I didn’t even log in I have 3 level 80 none in exotics yet and I’m not sure I want another wall in my way to endgame.
Had I known we were going to see another tier in the gear structure I might have played the game differently and put my time all into one character.
Now I’m just discouraged and think I might pack it in.
I don’t think people really see the ramifications or the genie in the box that’s getting unleashed here.
People aren’t in an uproar over 2 pieces of gear there in an up roar over the fact that this is their new progression matrix for endgame.
If you read what they’re saying it’s fairly obvious it they plan on making a full set of Ascended gear available that you will need so you can insert the required Infusions.
The point of the infusion is to mitigate a new damage type found in dungeons, or in other words there your ticket to participate in this content that gets locked away behind a price of admission. That price will either be a grind or cost of some sort.
This is going to be the new paradigm for the end game the part that scares me is this:
********************************************************
“The new additions in November are just the start of our item progression initiative. We’re going to add tons of new high-level content to Guild Wars 2 in the future.”
“The first end game mechanic we will introduce is Agony, which will be encountered in the Fractals of the Mists dungeon, and is mitigated by Infusions.”
“As we release more new end game content in the future, you’ll see more Infusions and Ascended item types being added to the game. Eventually, you’ll be able to kit yourself out with a full set of Ascended gear and high end Infusions to help give you the edge in end game content.”
****************************************************************************
So basically this is the pass they’re giving themselves to go back on anything previously mentioned about the endgame being a cosmetic optional achievement. For each endgame dungeon condition type to complete the dungeon to its fullest you will need to grind up or pay for in some way (time or cash) a new set of gear or at the least the Infusions for it.
So what are the ramifications, the biggest one a division of end game players. The casual players will be the casualties hear as guilds fragment and harder core players leave there more casual buddies behind that are holding them back.
A gear fixated and centric player base that will see anything else in the game that does not advance their gear as fluff.
The best content in the game is now going to get locked behind a gear based entry fee, and with a finite set of resources this means development of open world content will suffer.
The best content ends up instanced and there’s nothing massively multi player about 5 people in a dungeon when we live in an age where every other console game connects you with 25 to 35 other players.
The strength of this game is the spontaneous groups that form up around their open world events but it feels like this is being abandoned for endgame.
Enjoy the new Hamster Wheel.
I’d like to respond to concerns players have raised about ascended items. Please keep in mind that we’re releasing this as one portion of a massive November update that introduces and improves many aspects of challenge, progression, and rewards. With this and upcoming updates, we view ourselves as introducing large amounts of content with supporting systems and features, akin to an expansion pack, building on Guild Wars 2 through a series of live releases. So it’s important for us to be able to add an expansion pack’s worth of progression and rewards to support that content.
Our goal is not to create a gear treadmill. Our goal is to ensure we have a proper progression for players from exotic up to legendary without a massive jump in reward between the two. We will slowly add the remaining ascended gear items and legendary items in future updates to allow people time to acquire them as we add exciting new content that deserves exciting rewards. We will not be adding a new tier of gear every 3 months that we expect everyone to chase after and then get the next set and so on.
Ascended and infusion rewards will be available in both PvE and WvW over time, and be made available through all sorts of content around the world including existing content. PvP will remain unaffected to ensure our intended PvP balance going forward. We are also working on other reward and progression systems for the game that tie into current and new content and features. As you know we care very much about your support and opinion and are listening intently to what you say.
Finally we look forward to hearing your thoughts on the upcoming content, and we will ensure we share our thoughts with you on the experiences we share in the Lost Shores.
Chris Whiteside – Studio Design Director
Well Chris I got a question for you them.
What are you doing for crafters? I hate MMO with crafting systems to nowhere, but have I invested all this gold into my crafting professions to craft the best in slot items only to get the shaft now.
What do you see this doing for crafters will we have Ascended items we can craft? Or are crafters cut out and shoved aside by Mystic Forge recipes and dungeon drops.
Will we see Ascended items drop as part of open world events, will we be able to get them through karma, am I piginholed into a Dungeon runs to get these new items?
Because I kind of like the fact I can play this game “my way” at the moment instead of “your way” to be the best my character can be.
I’d like to know what’s going to happen with crafting and how it will fit into this “New Progression modle” before I waste any more money on it because at this point I’m feeling like a chump that wasted more gold then I care to think about at the moment.
I’ve been playing MMO’s for over 13 years and well over a dozen titles in that time.
I chose GW2 over other popular MMO’s because the team just seemed to be reading my mind when it came to their design philosophies.
With a renewed focus on the open world and a break away from the now standard instanced gear blocked endgame they looked like they were on track to truly innovate on the fatigued progression endgame.
With the break from the trinity and a clear well thought out plan to provide an open world experience that spontaneously gave players a multiplayer experience grouped up or not, this game had qualities I’ve been hoping to see for years. The idea that I was playing the endgame from level 1 on up and my path to the best I could be was my choice, dungeons, open world, PvP, or daily achievements.
Sadly they seem to be cracking under the pressure to shape this game into something that more closely resembles the standard fair MMO.
IMHO.. I think this will not capture the WoW crowds interests for long and ultimately only serve to alienate there true early adopters of GW2. The outcry over this reminds me of only one other MMO incident SWG’s NGE. So regardless if the community is right or wrong, ANet you might want to look up how that turned out.
