Thing is optimal means different things. Sure a monk is a better monk then a warrior with a monk secondary no doubt but whats optimal being in a party with no monk thus no healing or having someone heal even if sub optimally?
I’d rather have someone who can heal and protect effectively. I admit, having some protection is likely better than no protection, but finding a monk wasn’t that hard (hello henchmen, and later heroes).
…So is it really better to have 5 maximum dps party members or is it actually beneficial to put in a little support and crowd control? we havent even touched about how an ele and a mesmer can help keep those 3 warriors alive and do some damage themselves as well!
I don’t know, it seems like you could make up for all that with banners, For Great Justice, and if the vulnerability from greatswords isn’t enough, “On My Mark”. Going that far out of the way just to boost the damage for three warriors seems unnecessary. Healing isn’t necessary due to dodge and self-heal mechanics and PvE’s infatuation with big, damaging attacks. CC’s also iffy due to defiant in it’s current state.
No I dont, just cause you have to repeat content it doesnt automatically mean its a grind.
Can I get an ascended weapon without laboring through content that’s nearly a year old and that I’ve already played? If not, then getting one is not fun. And that’s the question: “Is it fun?” If it isn’t, they need to address it.
This I dont understand, you’re not playing cause you dont feel like playing.. its not the game forcing you to stop, it is you choosing to stop so how exactly are you being punished when its you deciding to miss out so to speak?
Chapters don’t disappear from my book when I’m not reading it. Most games don’t delete levels from their game when I’m not playing it. Netflix is getting huge because it gives you the power to watch what you want, whenever you want.
Games are well within their power to do the same thing: Let you experience something fully and completely at your own pace. This is an idea that needs to be embraced entirely.
And what if the reason isn’t because you don’t want to play, but can’t? It can heavily dictate how one plays and experiences the game.
how did any of that mean your warrior couldnt heal like a monk or you monk couldnt summon spirits like a ritualist etc..?
It didn’t, it was just far from optimal. You could be a monk with all warrior skills, but a warrior would do it way better. Likewise, you’d support your teammates way more than a warrior with monk skills. The choice was there, but in many cases it was not optimal. In a team game, this is important.
I mean seriously how can anyone claim you have no choice in Gw2 because every class can do more or less everything? you have no choice in trinity mmos if I want to heal I have to go priest no other class will do… thats what no choice really means!
Lack of options is the result of PvE demanding little sans DPS. Having everyone become self-dependent erases a lot of the codepency and interesting team play. Lack of balance (conditions) and balancing mechanics (resource management) is icing on the cake for what I consider a less interesting, less team-based game.
Well thats not exactly what I asked but even so you’re playing an MMO, ascended gear or not you’ll be repeating content anyway! What ever choice of content is you can play that to get a weapon drop if you find it too tedious to play a variety of content in order to go the crafting route. But ascended gear or not repetition is inevitable.
So…you admit that it’s a gear grind? That fact that you consider that ‘inevitable’ speaks volumes for where MMOs have ended up.
No you’re not, you’re not punished at all.
I would think that missing out on gameplay is punishment enough in and of itself. There’s been very little of it lately that you can experience at your own pace. I can play an hour of Morrowind (or any other game, pretty much), put it on the shelf for a year, and come back to where I started.
I think what they’re doing creates less of a ‘living world’, and more a method to help ensure you get people playing your game as possible.
(edited by Smith.1826)
Is that a bad thing? because to me thats what made Gw1 great as well the fact a class didnt mean a cage. Why did gw1 have dual classing which you could change at will anytime if it was meant to have “emphasis on class differentiation”
Because among things like energy management and armor ratings, the key thing that balanced it all out was the primary attribute.
Also its exactly the opposite, when you have open classes that include almost all elements of the other classes you dont get straightforward you get complex….
…contrast that with Gw2 The variety is mind blowing.
What was the point of all that, though? Most of that I can do as a warrior from WoW, nearly all of it can be done across all the classes. This is splitting hairs.
And that’s the thing: I don’t get a whole lot out of comparing GW2 to other MMOs. What I do is compare it to GW1, and what I get out of that is a less dynamic, simplier, and ultimately less satisfying experience. All roads in PvE lead to DPS glass-cannon builds.
how are they harmful? if you can even call what we have a gear grind when most of the stuff you can get by playing an hour whatever you choose (thus finishing the daily) and for the weapons you get a big variety of content you can play to get the stuff you need?
As for frequent temporary content with some permanent stuff sprinkled in every 2 weeks how exactly is that harmful?
In regards to how the “gear grind” is harmful, it’s how that relates to what I’ve been saying in this thread: When reaching certain rewards requires repeating content you have no interest in repeating – or content that doesn’t do anything interesting in repeating it. That relates heavily to the point I’ve been trying to make.
In regards to how “temporary content” is harmful, it’s how it can cause the urge to play as is common in many other MMOs. If you’re nearly 100% active in another “gear centric” MMO, you wont be “behind” when they release new content. If you’re 100% active in GW2, you won’t miss any content. If I choose to take a break in either scenario, I’m punished for it.
Thing is it really isnt.
I vehemently disagree. I’ve had nowhere near the same amount of fun in build making as I have in GW1, and certainly not the same amount of interesting and meaningful options. There’s also no longer the emphasis on class differentiation: There’s no longer a “jump” in playstyle between classes that was as interesting as warriors to monks.
As such, GW2 is one of the most straightforward and basic games I’ve played.
how does any of that mean you’re just repeating a small subset of the content cause thats all you enjoy and thus burned yourself out on it?
Because you’re ignoring the rest of what I’ve been saying: That the rest of the gameworld I feel “burnt out” with after the first playthrough because I don’t think it has any and/or completely inconsequential replayability.
How is that a good analogy? what would be the roach in Gw2? (something that is down right harmful ?)
Because I certainly think gear grinds and temporary content – and other things – are absolutely harmful. Of course, I also know that some people enjoy kittenroaches…
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For example Gw2 has a very complex combat system with classes having skills that can be used in so many different ways to achieve a tactical advantage but because the game is too easy a lot of people perceive gw2 combat to be very 1 dimensional.
It’s still one of the more shallow games I’ve played, especially in regards to GW1: Half of my skillbar is locked, I don’t have as many options, and the class design ended up being “everyone does DPS, but differently”.
