Guild Wars 2

lordkrall.7241:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Enjoying your no sub fee model? Lol. The entire game is designed around funneling as many players as possible into the cash shop by severely restricting loot and gold gained through simply playing the game.

$15 a month is worth NEVER seeing a “buy now” button on my UI or messages like in the OP in my chat box. Yeah, yeah, they have to make money so I’d rather just pay them a flat fee and hope they make a fun game with it.

They don’t really funnel people into using the cash shop anyway. I have never felt that the game as pushed me towards the gem-store. I know it is there and I can use it if I want to, but I have never come into a situation where I have felt forced to use it.

Are you saying that you’ve never felt “pushed” into spending money on the game, or are you saying you’ve never spent money on the game?

Dark Catalyst.1028:

I would like to see these two things in game. By allowing players like me use these tools, you are making it possible for us to “play how we want”.

“Play how we want”. It’s interesting you mention that because it’s exactly the reason behind the game having all this anonymity in the first place. It’s something that nearly no other MMO has. Aside from appearances and active effects, there’s next to no way to figuring out a player’s build.

The best part, though, is not of it would matter all that much with the game’s huge emphasis on open party, open world gameplay. Dungeons are a bit more of an exception, but they’re not too difficult. Sans some Arah, pugging my title was a breeze. I’d get near instantaneous groups just by posting “LFM all welcome”.

To get back on track, I wouldn’t agree with damage meters and inspect commands in GW2 because I think that not having them is one of the better things the game has going for it. But there can definitely be some solid work in making more viable builds or helping players get better at the game.

Devata.6589:

Azrael.4960:

One of the problems that Anet is having with GW2 is that a lot of the player base were avid fans of GW1, including myself. Anet put out 2 extra campaigns 1 and 2 years after the first campaign was released. This spoiled a lot of the players since two extra campaigns within 2 years of the first release is an enormous amount of content. Translating that expectation over to GW2, which has had significantly less content compared to GW1, has of course meant disappointment.

While not a huge GW1 fan there name Anet they had with the B2P model was indeed something that did draw me in. However I (and I think with me many) do not expect an expansion every half year (about with GW1 did). I did one every year maybe the first expansion a little later because of extra work after initial release. But we are closing in on two years and there is not even an expansion planned.

So it’s not so much as being spoiled (as I personally are not a Gw1 fan) but it’s more expecting a true B2P model but getting a cash-shop game with all it negative side effects.

Exactly trying to avoid that was what pulled me to GW2.

I feel that in retrospect, maybe we all should’ve expected this when we first heard about GW2’s cash shop.

While overly optimistic, I was still a bit worried when I found out you could convert cash > gold. Now with ANet going full steam ahead, saying “we’re fine with how the LS is making us money”, it makes way more sense. But knowing the game would be entirely F2P after the box price is something I -really- would’ve liked to know at release.

It’s funny when you look at Diablo 3 in terms of all this. Not only was it released in a similar time as GW2, but also started a ‘trend’ in how much cash could influence progression. Now they’ve 180’d on that, focusing on an inherently more rewarding game – and it shows.

edit: quoted the wrong person, whoa

I do want an expansion, but more than that I want the gameplay and reward progression not dictated by the ‘free-to-play’ model – because while the game is ‘free-to-play’, it’s also to gain a buck, and running into such payment-model dictated gameplay is the same reason I can’t enjoy sub-based games.

I feel that expansion packs are not only the least intruding to gameplay and reward progression, they also make the most sense. “Like the game? Well how about buying more game?”

If I had to choose between the two – subscription or completely free-to-play – then sure, I’m gonna pick f2p, but neither are what I signed up for.

I just don’t find it all that fun. The guardian and warrior skills are not as fun underwater as they are on land. On top of disorienting targeting, this can make underwater combat sort of a drag. Throw in the history of underwater glitches – mainly all the ones that make the bad guys invulnerable – and the experience leaves a real sour experience.

Dunno if ‘underwater only’ weapons and skills was worth it in the end.

Renown hearts are essentially ‘traditional quests’: If you go up and talk to each renown heart NPC, they’ll always tell you what they need done. Occasionally it’ll be interesting, like why they need it done or some other interesting tidbit. And they always have different dialog when you’ve completed their task, usually in the form of gratitude.

Playing it like this is probably the most I’ve enjoyed the game, because that’s in the end that’s all a renown heart is: A traditional quest. The main bonus about how GW2’s done it is you can progress towards it before talking to the NPC – which makes perfect sense. “I need you to kill 20 bears but I saw you kill 20 on the way over here sooo…Gj!” And it can flow very nicely into the dynamic event system, especially when you’ve already spoken to the NPCs in question so you know what’s up.