It’s been brought up before, and I think its right to bring it up again.
With the coming of the new Ascended gear, that has a real effect on how a player performs in end gae content, Guild Wars 2 needs the ability to inspect other players gear added sorely.
Players will want to know if a player they are adding to thier team is equipped well enough for the run planned through FotM. It will avoid situations where players mislead and waste people’s time. A inspect option will make group forming much smoother and better all around!
With Ascended gear being a requirement for deep runs into the FotM for ELITE rewards, an inspect function is a necessity to ensure you are playing with Correctly equipped teamates.
Here it comes …. that didn’t take long…… “Nope! sorry you can’t be part of my group your gears not good enough!”
ANet if you can’t see the genie you’re letting out of the bottle with this, …I’m … I’m speechless.
You know, I’ve never been quiet this upset over a directional change in an MMO before. I like to think of myself as a rational person but this just feels like a betrayal to the original concept that’s been flogged relentlessly over the last 5 years.
The sad thing is I’m loving this game, I have 3 level 80 none of them have a single epic. I figured all in due time I was in no rush to gear them out because I knew (no I was assured) this game would be different now we have this redirection …. So I think I’m just done with this game, I hate being promised one thing then being kittened over like a chump.
ANet I had nothing but praise for you but I’d like to take it all back at point.
this is a bait and switch scam.
lol you may be right
This …1000x this
People speak out for what they want, everyone has that right.
To each their own, but if you want an endless gear grind end game, that game has been done and copied at least a dozen times. Can’t GW2 be something different instead of pandering to players that just want to graft the mechanics of the last 13 years on to this one.
This will just cements that whole gear progression mentality into the game. How long do you think it’s going to take before you start to here …” no sorry we are only taking players into our “Guild / Group / Party/ Dungeon Run” with full Ascended sets …sorry try a noob Guild.
I think this just goes against the whole design template for this game. GW2 was about taking down the barriers that prevented players from interacting, and tiered gear systems that lock out contents is a 360 to that core philosophy.
That’s what people are upset about because this is exactly what was preached for the last 5 years by the Dev team. No surprise here that this has caused an uproar of epic proportions.
First of all the point in “something diffrent” is to satisfy everyone, no? Explorers, crafters, casuals, hardcores, pvpers etc etc. Its already much diffrent than other MMOs, you can’t say “hey let’s create something diffrent, how do we do it? Oh I know let’s remove one of the main aspects in typical MMOs and call it a new era MMO”.
Secondly, you can’t generalize people like that. People are creating guilds to find people that share their interests/goals in game. Do you think that now every guild is a mass of random players? That there are no PVP/RPG/PVE/WHATEVA specific guilds? If so, than I am sorry to burst your bubble but you are very wrong sir.
About the menality problems… the problem with people’s mentality in general is that they can’t share things. They want to feel special. That’s why people are raging about gear progress they want to be like “LOL YOU NERD PLAYING WOW? I AM PLAYING GW2 THERE IS NO GEAR PROGRESS GET A LIFE”. They want to feel that they are part of something unusual, the problem is – How to tell them, that dividing mmos into pvp/pve/with gear progress/no gear progress/whatever you come up with is not the only way to make MMO special. Why can’t gw2 be good for everyone?
LOL …. what you think makes it good …. I think makes it Bad …it’s that simple.
What the Game was preached to be, and sold a lot of people on, is the very thing there changing, and what you want me to thank them for the misleading advertisement.
Check out the manifesto, you bought GW2 and they made no bones about what their end game was going to be like. Now it’s changing to please you, and I’m in the wrong for wanting what they preached for 5 years?
https://d2vn94glaxzkz3.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Ascended-EN.png
Ascended:
+50 power
+50Precision
+10% Magic Find
+18 Power
+18 PrecisionUnused Infusion slot which ONLY gives you a defensive stat which is ONLY useful against the agony condition which ONLY appears in the high-end levels of the enw dungeon
Exotic:
+48 power
+48 Precision
+7% Magic Find
+15 Power
+15 PrecisionThat’s a TOTAL increase of +5 power, + 5 precision, and +3% magic find. And it’s only available on two pieces. And they’re only going to be made available one slot at a time.
Take a deep breath, calm down. Your exotics are not worthless. Your exotics did not take all that much effort to get in the first place, and it won’t take much effort at all to get this new piece. And this new piece ONLY provides a meaningful upgrade if you plan on playing the HIGHEST END content of ONE dungeon.
I love you guys but you need to chill the kitten out.
If you read the Dev Blog they you also know its just the start to item progression initiative
“The new additions in November are just the start of our item progression initiative. "
Addendum:
I would also be very curious to hear how Anet came to the conclusion that “This is what the playerbase wants” – because all evidence points to the contrary. Anyone able to shed some light on that?
Because you have a loud minority driving the direction. You have a bunch of cry baby endgame centric players that have no reason to play MMO’s unless there’s a new shinny on a stick to chase and this is what we get.
People speak out for what they want, everyone has that right.
To each their own, but if you want an endless gear grind end game, that game has been done and copied at least a dozen times. Can’t GW2 be something different instead of pandering to players that just want to graft the mechanics of the last 13 years on to this one.
This will just cements that whole gear progression mentality into the game. How long do you think it’s going to take before you start to here …” no sorry we are only taking players into our “Guild / Group / Party/ Dungeon Run” with full Ascended sets …sorry try a noob Guild.