GW1, while easy, made up for this with the sheer amount of choice I had when it came to customization just one class, and the classes were more specialized. The difference between playing a warrior and playing a monk was pretty big, and there’s nothing that ‘big’ in GW2.
Hmm I see, you already burned yourself out on that content before. Thats indeed a problem I hadnt considered.
You’re just now getting that? Because it’s essentially the very first thing I said when I came into this thread. What gives?
That would be a mistake however, if you simply dismiss an implementation because you find it not to you liking while ignoring what the alternative is you risk asking for something you hate more then what you had.
I’m merely saying that I’m not going to cut my favorite restaurant any slack if my entree comes with a kittenroach. If it’s the only restaurant I’ve been to in town, I still have a right to be upset. Even though it may be the best chinese restaurant in town, it’ll mean that I might not want to eat chinese anymore.
Challenging is indeed a problem in Gw2, the game is just too easy but then again now this suggests your problem is not with repeating old content, your problem is you dont enjoy content that isnt challenging dont you think?
Nope. I can deal without difficulty as long as the gameplay is varied and deep. I might even be okay without the depth if the gameplay was varied.
thats only true if you enjoy nothing about the game because you can complete the daily playing anything in the game really.
Or if you’ve already played and exhausted numerous aspects of said game in the year it’s been out.
All those temples, dungeons, and other champs/bosses,I played the crap out of them months ago, much of it by January. I had a lot of fun.
But, I don’t think any of that (nearly a year old) content scales or changes enough in a meaningful way to justify such time-heavy rewards.
Because nothing is perfect and everything is relative.
I dont think that’s an “accurate” analogy, because I don’t need to know anything about other MMOs to come to the conclusion of disagreeing with how this one’s being handled. Just because something in GW2 is better than what other MMOs do does not automatically make that thing “good”.
Likewise having unique content to play all the time is ideal, Gw2 isnt there yet and most likely never will be but compared to other MMOs it is the closest one I know of.
Well, one “unique” feature it had going for it was the scaling, something FFXIV pretty much ripped off and something I could imagine WoW easily ripping off should they need to.
Otherwise, the thing that will always be GW2’s biggest draw is that it doesn’t have a subscription fee, and this is for better or worse. The good is that you dont have to pay for any of it, the bad is that you get what you pay for.
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That doesnt mean its just dungeons and raid but means that the majority of it is dungeons and raids. There are other things of course like dailies / repeatable quests etc.. The point is gw2 gives you the entire game to repeat, other mmos give you a small subset of their content to repeat.
It’s worth mentioning that those “other MMOs” can put a lot of effort into that small “subset” of content. The most fun I had with WoW was running Karazhan alot. Sure, I repeated it often, but it was a huge place with fun and challenging fights.
When does that new content become old content though?
After I play it, of course. It’s that first playthrough of it that sways my decision: If I’m going to choose between grinding something new or something old, the “new” path would feel “fresh” the most. Even when it’s just that first playthrough. I havent exhausted the theoretical “new” content, and I have exhausted the old content.
And maybe the new content does something interesting that makes me want to spend a lot of time in it.
If I get to play a dynamic event I only played once 1 year ago and it branches in a different way or scales in a different way can that be considered new content cause honestly to me it would feel newer content then the new dungeon I already did 5 times this week.
Yeah I tried that awhile ago, but the lack of depth and lack of difficulty with the old content made replaying it hard to do, essentially making the content feel homogenized and indifferent. It just wasn’t interesting enough to go back to.
Well then you’re in the correct game because you’re free to ignore ascended gear you cannot do that in a lot of other MMOs…
True, but I do want them. But the only way to get them is through grind. That’s my issue. The only way to get them is not fun.
I’m sure there’ll be a point where the interest in hunting for them will drop and they’ll make them kitten easy to get, but until then I’m bummed that the only way to grab one is not fun for me.
And who cares what other MMOs do? I care about what this one does.
gw2 might not be perfect but it and gw1 are still the closest games I know that come to what you want.
GW1 was (keyword: was) far closer to what I wanted in a game than what GW2 has become. But that’s for another thread.
It’s interesting..because my understanding of energy management when it was first introduced in MMOs was for developers to slow down the game, so their servers could keep up with all the calculations. It DID add more depth to the game as an affect effect, but the main reason it was used was to slow down skill usage, so that there would be less lag.
Today servers can handle more, so it’s not as necessary.
Ow, my brain. I need a source for this so I can properly dissect it’s contents.
What do you mean by “not as necessary”, by the way?
Also, I thought that the GCD was the major player with assisting and balancing lag.
GCD also played a part of course, but the less system calls you handled the better you performed. Very often different programming problems are attacked from different angles.
The articles I read on this were written years ago, but I’m sure you can dig some of them up. Me….I’m too lazy.
I just don’t think that the fact that latency is more manageable is an excuse to throw out resource management. It’s one of the major foundations that adds a lot of depth, balance, and replayability to games like Dota and League of Legends. It’s something that goes above and beyond what’s present in MMOs.
Like I said WoW is not one of the games I play So I have no idea first hand what the end game consists. According to WoW players though it still fits the bill:
http://www.wowwiki.com/End-gameIs there anything that the above link neglects to mention?
Right, that’s not just “dungeons and raids”. This is why making generalizations is a dangerous idea.
I am sorry but if you find playing content a 2nd time grindy MMOs might not be the genre for you cause once you hit max level I know of no MMO that gives a stream of fresh content to play.
So you can understand why people are calling the game grindy?
And there are certainly a few games out there I’ve “repeated”, but they’ve been designed in certain aspects and contain mechanics that make the game inherently replayable. Dark Souls is such an example: with its brutal difficulty and freedom in character builds, there are plenty of ways to mix up your experience.
GW2 lacks both such things: a challenging and rewarding experience, and a substantial amount of different ways to play it. And this is just the PvE I’m talking about: the PvP in this game hasn’t been able to engage me, so I can’t rightly comment on it.
At the end of the day its a question of tastes. You prefer to repeat something new 25 times in a row…
Not exactly what I was trying to get across.
If I HAD to choose – i.e. If my life was literally at stake – I’d prefer to “grind” new content, because its new content. I would not want to grind in old content. I don’t care that there’s a million things to do, because I’ve already done them.
But since I have a choice, I wont “grind” in either scenario. If you introduce a gear grind with no new content, I won’t be interested. But, if you release a gear grind supported by new content, I’ll at least be interested in the new content.
