Guild Wars 2

VOLKON.1290:

Why? Because we can, of course, and it could flesh out tinkering a bit more, that’s all.

We . . . are fleshing out . . . Tinkering, something which doesn’t exist yet, with more things which also don’t exist yet, and we don’t even know if Tinkering is something we should be looking at?

Sure why not?

:)

Though it bears to question just what exactly is “Tinkering” supposed to do which “Artificer” can’t as a flavor thing?

Cactus.2710:

That’s how you create dissatisfaction from both ends, and ANet has practically turned that into an art form.

They’re nowhere near where I am right now with Blizzard or how I was with Verant/SOE back in the day.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Kain Francois.4328:

The Rytlock/Logan/Jenna triangle would like to have a word with you.

By the way, I am #teamRytlock.

I am #teamTheyAllDieInAHorrificAccident. They’re dreadful characters all three of them >.>

Can we settle for trading for Pyre Fierceshot, Gwen and Kieran, and Vekk?

Yes we can. I <3 Pyre, Gwen, Kieran and Vekk.

Vekk is the only asura I will not feed to the reef drakes headfirst.

Pyre is the only charr I don’t measure for use as a rug.

And as we all know, Gwen is needed to take back Ascalon

:)

VOLKON.1290:

Remember tinkering from page three? We could craft Signets of Capture through that.

Why go that far? Make it a purchase from your class trainers rather than force another crafting discipline. You get an “Orrian Capture Device” (remember! the Signet was originally supposed to be Orrian in origin) which can be used on a valid target as a “Use Device” prompt.

Now the question comes what would this thing actually do and how would it interplay? Personally, I suppose it could be useful as a side-road to a horizontal progression of subclass or masteries or whatever. Instead of questing, get the device and charge it with each target it’s used on. Redeem it at a trainer as currency for the unlock.

Let it charge in sPvP after every match, or even better have the stuff unlocked as default so you can test drive them in sPvP . . . but it charges in WvW also so they can just grab the device, and get to work.

Nobody gets left out, and you got an alternate road to your horizontal progression than “go do the PvE content”.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Recently however we have been working kitten balance and situational role parity and bit by bit in game you can see player’s experimenting much more. This is a very good sign and will afford us a stronger foundation to build our content on moving forward.
Chris

Okay, what was it that got censored there?

BrotherBelial.3094:

I too liked “Guild Wars Beyond”. I’ve still got to finish winds of change, I thought “War in Kryta” was amazing. I really enjoyed playing through the whole thing. I’m currently getting a toon to the end of proh so I can have max skill points before I try it again.

I never finished “Winds of Change” because I ran into . . . shall we say, a skill wall. It was harder than I had time to try and figure out a way to handle. But I enjoyed War in Kryta and Hearts of the North. Why was Kieran Thackeray so much better a ranger than I am now though? I don’t have the option of one-shotting targets . . .

(Obviously for balance purposes but still.)

But with that said, and I’m no programmer, but with all the resources/map etc still there, how hard would it bet to just instance up the “story” part of the LW? So you could then relive the story eliminates of it, maybe with a cut scene to tie in the big group events, so that people who missed it could then live it a little. I don’t think you should be able to get the rewards that people got from doing it when it was there, but maybe give AP’s for “reliving” the LW.

Do you/Devs/anyone else think this could work/is a good idea.

I think it would be a wonderful thing if the old data was relivable through the Mistlock Observatory for a limited time after “Season 1” closes on Scarlet getting horribly murdered by everyone.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Kain Francois.4328:

The Rytlock/Logan/Jenna triangle would like to have a word with you.

By the way, I am #teamRytlock.

I am #teamTheyAllDieInAHorrificAccident. They’re dreadful characters all three of them >.>

Can we settle for trading for Pyre Fierceshot, Gwen and Kieran, and Vekk?

Lord Kuru.3685:

I think Anet has forgotten about that plot point.

And if not, they’ve done a terrible job with it because it was a big mystery when E first appeared and by now, with not even small forward progress with (or even reminders of) that plot line it’ll look stupid when it’s brought back.

The story will always look stupid, or rushed, or an attempt at Chekov’s gun instead being pulled from somewhere best left unmentioned . . .

In general, people on the forum have about had it with the storyline and have turned into Waldorf and Statler. No matter what ANet does? They’re going to get tar’d and feather’d.

DarksunG.9537:

Yes & no. Everything can be done “quickly”. It’s a non-issue using that standard in game design. You could make any suggestion conceivable & I can retort with: “you’re talking about stuff people don’t want to do, or would quickly tire of doing” . It’s more of a balance of is the grind/activity balanced enough for the bulk of players for an acceptable amount of time. Although I don’t understand why you would say “you’re talking about stuff people don’t want to do” I basically listed everything there is to do in the game besides pvp.

Yup, and there are some people who really don’t want to do any of it except get out of WvW to refresh themselves and dive back in again. Really, one charm of GW2 is we have all kinds of players. One problem with GW2 is we have all kinds of players. Someone’s going to be upset, but the trick is trying to mitigate it by trying to make as many people happy as you can.

But more to the second part. “It’ll be chewed through quickly” . . . which is more my concern. They could run themselves ragged designing this region to “go nuts in” as you put it and it would still be almost completely done with in less than a week by a not-insignificant portion of players.

Big catch-22 with game design. Years to build it, months for your players to play it, break it, mod it, and send you photos of things you never thought you could do in the engine. Like with movies, you’re spending a lot of time and effort on something which will be over much sooner than you took to make it.

I think most end-game zones just don’t have enough to do & don’t have enough unique enemies & rewards.

No matter how much they add, it will never be enough content. Again, that’s just how it goes

. . . .although the “unique rewards and enemies” comment is interesting, would like to see some work on that front. Good for the collector types.

GW2 has fallen into all the new rewards essentially being numbers. Whether it’s stats or mats. That goes into Anet’s abandonment of the DE system development & shift from putting rewards into the Gem Store rather than the game.

Eh? Tixx’s Toybox wasn’t in the Gem Store, neither was my Injector skin. And my reward for doing WvW Season 1 was rediscovering I really enjoyed getting myself beaten bloody in there and occasionally getting someone else or helping win something.

