Guild Wars 2

Galen Grey.4709:

Conceptually you’re right but how can you do that in practice without killing of casuals?

If you remove time gating how can you possibly make it so the hardcore of the hardcore take 20 days to get a single ascended piece without also making it impossible for the casual of the casuals to ever get a single piece?

You end up with what we have now: You make the ‘rewards’ so easy to get that literally anyone can do them, and the dailies themselves don’t care how you go about it. You can achieve them through playing normally, but you could also achieve them at level 2.

It essentially boils down to free goodies. Is that something that we want to see encouraged? If we want to see more players focused on the content rather than the rewards, I don’t think encouraging even more rewards and timesinks is a way to go about it.

Also, why would a ‘hardcore’ player need to wait 20 days for something?

Galen Grey.4709:

Any ideas ? Cause I tried thinking of something but I came up empty. Dailies have issues but honestly I cant think of anything better.

Stop rewarding effortless tasks and ‘time-spent’, start rewarding skilled play over challenging situations. Tall order for a big problem.

Vayne.8563:

Look I’m not saying anyone shouldn’t be disappointed. I’m saying I wasn’t personally disappointed. You could hardly stop anyone from feeling about something the way they feel.

But I was looking at the entire thing as one piece. I’m an older gamer. I don’t think in terms of boss fights.

I agree they could have give players more to do, but you know, it’s a long dungeon. Just getting there was annoying enough.

It’s not just about “thinking in terms of bossfights”, it’s about a proper climax to both the dungeon and story. It doesn’t have to be a direct fight with Zhaitan, either: I’d be alright if he was as weak as a baby quaggan as long as it meant we got to fight the Risen’s five greatest bad*****. I’d probably like that more, honestly.

Vayne.8563:

I agree they could have give players more to do, but you know, it’s a long dungeon. Just getting there was annoying enough.

Oh no yeah definitely, it has a lot of issues, and I don’t know if even the most epic of fights could make up for it.

Vayne.8563:

It’s not a massive force by the time you get to it. It’s a weakened force. We have zero evidence that Zhaitan was so powerful except in its ability to raise the dead, which we took from it.

It doesn’t mean he had to be a pushover. There was a LOT of build up in the story that all pointed to Zhaitan. He’s not just the epilogue to the dungeon, he’s the final boss of the entire personal story. So when the fight in question is one of the most uninvolving, debatably ‘unheroic’ fights in the game, I don’t think it’s unfair for people to be disappointed.

Katai.6240:

“Class Identification” has been rendered moot since the event skins and achievement skins are the same for all armor classes.

The glow from the Radiant pieces can be especially misleading.

Shoulders: Arms of Koda
Gloves: Paws of Koda
Chest and Leggings: Aetherblade heavy

The dyes I used are white gold, ancient silver, and iron. White gold on the aetherblade, ancient silver on the HotW armor.

Tamaki Revolution.3548:

I’d be good with a weekly, only problem is I’d probably try to do each one on it’s first day. So I’d log on once a week in this scenario :P (not the OP’s, but the above mentioned WoW model)

You’d be putting in the same amount of effort into a weekly that you would if it were dailies. There isn’t a problem there: It’s your gametime, you should be able to spend it however you wish.

Galen Grey.4709:

The problem isnt the daily, the daily doesnt need you do anything special, just to play for a bit the content you enjoy, the problem is people dont care about content they care about rewards. Nothing the game can do there.

It’d help if they stopped rewarding effortless tasks.

I never really got what the point of ‘dailies’ were if there wasn’t a subscription fee. I can understand them being there as an incentive to playing the game, but it’s the game itself that will bring the players, not the carrot.

It also makes sense if you’re game’s lacking challenge; you can’t just give out the goods for free. That highlights another problem, though.

The only times I feel like I’m a ‘hero’ in an MMO were those few incidents where I stumbled upon a player near death. Those experiences alone, by themselves, hold more weight than everything in the GW2 story combined.

Good looks and good taste are the only things that impress me, ‘time spent’ does not.

Galen Grey.4709:

it depends on the player really. The positive thing about temporary content is it provides story flow. Take the bazaar for example. That it came and then its gone it gives a sense that these are really traveling nomads, its reinforces their lore. They’re forced to occasionally come to land and trade to meet necessities they cant sustain alone. If they come and never leave, that type or realism is totally lost. Same with flame and frost. If the Motlen Alliance remained around you’d loose that sense of we won. What kind of a victory would it feel if they’re just still there.

