@Healix
What kind of repetition and in what context? You’d be hard pressed to find a game that didn’t require you to do the same thing many times. Hell, Deux Ex Human Revolution repeated the same gameplay mechanics over and over again but gameplay was in no way a grind. Elder Scrolls games require you to complete repetitive tasks over and over again, with simple and repetitive gameplay mechanics and those don’t feel grindy.
And how does one define and use “fun” with medium whose diverse aesthetics are diverse as videogames. I enjoy the gameplay in survival horror, but playing them does not evoke the kinds emotions I would describe as “fun.” Am I grinding when I play them by ANet’s definition?
@Raine
That’s part of the argument as well. The term is formative given it’s age, so the connotation can become part of the definition given time. The fact that it’s given a negative connotation in GW2 is really due to ANet’s usage of it and the player’s reaction to ascended gear.
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I’m beginning to wonder if ANet would have to rely on in-game micro-transactions if they could instead charge every time a forum poster debates GW2’s grind. These debates occur at least once per page, branching off as tangents or otherwise. They occur so often because they quickly lead to dead ends, and that prevents any further exploration. This isn’t all that surprising when you think about the word itself. The definition of “grind” is vague enough to allow for a variety of personal definitions, but it’s also simple enough to allow individuals to extrapolate their personal definitions onto others. It certainly doesn’t help that ANet loves to use their equally vague definition of grind as as a marketing ploy.
So, why don’t we try to establish something of a consensus on the meaning here? What’s your personal definition of a grind? How is it similar to the previous posters?
I’ll start:
For me a grind is doing anything that makes me feel as though my actions are meaningless within the context of the game. For example, after leveling my first character to 80, the second character I level becomes less meaningful and, therefore, feels more grindy.
To further extend this definition, I feel that the daily achievement is grindy not because of the length of time it takes to obtain an amulet, but because the tasks I’m provided with don’t give me a sense of accomplishment within the context of the world.
This is probably why I have such an easier time leveling an alt or doing mundange things with a friend, because it feels as though I’m helping someone as I level.
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1) There are people who want a grind-centric game? o.0
2) I’m pretty sure they said that we wouldn’t have to ‘grind’ constantly for higher-statted gear. Not that there’d be absolutely no ‘grind’ at all.
That being said, ‘grind’ is percieved.
Wrong…..two dev quotes…
1: “moving forward with the focus on zero grind and a very low power curve”
2: “We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.”Clearly this is not the case and was said to harvest unsuspecting gamers…..however there is nothing wrong with grind, as long as there is a goal and it is rewarded.
This isnt the case in GW2, the RNG takes over and you can grind for 6 months and receive nothing for your efforts, while the first time dungeon noob wins a piece of loot that sets him up with gold for the rest of his time in GW2.Obviously this is just the wrong way to go…skill, time, effort all lose out to the RNG…thats where the perception of “grind” becoming a negative thing comes into play.
GW2 is a grindy game, but not in a good way.
I think ANet made the distinction that power will not be grindy, in their eyes anyway. My belief is that the content, methodology, and incentive constitutes grind, not necessarily length or repetition. This is likely why people complain about GW2 being grindy despite the curve being so low. The game’s grindy in every sense but speed.
Oh and cosmetics are a blatant grind. Optional or not, that right there counters the entire “we don’t make grindy games” statement.
I know for a fact from the recent IGN interview that much of their resources have gone to services and away from development. That may be the reason why we’re seeing fewer dev posts here.
@Tobias
He was a contrived Mary Sue officially stated by one of the writers to have been conceived to do whatever the game didn’t want the player to do. Contrivance.Citation requested.
Honestly, though a lot of these complaints do potentially fall under “time/money constraints”. Remember, voice actors are not cheap.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/18z681/bobby_stein_on_trahearne/
I don’t know. For me they could have been remedied some of the problems with more NPC text. Text, not voice acting. Just some kind of explanation to make it all make sense.
Generic voiced dialogue is better off disabled in my opinion.
@Scumbag Mawile
We’re talking about Skryim, right? Most named NPCs in Skyrim had several lines of unique dialogue and you weren’t expected to speak with them more than a few times.
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@Tobias
It would fix the arbitrary part.
Skyrim’s NPCs each had some unique thing to say that added to the setting. Even unnamed guards helped immerse you.
The UI is still dictating guild missions rather than the world. It’s the same as saying that giving references to the ascended gear you obtain from the missions makes it a part of the world. It’s not. It’s just as arbitrary because of the manner of aquisition.