That’s the point I’m getting across. That’s why I have no interest in this ascended “grind”, because it attempts to make the most out of a ton of content I’ve already thoroughly enjoyed. And that’s also why I consider it a “grind”, furthering adding on to my disappointment with their current direction.
It’s interesting..because my understanding of energy management when it was first introduced in MMOs was for developers to slow down the game, so their servers could keep up with all the calculations. It DID add more depth to the game as an affect effect, but the main reason it was used was to slow down skill usage, so that there would be less lag.
Today servers can handle more, so it’s not as necessary.
Ow, my brain. I need a source for this so I can properly dissect it’s contents.
What do you mean by “not as necessary”, by the way?
Also, I thought that the GCD was the major player with assisting and balancing lag.
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I miss any form of meaningful energy management. Lots of depth and balancing tools were lost in ditching them.
The quest rewards in Guild Wars 1 were a joke. Allowing people to choose their rewards via karma vendors is smart…and different from just questing in other games.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a huge difference or it’s a small difference…what matters is it’s different. It’s often nuances and subtle touches that make something better.
No one is going to design an MMO without quests, because quests are what you do. An MMO without quests, would be an MMO of basically grinding mobs. If you see a house on fire, being attacked by bandits, that’s a quest to stop the bandits.
However, without saying kill ten bandits…and actually driving the bandits off, what you end up with is something that’s more organic that what you find in a regular MMO. It’s an improvement. For some, it’s a huge improvement. I’m one of those.
I don’t think I could ever again play a game with standard questing. At the very least, the standard questing would have to be exceptional.
I don’t have any issue with the heart quests nor their rewards (sans the fact that there isn’t much choice and the rewards aren’t free). I just don’t think they’re anywhere near as revolutionary as many claim them to be. Compared to most other MMOs, probably, but that’s because the ‘bar’ set by those other MMOs is horribly low, and I’m not going to cut them slack as that bar has been surpassed above and beyond in many other games.
Fulfilling quests objectives on your way to the questgiver is nice, but not new. Multiple paths to completion is far from new. Being able to complete a quest without ever knowing the person who gave it can be cool, but it’s not something I’d strictly classify as a ‘pro’, since it also doesn’t make sense (moreso when I receive a ‘thank you’ note…I never even met the guy!). In fact I was bummed when this would happen as I’d miss out on what they had to say to me prior to completion. I suppose I can appreciate having the option to not give a crap about what I’m doing and be rewarded for it…
Otherwise, I don’t see what the big deal is.
I never claimed they were revolutionary. But I did say that you can’t compare hearts to dynamic events, because hearts weren’t made to replace normal questing. Hearts are in the game for one reason and one reason only…to keep people in areas where dynamic events spawn. They’re a tool. That’s their purpose.
Then I’m not entirely sure why they wouldn’t just make more dynamic events instead, and I think they have the tools to address player scaling. I actually wouldn’t have minded that at all, provided there were enough and I was able to see them on the map.
And I thought we saw what a ‘city’ could be in GW1 with Drok’s? I’m not sure, this whole mini discussion is lost on me because I didn’t have much of an expectation for Lion’s Arch. But I did think it was pretty.
Because of player testing. With nothing to keep people in the areas, they just ran around willy nilly past a whole bunch of dynamic events.
One story a dev told, he said he was watching a play tester play the game and they ran right by a burning house. The dev asked why they didn’t stop to help and the person said, well I didn’t have a quest that told me to do that.
Unfortunately, some people lack initiative and need more help figuring stuff out.
Huh? That makes next to no sense to me. How does a dynamic event “tell you to do something” any less than a heart quest? In all due respect that sounds like one of the most absent-minded players ever.
(edited by Smith.1826)
The quest rewards in Guild Wars 1 were a joke. Allowing people to choose their rewards via karma vendors is smart…and different from just questing in other games.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a huge difference or it’s a small difference…what matters is it’s different. It’s often nuances and subtle touches that make something better.
No one is going to design an MMO without quests, because quests are what you do. An MMO without quests, would be an MMO of basically grinding mobs. If you see a house on fire, being attacked by bandits, that’s a quest to stop the bandits.
However, without saying kill ten bandits…and actually driving the bandits off, what you end up with is something that’s more organic that what you find in a regular MMO. It’s an improvement. For some, it’s a huge improvement. I’m one of those.
I don’t think I could ever again play a game with standard questing. At the very least, the standard questing would have to be exceptional.
I don’t have any issue with the heart quests nor their rewards (sans the fact that there isn’t much choice and the rewards aren’t free). I just don’t think they’re anywhere near as revolutionary as many claim them to be. Compared to most other MMOs, probably, but that’s because the ‘bar’ set by those other MMOs is horribly low, and I’m not going to cut them slack as that bar has been surpassed above and beyond in many other games.
Fulfilling quests objectives on your way to the questgiver is nice, but not new. Multiple paths to completion is far from new. Being able to complete a quest without ever knowing the person who gave it can be cool, but it’s not something I’d strictly classify as a ‘pro’, since it also doesn’t make sense (moreso when I receive a ‘thank you’ note…I never even met the guy!). In fact I was bummed when this would happen as I’d miss out on what they had to say to me prior to completion. I suppose I can appreciate having the option to not give a crap about what I’m doing and be rewarded for it…
Otherwise, I don’t see what the big deal is.
I never claimed they were revolutionary. But I did say that you can’t compare hearts to dynamic events, because hearts weren’t made to replace normal questing. Hearts are in the game for one reason and one reason only…to keep people in areas where dynamic events spawn. They’re a tool. That’s their purpose.
Then I’m not entirely sure why they wouldn’t just make more dynamic events instead, and I think they have the tools to address player scaling. I actually wouldn’t have minded that at all, provided there were enough and I was able to see them on the map.
And I thought we saw what a ‘city’ could be in GW1 with Drok’s? I’m not sure, this whole mini discussion is lost on me because I didn’t have much of an expectation for Lion’s Arch. But I did think it was pretty.
The quest rewards in Guild Wars 1 were a joke. Allowing people to choose their rewards via karma vendors is smart…and different from just questing in other games.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a huge difference or it’s a small difference…what matters is it’s different. It’s often nuances and subtle touches that make something better.
