What I Personally Think GW3 should look like

[AusarViled.7106]

Hello everyone. With many players discussing EOD and the future of the game, I want to take the difficult road- and assume GW3 is in the works- even if unlikely or your in disagreement- let us assume the assumption is correct for the purpose of discussion. I shall begin this by explaining what GW3 should be, by looking at what we do not need.

 

GW3 not a Theme- Park MMO

 starting controversial immediately.  We do not need another theme park MMO, if we looking for that we got FF14, or ESO, Likewise. Theme park mmos are content mills, once you done it, you got nothing to do. This is the WoW problem, it leads to time gating and anti consumer practices. 
 

GW3 as Sand Box MMO

- sand box MMOs like BDO change this, instead of let’s go do X, but because I am a part of the community. The shift goes from content consumer, to interaction consumer.  In BDO if your a notorious player killer, you are known, you give players ptsd. If your a fisher, you are known. Aka everyone has a role, and in MMOs the selling point is PLAYER INTERACTION.    

 

The developers become creators of TOOLs, not content. This is much more feasible, almost 80-90% of development time is going to making large world interact-able events - maybe even bosses controlled by game masters, who run around and cause havoc.   Ideally PvE players exist to provide PvPers gear and supplies, while PvE players get respect and fame for their craft. 
 

…. I am fairly sure many would agree, the above is better then scenerio 1

 

GW3 as a Expansion Game

 

Expansions are a horrible idea, they splinter the community into those with content versus those who do not. Just look at ESO, on black wood launch, i farmed purple rings, and I sold each for 1.5M gold because many players can it afford expansions.  I was able to buy 10 years worth of content for 20 hours of grinding by converting gold to crowns, this is extremely unhealthy and is good case study for why this model is a failure.

 

Instead we should be doing. A soft subscription model.  I say soft, because we are not talking 300+ $ per year for membership like WoW, or the 200?$ a year that Ff14 or ESO cost. I proposing a MMO cost of 10 usd a month- why? There is an expression known by psychologists as the child 10.  It is the idea that parents are fine with giving their kids a 10$ allowance a week. 
 

Problem with psychology is that people are not going to spend money if it feels like their capping their spending limit. A 15% is lot of a spending limit, which results in psychological barrier to spending. But if you make membership 10$, and provide 1 skin of value for 10 you will now be extracting 15-20% more money from each individual person, this is also true for adults.  For those who doubt this, why do you think mobile games are so effective at extracting money? Small purchases do not feel large, so you buy significantly more, some times 3-4X more then you would normally. This model is more fair, gets more players to play the game- good for us- and good for ArenaNet.

 

GW3 vertical or horizontal progression are BOTH bad 

 

I want a system that does both, but put emphasis on a war frame style system. Vertical progression works in tiers, 1-8: opening up slots on your gear that allow you to create crazy builds, THINK POE.  Within the rating, you have an internal rarity  of 1-4 which determines how far those slots scale.  You could acquire them through any means like in GW2 exotics, or make your own through the legendary system. 

 

Application to AI and PVE

 

Instead we should be aiming for a skill based, I am not talking going to the levels of For Honour or Chiv 2, but I want enemies who can feel threatening. How would you do this? Have meta players of GW3 do pvp against each other, have the AI do deep learning on how these players play various builds, and assign each AI a aggressive —> passive rating. 
 

Rank 0- fodder enemies, just die in 1 hit. Either fully ag, or def. can not stitch patterns learned from players. 
Rank 1- skill level of a new player, clumsy, big visual tells on attacks, abilities used are mostly weak and pattens predictable 

Rank 2- skill level of a casual- can kill you if your asleep, have 3-4 stitched AI patterns, have uncommon gear 

Rank 3- skill level of a unranked pvp player:  aka decent, responsive, decent gear, no predictable patterns, highly telegraphed skills

Rank 4-  skill level of a bronze pvp player: dangerous, unpredictable, 6-7 AI stitches, end game gear 

Rank 5 ; skill level of silver:  AI is predicting player, highly responsive, plays professionally and will beat player 6/10 times. 
Rank 6: skill level of gold: aka a top 10 player, capable of destroying 999/1000 player encounters. 
Elites: basically a variant of 1-6: but have special tricks to them.

 

World Guards: mostly ranked 3, a few guards roam around with rank 4. An elite captain in each capital with rank 5.  Killing the guards should be possible, and allow players to cause mayhem for a while. Eventually a rank 6 elite squad will spawn and decimate players. 