Firstly, have you read my latest posts? Some of what you’re saying seems like you feel as if I want to make all the temporary content we’ve had remain permanent, and my newer posts have been reaffirming that that isn’t the case.

Regarding the delivery of a ‘living world’, I understand what they’re trying to do with it, and I think it’s great that you enjoy it. But would you be willing to suspend your disbelief (perhaps even further, given the rest of the game) if it meant more content for more playstyles?

Galen Grey.4709:

As for a sense of urgency or what returning players get… The sense of urgency is a personal thing…

I wouldn’t say so, given that temporary content literally ceases to exist after a few weeks. I can’t blame people for wanting to experience the content as soon and as much as possible, because they won’t get another chance.

Galen Grey.4709:

Wouldnt that be a lot more pressure then what Mr x has now? isnt it better to play and enjoy the update and miss out on a few rewards then suddenly finding yourself with 16 updates you need to catch up to after just 1 year?

If we’re talking about a player who is only concerned with rewards, then yeah, that would suck, and he’d have a huge road ahead of him. At least he’d still be able to progress towards them all.

But I’ve not been talking about the kind of player who worries only about loot, I’ve been talking about players who just want to enjoy the game (and plus, what fun are rewards if the game isn’t fun?).

The ‘lesser’ issue I have with the temp. content is that it only applies to active players, not to players ‘seeing what’s new’ after they’ve been gone quite awhile – and certainly not to players who are just now picking up the game. Imagine how much bang they’d get for their buck if ANet instead put an emphasis on permanent gameplay.

The bigger issue I have with temp. content goes back to when I first posted in this thread: The player has a lot less freedom in when and how they want to play. Similar to how far you could fall behind in sub-based game if you weren’t active, you’ll simply miss-out on content in GW2 if you aren’t active.

Vayne.8563:

Which Colin said they’d be doing more and more of in the future. I still think leaving too much permanent content behind that’s not soloable will be a problem.

Yeup, I noted that in my second post here, I was happy to hear it. In regards to the second sentence, we already have systems in place that can make content soloable. Again: Scaling.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/looking-ahead-guild-wars-2-in-2013/

Then head down to ‘dungeon complete bonus rewards’:

“Completion rewards will be guaranteed, and we’ll vary the amount of gold earned based on difficulty and length of each dungeon path.”

So you could be in luck.

Vayne.8563:

Guild Wars 1 had heroes. Guild Wars 2 does not and that changes the equation complete. I could solo Sorrow’s Furnace. I couldn’t solo MF.

That’s why I mentioned scaling, not in relation to scaling the players’ level, but the size and difficulty of events based on the amount of players. It’s very feasible to see this apply to dungeons as well.

The one thing that could be tricky would be allocating rewards based on that playersize, but I’m sure something could be arranged. Personally, I don’t care what would drop as like as it’s fun and challenging to play.

Vayne.8563:

More to the point, I couldn’t solo Sanctum Sprint or Crab Toss either…and that’s all content that people want left in the game too.

How many mini games can a game support?

Like I said, it’s not about just making all the temporary content we’ve had suddenly become permanent – maybe I was vague, but I don’t recall specifically supporting that – it’s about encouraging emphasis on developing content that can remain permanent.

Vayne.8563:

Okay…I agree…and I disagree.

The problem with permanent content from other games I’ve played is how much they divide the player base. Just about every other game has instances that never or almost never get played. They sit there.

Some new guy comes in, he wants to do the instance and he can’t. Why? Because no one wants to do it.

This would depend on the content. If you’re talking about raids and instances made ‘moot’ through an MMO’s expansions, that’s just the developers flat-out neglecting them to encourage players to buy the ‘newest and coolest’ content. This is a poor way to go about it.

A great way to go about it? Sorrow’s Furnace from GW1. That content is still there, still relevant, and still fun. They could also apply the scaling you see from events apply to the content they could create, if player numbers should become an issue.

And it’s not about just making the temporary content permanent, it’s about making permanent content: focusing more on stable pieces of game, less on quality>quantity content.

If they’re worried about how the race change will affect the personal story, couldn’t they just have that be a prerequisite? “Change your race – provided you finished the whole PS”?