No one is going to design an MMO without quests, because quests are what you do. An MMO without quests, would be an MMO of basically grinding mobs. If you see a house on fire, being attacked by bandits, that’s a quest to stop the bandits.
However, without saying kill ten bandits…and actually driving the bandits off, what you end up with is something that’s more organic that what you find in a regular MMO. It’s an improvement. For some, it’s a huge improvement. I’m one of those.
I don’t think I could ever again play a game with standard questing. At the very least, the standard questing would have to be exceptional.
I don’t have any issue with the heart quests nor their rewards (sans the fact that there isn’t much choice and the rewards aren’t free). I just don’t think they’re anywhere near as revolutionary as many claim them to be. Compared to most other MMOs, probably, but that’s because the ‘bar’ set by those other MMOs is horribly low, and I’m not going to cut them slack as that bar has been surpassed above and beyond in many other games.
Fulfilling quests objectives on your way to the questgiver is nice, but not new. Multiple paths to completion is far from new. Being able to complete a quest without ever knowing the person who gave it can be cool, but it’s not something I’d strictly classify as a ‘pro’, since it also doesn’t make sense (moreso when I receive a ‘thank you’ note…I never even met the guy!). In fact I was bummed when this would happen as I’d miss out on what they had to say to me prior to completion. I suppose I can appreciate having the option to not give a crap about what I’m doing and be rewarded for it…
Otherwise, I don’t see what the big deal is.
And hearts are NOT standard questing. For one thing, hearts are only there to keep you in an area where dynamic events occur. That’s their sole function. You can fill in most hearts without doing them, but doing the dynamic events around them. You can also fill in hearts differently. Most hearts have a non-combat option. And then you don’t get the automatic quest reward that you don’t want from Guild Wars 1 or WoW. You get a currency to buy the quest reward you want from an unlocked heart
I’d agree that they’re different from “standard quests”, but I feel that the differences aren’t that profound. At the end of the day, they’re both asking you to fill a progress bar, be it in the form of a value (“do X thing Y times”) or an actual bar.
Having multiple ways to complete a quest is not a new concept in RPGs, neither is fulfilling the requirements of a quest before you receive it. Not having to talk to the questgiver at all is indeed something new and it’s cool that there’s the option to, but it’s also a bit nonsensical.
…And then you don’t get the automatic quest reward that you don’t want from Guild Wars 1 or WoW.
In WoW’s defense, there’s now a steady and nice gear progression from quests, with skins that are both hard to find and pretty decent looking. This has been since the Cata revamp.
Can’t comment too much on GW1’s quest rewards, it’s been a lot longer since I’ve done those.
Guild Wars 2, on the other hand, doesn’t have required gear grind. That is to say, in WoW, do do the latest heroic raid, you must have that gear. And you get that gear by doing the specific raid before it. I’m really not sure how you can say these are the same.
How relevant is this in WoW these days? I ask because I resubscribed to it when they introduced the “looking for raid” feature, and the gear I was able to get through daily dungeons was, at that point, a higher tier than the gear from the earlier Cataclysm raids.
As such, I didn’t have to “gear up” through all of the older raids in order to experience their latest Hour of Twilight content. I would be interested to see how they’re still handling it.
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As a Guildwars fan and player i must agree with the OP.
This game is a pale example of what the Guildwars franchise brought to gamers, sure there are players like Vayne who always wanted more WoW in their Guildwars than Guildwars, but i believe as a whole the GW1 fan base has either moved on or just so depressed with what Guildwars 2 has become, its pretty saddening.
Really the only thing Guildwars and Guildwars 2 share is the name and some watered down lore, the rest has been totally ignored as a whole.
Way to completely misrepresent me, since I don’t like and have never liked WoW and can’t stomach the game, while I did like Guild Wars 1.
Remind me again, how long did you play WoW for? I can’t remember.
Mostly till 2006 -07 but on and off for 4 years in GW, never played WoW ever not even a trial i was in Anarchy Online when wow opened, the Graphics turned me off so i never touched it.
I have Played Korean clones of WoW, one of which Runes of Magic feels heavily like Guildwars 2 now to me, very similar values and mechanics too.
So why keep comparing this game to WoW, when it’s nothing like WoW?
Guild Wars 1 players are complaining it’s too much like WoW. People who like WoW are complaining it’s nothing like WoW.
In some ways, Guild Wars 1 is more like WoW than Guild Wars 2 is.
I’d say GW2 at least “plays” a lot more akin to a standard MMO rather than GW1, largely due to mechanics such as stealth, using skills while moving, and the emphasis on soloing in a persistant world. Plus, dungeons are centered on a five person party.
I thought LA was alright. But the place I really got hyped for was Droknar’s Forge. Place was gorgeous, huge, and as I had been told had the “best armor in the game” – and they were right!
I couldn’t get into it after the race story.
Oh yeah totally make it optional, sorry if I didnt get that across initially!
Thats a different subject but somehow I dont think its that small. In all games you see people asking for server merges when player numbers start to dwindle. Here you can see several complaints on mid level zones lacking decent player numbers. Thing is MMOs arent that great if you remove the multiplayer aspect of them.
That has nothing to do with what I was saying. I’m saying there are plenty of people who, when given the option, would prefer to play with people. This is the biggest reason as to why the concept of an MMO became popular in the first place.
No, not based on what people say, based on experiance.
I don’t think that holds anymore substance. You’re just one person, mind you, and experiences vary.
Post on the forum or not I dont imagine any of these join these zergs because thats a fun way to play the game rather seems to me they do that cause its profitable.
I’d agree. I’d also say it’s an incredibly small part of the game where this is happening, and is far from indicative with what the other thousand/million accounts enjoy.
Vayne
Everyone hates dying. But the downed state just makes the PvE aspect easier overall. There’s very little “fear” of character death. Just another way the game is more casual than GW1.
I think they could definitely add in some features that would encourage players to die less, maybe like a bonus at the end of a dungeon if no one was down or dead for the run, etc.
The trouble with that idea is that as soon as someone goes down, that player or the entire group (depending on how it’s setup) may want to restart the dungeon, possibly because someone got hit with some bad-luck criticals. That gives serious dungeon farmers, who are likely the ones most interested in a hardcore, no-downs mode, even more reason to screen out less elite players, or to kick players who screw up their perfect dungeon run. I think the unintended consequences might shake out to be worse than the benefit.