Sometimes those rewards aren’t tangible.

This is why many people like housing. The rewards are cool things you can build with. I think this is also why mounts are so fun. People yap on about speed buffs & travel & such but I’m sorry, it’s just cool & fun to have your guy riding on a sweet looking monster. & It’s a great goal to collect pets & mounts because it’s another visual customization of your character. There are only so many things you can change on your guy so people feel mounts & pets are a logical extension.

You’re right about mounts in that respect. But I don’t think it meshes well here as a mount system. As a cosmetic system like the riding broom or the drill machine? Sure, but as a travel system maybe it’s best left alone like that and instead we need to look at why we feel the exploration is lacking.

WRay.2391:

GW2 was designed to not have gear grind. They added it but didn’t give any new content with it. Like really ?! I need to go and grind for middle tier mats with my lvl 80 char in low level zones ?! Best design ever !

I mean, if you want to have the gear. Sure, go nuts, that’s the only means right now.

Personally? I don’t want to bother so I’m going to be comfy in the stuff I have now (which isn’t ugly) and work on achievements for Wintersday (I want to complete the toy mini set) and once done with that? Work on completing my banner collection with my alts (just need to get over Sieran and go for it). After that?

Probably try to get better at WvW.

Mortifact.3102:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Worth noting here, I love my mother very much and if she were in trouble I would move heaven and earth to help as much as I could manage.

That does not mean we are an incestuous duo.

I’m pretty sure that to most people a love story has a very sexual and romantic connotation. I’ve never heard about a mother and son’s relationship described as a love story….

I also love my brother a lot. To the point I might not try to move heaven, just earth if he were in trouble and I had a means of helping.

We’re not incestuous either.

I have a former roommate (of the same gender) who we parted ways with, probably the best one I had and one of the few people who left me an open invitation if I happened to need to couch surf. And a friend (of the opposite gender) who has extended the same invitation. Both would be willing to go to lengths beyond what is normally considered prudent if it would help me out of a tight spot.

Neither are a couple with me.

DarksunG.9537:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Again, I don’t like the experience of looking to go to Orr and seeing every possible contestable Waypoint contested but . . . if that’s what people want then I’ll adapt to not having easy access Waypoints.

honestly I think that’s more about how the zone is designed. first: you react differently to a waypoint being contested then not being there. Second, if the zone is set up more like a WvW map, with push/pull/moving armies you’re more likely to accept always starting from the beginning. third: if the zone is packed with things to do, hidden secrets, lots of DEs with interesting unique mobs (there should be 100s of events with many branches in 1 zone), events & lots of unique rewards & achievements it will be more fun to hang out in a section of a zone for weeks. I think the idea of wanting to stay in 1 section of a zone for a while is so cool. Rather than having only LA. Why not have 3 towns in 3 zones that you hang out at because you have tons of stuff to do in that 1 area. (a good farming spot for certain mats, a wealth of achievements you are doing, a dungeon you are farming, a set of armor you are going for as a meta, capping skills from rare mobs, collecting items for a legendary quest & unlocking unique vendors by completing events/Hearts, finding JPs or doing good Guild Missions )

It sounds good, but you’re mostly talking about stuff people either don’t want to do . . .
or would quickly tire of doing in a couple months and we’re kind of back at the “step one” again: need more content. I mean, it’s good and all that but we have some truly voracious content-munching people around here

Chokolata.1870:

The gay relationship between Faolain and Caithe is the same as between a cabbage and a potato.

No, that one is just plain wrong. I mean, a potato? Seriously? No higher standards? At least go for a turnip.

Some say he’s the charr who runs the Black Lion Trading Company.
Others say he’s actually the new female Captain in Lion’s Arch.

All we know is we call him the Stig “Mr. E.”

Devata.6589:

- Terrain is often variable or uneven. Chars also walk on 4 feet so don’t see the difference there. Think it should work just fine.

Charr “run” on four feet. They walk on two, and they fight on two. Charr also are better at cornering and turning than horses, being . . . well, inspired by big cats who are intended to be quick and agile.

It might work fine. I’m skeptical of that.

- Invariably, they’re a status symbol. So what? Everything can be a status symbol. Legendaries are status symbols just as some other weapons. Don’t see a problem there. I don’t feel any negative connotations many people don’t. Really don’t see the problem here.

Personally speaking – I don’t either. However, it is something to keep in mind. Especially considering how other games treat mounts as status symbols, people have a reaction based on that.

Travel times become invariably
You can easily reduce that by having fast travel locations (like on a air-ship) spread out over the map.

That might as well be Waypoints set at outposts or camps with less in the wilderness, which pretty much is what I’ve been suggesting in lieu of mounts.

Not really. What I try to say with this is that with that argument you can dismiss everything that is not as convenient as something else while ignoring everything else. And so it’s an invalid argument imho.

No, it’s still valid, some people do desperately need the convenience factor due to lack of time. Fast food or TV dinners are invariably and inescapably proven to be not as good as fresh-cooked home meals. But they continue to exist because some people simply don’t have the time to devote to cooking anymore. Audiobooks exist because people need their time to do other things than reading. Vehicles, themselves, exist primarily because people need to get from one place to another without spending hours on hours to get there (or they simply are physically unable to walk the distance).

Convenience is not always born of laziness, sometimes it is born out of necessity.

Or maybe it was broken in your games. Most I ever had to wait in a game after I just mist a boat or something like that was maybe 3 min. Never half an hour.

Someone who played Everquest can attest to the trouble of the boat from Butcherblock Port to Freeport. This is the longest of boat rides, crossing an entire ocean zone with a stop inside the zone for people on the island to get on or people on the boat to disembark.

It was, if I recall correctly, ten minutes from the departure of one boat, and arrival of the next. But then it was also at least a ten minute trip across the ocean zone. Half an hour was a rounding of the time required but even if the difference is 20 minutes instead of 30 minutes, the point remains: it was a pain in the centaur’s backside and did nothing but prolong playtime . . . a fact admitted to back then.

Then there was the Luclin portal, the Velious Icebreaker ship . . .

