Jump to content
  • Sign Up

A Message from Andrew Gray


Recommended Posts

  • Replies 358
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

@keenedge.9675 said:Even if a Raid in 'STORY MODE' gave less rewards and zero LI, I'd still be much more likely to give it a try. The people who don't want to waste 2 hours if it failed would not be there demanding so much from casual players.

How many times?If its less then 10 is it worth the investment?I mean raids are done weekly so a lot of play time for some players if you look to the investment from the company a story mode would not be as good a investment of their limited resources would it?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Linken.6345 said:

@"keenedge.9675" said:Even if a Raid in 'STORY MODE' gave less rewards and zero LI, I'd still be much more likely to give it a try. The people who don't want to waste 2 hours if it failed would not be there demanding so much from casual players.

How many times?If its less then 10 is it worth the investment?I mean raids are done weekly so a lot of play time for some players if you look to the investment from the company a story mode would not be as good a investment of their limited resources would it?

That's exactly why easy mode should not be looked at in the context of "progression play". The main reason for multiple modes is to make more people interested in the content. In any mode of that content. It should not be vieved just as a way to get people to play the highest difficulty tier - most people interested in th easy mode want that because they don't intend to go up from there.Just like many raiders that were completely fine with difficulty up to (and inclding) wing 4 never went past it to a much harder wing 5.

@battledrone.8315 said:casual raids are the same as SUVs. products that are made as compromises, and dont really have a purpose of their own.Which is why SUVs are so unpopular and failed product...oh wait.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"keenedge.9675" said:Even if a Raid in 'STORY MODE' gave less rewards and zero LI, I'd still be much more likely to give it a try. The people who don't want to waste 2 hours if it failed would not be there demanding so much from casual players.

How many times?If its less then 10 is it worth the investment?I mean raids are done weekly so a lot of play time for some players if you look to the investment from the company a story mode would not be as good a investment of their limited resources would it?

That's exactly why easy mode should
not
be looked at in the context of "progression play". The main reason for multiple modes is to make more people interested in the content. In
any
mode of that content. It should not be vieved just as a way to get people to play the highest difficulty tier - most people interested in th easy mode want that because they
don't
intend to go up from there.Just like many raiders that were completely fine with difficulty up to (and inclding) wing 4 never went past it to a much harder wing 5.

I don't think your reply has much to do with what they said. They aren't talking about progression. They are talking about replayability.

How replayable would story or easy mode be is the question.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Sigmoid.7082" said:I don't think your reply has much to do with what they said. They aren't talking about progression. They are talking about replayability.

How replayable would story or easy mode be is the question.I guess i cut my reply too short, probably because i thought i have already explained what i meant in my earlier posts in this thread.

Easy mode without rewards is a progression thinking. It's considering the easy mode to be something you play for a while, and "graduate" to a "proper" mode. No rewards are proposed exactly to force this kind of behaviour - to not keep people in this mode for long, and to make them want to move on to a mode with rewards.

If you want to treat easy mode as a full mode on its own, not just as some kind of "stairs" to higher difficulty, then obviously it needs to have rewards, and those rewards need to be good enough to make people stay there.

So, I wasn't disagreeing with @Linken.6345. Quite the opposite - i was agreeing with him, that easy mode with no rewards is a bad idea.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"keenedge.9675" said:Even if a Raid in 'STORY MODE' gave less rewards and zero LI, I'd still be much more likely to give it a try. The people who don't want to waste 2 hours if it failed would not be there demanding so much from casual players.

How many times?If its less then 10 is it worth the investment?I mean raids are done weekly so a lot of play time for some players if you look to the investment from the company a story mode would not be as good a investment of their limited resources would it?

That's exactly why easy mode should
not
be looked at in the context of "progression play". The main reason for multiple modes is to make more people interested in the content. In
any
mode of that content. It should not be vieved just as a way to get people to play the highest difficulty tier - most people interested in th easy mode want that because they
don't
intend to go up from there.Just like many raiders that were completely fine with difficulty up to (and inclding) wing 4 never went past it to a much harder wing 5.