Thinly Veiled Sarcasm, although the main issue is with the UI giving you recognition rather than the actual world
Thinly veiled Sarcasm
He was a contrived Mary Sue officially stated by one of the writers to have been conceived to do whatever the game didn’t want the player to do. Contrivance. He needs to be grounded into mulch.
@ Scumbag Mawile
Those voice actors did a good job, considering all their lines. Using the same voice actors gave a sense of dialect and familiarity. Not to mention, it was financially a good decision.
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Okay, I read the thread, and saw this point was made but it bears repeating.
Single player games are conceived differently than Multiplayer ones. Single player games can be focused, honed, and shaped in ways that MMOs can’t be. Or rather should not be. In a single player game you can realistically predict things and if the player breaks something or unbalances the game . . . it will not affect anyone.
I present to you as Exhibit A . . . Morrowind. A predecessor to Skyrim and somehow I understand it feels much bigger despite covering a smaller area. But importantly, in this game you could work with your Alchemy skill to create potions which would make it possible to win the game within 20 minutes for sure, but I think the record was within 15 minutes. This would be an unacceptable problem in an MMO.
Exhibit B. There are ways of fooling the training system, in Morrowind and I think in its successors. “(Skill) Destruction” could be made to self target and reduce your skill by any amount. If your skill went low enough you could train for free to a level most trainers could put you to . . . and then the spell wears off and you keep the new gains on top of what you had. Who needs Grandmaster trainers? Again, if this was left in an MMO? Heads roll on DAY ONE. Single player game? Eh, so what? It only helps and hurts the player’s experience.
This is why you can’t take a single player game and hold it against a massively multiplayer online game in comparison for “how to do games right”.
Yourcomparisons are too linear and way off base. Those gameplay mechanics and conventions you mentioned are specific to aesthetic of Morrowind. You can leave them out of mmos and still find a way to have an immersive experience through other means. In fact, many games fail because they adopt seemingly realistic mechanics that don’t fit in their world. My argument isn’t that GW2 is not as immersive as Skyrim because it doesn’t have the same mechanics. My argument is that GW2 is not immersive because it takes its specific world for granted with respect to its mechanics, whereas Skyrim uses mechanics that fit in its very specific world.
@Facepunch
It’s more about what you don’t feel at times.
It helps to think of endogenous gameplay elements as natural products of a living system; I made the initial comparison for that purpose, after all. These elements come naturally from the game’s themes and lore without contrivance.
As mentioned by a previous poster, prominent gameplay elements such as dailies simply don’t fit in. I’d argue that endgame goals such as legendaries are just as contrived. This is probably why these system get so much hate.
@Blackmoon
Realism in games, espcially nonlinear ones, needs to come from the setting. The setting is what the player interacts with the most, after all.
And I agree that the themes the designers wanted to impose didn’t naturally arise from the setting. That or the setting they designed just wasn’t adequate to get the point across. I can already assume from the fact that there’s a prequel book that ANet may have had the plot done before the setting.
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I really hate to say this but OP seems to have a bad case of purple prose.
Seriously? :/
Well it’s a forum post so I was typing colloquially. More periods and less commas, then?
You cannot compare a single player game to a MMORPG.
And Skyrim, imo, was boring. After 32 hours and playing through the storyline in 4, completing most of the daedric quests, I was just bored.
(850 hrs in here)
Why not? Isn’t there some commonality between the techniques of games in all genre?
And what’s with this overly solipsistic attitude with Skyrim? You don’t necessarily have to enjoy a work in order to appreciate its quality or its capacity for engrossing other players.
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Sigh, just read through the topic again, this time not half asleep from work. Am I right in saying that no one thinks GW2 is immersive because they don’t think that MMOs can be? What’s the point of having lore then if you don’t expect the game to immerse you in it? I think it’s a truly sad day for gaming when everyone agrees that distilled mechanics and achievements are more important than aesthetics. I may as well go build myself a hamster wheel if I want to experience games then. At least that way I’d get some exercise.
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http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/endogenous
In the context of this wall o’ text it means originating from within the game’s living world, or internal logic if you will, and therefore a part of it. Think of how there’s lore to many of the usable abilities in videogames.
The gameplay elements come together to immerse because they’re endogenous to the game’s living world.
@Blacklight
EQ 1 did it apparently, so did Star Wars Galaxies. And I can argue that many f2p mmos do it as well, like Mabinogi. Too bad those f2p games turn out terrible for other reasons.
And Skyrim was in no way tailor made. It was a bunch of inter-related quests on a large map. Players made the story to their liking as they went along, and that’s why it was able to capture so many different players.
@ Zenith: The important part is where the developer draws the line. They need to figure out what hinges on ridiculous, like no despawning corpses, and treat it as the noise.