If you don’t think your group is up to snuff, you wouldn’t have to enable it. But if you do want more of a challenge, this would be a small step toward finally appreciating and rewarding skill – of which this game does little. If the idea were to be expanded upon they could implement a system for dungeons similar to the gambits seen in the Queen’s Gauntlet.
Of course it’s not catering to the more “casual” player, but such is the price of challenging content.
If they do keep deciding to increase the “power cap”, be it through whatever, they will definitely run into the problem of a player receiving an easy, unfulfilling game experience after putting in a lot of ‘work’ in attaining all those stats.
This is a very tricky road they’re heading towards.
You can plug in any MMO you choose, i dont mean to pick on WoW only mentioned WoW specifically cause you mentioned it first.
I brought it up when you said “most MMOs only allow you to do dungeons and raids”, which I disagreed with, insinuating that you may want to look into exactly what content exists with most other MMOs, and pointing at WoW as the easiest example. The burden of proof lies with you.
New content is interesting when you’re playing it for the first time + a few times after that perhaps. Repeating a new thing for the 25th time in a row isnt more interesting then repeating something that you played for the first and the last time 1 year ago, not by far!
It certainly isn’t, but repeating that year old content today a second time doesn’t hold much interest, either – hence my introduction into this thread in reply to BlueZone’s post. You may want to read up on that again.
All those dungeon paths I’ve completed – numerous times – nearly a year ago, so I have no interest in replaying them. I earned map completion on one character and 70% on another, so I have no interest in going back to the world: I’ve already played all of it. So these new rewards are grindy as hell.
It might help to know that if given the choice to having to grind new content for a month or grind any of the old content for a month, I’d choose neither. If I HAD to choose, I’d rather a “new reward” come attached with new content, not a “new reward” attached to old content. In that case, I’d make some progress towards that reward.
Vayne
Everyone hates dying. But the downed state just makes the PvE aspect easier overall. There’s very little “fear” of character death. Just another way the game is more casual than GW1.
I think they could definitely add in some features that would encourage players to die less, maybe like a bonus at the end of a dungeon if no one was down or dead for the run, etc.
For a game that prides itself on aesthetics, I miss the boat on that. I don’t really care personally, that’s not why I play. But it’s a factor nontheless.
For a game that prides itself on aesthetics, I’d think the most worthy thing to talk about is transmutation stones: Just, yuck. At least its better with the splitter but still horribly tedious. I’d want every game, MMO or otherwise, to implement what Rift did with it’s wardrobing (if only they did it for their weapons as well). I heard LotR:O had a pretty good system in place, as well.
How does it compare to GW1 specifically? I suppose they’re pretty similar, but the price of salvaging your runes from one set to another didn’t fluctuate, gems do.
So let’s say we “fix” ’zerker gear.
Won’t people just go to assassin’s instead?
Edit: Whoop, Haviz literally said everything I wanted to say.
Wait, I can’t tell if this thread isn’t serious now…
If increasing the gear cap is providing more players and, more importantly, more RMT, I ‘d find it unlikely that they’d stop increasing that cap. That’s my worry.
I can notice a difference in dps when dps increases by 5-15%.
Do you think you’d be able to provide that thread you were in? The numbers in there were scary.
Sure, I think you’re referring to this post.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Ascended-vs-Exotic-Math/first#post2851196I also wrote this to get a feeling for it without being math heavy based on 5% increase:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Holy-Grind-Wars-2/page/24#post2887333The damage output is still only 5% increase (minimum), but should give you a better feel how much it is.
Assuming each attack takes 0.5 sec (a guardian autoattacking on a greatsword is 0.5s).
This is 2 attacks per second.For the PvE, any vet/champ/boss fight (ie. fights that actually matter):
10 seconds autoattacking (20 hits) = 1 extra attack (20 hits * 0.05)
60 seconds autoattacking (120 hits) = 6 extra attacks
300 seconds (5 minutes) autoattacking (600 hits) = 30 extra attacks
600 seconds (10 minutes) autoattacking (1200 hits) = 60 extra attacksMultiply by 2 or 3 to get 10% or 15% increase version.
Aha, thank you sir.
If increasing the gear cap is providing more players and, more importantly, more RMT, I ‘d find it unlikely that they’d stop increasing that cap. That’s my worry.
I can notice a difference in dps when dps increases by 5-15%.
Do you think you’d be able to provide that thread you were in? The numbers in there were scary.
Aaah, friendly fire. How I miss seeing you in more games…
You can “move on” while retaining stuff that actually made the original so distinct from other games.
Elite skill capping (so I can actually make effort to get the elite I want not just pick it up from my hero panel), highly specific boss weapons (yes Rotscale I am looking at you), “on the fly” attribute changes which didn’t cost a dime, Guild halls (how hard is it to create one instance that can be reused by all guilds!?), hard mode (so you can choose how hard you want your content to be and be rewarded appropriately), faction points which felt way more useful from glory (why wouldn’t Asura be able to represent different colleges in sPvP, Charr different legions or even better make a factions separation based on the order players joined – Vigil, Order of Whispers and Durmand Priory?)…
I could go on for days about this topic because for me personally “move on and forget about the original” is simply not a valid argument for something that is actually supposed to continue the legacy of a game that was loved by so many people because it was so specific. In the end it is not about whether the developers can implement stuff that was specific for the original, just if they want to.
Tend to agree. By now, though, I think it’s fairly obvious that they just wanted to use the “Guild Wars” name to sell their product. The spirit behind Guild Wars was left in Guild Wars. This wasn’t “moving on”. This was just capitalizing on a brand name, and making something completely different.
Had they not called it “Guild Wars 2”, I think a lot of the disappointed Guild Wars fans wouldn’t have been so disappointed. But because of the name, we expected something in the same spirit as Guild Wars, which just isn’t Guild Wars 2.
Had they called it anything that didn’t have the words “Guild Wars” in the title, people would haven’t had those expectations.
Agreed. But honestly and unfortunately, I think ANet’s always had a badrep with expectations. When I first got into GW1, I had little to no experience with MMOs. I knew WoW was popular and that was all. So without that reference, seeing the words “free to play!” on the box gave me pause: “‘Free-to-play online RPG’…like what I did in Diablo? I don’t get it”
I don’t think anyone had many expectations with Guild Wars – it was something new. Perhaps ArenaNet made Guild Wars into the fun game it was in spite of themselves, but I also tend to think that it’s got lots to do with the almost complete change in personnel between developing GW and GW2.