I think this just goes against the whole design template for this game. GW2 was about taking down the barriers that prevented players from interacting, and tiered gear systems that lock out contents is a 360 to that core philosophy.
That’s what people are upset about because this is exactly what was preached for the last 5 years by the Dev team. No surprise here that this has caused an uproar of epic proportions.
Will this be a trend of limiting players from being able to run content? I remember I was in TERA, and this was exactly what happened. People right away got kicked if they weren’t wearing the latest gear and we haven’t even started the dungeon yet. I thought it will be different in GW2, but I guess now we’re reverting back to the same formula…
I agree,
The fear is this just cements that whole gear progression mentality into the game. How long do you think it’s going to take before you start to here …” no sorry we are only taking players into our “Guild / Group / Party/ Dungeon Run” with full Ascended sets …sorry try a noob Guild.
I think this just goes against the whole design template for this game. GW2 was about taking down the barriers that prevented players from interacting, and tiered gear systems that lock out contents is a 360 to that core philosophy.
To each their own, but if you want an endless gear grind end game, that game has been done and copied at least a dozen times. Can’t GW2 be something different instead of pandering to the upper 10% of players that like that sort of game?
The best thing about GW2 is I can achieve the best in slot gear any way I want. I can craft for it, I can run Dungeons, or I can just quest the world and save up my Karma with daily achievements and dynamic events.
IMHO if the Best in slot gear now gets locked away in small little instanced dungeons that’s now going to pigeonhole me into said content instead of playing the game I like to play, out in the open world with hundreds of other players to interact with.
That would be a real shame, and likely take the fun out of GW2 for me.
The fear is this just cements that whole gear progression mentality into the game.
How long do you think it’s going to take before you start to here …” no sorry we are only taking players into our “Guild / Group / Party/ Dungeon Run” with full Ascended sets …sorry try a noob Guild.
I think this just goes against the whole design template for this game. GW2 was about taking down the barriers that prevented players from interacting with one another, and tiered gear systems that lock out contents is a 360 to that core philosophy.
This is just the beginning of the BIG cave by ANet, the whole point of the game is to allow all players to interact with each other without barriers.
That’s why we don’t have a trinity, that’s why we have open world massive encounter, that’s why there are no factions…… NO BARRIERS
How long do you think it’s going to take to hear “No sorry you can’t group with us if you’re not in Ascended gear”
For me it goes against the very core of what GW2 was marketed as and it’s a big letdown.
So much for …. " the MMO for the rest of us" tag line or " if you didn’t like other MMO’s you need to try GW2"
ANet you need to rethink this,… don’t cave into the top 5% of players and alienate the rest of us.
If we wanted WoW, AoC, SWTOR, WAR, LOTRO or any of another of a dozen endgame progression centric MMO’s that’s what we would be playing.
Be brave enough to trust in what you have made and stick to it!!!!!!!!
So what about crafting? Is it pointless now? If I want the best gear in the game can I no longer achieve it through a crafting profession?
Very disappointed to see gear grinding progression creep into this game, Anet this is a mistake.
Needed or not, you will soon see the separation in players of those that are geared-up and those that aren’t and those that are geared up only wanting to play with those on their same gear rung.
This is in contrary to the core design of the game, but it will happen because you can’t change the way players think, this is the darkside of gear disparity.
The Mesmer has become my favorite profession thanks to Mr. P’s guides, this should be a sticky.
The one thing I love about this game is the combat mechanics. I’m working on my 4th level 80 at the moment and have really gotten into looking for the synergies inside the trait and weapon set systems to complement my play style.
I play the game very dynamically in that I almost never use the tab to target and often take on multiple mobs. I like being highly mobile regardless of the profession. For me the combat in this game is less about the DPS and more about not taking damage through a dynamic play style and mitigating conditions, that and knowing how to take advantage of your combo fields and finishers.
Sure, I would like to see more traits down the road but hate it when MMO’s have fluff build systems where you are forced to take 15 useless traits / skills in a tree to get the one up the chain that might have an impact on your build.
What I like about the way it’s done in GW2 is, when you take a trait it has an impact to your build and by stacking the related synergies between the traits and the weapons you use you can really effect how that profession plays.
Lovin my Mesmer build at the moment it’s a freight train of death.
The Dailies were the hardest for me to get as well but as many have suggested it just a matter of finding the hot spots for DE’s. Don’t forget to jump in the water and kill a few aquatic creatures to get your 15 kills and also hit the critters you come across rabbits, rats, racoons ….etc. some of them will count for your kills as well.
I feel the same way. I switched to three different servers, and I rarely see any players roaming around, there are bots, but not players. People say they are at Cursed Shore. No they are not. Also could be the poor selection of servers I picked. Cursed Shore and areas around have no day pressence. Neither does WvW.
You think a server that shows High to Full 24/7 would have people in them? They do not. If you do run in a group of players, most likely they are sitting in Lions Arch or Cursed Shore AFK.
So I need a server with a huge day pressence, that speaks english in chat, and on Vent. Any Ideas. this server hopping is annoying? I would like to settle in a guild that does PVE groups as well as WvW on a daily with a huge day pressence.
Try Yak’s Bend, I’m on every night for about 3 hours, I have 3 level 80 toons and still see lots of players every evening from noob zones to level 80.