@battledrone.8315 said:casual raids are the same as SUVs. products that are made as compromises, and dont really have a purpose of their own.Which is why SUVs are so unpopular and failed product...oh wait.

you would have a much better car, if you chose anything else. they are expensive to drive, have poor handling and safety,they are slower and practically useless off road. and yes, they are on the way out. fewer of them every year. this is a good thing .
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Or they could just stop trying to be WoW, which is a raid centric mmo. GW2 never had and never will have a big raid community. If you want raiding this isn't the mmo you goto. You goto wow or FF14. Instead of doing what they're good at (pve exploration/puzzles/dynamic events)

Problem with that is that GW2 combat is just way more fun, and they have made some really good raids in this game. I want more of that content in GW2, because neither WoW nor FFXIV is gonna give me that same experience. GW2 could have a raiding community, if only ANet would support the content properly. Telling people to just go away isn't a solution.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"battledrone.8315" said:you would have a much better car, if you chose anything else. they are expensive to drive, have poor handling and safety,they are slower and practically useless off road. and yes, they are on the way out. fewer of them every year. this is a good thing .First, you might want to check the info. The growth of their market share is indeed slowing, but it's still very much positive. And the reason why it is even slowing is a simple case of market saturation - it's not that less people want SUVs. It's that most people that want them already have one.

Second, the qualities you debate (which btw are debatable) are irrelevant in this context. Those things don't change the fact that SUVs are what consumers want, and that they sell really well. So it is with "casual raids". Them being worse than higher difficulty raids at being higher difficulty raids would not really matter - what would matter would be their popularity. And if you compare that to SUVs... well, those are very popular. Even if you personally happen to think they are for some reason worse as cars that some other car types (although i am not sure to what car type are you comparing them to, seeing as you mention both off-road usefulness and speed in the same breath)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Astralporing.1957" said:I'm not talking about other games. I am talking about this one. Just look at the cases where whenever easy mode is mentioned the silent assumption by most is that the only reason to have it is for easy mode be some sort of a training content that people are meant to graduate from (and thus no need for rewards and stuff). When in reality this should be at best a secondary concern.Yes, of course we are talking about Guild Wars 2. The reason why I brought up video games in general is simply that the idea that people start a new game with the easiest mode and then progress higher until they finished the hardest one is an outlier. Therefore I do not believe that someone who makes that very same argument in favor of raids in gw2 is representative of the majority. In fact, I would go as far as saying that most people who express that exact opinion are not being entirely honest. Since the principle itself is not really popular in the genre of video games as a whole. Why should it be drastically different in the specific case of gw2?I think I do not see it the same way you do. In my experience every time "easy mode" for raids is mentioned you are going to have someone make the argument that it would be beneficial because it allows for players to gradually progress from learning easy versions of the encounters up to the actual raid difficulty. Which will inevitably be disputed by another poster, who explains that it will not work that way. Nothing silent about it. And unless you possess the ability to look into the mind of every single forum poster you cannot know what the majority assumes about the subject.

The original intention behind content does influence how people are going to be using it, but does not completely prevent some people to try to use it in ways that were not part of the original design. Still, those would be the exception, not the norm.Depends on your definition of the "norm" and the "exception". A system can be designed to lead to result "X", while also allowing for the possiblity of "Y" instead. If 87% of all results were "Y", should it not be considered the norm?