I think a lot of people were expecting an MMO. YMMV, but if I earned an ecto for the times I’ve heard someone complain about the low level cap, the lack of a gear progression, or the instancing, I’d have enough Obsidian sets to make everyone happy! It got thrown in with the “MMO” crowd while having little in common with any of them, and them saying their game was “free-to-play” had a role in that methinks.
You can “move on” while retaining stuff that actually made the original so distinct from other games.
Elite skill capping (so I can actually make effort to get the elite I want not just pick it up from my hero panel), highly specific boss weapons (yes Rotscale I am looking at you), “on the fly” attribute changes which didn’t cost a dime, Guild halls (how hard is it to create one instance that can be reused by all guilds!?), hard mode (so you can choose how hard you want your content to be and be rewarded appropriately), faction points which felt way more useful from glory (why wouldn’t Asura be able to represent different colleges in sPvP, Charr different legions or even better make a factions separation based on the order players joined – Vigil, Order of Whispers and Durmand Priory?)…
I could go on for days about this topic because for me personally “move on and forget about the original” is simply not a valid argument for something that is actually supposed to continue the legacy of a game that was loved by so many people because it was so specific. In the end it is not about whether the developers can implement stuff that was specific for the original, just if they want to.
Tend to agree. By now, though, I think it’s fairly obvious that they just wanted to use the “Guild Wars” name to sell their product. The spirit behind Guild Wars was left in Guild Wars. This wasn’t “moving on”. This was just capitalizing on a brand name, and making something completely different.
Had they not called it “Guild Wars 2”, I think a lot of the disappointed Guild Wars fans wouldn’t have been so disappointed. But because of the name, we expected something in the same spirit as Guild Wars, which just isn’t Guild Wars 2.
Had they called it anything that didn’t have the words “Guild Wars” in the title, people would haven’t had those expectations.
Agreed. But honestly and unfortunately, I think ANet’s always had a badrep with expectations. When I first got into GW1, I had little to no experience with MMOs. I knew WoW was popular and that was all. So without that reference, seeing the words “free to play!” on the box gave me pause: “‘Free-to-play online RPG’…like what I did in Diablo? I don’t get it”
(edited by Smith.1826)
I was an avid PvE’r and GW2 feels like GW1 in name and lore only. The gameplay between the two is entirely different. GW2 has gameplay in a similar vein to MMOs, GW1 felt more like an online-only traditional CRPG more than any MMO.
Not to say I didn’t dabble in the PvP, though. I didn’t PvP as much as I PvE’d but I still LOVED it, loved watching it, and was always interested to see where they were taking it (which was into the ground, sadly).
If your concern is being as viable as you want to be, I would say no.
fair enough, I havent played wow in years so tell me if I were a max level character who finished everything released so far what options do I get with regards to content to play?
Eh, a WoW vs. GW2 discussion? I don’t think anyone would benefit from that, and I’m sure there are tons of other places to do so. I’m just saying to be fair to it: look into what content it can provide before stating as such.
Would you rather its tied exclusively to new content you now have to repeat for months?
New content has a much better chance at being interesting rather than content thats had the fun played out of it. So I could certainly imagine myself spending more time with the new. I just don’t like having to repeat content when it doesn’t add anything to the gameplay. Plus I already did that with TA, once is more than enough, thank you very much.
This one
Right, I was pointing out how getting an ascended weapon can be considered less fun and more grindy: How could I get one without having to touch stale content? I’d sure like to have BiS gear, but it’s not fun to get, and with being this far into the game I’d think that’d be understandable.
Its hard to say, I personally been playing over 1100 hours and didnt do everything yet but of course i repeated a lot of stuff to (ran dungeons multiple times, did some DE more then once, did some fractals etc…) snip..
Ohh but it does and a lot. In most MMOs once you get at max level all you get to do is repeat the same content which generally is dungeons / raid.
I’d say you’re not being fair to “most MMOs”, least of all WoW. I last played it during Cataclysm, and there was plenty I could do in the order I choose. Still wanted me to replay it all, of course, but it wasn’t just “dungeons and raids”.
As for variety in the content itself, Dynamic Events is the best attempt I’ve seen so far in any mmo…
I had a lot of fun with them as well, but a lot of the variety in them (be the result of a “failed” event or not) was overshadowed by the glaringly easy difficulty.
If you have to start crafting from scratch then yes its definitely going to take a very long time, but guess what thats by design!
Thats fine. I don’t mind when a reward takes awhile, because I could usually give less of a kitten about them. I only mind when it’s stapled onto content I exhausted six months ago, content that’s well over a year old.
The problem you’re talking about is because people cant accept that a medium term goal is a medium term goal. If they choose to buy mats from TP they cant accept the fact this is a medium term goal hence it will take months to accomplish, they have to buy everything needed as quickly as possible and hence they ignore the fact they can play anywhere in the game and just farm the most profitable content possible for weeks until they get all thats needed. Are you surprised that if you play the game in the opposite way it was designed to play it will not be as fun as if you play it in the way it was intended to be played? Freedom of choice doesnt mean every one of those choices is equally pleasurable.
Honestly am not sure what you’re talking about here. What part of my post triggered this?
People just have a way too ridged view of how things have to be done.
Take ascended trinkets, all it takes is 20 laurels to get that so at most that’s 20 dailies though it can be as low as 15.
I like to do DE? play 20 days of them and I can get an ascended trinket.
I like to sPvP, same thing
I like to do dungeons? like wiseSo in summary, your suggestion is to farm the existing content.
I already figured that out, but thanks anyway.No, my suggestion is to play the game like dailies dont even exist, you’ll complete them anyway.
Well, how long would all of that content last until you have to start repeating it? When it comes down to having to repeat it, in what way does it vary, if at all?
I feel like that was more in-line with what BlueZone was highlighting, and it doesn’t just apply to dailies. Having to repeat content can be synonymous with having to “grind” it.
Its hard to say, I personally been playing over 1100 hours and didnt do everything yet but of course i repeated a lot of stuff to (ran dungeons multiple times, did some DE more then once, did some fractals etc…) At the very start when events happened way too often before of too many people in the same zone it took me a bout 20 hours to finish of a zone with practically no repeat of content. hence I would say you can get about 400 hours of no repeats when you factor in living story that goes up even more. but lets go with 400hours, repeating stuff again every 400 hours is hardly grinding especially since you choose which of it you want to repeat and you can go about it any order you want.
