Give these egomaniacs a title for reaching level 49 in the old system. They can all then take pride in what they’ve achieved and feel rewarded for all the time they spend being so wonderful in fractals.
Nobody else will care about it of course.
Only they will care, judging by the sheer amount of people coming out of the woodwork trying to convince ArenaNet not to give high level fractal players any kind of unique reward. They want there to be no reward, because they can’t bare to see people with something cool that they don’t have because they weren’t skilled or dedicated enough (or just didn’t care for fractals).
The fractal reward system was notoriously bad. I’m glad they’re fixing it. But I would have expected some kind of recognition (even an achievement in the “Historical” tab that simply says “Achieved Fractal level __ before the Fractured update”), and it seems that a lot of people are terrified that somebody might have something they don’t have.
I got no problem with the reset. Nice job ANet on dealing with people who exploited FoTM in the first months on release getting to lvl 80+.
I love how we’re all gonna be fair and square and hopefully no bug exploits after they patch it.Now show your skills that you’ve all bragged about before when doing FoTM lvl 80. Lets see who’ll get there now
No exploits were needed to get to 80. The original guys used Revive Orbs (not an exploit) and people like me did every level from 50-80 legitimately clearing maps. Stop spreading false information.
Also, I can guarantee you, if any of the people I know who are level 80 decide to go and compete in the leaderboard system (most have either already quit or are on the verge of quitting due to the changes) they will dominate them. Anyone who can’t steamroll their 48 daily in an hour and go into 79 maps and one-shot bosses with higher damage and more health that most people wipe on at level 48 won’t stand a chance.
And the really fun part is that if – as some people are suggesting – 30-50 is equivalent to 50-80, so many of the people who are in support of everyone being scaled down are going to hate the update. They’ll wish it never happened when they realize how tough it is. Everybody will be running scale 10 hoping to get a skin, meanwhile the exact same people who are currently 80 will be sitting at 50 asking for the next challenge.
Of course, I can’t see this happening. ArenaNet mentioned fixing the difficulty curve, which sounds more like they’re making everything easier, and 50 will more likely be the equivalent of… well, 50, i.e. very easy for skilled players. This seems the most likely route they’ll take, since generally not many players do fractals anyway.
far as communication, yea it could be better. They could have said, go past 50 at your own risk, its unfinished and we didnt expect people to get there, we arent even sure we re going to go in that direction.
but yeah you still would have done it regardless, why are you fronting?
You shouldn’t make such assumptions about people. If ArenaNet said “don’t do it”, I wouldn’t have done it.
Do you really beleive they made it impossible to beat jade maw with a res orb by an actual player because they wanted people to buddy past that fractal?
you re just telling yourself what you want to hear, even if its illogical.
they arent punishing you, they are closing an exploit
It’s very simple. If they didn’t want people doing it, they could either a) make it impossible to get past personal level 50 (i.e. change “81” to “50” in their code), b) make it impossible to enter 50+ fractals, or c) make a quick forum post to the community saying “don’t do it” at any point in the past year. None were done.
Whereas fractal level 50+ could be gained only via exploits, thus they’re certain they’re putting back to level 30 people who exploited.
Nope. Revive Orbs aren’t an exploit. And ArenaNet then introduced their own system of letting you “level up” by doing a higher run than your own, making it possible to do 50+ without Jade Maw. Again, that’s not an exploit – I did 50-80 totally legitimately, clearing maps out the same way I would at level 11, 13, 15, etc., opened by people who did it legitimately. Again – using a Revive Orb type item in a free to play game isn’t an exploit. It’s completely normal to expect some degree of “pay to win” in any free to play game.
For example, if you get your wallet out now you can instantly have Ascended weapons, or a legendary (where you can change stats whenever you want) if your pockets are deep. That’s an acceptable degree of pay to win. Just because you can also get it with gold, it’s still pay to win, because you can skip all the grinding and just outright buy gems, convert them to gold and buy whatever you want in-game.
If they didn’t like people being in 50+ they should have prevented access, rather than pseudo-fix it by having an “unkillable” boss (that’s a ridiculous way to prevent players from doing something). They could have also made personal level 50 the hard cap in their code, instead of allowing it to go to 81. They chose some number – why should the community have to figure out that they wanted it to be 50 (no communication, of course) even though the actual cap is 81?
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there is no other content in the game that requires a res orb, they specifically said when res orbs were released that they would not be making content that required them in order to succeed.
They also said there was infinite progression. In fact, they’ve said so many things that they’ve gone back on it’s quite remarkable – I could probably list 30 things right now off the top of my head, but that would veering off topic. Also, not everybody reads everything ArenaNet says in a forum/tweet/whatever. If content is there right in front of you and ArenaNet is promoting/selling a “Revive Orb”, there is nothing strange about assuming it’s okay to use.
And they did make it impossible to enter via res orb eventually.
I guess you mean complete it and not enter, since Revive Orbs were never used in some kind of exploit to let you enter an area that was inaccessible. They were just to resurrect yourself after Jade Maw used Agony.
Also, ArenaNet fixed countless commonly used exploits in FotM, usually involving putting invisible walls into the map and stuff of that nature. If they can physically put assets into the map to stop people from exploiting, are you telling me that preventing all access to 50+ at the entry portal is asking too much?
Or better yet, a single forum post over the past year saying “don’t you guys get the picture? We don’t want you in there!” But no, nothing. Not one comment on the issue, as far as I’m aware. Just zero communication. And believe me, people have asked many times if they mind people going 50+.
Can people stop with the “you weren’t supposed to be in there” nonsense already?
If we weren’t supposed to be in 50+ then why do the mobs continue to scale up as you get higher level? Why do bosses get harder as you go higher level? Are ArenaNet so thorough that they even balance mobs and bosses in content that is supposed to be completely inaccessible?
The original group that got to 81 did it totally legit. Using Revive Orbs is completely acceptable in PvE and still works in all dungeons/fractals to this day. People who say “it should have been obvious that using a gem store item to progress wasn’t intended by ArenaNet” need to wake up – free to play games often use “pay to win” strategies.
And let’s face it – no MMO company builds impossible to kill bosses to prevent people from doing stuff. If you try to place a bid on the TP for more gold than you actually have, does a huge boss appear and one-shot you? No – you just can’t do it, the game won’t let you. If ArenaNet genuinely didn’t want people in 50+ they could have just made it impossible to enter.
Considering they fixed it later, it surely was an exploit of the game mechanics.
Not that we needed that confirmation – in no other part of the game a gem store item is required to progress further.
Level 50 is/was fine and well – and i can understand people being annoyed for that.
But don’t expect rewards for something that wasn’t supposed to be doable anyway – that is, level 50+.