Can't find it anymore. It was somewhere shortly after HoT release, during the height of Raid hype (probably in one of the reddit AMAs then, but it's been so long that i can't be 100% certain about it - might have been the previous forums too). And it's not contradictory - quite the opposite, it's a sign that their thoughts are still influenced by progression ideas, even if they are designing for a mostly non-progression game. In those years they might have moved with this idea from one of the content types to another, but they still cling to the idea of "stepping stones" and still seem to think that this time it might work better.(or they no longer think so, and it's just a PR speak meant to placate the raiders and give them some hope - that possibility also exists)That is a shame, but I am not saying that I do not believe that they said it, it would simply be nice to have access to the source. There cleary is a contradiction, from the OP: "[...]Raids are a trickier beast. They're a unique experience and community that we want to find better ways to support, the biggest challenge in creating more is the small audience they attract. We gathered data to determine why, and the most common answer was that there is a giant leap in difficulty between raids and other endgame content, and there isn't anything to help players work their way up.Our intention was for Strike Missions to be that intermediary step into 10-person content. As we've mentioned before and you've likely noticed, strike missions are getting harder. Once a full suite of strike missions is complete there should be a graceful ramp up to the existing raid content rather than the imposing leap that previously existed, and our hope is once that ramp is in place, the number of players participating in raids will go up.[...]"That is not the reason that you state for creating strike missions, if you believe that FotM is the stepping stone content for raids. Unless of course, they identified the number of players in the group as the primary issue, obviously fractals fall short in that regard. Though, with the fractals statement being as old as you claim it is, the most likely explanation is probably that they changed their mind. That, or the PR talk.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Katary.7096" said:Yes, of course we are talking about Guild Wars 2. The reason why I brought up video games in general is simply that the idea that people start a new game with the easiest mode and then progress higher until they finished the hardest one is an outlier.In single player games, surely. In MMORPGs however that is a norm - in fact, most MMORPGs are specifically built around the progression mechanics, where you start with easier content, get geared up there, use the gear to attack higher content, to get new gear tier, and so on, and so on until the top. Progression through tiers is the assumed norm, not the exception here.

Therefore I do not believe that someone who makes that very same argument in favor of raids in gw2 is representative of the majority. In fact, I would go as far as saying that most people who express that exact opinion are not being entirely honest. Since the principle itself is not really popular in the genre of video games as a whole. Why should it be drastically different in the specific case of gw2?Because GW2 is not a single player game, but MMORPG, and in MMORPGs the default approach to tiers is markedly different. Even if it doesn't work all that well for GW2 specifically (due to not having gear progression).

I think I do not see it the same way you do. In my experience every time "easy mode" for raids is mentioned you are going to have someone make the argument that it would be beneficial because it allows for players to gradually progress from learning easy versions of the encounters up to the actual raid difficulty. Which will inevitably be disputed by another poster, who explains that it will not work that way.That another poster usually is either me, or one of the raiders saying that easy mode is not needed at all, because raids do not need "easy". The progression through tiers (and the assumption that, as thus, easy tier should have no rewards) however is a very common proposition coming from many sources. And all that comes exactly from thinking in terms of progression, not in terms of expanding the overall raid population.

Nothing silent about it. And unless you possess the ability to look into the mind of every single forum poster you cannot know what the majority assumes about the subject.True. I can only observe what the trends are among those that do post. And i am speaking about those trends.

The original intention behind content does influence how people are going to be using it, but does not completely prevent some people to try to use it in ways that were not part of the original design. Still, those would be the exception, not the norm.Depends on your definition of the "norm" and the "exception". A system can be designed to lead to result "X", while also allowing for the possiblity of "Y" instead. If 87% of all results were "Y", should it not be considered the norm?Yes, it should. And the norm that i see is people considering tiers as part of progression.