Is there a high amount of players in every zone all hours of the day? I too have 3 level 80’s and two other alts in the 20’s. It is becoming relentless when I would like to commit to world events at the Cursed Shore and there is NOBODY in there or the surrounding areas.
I can’t promise you a high amount of players at all hours of the day, there are going to be off hours with low traffic and other peak times like any other MMO.
I play primarily between 8 pm to midnight (Eastern Time zone) and from noon to midnight on weekends and I’ve always found plenty of other players in the same zones I’ve been in, and I’ve been in a range of different level zones.
I feel the same way. I switched to three different servers, and I rarely see any players roaming around, there are bots, but not players. People say they are at Cursed Shore. No they are not. Also could be the poor selection of servers I picked. Cursed Shore and areas around have no day pressence. Neither does WvW.
You think a server that shows High to Full 24/7 would have people in them? They do not. If you do run in a group of players, most likely they are sitting in Lions Arch or Cursed Shore AFK.
So I need a server with a huge day pressence, that speaks english in chat, and on Vent. Any Ideas. this server hopping is annoying? I would like to settle in a guild that does PVE groups as well as WvW on a daily with a huge day pressence.
Try Yak’s Bend, I’m on every night for about 3 hours, I have 3 level 80 toons and still see lots of players every evening from noob zones to level 80.
Which is kind of a dumb way to play the game since the fastest way to get karma now is to just do your dailies and the best way to do those is by traveling multiple zones to get the diverse creature kills you need.
ANet built a game that you can find your own path to the best the game has to offer through exploration, crafting, events and dungeons. And you can go back and play any zone that floats your boat.
What ANet can’t fix is MMO players that stand in one spot all day repeating the same event because they perceive it to be the quickest path to whatever their after, then come here and complain that the game is a grind and boring? ….LOL
That’s just ArenaNet propaganda you’ve posted there. The fact is that the game has huge amounts of grinds. It’s obvious people will pick the easiest way of completing those grinds.
ArenaNet said “We don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2”. That was a flat-out lie; you need gold for everything, from travelling across the world to WvW, gold which is a pain to acquire.
Besides, to say that you can play wherever you want and get the same rewards for the same time investment is a joke. “Scaled rewards” are a failure. Rewards in this game are a failure. Why? Because dollars that’s why. How would they sell gems if the players were rich?
I think it comes down to how you define easy. Grinding to me I find hard because it puts me to sleep. Having fun to me is easy. So I do what I find to be fun and that’s discovering new things or finding places I haven’t seen yet.
I don’t know how long it takes for you to GRIND up 4500 karma but I earn that in about 20 minutes each evening along with doing the 5 events I want to do and where I want to do them.
I don’t know if there is some race I should be running or not, but the big difference here is it may take me a bit longer to get the best of the best the game has to offer but I’ll have fun getting there and for those camping the same grind spot day after day …well they might as well fire up a bot.
I hope you see my point, playing the grind game by repeating the same pocket of content is done by choice not design, there are other paths to take if you choose to take them.
This is Guild Wars 2. The game where you don’t have to grind/farm and everyone is having fun and is exploring the world. Oh wait..
Honestly, it says a lot when most people are making karma by simply waiting for 1 event: the amount of grinding is unbearably high.
Which is kind of a dumb way to play the game since the fastest way to get karma now is to just do your dailies and the best way to do those is by traveling multiple zones to get the diverse creature kills you need.
ANet built a game that you can find your own path to the best the game has to offer through exploration, crafting, events and dungeons. And you can go back and play any zone that floats your boat.
What ANet can’t fix is MMO players that stand in one spot all day repeating the same event because they perceive it to be the quickest path to whatever their after, then come here and complain that the game is a grind and boring? ….LOL
I really think people are over exaggerating this non-issue. I’m working on my 4th level 80 at the moment and although the players base if far more fanned out then at launch I still see all kinds of other players coming together to do DE’s ….. or it could be I’m just being stalked…LOL
Even the noob zones have lots of players so either people are re-rolling or new players are still flocking in. That said if you play at off hours for your server then “ya” like every other MMO the world is going to look less populated.
Thanks for this post Omegaut.7206, I too think Arena Net made a brilliant game and I’m still having a blast with it …now working on my 4th level 80 (a Mesmer) and it’s a ton of fun to just freight train through mobs.
I also think it’s absolutely necessary to provide feedback when you’re passionate about the game but some complaints are bordering on ridiculous grandstands.
So many complaint posts are either a L2P issue or can have their 3000 word count summed up by “Please make it WoW 2.0”
If you’re not having fun then no achievement is “worth it”, that said I totally would like to get one but I’m just playing the game in the way that I find the most enjoyable without setting a “MUST GET LEGENDARY ” path for myself.
I think that’s how many people kill the game for themselves. Players get on this achievement kick and start following a repeatable laundry list to whatever they see as the victory condition. Then they come here to complain when the game becomes repetitive and boring but there’s really no reason to play the game like that.
So for a long term goal “Why Not” totally worth it providing you take a fun path to the achievement and don’t make it a job.
I look at the trait system as kind of a “Magic deck” where you look for the synergies between the traits to complement your style of play. It rely helps to start with a theme for your play style and work up from that.
The problem is many players just want to build a glass cannon instead of exploring the benefit of a supportive or damage mitigation builds.
