Guild Wars 2

Personally, I wouldn’t worry too much about the community. The focus of the forums should be the game. The community is actually one of the better ones I have experienced in gaming and seems to ebb and flow according to the perceived state of the game. I believe most of the feedback here is constructive and useful and the forums generally fulfill their intended purpose. Everything seems to be functioning normally.

I’m glad that Anet attempts to enforce good form in-game and on the forums through moderation as it emulates good social skills within the community even when not all members possess them. A game company is free to set a standard for speech within a private community and then enforce it. That is exactly what they have done.

@Gibson, you would have to add “infusions” to your list of progression methods as they actually referenced them in the AMA as a vehicle for VP. Also, the list includes elements of vertical and horizontal methods of progression. To be clear on the direction of game scaling, it would probably be best to mention this. As far as we know at this point, the game will be scaling vertically and horizontally. That is one direction too many for some of us.

It would actually be simpler to simply remove the statement referred to in the OP. It is false and it really doesn’t need to edited into something true—removal would do nicely.

I enjoyed the demon hunter in Diablo 3; and it would probably work in GW2. The idea of dual-wielding hand crossbows is rather irresistible.

If truly addressing beauty in design as opposed to successful or useful, I would have to pick (taking it down one level from profession) the d/d elementalist, especially prenerfs. The weapon skills are great across the attunements, at least 60 of the traits were something to be excited about, and the playstyle was amazing. It’s the only profession that I’ve watched videos of compulsively—largely because the play afforded was beautiful.

lordkrall.7241:

It is actually quite true.

What has been said is something along the lines of:
We are not currently planning on adding a tier over Ascended (stat-wise) and we definitely won’t do it this year.

While it does leave out some information, it is not really incorrect either.

That’s actually not true and you only need to read the AMA to know that. They said there that vertical progression would be in the game going forward. They have never reversed the commitment to VP. Additionally, they said then that they had no current plans for additional tiers and planned to carry VP forward through infusions. Further, they never said that there would never be additional tiers, just that none were currently planned.

So, OP is correct here. The statement is false as it has never been made by Anet. If Anet wants to make it I will cheer. But, in the meantime the wiki is misleading at best and it should be corrected.

Right now it’s pretty much option ‘A’ with world events and an occasional champ train for the monthly or just gold. If they were to succeed with the promised horizontal scaling of skill/ability progression and began evolving the LW in a permanent manner, I would probably log in more often for more reasons.

I feel like I’m in a holding pattern hoping they make changes to the way they have managed the game over time. At launch I felt GW2 was the best MMO I had ever played. Naturally, it wasn’t perfect, but it was amazing and had tremendous potential. I don’t agree with the way they have evolved the game over time.

I think the promised implementation of the horizontal scaling mechanism of skill/ability progression will breath new life into the game. I’m hoping they do at least as good a job with it as they did in GW1. That, and when they ditch temporary content for a longer term, deeper story, permanent content and achievements, I believe we will find more to do of a meaningful nature in the game. And, of course, they could add fishing—that would keep me engaged through the down moments.

I actually like the the heavy T3 cultural armor for Human, Norn, and Asura.

The downed state never really felt right to me as it doesn’t model experienced combat well. It makes more sense, to me, to fight normally until you run out of HP, at which point you are dead. Rez skills, not Rally, themselves are fine because in games, unlike IRL, you can always come back from the dead.

I find far fewer instances in GW2 than other games I have played and the ignore function has served me well for all classes of immature and offensive players. It is certainly fine to bring awareness to an experienced issue and the mature answer is not deal with it.

When I read these threads I tend to think that the two sides of the debate are separated by a wall of socialization and social skills. Some people play well with others, some don’t. I therefore don’t believe the problem at heart is game design, simply what we experience everywhere in a world of others.

That said, game design does influence in-game behavior. We see that with things like non-competitive resource nodes and tagging. Huge change from the leading MMO out there and a huge improvement. I don’t believe the champ train was a targeted outcome of design, but here it is. And, it will remain until other equally lucrative ways of farming are created. Earlier, it was DE chains in Orr, now we have champ trains, world events, dungeons, and temporary content. I would hope that the goal is to make all playstyles and all areas equally rewarding.

I use free camera. I don’t find it more work, just more control. As far as character navigation, I just have strafe right and left bound (for movement) and use those in conjunction with the mouse to move.

Yes, the wiki and other internet sources are great. I, too, recommend the books. Just search for guild wars on amazon.

It is one of those terms that says much more about the speaker than the grammatical referent.

There are several that are a very nice addition. And, yes, perhaps one that we won’t see a lot of in-game.

So, LA is a hub city and a lot of people find their home there. It’s not a particular problem for me, even in terms of load times. I generally log out in Rata Sum as it is an architecturally superior city that enjoys, arguably, the best layout of any city. I definitely don’t support cross-city mapchat as each city is culturally unique, at least on my server, and, and frankly, I don’t have enough room on my block list to hang out in DR’s mapchat.

In the hopes that the right answer wins over the funny answer and is heard: Bind AoE loot to a different key than Interact—problem solved. This actually did bother me for months but that is now a distant memory. And, I give credit to Anet for providing an elegant solution. I can now run through loot, portals, NPC’s, and banners and just get the loot.

Mackdose.6504:

Raine.1394:

With a long/low power curve, the grind is never over. And, if you have alts, you are acutely aware that you may be years of grinding away from having them all outfitted. This is usually where white knights trot out the, well, you don’t really need ascended gear. I’m sorry, but I understand the implications of positively relating power to time, which is the mechanism of VP. And, if it truly doesn’t matter, why on earth would you spend resources to create something that doesn’t matter and is of no consequence. Anet knows that it does matter. VP is a hook that stimulates increased gameplay. Anet knows exactly what it does and why they implemented it—they are gaming professionals after all.