If you haven’t tried the game like this, give it a shot. It’ll feel a bit oldschool at first, and I know it’s really easy to just breeze through the content without pause, just stop and smell the roses some time.

Sartharina.3542:

More mob mobility and skill use alone would do wonders, as would getting their attack speed/style on par with players.

Imagining the AI being able to use their skills while moving and staying in range sounds challenging in and of itself.

Sartharina.3542:

The problem with Guild Wars 2 trying to add expansions, I think, is that the base game is ‘too strong’. And, they can’t just backload the game and hide new content and higher levelcap behind a paygate.

The classes are too diverse and well-balanced to add new classes to the game. I doubt they’ll add new races or weapon types either, for similar reasons. Then again, a new set of weapons balanced against the current set might actually be cool (though it might require renaming the current weapons in case there’s a risk of redundancy).

The original GW managed to launch several expansions without having paygate problems by having each expansion be able to stand alone or play with each other fairly, by introducing a complete suite of classes capable of mixing and hybriding with the normal ones, a completely new storyline independent of any previous ones, and a new set of maps.

I don’t see Guild Wars 2 being able to do any of this.

I don’t see why it’s unreasonable to put a pricetag on new content, but I do see the concern in putting one on a level cap increase. The answer there would be to not include one, unless they really want you to buy the expansion. Ideally, the new features and content should be driving that.

New classes I can imagine putting a hold on, but new game mechanics are sorely needed. I don’t consider GW2’s combat “bad”, but it’s definitely not perfect, and it’s core gameplay has lots of potential.

Primarily, I’m just really not a fan of ‘free to play’ models and the way they’ve developed the game does not encourage me to spend money on it. They’ve done it before – and fabulously, I may add, even with all the broken stuff they introduced with each expansion pack. I’m not a fan of a sub, either. Both routes do their part in interfering with gameplay and progression in very unappealing ways.

I’m okay with mounts as long as they’re purely cosmetic, maybe even going so far as to have a cool ‘mount up’ animation that could give you a speed boost for standing still while it happened. Maybe even mounted combat animations…!

But like I said: Keep it cosmetic, above all else. I don’t want mounts to be mandatory in order to ‘keep up’ or to get anywhere.

Zaxares.5419:

If people want to join the zerg train, they can do so.

If people come across the Troll/Bandit/Boar/Oakheart out of sequence and want to fight him, they can do so.

Players do not “own” content in the game. Play it how you want.

If a player heads out to a champion by himself with the knowledge that a ‘zerg train’ is a few minutes away, is it wrong for him to kill it? He could farm materials and other mobs in the vicinity while waiting for the 20+ people to arrive so that could acquire credit as well. They certainly didn’t truck all the way down to farm mats.

But I also agree: Every player should be able to play how they want. A person killing a champ by himself shouldn’t be an issue.

Ultimately, I feel that this is one of what could be SEVERAL issues as to why desirable champion rewards came this late into the game.

I don’t want a subscription model nor do I want a free-to-play model. I find both of them to be pretty intrusive to gameplay. GW2 is certainly better than most in both regards, but it feels more like a ‘free-to-play’ game with an initial pricetag (granted, that’s $50 more than I ever spent on any other F2P game.)

I want expansions back.

Vitus Dance.4509:

Immersive Combat Mode:
http://wesslen.org/ICM/

You can mimic this exactly in game, but it’s nice if you don’t want to hold down the mouse button. An official mouse toggle would be great.

Devata.6589:

You are 100% right! For a F2P game it’s not bad and in some F2P games it can be even worse. You know what was one of the reason I was interested in this game? Because I don’t like how the cash-shop focus influences the game as you see in F2P games, so I go for a game that is advertised as B2P and so should generate it’s main income with game and expansion sales (B2P). However this game then turned to going cash-shop focus (like F2P games) and so did get the same negative effects you see in F2P. Maybe not the worse compared with some other F2P games but it for sure is there a lot.

Get rid of the cash-shop if you (Anet) can’t handle it and start selling expansions to generate income instead.

Agreed. I went into GW2 with the same expectation: expansion packs. Not only was it what they did for GW1, but it worked for me. Thus far I’ve only paid for the box price of the game, and while that’s $50 more than I ever spent on a f2p game, it’s only a fifth of what I spent on GW1.

It’s not an easy thing to ask for: “Hey Anet, change your business model!”, but one can hope. Blizzard did it with D3, and the result is a game that’s way more rewarding, and that’s $40 more than I ever spent since it’s initial release with the RMAH.