Being able to choose which order you repeat stuff doesn’t change the fact that you’re repeating the content. I asked if there’s any variety in the content you repeat that keeps it “fresh” and replayable. For the most part I don’t think there is, and simply rewarding the repetition of said content doesn’t change the fact that you’re repeating it.
A great example of this is dungeons. Should you desire a specific set of dungeon armor, you’ll be expected to run each of the dungeon’s paths at least seven times. It’s easy to see why this can be considered “a grind”.
The newest, and perhaps more prevalent, example is the path to an ascended weapon. If a player has no interest in weaponsmithing nor has much gold, they’re potentially looking at a very long road in acquiring one. In addition, much of the current game’s content is well over a year old, so there are people out there who see that the only way to acquire these new pieces of gear is to play through content that they’ve exhausted awhile ago.
Acquiring these rewards may optional, but that doesn’t excuse their implementation.
People just have a way too ridged view of how things have to be done.
Take ascended trinkets, all it takes is 20 laurels to get that so at most that’s 20 dailies though it can be as low as 15.
I like to do DE? play 20 days of them and I can get an ascended trinket.
I like to sPvP, same thing
I like to do dungeons? like wiseSo in summary, your suggestion is to farm the existing content.
I already figured that out, but thanks anyway.No, my suggestion is to play the game like dailies dont even exist, you’ll complete them anyway.
Well, how long would all of that content last until you have to start repeating it? When it comes down to having to repeat it, in what way does it vary, if at all?
I feel like that was more in-line with what BlueZone was highlighting, and it doesn’t just apply to dailies. Having to repeat content can be synonymous with having to “grind” it.
Quite the predicament, innit? Any content deemed “challenging” can be anywhere from marginally to significantly trivialized by people fully decked out in ascended, assuming the content is indeed balanced to be completed by people with naught but rares.
The problem here, as pointed out, is that these same people that aren’t wearing best-in-slot everything can potentially be “shut off” from the content. It would essentially make having the BIS gear actually matter, which IMO is the currently best thing Ascended has going for it right now: It doesn’t (in PvE at least, WvW and better gear is a whole new can of worms).
One solution would be to provide difficulty settings for the content, but I don’t think it would provide enough incentive to strive for better gear. They could implement acheivements for completing the content in “subpar” gear (for lack of a better term), but this just seems somewhat shallow and heavy-handed – in addition to removing incentive to attain the BiS gear.
Either way, Chris Whitefield noted this during his ask-me-anything on Reddit: “In regards to gated content via gear then I think that this is something we are going to give more thought to.” That’s only a small excerpt to signify that it’s something they’ve noted, it’d be a good idea to read up on it if haven’t – or haven’t in awhile.
But it’s definitely going to be interesting to see.
(edited by Smith.1826)
-Guild Halls (zero surprise here)
-First person camera (why not in a game this gorgeous?)
But most importantly, to me, especially as a Warrior:
-Autofollow
I cannot possibly stress enough about how awesome GW1 was for this simple but awesome feature.
For those who haven’t seen it yet:
According to Anet’s metric and money, yes, to them.
Third’d.
Personally, I would’ve preferred an expansion pack because what they’ve been doing has not been of much interest to me, and has been failing to sate my interest.
Congrats are indeed in order!
For those who haven’t seen it yet:
According to Anet’s metric and money, yes, to them.
Third’d.
Personally, I would’ve preferred an expansion pack because what they’ve been doing has not been of much interest to me, and has been failing to sate my interest.
Wow. These look awful. At least medium isn’t another trenchcoat!
I’m looking forward to when I have the opportunity to run through this new path.
But add me to the list of people that are incredibly disappointed with removing what I considered a really enjoyable part of the game.
I don’t like where things are going…
Also, I may’ve been a bit presumptuous in my previous post: I’m not saying make “all content soloable”, rather that if the concern is having content that can’t be experienced due to having not enough people, make it so it doesn’t need that many people.
I can understand having “too spread out” of a playerbase due to a large gameworld, but I think this is where the LFG tool can save the day.
Its definitely possible to get around the requirement of having a set number of players to play content. Its entirely possible to have every bit of content that scales down to 1, not denying that. But would it be healthy for an MMO? If you want to run a dungeon would you rather wait a few minutes to set up a group that might be bad at playing the game having you possibly take a lot longer then required or even worst have a couple of players rage quit forcing you spend more time rather then just go do it on your own with a guaranteed easy run and certain success?
I think you may be underestimating how many people play an MMO for that “massively multiplayer” part of it.
I would honestly love to agree with you, even pray to the MMO gods if need be but alas thats not how most players act.
When the game launched and even today to a degree people complained about zergs and how they made the game to easy. They had an easy solution to that, move away from the zerg for 5 seconds and play solo or with a smaller group. Entirely doable and I know except for a very few expections thats how I always played the game yet players persisted in zerging and complain how that was not fun. Why did they do it? fast leveling and quicker rewards.
dailies… people complain they need to spend 30 mins per day grinding the daily before they can start having fun. Irony is in nearly all cases whatever they’re going to do for fun will get the daily finished or just leave a few minutes of play to get it done but they have to fix it first cause its the quickest way to get the reward which is more important then the fun.
Crafting, be it ascended weapon, legendary whatever. Each of these is designed to use stuff from nearly everywhere in the game. Today you feel like doing events in lornar’s pass? great you’re going to advance towards your goal and you’re going to be doing what you enjoy. Do people do that? no they have to grind the required materials in sequence to get the reward quickly. If you need another say 15 dungeon runs there is no way most people are going to wait until they feel like running those 15 dungeons or join their friends now and again and run those dungeons organically. no they will start and do dungeon after dungeon until they get all 15 done. Most of them will not even alternate content to get a break from the routine. Why? because again its the path that offers the least resistance to your reward.
Personally I think the game would have gone in a more favorable direction had people gone for fun rather then the path of least resistance. If a lot of players did events which they found fun at max level rather then farm events in Orr which they hated but was more profitable we’d have more updates that included new DE then more content that provides profitable rewards cycling in different areas in order to move population around the game rather then have it segregated in one spot.
May be wrong but unfortunately I dont think I am.