I’ve also played some f2p games that had instanced NPC dialogues, the kind that only appears for certain players. It was a nice touch and really added to the immersion.
Edit: Wrong link, grammar, clarification.
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Playing Skyrim felt like walking through a wax museum.
The uncanny valley effect, maybe? Nords look stylish and realistic at the same time. I admit they looked kind of startling at first.
@Spyder
Aside from the presence of other players, I don’t see what’s so different about an MMO world and a single player world. I’m really talking about the player’s interaction with the world, which seems largely dead in Guild Wars 2. And besides why can’t an MMO have the same level of immersion as a single player game? Surely ANet’s decision of making players not be the hero had to do something with there being other players and the decision behind the living story must have had something to do with make the experience more endogenous.
Annoying things that prevent gameplay from being endogenous in Guild Wars 2.
This is usually the part where I post suggestions, but I’m certainty not going to tell ANet what to do (not any more anyway); they’re the desingers after all and its their job to figure out what to do, and it’s the wrong subsection anyway. But as a customer my only responsibility is to complain, and complain I shall!
- Dailies and the Reward System are arbitrary time-grabbers and gates
Keyword: arbitrary. I’ve certainly poured many hours into other themepark mmos with their treadmills, but why is Guild Wars 2’s system so grating? My guess is that it’s not endogenous! There should be an organization or something telling me to help the world through daily tasks and rewarding duly. Why isn’t the Zaishan doing this already? Is there some aversion to starting tasks with NPC interaction? How can one be afraid of the boogeyman one invented? cough cough
- Mundane and Generic NPCs
Why are there so many generic NPCs that have generic dialogue? Why do DE and quest NPCs say their generic lines when I try to loot around them. Why are they trying to talk to me as I loot? There are enemies around! Those NPCs shouldn’t be having a conversation with me!
- Guild Missions
Who’s assigning these guild missions to me? I don’t need no UI to tell me what to do. An NPC would make more sense. Why do I need so many points to unlock them if I’m only doing them to get the BiS gear? If it’s not contributing the immersion I probably won’t keep doing them after I get my shineys!
- Achievement system
Why is the game putting assigning merit to the mundane tasks I normally do anyway? If it’s for a title, shouldn’t an NPC do this? Is an NPC doing this? Are they watching me doing every little task and writing it down somewhere without first informing me? That’s super creepy!
- Why did this Skelk drop a breastplate?
I mean look at the thing. It’s tiny. Is there some kind time space distortion inside of it? It wouldn’t make sense even then!
- Why is the writing so bad?
Not entirely related, but honest question. Really. Who conceived of Trahearne and where can I find him!?
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Disclaimer: When I’m referring to gameplay, I don’t mean the combat system. What I’m really referring to is the entirety of the player to world interaction and all that it entails, part of which is the game’s combat.
For those of who aren’t Google savvy, when something is endogenous it originates within a living system. You sometimes hear term used in the life sciences, but I believe it applies to imaginary game worlds as well because they’re akin to living systems.
Games are a unique medium because to immerse the player into a “living world” they not require suspension of disbelief, but they need to also provide secondary belief (or secondary internal logic) due to the player’s agency and their ability to interact with the details of the world. This is because players often progress through the narrative through their own paths rather than the one laid out to them by the designer; their interaction with the setting details often becomes a part of their story. The most immersive game worlds are created by designers who make sure that most details and systems that the players are able to interact with are endogenous, because if these details and systems aren’t they can easily destroy secondary belief and, by extension, remove the player from immersion.
Now I’m pretty sure you know where I’m going with this, but before I start lambasting Guild Wars 2 again, I want to give an example of the power of a world with tightly sewn elements of immersion, one that has been the top seller on steam for nearly a year and whose expansions are currently in the top 10 and 20…
Skyrim
Everyone I know who’s played it loves Skyrim, even people I wouldn’t expect to like action adventure games. However every time someone tries to explain why they liked Skyrim by breaking the game down to individual gameplay elements, they seem find that the individual elements weren’t that great. The combat in Skyrim was fun, but it was nowhere near as good as, say, Dragon’s Dogma and you could even say it was comparably primitive and clunky. The loot was interesting, but alone each unique item wasn’t that powerful or even visually impressive. And the questing was really simple and not that interesting. I mean, it was just run through X dungeon and beat up X. But was everything endogenous? Oh god, yes!
You see Skyrim was a game that did everything in service to its world and the themes it explored. Despite how restrictive this may sound, I would say that it’s a superlative direction of the game’s designs. It certainly didn’t pull punches during the tutorial, and in fact by making sure players were aware of the central themes of the game everything following the tutorial became more approachable and engrossing(You see, ANet? Tutorials can be great!).