Don’t think I’d call it the “most grindy” game, as far as F2P games go it may be one of the best. I recently came back from Warframe and Vindictus, both solid examples of how F2P can go wrong and smudge over all the gameplay.

But GW2 is certainly grindy. Not the worst, but it’s there. It’s to be expected from a F2P game. There are some times where the grind makes no sense though, like dungeon armor sets.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

You don’t need Ascended armor. The stat increase over Exotics is minor. So if you’ve given up on getting these, you can still play the game as normal.

This statement seriously worries me because it begs the question: How strong would a set of gear have to be to warrant it as being ‘necessary’? Would a set of gear about 5% stronger than ascended be just as unneeded? What about a set of gear that’s 5% better than that?

It’s these ‘grey area’ conclusions that make me seriously doubt that the vertical progression is going to stop with ascended – and having open-world, zerg based gameplay can give them plenty more wiggle room to continue the VP.

I’m jumping on the Tengu bandwagon. Not a whole lot of ‘bird people’ races to play in a lot of games, and imagining them in some of their T3 heavy in super inspiring.

If we wanna go WAY back, I’d want the Margonites in: Tortured souls hoping to redeem themselves. They have a brutal aesthetic too, I swear they took some cues from Hellraiser.

At this point, a bit too much work for the possible investment I’d imagine. Definitely something I’d implemented down the road. If I can change my mind about my gender, why not go the whole way and change my race?

The only prerequisite that’d have to exist is having the personal story quests past level 30, because at that point our race and character choices don’t really matter.

Morte de Angelis.7986:

Easy way to do it.

Race Change equal anything related to that char wiped.
Achievements stay that same because you still ACHIEVED them.
Anything in the wallet stays because its account bound.
Anything AND I MEAN ANYTHING on the character at the time of race change = gone.

Might as well craft-level…Honestly, probably another reason they’re less hasty to do this.

Rod.6581:

Why not both? Instanced raids AND large scale world bosses?

Primarily, it would go against the whole idea of what GW2 is pretty much all about: Nearly complete non-exclusivity with it’s content. This is the way the entirety of PvE is designed, from it’s classes to it’s open-world content. Sans the occasional dungeon group, you can’t say “no” to anyone joining your group. This is, to this day, GW2’s biggest strength.

It’s not without it’s problems, though. Having content scale appropriately for every player number is far from easy to fine-tune, and an emphasis on temporary content makes it essentially pointless: there can’t be much encouragement in perfecting encounters for 1 to 100 players if the content isn’t sticking around.

I’d love to see more middle-ground. I felt the SAB was a decent example of that – a simple example, but a decent example of having a dungeon that scaled based on the players. It wasn’t open world, but the concept is way more open than a typical dungeon set up.

Knighthonor.4061:

If GW2 has a traditional Trinity system, what would the game be like?

Pure speculation discussion, so feel free to give your belief of what the game would be like with a traditional Tank/Healer/DPS trinity system.

(excuse the title of thread. limited character prevents title detail)

Like if it was designed that way in mind from the start? Well we’d have a pretty different game, of course, though perhaps with enough of it’s own appeal and mechanics to stand out.

If it was something that would recently be “thrown in” after the fact, I don’t think a whole lot would change, really, since the meta doesn’t need it. You can already emulate it to an extent with the toughness-based tank/“anchor” AH guardians. But I think everyone would still just zerker it up, unless they also got rid of the dodge button.

At the most, it’d take you 23 runs of a given dungeon for a full set of its exotic armor. It takes three runs to get a single piece, at least six for a two hander.

Overkill much, methinks.

If their current trend ceases to stop producing profit, they’ll have to fork out new ways to monetize the game to support it. The need might not arise now – which is nice – but should it be required, they’d still be “in line” to do so.

I’m not surprised, really. If they’re not going down the expansion route while still claiming they’re giving “free DLC”, they’re gonna have to cut a lot of corner.

Nike.2631:

I’ve fought much longer and harder to get 1% improvement in other MMOs. In my experience a 5% jump in anything is kinda… HUGE.

It’s a lot easier to disregard based on the context: content designed for “people in rares”, and content designed for a screen full of players. Of course, that’s also not to say it’s a strictly positive situation.

If they keep their focus on open-world ‘zerg-based’ content, and if they keep dungeons as ‘accessible’ as they are, I see no reason why the vertical progression won’t continue. At this point that’s my main concern.

Mainly, I think one of the biggest advantages is you don’t have to maintain temporary content. There are still periods where I have to guest to a different server when I run into a bugged skillpoint or quest, so with even more permanent content I’d imagine it’d be something out of their reach at this point. May seem a bit less of a “reason” and more of an “excuse”, though.