Aside from that it’s probably just a lot of work at the moment, what with the personal story, cultural armor transfers, and not messing with the Emperor title. I wouldn’t be too surprised if we saw it at some point in the future, what with all the craziness the Consortium’s capable of.

Vayne.8563:

Yep that line is the only line in the manifesto I’d question…everything you love about Guild Wars 1. Everything WHO loves? It’s obviously marketing. But of course, some people took it as gospel…in spite of the fact they knew not only that the skill system was different but how it was different.

And though Guild Wars 2 lacks some of Guild Wars 1’s freedom, Guild Wars 1 lacks some of Guild Wars 2’s freedom. Which freedom you crave depends on what’s important to you.

I absolutely hated the pathing in Guild Wars 1. How you couldn’t really wander off road. How my ranger couldn’t jump over a log. Guild Wars 1 is a pretty linear experience, compared to Guild Wars 2 at any rate.

I just don’t really see how temporary content can be supported. Are there players out there who genuinely enjoy the availability? More importantly, why? And is their ‘enjoyment’ from that more important than that of new and returning players?

This artificial sense of urgency is very shaky. Maybe there’s hope with their talk of wanting to add more permanent content, but until we get more details and see what other content that make concrete, right now is a very concerning route.

“Guild Wars 2 takes everything you love about Guild Wars 1, and puts it into a persistent world.”

That’s quite a statement, a bit loaded, possibly presumtuous, and veeeery vague. Not a whole lot to dissect there, even with context. So what did I love from GW1?

If I had to pick one thing that I wanted from GW1 to go to GW2, it would have to be the freedom. The ‘freedom’ is what I sought after spending time in WoW and other MMOs. I never once felt obligated to log-in, to hurry things up for the next batch of content. I could play whenever I wanted to and not miss anything – and I never did.

GW2’s emphasis on temporary content really hurts that. In a typical WoW-MMO, I’m encouraged to play as much of the latest content to be properly geared for the upcoming content. In GW2, I’m encouraged to play as much of the latest content as I can because it’s likely to not be around much longer. That’s not the freedom I enjoyed in GW1.

And from a gameplay perspective, I don’t really get it. Why can’t I replay any of it? I can run CoF as many times as I want, keep remaking characters to experience certain story paths, and pretty much to some degree replay anything else in the game. Is it to instill a sense of a ‘living story’? How’s that going to happen when it only applies to a freckle of the game?

“To make money” is a reason I can grasp, but GW2 came with a price tag, it’s not like they can’t make money selling the game. I’d prefer them to milk money out of potential customers and not current ones.

It is indeed very rigid, and it doesn’t help that the cost is dependent on gem prices.

WoW’s transmogging is great because items don’t disappear and you can revert to original appearances, but can cost a lot of gold. Rift’s wardrobe function doesn’t cost a thing but doesn’t apply as easily (like, at ALL) to weapons. Haven’t played LotRO too much, but I’ve heard it also has a pretty good skin system. Dunno much about ToR either, just that it costs money to hide my helmet of all things.

Any streamlining to GW2’s transmutations would be awesome.

Vayne.8563:

A rift that opens up and if no one does it closes by itself, just like the invasions. That’s no hair, that’s a major difference.

You’d see an outpost that was taken over by invaders and you didn’t have enough people to take it out, so you made a cup of coffee and waited till they evaporated.

I can understand this. I kind of wish GW2 had something in the same vein, because it’s disheartening to follow a DE quest chain in an underpopulated area only to have it end with a champ spawn. You can ask your friends or people in map chat to come along but the call doesn’t always get answered.

Vayne.8563:

Rift was better in beta 4 when those changes were permanent. But the company couldn’t make them permanent, because they left traditional questing in the game. And those quest hubs are where people needed to go to turn in their quest rewards. So the invasions have no weight at all to them.

At least in Guild Wars 2 if a temple is taken, it remains taken until taken back. It should have stayed that way in Rift too.

Very true, but that ‘weight’ can disappear when the events reset numerous times a day. I can understand that as well, though, since it allows more people to experience the content.

Both games are very rewarding to farm, though, and that’s the biggest, overarching issue in both of them regarding suspension of disbelief.

Animations and how armor looked on them. Human males make great warriors, female norns make great guardians, and they each have some of the best and unique animations.