People need to understand a few things about this whole “it wasn’t supposed to be doable” issue.
First of all, it’s basically unheard of for a game developer to release content that you can access, play, and spend hours attempting that is intended to be impossible to beat. Think about that. And if that was their intention, they should have communicated that very clearly once people started to post asking about it back in the day. They were very silent on the issue.
So when you have content that’s accessible, right before your very eyes, and the boss is wiping your group, and the game’s cash shop has an item called “Revive Orb” for sale, and there’s no other method to deal with the attack that anybody can think of, can anybody blame them for using Revive Orbs? Items that are perfectly legitimate and sold/promoted by ArenaNet as one of their sources of revenue?
You can say “it would be ridiculous to need to spend money on an item to make progress”, but that’s simply not true in the world of free to play games. The game was, what, four months old at that point? For all people knew, ArenaNet could have been taking the same kind of “pay to win” approach as countless F2P games. Nobody can blame anyone for assuming a Revive Orb was totally legit in a free to play game.
Secondly, people act like ArenaNet are somehow not in control of their own game. If they didn’t want people to get to 50+, then there’s a very simple solution: block people from entering 50+. Why have a long-winded pseudo-solution like making Jade Maw’s agony do an unhealable amount of damage? It doesn’t make sense.
They could have even made a simple forum post/tweet/Facebook status update saying “progressing beyond fractal level 50 is not intended to be possible, we request that all players refrain from entering any level above 49”. There was never anything to this effect. In fact, I don’t think there has been an official statement on the whole 50+ thing so far in an entire year of fractals being in the game.
Out of morbid curiosity: for those who are upset about the level reset, what would you consider a reasonable alternative?
Just some kind of one time reward, no matter how small, that says “I conquered Fractals in year one before they changed the system”. Extra daily chests doesn’t cut it – those aren’t unique, and you could open literally 50 of the bonus chests and never see the fractal weapon you want, meanwhile somebody does level 10 and gets it first time – such is RNG, sure, all MMOs have it, but it’s not good enough.
It could be an achievement in my Historical tab that nobody will ever see for all I care, but more appropriate would be a simple title. No development time required – just ‘Legend of Fractals’ or something to that effect for level 80, ‘Master of Fractals’ for 70+, ‘Veteran of Fractals’ for 60+ etc. Nothing major like a special skin or anything. Just a title, the same way pre-leaderboard top PvPers got unique titles based on how many qualifying points they had.
It astounds me how many people are so antagonistic that they can’t bare to see somebody who achieved something get a minor reward like a title that has zero impact on anybody’s gameplay, even going so far as to vehemently oppose it. I’ve always regarded the GW2 community as one of the nicer communities as far as MMOs go, but it’s pretty disconcerting to see so many people actually going out of their way to tell ArenaNet “don’t give them anything – they don’t deserve a thing”.
Why aren’t you applauding the introduction of leaderboards?
Because they’re meaningless if the limit is level 50.
(edited by Moderator)
First of all, going from 30 to 48 is not losing “hundreds of hours,” so there’s that.
I didn’t say it was. I was talking about getting to 80.
Secondly, I have no sympathy for anyone at level 80 Fractals. Anet made it quite clear they didn’t intend for us to progress past 50. You were essentially betting that Anet would one day open up 50+ and you would have an advantage. The flipside however was the risk that they would not and that would be wasted time. You made a risky bet that that progress was worth the time and you lost. It’s really that simple.
If you think people push to fractal level 80 because they want some kind of future advantage, then you obviously don’t understand the mindset of competitive players. And this thing about taking a high risk bet and losing… I’m really not sure what you’re getting at. I aimed for the top and got there.
And no, the fact that Fractals and Legendaries both require a time commitment is not persuasive. Over the course of my life I have spent a great deal of time in the bathroom, but I don’t consider that time equal to time spent, say, at a job. The mere fact that two things both occupy time does not make them the same. In Fractals I could spend a lot of time being carried by my group to higher levels. With Legendaries I could spend very little time converting my RL cash to gems to gold. They are different. Get over it.
You’re right, actually. It’s not the same at all. Grinding gold is easy, whereas hitting fractal level 80 is difficult. Thanks for the reminder.
(edited by Moderator)
People who don’t think some kind of unique reward is justified should try to have some perspective. I’m having something that took literally hundreds of hours of my time removed from my account. I can’t even opt out of the leaderboards to keep my personal level. Hundreds of hours of effort is being removed, without anything I can do about it.
And the legendary comparison is completely valid. Ultimately what it comes down to is time invested → goal reached → result of goal being removed from your account. Getting fractal level 80 takes hundreds of hours – so does making a legendary. It confuses me why some people feel that one is no big deal while the other would be completely out of the question. They both take hundreds of hours – just because one is a skin and the other is a number doesn’t make it a completely different issue.
Myself and many of my friends spent a lot of time and a huge amount of effort hitting fractal level 80. Obviously people who are fractal level 50+ make up a very small minority of the game’s population, so the reset to level 30 no doubt won’t upset many people.
For somebody like me, however, it really comes as an unpleasant shock that I’m going to lose 50 levels of personal progression that I worked extremely hard for. It’s the first time I’ve had something I worked very hard for actually taken away from me in an MMO. A lot of organization goes into hitting 80, and it requires a lot of patience and huge amounts of effort. Losing 50 levels of progression is literally like having two or three max-level alts deleted in terms of time investment lost.
When the PvP leaderboards were introduced and players were stripped of their QP, the top players were given reward chests with unique titles as a way to acknowledge they were at the cutting edge before the leaderboards were implemented. It would be nice to see something similar done for the players like myself and my friends who spent literally hundreds of hours getting to the top fractal tier possible. Maybe titles based on the tier reached, similar to the pre-leaderboard PvP titles.
Without something like this, there will be nothing to show for ever reaching that goal (the cutting edge of PvE in GW2, in my opinion) other than a memory, as there were no unique rewards for reaching high levels from the fractals themselves – most chests just contained blues and greens.
Would appreciate an official response on this, thanks.
People like you are the reason that companies like ANet cannot be transparent about what they’d like to do.
On one end people are yelling at them to tell them their future plans. On the other hand there are people like you QQing about not meeting the standards that they set for themselves EVEN THOUGH they had stated that these timelines are not set in stone.
It seems like ANet has made great strides over the course of this year and has met most of their benchmarks. They still have 2 months to come to terms with even more of them and my faith in the ANet team is strong.
There’s a great article that relates to this, basically saying the fans are the game industry’s worst enemies I think is what it’s point was. Don’t remember where I saw it though.