Well, based on what? Based on what people are saying here? Forums are always a very tiny representation of the playerbase. I know that rewards are important for a lot of players, but I don’t think that’s why people make and play games that are massively multiplayer.
That all depends on the context and presentation. You can’t keep content like Flame and Frost around forever, but you could keep MF (as they’re already doing!). I’m sure the Queen’s Gauntlet could stick around, too. Same with SAB. It all depends on how they make it.
Well Queen’s Gauntlet and SAB was always intended to be recurring content, they’ll definitely be back now and then.
Right, but that’s not my issue: they’re not permenant.
The problem there is the content requiring any number of players in the first place. With their awesome scaling systems and “roleless” combat, Anet has plenty of ways to combat this. “The quality of the solo play experience is just as important to the success of an MMO as the quality of the multiplayer experience”, one of many things that Jeff Strain said that I heavily agree with.
All steps towards encouraging permanent content while getting away from temporary content. Five years worth of temporary content wont mean anything to someone who buys the game five years from now. That’s a lot of effort from the developers gone to waste.
Yes I agree which is why most content scales down to 1 player. But an MMO remains an MMO and if you make everything scale down to 1 you’d end up damaging that aspect. If dungeons could be played solo few if any would bother to team up. If guild missions could be soloable they wouldnt be guild missions any more. If world bosses could soloable they wouldnt feel epic. [/quote]
I’ve had more “epic” boss fights in Dark Souls and Demon’s Souls than I’ve ever had in any MMO. That may seem beside the point, but it’s not, because like I said: it’s all in the delivery. If the fight in and of itself is interesting, challenging and fun for one person, then increasing the number of participants should simply make it all the more interesting. Even though it can be not as much fun if you’re soloing, you at least get to play the content.
Also, I may’ve been a bit presumptuous in my previous post: I’m not saying make “all content soloable”, rather that if the concern is having content that can’t be experienced due to having not enough people, make it so it doesn’t need that many people.
I can understand having “too spread out” of a playerbase due to a large gameworld, but I think this is where the LFG tool can save the day.
Players will always go for the path of least resistance and thats definitely playing solo given the option.
I think that players will always go for the path of ‘most fun’ ;p
I always play Left 4 Dead with people. It’s certainly way easier playing with bots and the only time I’ve successfully made it through expert was with bots, but playing with people is a million times more fun. If people enjoy playing with each other, they’re going to keep doing so.
Lets not forget that you cant make pvp mini games entirely soloable either…
Botmatches!
That’s great, I agree.
However, I think it’s absurd that someone joining now will have missed a year’s worth of content, and as I mentioned when I first replied to you, I’m having a real hard time seeing an issue with allowing players to be able to (re)experience most of this content as they choose.
I know not all of it is feasible to bring back – namely things like the first Flame and Frost that affected a landmass – but otherwise, what’s to lose? The “feeling” of a “living world”? I’d be willing to let go with some of that “feeling” if it meant more people got to enjoy all the game’s content, I’d like to hope you would as well.
This concept of “disposing content” never made much sense to me. Maybe it’s “okay” because its an MMO thing? At least in WoW you can head back to the content from the last three expansions with a friend and still see the old content
Its a classic case of you cannot make an omlette without breaking a few eggs. You can either have a dynamic story but loose content or you have a static story and keep everything.
That all depends on the context and presentation. You can’t keep content like Flame and Frost around forever, but you could keep MF (as they’re already doing!). I’m sure the Queen’s Gauntlet could stick around, too. Same with SAB. It all depends on how they make it.
Having tons of new content sounds great on paper but it frightens me in a game like Gw2 where no content ever experience, it might pull players too thin and activities that require a healthy number of players to be enjoyable might suffer.
The problem there is the content requiring any number of players in the first place. With their awesome scaling systems and “roleless” combat, Anet has plenty of ways to combat this. “The quality of the solo play experience is just as important to the success of an MMO as the quality of the multiplayer experience”, one of many things that Jeff Strain said that I heavily agree with.
All steps towards encouraging permanent content while getting away from temporary content. Five years worth of temporary content wont mean anything to someone who buys the game five years from now. That’s a lot of effort from the developers gone to waste.
Yes I am sure given the opportunity we’d all buy a time machine in order to get filthy rich not realizing the result would be complete collapse of the world economy in a single instance.
Time machine? I didn’t say nothin’ ‘bout that. I’d say its more in-line with liking a particular part of a video game that I really enjoyed and being able to re-experience it any time I wish, which is what I consider to be a huge strength about video games.
Sure MA was actually playable content which we who were there played. Its now back story for players who join today no different then any back story in any mmo.Why dont feel bad for never playing through back story of MMOs why should this be any different?
Because those “backstories” you reference are text and lore that no one’s experienced. The LS is actual content and gameplay that’s been deleted from the game that new and returning players don’t get to experience. If I had a great time with a part of a game, I’d want someone else to have that great time as well, and I’d be more than willing to slightly disregard having a “living world” if it meant that someone else could have that same great time I had, and if they’re having a great time now then I’m sure they’d have a lovely time playing all (or most) of the stuff they missed.
Regarding MF and AR: Can’t say I’m looking forward to the fact that I’m gonna have to go through a lot of old content just to get to the new, but maybe I can find a group that keeps “rerolling” the fractal until we get to the goodies.
As long as there is stuff for them to do and enjoy all of that what an extra bonus and so is this. A player who starts to do is still going to find new stuff to do every 2 weeks. Sure they missed a lot of updates and they missed the opportunity to experience first hand what is now just back story but they didnt miss the experience.. that keeps going, they will still get to experience what LS is perhaps better then we did.. even though it was just hte first cases there are still plenty of people who refer to the living story as nothing more then hanging up signs.
That’s great, I agree.
However, I think it’s absurd that someone joining now will have missed a year’s worth of content, and as I mentioned when I first replied to you, I’m having a real hard time seeing an issue with allowing players to be able to (re)experience most of this content as they choose.
I know not all of it is feasible to bring back – namely things like the first Flame and Frost that affected a landmass – but otherwise, what’s to lose? The “feeling” of a “living world”? I’d be willing to let go with some of that “feeling” if it meant more people got to enjoy all the game’s content, I’d like to hope you would as well.
This concept of “disposing content” never made much sense to me. Maybe it’s “okay” because its an MMO thing? At least in WoW you can head back to the content from the last three expansions with a friend and still see the old content