PvP:

 

Would work like pvp does in ESO, you create an areas in the map of GW3 which are contested weekly and massive castles monthly. Like New World there are 6 keeps, the controlling Guild determines what time war occurs. The key difference is that everyone in the faction can participate in a siege. Imagine how cool it would be if all humans went to war with all the sylvari? That is exactly how it would work. 
 

The pvp would be broken into the factions, any race can join any faction, but it is up to the ruling guild to rule who they let in to smaller sieges, but every month, the big sieges would occur where as said above all could join and fight.  Winning faction gives all players in it bonuses for PVE. All factions MUST BE LOCKED TO BE SAME SIZE. 
 

TLDR:

thanks for reading my long post, let me know if you agree or disagree? If so why or how would you improve, thanks 

 

 

[DarcShriek.5829]

I have 9 years invested in my Characters.  I don't intend to leave for a new version.

[captrowdy.9561]

Don’t think gw3 is likely. I think they are kinda broke

[jokke.6239]

I've never liked when franchises completely change direction from what they used to be about.

Yes I realize GW1-GW2 did exactly that.

But as a GW2 player only I would really dislike the sequel turning into a sandbox game, as a theme park MMO player.

[Ultramex.1506]

What make you think Gw3 is happening?

[Serephen.3420]

No GW3 coming

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Didn't sound like this GW3 would be any fun.  I'm sticking to Guild Wars 2.  Thanks, anyway. 

[mercury ranique.2170]

GW2 exists with a reason. This is that the devs could not do with GW1 what they wanted to do. With GW2 they thought it through a lot more and better and it has a very bright future. No need to fix that what is not broken.

[Astralporing.1957]

Let me put it that way: the changes you propose are, in my opinion, for the most part changes for the worse.

1. Sandbox game - those are generally primarily PvP ones. You even said it yourself when you mentioned that in your vision PvE players would exist in order to serve PvP ones (i.e. by crafting gear for them). That's an immediate disqualifier for me. I don't like PvP, and don't want to play any game that revolves around it.

2. "soft" subsciption  - Notice - i have personally no qualms about playing a subscription-based game (i certainly do play FF XIV in addition to GW2). That saying, the level of subscription you brought up (and no expansions) strongly suggests the gemshop would fully remain as it is (and would still be a primary income generator). In which case, no, thanks. You'd be getting the worst of both systems. Not to mention a subscription is an anthithesis of the "jump in, jump out whenever you want" approach GW2 currently promotes. You'd immediately lose majority of current players, with no guarantee of replacing them with new ones.

3. different "gear progression" system - frankly, i don't see how it would improve things in any way. Perhaps i'm missing something due to how shallowly you described it.

4. GW2 already having massively skill-based combat system (to a much larger degree than all of the MMORPG games i know of) is a large part of its issues actually. It is one of the two reasons (with the other being multitude of options you get within gearing and build system) behind the massive gaps within player population. If we're to change anything at all, we should be aiming at decreasing those gaps, not increasing them even more.

5. PvP - frankly, the only thing i care about it is for PvP to not interact with my PvE in any way. What you describe does not seem to be like that.

In short, you seem to want to change a game that currently is primarily for laid-back PvE casuals into one aimed at a very niche, hardcore and primarily PvP population. Good luck with that, but i do not think your suggestions are going to be all that popular with the majority of the current playerbase. Because the game you envision is not meant for the players of this game.

Edited January 13, 2022 by Astralporing.1957

[Verdelet.3812]

4 hours ago, AusarViled.7106 said:

Instead we should be doing. A soft subscription model.  I say soft, because we are not talking 300+ $ per year for membership like WoW, or the 200?$ a year that Ff14 or ESO cost. I proposing a MMO cost of 10 usd a month- why? There is an expression known by psychologists as the child 10.  It is the idea that parents are fine with giving their kids a 10$ allowance a week.

Just to echo what Astralporing mentioned about this part - ESO's sub is affordable for me but I sometimes go months at a time or more without playing for various reasons, which is why I cancelled my sub for it. When in the past I could hop on to relax again, the thought of renewing the sub (I don't like the restrictions without it) presented a barrier so I never went back; the lack of a sub is actually why I'm playing GW2 again and why I picked up the game in the first place, for its b2p model.

[Rasimir.6239]

5 hours ago, AusarViled.7106 said:

what GW3 should be

Why do you think this would be a good fit for a Guild Wars franchise game? It sounds like you really want to turn every design decision of both GW games upside down. Wouldn't it be a much better idea to build the game you envision free from any ties to existing games, especially ones so radically different?