How this relates to Guild Wars 2
Now if I were to compare vanilla Skyrim’s world (sans mods) to a constantly updated and “evolving” triple A MMO world in Guild Wars 2, I would say that the Skryim’s world feels more alive and evolving. Why is this? Both games have their own worlds, characters, storylines and quests (heart quest if you want to be specific), but only Skyrim manages to keep the experience almost entirely endogenous. It’s better at being a consistent world, and therefore better at keeping me within the confines of it. It is far more immersive than Guild Wars 2.
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Just to add to this, ANet’s designers really need to reevaluate their definition of “entertaining.” Numbers alone are not entertaining. It’s really the problem solving elements that are inherent to any competent game that are entertainment and everything that follows- theme, telegraphing (so players can react to the problem. Fricckity frack is this game terrible at telegraphing), number of solutions and then numbers.
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This is mostly for rangers, but how about this:
- Give pets charges instead of hp/make pets lose only a specific amount of health per hit.
This will fix the problem with pets getting one-shot and also make their usage more situational, i.e. more useful in 1v1 situations, weak to zerging and multihits, ranged more useful for groups, melee will be useful for solo mob tanking. Different pets will have a different number of base charges of course can can be increased with traits.
- Make a utility with a short cooldown that allows players to move pets.
There already is one for the ranger, but it’s on a huge cooldown and almost no one uses it. This one would work in the same vein, with the aoe groud targeting, but would have a short cooldown (or even no cooldown) and no stealth or any other bonuses. This could help address the issue of pets mindlessly standing in AoEs. For eles this utility can be chained into from the pet skill. For rangers and necros… I don’t know, maybe another fkey command?
- Give pets themselves defensive abilities
One thing the ranger lacks is defense, like actual meaningful and useful defense. Pet activated abilities like ranged blocking can really help round the class out and make it more appealing in group scenarios.
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I love the improved enemies, you don’t want a bag of hp that is no threat.
At the same time, you want the threat to be reasonable and to also be able to react to it. Before you had enemies that were punching bags with variations on the same 2-3 attacks. Now you have enemies that hit back but snare, cc, and attack so fast and frequently that it’s still better simply to spike them down same as before.
You’ll likely need to change your email as well as your password.
Honestly, I think I smell design by metrics at work. GW2 combat feels great compared to other mmos and it’s likely that’s what ANet were measuring for. Compared GW2, the actual GW1’s feeling of the player character attacking enemies wasn’t that great. What made GW1’s combat so great was the depth in strategy.
If there’s one thing about metrics it’s that they’re only good for measuring individual or local maximum and I don’t believe that depth has a local maximum to measure. Because the combat was likely designed mostly with feeling in mind, you start to see elements that contributed to the combat’s feel conflict with elements that would have added depth.The overall pace of combat makes it difficult for average or even hardcore players to react to everything the game throws at them. Even if the player reacts and dodges a snare or cc, the fact that enemies throw these attacks around means they’ll be cc/snared again anyway. And then there are those used antiquated MMO combat mechanics like tab targeted and lock-ons that subvert the elements of movement and positioning that the game tries to incorporate into combat.
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Guild Wars 2 is a game where very good and very bad elements both exist in close proximity. You have wonderful ideas and concepts with spectacularly poor implementation. I understand that it’s not always reasonable to deliver on everything the players want, but I think ANet needs to listen to the players, especially the critical ones, not only because they’re the ones playing it but because they’re removed from development hubris. They need to show them that they’re listening by responding and not clamming up.
You know, the company that I’m most reminded of that uses clamming up as a PR tactic is EA. Yeah, lotta good that does them.
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Good, they need to clean up and fix the base game before adding in more content.
^ When bandits dodge, they do so randomly though.
It’s incredibly difficult to make AI that’s actually intelligent. What many games fall back on is to give specific patterns to enemies and mix and match those enemies to make fights more interesting. Of course good games actually let you see what enemies are doing as well…
But heres the problem, GW2 has only very little variation in patterns, in Orr it even feels like EVERY enemy use using the same AI.
Also most AIs are much more complex than the GW2 ones, it is common for AIs to only activate defensive abilities when attacked with a certain type of attack, to have a simple crowd intelligence and to aim properly with AoE effects.
The GW2 AI fails in all this disciples, it has not awareness of the situation, the crowd intelligence is not existent, and aiming with AoE or any type of intelligent target selection? Forget about it. Even the bosses will rather spam AoE on EVERY target simultaneously than to aim.