Humm… I can’t help with you’re question ostracize.8316, …. but I might just have to roll up a Necromancer and give that a try.
@jman.7415,
I completely sympathise with you on the relaxing thing. Tosha’s probably has given the best advice so far to just drop down to a zone lower than your level for some relaxing grind.
Alternatively look for event hot spots, there’s a few throughout the game that have lots of players around, and then just follow them from event to event. That way you can have a relaxing grind and grind out some Karma as well.
For me however the Active combat is the most addicting thing about the game. I play with a combination G13 Logitech game pad and a MMO Rat7 mouse and could not imagine playing the game without them. I’m always on the move and often challenge myself by taking on 4 or 5 level 80’s at the same time and make it my goal to end the fight with full health.
I however have the most relaxing fun when just tagging along a few other players.
I was going to type out a long dissertation regarding the state of MMO culture and its myopic focus on endgame.
But I’ll just say this, GW2 is the first MMO in a long time that I’ve found refreshing and is just plain fun to play.
@Maxxian.3980
No, that doesn’t make you elitist, you’ve just always lived in the MMO culture of the top 25 to 30 percent of players.
In my 15 years at this hobby I’ve been all over the map. Hell I played MMO’s before there was instancing, gear progression after leveling, and the idea of raids were just some wet dream on a white board somewhere.
I’ve played hard core in my younger years and I’ve played casually so I’ve built up empathy for MMO players across the board.
If you’ve always played in a gear centric progression driven manner where endgame achievements have been your only driving motivator then you may need to find a game that supports that.
Players in PvE are never competing in GW2. There is no node jacking or kill stealing, if a player runs up and hits the same mob as you their helping you. ANet have simply removed competition between players in the open world, it’s us against the environment.
For me it’s so refreshing to have these multi-player moments in the open world environment again, in so many games today players pass each other by on their solo quest with their attention focused on whatever quest is in there log. In GW2 the world plays the players much like the real world. An event happens and everyone in the area is drawn in to the smoke, it’s truly an awesome way to do MMO content IMHO.
Anyway, sorry to hear you’re done with the game.
This also creates the problem of gear inflation, where at some point the developer needs to fast path new players or returning players into epic level gear or no new players will join the game. They also do this to maintain a critical mass of players needed to make this gear locked out content viable.
Lotro for example solves that quite nicely with new story chapters (books) in each new expansion, that gives you items that are better then the previous expansions raidgear or just as good.
Once you have finished the books, your pretty much ready to do the dungeons or raids.
GW2 story rewards are crap, but the basic “get gear while doing story” is a nice way to bridge the gap between raiders and nonraiders between expansions.
That’s not a fix for gear inflation, that’s a band aid. Nearly all MMO’s with a gear based endgame do the same thing. The problem is how do you feel as a raider who spend 200 plus hours with their guild night after night grinding out the same content to get there guild geared up for the next expansion when a new player joins the game the day of said expansion comes out, solo’s his story content and then has gear on par with your raid gear.
Developers are forced to do this sort of thing with gear progression endgames as the game ages. They have to give new players a way to leap frog into the new content to keep the endgame at a critical mass of players. Could you imagine the time it would take to catch up in a game that’s been out for 7 years and had 15 tiers of gear sets.
@Maxxian.3980
It is hugely impactful to the game that access to content is not blocked by gear. In most MMO’s with a gear and content tiered endgame a developer ends up locking away their best work behind a tiered gear power advancement system. This right away locks out about 70 to 80 percent of your player base from your best work.
As soon as you replace leveling with gear power progression as your advancement scheme you need to continually add to this content and this sucks up your resources for other features and content you could be putting out for the bulk of your player base.
As it is now in GW2, the highest level gear can be obtained in a number of ways, crafting, Karma, and Dungeons, each has their own look but players can choose the path they want to take to get it. That path also lets them play the game the same way they did to get to level cap, so the game doesn’t in the end pigeonhole a player into a specific type of content to get the best gear.
In a tier gear system the arguments abound regarding how players should obtain said gear, by default most games make you do one specific task over and over again as in the raiding endgame. The problem with that is it fundamentally changes the game from how players leveled and some players just find trying to schedule a play time with 10 to 24 other players to be a difficult thing to do.
The common problem with MMO’s that adopt a tiered gear progression endgame is they end up relying heavily on instancing to segregate this tiered content. This ends up subtracting from the open world and often giving the game a feeling like the open world is nothing more than a giant lobby we wait in for our meat counter number to come up and finally join a group.
Now, for skins players may argue about how rare a particular skin should be to get but at the end of the day regardless of what skin they have on their armor everyone can still play together because there’s no disparity in the power of their gear sets. This solves a number of endgame social issues related to the power of the gear you’re wearing and also helps to maintain a critical mass of same power level players available for the massive endgame battles.
The main difference and theme of GW2 is this, we essentially are in a group of players from the second we log in. The Dev’s have designed the game this way so the game plays better the more players you have around you. Multi-player interaction doesn’t require a group. In combat we can combo off of each other’s skills, when a player goes down others automatically pitch in to lend a hand and players spontaneously come together for the events because the quest log has been replaced with a dynamic event prompter.
Groups of players magically start working together as naturally as if you see your next door neighbour trying to lift a heavy box into his trunk and automatically without saying a word start giving him a hand.
That in itself I have not seen in an MMO before and I hope they continue to grow the push and push back ecology of the game.
