Guild Wars 2

I find it interesting that I had no trouble seeing the story be serious. Tybalt had the effect of making everything jokingly, but while playing my charr? I really didn’t see it as anything but serious and intent.

As my human, there was ample tongue-in-cheek but that was because Logan actually lightened up and wasn’t going “jilted ex” on Rytlock :P

bluewanders.5297:

Here is an idea.

Since everyone says that the whole rest of the game is for small guilds and blah blah blah… why don’t they just add the currencies into the rest of the game? Then when a guild group with a membership of 50 or less completes a dungeon, meta event, de, or jumping puzzle together… they get the same rewards that these uber awesome and ultra important mega guilds get for all the content they do together that is designed for them.

Maybe that isn’t exclusive enough… maybe it should only work for guild groups completing “all the rest of the game” together with a membership of 20 or less.

Earlier, I made the suggestion that full guild groups doing the meta-events or dungeons could earn Merits/Commendations.

Eliyahu.1467:

Okay so I’m a tad bit confused with what people are complaining about influence wise.

A guild bounty unlock costs 30,000 influence or 60 gold and is a one time investment. After that it only take 200 influence to launch a guild mission.

Are smaller guilds really saying that they can’t scrape together 60 gold to do this in the worst case scenario?

It should be relatively simple for a small guild of <10 players to come up with that type of money. If you’re small then it should be easy to get everyone working towards that goal. If you find this too difficult then the problem isn’t with your size, it’s with your members not being active enough.

The question often being asked and the concern raised, is this: “Should I have to?” Although it’s noted larger guilds had it worse to do the content “day one ready” since they had to sink a lot of influence just to rush to doing it. It’s their prerogative.

I still say the goal wasn’t to gate this so small guilds couldn’t ever do it, I believe it was to have another long-term goal for them to focus on. Or not if they chose to.

stobie.2134:

Yet I’ve been hearing that the bounty missions take at least 20 people. That’s not my version of a small guild.

I think there’s another issue here, that “small guild” has a different connotation to different people. To me a small guild has been 5-20 people and any larger than that is a “raid guild”. Of course, the last game I had to differentiate was EverQuest. Alliances in GW1 rather completely sidestepped that issue by allowing many small guilds to band together.

(N.B. that would be a good mechanic here, in theory. In practice it may not actually work.)

What could have happened is when the developers thought “small guild” they meant 15-50 people since the upper limit is 500.

Also, it’s been said that the big hurdle on the Bounties is getting there, more often than not. That’s something which can be slowly alleviated as familiarity creeps in.

Azjenco.9425:

Ogden Stonehealer.

But to be less flippant, I actually don’t think there’s anything mechanics-based from GW1 which was directly carried over. I’m struggling to think and the only other thing is the distinct separation of PvP into its own section of the game not affected by PvE/WvW.

Chaosgyro.6023:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Lorelei.7809:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Lorelei.7809:

Pardon me (I was referencing your unpopular ideas)! Your ideas sound fantastic. This certainly sounds like a way for any guild of any size to be proud of their accomplishments and reasonably attain them.

There’s just one hitch. Since I laid this out, there’s probably a high chance ArenaNet can’t use it.

Possibly, but it’s also possible that they can do something similar and/or be inspired by your ideas. I don’t think there’s any reason they can’t use at least a similar idea from yours, if not the same.

I should explain.

Writers are usually highly discouraged from listening to a fan who has “this idea for a character” or reading fanfiction (even if it’s really good) because you run into a very real legal matter over where the material originated. I don’t know if it falls under “plagiarism” specifically, but you can get in a lot of trouble for even subconsciously winding up using someone else’s idea in your material.

I’d put Gold down that there’s similar provisions in software/game design preventing them from directly taking or in other ways apparently modifying, something submitted as an unsolicited idea.

I know this reply is several pages old, but I just started back scanning through the thread so sue me.

It’s actually very common in many forum ToS’s and other similar places around the world to have language in there that makes any ideas or contributions you put into the forum (or suggestion box, or whatever) to be the property of the company and to absolve them from responsibility of compensation to you. So it’s likely you signed away the rights to use that idea to Anet in perpetuity. No making your own game with that system.

Technically any idea I came up with in the back of my head while working at a retail desk counter would also be the property of the company, which would include the couple published works of mine. I don’t think it works quite so simple

Kashrlyyk.5364:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

.. . .

. . . have you considered “Prayer to Kormir” to remove those conditions which are killing you quickly?
…

Which has a 40 seconds recharge while “Poison Dart Volley” has 10 seconds.

I haven’t played this step, since I wasn’t a Street Rat, but the thief should have enough options to extend that 10 second window after managing to take care to survive it. Or interrupt it.

Kintari.4172:

Introducing new players to content is a good goal, but there are better ways to do this than dailies, and most daily Skinner Boxes are more about pressing the lever and getting a pellet than they are about doing new stuff.