On top of that, it pretty much forces players into one part of the game, and I’d imagine it’s a lot easier to accommodate a zerg of players as opposed to each and every amount of players present.

If the content had thematically been designed to be permanent and allowed the content to be thoroughly enjoyed through any number of players, I’d see little to lose. And if they didn’t need to be throttled so hard into constantly releasing content, that could happen at some point.

“What happened to the manifesto?”? Not a whole lot. The manifesto in and of itself doesn’t say much, turning out to be an odd infomercial for the game.

It’s more pivotal to look at the Manifesto in addition to the rest of their pre-release goals and desires, and yeah, not all of it currently ‘syncs up’.

I think the biggest deal is how GW2 is essentially following a free-to-play model. Once the box price is out of the way, the game then becomes entirely ‘free to play’. The concept sounds great on paper, regardless of the game. In actuality there’s a handful of strings attached permitting that game to be F2P, many of them affecting gameplay.

I don’t think GW2, or the way it’s gameplay is molded, is completely ‘no strings attached’. I think the biggest example of that is turning cash → gems → gold.

GW2 has some of the most solid presentation I’ve ever seen in an MMO, and one of the best I’ve seen for games as a whole. The graphics is top-notch, the animations are incredible, combat is satisfying and fun to play, and the personal story is loaded with promise. And yeah, no monthly fee is a big plus, though I’d argue that they try to “make up” for it…

Regarding “heart quests”: The only thing considered ‘revolutionary’ about them is that you don’t have to talk to the quest giver – at all – to complete the quest. Can’t say that this is a trend I want RPGs to go down, since I should want to care about the quest.

Earning credit for the quest before you’ve started it isn’t new either, just new for MMOs.

Any news of reducing particle effects or UI customization?

This issue is confounded even moreso by the fact that you have to “explore” the same map three times.

There really needs to be a better solution a year+ after the game’s been released.

The big reason why attaining ascended gear is as grindy and taxing as it is is because there are plenty who are willing to pay and strive for it. Once that dies down or people just get tired of the grind and timesinks, expect to see ascended gear handed out for free. It’s the same idea behind a subscription MMO going free-to-play.

If things keep going the way they are, then I’ll be stuck with only having ascended trinkets. I earned those back when I hadn’t done every dungeon nor every event in the game world. I burnt myself out on the gear grind once I earned my quiver and got a set of TA armor (20+ runs of the same dungeon, jesus…)

On the “plus” side, if they keep going down the path of content made for zergs – where the % of your contribution ends up being a small and single digit – then ascended gear and any other VP bonuses will be pointless.

Of course, this means when we do get small scale and demanding content, better gear is going to matter.

It does not help that the design of the gear does not match what they’ve previously created, so I get to look forward to a buying a handful of transmutations on top of it all.

lordkrall.7241:

Smith.1826:

Discrimination is always going to exist in online video games. GW1 and GW2 are no different in this. But I will say, the ‘know how’ of making a proper build in GW1 wasn’t as straight-forward as in GW2, and I do believe that GW1 had the potential for tons more depth than it’s sequel.

True enough, but then again mostly people just took the “best” build from PvX wiki and ran the content.
Sure some people made those builds in the first place, but the majority simply took a build from there and ran it so most people never really utilized the extensive build system anyway.

Exactly, but this was less a symptom of an ‘imbalanced’ game and had much more to do with static enemy builds and barebones AI. Had both been designed to be more dynamic and surprising, PvE could’ve required the use of a variety of builds, tactics and strategies, mimicking PvP play.

Hence why I said that GW1’s concepts had far more potential. GW2 could have the same potential, but the gameplay hasn’t really been expanded upon sans balances, and it currently has nowhere near the same amount of depth GW1 had at its start.

Discrimination is always going to exist in online video games. GW1 and GW2 are no different in this. But I will say, the ‘know how’ of making a proper build in GW1 wasn’t as straight-forward as in GW2, and I do believe that GW1 had the potential for tons more depth than it’s sequel.

Ashen.2907:

one race’s supposedly unique cultural armor going into the gemstore for other races to buy…

…The issue is not price reductions but unfair access to supposedly race specific skins.

Seconding this, just sayin’.

korelg.7862:

so much whining… if you don’t like it, don’t buy it

^Point missed.

This was a massively and incredibly silly, silly thing to implement.

-the animations
-the setting
-combat
-present day Ascalon
-my characters!

Is GW2 “dying”? Of course it is…just like everything, technically!

Forced “glass half empty” silliness aside, it’s a impossible thing for us to fully ascertain. Near launch I was in a low-tier, “High” population server. While leveling after Queensdale, I rarely saw _any_one. I held my reservations until endgame when I still didnt see anybody, even in Orr.