You may understand the theory, but you fail to allow anyone else who doesn’t share the drive to get BiS (like myself) to say that the gear isn’t mandatory. You basically parade your interpretation of vertical progression around like it’s fact when the game is literally staring you in the face and saying you’re wrong.

It’s not just the low power curve, it’s the fact that the environment doesn’t scale up statistically with player power. The whole game minus fractals is 2 rarity tiers behind the BiS curve.

Anet makes encounters difficult using environmental mechanics, dodge or die power attacks and large numbers of hard hitting mobs that need to be controlled.

---

As for the time gap, there absolutely was one.

You could get exotics pretty much instantly.
You could get a legendary after months of grinding.

Anet sees that without medium term goals, players would get bored with exotics and quit(majority), or stick around to grind out a legendary (minority).

Enter ascended gear, a tier to give players in full exotics a goal that will yield a tangible reward after a medium-sized time sink. The increased power is that tangible reward.

You can dance around with semantics all you want, but prior to pink gear, there were no medium-term goals to pursue.

I don’t have an interpretation of vertical progression. I understand it’s history in gaming. I know its definition, how it functions, and why it would be chosen as a method of character progression. I know its pros and cons. They are not mine as I learned them myself from general definitions and understandings. You can google the terms yourself and learn everything I have learned.

It’s actually incredibly simple. In terms of motivation, it is thought to provide players with a sense of character progression, and it provides an incentive for regular play. You can understand it by understanding the words that make up the concept: vertical, the power level of the game increases; progression, it increasing continually over time. By relating power to time the incentive becomes an offer you can’t refuse. To understand this you only need to understand the dynamics of a curve where X is time and Y is power.

OK, you want to say that VP is not mandatory. Understanding what it is (see above) and noting that the power level of the game has increased by 10% within one year, let’s suppose this is the rate chosen for the power curve. OK, you want to play long term, for years. I personally have no problem with you thinking that 10% is not significant, but what will you think in the 4-5 year timeframe when the difference is ~50%. You can’t possibly see this as insignificant. And it will be 50% in that timeframe at the current rate. This is not my understanding or interpretation of VP. It’s simply what it is and how it functions. And, it is why it is mandatory that you follow the power curve if you want to play the game long term.

On time and power gaps. Time and power are two different dimensions. There is no need to address a time gap by raising the power level of the game.

I don’t think that this aspect of reward is so much about grind as it is about the monetization scheme. With RMT and a cash shop there has been a fundamental shift from receiving reward in-game to rewarding yourself outside the game. GW2 is not alone here and I actually first noticed this with Diablo 3.

Since we are used to receiving reward for play, I’m not sure how this will work long term. In the meantime, some players buy gems and others keep a bowl of M&M’s by their computer. For reward, the choice is up to you.

Ahlen.7591:

Astralporing.1957:

Ahlen.7591:

DocHolliday.5921:

eisberg.2379:

Julie Yann.5379:

eisberg.2379:

DocHolliday.5921:

It will, once they introduce the next tier of gear.

You got absolutely nothing to base this prediction off of. They introduced a new tier, and yet the content is still balanced around fine (Blue) gear, they haven’t introduced any content that is gated by having higher stats than fine gear.

Then why introduce the gear if it isn’t needed?

Because many people like to get higher numbers, they find that enjoyable.

And just as many find it annoying, while many others just couldn’t care less. Meanwhile, the players who DO want “higher numbers” are a lot more likely to quit sooner and be less profitable for the developer, as I already explained above.

Oh yeah, I mean we saw how unprofitable WoW was with it’s vertical progression/gearing.

Literally the least profitable MMO there is.

Oh yeah, it was so succesful that they made it harder to keep up with progression to keep players in the game.
Oh wait…

And yet even now, it is ten times easier to get ascended in GW2 than current tier gear in WoW.

One of the things GW2’s long/low power curve has taught me is that I actually prefer a short/steep one like WoW’s—I mean, if you have to have vertical progression.

Anyone who’s played WoW knows about how long it will take to gear up after a new tier drops and for me it was around 2 months. That was for a PvE and PvP set that allowed me to play the game at a level of comfort. That meant that I grinded out gear for 2 months and could then relax and enjoy whatever I wanted to do for the remainder of the tier, i.e., no grinding. The bottom line here is that it is far easier and quicker to get gear in WoW than in GW2. There is really no comparison.

With a long/low power curve, the grind is never over. And, if you have alts, you are acutely aware that you may be years of grinding away from having them all outfitted. This is usually where white knights trot out the, well, you don’t really need ascended gear. I’m sorry, but I understand the implications of positively relating power to time, which is the mechanism of VP. And, if it truly doesn’t matter, why on earth would you spend resources to create something that doesn’t matter and is of no consequence. Anet knows that it does matter. VP is a hook that stimulates increased gameplay. Anet knows exactly what it does and why they implemented it—they are gaming professionals after all.

Astralporing.1957:

Ahlen.7591:

DocHolliday.5921:

eisberg.2379:

Julie Yann.5379:

eisberg.2379:

DocHolliday.5921:

It will, once they introduce the next tier of gear.

You got absolutely nothing to base this prediction off of. They introduced a new tier, and yet the content is still balanced around fine (Blue) gear, they haven’t introduced any content that is gated by having higher stats than fine gear.

Then why introduce the gear if it isn’t needed?

Because many people like to get higher numbers, they find that enjoyable.

And just as many find it annoying, while many others just couldn’t care less. Meanwhile, the players who DO want “higher numbers” are a lot more likely to quit sooner and be less profitable for the developer, as I already explained above.