There is also very little variation between the individual enemies, you have some rare exceptions like the eagles, skelks, and some of the enemies with characteristic AoE / stun effects, but most enemies use the same “humanoid” AI and only differ in having ONE SINGLE special CC attack. With a few exceptions, they can all be killed in indefinite masses with the use of mindless AoE spam.
I agree, more variation on enemy AI and behavior would help greatly. The game’s definitely lacking in this area.
However, I think the problem goes deeper than that. I think problem is that the game’s mechanics lack depth. Games like Monster Hunter have variations built upon one or two mechanics and these variations are interesting and fun to play with. In monster hunter’s case, the game uses hitstun with meaningful variations on hitbox and speed. This makes the hitstun mechanic deep and interesting. Enemies in MH actually follow very simple and predictable AI but they’re fun and challenging to fight nonetheless due to deep mechanics.
In GW2’s case, you have variation in damage and cc, but in the end those variations have little impact because they simply dictate how fast you need to use your heal or cleanse. Variations in attack hitbox and speed don’t matter much at all because the game’s engine allows enemies to lock onto players and spam attacks, and the excess of which promotes abnegation of player reaction. They also zerg players and that makes it difficult to see their attacks in the first place. As someone said earlier, the mechanics lead players to just zerg and dps enemies down, and unsurprisingly that’s what you see happening all the time in this game.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that variety in AI won’t matter too much if the variety in attack types is meaningless.
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^ When bandits dodge, they do so randomly though.
It’s incredibly difficult to make AI that’s actually intelligent. What many games fall back on is to give specific patterns to enemies and mix and match those enemies to make fights more interesting. Of course good games actually let you see what enemies are doing as well…
Well said, OP, but I don’t think the game needs more mechanics.
In my opinion, fun and challenge is being able to use the tools at your disposal to solve problems presented by the game (i.e. monsters) in interesting ways. Where GW2 fails is that the problems posed by monsters present checks rather than choice. For instance, you need condition removal or you’ll spend most of your encounters or you’ll spend most of your fight against certain enemies crippled, chilled, poisoned etc. You need stability or else gravelings will play ping pong with you all day long. It certainly doesn’t help that whoever designed the monsters made them spam attacks faster than the player can react and that the attacks themselves are so poorly telegraphed.
I strongly urge whoever designed the monsters in GW2 to play games like Monster Hunter and Dragons Nest if they want to implement interesting monsters that present fair challenges. Those accomplish it will very few mechanics. In fact, they do it mostly with attack telegraphing (execution/twitch challenge).
That said actual difficulty is the window of opportunity completing the challenge or the punishment for failing the execution. ANet needs to work on this as well, but that’s a different topic altogether.
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The problem is that GW2 has bad storytelling. You wouldn’t notice it, but the plot is actually kind of dark, what with all the civilizations being destroyed or displaced by evil dragons. The game simply fails to deliver that and I would agree that it’s due in part to the over-use of goofy and pastiche humor. But that’s something that contributes to the real problem, the overall unrefined storytelling.
It may also be that outside of some parts of the north eastern human areas and the east and north charr areas things are “life as usual”.
To create a living world, you have to ask and address the little things. Where are the displaced people going and how is that affecting the people whose homes there migrating to? What ideals are these people bringing? How are they adapting to the food? Is there enough food for everyone? How is trade being affected?
Personally, I doubt that 70% of tyria is just “life as usual” because the questions the destruction begs can’t be localized to only the other 30%. There has to be some changes going on, and that needs to be reflected in the NPCs. At the very least they should show some sort of concern for the threat (which they barely do).
Sorry, i edited and re-edited that post to try and get at what i was thinking and i clearly failed. What i meant is what you point to, that there is no clear effect of the ongoing fighting in the NPC banter.
The only NPCs that seem to touch on the ongoing fighting with the centaurs (one big enough to turn northwestern Gendarran Fields into a wasteland) are related to the person looking for a guide to Nebo Terrace. The rest go on and on about prices and people as if there are no threats in the world at all.
Or better yet, look at Queensdale. We have centaurs showing up with siege engines, sitting on the only major route between Divinity’s Reach and the nearby villages (never mind the minister’s mansion) and yet nobody seems to blink outside of the nearby fort.
Ah, alright. I get what you mean now :P
Traditional quests add world detail, which is very important to immersion. Hearts make and attempt at doing that, but more often than not the details can be skipped and altogether. It’s especially tempting to do this when the reward is nice juicy exp or when you’re simply trying to get through the map in a brisk pace.
