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For all their bad i think drms as a concept have a place in GW2.


zealex.9410

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Drms have been an interesting point of discussion so far because to me they feel like a very solid attempt at bridging traditional instanced content and lw story, no, not the strike to raid sort of way but more fundementally of lw content and group content in general.

They feel very much like campaign missions from the original Guildwars in the sense that they are replayable and work well as group content due to cms and scaling.

Even if after EoD the contextual aspect of Drms has no place (no more dragons, no more dragon responce missions) in guild wars 2, i think the gameplay aspects still hold good value to this game. Gw2 imo stands to gain alot more enjoyment and replayability by incorporating the format of drms into the lw instances, story beats and even expansions moving forward. Structured, solo or group based instances with better made encounters than you will find in older lw or ow scenarios that can also be replayed for rewards and come with a cm. In theory and even in practice i think this works rather well as a way to make gw2 feel more replayable and social.

Ofc, the lw releases under the champions name have all been rather underwhelming, that is to say, just giving us instances which are also replayable and nothing else doesnt really excite the players. Thankfully i dont believe thats an issue with drms themselves but rather to the unfortunate cicumsrances of getting the opportunity to work on an expac mid lw.

Drms reuse the lw instances so they should be far easier to make along side the content we've come to expect from lw (new maps, map events, achievements, strikes etc). With this i really urge the studio to take a good look at drms and try to fit them in lw or expansions after eod when the dust has settled and the studio has a clearer view of the future.

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I really don't think they'll be around beyond this saga and were kind of implemented as a bandaid fix for moving the living world team over to the expansion.

I haven't played them all more than once but the latest did feel a bit better even if they were just 30 minutes of mindlessly killing mobs and the champs took forever.

I do like the token system but we kind of had similar with Strike Missions and the rewards kind of stayed the same. I could see these as a more.. current events thing that could be rolled out in smaller scale between episode releases in a living season though moving forward and working well. Say, Epiosode dragon respone mision Episode if they needed to make the time between larger episodes a little larger.

But I really don't see them sticking around because nothing ever does. We've had bounties, strikes, visions of the past, drm's.. and it feels like they just keep moving through various types of instanced content.

I'm not really sure what the point of the allied faction stuff is though. It feels a bit fluff for the length of the instances. I suppose it's to introduce the new rewards and add new currencies? Might just be for story building and reflecting the joining of all of these factions to fight common enemies.

My main disappointment with it is that it just doesn't let us get deeper into the story than a few lines of dialogue. But that's kind of the entirety of Icebrood and my, perhaps, unrealistic expectation of where the story was going to go versus where it actually went.

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They remind me of GW1's missions. I actually preferred that way of story telling, maybe a quest to link missions, a small cut scene here and there , but you played through the story without 10minutes of yabba yabba.I would welcome the return of how Gw1 did the story in the next expansion, however i am finding them at the moment a bit 'samey' and one and done.

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I really think they are a great concept. This newer set of DRMs is much better than the previous ones, I think they should keep the idea of them and keep making them after the saga is over too. Imagine we got one or two DRMs inbetween waiting for a full episode. Would be cool, they can also work with what is already there, so they won't have to make new maps just for them

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While I don't like the DRMs, I do think this is the kind of new content that GW2 has been needing for years. I thought this back when this kind of stuff was called ... you know ... DUNGEONS.

I mean, the only reason they're not being called that is because they're out in the open world for location. Imagine them putting a DRM into the old Citadel of Flame map. Bang, it's a new dungeon path.

With that said, they've improved some over the old dungeon path idea. No need to make four versions of it to make it harder to turn out new ones, and made to be (in theory) soloed if you want.

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DRM's as a concept are fine. As a replacement for a full episode they aren't strong enough or deep enough. Plus they are causing the story to be rushed through in an almost tickbox excerise of things to get through.

They need to compliment proper episodes or be like Visions as a single filler episode.

I'm ambivalent about them being used to revamp earlier content.

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@zealex.9410 said:Drms have been an interesting point of discussion so far because to me they feel like a very solid attempt at bridging traditional instanced content and lw story, no, not the strike to raid sort of way but more fundementally of lw content and group content in general.I would be really surprised if we dont see all the story of End of Dragons told in this format.A few token rewards, and now story missions that only got played once or twice are no longer the biggest waste of the company's development efforts but become something we can redo like fractals.It makes good sense and I am all for it.I don't however see Anet going back and retooling older content. That kind of action is not something they have a history of doing.

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@Palador.2170 said:While I don't like the DRMs, I do think this is the kind of new content that GW2 has been needing for years. I thought this back when this kind of stuff was called ... you know ... DUNGEONS.

I mean, the only reason they're not being called that is because they're out in the open world for location. Imagine them putting a DRM into the old Citadel of Flame map. Bang, it's a new dungeon path.