Oh yeah, I mean we saw how unprofitable WoW was with it’s vertical progression/gearing.

Literally the least profitable MMO there is.

Oh yeah, it was so succesful that they made it harder to keep up with progression to keep players in the game.
Oh wait…

And, WoW is currently bleeding subscriptions. I’m one of the drops of blood that came to GW2 to get away from the grind of vertical progression. Ordinarily, I love irony—here not so much.

Mackdose.6504:

Raine.1394:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Tiger.7506:

Sardonia.8196:

Just make ascended gear acquireable through the same methods as exotics. No time gating etc. Just at a slighlty higher cost. This way people can basically play the way they want. It is just that simple. At least to me it is.

No. “ascended gear is to be a bridge between exotic and Legendary”

How about there was no bridge stats wise between exotic and legendary gear. If it is just a time bridge, make them all the same stats again.

. It’s quite obvious that it wasn’t addressing a time to acquire gap.

How is it not obvious that that is exactly what they were addressing?

I’m happy to show you: because they changed the power of Ascended gear. Power has no necessary correlation to time.

Before Ascended, presumably there was a time gap between Exotic and Legendary. Time is what they said they were addressing, right? But, there was no power gap. And, to address a time gap there was no need to raise the power level of Ascended gear.

Basically time and power are two different dimensions. You don’t address time by increasing power. Unless, of course, your intent is to move from horizontal to vertical progression. But then, it’s not about time and time gaps; it’s about power and power gaps.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Tiger.7506:

Sardonia.8196:

Just make ascended gear acquireable through the same methods as exotics. No time gating etc. Just at a slighlty higher cost. This way people can basically play the way they want. It is just that simple. At least to me it is.

No. “ascended gear is to be a bridge between exotic and Legendary”

How about there was no bridge stats wise between exotic and legendary gear. If it is just a time bridge, make them all the same stats again.

Yes. That was always the most confusing aspect of Anet’s justification. We were in a situation were there was no gap between Exotic’s and Legendarys in terms of stats, which, to me, is the thing of ultimate consequence. To solve the non-existent gap, they created a real gap by increasing the power level of Ascended gear. (Which also raised the power level of Legendary gear.) None of this makes any sense. If it truly is about time, why would you even consider raising the power level of Ascended gear. After all, Legendary was the highest level gear and it was the same power as Exotic. It’s quite obvious that it wasn’t addressing a time to acquire gap.

fellyn.5083:

Raine.1394:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Mackdose.6504:

Henri Blanche.8276:

Ultimately most of this discussion is moot, even the OP’s otherwise worthwhile analysis. If people subjectively like having BiS equipment, and feel the effort to acquire Ascended items is an unnecessary and unwanted grind, then they will not be happy. They will feel like ArenaNet betrayed them, that most if not all of their promises and statements regarding this issue made in the past were lies. And they will feel especially violated if they played GW1 where the philosophy was very different and balanced.

Any comparison between Exotic and Ascended gear misses the point.

This guy hits the nail on the head right here.

/thread

Good you realized it. People feel betrayed. It is absolutely unimportant what you think people should think. You can tell them that 10% more damage is not much (ask your boss for 10% more money and tell him, it is not much and it doesn’t matter…), but for them it is more then just a cosmetical change.
People will feel betrayed by statements of the past.

The Manifesto and the interviews are haunting ANet, and it will not stop.

Agree with your analysis here. However, I believe it could stop. If Anet did a modest mea culpa and announced that they were ending VP with the Ascended tier, and had decided to move forward with skill/ability progression (a key element of horizontal progression), I believe these threads would stop in short order.

However, you are right, it will not stop as long as VP is in the game and we are being exercised on the treadmill. This is the price they pay for making us ride a treadmill we didn’t choose in the first place. I came to GW2 to get away from VP and the power treadmill.

They’ve already said they had no intention of adding new tiers after ascended. But that’s not good enough for people on this forum it seems.

Sadly, new tiers are irrelevant vis-a-vis vertical progression in the game. They have said from the beginning of VP in November that they had no plans to add new tiers of gear and intended to carry forward VP through updates (infusions) to the ascended tier. They have said that we would have VP going forward and they have never reversed themselves on this point. So, though there are no new tiers intended, VP will continue unabated.

I actually hope he remains as is as an object lesson. A living world is not served by encounters that simply empty it.

Ision.3207:

Raine.1394

However, you are right, it will not stop as long as VP is in the game and we are being exercised on the treadmill.

Raine, you know that I agree with you about VP to the letter, and I admire your intelligent and rational posts. But it’s time to let it go … you have fought the good fight. But it’s over. Below is a cut and paste of a post I made on another thread, but I believe it pertains to this discussion as well.

“Needless to say, my post history will indicate my fervent anger and dislike that Ascended was ever introduced at all. However, I’m smart enough to know that that ship has sailed, and we should not waste time re-litigating this topic. It is what it is, and that being the case, it’s time to move forward and offer viable and reasonable methods to lighten and facilitate the acquisition of Ascended items, as opposed to unrealistic and absurd fantasy scenarios where Anet rolls back the Ascended Gear.

Given this, I think it is important that we focus on making suggestions that move Ascended items towards a multi-acquisition mode (like exotics) as opposed to utterly wasting time in a debate about Horizontal vs Vertical progression. A debate in which, they are NOT going to roll back anything, and they are going to stand by their claim that they had always intended to have low-power curve vertical progression through ascended gear, and possibly other ways in the “distant” future.

So there is nothing to debate, despite their pre-release marketing, Gw2 is now a vertical progression game: period, end of story.