I think ANet should quests into the game just for the sake of immersion. I’m not talking about those gather wolf ears quest. Something as simple as delivering an item or talking to a certain NPC would help greatly. The extrinsic rewards wouldn’t need to be that great. If its on a to do list, chances are most people will do it. It wouldn’t take much programming either, just a lot of writing.
The problem is that GW2 has bad storytelling. You wouldn’t notice it, but the plot is actually kind of dark, what with all the civilizations being destroyed or displaced by evil dragons. The game simply fails to deliver that and I would agree that it’s due in part to the over-use of goofy and pastiche humor. But that’s something that contributes to the real problem, the overall unrefined storytelling.
It may also be that outside of some parts of the north eastern human areas and the east and north charr areas things are “life as usual”.
To create a living world, you have to ask and address any and all questions possible. Where are the displaced people going and how is that affecting the people whose homes there migrating to? What ideals are these people bringing? How’s the food? Is there enough food for everyone? How is trade being affected?
Personally, I doubt that 70% of tyria is just “life as usual” because the questions the destruction begs can’t be localized to only the other 30%. There has to be some changes going on, and that needs to be reflected in the NPCs. At the very least they should show some sort of concern for the threat (which they barely do).
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I agree with the TC. I understand what the two Flame and Frost patches have been trying to accomplish, but there really isn’t enough to actually lead me into the experience. That and the blatant and poorly executed emotional appeal in the reward of the first part took me way out of the experience. I appreciate the effort, but don’t do that again without proper delivery, ANet.
The problem is that GW2 has bad storytelling. You wouldn’t notice it, but the plot is actually kind of dark, what with all the civilizations being destroyed or displaced by evil dragons. The game simply fails to deliver that and I would agree that it’s due in part to the over-use of goofy and pastiche humor. But that’s something that contributes to the real problem, the overall unrefined storytelling.
I think it would certainly help if they worked on NPC dialogue and setting details. GW2 a game after all, and the in game’s everything outside of the main on-rails plot is what helps to add to the player’s immersion. For those of you who’ve played Skyrim, think of how the experience would have been if 90% of the random NPCs were generic and had generic dialogue.
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Personally, I dislike the scepter because of the single target aspect of its autoattacks. It feels unnatural to me. In terms of actual utility, it doesn’t work well in crowded group scenarios, because it becomes difficult to single out opponents. Main hand dagger suffers no such problems.
@CaptainVanguard
I completely agree. This game had incredible potential for exploration and “End Game” as the beginning- a more sandbox approach.
Because ANet regimented the player experience through levels, there’s now a clear separation between beginner, mid, and high level and this conflicts directly with the game’s touted philosophy of the “end game”. Some of the most negative of effects this has had is visible in the gear system. Getting a piece of equipment is a mundane experience rather than an exciting one because players are probably just going to vendor it to save up for “end game” stuff. They may as well just give players gold and save them a step.
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Just like the title says, I think there should be an option to turn off auto-facing. It’s an incredibly annoying and counter-intuitive mechanic when using the right mouse click button to aim and turn the camera. Just the other day, I dodged off of a cliff because the game decided that my character should face the direction opposite of my camera.
I would have preferred wings, personally.
pics for those away from the game? holds out bowl
Characterfillerspacelimitthing.
Thanks.
wow. that’s really ridiculous.
did anyone like…request this? how did this happen?
Probably some bored artists. They also made unnecessary changes to the T3 Asuran light armor and made it look arguably worse. Now if only they’d devote their resources towards useful changes like finding a way to tone down spell effects.
- Remove/Hide the point system.
Having the the game always telling players whether or not they’re winning or losing can be incredibly discouraging for losing, hence the mentality that matches are usually finished on Tuesdays; for servers that are snowballing, the point display becomes boring self-assurance, and because they’re winning anyway and the other servers are less encouraged to fight the prophecy is self fulfilling. Overall, points decrease incentive to play.
My suggestion to you, ANet, is to either get rid of the point system or hide it and use it only to re-balance servers. I can guarantee you that if you let the players decide for themselves the value of their own actions, and you will see them do more in WvW.
- Incentivising Maps/Territory
To balance out the lack of points as an incentive, I suggest making maps themselves the incentive. Because GW2 is a game where power plateaus , much of the endgame is playing the economy for gold (I don’t mean to be insulting, but it really is true). Economic benefits such as a discounts on trading post taxes or global magic find bonuses could be strong incentives to tie to Territory. I’m not going to balance these since it’s really something an economist should do, but I believe that it’s worth the consideration.
- Incentivising Defense/Attack
Notice that I put defense first. In grand battles territory power, to attack you first need a foothold.