These are travel times most people circumvented by saying “let’s get a port from a druid/wizard” because they were just so . . . inconvenient. Let’s put it mildly, to get from one side of the world (elven lands) to the nice humans of Qeynos, it could take you at least two hours with run speed buffs and fortunate timing. It could take upwards of an entire afternoon if you were unlucky, not including corpse runs. Even with a portal, you’re looking at a half hour trip.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

NinjaChris.9340:

Mortifact.3102:

I guess one of my major points is that it seems statistically unlikely that we’d have another major lesbian relationship. Obviously this is not real life so a decision was made to have them be lesbians, and I question why lesbians AGAIN when we haven’t really had a gay relationship (besides that very minor one in the Sylvari PS).

Considering how little open gay relationships there are in sword&sorcery settings, it’s statistically unlikely to have even one homosexual relationship in the limelight.
Also, it’s not about calculating how represented every part of society has to be for a game to be acceptable, it’s about creating a good story. And when the writers are not convinced they can write certain characteristics well enough that it’s neither satisfying for them nor for the players, they shouldn’t.

To be fair that is because a large amount of high fantasy is written by straight white male authors with a straight white male audience in mind. Lesbian relationships are a lot less controversial than gay relationships. Also I don’t get how it could be about the writers writing it convincingly. A gay relationship is identical to a hetero relationship, the only difference is that both people are of the same gender. Unless you want to argue that stereotypes are an accurate and necessary part of portrayal >.> which they most certainly are not.

I kinda want to chime in, I know people in all forms of relationships “in that respect” and really? None of them are normal people as is defined by the majority of the population, but at the same time, none of them really seem all that different than heteronormal couples.

I mean, some of the “heteronormal couples” are a heck of a lot weirder about it than some of the others.

Mortifact.3102:

Malganis.7468:

I dont see them as being a couple. I see them as two girlfriends talking suggestively. I have several straight female friends who act lesbian when they’re together, but its just an act.

Except it was confirmed in the living story livestream that they are a “love story”

Worth noting here, I love my mother very much and if she were in trouble I would move heaven and earth to help as much as I could manage.

That does not mean we are an incestuous duo.

Shakkara.2641:

timmyf.1490:

I’ve felt this for awhile, though I still don’t quite know how to phrase it. Wondering if others might have an opinion.

As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.

I’ve suggested zones without waypoints as a way around this. Does anybody else feel the same way? Or am I romanticizing the runs from towns to far-flung locations in GW1?

I like waypoints for the current content, but I would like to see more, new level 80 areas which don’t have many waypoints in them. Really big areas, think the size of the current playable world map. There can however be shrines where you can resurrect if you die (closest shrine only), like in GW1, so you don’t have to walk for hours if you die.

This happy medium is mostly an acceptable point. The question does remain, would it be something the players would enjoy or something they’d come here to complain about endlessly until Waypoints were put in instead?

I’d really like to see the housing system tie into this. So you build your house in a spot in the actual game world and it really matters where exactly in the wilderness you build your house. Maybe you can even build an upgrade to teleport to your house. So you have a base of operations in the wilderness. Maybe you can even provide services there for other players, so you’re really a settler and can make money by having a house with services in a location that is 4 hours walk from the nearest waypoint.

Ultima Online again comes to mind with a few houses placed along roads near dungeons and such with vendors there selling your general consumable supplies. Most often at a markup

I think some of the conveniences we have now should be disabled while in the wilderness (such as being able to send crafting materials to bank), so you really need to manage your logistics. Since storage will be an issue, it’d be fun if players can set up their own dolyak caravan to get their loot and resources out of the wilderness. And they have to guard it against NPCs or lose it all.

While I like that concept, I hesitate . . . “or lose it all” is something I really oppose being visited on players. Especially if the events run the risk of being only run with one person there and they can’t defend the dolyak properly. I know I spend time enough alone in some zones the idea of trusting an NPC caravan with my potential loot . . . ugh.

Also, I would like to point out unless you restrict the ability to duck into WvW or Heart of the Mists, Lion’s Arch is always at most two minutes away. Or of you can queue into your borderlands then you can just F12 and come right back in PvE where you left from. (Something I have used.)

And if you do restrict access then it’s gonna really tick off the WvW crowd.

Devata.6589:

People are asking for mounts pretty much since the beta of GW2.

People have also been asking for raids since forever, or hardcore top-level content which requires extreme skill and knowing your class inside and out, aspiring to be top player with a class so you can take a shot at this awesome raid encounter . . . without realizing it’s content which by its own nature excludes the majority of the players.

Sometimes ideas just don’t work out if you’re trying to not drive away players by saying “no, this content is only for the elite”.

Ben K.6238:

GW1 had the outposts rather than waypoints – that could perhaps be a model for how many waypoints this wilderness region might have.

Definitely could be planned a little like the way Orr points are placed – in war camps or at crossroads or such. This way it’s not “every fifty feet” like in some parts of Kryta.

A personal waypoint consumable may be helpful for exploration of this zone, too. The opportunity to duck out and play something else for a bit before picking up where you left off would be helpful in such a zone – otherwise you have to walk all the way back or use an alt.
So, if it’s possible to have a single-use consumable – kind of like a Twisted Watchwork Portal actually – that takes you back to the place you activated it within a 24-hour period, that may solve some of the problems forseen with this kind of content.

Interesting idea.

The other thing that I’d recommend to avoid making the zone any more dead than it has to be (being a vast desert, after all) would be providing paths through the desert with a relatively low mob density. If you’re trying to join someone out there you at least want the option of reaching them quickly.

It’s why I highlighted how the Waypoints are mostly handled in Orr zones. Major points get a Waypoint, often shown as the Pact putting a beacon in place. “Straits of Devastation” style progression of a zone so that the Waypoints need to be routinely activated by DEs or go “dead” except for a few “outpost camps”?

Again, I don’t like the experience of looking to go to Orr and seeing every possible contestable Waypoint contested but . . . if that’s what people want then I’ll adapt to not having easy access Waypoints.

timmyf.1490:

Well let’s work together, Devata. Mounts are an awfully divisive topic, perhaps we can find common ground.

I just question the steps to get to the decision “we need to take out Waypoints and add mounts”, and if the result will be in any way more useful than what we have now to the general populace.

Lord knows there’s one thing gamers hate and that’s to have something taken away.

Is it about the journey or about the end-point?