That said, I love the graphics of this game, it’s truly beautiful,. And I love the no must-have classes (trinity), and I enjoy WvW roaming, PvP and also some of the DEs and Dungeon paths. And what’s more, truth be told, there simply is nowhere else for me to go (at least for right now) for my particular play-style as far as mmo’s are concerned. Eventually a company will create, and stand by, a 100% horizontal progression game that also has modern graphics and solid game play – and when they do, I’m all in, but that moment, is not now. For now what we have is a plethora of Vertical Progression MMO’s to choose from, and given the choices I have, I choose GW2.

For my part, I intend to flood whatever thread they create on the subject of Ascended gear with suggestions that lead to a faster, cleaner and far less grindy means of acquisition."

It’s one thing to fight against the odds, it’s another thing altogether to fight windmills.

And the reality is, that with each passing month the core demographic of this game is changing. Changing from those, that like you and I, thought they found a haven for a 100% skill based horizontal progression game, to one where the early game buyers begrudgingly accept the changes from what was marketed and promised to the game we have now. Add to this the large number of new players from traditional MMOs, the hardcore-grinders that enjoy VP and stat advantages – and it is what it is.

I actually have no desire to tilt at windmills. And, if you look at my post history you will find that I have never once started one of these threads. My posts are restricted to correcting misinformation and offering what should be the obvious, i.e., if VP were to stop, so would the threads (again that I have never started) that oppose it.

I was encouraged in Colin’s blog post where he said they wanted to give us a method of character progression to do “instead” of chasing stats. If the “instead” really means instead, i.e., that we would no longer be grinding out more power, then I’m done and wouldn’t even hit a windmill by accident. However, in the meantime, while we wait to understand what “instead” means, I will focus only on accurately portraying vertical and horizontal progression. And I promise I will never create a thread on the subject.

Mackdose.6504:

Raine.1394:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Mackdose.6504:

Henri Blanche.8276:

Ultimately most of this discussion is moot, even the OP’s otherwise worthwhile analysis. If people subjectively like having BiS equipment, and feel the effort to acquire Ascended items is an unnecessary and unwanted grind, then they will not be happy. They will feel like ArenaNet betrayed them, that most if not all of their promises and statements regarding this issue made in the past were lies. And they will feel especially violated if they played GW1 where the philosophy was very different and balanced.

Any comparison between Exotic and Ascended gear misses the point.

This guy hits the nail on the head right here.

/thread

Good you realized it. People feel betrayed. It is absolutely unimportant what you think people should think. You can tell them that 10% more damage is not much (ask your boss for 10% more money and tell him, it is not much and it doesn’t matter…), but for them it is more then just a cosmetical change.
People will feel betrayed by statements of the past.

The Manifesto and the interviews are haunting ANet, and it will not stop.

Agree with your analysis here. However, I believe it could stop. If Anet did a modest mea culpa and announced that they were ending VP with the Ascended tier, and had decided to move forward with skill/ability progression (a key element of horizontal progression), I believe these threads would stop in short order.

However, you are right, it will not stop as long as VP is in the game and we are being exercised on the treadmill. This is the price they pay for making us ride a treadmill we didn’t choose in the first place. I came to GW2 to get away from VP and the power treadmill.

There is no treadmill. The progress you make makes you stronger vs the environment and the environment isn’t being tuned to keep pace.

You need both player power and environment power to increase to have a treadmill.

They are moving forward with skill/trait progression.

As I’ve noted above repeatedly, raising the power level of players without a corresponding increase in the power level of the environment would trivialize the game. Rather, whatever the current power level of the game is, that is what is used determine and adjust game balance in terms of the environment. Raising the power of players without adjusting the environment is simply to create imbalance in the game. This won’t happen. And, furthermore, all you need in order to create a treadmill is to positively relate power to time. This creates a power curve and as time passes the power of the game increases. It doesn’t take a math degree to understand the implications. If you want to play the game over time, you must follow the power curve. This is the very essence of a treadmill.

Yes, I know they are moving forward with skill progression. They have, however, nowhere said they are stopping VP.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Mackdose.6504:

Henri Blanche.8276:

Ultimately most of this discussion is moot, even the OP’s otherwise worthwhile analysis. If people subjectively like having BiS equipment, and feel the effort to acquire Ascended items is an unnecessary and unwanted grind, then they will not be happy. They will feel like ArenaNet betrayed them, that most if not all of their promises and statements regarding this issue made in the past were lies. And they will feel especially violated if they played GW1 where the philosophy was very different and balanced.

Any comparison between Exotic and Ascended gear misses the point.

This guy hits the nail on the head right here.

/thread

Good you realized it. People feel betrayed. It is absolutely unimportant what you think people should think. You can tell them that 10% more damage is not much (ask your boss for 10% more money and tell him, it is not much and it doesn’t matter…), but for them it is more then just a cosmetical change.
People will feel betrayed by statements of the past.

The Manifesto and the interviews are haunting ANet, and it will not stop.

Agree with your analysis here. However, I believe it could stop. If Anet did a modest mea culpa and announced that they were ending VP with the Ascended tier, and had decided to move forward with skill/ability progression (a key element of horizontal progression), I believe these threads would stop in short order.

However, you are right, it will not stop as long as VP is in the game and we are being exercised on the treadmill. This is the price they pay for making us ride a treadmill we didn’t choose in the first place. I came to GW2 to get away from VP and the power treadmill.

I think the overall issue is both in the UI elements involved and their potential for customization, and the particle effects of combat. Most issues around this arising in these threads have to do with the particle effects. Even in a relatively small DE, if you have a couple legendary greatswords, the target can be largely obscured by the particle effects what to speak of larger encounters.

Mackdose.6504:

Raine.1394:

Mackdose.6504:

Skan.5301:

Henri Blanche.8276:

If other players join me in this approach then that will force ArenaNet to finally listen.