Anywho, in order to deliver on this concept I suggest focusing defense and attack around a sort of limited economy. Make it so that territories produce something with player input (not points). Not only will this give players reason to defend, but it will also give them something to do while defending.
In order to incentivise offense, I suggest allowing players to loot territories they take over. Balance it so that the overall gross production of territories is smaller when taken over and looted. This will cause a prisoners dilemma, making conflicts much more interesting.
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Never mind the lack of ladder and whatever else, the biggest reason why GW2 will never be an e-sport is because the sPvP is horribly boring. No amount of ladder and MMR can make it enjoyable to watch.
Pretty much. Depth and excitement of gameplay are fundamental. Popularity and whole eSports deal naturally follow.
I saw this coming a mile away. Problems with WvW need to addressed at the core, not with some band-aid patches.
For those telling people to l2p, scout and defend/upgrade towers, consider how intrinsically fun and engaging these tasks actually are. Well?
Amusing footnote, btw, for people proud of being in T1 and really up on “scouting”:
Sorrow’s Furnace, tier 8, has more bonuses right now than Sanctum of Rall and Sea of Sorrows in tier 1.
Moving up the tiers doesn’t necessarily give you better rewards or more bonuses. What gives you rewards is letting the enemy flip a tower so you can flip it back. I don’t like it but that’s the way it works. Defense CAN be rewarding but it’s more difficult, especially now that you can’t easily see where the fight is even at.
This is true, sadly. It’s a fundamental flaw with using extrinsic carrot stick rewards as this game loves to do so often.
I actually don’t consider it to be much of a problem in T1 and T2 servers since players in those servers care more about the competition. It would be nice for the rewards to scale with the level of effort, however, but it’s not a necessity.
These “complainers” just want a better PvP environment, one that’s able to retain players. That’s because the less people there are to fight WvW, the less content there is. With games like Archeage and ESO on the horizon, ANet’s going to need to step it up or the game may lose many, many “complainers.”
I can easily imagine that some of those things would be difficult to implement and may even have unintended consequences, but please tell me why any of that would be “silly.”
Underlined for your convenience.
ANet’s not going to overhaul WvW from top to bottom. They’d lose more players than they’d gain.
Hence, silly notion. Much better to enhance what already exists to shift it towards a better course, rather than try to re-build the entire thing.
They may want to rethink that … TESO and ArcheAge are both creeping over the horizon.
Check out this video from GW2Junkies, a reasonably high profile fan site. Skip to the 45:00 minute mark and listen to the perceptions of a couple of T1 guild leaders regarding the future of WvW. It’s both enlightening and depressing at the same time. Nobody has much faith that ANet has either the inclination nor the resources to fix WvW, and both guild leaders pretty much refer to GW2 as merely being a placeholder for the next few months. I don’t see how ANet can possibly expect to fend off any of that without some sort of rebuilding of WvW.
http://gw2.junkiesnation.com/2013/02/26/guildcenter-post-drama-recap-with-aneu-votf-evoe-lotd/
Archeage is seven years in the making and is looking great even in its beta stages. I doubt GW2 could compete in the same arena with it even if ANet decided to redesign WvW and miraculously finish in time to compete.
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Irrc, EVE’s sectors have a rendering limit, but that’s rarely a problem because overly large scale fights rarely occur in a single sector due to the various design choices on the developer’s part.
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This comment reminded me about this article:
http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/planning-for-war-how-the-eve-online-servers-deal-with-a-3000-person-battleBrings a tear to my eye just thinking about something so beautiful…
Whoa good article. Time Dilation is absolutely brilliant and would work well conceptually with EVE’s battle system.
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Infrastructure issues. It’s difficult to team up in AoEvAoE when friendly fire is on and the one’s you’re trying to teaming up with are always marked as enemies. There’s also the prisoner’s dilemma to deal with. It may be beneficial for two losing worlds to team up, but there can only be one winner in the end, and the best way to get ahead involved being selfish in the end. The slow point trickle requires prolonged moments of ceasefire in order for the cooperation between two worlds to mean anything, making it even trickier. In this case it’s not healthy to blame the playerbase, but it may be more constructive to question the system itself and find ways to improve it.
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Your solution does not address a problem that exists as you think it exists.
E.g. the game engine can render the map size fine. It can even theoretically render all the players fine (evidenced by my having >60 fps with any number of players on screen).
ANet has basically chosen to render / communicate a subset of players because they don’t want people running on toasters to have “lag”.
That and they’re trying to save a buck on network bandwidth, or something.