To be honest, the reason I make these kind of posts is because I like GW2 and I like ArenaNet, and I want to help them make the game better and sometimes the best way to do that is to point out the things they’re doing that are hurting their player-base and severing the trust the average player has in the company rather than just keeping quiet and hoping they notice this stuff themselves.
With other games (like Rift, or SWTOR) I couldn’t care less about the game, so despite the massive amount of serious issues both those games have, I never made a single post criticizing them, because I figured they didn’t even deserve that.
GW2 is a game with a huge amount of potential. The art style is second to none, it’s great having an MMO with active combat, and the frequency of updates is awesome. I can also tell judging by the streams/interviews that their staff are really nice people. But so far, it’s been a rocky road – with each thing I love about GW2 has been something that severely detracts from the game. I can’t even get most of my friends who played at launch to come and try the new content in GW2 because they were so put off by their initial experience and all the issues the game has/had. They’re just not interested.
So I’m very critical of ArenaNet on the forums, while in my own time I admire the good stuff they do. Perhaps I’ll be more vocal about the good points in the game in the future, but I don’t feel that’s always the best thing for a developer to hear.
If ArenaNet were in regular contact with the community, it would be different. If you look at WoW’s official forums, the devs are constantly speaking with players. If you look at the GW2 suggestions forum, for example, you’ll basically find zero instances of ArenaNet staff talking about the suggestions people make, though I guess that’s what this “Collaborative Development” project is all about.
MMOs are so complex that nearly any change breaks something in the game, at least for a small number of people. Extensive testing and proper management of updates can minimize this, but it’s a fact of life that updates are going to bring bugs, sometimes game-breaking ones. Rushing an update to meet a deadline when it’s clearly not ready is just asking for trouble.
I’d rather see a working update in February than a broken update in December followed by months of attempts to fix the game.
I agree. In fact, most updates are still riddled with bugs and glitches even after whatever internal testing goes on, which could easily be a symptom of trying to produce content too quickly. My point is that it’s better for the player-base to be direct about when to expect things instead of the “in an ideal world” type forecasting.
I knew when I first read the blog post that a lot of the stuff on there wouldn’t see the light of day before 2014 or beyond, which is one of the reasons I made this thread – because it was obvious and I wanted to point it out.
Second, they have delivered far more than half of what they discussed in that blog.
That’s simply not true. I even missed some stuff off my list, as they said they would revamp the dungeons and Fractals too.
After re-reading the blog…
Things implemented:
- Continuing 2 week release cadence
- Improved (or at least changed) world bosses
- Updated dungeons (though only 1 was really updated)
- Created world events with larger scale and more permanent impact
- Increased number of dynamic events
- Super Adventure Box
- Added new skills and traits (though not on the scale they made it seem so this could be a rightful complaint)
- Increased way to earn skill points
- Champion rewards
- Dungeon reward revamp
- New crafting materials
- Magic find revamp
- Making blues and greens matter more
- Ascended weapons
- Improved functionality of legendaries
- Replacement for Borderlands orb mechanic
- PvP solo rated play (albeit very buggy)
- LFG tool
- Limit culling in PvEThings not implemented:
- Updated fractals (though it’s obvious this will be released before the end of the year either on Nov 26th or Dec 24th).
- Wintersday (most likely released on Dec 10th)
- All crafting professions to 500
- Ascended armor (which has been datamined)
- Building precursor (good chance of not being implemented before 2014)
- New legendary weapons
- New type of legendary
- Improved PvP rewards
- New PvP map types
- Way to gain legendary skins in PvP
If you separate small features into separate list items, sure, they’ve added “more”. That’s kind of like saying an author who wrote two 100-page books has written more prose than another author who wrote a 500 page book.
Let’s face it – the second list is where all the exciting stuff and the bulk of the actual content is. If you pick a random item from the first list and compare it with a random item from the second list, virtually none of them can compare.
Getting a new item from salvaging greens vs. a precursor scavenger hunt? Slapping a bit of gold onto dungeon end rewards vs. fully revamped fractals and dungeons? Getting a loot bag from champions vs. all crafting professions at 500? Increased way to earn skill points (i.e. double-clicking a scroll…) vs. a full set of new legendary weapons?
I didn’t deny that they’ve added quite a bit of stuff from the blog post. My point is that they routinely get carried away over-hyping stuff, and then fail to deliver because they weren’t realistic about what could be done. I’d much rather they took a Blizzard style approach, where you know exactly what you’re getting. (In Blizzard’s case, ridiculously polished content at a painfully slow rate – but hey, at least they don’t pretend it’s going to delivered quickly.)
For me, I’d rate the importance of a true end-game at 8.5/10.
The concept of “end-game” can mean various things. I guess when it comes down to it, the most accurate definition in my experience would be “continued progression at max-level” – something GW2 really lacks.
IMO, raiding is the perfect end-game. It doesn’t have to include a gear grind. It could be like GW1, where getting better skills to improve your build/heroes would make bosses more killable. The point is that raiding gives you something to focus on with your guildies and friends and feels really rewarding when you finally get a difficult boss down.
And besides that, the “gear grind” of raiding isn’t an intense grind at all. You get items all the time while doing the raids themselves. It’s not even 1/10th of how much of a grind getting full Ascended trinkets is. And you also don’t get bogged down by other grinds, like daily achievement points/limited time meta achievements that aren’t even fun, or grinding gold for hundreds of hours so you can buy a weapon skin.
Didn’t you post this exact thread word for word the other day?
Nope, it must have been somebody else. I’d be interested to see it.
First, how about we wait until the year is actually over before you discuss what we haven’t gotten.
My point is that after tomorrow’s update, there will be 3 more updates to fit in all of the stuff on the list I posted. It’s clearly not going to happen. I’d be surprised if even one thing from the list is implemented before the year is over.
Second, they have delivered far more than half of what they discussed in that blog.
That’s simply not true. I even missed some stuff off my list, as they said they would revamp the dungeons and Fractals too.
That’s four updates to get the following implemented:
- A new “specific way” to build precursors.
- Crafting level 500 for all professions.
- New legendary weapons.
- New types of Legendary gear.
- Ascended armor (including craftable pieces).
- New skills and traits. (We’ve had existing traits changed and one new skill so far.)
- New map types in sPvP.
- The ability to gain Legendary weapon skins in PvP.
I don’t think tomorrow’s update includes any of this stuff, and Wintersday will take up at least one update (beginning on December 24 assuming the usual four week cycle). In other words, we have two ridiculously epic updates to look forward to in the next 30 days.
Let this be a lesson to ArenaNet… don’t over-hype what’s around the corner. Sure, you delivered the dungeon tool, updates every two weeks, Ascended weapons, etc. (and kudos for doing so) but please, in the future, think before you release these grandiose blog posts/videos/forum posts and just be straight with people.