Some people play games to be challenged and improve, others play so they can shut their brains off, perform some boring repetitive easy task, and be rewarded for it. Dailies are aimed squarely at people in the latter camp, because these kinds of people find repetitive, rote actions with some form of positive reinforcement ‘fun’.

I’m sorry, I really feel differently. I also don’t think we have a “Skinner Box” here, but then I’ve also seen numerous complaints of “Skinner Box” over the years to where it’s simply made me jaded on it. I’m probably not the best judge.

Though I should add, I find the tasks fun primarily because I have people around me to enjoy it with. I’m not having as much fun doing it alone, much like any other activity I go do for “fun”. Some people go get blackout drunk at a bar, but I don’t find it fun. I find it more fun to hang around people I like to hang around.

And, finally, I really do perceive the Daily change to be an overall good thing. Primarily because people kept asking for it.

Wayfinder.8452:

I too agree that adding more in-game currencies and tokens is ridiculous, but it’s now as dramatic as people make it sound. The problem is that it’s not intuitive and as the OP said it’s hard on new and casual players.

Nicholas was the Daily of GW1. I rather liked hit, it was like getting 5 RNG Lion chests for some random effort. It was a good twist over all, but nothing overly impressive.

Zaishen Missions were the Dailies of GW1, Nicholas was a “Weekly”

Azjenco.9425:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Azjenco.9425:

What if ascended items stood next to exotics? Instead of being the next step, ascended could have had different forms of stats and bonuses not found on exotics. If ascended items were represented in new ways, then it could have opened options and have you make meaningful choices about how you wish to build your character in different ways.

Problem! I think all the stat type distributions are covered by Exotics. And the ones which aren’t covered I’m . . . tentatively sure wouldn’t be very useful. They’d be horizontal enough if they were:

- Lacking an upgrade slot you could slot Runes/Crests/Jewels into.
- Infusions contained only Agony Resistance and one stat bonus. Set that bonus to the highest value a Crest contains.
- Only Trinkets.

You see, that’s my biggest concern. Runes are completely excluded from ascended gear, though I’m not sure how ascended armor will be handled when it’s inevitably added into the game. Taking them away means removing another part of itemization choice. I really like Infusions, but Runes should still have a place. Maybe allow a certain infusion to slot a rune.

What I meant by different forms of stats and bonuses, I didn’t necessarily mean variations on the existing bonuses. What I rather meant was completely new forms of stats that distinguish then from exotics.
To give a rough example of what I had in mind, an ascended item could look something like this:
80 Power: +40 if you have a boon on you
80 Precision
80 Toughness: +40 if you have a condition on you

or

80 Precision/Condition Damage
80 Vitality/Toughness
80 Power/Healing
Switch from one set to the other whenever you switch between your weapons.

Again, this is a rough example, but there are ways to differentiate one gear type from another to maintain a level of horizontal progression. Also as an example, perhaps some rune effects can already be placed on ascended gear to substitute a stat. This is something not found on exotics and would really distinguish them from ascended gear.

Doing horizontal gear choices is really a place for designers to get creative and add deep choices for the players. Like I said, that would actually make you choose between which gear might make your build more interesting, rather than going from an exotic shaman set to an ascended shaman set.

The trouble is that your offers of reducing it to two stats with higher values instead of three with lesser values is . . . that people are still getting an edge with proper work statistically. At least, in the ways they care about.

Honestly I think having it be trinkets only might be one of the better answers, because Agony Resistance from those six slots should be okay, right?

Tosha Daydreamer.9251:

Yesterday I did something different. I turned off the daily tracker and just started playing, to see how far I would come with the daily by ignoring it. Within 30 minutes, I had 4/5. Before I logged off, I spent some karma to get 5/5, but that took me 2 minutes max.

Relax, let go of the compulsion brought on by having that tracker in your top right corner, and the dailies will feel much less of a chore.

. . . waaaait, people actually paid attention to them after starting up and checking what they were? I usually just let it ride until I found out I hadn’t gotten it yet.

Azjenco.9425:

What if ascended items stood next to exotics? Instead of being the next step, ascended could have had different forms of stats and bonuses not found on exotics. If ascended items were represented in new ways, then it could have opened options and have you make meaningful choices about how you wish to build your character in different ways.

Problem! I think all the stat type distributions are covered by Exotics. And the ones which aren’t covered I’m . . . tentatively sure wouldn’t be very useful. They’d be horizontal enough if they were:

- Lacking an upgrade slot you could slot Runes/Crests/Jewels into.
- Infusions contained only Agony Resistance and one stat bonus. Set that bonus to the highest value a Crest contains.
- Only Trinkets.

Art? How about the soundtrack? The one boss fight track is very great, and I’ll take “Fear Not This Night” over the last song with vocals from a video game.

For the record, that’s either “Sanctuary” from Kingdom Hearts 2 or “Another World” from Digital Devil Saga 2.

Kintari.4172:

Daily quest systems are and have always been garbage. They are designed to cater to and retain QQ casual short attention span bads, most of whom end up quitting anyway.

Well that’s one perspective.