If only it were true. Sad when you think of what the reality is. You’ll have people say “Yeah!” and then next LS update something will come up for 800 gems and they’ll jump on it. Not all, but many will. And that’s still revenue, no matter how small.

Mackdose.6504:

Wow.

Giant HP bags are basically timers that say “The better your gear is, the less time to have to make a mistake and fail.”

The bosses in this game can always 2 or 3 shot you, no matter what gear you’re in.

If you don’t see how dodge or die mechanics relate to the power level of the game, you shouldn’t be having this discussion.

Clearly shown by the “stack and spank” mentality that most bosses/legendaries in this game have, correct?

Fractals/Explorables? You know… hard PvE content?

I’m actually not talking about just hard PvE content; I’m talking about all PvE content. As the power level of the game rises in terms of the player base, it would make absolutely no sense whatsoever not to balance the environment to the players with corresponding adjustments to power, health, etc. While not the only aspect, this is certainly the most basic aspect of game balance. To argue otherwise is simply to misunderstand gaming.

For what you’re saying to be true, though, we’d have to already be at a point where ascended gear is balanced with the overall PvE content. It isn’t, it’s overkill. Exotic gear already over-powers 1v5 mob confrontations at 80. If this power shift you’re talking about was going to happen, it already would have.

Mob power in the open world isn’t scaling with player gear. Then again, open world bosses are beaten with player zergs and not gear.

Haha. If ascended is “overkill”, and players are generally in ascended gear, that would mean the game is currently imbalanced and in need of balancing, which is exactly my point. It’s the current power level of the game that is used in determining and adjusting game balance. If players are OP, the environment will be buffed in order to make gameplay properly challenging. If Ascended gear makes the game trivial, then that would simply indicate that the environment is in need of a buff. Again, this is pretty basic stuff we’re dealing with here in terms of game balance.

Mackdose.6504:

Skan.5301:

Henri Blanche.8276:

If other players join me in this approach then that will force ArenaNet to finally listen.

If only it were true. Sad when you think of what the reality is. You’ll have people say “Yeah!” and then next LS update something will come up for 800 gems and they’ll jump on it. Not all, but many will. And that’s still revenue, no matter how small.

Mackdose.6504:

Wow.

Giant HP bags are basically timers that say “The better your gear is, the less time to have to make a mistake and fail.”

The bosses in this game can always 2 or 3 shot you, no matter what gear you’re in.

If you don’t see how dodge or die mechanics relate to the power level of the game, you shouldn’t be having this discussion.

Clearly shown by the “stack and spank” mentality that most bosses/legendaries in this game have, correct?

Fractals/Explorables? You know… hard PvE content?

I’m actually not talking about just hard PvE content; I’m talking about all PvE content. As the power level of the game rises in terms of the player base, it would make absolutely no sense whatsoever not to balance the environment to the players with corresponding adjustments to power, health, etc. While not the only aspect, this is certainly the most basic aspect of game balance. To argue otherwise is simply to misunderstand gaming.

Shifu.4321:

You must not have played World of Warcraft

A healer UI, and the healer would be able to play largely off the green buttons in the center. The main distinction is that the clutter in your graphic is 100% chosen by the player, the clutter in GW2 is near 100% forced by GW2.

Mackdose.6504:

Raine.1394:

Mackdose.6504:

Raine.1394:

mrauls.6519:

Guess it’s good to stay up to date in gear

Anyone who truly understands vertical progression, i.e., a state where power is positively related to time, understands that following the path of the power curve is non-optional.

Only if the content follows the same power curve, which outside of fractals, it doesn’t.

(Yet.)

Well, let’s say the calculations above are correct and we’re dealing with a 10% increase in power. Do you suppose that the current power level of the game (here 10% higher year over year) will not be a factor in overall game balancing? Of course it will.

The difficulty of PvE isn’t provided by damage and defense numbers, like WoW or any other treadmill game. It’s provided by dodge or die heavy hits and environmental mechanics.

That makes the power curve on gear irrelevant in relation to boss and mob difficulty.

Let’s suppose further that VP continues at it current rate, and that’s what VP does, it progresses vertically. So, in another year it will be a 20% increase in power. Can’t you just hear the cries about content being too easy by then? I do, and of course the power level of the environment will follow and correspond to the power level of the players.

The power level of the environment isn’t bound by the formula that trinity-based games are, there’s no mob power increase to match the gear curve. Therefore what you’re saying isn’t coming true thus far.

It has nothing to do with our ability to dodge or trinity-based games. Game balancing simply has to do, ultimately, with game power and stats. What we are talking about in any encounter is a race to deplete an opponents HP. Winning is depleting an opponents HP before yours is depleted. And, of course, power is what forms the basis for depleting an opponents HP. The higher the power, the quicker that HP will be depleted. This is what you balance for, among other things, in a game. And, as the power level of the game rises, it would be silly not to balance the environment with the power level of the player base. Player to player and player to environment are what we are talking about in pvp/pve balance. It’s silly to suggest that they don’t need to or won’t balance PvE as the players increase in power.

Mackdose.6504:

Raine.1394:

mrauls.6519:

Guess it’s good to stay up to date in gear

Anyone who truly understands vertical progression, i.e., a state where power is positively related to time, understands that following the path of the power curve is non-optional.

Only if the content follows the same power curve, which outside of fractals, it doesn’t.

(Yet.)

Well, let’s say the calculations above are correct and we’re dealing with a 10% increase in power. Do you suppose that the current power level of the game (here 10% higher year over year) will not be a factor in overall game balancing? Of course it will.