You shouldn’t say all this stuff is coming in the next 5 months and then not deliver even half of it. I get it, I get it… development is more complicated than us players realize. I don’t doubt that for one minute. But ultimately, it’s not our job to figure out these things – it’s yours. This whole “saying one thing and doing another” business is getting old.
Again – good job on the stuff from the blog post you’ve actually implemented, but please, stop overreaching so much. The hot air is starting to get stale.
Thanks for making this happen, Chris.
Okay, Living World.
TLDR; It’s nice seeing people out in the open world and seeing stuff change, but most living world content is far too simple, easy and grindy. Furthermore, it doesn’t promote camaraderie – probably the most important element of any MMORPG.
The Good:
- There’s usually people out in the open world at any given time. I can go to Frostgorge Sound at 2 AM and can still find a zerg farming champions. It’s quite nice seeing players wherever I go.
- Having things change in the world instead of being static is also nice.
- It’s good to be able to look at a player, and instantly recognize “oh, they’ve been around since insert update here” because of unique cosmetics, titles etc.
- It’s always fun reading the upcoming update page and seeing what’s just around the corner.
- Some of the Living World content has been really nice, like Molten Facility and Aetherblade Retreat. It was engaging and felt epic going into a limited time 5-man dungeon. I was surprised at the level of effort that went into something temporary, too.
The Bad:
- I’ve never played an MMO where the content updates are almost always a step backwards in difficulty from the main content of the game.
- The stories are too predictable. Villain shows up, you help NPCs deal with them, NPC gives speech, the end.
- The achievements are bloated and grindy. It feels more like a “to-do” list than something fun that I look forward to logging in and playing.
- The villains are supposed to be scary/a threat to Tyria, yet you can usually solo them without any difficulty (sometimes on the first attempt). If a Living Story boss is soloable, they should be tuned to the difficulty of Liadri.
The Ugly:
Here’s the real problem I have with Living Story/Living World type updates: there is absolutely no reason to play with friends, build communities, and create an epic in-game journey that you can look back on for years to come. You guys probably think there is, but there really isn’t.
The reason I play MMOs is to build camaraderie. I love overcoming challenges with friends – working together, sharing a common goal, proving ourselves. Feeling like a hero in-game – something that was emphasized in the manifesto video. Living World content like champions and non-Tequatl world bosses don’t feel heroic. If anything, they’re the opposite. You’re just a face in the crowd using auto-attack. If you leave, the mob/boss will still melt. You don’t matter.
Even with Tequatl, overflow mechanics make it difficult to even get on the same map as your friends. You can play perfectly, but your chance for success entirely depends on the people you end up with. Again – you’re utterly insignificant, unless you’re the one guy on the map who tags up and tries to organize people. Tequatl is a failure in design. The mechanics are nice, but the execution is terrible.
I have reached the conclusion that probably nobody at ArenaNet (who makes decisions, at least) has ever raided in EQ, WoW, Rift or any other game. You hypothesize about why it’s not epic to be in an instance. However – you couldn’t be more wrong. It’s a great feeling going into a huge, sprawling raid instance with you and your fellow guildies – where if somebody accidentally runs into an extra group of mobs, all 25 of you are done for.
It’s a similar ominous feeling to old platformers like Castlevania, where you ascend to the final, most powerful boss. Around every corner are deadly enemies waiting for you – just waiting… in the Living World, if you don’t Waypoint fast enough you won’t reach the mob in time. If you try to kill a champion with friends, half the map will shout at you for ruining the champion train.
In a huge raid instance, it will take you and your guild months to reach the end (on hard mode at least – usually weeks on normal mode), and you’ll work on it together. Raid times will be sacred – you all share the same goal, and you come together to work on it. At no point do you think “man, it sucks that I can’t see a load of random players running around while we’re doing this”. It feels good being instanced – it’s private, just you and your buddies. Much more immersing that watching champions drop like flies out in the world.
Living Story type content updates do not require you to invest in your characters, or your guild, or build communities. You don’t have to get better. You don’t have to study your class, or band together with others. You just log in, work your way through your little to-do list and get the cosmetic reward. There is no “journey” for your characters, no evolution, no long-term collective goal (i.e. growing as a guild – in PvE at least). It feels empty and frankly I only keep playing because currently other MMOs aren’t delivering.
In WoW as late as Cataclysm, you had people at max level within 48 hours of release. They had slammed through the initial raids within the first two weeks. Without time-gating that endgame content, it would be ripped through in a month and those players would be whining about having nothing to do and that they’re bored.
Actually it took the top guild in the world at the time (Paragon) six weeks of extremely hardcore playing from Cataclysm’s launch to them finishing every boss on hard mode. And really, hard mode is the golden standard of raiding in WoW. It took regular guilds much longer (and always does). The #100 in the world guild took an additional two months, for example – and that’s still the top 0.001% (literally) of players we’re talking about.
“wash/repeat item-collection or kill-mob quests or dailies with flavor text support, the best stat gear requiring crazy amounts of time to earn.”_ Between the Living Story and the time-gating of things like ascended weapons, we’re pretty much exactly where we would have been with a subscription fee.
Exactly, but MINUS the epic, competitive PvE multiplayer content offered by games with subscription fees, i.e. raids. Instead, we have soloable-on-the-first-try (90% of the time) fluff “content” that is nothing more than a tedious to-do list so you can get that limited time only reward.
You see, one thing I’ve noticed over and over again is that people who have never played a game like WoW draw a lot of conclusions about what raiding really is, and completely miss the mark again and again. Usually people say “one raid per six months, or content every two weeks… I rest my case” or something to that effect. The problem is that they assume the quality of the content is equal. It’s not. GW2 living story content is some of the worst quality, mundane, boring, grindy, bug-riddled content I’ve ever seen in an MMO. Raiding content done right trumps any other type of gaming I’ve ever played.
You must not have played World of Warcraft
To folks who never played WoW and are simply enjoying the “my game is better” feeling, in World of Warcraft you set up your own UI. As for the actual game itself, there are zero issues with seeing what’s going on. You can be in a 25 player raid, and still see exactly where not to stand and exactly where abilities are going to hit because the way characters, spell effects and the environment blend together is crystal clear.
In GW2, you basically can’t see what’s going on at any point in a group scenario other than when a mob is huge (Lupicus), or typically at range from the group (Flame Shaman in FotM). The rest of the time it’s just a mess of Guardian fields, someone’s Twilight/Sunrise putting black/yellow brushstrokes in front of everything, purple stuff, and the mob flickering every time it gets hit.