[Vayne.8563]

1. It's highly unlikely there will ever be a Guild Wars 3.

 

2. If there is a Guild Wars 3 it's highly unlikely that it would be anything like you suggestion.

 

3. If there is a Guild Wars 3, and it is like you suggest, I won't be playing it so there's not much purpose to discuss it.

 

4. You don't completely change a popular game to make it like other games, because it loses what's special about it. Many of us are here because we don't WANT vertical progression. What makes you think changing it will keep the players that now play?  Sounds like you would prefer another game.  Go play one. There are plenty of games that offer stuff that you like. Let's leave the one game that doesn't for the rest of us.

Edit: Typo wrong word

Edited January 18, 2022 by Vayne.8563

[Danikat.8537]

A sandbox MMO with a subscription is a game I will never play.

I like the idea of a sandbox MMO but I don't have time for it. That's part of why I stopped playing Ultima Online in about 2000 - school was getting busier and I didn't have the time or inclination to commit to being online for hours at the same time every day (or even every weekend) so I couldn't get to the point where I was really part of a community. I was just wandering around on my own and occasionally chatting to people I happened to bump into and then would never see again. It was boring and frustrating to know I would never really get anywhere with it because I couldn't commit to it being the one thing I did with my free time. I've since finished school and university and gone through a few jobs and the one thing which hasn't changed is I still don't have the time or inclination to commit to a game in that way.

I have a similar problem with a subscription. I never know in advance how much time I'll have for a particular game over the next 30 days so I could easily end up wasting money on a subscription I barely or never use. Yes I know it's 'only' as much as an overpriced coffee but I'd rather not waste any amount of money on something I'm not using.

Add in vertical progression and open-world PvP and you've got an almost perfect mix for a game I would never want to play and which IMO sounds absolutely nothing to do with the Guild Wars franchise.

Fortunately, as everyone else has said, there's absolutely no reason to think there will ever be a GW3, but if there is I think it's extremely unlikely it will be anything like the game you described because that's not what Guild Wars has ever been about.

[The Greyhawk.9107]

8 hours ago, AusarViled.7106 said:

Hello everyone. With many players discussing EOD and the future of the game, I want to take the difficult road- and assume GW3 is in the works- even if unlikely or your in disagreement- let us assume the assumption is correct for the purpose of discussion. I shall begin this by explaining what GW3 should be, by looking at what we do not need.

 

GW3 not a Theme- Park MMO

 starting controversial immediately.  We do not need another theme park MMO, if we looking for that we got FF14, or ESO, Likewise. Theme park mmos are content mills, once you done it, you got nothing to do. This is the WoW problem, it leads to time gating and anti consumer practices. 
 

GW3 as Sand Box MMO

- sand box MMOs like BDO change this, instead of let’s go do X, but because I am a part of the community. The shift goes from content consumer, to interaction consumer.  In BDO if your a notorious player killer, you are known, you give players ptsd. If your a fisher, you are known. Aka everyone has a role, and in MMOs the selling point is PLAYER INTERACTION.    

 

The developers become creators of TOOLs, not content. This is much more feasible, almost 80-90% of development time is going to making large world interact-able events - maybe even bosses controlled by game masters, who run around and cause havoc.   Ideally PvE players exist to provide PvPers gear and supplies, while PvE players get respect and fame for their craft. 
 

…. I am fairly sure many would agree, the above is better then scenerio 1

 

GW3 as a Expansion Game

 

Expansions are a horrible idea, they splinter the community into those with content versus those who do not. Just look at ESO, on black wood launch, i farmed purple rings, and I sold each for 1.5M gold because many players can it afford expansions.  I was able to buy 10 years worth of content for 20 hours of grinding by converting gold to crowns, this is extremely unhealthy and is good case study for why this model is a failure.

 

Instead we should be doing. A soft subscription model.  I say soft, because we are not talking 300+ $ per year for membership like WoW, or the 200?$ a year that Ff14 or ESO cost. I proposing a MMO cost of 10 usd a month- why? There is an expression known by psychologists as the child 10.  It is the idea that parents are fine with giving their kids a 10$ allowance a week. 
 