It depends on the person. Some players are just exploring to pick up their Gift of Exploration and call it a day, or are on an alt and don’t feel like really exploring stuff they did before. Then there are some who do walk the distance because “heck I’m not in a rush”, or “I want to get materials so I’m going to mine every node from Claypool to Lion’s Arch”.

If it’s about the journey, then what should be on the journey? If it’s the end-point, then what should be at the end?

No matter what you do with this, you need to realize you’re going to annoy people. If you make the journey more useful than just popping from A to B, the people who don’t want to do it are going to accuse you of adding time grind to the game. If you make it about the end point, then you get people zipping around to get the most reward they can from the various end points (for the shortest journeys) and still nobody enjoying the journey.

This line of thought is really addressing a concern I’m not sure is held by many of the players, and dangerously comes close to robbing casual players (or ones with limited time if you prefer that wording) of fun they might otherwise be having for the sake of “enjoying exploration”.

Maybe I can guide discussion by mentioning one of my favorite events in the game: the Penzan pirate treasure hunt. Has everybody here done that one?

It’s normally broken with nobody doing it every time I walk by on SBI.

Devata.6589:

Thats the whole problem. You do not want to be at another location then your destination.

I don’t think you understood me.

But when you would go by road you might see something new along the way and decide to have a look. At least thats what happens to me a lot when using a mount to go somewhere in other mmo’s. Plus you also notice how big the world is.

As someone who was Legendary Grandmaster Cartographer in Guild Wars 1? I’m pretty sure I knew how big the world was then, and as someone with 100% World Completion, I know how big it is now. I don’t need mounts to appreciate the fact there are places I would very much not like to visit again, nor have the need to.

Like “Jinx Isle”, or “Terra Carorunda”, or “Sector Zuhl”. To some extent, the karka hive counts too.

Personally I don’t know why mounts would not work in those locations however I can imagine that no way-points and the introduction of mounts would be more something for new maps.

Admission time – If we go to Elona and the Desolation, and there are no Junundu to be found? I’ll be a little disappointed.

Devata.6589:

But then the questions is.. Isn’t it broken?

By adding mounts you are not making it much more inconvenient. If you would just remove all way-points (or don’t add them in a new maps) yes then you are correct but if you replace it by something else it’s not that big of a inconvenient anymore. Of course it would always take longer then a way point but does that mean it’s better?

Assuming you mean “does that mean it’s not better?” otherwise this makes no sense. I outlined a few reasons Waypoints are used, but here’s some reasons more why mounts might not work well:

- Terrain is often variable or uneven. As I said, trying to get a horse or whatever through Caledon Forest in places, or Metrica Province seems like an incredible hassle. Not to mention a very likely trouble with Bloodtide Coast and Sparkfly Fen, or a large part of Mount Maelstrom.

- Invariably, they’re a status symbol. Always. Even in games where mounts were plentiful (Ultima Online) there were, yes, mounts which held higher status than others. Not so much a definite problem so much as something to be aware of . . . they carry rather deep ingrained negative connotations in the genre to so many. Much like the actual, honest profession of “Player Killing in the wild”.

- Travel times become invariably, inescapably inflated to the point it can be exclusive to take part in things simply because “i’ll never get there reasonably fast”.

We could also just give you everything in the game from the start. No need to level or do events or explore or collect or whatever. You have everything from the start. much more convenient but that does not make it more fun.

This is a bit hyperbolic as a counterargument, and weakens your case a bit to resort to it.

By the way, you also just nearly described Ultima Online. And yes, it was fun right up until you were traveling and got “halberd to the face” for whatever you might have on you. Or for the laughs.

And to come back to don’t fix what isn’t broken.
Maybe that is exactly what Anet did here. Many mmo’s have a good solution for it and then Anet did try to fix it while it wasn’t broken. Now some people do think this new system might be a little broken.

No, it was a broken thing. There is long a tradition of travel needing to cost time or else the player isn’t punished enough. The boat rides and massive open areas of Everquest, primarily come to mind. Which only got worse until they chucked it out the window in “Planes of Power” with the travel books.

It was broken, it was patched together with some solder and duct tape. Guild Wars 2 manages to do it better with some superglue and a clamp to get a tight fit.

Let’s not go back to “waiting for the boat to ride it for a half hour”.

Shakkara.2641:

Oh funny, cause there already have been so many online games that DO HAVE THIS.

Ultima Online (spend 720 skillpoints any way you choose between 50+ skills that go from 0 to 120, many skills may allow you to use spells or special weapon abilities)

Well, when I was playing you could indeed have any skills you wanted 0-100. So long as you had at least Magery 60 so you could Recall without fail if attacked. And Resist Magic 100 so you might resist Paralysis or Poison. And if you were using an axe it really was good for you to have Lumberjacking 100 for the bonus damage. And while you’re doing that, it might make sense for you to get Hiding as high as you can so you can likewise evade pursuers. Still hope you have Magery though so you can actually escape with the time you bought hiding behind a tree.

But sure, you could have any skills you wanted. Or you could be anything other than “dead meat” to the PvP players who might run into you around that precious Valorite vein you are after.

Marvo Pandaros XXV.7239:

There is no respect in GW2

No, no, no, I’ll respect you. Not immediately after you kill me, but maybe after about ten seconds of muttering about how I couldn’t beat you.

DarksunG.9537:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Delivery is as important as the message. If you’re being a . . . well, female dog . . . about how you tell someone something is wrong? They’re not going to take it seriously. Some maturity is required to temper the edge lest the message be lost in the reaction of “this one’s so rude”.

I would believe this if the reactions to player feedback/rudness were remotely consistent.

I don’t think my point there was solely about this company, or any other one. It’s just a general observation. If you want to get heard and not have the listener’s brain dismiss it out of hand because you were disrespectful or confrontational . . . you should try to temper the edge down to something not likely to bounce off “oh they’re just being a burro”.

Well, in wargaming it was more applicable because it was a very strategic/mechanical type of game. You had scientists like H.G.Wells playing war-games in a very scientific way. But when the modern RPG came out, they tried to represent adventure in the best systematic & consistent way they could. I think it would be interesting to move on from ridged/scientific stats into something less quantifiable & more adventurous. Granted, it’s probably too late for that in GW. But what I do know: stats are boring.