Can't find it anymore. It was somewhere shortly after HoT release, during the height of Raid hype (probably in one of the reddit AMAs then, but it's been so long that i can't be 100% certain about it - might have been the previous forums too). And it's not contradictory - quite the opposite, it's a sign that their thoughts are
still
influenced by progression ideas, even if they are designing for a mostly non-progression game. In those years they might have moved with this idea from one of the content types to another, but they still cling to the idea of "stepping stones" and still seem to think that this time it might work better.(or they no longer think so, and it's just a PR speak meant to placate the raiders and give them some hope - that possibility also exists)That is a shame, but I am not saying that I do not believe that they said it, it would simply be nice to have access to the source. There cleary is a contradiction, from the OP: "[...]Raids are a trickier beast. They're a unique experience and community that we want to find better ways to support, the biggest challenge in creating more is the small audience they attract. We gathered data to determine why, and the most common answer was that there is a giant leap in difficulty between raids and other endgame content,
and there isn't anything to help players work their way up.
Our intention was for Strike Missions to be that intermediary step into 10-person content. As we've mentioned before and you've likely noticed, strike missions are getting harder. Once a full suite of strike missions is complete there should be a graceful ramp up to the existing raid content
rather than the imposing leap that previously existed
, and our hope is once that ramp is in place, the number of players participating in raids will go up.[...]"That is not the reason that you state for creating strike missions, if you believe that FotM is the stepping stone content for raids.No, i believe they considered FotM to be a stepping stone to raids shortly after release of first raid wings. That was several years ago, and evidently failed. Problem is, that, from what i see, Anet thinks the failure was from
FotM
being the stepping stone, not from the stepping stone idea itself. So, now they try to replace the stones, without noticing that the idea is a failure, because those that wanted to go up were always able to do so, and those that didn't are those that are simply not interested in what's up there (in terms of difficulty at least).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dungeons, Raids and Strike Missions should've just been merged into Fractals a long time ago because Fractals already prefected everything players need to deal with varying difficulty levels, reward tiers, gear progression, LFG tactics, casual vs elite, etc.

Trying to re-invent the wheel over and over isn't working. You already figured it out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"battledrone.8315" said:you would have a much better car, if you chose anything else. they are expensive to drive, have poor handling and safety,they are slower and practically useless off road. and yes, they are on the way out. fewer of them every year. this is a good thing .First, you might want to check the info. The
growth
of their market share is indeed slowing, but it's still very much positive. And the reason why it is even slowing is a simple case of market saturation - it's not that less people want SUVs. It's that most people that want them already have one.

Second, the qualities you debate (which btw
are
debatable) are irrelevant in this context. Those things don't change the fact that SUVs are what consumers want, and that they sell really well. So it is with "casual raids". Them being worse than higher difficulty raids at being higher difficulty raids would not really matter - what
would
matter would be their popularity. And if you compare that to SUVs... well, those are
very
popular. Even if you personally happen to think they are for some reason worse as cars that some other car types (although i am not sure to what car type are you comparing them to, seeing as you mention both off-road usefulness and speed in the same breath)

some of my family members bought them too, nothing but trouble and disappointment. even from the expensive brands.they would constantly break down or get stuck. they are overpriced toys, nothing more.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Astralporing.1957 said:

This is not how Fractals work.

Unless you choose, yourself or your group of friends, for fractals to work that way. I have one group of guildies and friends that enjoy fractals primarily at low tiers. Group content with a bit more group play to it than the open world. They, we, have fun in tiers where people feel challenged without feeling overwhelmed. It also is great for people who want to play around with alternate builds and characters with which they are less skilled and for which they do not wish to invest in ascended gear. There is no drive, no force pushing people, to higher tiers. Play whatever challenge tier you wish.

The lower difficulty tiers are designed as strictly intermediate, transitional type of content. Something you pass through in your way up to the top. As such, ultimately they appeal practially only to those that are both interested in and capable of going all the way up.

I disagree. Sure it can, and does appeal to people looking for the top tier of challenge but lower tiers are only transitional content if you choose to make them so.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@battledrone.8315 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:you would have a much better car, if you chose anything else. they are expensive to drive, have poor handling and safety,they are slower and practically useless off road. and yes, they are on the way out. fewer of them every year. this is a good thing .First, you might want to check the info. The
growth
of their market share is indeed slowing, but it's still very much positive. And the reason why it is even slowing is a simple case of market saturation - it's not that less people want SUVs. It's that most people that want them already have one.