Vayne.8563:

I agree with this to a point, except for the bigger scale thing. At least when I played Rift, dynamic events didn’t link to each other. Rifts were self-contained and repetitive, and zone wide events linked to nothing.

I find the scale of dynamic events, the longer chains like in Orr or Hirathi Hinterlands to be much better than anything Rift did with dynamic events.

A lot of the rifts, the more ‘massive’ ones, did have some basis found through talking to NPCs, they varied in theme, and each had unique characters/adversaries. This isn’t a whole lot different from GW2. And while many invasions are relatively meaningless, GW2 events can lose their meaning due to how beneficial it is to farm them.

Ultimately it’s picking hairs. Not to say they’re not hairs that shouldn’t be picked, but the gameplay for both games in this regard is solid.

If you didn’t like WoW or got tired of it, Rift isn’t going to be a game for you. It’s more standard MMO gameplay, and if that’s not you’re forte Rift won’t bring anything new to the table.

But if you do enjoy the standard you’ll be rewarded thoroughly. Tons of class options, a fair amount of diversity, and a lot of content. Macros are pretty open-ended, and while seemingly make the game ‘easier’, there isn’t ever much ‘skill’ involved to skill rotations anyways (kind of like how GW2 streamlines things with autoattacks and limited skills).

Plus the ‘rifts’ themselves are neato. Think dynamic events from GW2 but bigger in scale.

Craptrain.7203:

In all honesty, the buy to play business model of GW1 and GW2 is what ruined other MMOs for me. Call me old, but I refuse to ever pay a sub for a game again. It just makes me feel like I HAVE TO log in and play in order to get the most bang for my buck.

This is mainly why I’m not much a fan of how their implementing their ‘temporary content’. In WoW, I felt ‘heavily encouraged’ to ‘enjoy’ new content as much as I can so I could immediately experience the content aftewards. The same applies to GW2, not so I’m ‘up to date’ for the newer content, but because the content I’m experiencing won’t stay for long.

I can understand them attempting to create that feeling of a ‘living world’, but I’d be more than willing to suspend my disbelief (kinda have to for a whole lot, anyways) so I could replay the content, and allow many others to experience it for the first time.

Do what Riot did and have the ‘like’ unlock something for your account.

Watch the number soar.

I’ve had a lot of fun with GW2, but it is also lacking a lot of competition in the genre. A lot of MMOs tend to stick to a policy of ‘quantity>quality’, and while GW2 has lots of the latter, it could use a lot more of the former. Doing so in addition to knocking out some of it’s ‘MMO kinks’ would help it out a lot.

Olba.5376:

I don’t think I can go back to playing a game where your combat consists of walking up to a monster and using skills, being completely unable to move around.

Not that this is really a bad thing, it depends on how the game is structured. You couldn’t move while using any skill in GW1, and the game was catered around that. Being able to gauge when to fight or flight was a key skill at moments.

Same thing in Demon’s/Dark Souls. You could deliver a pretty painful combo, but you’d have to keep in mind that you couldn’t move while doing so, requiring you to pinpoint key moments where it’s safe to attack.

An overwhelming majority of my time spent in dungeons as been with PUGs, and I can count on one hand how many groups I’ve had quit. On the other I can count how many times it’s taken over an hour to complete any given path. While the game is very forgiving and can struggle with a challenge, it’s nice to be with a relaxed group of people.

In regards to CoF popularity as opposed to other dungeons: It’s straight-forward, lacks the annoying trash skips seen in other paths, and provides access to the most sought after PvE stats. It has the most reasons for coming back to it, ‘farming’ it.

It’s still to this day a relatively in depth, decently challenging, and ultimately satisfying game. It’s much more of a traditional RPG with it’s combat, progression, and party management.

And if you get hooked, you have four campaigns to look forward to in addition to the hard mode variants, side quests, and dungeons. There’s a LOT of game in GW1.

This is largely if you’re mainly a PvE player, of course. PvP is definitely nowhere near where it used to be. It’s still worth checking out because there are few other games like it.

It still looks great, too, it’s aged very well and the art direction is still neato. It also probably has the best looking capes I’ve seen in an RPG.

The Boz.2038:

2. Walking backwards.

This alone warrants it’s own thread.

Also, stealth. Hate it, always have.

kossman.8206:

So tired of reading all the kittening about.. how this sucks.. or I want this… Or do this.. Or do that…. Can’t you people appreciate the fact that your playing the best MMO out there?