Here’s the thing, the modern RPG has so much to trace back to Dungeons & Dragons, the original form. And despite that it’s almost the standard to have statistics and dice instead of . . . not. Oh sure, those games exist. I can name maybe one off the top of my head, though, and they’re so niche titles because they don’t quite work the same way. They behave less like “games” and more like “improv theatre with your friends”.

I’m going to reiterate: There’s nothing wrong with that. But statistics have a reason to exist in games, and they’re not solely to limit creativity.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Want to know a secret? Those things are not fun to the person on the other side. So, don’t forget that.

that would be why I said:
“Honestly the current control is almost completely useless in PvE…”

There is something that is totally unsatisfying about control in GW2 even when it works & I think it’s from a heavy-handed PvP mentality.

It’s hardly surprising as the game is designed so they don’t need to split PvP and PvE as incredibly as they did in GW1. And they probably are still going to have to do that.

timmyf.1490:

I totally agree. The idea here is that the journey is the gameplay. You don’t travel to reach the endpoint, you travel. Period. That’s it. The exploration is the gameplay.

You spend your 1 hour exploring. And then you’re done.

I feel like I’m failing at explaining it, sadly.

Should just cite “Journey” the game. (The recent one). Or Myst, where most of the game was about the spectacle the mind-bending puzzles were set inside.

Here’s the thing though, if you design heavily to the journey being the gameplay, you’re going to draw fire from people who “don’t get it” or are not wanting to run across the whole of the forest just to reach the other side for the umpteenth time.

The Waypoints’ existence is a convenience factor, but not just for the lazy “I don’t want to walk a hundred feet” (therein lies losing a lot of your income to Waypoint travel fees, by the way). It’s for:

- The people who are off on their own thing and the guild wants to do something elsewhere they also want to be in on. Waypoint over and meet them in roughly five minutes.
- The people who log off in Lion’s Arch after clearing out their bags and want to get back to the edges of where they were exploring before without needing to retrack over places they’ve already been through.
- The people who don’t want to deal with dredge/centaur/Svanir roadblocks or other speedbumps when they just want to get somewhere.
- The people who have limited time that night and just want to hit world bosses with friends.

I hope I’m getting the point across. Waypoints exist for a reason, but their utilization is by people with a variety of reasons for using their convenience factor. Removing them for the sake of exploration (which a lot of players might not even want to have forced on them) seems . . . to be adding some fresh new vibrant color to the Mona Lisa.

Lord Kuru.3685:

They are unable to tell good stories from bad and thus it’s very unlikely we’ll be seeing good stories for the foreseeable future.

Let’s be fair, there are very few people who can tell good stories from bad anymore so long as it’s appealing to look at or otherwise entertaining. It’s the only reason I can think of a certain movie franchise even existed let alone became a monster at the box office.

See also, “One More Day”, Michael Bay, and shonen.

Morrigan.2809:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

timmyf.1490:

I’ve felt this for awhile, though I still don’t quite know how to phrase it. Wondering if others might have an opinion.

As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.

I’ve suggested zones without waypoints as a way around this. Does anybody else feel the same way? Or am I romanticizing the runs from towns to far-flung locations in GW1?

Edit: should have said this originally, but all the credit to Sir Arthur for expressing my feelings better than I’ve been able to. This post was meant as a huge +1 to his.

Hi TimmyF,

I agree:

‘As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.’

Chris

Mmm I love exploring but I also have limited time- so when I am in the mood, sure I ignore way points and explore- that happens more than you would think.

I do sometimes want to maximize my time and make use of the way points I have unlocked to hit events in far flung locations though.

What I Absulotely do not want to do, is to spend my 1 hour play time running to where I want to be- I want to get there and play.

thing is I have a choice now you see?

You remind me of “waiting for the boat” on old Everquest . . . something very few people were eager for.

Devata.6589:

Sir Cusfreak.5971:

I’m sorry, but how could waypoints “trivialize exploration” when you can only open waypoints in places you’ve already explored? If you haven’t explored somewhere, you can’t waypoint there.

They mean after the first time. You run to it once to unlock it and after that never come across much of the land because you simply way-point to your location.

I have lots of places I go once and never ever go back to again. This is not because I can just waypoint through, it’s because I don’t want to go there.

And I think you overestimate how mounts will help – I can look at the maps and see there are plenty of places it simply won’t be possible to use them to travel reliably with. Bloodtide Coast, Sparkfly Fens, Frostgorge Sound . . .

Not to mention places where the terrain isn’t level and will wind up hampering it, like through parts of Kessex Hills and Brisban Wildlands . . . not to begin with Caledon Forest and Metrica Province, where clear roads are kind of a luxury and not a given.

timmyf.1490:

darkace.8925:

I don’t explore Southsun because there’s nothing to see or do. There are no Vistas, there are too few Points of Interest, there are far too few Dynamic Events, and I personally wouldn’t have balked at some Renown Hearts either. Outside of harvesting runs or Queen kills, there’s really no reason at all to spend any time in Southsun.

Would you go to Southsun if there were events that you could warp in, spawn immediately, and complete for a chest with a guaranteed rare or two? And when you finished, you could start another chain? Up to maybe three or four paths?

That’s basically what I’m suggesting.

Tying loot to the equation, to me, dilutes the purpose into “just another loot sidetrip” which some people will skip in favor of other ones.

Devata.6589:

You act as if you have a point here because you did say people would say that and then they do. Yes people will say that and have been saying that because it’s something many people like. And because of that it might be a very good idea.

It’s a circular thing though. See, the solution mounts would bring doesn’t solve anything other than a problem created with another solution which isn’t even necessary to impose.

It’s felt Waypoints trivialize exploration, so maybe get rid of Waypoints. But now the world is so big we need a way to get around quickly since we got rid of the Waypoints so let’s add mounts . . . which now trivialize exploration and travel time . . .

Kevan.8912:

Raine.1394:

In WoW, when I started playing, my HP was around 6k – 10k. Now it’s ~500k. The game still plays the same. Mobs take just as long to kill as they used to and I die just as quickly. The effects of VP haven’t actually taken that game anywhere; they have just forced a gaming population to ride a treadmill over time by artificially making current gear useless and forcing them to hop on the treadmill periodically.