It was when I transferred shortly after to Sorrows Furnace that all changed: people everywhere! I was blown away, so much that I didn’t mind all the crazy particle effects (there were so many people!)

At present day? Its dwindled down a whole lot in SF, from my perspective. Sure, the most standard “farm favorable” areas and the LS are popular, but otherwise it’s incredibly sparse.

This isn’t indicative of much as I’m just a single sample size, and there are people experiencing the opposite. But I’d like to hope it was worth telling.

This is simply divine. I hope you gave ANet your resume -because they need to hire yo’ kitten

But seriously, this is the Guild Wars 2 that I want to play. Simply fantastic and inspiring work, Afoot, nearly brings a tear to my eye…

Lindbur.2537:

That would actually annoy some people, because there are people who buy exotics they can’t use with the express intent of salvaging them for an inscription.

Then how about merchant “buyback”? I’d settle for anything that makes the player not as screwed when he accidentally buys light armor for his guardian.

On a similar note, let’s make it so people can’t buy items from the dungeon vendors that the character they bought it for can’t use.

aspirine.6852:

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

They were probably there to see what makes them bug out so they can fix it. Back in GW1 I had teamed with a couple of devs a few times to try to work out what was glitching out. It probably means the bugs are high up on the list to be fixed.

This could be the case of course. Sounds like the logical choice here.

I can’t watch the stream because Twitch is bugging out for me, but bug-testing seems like a very strange thing to stream.

cesmode.4257:

Hi,
Curious why develop direction and the main focus has turned to living story, instead of making the world seem alive, as was the goal? If you visit any zone that is not connected to the current Living Story, you find an empty zone.

I am currently standing in Fireheart Rise, I see no one. I see events kicking off, expiring, failing, dead friendly NPCs because no one is doing any events. The world feels dead. If you are not playing in the small handful of zones…Queensdale, Kessex, Frostgorge, sometimes Orr. Thats about it.

I am curious what anyone thinks why the development direction went to living story, instead of giving us a real reason to play the game in these zones, when the whole idea was to create a living world. I truly feel that Living Story has had the opposite effect on the game. Its sad to see such fantastic content and dynamic events go to waste.

It’s a far easier and malleable undertaking than adjusting the near entirety of the game world. They could absolutely put effort into making the current map of Tyria strongly dynamic, immensely replayable, and as close to “living” as you could get in a game. But the time and effort it would take to do so would be astronomical, moreso when they’re relying on continued microtransactions as the lifeblood to the game.

Hence the current form of the “Living World”: Getting the players in centralized areas and rewarding their continued play with progress bars.

I’d say it depends on where their current money is coming from. Assuming most of it comes from ascended hunters – they did go through a lot of flak to implement it – how would those people feel about pursuing these bigger stats if an expansion came raising the level and gear cap? That’s one reason I feel they’d be “hush hush” about it.

It’s not just having to get them through the store that irks me, it’s with this in addition to the gems being single use and destroying an item that crosses the line.

Let’s say you really like the TA armor, but you have multiple sets of gear you like to use. You have to do the dungeon at least twenty times for each set. Just one example.

The trans. gems system just feels needlessly restrictive, not up to MMO standards, and – when you look at the dye system – inconsistent.

fellyn.5083:

bigmooky.9106:

I swear the only the im starting to see is norn,charr, and human warriors and guardians and its really starting to make me mad because they are all wearing the same thing all black armor and twilight and its getting very annoying am i the only one who sees this?

I find it interesting that what other people choose to play or put on their characters, something that has no affect on you personally, makes you mad.

On a similar token, I’d pay mad money to disable the rendering of those plush backpacks.

The transmutation crystals are incredibly cumbersome, strict, and rigid when it comes to customizing your character, much moreso when compared to WoW and Rift. A system that even comes close to the convenience those two can provide would be more than amazing.

-1 to armors (I wear heavy) and -1 to weapons.

I kinda like it, actually. But I wouldn’t object to them reverting it, either, I’d even encourage it. And is it just me, or did they alter their 1hand running animation as well?

In a small way, it gives me hope that they’ll do changes to the Charr animations!

That just further solidifies what I’ve been saying: that MMOs cannot be without methods and means of monetizing gameplay, regardless of the payment model. Is a world with a large amount of people playing together simultaneously that hard to maintain? Or is it more the result of everyone riding the “hypetrain”, putting on loads of expectation from the players, developers, and other backers?

Definitely a bit of both, but I think that GW2 being hailed as the “second coming of MMO-Christ” hurt more than it helped.