Let’s suppose further that VP continues at it current rate, and that’s what VP does, it progresses vertically. So, in another year it will be a 20% increase in power. Can’t you just hear the cries about content being too easy by then? I do, and of course the power level of the environment will follow and correspond to the power level of the players.

Casmurro.9046:

I think that this 10% damage increase happens only in full berserker gear, since we all know that berserker is op and need nerf. Other kinds of builds like soldier’s cleric’s conditions etc will not get that much damage increase. In wvw i notice that almost everyone wears soldier gear so ascended will not have that much impact.

The most impact will happen in dungeon’s speedclears because of the full berserker meta.

You are correct that, if Berserker’s is the highest power pre-ascended, that stat combo will be the highest power post-ascended.

What you need to understand about vertical progression is that it describes an increase in power to the game, not simply any given stat combo. All stat combos post ascended will simply have the same relationship to all other stat combos pre ascended. What has actually happened is that the game itself has increased in power and that is the significance of vertical progression. And, anyone foolishly choosing not to follow the path of the power curve will be disadvantaged versus those who have chosen to follow it. So far, that disadvantage will be by around 10%. But, remember, vertical progression doesn’t progress by stopping.

Mackdose.6504:

DocHolliday.5921:

eisberg.2379:

again, using the word ‘by’ in the context of gaming 2 other definitions of the word make more sense for an MMO game.

Again, the definition of “by” you want to insist on is not valid in the context here. Not valid. Period.

Wow. Can’t believe we’re even discussing something this stupid and obvious. I’m done responding to your trolls.

Also, just so new visitors to the thread don’t miss it…

Eurogamer: How are you handling endgame loot – will we be farming bosses?

Colin Johanson: Everyone, including casual gamers, by level 80 should have the best statistical loot in the game. We want everyone on an equal power base. The rare stuff becomes the really awesome looking armours. It’s all about collecting the unique looking stuff and collecting all the other rare collectable items in the game: armour pieces, potentially different potions – a lot of that is still up in the air and we’ll finalise a lot of those reward systems as we get closer to release. And those come off of things like the bosses at the end of dungeons – the raids.

So we’re going to give weight to this quote, which was a year before the game’s release and has a disclaimer in it. (see bolded text)

And we’re going to ignore the following quote from July 2013:

Colin Johanson:

Progression Advancement

One of the core points we addressed back in January but didn’t provide specifics on yet related to progression.

We’ve seen a lot of questions in regards to this after the release of ascended gear: What will the core reward system be for Guild Wars 2 in the future after ascended gear has all been released? We specifically said we don’t want to get caught up in the trap where every 3-6 months the game adds another tier of gear to the game; that invalidates all your hard work and the rewards you’ve earned.

So what are we going to do instead?

New Skill and Traits

We’ll begin regularly adding new skills and traits to the game for each profession to expand your characters and builds! You will be able to earn these new traits and skills by unlocking them. To go along with this, we’ll expand the content and options to earn skill points to help encourage players to experience different challenges and content throughout the world. These skills and traits will be designed to be balanced with the existing skills/traits we currently have in the game, and will simply compliment and expand the range of abilities and tactics available to each profession. Both WvW and PvE players can acquire skills and traits, and additional means of earning skill points will be addressed for both core content areas.

The regular addition of skills and traits that you can earn as you play provides us an extremely stable, easily expandable reward system that fits neatly into the pillars of progression and advancement that Guild Wars 2 are all about. Your character will be able to grow and change for years to come without invalidating everything you’ve earned so far.

Emphasis mine.

So, what was this thread about again?

This thread is about vertical progression. Anet said, “we will have vertical progression moving forward with the focus on zero grind and a very low power curve.” CW.

That shallow power curve has brought us to a ~10% increase in power in less than a year. Yes, they have mentioned skill progression being added to the game at some point. They have, however, never said that vertical progression will be removed from the game. It will be an issue, and you will see threads like this one, until it is removed. So, yeah, this thread is about vertical progression.

mrauls.6519:

Guess it’s good to stay up to date in gear

Anyone who truly understands vertical progression, i.e., a state where power is positively related to time, understands that following the path of the power curve is non-optional.

I had thought that the skill progression Colin was describing was the traditional one that would contribute to class uniqueness and diversity. Universal skills are not that and not a method of character progression. After GW1, is it possible they actually don’t get horizontal progression? Or, is this new skill not a part of what Colin was addressing in his blog post?

Agree with not gating anything behind temporary content. I, for one, simply don’t do it anymore. I will be very happy when they implement a better model for evolving the LW. An evolving permanent world won’t even have the potential for the abuse of coercive temporary windows of opportunity.

I agree that a release holiday would contribute to a better game, assuming they used the time to work on core game. This wouldn’t be a permanent solution to game and story quality though, that would only happen should they move the dev cycle out to 2-3 months. Right now they really don’t even have time to think through releases let alone properly develop and test them.

McSlappy.1372:

Scryed.9423:

To the dude above me. You need to go back and play those games. I currently raid and play with friends in all of them, and in comparison to gw2 how it is now, vs last Oct the ‘grind’ you are talking about is 150% easier in wow etc, in fact its so easy that i geared up a brand new toon in full purple gear in heroic raiding in under one month and that was not playing more than twice a week. I haven’t been able to touch that here. So your comparison is bad since you obviously don’t play those games, you like to use as a comparison for what grind even means, and sit here and defend guild wars.
This game has way more of a grind than anyone wants to admit. You should just own up to it.

Yeah I read his long winded post. The Sixtheenth has some fairly significant miss conceptions about how math works and the current state in other games. In 2 months of casual play in WoW PvP. I can have All BiS for non rated players. If I get go for rating that season and get it the moment I get 2200 then I go get the rated weapon. It’s always entertaining to pick out the people that just babble about other games that really don’t have a clue about them.