They also draw people to keep coming back to a game where there’s no subscription fee to guilt them into being active. Lest it be forgotten, daily quests showed up the last two . . . two? . . . years of GW1 as a means of “something to do to get people to go to older content and not just a few spots”.

Dailies in GW2 seem to be shifting from “here’s some stuff you can do, oh hey, have some experience karma and silver” to “get out in our game and try something different for a bit, there’s really a lot you probably haven’t tried yet”.

Pirlipat.2479:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Lorelei.7809:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Lorelei.7809:

Pardon me (I was referencing your unpopular ideas)! Your ideas sound fantastic. This certainly sounds like a way for any guild of any size to be proud of their accomplishments and reasonably attain them.

There’s just one hitch. Since I laid this out, there’s probably a high chance ArenaNet can’t use it.

Possibly, but it’s also possible that they can do something similar and/or be inspired by your ideas. I don’t think there’s any reason they can’t use at least a similar idea from yours, if not the same.

I should explain.

Writers are usually highly discouraged from listening to a fan who has “this idea for a character” or reading fanfiction (even if it’s really good) because you run into a very real legal matter over where the material originated. I don’t know if it falls under “plagiarism” specifically, but you can get in a lot of trouble for even subconsciously winding up using someone else’s idea in your material.

I’d put Gold down that there’s similar provisions in software/game design preventing them from directly taking or in other ways apparently modifying, something submitted as an unsolicited idea.

Nope:

To enable ArenaNet (as defined below) to make use of forum member contributions and suggestions related to its games, including but not limited to any text, ideas, art, bug reports, suggestions of any kind or other contributions (“Contributions”), all such Contributions are hereby assigned with all right, title, and interest, including without limitation all intellectual property rights, to ArenaNet, Inc. and its affiliates (including without limitation NCsoft Corporation, NC Interactive, Inc. and NCsoft Europe Ltd.), successors and assigns (collectively “ArenaNet”) and shall be deemed the property of ArenaNet.

Users agree that no further permission or payment of any kind is necessary to fully exploit Contributions in any medium now known or hereinafter invented throughout the world. ArenaNet hereby grants a limited license back to users to use, distribute, re-publish, and create derivative works from such Contributions solely for non-commercial purposes. Such license to Contributions may be revoked by ArenaNet for any violation of this Code of Conduct….

This is from the user-agreement of the forum. There would be no use at all in having a suggestionsforum if this would only limit your options to implement something because once someone posted it you would have to pay them.

Excellent.

Steal away, ANet! I encourage it.

Chuo.4238:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Chuo.4238:

I’m pretty sure that ArenaNet has their head in the sand over it, though. I bet they are still wondering why a large chunk of their playerbase left back in November…

I don’t think they’re wondering about that, I think they’re more going “this seemed like a good idea, why didn’t this work? And now what do we do with the rest of this stuff, should we just leave it half done . . . ?”

Well, fundamentally what they keep doing is forcing people to play in certain ways, and then taking the fun out of playing in those ways. They really need to step back and look at the big picture.

I’m not entirely convinced you’re correct, and I rather think they’re trying to play for a longer path than instant fixes.

Chuo.4238:

I’m pretty sure that ArenaNet has their head in the sand over it, though. I bet they are still wondering why a large chunk of their playerbase left back in November…

I don’t think they’re wondering about that, I think they’re more going “this seemed like a good idea, why didn’t this work? And now what do we do with the rest of this stuff, should we just leave it half done . . . ?”

marnick.4305:

I think the community agrees that Trahearne going postal at the earliest occasion (march) would be good for the game right?

No, but I think allowing them to do something like transform into the enemy on a spy mission, and find effigies of him (not the charr kind, the “strawman” kind) to beat up on would be therapeutic.

International.7980:

Yep, married to a crazy

A slightly jealous lady with anger management issues and a tendency to set things on fire.

. . . he could have done worse. He could have hooked up with that norn lady at Olafstead. The one with the bunions.

marnick.4305:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Take a look back at Guild Wars 1, and note how many different “trophy” drops existed. Consider that at the end of the game’s life cycle? Every one was a currency.

Considering Nicholas the Traveler who needed virtually every random drop in the game, GW2 is developed considerably better. There are some currencies, but not nearly as bad as they could be. All currencies have a clear purpose, both in how to gain and why to spend.

Considering how I have, IRL, Euros, Pounds and Dollars in my wallet just to be sure I can pay where ever I go. Considering I am virtually required to have a visa card to travel. I don’t think it is possible to avoid the many currency problem. If anything, it adds charm.

Also worth noting, technically those trophies were currency before Nicholas, but nobody ever thought of them like that whom I ran across, Usually they referred to the trophies as “salvage bait” if it gave up something like dust or feathers or “vendor bait” if it didn’t.

Genophix.3098:

This thread is just going around in circles. In the main picky argumentative pedantic know it alls with a few reasonable people trying to say ‘hey, it really doesn’t matter’.