Second, the qualities you debate (which btw
are
debatable) are irrelevant in this context. Those things don't change the fact that SUVs are what consumers want, and that they sell really well. So it is with "casual raids". Them being worse than higher difficulty raids at being higher difficulty raids would not really matter - what
would
matter would be their popularity. And if you compare that to SUVs... well, those are
very
popular. Even if you personally happen to think they are for some reason worse as cars that some other car types (although i am not sure to what car type are you comparing them to, seeing as you mention both off-road usefulness and speed in the same breath)

some of my family members bought them too, nothing but trouble and disappointment. even from the expensive brands.they would constantly break down or get stuck. they are overpriced toys, nothing more.

Had my Trailblazer for years. Friends asked for help moving, took the kids to Disneyland, moving items from one place of business to another, so many other uses that I would not have been able to manage with a car or pick-up truck, all in comfort. Never had a significant problem with it. Getting stuck? I guess that taking any vehicle where it is either not meant to be, or where the driver lacks the skill to handle it, will get it stuck. I would argue that judging the entire class of vehicle by the issues experienced by a few family members is unwise. It is highly unlikely that they would continue to sell as well as they do if the entire class was garbage.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Ashen.2907 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:you would have a much better car, if you chose anything else. they are expensive to drive, have poor handling and safety,they are slower and practically useless off road. and yes, they are on the way out. fewer of them every year. this is a good thing .First, you might want to check the info. The
growth
of their market share is indeed slowing, but it's still very much positive. And the reason why it is even slowing is a simple case of market saturation - it's not that less people want SUVs. It's that most people that want them already have one.

Second, the qualities you debate (which btw
are
debatable) are irrelevant in this context. Those things don't change the fact that SUVs are what consumers want, and that they sell really well. So it is with "casual raids". Them being worse than higher difficulty raids at being higher difficulty raids would not really matter - what
would
matter would be their popularity. And if you compare that to SUVs... well, those are
very
popular. Even if you personally happen to think they are for some reason worse as cars that some other car types (although i am not sure to what car type are you comparing them to, seeing as you mention both off-road usefulness and speed in the same breath)

some of my family members bought them too, nothing but trouble and disappointment. even from the expensive brands.they would constantly break down or get stuck. they are overpriced toys, nothing more.

Had my Trailblazer for years. Friends asked for help moving, took the kids to Disneyland, moving items from one place of business to another, so many other uses that I would not have been able to manage with a car or pick-up truck, all in comfort. Never had a significant problem with it. Getting stuck? I guess that taking any vehicle where it is either not meant to be, or where the driver lacks the skill to handle it, will get it stuck. I would argue that judging the entire class of vehicle by the issues experienced by a few family members is unwise. It is highly unlikely that they would continue to sell as well as they do if the entire class was garbage.

a really good car will last for decades, not years. and i have actually seen a small citroen pulling a big suv through snow drifts.seeing how well the civil version of the humvee sold, i wouldnt count on the quality asessment of many customers either.yes, driver skill is a factor too, but i have simply seen too many of them getting stuck, where normal cars could get through

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@battledrone.8315 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:you would have a much better car, if you chose anything else. they are expensive to drive, have poor handling and safety,they are slower and practically useless off road. and yes, they are on the way out. fewer of them every year. this is a good thing .First, you might want to check the info. The
growth
of their market share is indeed slowing, but it's still very much positive. And the reason why it is even slowing is a simple case of market saturation - it's not that less people want SUVs. It's that most people that want them already have one.

Second, the qualities you debate (which btw
are
debatable) are irrelevant in this context. Those things don't change the fact that SUVs are what consumers want, and that they sell really well. So it is with "casual raids". Them being worse than higher difficulty raids at being higher difficulty raids would not really matter - what
would
matter would be their popularity. And if you compare that to SUVs... well, those are
very
popular. Even if you personally happen to think they are for some reason worse as cars that some other car types (although i am not sure to what car type are you comparing them to, seeing as you mention both off-road usefulness and speed in the same breath)

some of my family members bought them too, nothing but trouble and disappointment. even from the expensive brands.they would constantly break down or get stuck. they are overpriced toys, nothing more.