That all being said, I do agree they need to enhance the reward systems for players I just would not like to see it done in instanced off areas of the world or with gear progression. That game is out there and its been done to death.
I agree with axiology.5807, the game is brilliantly designed. I’ve played nearly a dozen MMO’s over the last decade that just have cut and pasted each others mistakes over and over, It’s completely refreshing to play a game by a team that truly looked at the issues with the genre and have take steps to make it better.
I think if more people could wrench the WoW colored glasses off their heads long enough to see that, they’d be able to let themselves truly enjoy the game instead of wishing for another Skinner Box to play in.
I agree, banning is not the answer, someone in it for the money will be right back up and running the next day with 10 new accounts and chock up the ban as a business expense.
They need to make it a pain for the bot developers to keep up with them by attacking how these bots work and they know how to do this but for some reason they chose not to.
These guys at ANet are real smart guys so I’m going to guess they understand how these bot work and I’m not going to tell then anything they don’t already know but here it is anyway.
These bots read the memory locations of the client particularly the XYZ values in order to navigate and some will actually inject their own values into these locations effectively teleporting the player to the new XYZ location in the game.
Now, some games are real good at hiding these values and actually changing the location in of where these values are stored in memory on a weekly bases.
So if ANet was serious about getting rid of the bots they would be making it a pain in the Kitten for these bot developers to keep up with the memory location changes with a weekly up-date to address this issue.
However it seems for some undetermined reason they chose to let it continue when it’s fully in their power to stop it.
By doing nothing when it is in their power to stop it …it’s as good as condoning it.
So I am going to throw something out there for discussion.
The main core difference between GW2 and “gear tredmil” MMO’s is GW2 removed the stats progression and replaced it with skins.
If the above is true then…how is this not like every other MMO just with a different wrapper around the grind?
Maybe I just dont understand this game and maybe its not for me…which I am totally fine with because obviously a lot of people love this game. I just don’t see how this game is any different than other MMO’s…other than everyone can do everything by default.
Thoughts?
Maxxian.3980
There is a huge difference,
In a gear stat driven endgame continent has to be made with increased power levels so players are challenged. This effectively creates a tier level of endgame content that locks players out until they grind up the gear in order to unlock it and become powerful enough to survive it.
This content in turn hands out its gear rewards so players can unlock the next tier of content, and the process continues from expansion to expansion.
So along with ever progressing higher gear stats you also end up with content the majority of your player base doesn’t see.
This also creates the problem of gear inflation, where at some point the developer needs to fast path new players or returning players into epic level gear or no new players will join the game. They also do this to maintain a critical mass of players needed to make this gear locked out content viable.
Over time a disparity in gear level develops and you have players judging other players worthiness to group with and interact with based on what gear there wearing.
Now, providing a long term challenge for epic looking skins will mean we all remain eligible for the same content however you might look all decked out and I might still look like I’m in rags but it doesn’t get in the way of us running a dungeon together.
So in short, one system divides players and the content they can enjoy together and the other system keeps us on the same playing field and enhances the “Massive” part.
This is the Best guide I have ever read …period! … Overall I have a better understanding of the game, the guardian and combat tactics in general.
I finely feel equipped to make up my own guardian build from scratch.
Thank you ….for this Outstanding guide
All the talk about progression and getting bored comes down to 1 thing:
GW2 simply isn’t that fun to play for people who are good at mmos. There is no depth to the classes and there is no character building (you work with very limited presets). The vast majority of the content is auto-win easy.
These things cause people to get bored. GW1 didn’t have stat progression but people were not getting so bored so quickly because the complexity of the classes allowed for a much bigger variety in gameplay. There were also elite areas to challenge larger groups (8 players).
I think this is the real problem with GW2. They over streamlined to the point where everyone is just wandering around going through the motions with classes that offer very little variety.
TLDR: If the game was more fun people wouldn’t be struggling to find reasons to log in.
Te-He, ….what is being good at MMO’s mean?
Is that to say your good at all MMO’s ….UO, EQ, War, Vanguard, Rift, EvE, … World of Tanks?
Or are we just interchanging WoW to mean MMO, has WoW become a genre?
Do we really need another MMO that ends with a gear treadmill and gated content for the upper 10 to 15 percent of the games population?
I think based on how many people I see in game every night and how slow these forums are, I would surmise that the vast majority of players are happily playing the game with only a small fraction of players bothering with this forum at all.
It doesn’t have to be gear, it doesn’t have to be leveling, but it HAS to be something that affect your CHARACTER in a meaningful way, not just the player.
Any ideas?
Yes, and they’ve given it to us in the ways of rare skins. I know for a fact that if I see someone run past me with an epic weapon out I’ll bow down to them in game with a hardy “I’m not worthy “ considering what it takes and the dedication you have to put into it to get one.
Just like top end Raid gear I think this community will come to respect the effort that it takes to get one of these things and I’m sure many are dedicating themselves to this achievement.
I would say that affects your character in game in a meaningful way. It may not tick a number up on your stats sheet but let’s be honest for a second the 0.342387772329% DPS you get out of an epic in other MMO’s is barely noticeable in comparison to the
“ Wooooo dude ….where you get those shoulder pads dude`` when you get to town.
How many times do you hear
``Woooooo dude …. What do those add to your DPS dude``,….. not much right?