These dailies are fulfilled by normal play anyway so what difference does their inclusion make? I’m sure there are more more pressing or interesting topics to discuss.

Pressing? Probably. Interesting? Not for me, because it’s interesting to hear people’s reactions that differ from my own and learning why.

Fun fact, while you get your Daily knocked out in regular play, there are others who play differently who feel they must alter course to fill out their Dailies. And then there’s some who are compelled to do the whole set even though there’s no full-on actual reward being offered.

I said it again, I will say it until they put me in the ground. “People are weird, wonderful, and exist in as many varieties as you can imagine. And then some.”

Anzu.5702:

The different currencies relate to the different methods of playing. That was what was intended. I.e. you like wvw = badges / karma, pve = gold / karma, dungeons = gold / tokens.
I have no problem on them extending on this system to an extent but there should be a limit.

My biggest issue is that the currencies are not equal and that gold has too much power over the rest

Well, the problem there is more that while gold has power over many things, it can also be bought via a real money avenue. And on the one hand there are things money can’t buy (Karma, Laurels, Tokens/Trophies…) are often the thing needed the most for progression of any sort past Exotic.

(Excepting Legendary weapons. I literally have no idea how those slipped through, and figure it was someone going “nobody will ever sell those, that’d be silly” followed by “oh crap it’s too late to turn back now”. )

So the problem isn’t that gold has any sort of power . . . it’s that the stuff which does have power at the highest point is controlled via certain avenues of distribution.

Ursan.7846:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Read closer. I’m not talking about the gear, especially when you can buy it from players if you have enough coin on hand. If anything that game had such a simplistic approach to gear it was almost a negligible concern for 90% of the time you were playing. It’s the titles which had it.

And before you tell me they don’t count because you could ignore them, stop and think long and hard on if you want to pull that exact line which gets people blasted on these forums concerning Fractals.

I actually was being sarcastic. I apologize if it didn’t come across well. I worked my kitten off for 3 years in GW to get everything I mentioned, plus the Lucky/Salvage titles, and I still don’t have GWAMM.

I’ve had people say things like that to me with absolutely no trace of sarcasm and a reiteration they were actually serious about it, so my radar is a little off. Heh :P

Seven years, and I never even begun to get halfway to finishing some of those titles. Some were just WAY too time intensive and repetitive for me to bother doing (Chest runs, as mentioned) or plain expensive (Lucky).

Vayne.8563:

Fortuna.7259:

Vayne.8563:

Proof? Because I don’t spend money on the game and play it just fine. This kind of conspiracy theory is the worst kind of conspiracy theory. One that appeals to fear in people without having a shred of evidence to back it up.

I would hardly call a corporation taking actions to increase their own profits a “conspiracy theory.” More like common sense. The only question is what the business strategy is.

Saying Anet doesn’t care at all about anything but making money through the cash shop is a conspiracy theory. The poster is saying that everything they do is about making money through the cash shop. Except I can think of tons of things they could have done but haven’t. So maybe it’s not that clear cut.

Every company wants to increase its profits, but some companies do have self-imposed moral limits. I had a computer store at one point in my life and I had things I wouldn’t do. I wouldn’t buy stolen merchandise, even if I knew I could get away with it, because I didn’t want to make money that way. That’s a limit.

Anet has limits too. Look at other F2P MMOs and compare their cash shop with Anets. Then we’ll talk about greed.

Do I get to mention that one thing with the ponies which is deliciously evil?

Ursan.7846:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

But it still amuses me people continue saying there wasn’t any grind in Guild Wars 1

You must’ve been playing a different game. I got my Tormented Shield in like a day, my Voltaic spear in like 2 hours, and of course those 26 plats required for +3 shadow arts just so I can solo farm? Got it in like a minute. No grind at all dude.

Read closer. I’m not talking about the gear, especially when you can buy it from players if you have enough coin on hand. If anything that game had such a simplistic approach to gear it was almost a negligible concern for 90% of the time you were playing. It’s the titles which had it.

And before you tell me they don’t count because you could ignore them, stop and think long and hard on if you want to pull that exact line which gets people blasted on these forums concerning Fractals.

International.7980:

Definately Mhenlo…poor guy ended up in a fate worse than death…

Married to Cynn?

Ojimaru.8970:

Currencies of Guild Wars 2:

1. Experience
2. Skill Points
3. Traits
4. Coin (copper, silver, gold)
5. Karma
6. Glory
7. Supply
8. Gems
9. Influence
10. Ascalonian Tear
11. Seal of Beetletun
12. Deadly Bloom
13. Manifesto of the Moletariate
14. Flame Legion Charr Carving
15. Symbol of Koda
16. Knowledge Crystal
17. Shard of Zhaitan
18. Badge of Honour
19. Captains’ Council Commendation
20. Candy Corn
21. Ugly Sock
22. Ugly Hat
23. Ugly Sweater
24. Fractal Relic
25. Pristine Fractal Relic
26. Laurel
27. Guild Commendation
28. Guild Merit
29. Pact Victory Token
30. Karka Shell

And soon to add:

1. World Experience

ANet, stop.