That’s what VP is and it’s the selfish position to want to force it on a population that bought a game that was advertized as being “not about grinding gear”.

+1…
still, it’s likely that VP won’t stop…because also if it’s the last tier, there will be the infusion treadmill.
what to say…maybe it’s too late for us

They were talking about World of Warcraft, not Guild Wars 2 with that treadmill of VP. There’s currently no treadmill, just the one step and the potential for the next.

I have my doubts that step is going to happen as rapidly or as severely as people want to suggest too.

timmyf.1490:

My idea also assumes that, eventually, these will become regular zones with waypoints. So the Crystal Desert becomes open first as a super-challenging adventure, but after a few months, the zone gets waypoints and regular mobs and is no longer instanced. This is a slow, months-long rollout of a zone. Like Southsun, but on a much, much longer time horizon.

I support this idea. One of the joys of not failing technically and taking part in Lost Shores was the assault on Southsun Cove where the Lionguard had events steadily pushing through and laying down roads and bridges amidst fighting off that supremely annoying wildlife.

VOLKON.1290:

Sheesh.. I think this CDI may have reached the end of its usefulness. Not really seeing ideas for horizontal progression being tossed about anymore… just seems to have drifted off. Looking forwards to seeing what Chris has narrowed the field down to soon!

I think it wound up drifting from purely about horizontal progression to working on some of the more popular ideas of “how to make a player feel like they’re progressing without increasing power, ie, how to not have vertical progression”.

Subclasses, housing, order-specific content, that sort of thing all kind of flows into the same basin of that idea.

I think “purely horizontal progression” is a trap as much as “purely vertical progression”. What’s more important in my estimation is players feeling they have options and aren’t just driven in a direction “or else” . . . which is why there’s such a clamor about the fact Berserker is so highly valued right now as a gear/build type.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

unfortunately, the industry is going in the other direction.

More games are being sold while still in beta and in fact a lot of games are using early access as a marketing tool. The positive fan reaction to this trend has pretty much guaranteed that “perfect on release, never to be patched” products are a thing of the past and that the new norm is continuous development.

I’m kind of okay with that if it’s known I’m opting in on a game in progress. I’ve done it four times so far and been generally pleased with the experience more often than disappointed.

Anyone remember how long “Minecraft” was out and still not “done”?

Bottom line, if a developer puts out a game and says flat out “this is still being worked on, but it’s complete enough we want people to play and give feedback”, I won’t complain about it being unfinished. If it’s gone far enough I can get a physical copy at Best Buy and it’s unfinished? I’ll be a little perturbed.

(But it will still beat a half dozen games I gave up on for being unplayable out of the box, and the one which almost destroyed my OS on uninstall.)

Nike.2631:

Yes and no. A fair number of Whisper agents will respond favorably as long as you know the right dialogue response regardless of your actual Order choice.

I’m a little more interested, because that makes sense if you think about it and don’t just discard it as “being lazy”. It’s just a code phrase and most of what they reveal isn’t exactly secret information.

Though a flag check for being Whispers and a reply with some form of “I don’t know what you’re talking about” would have been nice :P

One I’m not sure about but there’s a bit in southern Bloodtide where there’s a Risen Dynamic Event lead by a undead version of a character from your personal story. I’ve seen three versions of it (one for each Order). I’m suspect each version can only be triggered by players with the appropriate Story flags, but I’m not certain.

Nope, it won’t appear from what I’ve been told unless you visited Claw Island already and started handling Zhaitan’s push northward. And they’re not, from what I can tell, an undead version so much as a lookalike.

. . . now Nightmare Chambers? Those . . .

Conski Deshan.2057:

Valid points Tobias but I wasn’t talking about story. I meant more along the lines of choices like “You choose priory you gain access to priory armor and weapons, you will not ever be given access to Vigil or whispers equivalents” and the shortcut idea which don’t effect story. I’m not talking about branching choices , I mean simple clear Irreversible choices.

I don’t mind that so much when a game gives me more than one character so I could make an alt to experience the other paths if I really choose. I mean, we sort of currently have that – your biography determines what your starting story is going to be and some of them are vastly different in tone.

Want to see what I mean? Play a norn who got drunk at the last moot and blacked out. This is easily more lighthearted than the part my BWE norn had immediately preceding where Sons of Svanir were trying to warp spirits of the wild to serve Jormag.

These are meaningful in one aspect, less so in others . . . these choices don’t have impacts on anything other than personal story and I really really wish they did at least have some small tweaks or parts which turn up later.

“Personal opinions and theoretical example”

Interesting, and while I might (did, in another game) go for it, there’s the issue of telling players “we’re going to design this MMO and there will be parts you will gain and lose access to because of choices you make”. Nobody wants to have things taken away.

Gaebriel.3754:

Also as an example of another one of those nice touches which is actually in the game: I found an locked Norn (I believe) lodge somewhere on my Vigil oriented main character. When I interacted with the door, it said it was locked and had some scratches in the wood. I thought nothing of it and moved on. Much later, I stumbled into the same lodge with a character who is with the Order of Whispers. “Oh wait, it’s that locked one.” is what I thought. Though somehow I clicked on the door anyway. Great was my surprise, when the Whispers character actually identified the scratch marks as some sort of code and did something to open the door. Inside the lodge was (if I remember correctly) a torch that activated a hidden door, and some books or case logs. Nothing special, but it was Awesome to discover that!

How about all the Whispers agents you can identify with the codephrase? There’s more than you think.

Nike.2631:

And yet having those little flourishes is often the measure of a setting’s richness.

I hadn’t realize the golem repairs messages in Metric province had different dialogue for Asuran characters, but just hearing about it elevates my esteem for the game. Likewise I doubt most people know that Rytlock’s aide has a whole conversational branch that only Rangers can access where she talks shop with you about pet selection.

There’s more, but it’s mostly clustered in the “early game” areas. Probably because those are the parts with the longest completion time and multiple BWE times to tweak things just a little. How about the norn spirit shrines you can see in places and get responses from sometimes if you’re a norn? How about a minor DE where you talk down charr from different legions in a bar from starting a brawl and if you’re talking as a Blood Legion member you can just go “I’m with Blood Legion” to diffuse those people?