With that said, they've improved some over the old dungeon path idea. No need to make four versions of it to make it harder to turn out new ones, and made to be (in theory) soloed if you want.

You do know we will get one in that map going forward right?

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@mindcircus.1506 said:

@zealex.9410 said:Drms have been an interesting point of discussion so far because to me they feel like a very solid attempt at bridging traditional instanced content and lw story, no, not the strike to raid sort of way but more fundementally of lw content and group content in general.I would be really surprised if we dont see all the story of End of Dragons told in this format.A few token rewards, and now story missions that only got played once or twice are no longer the biggest waste of the company's development efforts but become something we can redo like fractals.It makes good sense and I am all for it.I don't however see Anet going back and retooling older content. That kind of action is not something they have a history of doing.

The old content ship has sailed but i dont see why they cant make new lw episodes have this aproach to replayable story.

Im not advocating to take away the variety of lw stories and mission formats, but they can look at the combat instances in future lw episodes and design them to be similat to drms and afterwards replayable.

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@Bristingr.5034 said:Eh, I still prefer big map events (LS1 anyone?) over these. Seriously, blow up DR or something!

Yeah obviously, but im saying we could get it both, drms are glorified story isntances that are replayable and i reckon they are easy to make. Have the traditional lw episode with all its goodies (map, events, story) and use the story missions to make drm esque content out of them for added replayability.

Taie maybe the big bosses of lw and make a strike out of those too, bam so much added value to lw.

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I agree, DRMs are a really great concept. I was very happy when I read that instead of a strike mission there will be new repeatable instanced content that can be soloed. So yes, please, Anet, make more DRMs. In IBS, EoD and beyond. Well, possibly under a new name, for missions not about immediate dragon minion attacks, but with the same tech and concept. And before someone jumps on me: CAN be soloed does not mean must be soloed. Existing groups, e.g. guilds or fractal statics, can do them together. And with the optional CMs you can even tune the difficulty level a bit to your liking.

On paper strike missions sound nice too. But just look at one of the existing threads about strikes, LFG and LI requirements. No need to reiterate all that here, but I, personally, think they have failed their goal and are not content I can enjoy or even participate in on a regular basis. And I know I am not alone. For DRMs I don't need to deal with that.

I still think some story steps belong into classic, old-style story instances. But for story steps where it fits DRMs are great. Unlike story instances they are easily accessible without restarting the episode and they give some reward for replaying them.

Could the reward be better? Sure. Is the reward terrible? I don't think so. In addition to the episode currency and prismaticite I get the drops from the mobs and the end chest. Probably not as much as I could get from farming e.g. RIBA, but also less boring that c

I think some of the existing DRMs need to be tuned a bit better and some fixes here and there. But this is independent of DRMs as a concept.

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Players have asked to revisit core maps, while observing that irrevocably changing them in open world is perhaps not a great idea. Adding sequential story events that oddly occur simultaneously in open world is also not ideal. Instanced content that revisits core maps is a workable solution. There are numerous issues in the execution, but I think it was an attempt to give us something we've been asking for in terms of content delivery.

It's not enough to carry the story on its own, though. We all know why it was handled this way. It's still a disappointing end to a story that started off strong with the prologue/Grothmar episode.

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@Linken.6345 said:

@Palador.2170 said:While I don't like the DRMs, I do think this is the kind of new content that GW2 has been needing for years. I thought this back when this kind of stuff was called ... you know ... DUNGEONS.

I mean, the only reason they're not being called that is because they're out in the open world for location. Imagine them putting a DRM into the old Citadel of Flame map. Bang, it's a new dungeon path.

With that said, they've improved some over the old dungeon path idea. No need to make four versions of it to make it harder to turn out new ones, and made to be (in theory) soloed if you want.

You do know we will get one in that map going forward right?

No, I did not. But I'd say that just adds to my point.

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@Killerassel.2197 said:I agree, DRMs are a really great concept. I was very happy when I read that instead of a strike mission there will be new repeatable instanced content that can be soloed. So yes, please, Anet, make more DRMs. In IBS, EoD and beyond. Well, possibly under a new name, for missions not about immediate dragon minion attacks, but with the same tech and concept. And before someone jumps on me: CAN be soloed does not mean must be soloed. Existing groups, e.g. guilds or fractal statics, can do them together. And with the optional CMs you can even tune the difficulty level a bit to your liking.

On paper strike missions sound nice too. But just look at one of the existing threads about strikes, LFG and LI requirements. No need to reiterate all that here, but I, personally, think they have failed their goal and are not content I can enjoy or even participate in on a regular basis. And I know I am not alone. For DRMs I don't need to deal with that.

I still think some story steps belong into classic, old-style story instances. But for story steps where it fits DRMs are great. Unlike story instances they are easily accessible without restarting the episode and they give some reward for replaying them.