1. Raiding/implementing some form of true end-game (even if 5-man).
2. State of the current dungeons.
3. Reward systems.
Frankly, I wouldn’t hold your breath. Close to a year ago, they stated they would be implementing a “scavenger hunt” system to get precursors, and making precursors more accessible would be addressed as early as “the next update” (Lost Shores). As it turned out, precursors being made “more accessible” actually just meant the Mystic Forge had a slightly higher chance to produce them. As you have discovered, OP, after wasting hundreds of gold, the chance is still atrocious.
The other way it was made “more accessible” was giving a LOT of people 1-2 precursors for attending the Karka one-off event. However, plenty of people didn’t get them either. I can tell you, it was a pretty bitter pill to swallow seeing people getting two precursors as a reward for a 1 hour event after I’d been farming gold to buy Dusk for 6 weeks for several hours per day. But I got over it, since I was able to buy Dusk for 190g or so as the market became saturated with precursors for a short period of time.
But back to the point at hand – they said there would be a precursor scavenger hunt. Then a few months later, they said the scavenger hunt wasn’t actively being worked on. It’s been almost a year since they mentioned it and, surprise surprise – no scavenger hunt, and no mention of the scavenger hunt. It’s just quietly ignore, as if it was never announced in the first place.
I expect the precursor crafting to be no different. After all, the blog post that mentioned precursor crafting also said we would see new Legendary weapons and other Legendary items in 2013. Well – there’s another five updates in 2013 after the one on the 15th. That’s five updates (including the rest of Halloween and Wintersday) to see: all crafting professions going up to 500, new Legendary weapons and new Legendary “gear” (other types, according to the blog). Somehow I don’t see that happening, although I’d love to be wrong.
Meanwhile i am hoping with this thread that we can discuss a good process for collaborating moving forward and then once we have that we can put it into action.
Perhaps having yourself (or another dev) opening a topic about a specific part of the game (GW2’s “end-game”, crafting, dungeons, WvW, sPvP, rewards in general, skills, character appearance, world bosses, living story achievements, etc.) and then everybody gives their two cents. I think this would work better than having a free-for-all, since we already have the Suggestions forum for that.
I think in any MMO, the community has a better idea about the direction the game should be going in than the developers themselves. Typically, MMO developers are arrogant and talk about how the vocal community members are confused, loud-mouthed idiots who have no idea what they really want – that all the detailed, constructive posts they make are just delusional fantasies that would send them running if it was ever really implemented. This is obviously a load of you-know-what, demonstrated in how when games fail to deliver what the community asks for, their population decreases drastically.
Even the biggest of the big WoW isn’t immune to this. When Blizzard started dumbing down content, making most classes totally faceroll, rehashing old content, making ‘prestigious’ rewards trivial to acquire, selling cool looking mounts while offering reskinned existing models in-game etc. the community said “stop that, or I’m leaving”. Blizzard of course didn’t listen, saying “we know best” and continued down that path. As a result, they lost something like 40% of their playerbase. We could argue that its just nostalgia, or that people quit because the game is old or whatever – it’s not. I know plenty of people (including myself) who would re-sub immediately if they returned the game to how it was in the TBC era.
With GW2, I have to say, the only real reason I continue to play is that it has a lot of potential and frankly, there’s no other MMO out there that I feel is worth playing. When you talk about delivering ‘groundbreaking content’ (a quote from the OP), I have to say there is nothing groundbreaking about GW2’s content. I don’t mean that offensively, either. If anything, the vast majority of the post-launch content has been very mundane. There has been an awful, awful, awful lot of “press F 250 times”, “go and slaughter these mobs in this zone event, with no tactics whatsoever”, “log in at this time on this date”, “go and do this bugged mini-game 20 times” etc. That’s not remotely groundbreaking. It’s actually quite poor.
However, there has been a pretty decent amount of high quality content, too. SAB, whether people like it or not, is a well made, creative piece of content. The new TA path is great, too. A little too many conditions from mobs, but other than that it’s nice. Fractals were an excellent addition to the game.
If the developers truly want to ‘collaborate’ with the community, I’ll be the first in line to write long, detailed posts about things I’d like to see in the game. By the same token, if another MMO comes out that ‘gets it right’ in the same way WoW ‘got it right’ back in 2004, I’ll be the first one to leave if the desire to collaborate with the community is merely all talk. Because, let’s be honest, you guys have a lot of idealistic plans that never see the light of day – including stuff that gets blogged about in detail.
The fact that Ascended items even exist is a huge step away from the design philosophy ArenaNet were promoting in the years leading up to the game’s release.
Sure, you won’t need Ascended armor, kind of like you don’t need Exotic armor now. The vast majority of level-capped players will still go for it though – it would be completely delusional to suggest otherwise.
The only exception to this I can think of is if there is some kind of insane gold/mats requirement – the equivalent of Obsidian Armor in GW1, where it would take people an extremely long time to get it, so it’s not considered a standard thing to have. However, even then, in GW1 it was for aesthetics and not a stat increase like Ascended will be.
In reality, it’s worse than a gear treadmill, because there probably won’t be any new dungeon content to go along with it (since only bad MMOs add new “end-game” content to go along with the gear creep). In other words, it will be the gear treadmill minus the fun part of beating challenging new content.
Also, has anyone thought of the fact that it could just be upgrading your existing armor to Ascended without any new skins? It’s possible. So far, the Fractal back piece is the only item that changes appearance as you upgrade it as far as I’m aware.
Pointless, since legendary gear isn’t a stat upgrade (it’s the same as exotic – and in the future, ascended) but purely cosmetic, and jewelry is invisible.
Why assume it is not possible to add effects to jewelry?
It’s possible, but far more likely that they’ll go for back skins since a) they are visible, b) they churn out back skins on a near-monthly basis, and c) there hasn’t been a single jewelry item with a cool graphical effect so far.
In all seriousness, if the blog post made less than a month ago was sincere and legendary armor is off the table, then that only leaves back pieces in terms of “new types of legendary gear in 2013”.
Hm?
What about jewelry?
Pointless, since legendary gear isn’t a stat upgrade (it’s the same as exotic – and in the future, ascended) but purely cosmetic, and jewelry is invisible.
You won’t see legendary armor any time soon, you will see Ascended Armor in 2013 for sure though, yes.
Then it’s confirmed… legendary back pieces!
“We aren’t quite ready to go into all the details here, but what I can say is you will see a specific way to build precursor items on your way to a legendary. On top of this, you’ll also see new legendary weapons and new types of legendary gear in 2013.” (source)
In all seriousness, if the blog post made less than a month ago was sincere and legendary armor is off the table, then that only leaves back pieces in terms of “new types of legendary gear in 2013”.