Traits aren’t a currency as they can’t be bought or sold. Supply is more a resource than currency, and the Pact Victory Token is a one-time-per-character exchange. And you want to add in the Festival tokens?

You really want to split hairs on what currency is, though, I’ll tell you something.

Take a look back at Guild Wars 1, and note how many different “trophy” drops existed. Consider that at the end of the game’s life cycle? Every one was a currency.

WatchTheShow.7203:

I was really hoping this game wouldn’t add in more tiers of armor because that is the one thing I hate about MMOs. I love my exotic gear I have and I dread the thought of having to replace it every 6 months. Plus, with characters being scaled down in most zones I just don’t understand the need for uber 1337 gear that will eventually do 9,999,999 damage and one-hit-kills Zhaitan.

About two things to add to this about why your fears are premature.

1. They haven’t jumped off the deep end yet on the gear progression issue. It looks more like they dipped their foot in, found it wasn’t going to do and backed off to the kiddie pool. Sure, they might go back and try again, but we don’t ever have any guarantees of anything.

2. You’re not going to see one-hit-kills of Zhaitan or significant open-world boss type encounters due to how the downscaling works. You may see them be folded over like they were rammed in the stomach with a sledgehammer and having sand poured down their pants, but you get enough people beating on them now and they do that anyway.

(Poor Svanir Shaman, better luck next time at the Maw.)

Mungrul.9358:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

There’s just one hitch. Since I laid this out, there’s probably a high chance ArenaNet can’t use it.

At the start of January before they announced the new system for Dailies, I outlined the same system almost word-for-word.
I don’t think they have a problem taking inspiration from the community.

In addition, 27 days ago I also suggested Achievement Tracking, again which they have adopted word-for-word.

In the first case, no, they didn’t adopt it word for word or a direct lift of your writings. The system you and they proposed fall into the same superset of options though. Perhaps mine will also wind up done like that, but frankly if they do Guild Halls any differently than how I laid out I’ll be shocked.

Fortuna.7259:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

People keep saying there wasn’t grind in Guild Wars but there really was. Really really. Am I the only person remembering “chest runs” for Wisdom? The sheer piles of lockpicks used up trying to raise Luck? The time devoted to turning Balthazar Faction into Zaishen Keys to get a crack at the chest?

We know there was grind in Guild Wars, but it wasn’t the same and there was VERY little that had to do with max stats. Lockpicks/Luck was really a non-issue because “stat-wise” luck was just a built-in cost reduction for using your xth Lockpick – so that grinding Luck for the stat was self-defeating (you were of course free to grind the title – Guild Wars had plenty of super grindy titles). Earning Balthazar Faction was never a grind for me at all… I earned millions of faction without even having a thing to use it on (and thus just lost it). Besides, the chests were cosmetics and titles. All things considered, GW grind was/is a very different animal from what we see in GW2 today.

You didn’t have to grind for Balth? Great! Unfortunately . . . I did. Oh DEAR GODS I had to grind that like I needed spices and my blender was broken. I had to grind that and swallow lots of profanity and dealing with learning how PvP was so very different from the rest of the game that I am surprised I didn’t cause more flames than a League player on a bad losing streak.

And no argument that the two don’t compare directly. But it still amuses me people continue saying there wasn’t any grind in Guild Wars 1, when I know what I went through for my “Expert Treasure Hunter” . . . and that’s not even halfway to the maximum.

bewhatever.2390:

I say all this to clarify my final point: financially, a game is better off cancelling an expansion pack if it will alienate and drive away more $$ of revenue than the $$ from the expansion and $$ from players staying who would otherwise have become bored and left. GW2’s last 4 content patches have each alienated significant groups of players. This means the process is out of control.

This would make a lot of sense to apply here if it weren’t for a couple details:

- Guild Wars 2 does not charge a subscription fee, and I understand DAoC did? Therefore, only new sales or gem purchases actively add new money into revenue.
- If a player gets bored and leaves, the money from the initial purchase usually is still there.
- There is never a guarantee a player who claims to “have been planning on spending $$$ in the gem store” actually was going to follow through with it.

In short, it’s a very different model which needs to be looked at. And I’m not sure if it’s more vital to retain players (who may or may not be spending on gems) or to try to put new things into the game to try to grab more new players.

Zenith.6403:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

People keep saying there wasn’t grind in Guild Wars but there really was. Really really. Am I the only person remembering “chest runs” for Wisdom? The sheer piles of lockpicks used up trying to raise Luck? The time devoted to turning Balthazar Faction into Zaishen Keys to get a crack at the chest?

- I make the difference between grind by design (e.g. you must repeatedly complete fractals to get relics) and grind as voluntary behavior, like choosing to run chests for money you could have by many other means. Important thing about Guild Wars was that there was no grind for power until very late at the game’s life cycle (skill power based on title).