ANet was awful vague when they said their engine couldn’t handle larger maps so I assumed rendering issues were the core of the problem, either on their end or ours. In any case, wouldn’t having smaller and more numerous map instances alleviate the lag and bandwidth issue for both ANet and the types of players you mentioned anyway?
That aside, a tile or hex-based conquest wouldn’t be horrible, but it has unintended consequences.
Benefit: No queues for the game mode in general (should be enough space for everyone to fight over territory).
Disadvantage: Much smaller fight size, queue times / pop caps for individual fights disallow guilds and alliances from working together directly.
Disadvantage: Harder for an underpopulated side to take territory (they have to take territory in smaller increments, rather than just golem-dropping a keep). Also, the distribution of population auto-organizes the zergy side, giving them unnecessary advantages.
Of course it’ll have consequences, but you can design around those consequences. I can see it being done through things like queue limits, respawn cooldowns, spawn locations, map incentives etc. Irrc, EVE’s sectors have a rendering limit, but that’s rarely a problem because overly large scale fights rarely occur in a single sector due to the various design choices on the developer’s part.
Besides, I think the advantages outweigh the possible consequences. For one thing, it could potentially spread out the population more between maps and therefore give WvW better pacing. Currently, it takes about 2-3 minutes for a zerg to march across any of the two maps and then they can also waypoint around. That’s utterly ridiculous. If a server can’t get coverage for even an hour, the server with the more active zerg can march through maps with impunity and take everything. By having to go through a series of maps, this can potentially be slowed down and controlled, opening up ways to counter it.
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@defrule
That actually gives me an idea. Instead of one giant map that the game’s engine can’t render, why not make a bunch of small or medium sized maps akin to tiles in Civilization? In order for one world to attack a key location, players of that world will have to take over and control a series of interconnected maps in order to maintain a supply line of troops.
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Spells are absolutely gorgeous in GW2 because of the small details likes particles and distortions. Alone these effects are bearable and definitely add to the experience, but when the effects are stacked on top of one another they can completely obsure the action. This obviously damages the experience in large parties and crowded events. In WvW, for example, it’s not uncommon for battles to turn into an exercise of trying to pick out nametags in the blinding fields of light.
My suggestion to you, ANet, is to allow players to turn off the as particles and distortions of spells. It may also help if players were able to adjust the gamma of their spell effects as well since they’re often brighter than the environments themselves.
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There’s no point in mass marketing a pvp in a beta state.
There’s not point in going e-sport unless the devs fully understand how the games plays so they can polish the gameplay to the perfection.
There is no point in getting partnerships with renown names before they know how to structure the game for competition.
Now having said that, how many players will leave before any of these is done? How much valuable feedback from top teams will be lost before they implement the tools for a competitive scene to emerge? Can the pvp community grow to be as amazing as gw1’s after such a questionable start?
You should have realised it by now, but hotfixes even incomplete are much more satisfying than 0 feature for months and months – cf the 1 week 1v1 to replace the 8 team tournaments.
I agree, and that’s probably why they haven’t made another big push yet. ANet’s using radically different combat mechanics, so breaks in their system are inevitable and will take time to pinpoint and fix. Keeping players in the dark, however, probably isn’t the best way to go about handling the game. Feedback is a two way-street, after all.
i would really enjoy this, beeing able to build your own map, but it might be a little overpowered if you have a little advantage in the beggining, like snowballing the score, a version of “come at me bro, i have full map T3” version, but with more defense x)
I think issues such those can be fixed by getting rid of the tier system, and introducing something akin to alliances which would create a system where number and motivations of each opponent are fluid and variable. Say, if one world or alliance dominated a map, other worlds could team up and try to take that map. This would require redesigning the entire WvW infrastructure, however.
@Slamz
The good reasons to fight in EVE are part of the sandbox mechanics and the emergent gameplay the video’s author speaks of occurs spontaneously due to those mechanics, not necessarily the rails established by the developers. Without the players wanting to defend their territory there would be no content.
EVE succeeds due to the incentives of its well-designed sandbox elements, whereas SWTOR fails because it’s all around awful outside of the story. I haven’t played SWG but maybe it’s gone because it wasn’t that well-designed? Success doesn’t necessarily hinge on genre, but the quality of the design in my opinion.
@Fizzlepip
What you described is an infrastructure problem with WvWvW. Wall and door HP are low because the most servers can’t provide the coverage to defend them. If they can, the process is slow unrewarding and dull that they people defending wouldn’t even want to. In order to make WvWvW more dynamic and fast things need to be flipped, but ANet’s solutions to that also promotes problems of its own, like making zerging way too rewarding. This is the problem with the developers putting too narrow of a railing on the experience, IMO.
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