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Should we Quest to Unlock Elite Specializations?


Lily.1935

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@Lily.1935 said:

@otto.5684 said:No thanks. I want to play the new content with the new elites. I don’t want gring or gating in any shape or form.

Story quests are content.

Is it going to be the first thing when I walk into where ever the expansion is, like raptor in PoF? No? Then it is gating and should not exist. It does not matter if is content or not.

What could work is skins (armor or weapons) for completing an elite story quest. That would be fun and worthwhile (assuming it is voice acted and not achievement grind garbage).

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@otto.5684 said:

@otto.5684 said:No thanks. I want to play the new content with the new elites. I don’t want gring or gating in any shape or form.

Story quests are content.

Is it going to be the first thing when I walk into where ever the expansion is, like raptor in PoF? No? Then it is gating and should not exist. It does not matter if is content or not.

What could work is skins (armor or weapons) for completing an elite story quest. That would be fun and worthwhile (assuming it is voice acted and not achievement grind garbage).

Guild wars 2 is content starved. It has a lot to do, the issue is it take so little time to complete it gets burned through in a week. This was the issue with PoF. And to have some incentive to go out and do something outside of the monotony would be good. It was just go from story quest to story quest with very little breaks in between for either PoF or HoT. Honestly it's far better than Hero points which are atrocious.

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@Lily.1935 said:

@otto.5684 said:No thanks. I want to play the new content with the new elites. I don’t want gring or gating in any shape or form.

Story quests are content.

Is it going to be the first thing when I walk into where ever the expansion is, like raptor in PoF? No? Then it is gating and should not exist. It does not matter if is content or not.

What could work is skins (armor or weapons) for completing an elite story quest. That would be fun and worthwhile (assuming it is voice acted and not achievement grind garbage).

Guild wars 2 is content starved. It has a lot to do, the issue is it take so little time to complete it gets burned through in a week. This was the issue with PoF. And to have some incentive to go out and do something outside of the monotony would be good. It was just go from story quest to story quest with very little breaks in between for either PoF or HoT. Honestly it's far better than Hero points which are atrocious.

This does not solve the "content starved" issue. Only creates gating access and creates zero value. And even if this exists, do you really think it will go beyond 30 minutes in length? If you are expecting unlocking an elite line will be a 10 hour epic adventure that is not going to happen. For so many reasons. Chief among them, Anet cannot create any long term interesting objectives. And just imagine the backlash when you tell players that have the HPs collected that there HPs are now useless.

I much rather Anet spend their resources for interesting masteries and interesting mastery points.

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@otto.5684 said:

@otto.5684 said:No thanks. I want to play the new content with the new elites. I don’t want gring or gating in any shape or form.

Story quests are content.

Is it going to be the first thing when I walk into where ever the expansion is, like raptor in PoF? No? Then it is gating and should not exist. It does not matter if is content or not.

What could work is skins (armor or weapons) for completing an elite story quest. That would be fun and worthwhile (assuming it is voice acted and not achievement grind garbage).

Guild wars 2 is content starved. It has a lot to do, the issue is it take so little time to complete it gets burned through in a week. This was the issue with PoF. And to have some incentive to go out and do something outside of the monotony would be good. It was just go from story quest to story quest with very little breaks in between for either PoF or HoT. Honestly it's far better than Hero points which are atrocious.

This does not solve the "content starved" issue. Only creates gating access and creates zero value. And even if this exists, do you really think it will go beyond 30 minutes in length? If you are expecting unlocking an elite line will be a 10 hour epic adventure that is not going to happen. For so many reasons. Chief among them, Anet cannot create any long term interesting objectives. And just imagine the backlash when you tell players that have the HPs collected that there HPs are now useless.

I much rather Anet spend their resources for interesting masteries and interesting mastery points.

That can't happen because they're genaric. And I said a 2 hour adventure. Not 30 minutes. We need more engaging content. And other games are making that obvious to me that anet has a lack of the ability to pull people in and keep them here.

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@"Sobx.1758" said:2 hour class spec unlock quest would be a terrible idea.Also claiming that a spec unlock quests are something that would "pull people in and keep them here" is just plain false, right?

FF14 has much longer class quest chain and it is currently more popular than GW2. It's not the only reason why, but the questing and story Telling absolutely contributes to that.

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@Lily.1935 said:

@"Sobx.1758" said:2 hour
class
spec unlock quest would be a terrible idea.Also claiming that a spec unlock quests are something that would "pull people in and keep them here" is just plain false, right?

FF14 has much longer class quest chain and it is currently more popular than GW2. It's not the only reason why, but the questing and story Telling absolutely contributes to that.