I, too, usually find that it takes about 2 months in WoW for me to have a PvE and PvP set at the level I’m comfortable with. I don’t do heroic raids so gear out of LFR/normal raids and heroic dungeons is fine. And, for the most part, I’m fine with honor PvP gear just to have a set as I no longer do arenas.

And, I find that the short/steep power curve in WoW is actually easier than GW2’s long/low power curve. As mentioned, when a new tier drops in WoW I grind for a couple months and I’m done. The rest of the tier I can relax and play what I enjoy. With the long/slow grind of GW2 the grind is never over. That sword is always over your head—especially if you are an altoholic. One thing GW2 has taught me is that a short/steep power curve can actually be easier on you in terms of grindiness.

Yep. Underwater your helmet comes off and you don your aquabreather. If you want set bonuses you’ll need to slot the appropriate rune.

IndigoSundown.5419:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Technically speaking, so long as they do not add any further tiers beyond ascended, similar could eventually be argued here. Just depends on what happens in the future. I fully expect them to add infusions up to ascended level, I expect that as part of the ascended tier, but if they stop there then GW2 can be said to have no progression beyond that point as well. It’s the same difference.

Of course, a key difference between the GW1 playerbase and the GW2 playerbase, is that the people that stayed in GW1 did not ask for gear progression (at least no where near as loudly), we did for GW2, and Anet complied. The games are different animals, catering to different demographics.

Ascended and infusions are a compromise between the GW system and the tier system employed in games like WoW. It remains to be seen whether the portion of the GW2 demographic that wants VP will be satisfied with only one tier plus infusions.

What saddens me is that HP was not given a fair chance to replace VP. The only prestige armors are the dungeon and racial sets. Exotic karma armor all has the same skin. The cosmetic HP options were nowhere near robust enough to stand in for the lack of a chase for higher stats. Maybe the new HP initiative (once it rolls out) will be, maybe not. If it isn’t, we’ll be back where we were last fall once people have Ascended armor on their main.

I too was saddened by the fact that they didn’t use the call for VP as a teachable moment. That said, I was encouraged by the reference to ability/skill progression in Colin’s blog that was being put in place to give us something to do “instead” of grinding for power. I really don’t know what it means, but skill progression is a key element of horizontal progression and it could indicate a turnaround in design philosophy. One can hope.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Karizee.8076:

Hey Priam, I’m an ex WoW high end raider myself and I can assure you it’s just the combat and the way skills work together that’s so different in GW2 that is making you feel like “that guy”.

I don’t even want to look at how many times I died on my first toon, an elementalist, before I got the hang of things lol. It’s hard until you get it, but once it all clicks you’ll love it

Damage mitigation, positioning and CCs are much more important. There’s no rotations, it’s much more situational and combo skills and cross profession combos add another element to gameplay.

Here’s a pretty good basic guide.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUKWeaXZeOY

If I had to recommend one video to a GW2 newcomer, it would be this one.

I had never seen this video and it is a good one that is applicable generally to gaming and not just GW2. I learned gaming skills from my two sons. When I was new, they saw me backpedaling and told why it was better to strafe to keep the target in front of you while avoiding their melee attacks. I ended up unbinding the backpedal key and just binding strafe left and right and began using the mouse, generally, for movement. It’s amazing what simple things like character navigation can get you.

Another aspect to this is PvP. Backpedaling and keyboard-turning is like painting a target on your back as they are easily observable and anathema to skilled players. It’s a wise investment of time to get this down early in your gaming experience.

Dodging, while very important, is not the answer to all problems with GW2 combat. For one, it is based on a limited resource. Encounters which challenge this resource negate the skill involved in dodging. I believe there are problems in combat that are problems with the conception of challenge in combat with developers and not problems of player skill. I conceptually know what I should do. If I do everything I know to do, I can still die and die too easily. It’s not pervasive in the game but it happens often enough for me to consider it a problem in PvE.

lordkrall.7241:

*This game IN MY OPINION NEEDS

All of those things can (and most likely will) be added via the Living World updates. No need for an expansion to get all those stuffs.

This is absolutely true and I would prefer a naturally evolving world to an expansion. But, in order to do that Anet would need to do that. So far, we haven’t seen it in-game. Hopefully, we will see some signs of natural evolution before the end of the year.

Mackdose.6504:

Raine.1394:

McSlappy.1372:

Mackdose.6504:

Skill > Gear

I agree with the above. But in terms of active mitigation no not really. There are different mechanics yes but all classes in WoW have CC and defensive moves that allow you to remove incoming damage. Mage frezes, Hunter disorientates and traps & deterance, War stuns etc. The whole ohh I can dodge so this game is about player skill vs that game no lol that doesn’t work at all sorry keep trying. Oh hey that arcane mage is casting his huge nuke maybe I should feign death to dodge it. Basically the same thing.

Now that I think about it, wow thx for pointing this out. I’m actually now thinking there is more skill and strategy involved in the WoW PvP because you can see what they are casting and think about it. Okay he’s doing X but I know he can do Y which do blow my interrupt CC on.

But yes I do agree that skill is > gear. However while it happens most of the time in WoW. Just coming back to the game I really suck at GW2 pvp atm. I can and will beat better geared players left and right. However I don’t play and strive to beat players worse then me. I plan on challenging equal or better skilled players. When going up against another skilled player where your both playing your abilities against each other to near perfection then class balance, gear, and a bit of luck are the deciding factors.

Hmmm, hunter scatter-trap, I can see you’ve actually pvp’d in WoW. And, yes, cast bars would be a huge improvement to skilled play in GW2.