Had my Trailblazer for years. Friends asked for help moving, took the kids to Disneyland, moving items from one place of business to another, so many other uses that I would not have been able to manage with a car or pick-up truck, all in comfort. Never had a significant problem with it. Getting stuck? I guess that taking any vehicle where it is either not meant to be, or where the driver lacks the skill to handle it, will get it stuck. I would argue that judging the entire class of vehicle by the issues experienced by a few family members is unwise. It is highly unlikely that they would continue to sell as well as they do if the entire class was garbage.

a really good car will last for decades, not years. and i have actually seen a small citroen pulling a big suv through snow drifts.seeing how well the civil version of the humvee sold, i wouldnt count on the quality asessment of many customers either.yes, driver skill is a factor too, but i have simply seen too many of them getting stuck, where normal cars could get throughNotice, how qualities of different car types (or
perceived
qualities, because the anectodat evidence is not worth much) have absolutely no bearing in this case. We weren't talking about content quality, but about content desirability and popularity. And in this case there's no debate - SUVs are
extremely
popular.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@battledrone.8315 said:you would have a much better car, if you chose anything else. they are expensive to drive, have poor handling and safety,they are slower and practically useless off road. and yes, they are on the way out. fewer of them every year. this is a good thing .First, you might want to check the info. The
growth
of their market share is indeed slowing, but it's still very much positive. And the reason why it is even slowing is a simple case of market saturation - it's not that less people want SUVs. It's that most people that want them already have one.

Second, the qualities you debate (which btw
are
debatable) are irrelevant in this context. Those things don't change the fact that SUVs are what consumers want, and that they sell really well. So it is with "casual raids". Them being worse than higher difficulty raids at being higher difficulty raids would not really matter - what
would
matter would be their popularity. And if you compare that to SUVs... well, those are
very
popular. Even if you personally happen to think they are for some reason worse as cars that some other car types (although i am not sure to what car type are you comparing them to, seeing as you mention both off-road usefulness and speed in the same breath)

some of my family members bought them too, nothing but trouble and disappointment. even from the expensive brands.they would constantly break down or get stuck. they are overpriced toys, nothing more.

Had my Trailblazer for years. Friends asked for help moving, took the kids to Disneyland, moving items from one place of business to another, so many other uses that I would not have been able to manage with a car or pick-up truck, all in comfort. Never had a significant problem with it. Getting stuck? I guess that taking any vehicle where it is either not meant to be, or where the driver lacks the skill to handle it, will get it stuck. I would argue that judging the entire class of vehicle by the issues experienced by a few family members is unwise. It is highly unlikely that they would continue to sell as well as they do if the entire class was garbage.

a really good car will last for decades, not years. and i have actually seen a small citroen pulling a big suv through snow drifts.seeing how well the civil version of the humvee sold, i wouldnt count on the quality asessment of many customers either.yes, driver skill is a factor too, but i have simply seen too many of them getting stuck, where normal cars could get throughNotice, how qualities of different car types (or
perceived
qualities, because the anectodat evidence is not worth much) have absolutely no bearing in this case. We weren't talking about content quality, but about content desirability and popularity. And in this case there's no debate - SUVs are
extremely
popular.

maybe in your country, but certainly not in the rest of the world. in my country its around 1 of 20 cars. im seeing more vintage cars, than suvs here.maybe because of the bad weather we have, lots of rain and a pretty cold winter. we dont have many minis either, for the same reason.they are practically useless, when there is a certain amount of of snow.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"battledrone.8315" said:maybe in your country, but certainly not in the rest of the world. in my country its around 1 of 20 cars. im seeing more vintage cars, than suvs here.maybe because of the bad weather we have, lots of rain and a pretty cold winter. we dont have many minis either, for the same reason.they are practically useless, when there is a certain amount of of snow.Then either your country is some kind of an exception, or you are basing your information on personal observation, and not on statistical data.(in short, SUVs are extremely popular all over the world, and you can easily confirm it - statistical data for it is easily available. Go ahead and look)

And with this i am ending my participation in the "car derail" in this thread.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Katary.7096 said:Yes, of course we are talking about Guild Wars 2. The reason why I brought up video games in general is simply that the idea that people start a new game with the easiest mode and then progress higher until they finished the hardest one is an outlier.In single player games, surely. In MMORPGs however that is a norm - in fact, most MMORPGs are specifically built around the progression mechanics, where you start with easier content, get geared up there, use the gear to attack higher content, to get new gear tier, and so on, and so on until the top. Progression through tiers is the assumed norm, not the exception here.