I think it's pretty weird to claim that mmo is more popular because it includes class quest chain. Hardly anybody -if literally anyone?- picks mmorpgs based on that. (I understand you said it's not the only reason why, but I think that's not a reason at all, to make it clear)

btw, could you link some recent mmorpg player count stats? :p

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I do like both lore and having new reasons to explore, but I don't think it's a good idea to suddenly deviate from the established system that players learn through core and have reinforced in both expansions. It would come across as messy game design and throw players for a loop, especially those that never asked for more lore/exploration.

If you reframe the idea of mastering your spec around acquiring the ascended weapon and not just the elite skill, I think collections can be just as fitting as long as Anet keeps improving their feel. The Design-A-Weapon collections for example felt better as a sequential, breadcrumb trail "quest" rather than just a grocery checklist.

Collections just need less filler trinkets that we get from some dude/event, same as every other profession, with no flavor besides a name and a location hint. They need more interactables with lore which lead to new areas with new interactables with lore. Even better if they can give lore through gameplay, like having each heart vendor have special dialogue for a specific profession, and that profession gains access to additional optional activities they can complete to fill the heart.

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@Sobx.1758 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:2 hour
class
spec unlock quest would be a terrible idea.Also claiming that a spec unlock quests are something that would "pull people in and keep them here" is just plain false, right?

FF14 has much longer class quest chain and it is currently more popular than GW2. It's not the only reason why, but the questing and story Telling absolutely contributes to that.

I think it's pretty weird to claim that mmo is more popular because it includes class quest chain. Hardly anybody -if literally anyone?- picks mmorpgs based on that. (I understand you said it's not the only reason why, but I think that's not a reason at all, to make it clear)

btw, could you link some recent mmorpg player count stats? :p

So to understand what's happening in GW2, this is something WP also complains about a lot. I'm not only talking about class quests but the ideas behind them which is adventuring, story and lore. Much of this is tucked away so far into the recesses of GW2 it can be difficult to assess what it is or how it impacts the character or the world. The story quests are fun. And I will say they are fun, but not for a replay of them. GW2 nor FF14 really give it much replay value. Which Is fine. But also that GW2 has greatly improved their story quests. What the game lacks is this connection. GW1 had a far more robust questing system and although I absolutely adore the event system it isn't a replacement for what quests offer.

Quests allow for you to get more personal with your character unlike what the events do which give you a thrill. I love the thrill, but the more contemplative adventure that quests offer is something we should embrace. Taking rituals of our class and meeting characters who offer us guidance. Why do I suggest it for elite specialization unlock specifically? Because it forces engagement with the game. It forces the players to engage with their character. And players don't want perfect freedom. This is the fallacy of the player. They'll say they don't want quests or don't want to work for anything but then they quickly get board and drop out. You NEED this level of engagement, you NEED this sort of investment! You might think you don't, but you absolutely do. Tucking it away in the corner leaves it to be forgotten.

As for how Arena net have handled the collections for the weapon unlocks, I'd say its been handled poorly. There is minor personalization for the classes but its hollow. Much of the side quests in GW2 are hollow and they don't take much to make engaging. I'd rather spend more time unlocking it and moving forward with my own personal journey to become an Assassin or summoner or whatever than just get into the expansion and be like "Here you go, you collected all those hero points, now you get it for free."

I Still really want this. If it has to come elsewhere, so be it. I'll still advocate for this because this is enjoyable. While I will not advocate for forcing WvW and PvP players to engage with this because what they get out of the game is vastly different from what a PvE player gets out of the game, the PvE elements are extremely important. Hearts are just awful.

What FF14 does is offers engagement with the world itself. Something GW2 does rather poorly. And if FF14 had a better combat system closer to GW2's I'd honestly never look at GW2 again. GW2 is so lacking. And this is just one element we could focus on.

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@Lily.1935 said:

@Sobx.1758 said:2 hour
class
spec unlock quest would be a terrible idea.Also claiming that a spec unlock quests are something that would "pull people in and keep them here" is just plain false, right?

FF14 has much longer class quest chain and it is currently more popular than GW2. It's not the only reason why, but the questing and story Telling absolutely contributes to that.

I think it's pretty weird to claim that mmo is more popular because it includes class quest chain. Hardly anybody -if literally anyone?- picks mmorpgs based on that. (I understand you said it's not the only reason why, but I think that's not a reason at all, to make it clear)

btw, could you link some recent mmorpg player count stats? :p

So to understand what's happening in GW2, this is something WP also complains about a lot. I'm not only talking about class quests but the ideas behind them which is adventuring, story and lore. Much of this is tucked away so far into the recesses of GW2 it can be difficult to assess what it is or how it impacts the character or the world. The story quests are fun. And I will say they are fun, but not for a replay of them. GW2 nor FF14 really give it much replay value. Which Is fine. But also that GW2 has greatly improved their story quests. What the game lacks is this connection. GW1 had a far more robust questing system and although I absolutely adore the event system it isn't a replacement for what quests offer.