I’m going to qualify skill>gear for the purposes of this discussion. Skill is only a hypothetical in any discussion of power in a game. Power, on the other hand, is absolute. You may have seen the metric called PvP dummy. The idea is that with two players trading blows (i.e., skill is held equal), the one with the better gear will always win. This is simply so. When evaluating the effects of power it makes little sense to presuppose superior skill and much more sense to presuppose equal skill. Then you can see the actual effects of higher stats which dictate that stats do matter. And, it’s like walking into arenas in WoW in your fresh set of honor gear. Your first thought is to upgrade your gear so you don’t keep getting your kitten handed to you.

The easy skill>gear really doesn’t mean anything to an experienced gamer. Gear matters in a vertically progressing game and your first thought is always to acquire the gear necessary for the gear check.

So you’re saying that the skill of preventing your opponent from doing damage and avoiding damage doesn’t mean anything to an experienced gamer, and neither do builds, positioning, boons, conditions, or class.

And that’s just 1v1.

The problem with the PvE dummy metric is that it’s not applicable to real world conditions and as such, don’t tell the whole story.

They tell the story of higher numbers + 100% application of damage = Higher than lower rarity gear. Surely that’s correct.

But how often do you have 100% up time on a target in PvP?
Now take into account his class and build. Did the number change? Probably.
Now take into account his allies, if any. The number changed again.
Now take into account his control abilities. The number changes yet again.
Now take into account his dodges.

How much do you really gain from a 15% power increase when your damage up-time is the determining factor of a fight?

It’s not 15% I promise you that.

No, I’m not saying that skill does not matter, simply that it is hypothetical and not relevant for a discussion of the effects of increasing power in a game. That is, the relative effects of skill in encounters will continuously change in PvP with each new encounter, while the effects of power will remain constant. And, in this sense, PvP dummy is the best way to understand the effects of relative power in PvP. In science, in order to understand the impact of a variable, you generally hold all other variables constant and change the one of interest. In this discussion, the relative power (or stats generally) of gear is under discussion. It makes no sense, whatsoever, to presuppose that superior skill will negate the effects of increased power. If you encounter someone of equal skill, 9 times out of 10 the one with the higher stats will win.

McSlappy.1372:

Mackdose.6504:

Skill > Gear

I agree with the above. But in terms of active mitigation no not really. There are different mechanics yes but all classes in WoW have CC and defensive moves that allow you to remove incoming damage. Mage frezes, Hunter disorientates and traps & deterance, War stuns etc. The whole ohh I can dodge so this game is about player skill vs that game no lol that doesn’t work at all sorry keep trying. Oh hey that arcane mage is casting his huge nuke maybe I should feign death to dodge it. Basically the same thing.

Now that I think about it, wow thx for pointing this out. I’m actually now thinking there is more skill and strategy involved in the WoW PvP because you can see what they are casting and think about it. Okay he’s doing X but I know he can do Y which do blow my interrupt CC on.

But yes I do agree that skill is > gear. However while it happens most of the time in WoW. Just coming back to the game I really suck at GW2 pvp atm. I can and will beat better geared players left and right. However I don’t play and strive to beat players worse then me. I plan on challenging equal or better skilled players. When going up against another skilled player where your both playing your abilities against each other to near perfection then class balance, gear, and a bit of luck are the deciding factors.

Hmmm, hunter scatter-trap, I can see you’ve actually pvp’d in WoW. And, yes, cast bars would be a huge improvement to skilled play in GW2.

I’m going to qualify skill>gear for the purposes of this discussion. Skill is only a hypothetical in any discussion of power in a game. Power, on the other hand, is absolute. You may have seen the metric called PvP dummy. The idea is that with two players trading blows (i.e., skill is held equal), the one with the better gear will always win. This is simply so. When evaluating the effects of power it makes little sense to presuppose superior skill and much more sense to presuppose equal skill. Then you can see the actual effects of higher stats which dictate that stats do matter. And, it’s like walking into arenas in WoW in your fresh set of honor gear. Your first thought is to upgrade your gear so you don’t keep getting your kitten handed to you.

The easy skill>gear really doesn’t mean anything to an experienced gamer. Gear matters in a vertically progressing game and your first thought is always to acquire the gear necessary for the gear check.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I chuckle at those that claim GW1 had ‘no’ gear progression. If that were the case boyos, then you wouldn’t have gotten ran to droks for ‘max armor’, you wouldn’t have ran from the market to KC for ‘max armor,’ you wouldn’t have seen people purchasing a ‘ferry’ to Docks. If there had been no gear progression you would have played the entire game in your starter armor, which had an armor rating of what 1? 5? I don’t recall at this point.

Most people didn’t go from starter armor to max armor though, they purchased the first tier, sometimes the second if they had the mats and the gold, usually the third, and finally the max. That’s still 4 tiers though.

GW1 did not have a lot of gear progression, nor was it very steep, but it was still there.

The key distinction is that GW1 had zero gear progression post max level gear at max level. This distinction allows Mike O to say that it had no vertical progression, “ever”. And, max level gear was easy to obtain, which is a distinctive of games which scale horizontally. GW1 was decidedly not about gear progression; it scaled horizontally, using skill progression as a primary element of character progression, along with cosmetic gear.

Zacchary.6183:

Anet did not watch this.

The counterplay episode is helpful as well. And, the skill/ability progression that Colin promised would be coming is the perfect fertile ground to work on interesting class balance. For this to work, Anet will need to move away from short-term thinking (2 week dev cycle) and embrace a longer cycle. And, no, emulating it by fragmenting teams won’t work here either, just as it doesn’t work for LS.

Right now, core game is king in terms of importance and a move from vertical progression to skill progression (horizontal) is the right move, especially around questions of class balance. I would love to see it happen.