I’d like to see some kind of filtering options for items.json. For example, being able to only show item IDs for items that are exotic by calling items.json?rarity=6 (or something to that effect). Ideally we’d be able to add as many parameters as we want – for example, Exotic gloves that are heavy armor and usable by Sylvari: items.json?rarity=6&weight=3&slot=4&usable_by=3. Just made up numbers, but you get the idea.
I’d also like to see the ability to retrieve more than one item’s data at once using item_details.json?item_id=[3012,7610,3478,1029] or something similar.
(edited by ozma.3498)
Having said that I still dont understand the logic behind the nature of this content because it seems to me that it is not suited to either casuals or hardcore. The nature of the new additions – themeparks, minigames, minatures, festivals and so on is aimed very much at casuals but if it is for casuals why make it temporary?
I think the whole temporary content thing has 2 sides to it.
1. The optimistic ArenaNet-style of “we have a glorious vision about an MMO where the world really is living and breathing – if you blink, you might miss something” game design. I think they have mostly good intentions with this style of content.
2. Making the content temporary allows them to take the “quantity over quality” approach:
- Mini-games that are full of bugs, glitches and exploits that don’t need to be fixed, because they’ll be gone in a few weeks. (We’ll see if these bugs get fixed now that mini-games are on a rotation.)
- Achievements that – a lot of the time – just send you back doing stuff you’ve already done… but now with a certain new NPC at the end, or a kite, or a cache, or no difference whatsoever but you have the x/y/z buff while doing it!
- It gets people chasing after stuff (achievements, minis, cosmetics) that they normally wouldn’t, because it will be gone in a few weeks. In other words, it artificially makes the content seem more valuable than it actually is, and makes people look past the fact that much of it is actually quite low quality, poorly designed, minimally tested and often not enjoyable. I certainly wouldn’t be pressing F 300 times in different parts of the world under any other circumstances.
But in the mean time, please keep telling us what you’re thinking. We are listening. Not only to what you’re saying but also to what you’re not. The very first living world team actually did the thing some of you have called for. Some 40 or so permanent events were added around the game in our very first content update. They were met with little interest or fanfare. Granted, Halloween may have stolen the show. But those events are still in the game today. I’ve seen very little reaction to them, however, positive or negative.
You can’t expect players in a very new MMO (a few months after launch) to be able to distinguish new events from those that shipped with the game when there was no list of events given on that content release. I’m sure I played (and enjoyed) many of those new events without having any idea they were new.
At this point, if you added a new event chain to, say, Queensdale, I’d notice it and if it was a lot of fun, I’d likely give positive feedback about it.
In testing we ensured that every profession can complete the gauntlet.
Is this the usually kind of testing……….like the one that produced the candidate trials tier 4 mayhem we have right now?
Let us all hope not because that is the first piece of truly badly tested content in all of GW2.
I wouldn’t say that. I’ve participated in every temporary mini-game type of activity since launch, and every single one of them – literally, every last one – has been full of bugs and glitches that never end up getting fixed. They also generally lack the polish you’d expect from a game that has been released to the public, again, no doubt because they are developed so fast and haven’t been tested by players on a public test server like other MMOs. I expect this one to be no different.
ArenaNet wants to surprise players, so they don’t have a public test server. The downside is that new content – mini-games in particular – are always really glitchy. It’s that typical ArenaNet dreamy optimism where the drawbacks of their idealistic goal are ignored to make way for ‘the bigger picture’, even though the end result is often quite frustrating to play.
Like in Aspect Arena where you instantly die at the start of the game, when no enemy players are nearby, just as you run out of the starting point, with nothing in your combat log explaining why it happened, and no animation. Or when the minimap stops showing the Aspect Arena, and instead just shows brown terrain, so you can’t see where the orbs are, etc.
I’d like to see an option where you can opt out of spectator mode in the hot-join interface, so that if you join a match you are guaranteed a spot in either team – i.e. how it was before spectator mode came along.
Often when choosing a specific map/match, by the time you get into the match both teams will be full, so you have to go back to the Mists, run back to the hot-join match NPC and try again. This can happen a number of times until you get lucky and enter a match that isn’t full.
I’ve had this bug since launch – every time I enter a WvW map, I get an initial loading screen, then see my character somewhere on the map for a split second, then get a second loading screen, before finally loading up correctly.
In the latest blog post, ArenaNet talks about adding new traits and skills as a form of progression later in the year rather than new gear tiers.
What I’d love to see is a redesign of the tank/support role for Warriors in PvE. As a heavy armor class that can use Hammer, Mace and Shield, the Warrior’s capabilities in the “tank” role are really lacking.
For one thing, Warriors do not have access to Protection or Aegis without going for gimmicky rune setups. And even using runes that provide one of these boons (such as using Rune of the Monk to give you and nearby allies Aegis when using an Elite skill, or Rune of Dwayna to give the group Regeneration when you use a healing skill), it forces you into not using your skills in a normal and effective way. Essentially, you short-change your group whether you use your skills for their intended purpose or for healing.
For example, using a Vigorous Shouts build, you will typically wait until your group members need a heal before using your shouts rather than using them when they are actually useful. This is a huge problem, because along with your own poor damage using Cleric/Apothecary gear combined with a build like 0/0/25/30/15 (or similar), you aren’t providing the group with the boons they expect from a Warrior.
Timewarp is up? You should use For Great Justice! and On My Mark! to help maximize everybody’s damage – but if you do that and people take damage, you have failed in your role as the group’s support/tank because you have to wait for your shouts to come off cooldown before providing more heals. But if you don’t, you are also failing in supporting the group, by holding back on providing the Might/Fury and 10 stacks of Vulnerability. Similarly, using Shake it Off! to heal people means you might not get to use it when they need some conditions removing.
Then you have the weapon swap cooldown being triggered by picking up a banner (to use skill #2 on Banner of Tactics). This would be okay if there was more than one useful skill on each banner, but its once again forcing you to use things in a completely unnatural way. You don’t pick up the banner and use skill #2 to heal at the perfect moment to use it, because you know it will trigger your weapon swap cooldown and you need to switch weapons to use x/y/z skill too.
A few ideas of how the Warrior tanking role could be improved through traits:
- A Grandmaster trait that turns each shout into a chain ability, where #1 is the original shout, and #2 is a unique secondary shout. For example: For Great Justice! might have a follow-up shout that heals nearby allies, whereas Shake it Off! has a follow-up shout that puts Weakness onto all nearby mobs.
- Picking up a banner not trigger the weapon swap cooldown.
- Endure Pain shares its effect with nearby allies.
- Using Hammer/Mace burst skill gives Protection to allies.
Weapon skill changes:
- Make Shield Block a chain attack, where you can end it early to give allies Aegis.