I don't see how what WP complains about matters at all. Is his opinion somehow better/more important than yours, mine or anyone else?Adventuring, story and lore can (and probably should) be done differently than locking a specialization behind a quest because someone came up with an idea that it's a missing link to bring new players and make them stay. It's not. Not only because as I said earlier most people don't care about it as a main thing to judge the mmorpg by, but also because it's literally hidden behind paid expansions. I'd go as far as call it a complete non-factor in this regard. Which doesn't mean you're not allowed to want it in the game. It's just that locking content behind that is not the way to go by far.About the quests -I think the gw2's approach is more interesting than the classic mmorpg questing. It's more "open" for anyone around to get involved, seems to connect with the open world much better and if someone misses the "fetch me 20 of x" for a moment then those can also be found in gw2. I don't miss the clasic quests one bit, which means I disagree with your claim that it's not a replacement. But again -to each their own. You NEED this level of engagement, you NEED this sort of investment! You might think you don't, but you absolutely do. Tucking it away in the corner leaves it to be forgotten.

Quests allow for you to get more personal with your character unlike what the events do which give you a thrill. I love the thrill, but the more contemplative adventure that quests offer is something we should embrace. Taking rituals of our class and meeting characters who offer us guidance. Why do I suggest it for elite specialization unlock specifically? Because it forces engagement with the game. It forces the players to engage with their character. And players don't want perfect freedom. This is the fallacy of the player. They'll say they don't want quests or don't want to work for anything but then they quickly get board and drop out.

Seriously... it doesn't "force engagement with the game" -all it does is lock an espec choice behind a forced storytelling/questing (which people that are not interested with just click through without even reading anything longer than two lines of text). If we want to meet characters who offer us guidance then by all means: make an espec-specific ascended weapon collection that starts with an item taken from an npc that will spam you with lore, maybe even possibly send you to next npcs that'll engage you with their stories or whatever it's supposed to be (optional instanced content/story? I don't mind/care).And you can't really hide your opinion behind a claim that players don't want perfect freedom, because I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that I do NOT want to have an espec locked behind forced quest/s. I will not enjoy that, I DO prefer the freedom and that's actually one of the reasons I play gw2 in the first place. So I can tell you without any doubt that you are wrong here. Sure, some people need to be guided by hand or they won't know what to do, I understand that. But others don't need or even want that, so please don't try to throw the whole playerbase to one bag and pretend you know what everyone want, because you don't -all you know is what you want. You want lore? Some deeper character connection based on espec you pick? That's great, I have nothing against having this in the game. But locking espec behind a quest because you want so for no good reason? Come on. I don't even bother with getting HPs on almost any of the especs (mostly doing it on one character and that's it), I'm just unlocking it with PoH. You're suggesting people that do that want their especs locked behing a forced storytelling? There's no way that's correct.And I don't only "think I don't want it" -I'm absolutely SURE I don't want it. I hope it's clear enough throughout this whole paragraph. Any time a game locked a class change/progression behind a chain of a quests, I only rushed/grinded through it while hoping it ends soon. It's awful. GW2 doesn't seem to be that game and I hope it stays this way.

As for how Arena net have handled the collections for the weapon unlocks, I'd say its been handled poorly. There is minor personalization for the classes but its hollow. Much of the side quests in GW2 are hollow and they don't take much to make engaging. I'd rather spend more time unlocking it and moving forward with my own personal journey to become an Assassin or summoner or whatever than just get into the expansion and be like "Here you go, you collected all those hero points, now you get it for free."

As I said above -that's great, but that's still just your opinion. While many people might share it, many also do not. You don't need to have the espec locked behind a chain of quests. You say the side stories are hollow, handled poorly and arent engaging. But as a solution you don't want to make them better, you just want a bigger carrot hidden behind them. That's not a solution, that's some weird version of stockholm syndrome. If you want better story telling or deeper knowledge about the class/spec, then lobby for that, not for locking stuff behind quests as if it would magically improve their quality. If you think you need to be prompted to play through content by a reward, then you don't seem to expect good lore/story. At which point... even moreso, why bother.

I Still really want this. If it has to come elsewhere, so be it. I'll still advocate for this because this is enjoyable. While I will not advocate for forcing WvW and PvP players to engage with this because what they get out of the game is vastly different from what a PvE player gets out of the game, the PvE elements are extremely important. Hearts are just awful.