Chest runs weren’t for money, chest runs were for Wisdom rank which in turn affected your chance to pull upgrades out of items. It was that, and for the maxed title title (“God Walking Amongst Mere Mortls”) which people wanted. Of course, that was WAY more grind than anything we have even now, in several places.

The grind for Wisdom and Luck (again, also a factor in pulling upgrades) was present before Factions. Then there was the grind for Survivor, which was very much a luck-based debacle for the largest part of the game lifecycle. And the grind for PvP related titles. These existed before the Factions skills which ran off the title track there, which was also hardly “late in life cycle”. The skill “Save Yourselves!” came to be known at least in some circles as more unbalancing than Ursan’s Blessing in more situations. It’s just that Ursan’s Blessing was easier to work with and required next to no care to execute.

These are what you’re referring to as the title-based skills? Because that’s what I think of. That and Pain Inverter, which was practically a staple for dealing with bosses.

Adding new currencies for new activities and rewards effectively makes it so that power gain is exclusive to that content type. Scaling up numbers means that content has to be run repeatedly. There’s the thing that causes grind.

You’re half right, this does often lead to grind. Of course, there’s the other path to grind, which is the idea it’s built in to keep something “exclusive”. You know, the usual culprits. The 0.05% drop rate, the immense gold sinks, the “do it til you get it right, save or die” quests/missions/events . . . all meant to keep the bulk of players from not getting to that content so it’s by its nature rare.

And I have no objections to either path to grind if it’s for a cosmetic reward or boasting rights. I have relatively mild objections if it’s for “best in slot” items, and I keep them to myself if it’s possible to go without and still do passably well.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Just looking at the thread’s title and the gist of the discussion, I’ll ask:

• What would a deep gameplay mechanic be?
• Aren’t all gameplay mechanics essentially the same?
• Aren’t we all just sitting at our computers, moving our game piece to one area or another and clicking the mouse or pushing keys to have our piece interact with virtual stuff in the game?
• Why is doing the above in one fashion shallow, and another not shallow?
• Aren’t these rewards just more virtual confetti?
• And above all, are these rewards really that important that you have to have them?

Here, go check out “Extra Credits” at PATV (I’m too lazy to get the link) and look up in their most recent season, Ep 19: “Depth vs Complexity”. They’ll cover it better than I, and probably more entertaining as well.

Fortuna.7259:

It is just an estimate of the difference between full ascended berserker (with armor/weapons) and full berserker exotic, without anything like 25 might stacks (which dampens % increases to Power a bit). Currently, you are probably going to see 8-10% with trinkets. But the weapon damage is very important and there will possibly be +10 power infusions (probably hideously expensive) that might add up to something (put one all 14 pieces of gear). Who knows? We do know that it is already pretty significant.

I see. I’m not going to try diving into the math – I’ve proven in the past I’m only passable at that when I don’t have a pressure to be exhaustive. So tentatively I’ll take you at your word.

I still think that there’s less of an impact in this outside of WvW applications, unless of course, everyone is using it in PvE except you. Most content I’ve encountered thus far (and consciously excluding extreme reaches of Fractals, where you need/should have Ascended anyway) still is do-able inside Exotics for small-scale things and in large-scale . . . like Temples, there’s often either enough people that it is rendered moot or there’s not enough so that you’ll get squashed no matter what your DPS is.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Lorelei.7809:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Lorelei.7809:

Pardon me (I was referencing your unpopular ideas)! Your ideas sound fantastic. This certainly sounds like a way for any guild of any size to be proud of their accomplishments and reasonably attain them.

There’s just one hitch. Since I laid this out, there’s probably a high chance ArenaNet can’t use it.

Possibly, but it’s also possible that they can do something similar and/or be inspired by your ideas. I don’t think there’s any reason they can’t use at least a similar idea from yours, if not the same.

I should explain.

Writers are usually highly discouraged from listening to a fan who has “this idea for a character” or reading fanfiction (even if it’s really good) because you run into a very real legal matter over where the material originated. I don’t know if it falls under “plagiarism” specifically, but you can get in a lot of trouble for even subconsciously winding up using someone else’s idea in your material.

I’d put Gold down that there’s similar provisions in software/game design preventing them from directly taking or in other ways apparently modifying, something submitted as an unsolicited idea.

I know that the user agreements in many games have provisions relative to the official forums, that ideas expressed thereon are considered to be the intellectual property of the developing company, and not the posting fan. While I do not know if the GW2 UA has such a provision and don’t care enough to reread the thing to be sure, I wouldn’t bet against it.

I could, but EULA and laws are separate and distinct entities, far as I recall . . . either way it’s “legal issues”, I am not a lawyer, et cetera

Zenith.6403:

Vayne.8563:

We want to change the way people view combat. Nothing about grinding for achievements. Nothing about grinding for gear. Nothing about vertical progression.

- I see it now. They wanted to make combat and heart quests non-grindy by design. It has worked too. I wonder if I was the only one who was confused by this statement thinking there would not be grind in the game (as there wasn’t in Guild Wars).