I am very happy that GW2 did not follow the norm with this and intentionally did not implement that kind of gear-treadmill.That was one of the reasons I switched to GW2 from other MMORPGs years ago.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@"Astralporing.1957" said:In single player games, surely. In MMORPGs however that is a norm - in fact, most MMORPGs are specifically built around the progression mechanics, where you start with easier content, get geared up there, use the gear to attack higher content, to get new gear tier, and so on, and so on until the top. Progression through tiers is the assumed norm, not the exception here.Hold on for a moment, it was you who said that you are not talking about other games, you are talking about this one. Guild Wars 2 does not feature the level and gear progression systems that are commonly found in other MMORPGs.

Because GW2 is not a single player game, but MMORPG, and in MMORPGs the default approach to tiers is markedly different. Even if it doesn't work all that well for GW2 specifically (due to not having gear progression).Given the direction which the ongoing development of the game took, I would argue that it is fair to describe gw2 as a single player MMORPG.

That another poster usually is either me, or one of the raiders saying that easy mode is not needed at all, because raids do not need "easy". The progression through tiers (and the assumption that, as thus, easy tier should have no rewards) however is a very common proposition coming from many sources. And all that comes exactly from thinking in terms of progression, not in terms of expanding the overall raid population.I can think of another explanation why people would want to see easy difficulties to come without rewards.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Katary.7096 said:

@"Astralporing.1957" said:In single player games, surely. In MMORPGs however that is a norm - in fact, most MMORPGs are specifically built around the progression mechanics, where you start with easier content, get geared up there, use the gear to attack higher content, to get new gear tier, and so on, and so on until the top. Progression through tiers is the assumed norm, not the exception here.Hold on for a moment, it was you who said that you are not talking about other games, you are talking about this one. Guild Wars 2 does not feature the level and gear progression systems that are commonly found in other MMORPGs.Sure. But it features
players
that are used to expectations they carried over from other MMORPGs.In general, players do not carry over gameplay expectations between different types of games, but they
do
tend to carry them over from one game to another within the same category. This is such a case.

That another poster usually is either me, or one of the raiders saying that easy mode is not needed at all, because raids do not need "easy". The progression through tiers (and the assumption that, as thus, easy tier should have no rewards) however is a very common proposition coming from many sources. And all that comes exactly from thinking in terms of progression, not in terms of expanding the overall raid population.I can think of another explanation why people would want to see easy difficulties to come without rewards.Well, yeah, some suggest that, because they do
not
want easy mode to succeed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

@"Zok.4956" said:

I am very happy that GW2 did not follow the norm with this and intentionally did not implement that kind of gear-treadmill.That was one of the reasons I switched to GW2 from other MMORPGs years ago.

And that's why I'm most worried about by the recently added treadmills.

Originally, masteries were intended to provide new mechanics similar to Metroidvania games (like gliding, mushrooms, thermal tubes, mounts, etc.)I'm still excited to see maps like Dragonfall reuse old mechanics like mushrooms or thermal tubes.

Bjora, however, introduced 4 different mastery lines seemingly just for the sake of adding new masteries to grind.1 mastery line is solely applicable to Bjora and the other 3 are just copy-paste duplicates of each other.

Drizzlewood thankfully brought a great new game-changing mastery line, but DRMs brought back the "essence" mastery in a new line (which, yes, might have more functionality as you continue to grind).