I think answer to this is included somewhere above: it's just your opinion, I disagree. No doubt many people can agree with you, but many also won't. If you want good content/story/lore, it seems it would be better to vouch for good content/story/lore. If it's good enough, you won't need to be baited by locked parts of expansions you paid for. I sure don't want to be.


tl;dr: optional gooooood, locking baaaaad.

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@Lily.1935 said:This is something I really want in the game, but I'm a bit bias in this so I'm going to make a poll for it since I realize I sometimes have very unpopular opinions. So I'll ask.

Would you enjoy a Short to medium Quest Chain(achievement chain) that takes about an hour to maybe three hours to complete that slowly unlocks the Traits and weapon of the elite specialization you are going after? The chain would provide quite a bit of lore for the elite specialization and give you the opportunity to connect with it's design. The wouldn't so much apply to WvW players and not at all to PvP players.

I'm not sure it has to be quest/lore but SOME kind of meaningful progression would be amazing. Even a good mastery grind would help.I dont know.... I had my maxed out Soulbeast within 5 minutes of logging in after PoF launched thanks to wvw testimonies. Some kind of gating would have given it some meaning.

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@otto.5684 said:

@otto.5684 said:No thanks. I want to play the new content with the new elites. I don’t want gring or gating in any shape or form.

Story quests are content.

Is it going to be the first thing when I walk into where ever the expansion is, like raptor in PoF? No? Then it is gating and should not exist. It does not matter if is content or not.

What could work is skins (armor or weapons) for completing an elite story quest. That would be fun and worthwhile (assuming it is voice acted and not achievement grind garbage).

Guild wars 2 is content starved. It has a lot to do, the issue is it take so little time to complete it gets burned through in a week. This was the issue with PoF. And to have some incentive to go out and do something outside of the monotony would be good. It was just go from story quest to story quest with very little breaks in between for either PoF or HoT. Honestly it's far better than Hero points which are atrocious.

This does not solve the "content starved" issue. Only creates gating access and creates zero value. And even if this exists, do you really think it will go beyond 30 minutes in length? If you are expecting unlocking an elite line will be a 10 hour epic adventure that is not going to happen. For so many reasons. Chief among them, Anet cannot create any long term interesting objectives. And just imagine the backlash when you tell players that have the HPs collected that there HPs are now useless.

I much rather Anet spend their resources for interesting masteries and interesting mastery points.

And Id rather them drop mastery points and focus on guilds, guild halls and reasons to keep playing as most of the trivial busy work they have tried to push in the past is lost on many players and thus is a waste of time. Lore for elite specs and classes could be really cool if done correctly and would really add something to a game, which tries to take itself so seriously but then turns around and slaps something that makes no sense within the confines of the world infront of you.

Masteries are a waste of time, they are typically region locked so its not like our raven mastery will be useful in say cantha. It will be completely worthless and will ONLY add to the map it originated in, the only masteries that have had any weight are mounts and I highly doubt we will see more of those. Id rather them spend the resources it takes to come up with these outlandish masteries and focus on reworking races to be unique, more guild stuff, alliance battles, guild battles and the good stuff from guild wars 1 and bringing it to guild wars 2.

Masteries are one time content, by your logic it shouldn't exist.

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I guess some people like that. I guess some people like opening a million boxes in their inventory, with even more boxes in boxes. And many different kind of boxes. That don't stack. I hate that. Abstract it all away.

I don't need the game to give me chores. I don't understand why some people want that.

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The thing you may not be considering is there are some of us that hate PVE. And I mean hate.

The thought of having to go on a long PvE quest just so I can unlock a spec before going back to WvW would give me nightmares.

If you allow a WvW option thats equally as quick as the PvE quest then I'd be fine with it.

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@Lily.1935 said:

It was nicer than HoT. But it was very hollow. And I unlocked Scourge right away, which was fine, but I felt like I didn't earn it. It felt cheap to me.Nothing personal, but this sounds more like a "you" problem.

clearly not, as the game is still losing players.

And especs not being locked behind quest/s has nothing to do with it, not sure why you keep pretending that's the reason.

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@Sobx.1758 said:

It was nicer than HoT. But it was very hollow. And I unlocked Scourge right away, which was fine, but I felt like I didn't earn it. It felt cheap to me.Nothing personal, but this sounds more like a "you" problem.

clearly not, as the game is still losing players.

And especs not being locked behind quest/s has nothing to do with it, not sure why you keep pretending that's the reason.

A strawman of my argument is very easy to defeat when you don't actually read what I'm saying.

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