(edited by Logun.2349)
“Well feel free to point out where I’m wrong here.
1. You get better gear.
2. The bosses get better stats.
3. The gear hasn’t improved you, it’s kept you on par. Change is only cosmetic.
1. You go back to an old instance.
2. You clear it with ease because you outgear it.
3. Outgearing content makes it trivial.
Which means the gear grind is nothing but an artificial way of saying – ‘you can’t do this instance until you’ve done that one enough times to get the gear you need’.”you’re just looking at one aspect of it and missing the point i was trying to make entirely. im done trying to talk to you
Chasing, don’t use logic here without a /Logic_Alert first, your going to burst peoples altered state of reality and kill MMO’s for them forever.
I’m a little confused as to what people are asking for here?
The game is full of long term goals, and what most would consider a grind mechanic.
By grind I think some are looking for WoW like endgame gear grind, and that’s not this game.
Sorry GW2 doesn’t have your flavor of grind, and you’re not wrong for wanting something you enjoyed in another MMO included in this one but that’s not the game they chose to make.
WoW’s endgame is not MMO genre defining. WoW is just one game in a much broader spectrum of MMO’s and the mindset that a WoW’s endgame grind is a ticket to success for MMO’s ..Well I could list a dozen or so MMO’s that flopped copying WoW’s endgame pretty much by verbatim.
I don’t think it really maters what developers do these days it’s become all too typical to see developers be steered by the fan base into a WoW clone and then be abandoned anyway.
So, if by grind you mean grind for unique armor skins and looks that have a rare chance to drop from Champion Mobs and in Dungeons ….cool I’m all for them to continue to add to the unique appearance sets they already have in the game.
Tiered gear progression in this game is just not going to work. I don’t know how many people have noticed this or not but the combat in this game has moved passed standing in place and hitting a key to roll a set of invisible dice and winning the day because the stats on your gear made the dice roll in your favor.
GW2 combat is more about skill, dodging attacks, timing and damage mitigation. If you want to be OP on the battlefield you need to practice. Actual player skill is more of a factor then in most other MMO’s I’ve played and this looks like it’s becoming the new trend.
Gear progression endgame mechanics have too many flaws to be particle for a long running MMO. We don’t have to look any farther then WoW to find them.
If your building a MMO where the only place you can go really massive and be guaranteed a critical mass of players at the same power range and then introduce an element like gear progression to divide them, you end up with a disparity in power range and an inability to go truly massive with your content. In the end you have a community obsessed by gear with tools to determine who is worthy to play with based on the gear on their back……not a great way to go for a MMO.
Tiered gear means tiered content, progression becomes a façade as you’re just grinding one level of content to get to the same level of power as the next tiered content that nullifies your gains, only to start the process over again.
With each expansion your gear gains are nullified again as level caps are raised and fast paths to the relevant gear sets are put in for new players or players returning to the game …. WoW players refer to these as welfare epics.
GW2 has brought a number of well thought out mechanics to the MMO genre to make a truly “Massive” gaming experience to players, it’s not about being communist, fair or carebear. Removing the trinity, Events instead of quests, scaling players to content, giving each player a combat rez and removing the gear ladders are all part of an effort to cement as many players possible together to take on common goals.
I ‘m all for long term goals and achievements armor skins, weapon skins, mounts, guild halls, Air Ships, all of these can be seen as a forms of achievements and progression that can be just as meaningful as making a digit increase on a piece of armor.
IMHO putting in a Tiered gear system would be completely counterproductive to GW2 core mechanics.
I can’t believe how many people out there think WoW is a Genre and if it doesn’t play just like WoW it must not be a MMO…..LOL
I really hope GW2 paves a path to even greater experimentation with the MMO Genre or even a return to the days before “lobby” worlds with these 10 to 25 man instances were considered massively multiplayer.
Remember WoW is just one game, it’s not a Genre.
The truth about “Endgame” (and I’ve grown to hate the term) is it’s simply a game mechanic to keep you playing between content.
For some that might be the need for a perceived progression, for others it might be PvP leader board statistics, and for others it might be unlocking rare weapon skins. I’ve even seen MMO’s use crafting as part of their endgame giving players long term goals to build houses, ships and guildhalls virtually board by board and brick by brick.
I’ve never been a big fan of instanced off “endgames” that fundamentally changes the game you’ve played to get to level cap or individual gear progression.
The gear progression endgame mechanic just brings with it too many social and game breaking issues to be viable long term. Gear inflation is inevitable over time and each expansion virtual wipes out the progression from the last by razing the gear bar even higher. Developers always have to put a fast path for returning or new players to get geared up to just under the last 2 tiers virtually making the old content obsolete.
From a social stand point you end up with the “Haves” and the “Have Not’s” the “Hard Core” and the “Casuals” and inevitably a disparity of players at top level segregated or discriminated against by the gear they have on their back. This is not exactly ideal for a MMO where you want players to let go of their differences and just have fun together.
The goal of any modern day MMO should be to give all players a path to continue and is intertwine as a group.
PvP, WvW, Dungions, Raids and even solo game play should come together in an ultimate long term challenge that can live on the life of the game.
I personally think Guild related challenges are the way to go for endgame content. Imagine the construction of a Guild Hall that needed contributions unlocked from Raids, Dungeons, WvW, , and Solo gameplay achievements World Completions, PvP, Crafting, Harvesting.
