

I was wrong sorry.