(edited by ozma.3498)
I’m not going to slog my way through the whole thread, but my main issue with these ideas of not doing an expansion is that…well…the updates we have gotten have been ridiculously lackluster.
Now, I know what some folks are saying. They are saying that we shouldn’t be expecting an expansion worth of content already. Well, I got news for you guys. We aren’t. Well, at least most of us aren’t. We just want meaningful updates rather than weak little mini-events like the first phase of the first living story. It was a total waste of time, little plot to speak of, and had us simply running around clicking on things until we did it enough times.
That isn’t a quality addition to the game. And with this silly Living World setup, the new ‘content’ we get is taken away just as quickly.
But, I could let all of that go if it weren’t for this: We were told back at the beginning of the year that we would be getting the equivalent of a full-fledged expansion in three patches. We got our patches, but I don’t think anyone is arguing that it was an expansion’s worth of content.
And yet, they advertised the game again with the statement that they had already released over a full expansion’s worth of content for free.
If you were to ask me, we’ve not even seen a fifth of a full expansion in updates since release. But, Anet seems to feel they have. So when they say they don’t need to do expansions because they can just release them as they go…yeah….I’m not buying it.
Exactly.
I don’t even want an expansion. I’d much rather have proper updates every 3-4 (even 5-6) months with new explorable mode dungeons, new fractals, and real stuff to focus on rather than some meaningless grinds loosely connected to a mediocre story, with the occasional story mode dungeon that will disappear after a couple of weeks.
I sometimes wonder if the people in ArenaNet’s PR department have ever played an MMORPG, or if they just think their players won’t notice when they say things that are grossly inaccurate (or make promises that are simply never mentioned again as if they never happened, as the fluff updates continue to be shovelled out).
the instances seem to take 30 mins to complete while the raid about 2hrs from some research i did.
The dungeons were total faceroll, yes. I one-shotted all three of them on the night they were patched with random people. They were terrible.
The raid was actually short-lived by WoW’s standards – it took the top guild in the world (at that time) roughly 3 weeks of raiding 16+ hours per day to clear it. Usually it will take about a month for one guild to clear it, then over the following weeks a few more guilds will clear it.
Two hours to clear a new raid is unheard of. Average guilds will easily get 6 months of three raids per week, four hours per raid and still probably not even clear half of the hard modes in a single raiding tier.
So far we’ve gotten a lot more content than that I would say. in the same 8 month period.
I don’t see it that way. To use an anology, for me WoW’s raiding end-game is like playing a console game from start to finish – it gets more and more complex and challenging as you go through it, the rewards become greater and you have to evolve as a player, whereas GW2’s updates are like doing the first level over and over again.
Even if we’re just talking literally the size of the content added, I’d say it’s about equal. They added some pretty big features too, like raid finder (which I personally dislike, but a huge part of the playerbase benefited from it) and transmogrification.
But regardless of how the updates stack up compared to a WoW update, two years of the kind of updates we’ve been getting is still not even half of the size of a true MMORPG expansion. It’s probably not even a quarter of the size.
Unrelated question.
What did Blizzard release during the 6 months you were charged a subscription fee before releasing the expansion that you had to pay for? Also 2 pvp maps and 1 arena sure looks impressive :p
Tell me about it. At the end of Wrath of the Lich King, there was something like 9 months without any new content. Blizzard’s terrible pace of releasing patches is one of the main reasons I don’t play WoW any more.
However, the reason I wrote the list of MoP content is to illustrate what an expansion’s worth of content actually looks like. Regardless of how slow Blizzard is at making new content, one of their expansions is much, much, much bigger than what we’ve had and what we’ll get if the current content design trend continues.
MoP had a ton of content sure no doubt. Provided none of that content was in development before the release of that previous campaign you’d still be comparing 10 months of gw2 releases with 24 months it took blizzard to complete MoP. Thats 2.4x more time MoP had. If we multiple what we got so far by 2.4x thats also A LOT of content wouldn’t you say?
Well, you have to consider that WoW also gets content patches. While much less frequent than GW2 patches, generally when they add stuff it is the “meaty” content people keep referring to rather than fluff. Sure, there’s fluff too, but it’s not the main attraction. You typically get a new raid, new daily quest zones, and sometimes two or three new dungeons – plus all the fluff.
At end of the day every action you can take in any game is repetitive and boring. The new really hard raid just released? its only great while its new and fresh. Once you learn the mechanics and get a good team it too will become the equivalent of pressing F (only it will be 1 – 10 or whatever keybinds you have) Every content has an expiry date and the way its being handled by having it stay around 1 month or so helps a lot with that imho.
Yes, although I have to say that the overall experience of anticipating a new batch of PvE content, then going into it and racing other guilds for kills, then progressing through hard modes, then at the end farming the achievements and mounts is an entirely more exciting and enjoyable experience than the mundane content that makes up most (not all) of these monthly updates.
The other enemy of new and fresh is the difficulty level. If new content is trivial it will become repetitive much faster then if its difficult. At least I am very happy here that if the last 2 dungeons we got are any indication of future content the difficulty level is increasing a bit and this should keep content interesting for 2 weeks no problem dont you think?
To me, this is the most pressing issue of them all – and that’s why I describe it as not being meaningful content. Usually at the end-game you would get content that challenges you more than what came before. Living Story content isn’t challenging. It’s more of a monthly to-do list of achievements and stuff to farm.
What do you mean with nothing new at PvE end-game is being added? Just last month we had the Aetherblade Retreat dungeon, the Not So Secret jp and the achievements. why is that not end-game pve content in your opinion?
It’s because the dungeons are story mode, when we already have a bunch of explorable mode dungeons and Fractals. It’s not really “end” game, since it’s easier than what is currently available.
I have a feeling that the monthly content release makes it hard for people to judge how much content is being pushed out. Its not even been a whole year yet and we already got the following stuff since release:
- 139 New Achievements
- 62 New Dynamic Events
etc.
Thanks for posting the list Galen, although it has to be said that a lot of the content we have seen so far is extremely light-weight stuff that isn’t engaging and is largely superficial. Also, if listing things like the number of minis, recipes etc. separately the WoW list would (again) completely dwarf the list of what we’ve seen in GW2.
We’re getting the “side dish” but not the “main course” – all the new dynamic events, mini-games etc. are nice but they’re not compelling content. I’d say Fractals of the Mists has been the best addition we’ve seen so far, but that had been in development for years (you see some of it on the manifesto video) and I suspect it was intended to be in the game at launch but didn’t get finished in time.