Guilds would have to build teams of players interested in all facets of the game, and not the narrow focused personal gain centric Raiding that’s been popularized by WoW.
If I could fix ONE thing right now….
I like to see a fix for all of the event chains that seem to get stuck on occasion. (Looks like this patch fixed a number of those and added an additional 30 Dynamic events to the game.)
If I could change one thing….
I would really like to see all Champion classified open world bosses spawn chests (if part of a DE or not) and reward a small amount of Karma so we don’t see packs of people waiting for events to start or running the same 3 or 4 DE over and over again.
Attacking the sophisticated automation programs.
Hello ArenaNet, I’m sure I’m not about to tell you guys anything more than you or half the people on these forums don’t already know but here it is anyway.
We’ve all been annoyed by the bots running the same path over and over doing their little farming runs and the problem doesn’t seem to be going away. And some of us have been effected ourselves by this anti farming routines ANet have implemented to attack these bots, but to be honest this is attacking the problem from the wrong end.
ArenaNet if you really want to attack the bots here’s how you do it.
Sophisticated automation programs rely on being able to read the GW2 clients X,Y,Z and Heading memory locations for them to work, without this they are useless. Bot developers use programs to read the GW2 memory in real time and search for the memory locations containing the X,Y,Z and Heading information.
Without the XYZ and the heading info a bot will not be able to follow a path or even know which way it’s facing.
So if you really want to protect players from this irritation and you really want to cut back on the botting here’s what you do.
(1) Take one of the above mentioned memory locations and hide it, or build in dummy memory values that make it difficult for bot programmers to find. Some games can be really good at this, others …well not so good!
(2) Every week update the GW2 client and change the location in the memory where the X,Y,Z and Heading information is held. This can be a real deterrent as it forces bot developers to patch their programs each week and deal with the issues of distributing it to their user base.
By both making it hard for Bot developers to find the memory locations and by changing the heading and XYZ location values each week about half of the bot developers and botters will move on to more lucrative and easy to bot games.
Next, if you can detect farming then program a random Champion mob to the farming location instead of diminishing returns. Live players will react to Champion mobs and either avoid then or team up with others to take it down, bots will just die.
Also change where the higher end mats come from, move these mat drops to champion mobs to (one) make champion mobs more rewarding for real players and (two) make the trash mobs (bots feed on) less lucrative.
As soon as you become less lucrative and more trouble to bot then some other MMO’s out there 99% of your botters in it for a profit (selling gold) will move on.
The botters left will be then the “little fish” the players botting to level. These guys are low impact, they don’t have 10 accounts farming 24 hours a day. Strong anti botting bans will keep these guys in line.
Hope that helps
I think the days of gear based progression are coming to an end. Largely because the technology is finally getting to a point that player skill (actual player skill) can be transmitted to our game avatars in massively multiplayer environments much like we’ve seen in FPS for years.
We are starting to see this come into play in GW2, in theory the dodge mechanic could be the factor that decides the victor in both PvP and PvE matches.
I think this is a good thing for MMO’s in general. We need to get away from these tired table top game mechanics and make combat a more visceral experience.
I have a high desire to keep playing the game just because of how much fun I have with the combat. I’ve really taken some time to practice the dodge mechanic and can take on 4 to 5 mobs up to 2 levels above me by dodging and staying mobile.
So again in theory when player skill becomes the deciding factor and overrides the game stats and dice roles it takes the gear stats for the most part out of the equation.
I think future MMO’s are going to have to find new hooks other than gear grinding endgames and players are going to have to practice to be the best.
I don’t care if your geared up to do 10,000 crit with your great sword if I’ve trained myself to jump dodge out of the way of it.
Rick, Thanks for replying to my earlier post and explaining your position on this, I think I get what your saying.
In a game where a sizable group of players NEED each other to overcome certain elements of the game this forms a long term commitment and that commitment forms a communal social bond. Because a pact is made and it’s a long term goal it facilitates real lasting friendships in game.
This is a mechanic that works well in WoW endgame for some folks so if your MMO background and experience is coming from this point of view then I have to agree there is not yet a game mechanic that perpetuates this behavior in GW2 (Yet).
I have done the Raid guild thing and gear grind and although I can appreciate the commitment and social bonds this mechanic brings with it, I think in large it just doesn’t work for the greater population. It also brings with it a number of social and game mechanic pit-falls. With the “no sorry your gear isn’t good enough to play with us” syndrome.
The social mechanics in guild wars 2 work in a very different way, In that right from level one players are being conditioned to behave in a very honorable and helpful fashion to their fellow players.
Players are not penalized for hitting a mob that’s already been tagged by another player and because you’re not robbing the player of kills or experience two or more complete strangers can find themselves spontaneously working a zone in harmony.
Players just naturally work together and transition from what some might call the more solo-able content right into taking on a Champion mob or other group only content. It becomes as natural as seeing your friend trying to lift a heavy box into his trunk and without hesitation or saying a word you walk up and give him a hand.
The down state works in the same way, it triggers a parental response in players you might see from an adult helping a child up after skinning a knee.
So there are some very strong social mechanics at work in GW2 that I think will be topics of many game design lecture of the future.
I do agree however the “The Long term social group Commitment” is a mechanic GW2 should look at exploring but I don’t think we’ll see it manifested in an endgame gear grind.
(edited by Logun.2349)