I can understand the fact that you want them to excel….

But really?

Can you people say thanks? Is it that flippin hard?

Just Sayin…..

That is all….

It’s far from wrong for a customer to express disappointment or concern over his purchase. There is a very right way of expressing it, though, and sadly most have a hard time with it.

danbuter.2314:

Don’t spend real money on this. Seriously. The only reason RNG continues is because people keep buying gems.

Remember when developers tried to sell not in-game items, but their game?

Sigh.

Vayne.8563:

I think how other games handle dungeons is quite relevant. This is a huge improvement on what else is out there.

The other option would be to give you a full set of armor for 3 runs.

There’s no company in the world who can balance everything so everyone is happy. You get stuff too fast and it’s worth nothing. You get stuff too slow it’s a grind.

If you’re arguing about pacing, argue away. It won’t change the fact that no decision Anet makes on this matter will please everyone.

I don’t want to compare GW2 to other games because there’s a lot of games I can look at, not just MMOs and not just RPGs, in regards to this specific circumstance. It’d get complicated, likely rather quickly. Ultimately it doesn’t matter, because X being ‘better’ than Y doesn’t automatically make X flawless.

And obviously, I don’t think this certain area of GW2 is flawless, and I think it could be made to be a lot more rewarding, more ‘fun’, and not in a way that just gives you the goods outright. Some things ANet could do are:
-Look into reward scaling in regards to more difficult paths (should CoF P3 be as rewarding as P1?)
-A method of converting tokens (barebones example: convert 250 tokens from any one dungeon into 50 tokens of your choosing)
-Introduce more ‘random’ gameplay mechanics similar (or even better) to what we’ve seen in Fractals.

It’s not about removing the progression, it’s about maintaining it, making it more interesting, rewarding, and open-ended than just having to run the same three paths repeatedly.

And no, you can’t make everyone happy, fact of gaming, fact of live. That doesn’t excuse you from trying.

Vayne.8563:

…

Sure, this game could be better than it is…that’s true of all games. But for replayability, each dungeon having at least 3 explorable paths helps a lot.

That’s still at least 7 runs per path, with a couple more required, for a full set of armor. This would be the best case scenario for the dungeon to feel as ‘fresh’ as possible, a scenario that’s hard to achieve with the popular ‘easier’ paths.

I’m aware that it’s not required – that a player can ‘mix and match’ his armor if he chooses – and I’m also aware that it can be acquired at one’s own pace. This is the specific example of a player wanting a complete and coherent set of armor. Whether he acquires it over a week or a year isn’t relevant, he’s still expected to repeat a lot of the same content.

I’m also aware how other MMOs handle their rewards systems, especially in this circumstance, but that’s not relevant to me, nor do I think it relative to my point. “X did a better job than Y” isn’t the same as “X did a good job”.

Erasculio.2914:

Not to mention that, if you want Cultural Armor, good luck getting those 100 gold, plus finding yourself a set of exotic armor and earning the gold required to buy gems and get the transformation stones.

I actually don’t have much of an issue with the cultural armor. They’re some of the best designed sets in the game (justifying the cost) and there are plenty more options in earning gold than, say, Ascalonian Tears.

Stone.6751:

Nothing in this game is a grind, unless you choose to grind. And that’s simply a player’s choice. For example, if a player just simply must have the TA armor ASAP, and they grind TA day after day to get the set, and they don’t find that enjoyable, then that’s just their own stupid fault.

The game gives you choices on what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. Players make the mistake of chasing rewards to the detriment of enjoying the game. Unless ANet began restricting player’s freedom to choose how to play I don’t see how its preventable in an open game like GW2. At least they have made some effort to discourage it by including diminishing returns or by limiting certain things like Laurels to daily events, which prevents people from farming and grinding even more than they already do.

A player looking to acquire a complete set of dungeon armor is looking at a total of 1380 dungeon tokens. At 60 tokens per completed path, you would need to do 23 of them, at the least.

If the dungeons had more mechanics that encouraged replayability, or if there was some sort of light ‘token exchange’ system to grant some more freedom in acquiring a specific set, I could probably forgive the price. As is, it seems excessive.

This is just simply awesome. My eyes don’t strain anymore and I can get a better view of the amazing surroundings, something I was having a hard time with earlier!

Going to second what a couple people have been saying already: Anything to make it first person would be great!