Next is Fractals, the primary end-game party content in GW2.AR seemed like a sufficient treadmill mechanic for anyone that wanted a treadmill, but ANet has kept adding new treadmills:

  • Mastery line
  • expensive endless Fractal potions
  • expensive Account Augmentations

Other MMOs that have gear treadmills periodically work their early treadmills to help new players catch up.Each expansion typically gives quest gear that will quickly get you back to the entry gear levels to start grinding up that treadmill again...GW2, however, hasn't yet re-evaluated its many treadmills.

A new player is going to need to get to level 80 (or pay for a booster), then grind gliding and mounts, then map-specific masteries, and a long uphill grind for Fractals (which is probably difficult to do just starting out from scratch).

Strikes as a "preparation for raids" didn't require a mastery grind, but still seem to be abandoned.DRMs which did add new mastery grind were abandoned within the first week, before we even got to the final tier of rewards

The focus should be on aggregating content (which it seems like ANet is trying to use EotN for) and streamlining it.

I've heard from a friend who bought GW2 that they received the level 80 booster, but still lost interest due to the grind required to catch up to everyone else.

One quick fix might just be to mark anything from Core to PoF as the new "Core" (with a shared pool of Mastery points) with the latest Mastery set (currently Icebrood) staying separate. That way you could work on leveling mounts or gliding in any map.

The long-term solution would require re-evaluating the actual grind required for each thing and possibly simplifying the lines altogether.

Same thing for WvW. A newbie is likely going to be scared off by the sheer amount of grind to level all their skills (regardless of whether or not you'll actually need all of the upgrades).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Minos.5168 said:

@"Zok.4956" said:

I am very happy that GW2 did not follow the norm with this and intentionally did not implement that kind of gear-treadmill.That was one of the reasons I switched to GW2 from other MMORPGs years ago.

And that's why I'm most worried about by the recently added treadmills.

Originally, masteries were intended to provide new mechanics similar to Metroidvania games (like gliding, mushrooms, thermal tubes, mounts, etc.)I'm still excited to see maps like Dragonfall reuse old mechanics like mushrooms or thermal tubes.

Bjora, however, introduced 4 different mastery lines seemingly just for the sake of adding new masteries to grind.1 mastery line is solely applicable to Bjora and the other 3 are just copy-paste duplicates of each other.

Drizzlewood thankfully brought a great new game-changing mastery line, but DRMs brought back the "essence" mastery in a new line (which, yes, might have more functionality as you continue to grind).

Yes, the masteries were based on the Metroidvania idea. When masteries were introduced with HoT, the basic idea still was that the HoT masteries only work in HoT maps. And the masteries of the next expac only work (and help) in maps of the next expac. etc. etc.

But the huge success of gliding resulted in a lot of players that requested gliding also in other maps (core maps). Anet even added gliding to WvW. And that was some kind of violation of the Metroidvania-idea. Because with this, masteries became globally useful and were not tied anymore only to their own content/maps.

This continued with PoF and mounts and the usefulness of mounts in all maps made it much worse.

A new player is going to need to get to level 80 (or pay for a booster), then grind gliding and mounts, then map-specific masteries

Because gliding and mounts are so useful in all maps, a new player that wants to play with his friends (that already have this masteries/mounts) does have to grind a lot. Example: It is nearly impossible for a new player (without HoT/PoF masteries) to stay on commander-tag during the full Drizzlewood-map-meta.

This is a bad consequence of the violation of the Metroidvania idea and because of this violation the useful masteries are global in the game and therefore became a kind of vertical progression also (they were intended as a way of horizontal progression).

and a long uphill grind for Fractals (which is probably difficult to do just starting out from scratch).

There is no uphill grind in fractals. A player that likes playing fractals starts in lower levels and gets AR infusions during playing. And the more experienced a player becomes the more infusions he collected and the higher level fractals he can play. And infusions can be bought if a players wants to jump into higher level fractals faster.

One quick fix might just be to mark anything from Core to PoF as the new "Core" (with a shared pool of Mastery points) with the latest Mastery set (currently Icebrood) staying separate. That way you could work on leveling mounts or gliding in any map.

That would not shorten the grind for all important masteries in total.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...