I’m convinced I remember some dialogue differences in Kryta to a charr visiting Queen Jennah too. There are things in there, small and a bit inconsequential to the game, which are slightly overlooked.

These thing are somewhat costly, but they’re also what separates a game from lowest common denominator gruel. Players enjoy seeing the signs that a developer put in effort.

The thing is, just to add a different text-only NPC dialogue isn’t all that much work. It’s things which get more complex than that (say, Ascalonians /threaten at charr who walk by, or get a voiced dialogue called out at them) where the expense starts to ratchet up.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

This trend frightens me when I get back into console gaming, the idea a game just released is needing to be patched after it was considered finished enough to be shipped. I mean, a couple months down the line, fine . . . but a day one patch?

So between the ship date and the release date, devs should just sit on their hands and not work on fixes till a few months after release?

Don’t stuff words in my mouth, you might choke me on something I never said, to try to appear clever. It’s less “they fix things immediately” and more “they released things which could have used a little longer to fix serious bugs”.

It mostly comes to mind from a roommate I used to have buying a game for a console and needing to patch it to play it at all. I’m used to some of these things on PC, because there’s always something which slips through. It just feels more often, there are serious things slipping through instead of smaller things.

It’s not just computers either . . . it worried me when it happened to MTG where a card they hadn’t even released yet got put on the Banned list for being potentially broken.

And no, I don’t have a solution other than “allow more time for testing and bugfixes”, even knowing there will almost always be some which slip through the cracks.

Rash.6514:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

That’s what I read into the whole “subclass” bit having been posted by red names. Not “you’re a Druid-Ranger so you can’t do X”, but “you do X primarily, so you can now access Druid abilities if you like”.

Right, but do players really feel this system is broken? What exactly is wrong with it? I mean, I am totally up to having more skills per weapon (in addition to having more weapons), but as long as they fit into the weapon’s purpose. Why does the community feel that having a very well labeled sub-class (e.g, you are a druid, period) is important?

Players feel the system is broken because they want to have a choice to broaden their options instead of limiting them. Someone (and I’m not sure who right now) related it to “playing the class as the developers want it played” versus playing the class as they want.

I can only speak for myself but the “subclass” thing being labeled or even called out as “This is the Infiltrator Thief Path” isn’t as required as actually having it out there where players can work on it.

Conski Deshan.2057:

I’d just like to add,
Why shouldn’t the choices you made have an impact? , A choice is not a choice if it doesn’t have a consequence.

Okay, this may be opening a can of worms, but here goes:

Video games have been about offering “false choices” for a long . . . long time. Places where you are given options A, B, or C and all of them letting you progress, but choice A starts a fight, choice B is the “perfect solution”, and choice C just skips you through. Bonus points for “good/evil” choices which don’t actually impact anything in the game other than scripted lines or appearances.

(Or the color filter of the ending – okay no not going there today.)

And it’s not restricted to video games too, it’s tabletop RPGs also. GMs saying there’s an intersection in the hallways, go left or right, but no matter which way you go you’ll end up at the same end point.

There’s a very good reason for this sort of thing: the people who come up with this stuff to be concrete need to nail down what they want and how to get from A to Z. And players will very often try to find some way to scale walls in the way, blow them up, or go around and try the villain’s secret backdoor escape hatch they know is there.

Tabletop games handle this easily because another person is running the show. Video games . . . not . . . so much. So there’s a need to keep things boxed in and limit possibilities before you wind up spending 100 employee hours on a path a fraction of your user base will ever see.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Skorm.4897:

Funny. What Online game do think doesnt need patch updates? its not going to come on the disk. smh

I think he’s used to console games, so GW2 might be his very first internet game.

Bah, even my console games have updates when they are first loaded. I don’t remember which PS3 game I played last, but I couldn’t even start it until after the system had run the game updates for it.

This trend frightens me when I get back into console gaming, the idea a game just released is needing to be patched after it was considered finished enough to be shipped. I mean, a couple months down the line, fine . . . but a day one patch?

Bonus points for a day one patch which is about stability issues or game crashes.

I’d like a quality story arc.

On the other hand, I expect what I consider a quality story arc would inevitably get people calling it crap or badly done. Why? I watched Lost and Fringe and consider the story arcs in those two series to be very interesting and of quality.

TriggerSad.2597:

For the sake of diversity, however, I will say that I wouldn’t mind seeing another heterosexual relationship take stage, or maybe (and this is a bit of wishful thinking) a relationship between two men.

Calling it now, Braham/Rox. Fanfic writers, on your mark . . .

Right now the only relationship, or romantic debacle, we’re seeing are the ones between Kas and Jory, and Caithe and Faolain respectively. We have Logan and Jenna’s “relationship,” but that’s been written into a state of “Overly Attached Male Friend.”

That’s how you define it? It’s more a different trope entirely. Warning: TV Tropes link.

There’s also definite ones in Dynamic Events across Tyria which aren’t center stage but exist. There’s the pair of Seraph who are part of the Kor Skullcrusher event in Harathi Hinterlands, there’s norn courting in a couple places, and in Kessex there’s a guy who goes to visit his dead wife’s ghost . . . ever faithful even past death.

Bottom line is that Logan and Jenna’s relationship hasn’t been clearly defined by the writers.

I would say it has been clearly defined by the writers, it’s just everyone expects things to be more blatant or more . . . gossip-worthy.

Like I said, I have no real issue with this, but it wouldn’t hurt to throw in some more diverse couples into the fray, even if they aren’t taking center stage. (Note: I’d love to see whatever happened between Snarl and Galina, there was defiantly some tension between those two!)

What about the Rytlock/Logan/Jenna love triangle?

FenrirSlakt.3692:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

FenrirSlakt.3692:

Asura already control the world.
They shared their gates and waypoints to other races, and now that these are so deeply ingrown, taking them away would shatter the economy and cause general disruption everywhere.
Where do you think all that WP money goes (also, lorewise there’s a cost for using gates, too).

Now, they’re not evil, they just want to be on top, and from an economic point of view, they’re almost there.

Not while Captain Evon Gnashblade, defender of Capitalism, is on the case and in charge of Black Lion!