Could the reward be better? Sure. Is the reward terrible? I don't think so. In addition to the episode currency and prismaticite I get the drops from the mobs and the end chest. Probably not as much as I could get from farming e.g. RIBA, but also less boring that c

I think some of the existing DRMs need to be tuned a bit better and some fixes here and there. But this is independent of DRMs as a concept.

My idea is that they could have regular lw instances that take advantage of this system. For example think of story missions that feature heavy combat and maybe a boss that are also replayable with rewards and scale from solo to 5.

That being said i think strikes are also an awesome feature and that they should reuse huge story bosses as strikes. Moving forward id say every lw big endboss or exoac endboss should also come as a strike boss.

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@AliamRationem.5172 said:Players have asked to revisit core maps, while observing that irrevocably changing them in open world is perhaps not a great idea. Adding sequential story events that oddly occur simultaneously in open world is also not ideal. Instanced content that revisits core maps is a workable solution. There are numerous issues in the execution, but I think it was an attempt to give us something we've been asking for in terms of content delivery.

It's not enough to carry the story on its own, though. We all know why it was handled this way. It's still a disappointing end to a story that started off strong with the prologue/Grothmar episode.

Yeah, i just think that the champions releases are bad despite drms not because of them. Amet has a cool little piece of content here and they shouldnt just abbandon it in eod or se6.

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Drms i think solve a problem that anet has had for a long time, that they spend a disproportionate amount of resources on content that the community would as a whole only do once or twice, the living story story instances. They kinda justifies their existence because they have gotten the playerbase to play them alot more than most story instances because of dragon slayer weapons. I think most were expecting a new map, which people have programmed to come with living story updates since ls2.

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@Killerassel.2197 said:I agree, DRMs are a really great concept. I was very happy when I read that instead of a strike mission there will be new repeatable instanced content that can be soloed. So yes, please, Anet, make more DRMs. In IBS, EoD and beyond. Well, possibly under a new name, for missions not about immediate dragon minion attacks, but with the same tech and concept. And before someone jumps on me: CAN be soloed does not mean must be soloed. Existing groups, e.g. guilds or fractal statics, can do them together. And with the optional CMs you can even tune the difficulty level a bit to your liking.

On paper strike missions sound nice too. But just look at one of the existing threads about strikes, LFG and LI requirements. No need to reiterate all that here, but I, personally, think they have failed their goal and are not content I can enjoy or even participate in on a regular basis. And I know I am not alone. For DRMs I don't need to deal with that.

I still think some story steps belong into classic, old-style story instances. But for story steps where it fits DRMs are great. Unlike story instances they are easily accessible without restarting the episode and they give some reward for replaying them.

Could the reward be better? Sure. Is the reward terrible? I don't think so. In addition to the episode currency and prismaticite I get the drops from the mobs and the end chest. Probably not as much as I could get from farming e.g. RIBA, but also less boring that c

I think some of the existing DRMs need to be tuned a bit better and some fixes here and there. But this is independent of DRMs as a concept.

I like that about DRMs as well.

Suppose after EoD and we are into LW season 5/Saga 2. DRMs could just become Response Missions and works as sort of mini story instances with repeatable content between LW/Saga episodes to keep the game moving and perhaps give the writers a littler more wiggle room.

Just a quick mini episode that is repeatable, offers some sort of reward. Can be done in groups or solo and have a Challenge Mode if people want that.

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@rrusse.7058 said:Suppose after EoD and we are into LW season 5/Saga 2.I certainly hope the next season will be called Season 6.After all, Season 5 already is the Grindflood Saga.

DRMs could just become Response Missions and works as sort of mini story instances with repeatable content between LW/Saga episodes to keep the game moving and perhaps give the writers a littler more wiggle room.If they put more of them into the game, I hope, it's going to be side content and not story missions.

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@Fueki.4753 said:I certainly hope the next season will be called Season 6.After all, Season 5 already is the Grindflood Saga.

The name is irrelevant to the overall quality of the content in my opinion. The naming becomes very important when we consider the perspective of a new player however. If we see something like 'Season 6', that means there are 5 previous seasons I have missed and I dunno if I want to jump in as a new player since there is so much I missed.

However if it is called something like 'Jade Sea Saga', then I don't have to feel bad about missing the previus content and I can focus on the what is coming to the game currently.

I see your point though. I would like to see whatever comes after EoD to at least be the quality and cadence of Season 4. Arenanet really knocked it out of the pack back then.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Strikes and DRMs are a fine concept of reusing story encounters as repayable content, witch is really lacking in the game for some reason. They really need to focus on how to bring content to the game in a way that is not one and done like the old story progression. Having the normal story and then encounter shared between solo story mode, raids, dungeons, strikes,fractals, drms or whatever will be a fine way to save dev time. I still don't understand why they separated everything in its own little universe instead of delivering packed experience for everyone instead of people getting group content once in 2 years.

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