My point in comparing GW2’s content to WoW was not to say WoW is a better game, however – it’s not (any more, at least). It was merely to correct somebody who stated we’re getting roughly the same amount of content as an expansion but spread out over lots of small updates, which is obviously not the case.
1.A. Increased level cap – Blizzard increases the level cap to make people grind for a long time and make them stay subscribed for longer.
1.B. ArenaNet doesn’t want us to grind, and there is no reason for us to do it since we don’t pay a subscription.
This is only true if you’re going by ArenaNet’s PR material. If you look at what they actually implement into the game, it’s a different story entirely – GW2 has quite a lot of pure grinds. Sure, a lot of it is “optional” but so is everything in every MMO. You could play WoW and never raid and just stick to running the 5-man content with gear you got from 5-mans if you choose to. That’s essentially exactly what GW2’s PvE endgame is anyway.
2.A. Raids and dungeons – Every time Blizzard adds a new raid or a new dungeon they make the old ones 100% useless. There may be over 100 dungeons and over 50 raids in WoW, but there will only be 1-3 of each at one time that you will actually get rewarded for completing at max level or close to max level.
There’s 9 max level dungeons in WoW and one current raid. But that aside, I was merely pointing out how much content an expansion’s worth of content is, since some people incorrectly think that we’re getting the equivalent amount of content.
WoW has a lot of problems. I’m not playing it because of many of those problems. But that’s not really the debate here. The debate I’m having is that GW2’s content is largely superficial and doesn’t really offer anything to absorb yourself in the way other MMOs do at endgame.
And regardless of the fact that WoW’s old content becomes obsolete, at the very least WoW players are getting new high level content – we’re not. Is it really such a good thing if in a year, or two years, or five years we are still running CoF and Twilight Arbor, and smirking about WoW players whose new dungeons and raids from two years ago are now obsolete, even though they’ve had a bunch of new high end PvE to sink their teeth into?
2.B. In GWII you are scaled down to the level of the zone/dungeon and are properly rewarded for completing it. You will get gear appropriate to your level. Even though there only are about 32 dungeon experiences in GWII the game launched with a lot more VIABLE content than WoW has even after 9 years.
Yeah, GW2 has more dungeon content than WoW currently has at max level, but the difference is that we will likely be stuck with the same “high end” content for the foreseeable future whereas WoW gets a bunch of new content every 5-6 months.
This also goes for open world areas. WoW may have more, but once you outlevel a zone that zone has zero value to you. There are a lot of starting zones for example, but once you have outleveled one of them all of the others, including the previous, are useless.
That means if you complete the entirety of Durotar all other starting zones won’t matter, which means that so much time and resources has gone into a making a zone you won’t ever go to.
To be fair, GW2’s low level zones are a cakewalk once you hit high level and get good gear. Mobs die without any effort at all. You’d have to go naked for anything less than a Champion mob to pose a slight threat. Also, there’s no reason to go back to them besides meta events and completing dailies.
3.A. Gear – Blizzard only makes new models for helms and shoulderpads, the rest of the gear use the same models that were available at launch. Heck, there is not even a model for breastplate armour, it is just paint on the chest.
This means they can make a lot of new armour sets, because they just have to make a new helm and shoulderpads and just paint the rest of the gear.
3.B. ArenaNet makes new models for every piece of armour, which means it will take longer time and more resources to make just a single set.
Yep, WoW’s engine has a lot of limitations. And frankly, I think Blizzard are getting lazier and lazier with the armor sets. But still – the amount of actual playable content in an expansion is huge compared to what we’re getting.
Despite all this, I’d rather play GW2 than WoW since it’s still new and fresh. But down the road, I can’t see myself logging in to press F next to stuff and jump through a load of hoops to get a new back skin when nothing new at the PvE end-game is being added.
And what was taken away? Every character was de facto destroyed by that expansion which de facto didn’t expand the world but merely changed the carrot.
I’m all for expanding the world, but not the way blizzard did, by destroying my character every year. That’s not fun. I am invested in my characters and I don’t like them being removed from the game when I buy an expansion.
That’s a completely separate discussion. I’m merely pointing out what an “expansion’s worth of content” actually is. The GW2 equivalent would be the exact same content, except no raised level cap, and gear that was simply skins rather than increased stats.
No expansion will make it a dead game within half a year or less. No amount of living story can give you the effect what a new expansion does.
Can I have your crystal ball please?
Why, because as far as I can tell, instead of getting content all in one big blob (expansion), it’s evolving and coming to us in stages. Is that so difficult to envision? o.o
Well, I think the issue is that the content on offer isn’t actually comparable to what you’d get in a true MMORPG expansion. Even if you took 2 years worth of the kind of content we’ve been getting and offered it all at once, it still wouldn’t be on the same level as a WoW expansion.
For example, in WoW’s latest expansion you got:
- 16 new raid bosses at launch, with 3 difficulty levels.
- 9 new 5-man dungeons with 3 difficulty levels.
- 7 new scenarios (like a normal mode dungeon, but for 1-3 people).
- About 1400 new quests in an entirely new continent.
- About 900 new achievements.
- 2 new PvP maps, 1 new arena map.
- The usual mass of armor skins, weapon skins, mounts etc.
- Pet battle system.
- A new class.
- A new playable race.
- Increased level cap.
Then you have the content patches throughout the expansion’s life cycle on top of that.
As much as I’m impressed (and surprised) by the frequency of updates in GW2, to say it’s the equivalent of an expansion being spread out over time is just plain inaccurate.
Colin, is there any explorable dungeon/max level “post-Arah” (or post-Fractals) PvE content currently being worked on?
You guys keep showing that you’re capable of putting good quality dungeons together. In fact, I’d go as far as saying that Aetherblade Retreat and Molten Facility are actually better than most of the dungeon content in the core game.
With that in mind, I find it confusing (and frustrating) that we’re simply not seeing any kind of indication that any new, more challenging, permanent explorable mode dungeons will be added to the game.
A recurring theme in GW2’s blogs/videos/etc. is the idea of the living world approach to game design, and improving the core game. Frankly, I think adding permanent dungeons is the way to do this. I mean, let’s be honest – pressing F next to 150 things, chasing the skin of the month and playing mini-games isn’t exactly compelling compared to having a real, growing end-game.
Don’t get me wrong – it’s enjoyable, but it feels more like a collection of side-tasks to the “real” content. And maybe it’s just years of being conditioned by WoW (where you always have some new challenging PvE to sink your teeth into), but it doesn’t feel like the “real” content is even there in GW2.
I’d love to see a form of tiered dungeon progression – maybe with a similar mechanic to Agony, where you have to prove yourself in x dungeon (which might take a month or two, farming x amount of faction/reputation or resistance) before you can enter or hope to complete y dungeon in a future update.