People keep saying there wasn’t grind in Guild Wars but there really was. Really really. Am I the only person remembering “chest runs” for Wisdom? The sheer piles of lockpicks used up trying to raise Luck? The time devoted to turning Balthazar Faction into Zaishen Keys to get a crack at the chest?

Obtena.7952:

Can you remind me of where or what that is?

Oh! Sorry!

It’s in Bloodtide Coast, on the northeast corner of Stormbluff Isle I think it was? There’s a skill point challenge right at the entrance.

Fortuna.7259:

And by the way, getting somewhere in the neighborhood of 25% DPS is hardly what I would call min-max “to the bleeding limit.” But of course there is a game going on to deny this as well. Maybe you will even grace us with that one…

Sorry, is that the extrapolated for a full set of Ascended armor/weapon or is that just based on the six potential items we have currently? Because if we already reached +25% DPS then something went horribly wrong somewhere.

Vlawde.1895:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Vlawde.1895:

On TC, I’ve heard in map chat that people are guesting because supposedly TC is the place to be. I have no clue why that is

Roleplaying. It’s why I’d guest there (did guest there) but it was apparently off-hours so nobody was around for me to observe. And now I probably won’t guest over there and get lumped in with the “bad” guests :P

Some people apparently decided to use TC to RP, but its never officially been declared by Anet to be an RP server. You can RP on any server. And honestly, I’ve heard very little of it on TC.

I asked once what server was the RP server, and was always directed to TC for North America. So . . . that’s why I said that.

Vlawde.1895:

On TC, I’ve heard in map chat that people are guesting because supposedly TC is the place to be. I have no clue why that is

Roleplaying. It’s why I’d guest there (did guest there) but it was apparently off-hours so nobody was around for me to observe. And now I probably won’t guest over there and get lumped in with the “bad” guests :P

thisolderhead.5127:

Its redundant tangent threads, they are like condition stacks and dragging everything to a halt.

But yeah – careful what you wish for guys, too many people demanding guesting be rolled out ASAP, and look at that it is exploitable as hell…

PTR is looking better each week.

I don’t think PTR would have caught this issue, particularly. This was always a potential issue in the back of my mind ever since they said “this will be on discrete servers but you can guest onto others”.

I actually turned to my brother who lived with me through EverQuest and said: “Say if they’d let you do that . . .”

“Everyone’d be on only one server anyway. Unless it was completely full, then they’d go to a second one. Nobody’d actually stay on their home server.”

thisolderhead.5127:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

thisolderhead.5127:

“If Anet was really after cash sales from the shop, they’d introduce pay to win options like many other games.”

There is a (n often direct) path from real money to the highest stat items in the game, it is pay to win already. Fortunately most of the players seem to be poor/cheap mwhahahahaha.

Or just unwilling to spend on it when there’s a method of getting there less impactful to their wallets

Though I’m not quite sure I see “pay to win” here . . . sure you can burn a bunch of cash, into Gems, into Gold . . . into items. But most of those items are mostly readily accessible in other ways. Except Legendaries, which is more “pay to look awesome/silly”.

Ah – I see, nothing I was referring to was exclusively P2W, just that cash to domination would be viable for a decent/good player.

And that’s another strange thing: a player good enough to take advantage of that is probably good enough to get by without it. A player bad enough to need an edge by buying it probably isn’t going to be helped by it.

A little of Column A and a little of Column B. People know that on the high-volume servers there’s a likelihood of Temples being open or attempted regularly, so they will guest over there.

thisolderhead.5127:

“If Anet was really after cash sales from the shop, they’d introduce pay to win options like many other games.”

There is a (n often direct) path from real money to the highest stat items in the game, it is pay to win already. Fortunately most of the players seem to be poor/cheap mwhahahahaha.

Or just unwilling to spend on it when there’s a method of getting there less impactful to their wallets

Though I’m not quite sure I see “pay to win” here . . . sure you can burn a bunch of cash, into Gems, into Gold . . . into items. But most of those items are mostly readily accessible in other ways. Except Legendaries, which is more “pay to look awesome/silly”.

Alarox.4590:

Interesting, as I’m sure most people think this response is.

(snip)

I’m not usually one for looking into the reasoning behind people’s words on a forum, but I do think this is interesting enough to warrant an analysis.

Can we stop poking the hornet’s nest? There’s no good that can come of poking them like this when it’s really unnecessary.

Tachenon.5270:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Lorelei.7809:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Lorelei.7809:

Pardon me (I was referencing your unpopular ideas)! Your ideas sound fantastic. This certainly sounds like a way for any guild of any size to be proud of their accomplishments and reasonably attain them.

There’s just one hitch. Since I laid this out, there’s probably a high chance ArenaNet can’t use it.

Possibly, but it’s also possible that they can do something similar and/or be inspired by your ideas. I don’t think there’s any reason they can’t use at least a similar idea from yours, if not the same.

I should explain.

Writers are usually highly discouraged from listening to a fan who has “this idea for a character” or reading fanfiction (even if it’s really good) because you run into a very real legal matter over where the material originated. I don’t know if it falls under “plagiarism” specifically, but you can get in a lot of trouble for even subconsciously winding up using someone else’s idea in your material.