As if. He probably has a deal with the Asura to avoid major transportation costs. Is is implied that the fastest and most efficient means of travel are gates and waypoints, which means that in order to keep BLTP running as smoothly as we’re all used to, his merchants would require gates and waypoints.

More proof I was right in voting for Kiel if Evon is helping the evil asura overlords.

Nike.2631:

Well I certainly agree it needs to be considered, as much as making sure all other choices in the set (other crafts in this case) receive similar attention at some point. You don’t want “Artificing is the best Dungeoning craft” to be an objectively true statement even is someone will undoubtedly crow that to the high heavens because of there preference for the dungeons where it is a factor .

New Crafted Item: Temporary Waypoint, Artificer (500).

. . . though I’m of mixed minds about that off-the-cuff extremely sarcastic example. Could be interesting.

Two words about something from GW1: “Mime Battle”.

Sounds terrifying .
[/quote]

It was part of what I considered the most fun mission, of all time

Sure. With the same caveat that all personality types in the set (13 choices I believe?)need to provide advantage at some point. Still, it would be funny to see~

“GLF2M. Have Barbaric. Need Militant or Scoundrel.”

. . . and yet I can see someone standing in front with their human engineer who looks exactly like Han Solo . . . it could be so much fun to mess around with.

Again its an untapped part of the charactersheet, and one fully isolated from choices like profession. It might also be nice to have sidetracks/shortcuts that respect Race. A bit of CoE you can speed up by being an Asura (maybe a console, maybe a disguise) is flavorful in the extreme.

Living Story repeatable dungeon content might be able to be done that way. Consider the finale of “The Nightmare Ends” and your choice to either puzzle through or power through. This is a taste of what I’d like to see as “choices having an impact” and “dungeons with multiple approaches”.

Not just “Twilight Arbor, up up only because we need tokens fast.”

I have to say one of the FUNNIEST bits in this game is the security console for the Inquest Energy Cannon east of Mount Maelstrom – the comment that the panel requires turning two keys simultaneously and they are cleverly placed more than arm’s length apart… Arms length for an Asura… Other races just grab both keys and turn them with no big deal .

I’m a fan of some things in Metrica Province where you can fix golems, other races get things suggestive of “pull this thing” “tap that thing” “spin the glowy blue bits” when the asura get technobabble solutions which make just as much sense but are flavorfully different.

juno.1840:

timmyf.1490:

Sorry for confusing you, Juno. I usually try not to quote huge blocks of text because it contributes to page bloat (and sometimes because I’m on my iPad and editing the quote can be time-consuming), but I see now that it makes it really hard for people to follow the conversation. I’ll be more careful in the future.

I’m the one who should apologize as I didn’t read the previous posts diligently enough. Sorry about the hard time on your response — I agree that there should not be build gating of any kind other than skill based gating (example: can’t beat an encounter because a build didn’t bring condition removal).

I remember the first mission of Prophecies where it was impossible to win HM unless you had either really tanky sacrificial lambs or enough sustained speed boost to make it through the run.

I also commented once elsewhere or here about how Urgoz’s Warren required some sort of transport skill to flip levers in . . . room 4 I think it was. This is outside of other instances I can think of where you were required to replace a skill on your bar with another during the mission to finish.

That could get annoying quickly.

Nike.2631:

Nike.2631:

“GLF2M, characters with 100+ WvW and/or Jewelry 300+ desired for shortcuts.”

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Like this one right here.

I really like the idea of there being options to roleplay your way through things, or use backdoors or secrets if X or Y. I don’t so much like the idea of them being useful enough to where they’re a required thing by groups and filter people they’ll take along.

There are people who feel 2 seconds faster in a 12 minute activity is enough to bend over backwards for. I try not to let them cripple my creativity in creating new activities .

I’m not talking about that minor a difference, I’m talking about, to take a page from GW1 “if we bring a necro with Traversal we can skip half the mission” as an option. And then finding out that’s all people want to do.

It’s just a concern I start thinking of when it comes to balancing things. Adding something for a flavorful and unusual addition should be included with “now how are players going to use this” as the next step.

Characters can have 2 crafts. In a party of 5 you can have all crafts represented with redundancy. As long as you put 2-4 small opportunities to speed things up it could be interesting. But if you’re taking longer to build a perfect group for shortcuts than the shortcuts reduce the run length, that kind of… precision, yeah, precision doesn’t sound as pejorative as the word the first popped into my mind… is largely self-defeating.

And yet sometimes groups are willing to wait for an hour for the last perfect member when they could have just run it already with a “sub-par member”. I don’t try to fix someone’s social decisions, I just remain aware of them.

We were asked about things we liked in other games. When it comes to introducing new and story-driven content, I think one of the best things I’ve seen was in LotRO the introduction of quest steps that required emotes. Go to this vista and ‘e/ look’ out towards the west. This character needs cheering up, so ‘/e dance’ for them. This powerful entity demands you show them the respect that is their due, ‘/e bow’ to them to advance the quest.

Two words about something from GW1: “Mime Battle”.

The more ways we can interact with the world, the more ways the world can respond to or require our involvement. Crafting ranks are just one of a huge box of un-used/under-used ways the world could be made more engaging. It can’t be a hard gate because we can’t expect every individual or group to have a particular craft but it can add to the experience with side pats be they shortcuts or limited bonus rewards.

I’d rather work with “Personality” first – it’s something in the game which hasn’t been touched on for very much use at all.

Rash.6514:

Bezagron.7352:

As they should, they should perform better at certain roles and jobs then existing, if not what is the point to adding them. In this way a build is just the same as sub-classes a specialisation, something we create to achieve a specific role we just call them builds.

Yes, this, so much of this! I thought those were exactly ANet’s plans since the beginning. Not only each weapon is “specialised” but also how some weapon specific traits are allocated on each trait line. I love that and it’s not because we are having this open discussion now that I believe ANet should change it. There is nothing wrong with how it is today, on the contrary.

More weapons? Yes
Change current weapon’s plans? No

That’s what I read into the whole “subclass” bit having been posted by red names. Not “you’re a Druid-Ranger so you can’t do X”, but “you do X primarily, so you can now access Druid abilities if you like”.