I’d put Gold down that there’s similar provisions in software/game design preventing them from directly taking or in other ways apparently modifying, something submitted as an unsolicited idea.

If that’s the case, all we have to do is come up with every bad design decision Anet could possibly make in the future and post it here! And keep covering all the bases until the only possible course of action left is the one we actually want, which we’d have kept mum about! Problem solved!

Be careful . . . a variant Murphy’s Law applies. The more brilliant a plan seems at first, the more spectacularly it will fail when it does

I just usually track one or two actively and rotate them out when I no longer need to watch them.

thisolderhead.5127:

Fortuna.7259:

thisolderhead.5127:

There players who are throwing around “Trust” and similar personal terms around quite a lot, one or two seriously sound like they want to get even over some form of slight like Anet is forsaking their love – it is a worry.

What exactly are you talking about? As far as it looks to me, you are the one to even bring up “Trust” in this thread.

You might be right, I could have crossed it over, there was a bit of “hurt” voiced above that would have prompted that mistake (if so).

Yeah, it wasn’t this thread, it was another one which was about “do you still trust”. This one was about whether the Dailies were just a naked time sink/grind.

Zenith.6403:

Vayne.8563:

Anet hasn’t broken any promises, because they didn’t promise anything. Look up promise in the dictionary and see what it means, then use the word.

- What about this video then?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35BPhT-KI1E#t=1m26s

I thought it was pretty clear vision statement that they don’t want grind in their game. Yet they have added grind to their game, more with every patch. And from reading interviews they sound “very excited” about it too. What are fractal relics (quantities starting at 5) for? Why does the back item cost 1,350 fractal relics in a game that is not supposed to have grind?

What about half the achievements? Kill 1,000 centaurs. Get 1,000 sword kills. The whole WvW tab in achievements is about massive grind. Kill a million players in WvW to get your title.

Guild missions: get 5th level unlock and grind 50,000 influence points before you even get a chance to try them out.

Based on these observations, I say that Colin Johanson has mislead the players.

I say you’re not really seeing more than half of things. Grind had been in Guild Wars 1, purely for titles. Want to take a guess as to how many of them weren’t grind? Around 10. What did they do? For most of them, absolutely nothing other than give you something shiny to show off.

Achievements in GW2 are . . . heck do you even get to show off the Slayer and Weapon Master achievements? Anyway, they’re the same thing. And you don’t even get to show them off. In short, they may be grind but they serve no purpose and have zero function even cosmetically. They’re there for those who want the Achievements for the sake of having them.

Let’s walk to the next point about grinding for gear. Two words: Obsidian Armor. And yes, I’ll compare the laborious task of earning that one right up against a Legendary in this game because they’re analogous in scope. The amount of work doesn’t match, but neither does the scale of the two games anyway. And much like Legendaries . . . this was just a cosmetic “look I managed to have it” armor skin the same the Legendaries (currently) are just a weapon skin.

Your basic “almost best-in-slot” gear in Exotics are ample enough that you can kit yourself out in it with minimal trouble. In Guild Wars 1, after Nightfall and Inscriptions, it wasn’t hard for you to build your set of gear with the effects you wanted. It was kind of hard and/or expensive to get the models and maximum efficiency/effectiveness of them. (Required 8, the mods all at max, or gods help you if you wanted one of the Prophecies/Canthan drops which would have completely random and sometimes impossible combinations…)

(I’m not touching Ascended, as if I do we’re going to side-track all day long and still won’t get anywhere. Don’t bring it up, because I’ll just ignore it. It’s grindy, but it’s only undeniably critical to Agony-laden Fractals.)

So where’s my point after rambling?

Based on their track record with their previous game, ArenaNet has never been opposed to grinding being present. They have been opposed to it being strictly required to play through what they built as the main section of the game. Extraneous bits added on later or “challenge missions” were always a different story.

thisolderhead.5127:

So lets just get the Scrum-Master directly with the torches as pitchforks, artists and good code monkeys are hard to find – team leaders are bloody well everywhere!

. . . and this is why I resisted, and laughed off, supervisors who wanted to make me shift manager at at least one job :P It’s such a thankless position, leading.

thisolderhead.5127:

Anet is introducing these as there are players who are so over coddled that they couldn’t work out what to do in the game unless they had a scoreboard and a carrot to follow. If anyone is to blame it is all of us who didn’t teach the kiddies to make their own fun and left them screaming out to Anet for a simplistic tool to tell them what to do in the absence of leadership.

Now, I disagree. I figure the Dailies are there to encourage people to log in regularly so there are more people around since . . . well, some dynamic events can actually be done and there’s people around. I’m pretty sure that’s one of the reasons they exist: to get people to play if not daily, then often enough to be active.

How they evolved into what they are now is a long list of them listening to people (often different groups) making complaints about them. And I sincerely hope we’re done tweaking what they are.