Problem with psychology is that people are not going to spend money if it feels like their capping their spending limit. A 15% is lot of a spending limit, which results in psychological barrier to spending. But if you make membership 10$, and provide 1 skin of value for 10 you will now be extracting 15-20% more money from each individual person, this is also true for adults.  For those who doubt this, why do you think mobile games are so effective at extracting money? Small purchases do not feel large, so you buy significantly more, some times 3-4X more then you would normally. This model is more fair, gets more players to play the game- good for us- and good for ArenaNet.

 

GW3 vertical or horizontal progression are BOTH bad 

 

I want a system that does both, but put emphasis on a war frame style system. Vertical progression works in tiers, 1-8: opening up slots on your gear that allow you to create crazy builds, THINK POE.  Within the rating, you have an internal rarity  of 1-4 which determines how far those slots scale.  You could acquire them through any means like in GW2 exotics, or make your own through the legendary system. 

 

Application to AI and PVE

 

Instead we should be aiming for a skill based, I am not talking going to the levels of For Honour or Chiv 2, but I want enemies who can feel threatening. How would you do this? Have meta players of GW3 do pvp against each other, have the AI do deep learning on how these players play various builds, and assign each AI a aggressive —> passive rating. 
 

Rank 0- fodder enemies, just die in 1 hit. Either fully ag, or def. can not stitch patterns learned from players. 
Rank 1- skill level of a new player, clumsy, big visual tells on attacks, abilities used are mostly weak and pattens predictable 

Rank 2- skill level of a casual- can kill you if your asleep, have 3-4 stitched AI patterns, have uncommon gear 

Rank 3- skill level of a unranked pvp player:  aka decent, responsive, decent gear, no predictable patterns, highly telegraphed skills

Rank 4-  skill level of a bronze pvp player: dangerous, unpredictable, 6-7 AI stitches, end game gear 

Rank 5 ; skill level of silver:  AI is predicting player, highly responsive, plays professionally and will beat player 6/10 times. 
Rank 6: skill level of gold: aka a top 10 player, capable of destroying 999/1000 player encounters. 
Elites: basically a variant of 1-6: but have special tricks to them.

 

World Guards: mostly ranked 3, a few guards roam around with rank 4. An elite captain in each capital with rank 5.  Killing the guards should be possible, and allow players to cause mayhem for a while. Eventually a rank 6 elite squad will spawn and decimate players. 

PvP:

 

Would work like pvp does in ESO, you create an areas in the map of GW3 which are contested weekly and massive castles monthly. Like New World there are 6 keeps, the controlling Guild determines what time war occurs. The key difference is that everyone in the faction can participate in a siege. Imagine how cool it would be if all humans went to war with all the sylvari? That is exactly how it would work. 
 

The pvp would be broken into the factions, any race can join any faction, but it is up to the ruling guild to rule who they let in to smaller sieges, but every month, the big sieges would occur where as said above all could join and fight.  Winning faction gives all players in it bonuses for PVE. All factions MUST BE LOCKED TO BE SAME SIZE. 
 

TLDR:

thanks for reading my long post, let me know if you agree or disagree? If so why or how would you improve, thanks 

 

 

For the sake of discussion I'm going to overlook the current extreme unlikelihood of there ever being a GW3......

Hard, HARD, HARD no on any kind of subscription or premium membership.  I don't support that sort of thing and I never will.  The lack of a sub is why I got into GW1 and its lack in GW2 has helped keep me in this game for nine and a half years.  Anet would destroy themselves and any chance of a GW3 being successful if they changed their business model like this after decades of promising to never charge a subscription fee.

Not crazy about Sandbox over Themepark either, I play BDO now and then (and mostly because I got it from a friend whom I play with on occasion) and I just don't enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed GW2 for the most part.  Maaaaaybe some kind of Themepark and Sandbox hybrid but I'm not sure what that would look like atm.

I don't see the need for factions for PvP (especially as many as Five), Guilds and WvW servers fit that role better from my observations.

No expansions?   Yikes.  GW2's use of smaller DLCs via the Living World and proper Full Expansions have largely been successful, and certainly a fair sight better than what the likes of BDO has been doing in the past several years.

Speaking of BDO, you keep referring to several other games, and that's a large part of the problem with your suggested design philosophy for a hypothetical Guild Wars 3.   Neither GW1 nor GW2 really did that sort of thing when they were being developed, its how you end up with reskinned clones.

 

 

Edited January 13, 2022 by The Greyhawk.9107

[Ameepa.6793]

Problem with sandboxes is that they have other people in them.

They work as single player Skyrim type games, but as MMO they always just end up being p2w and taken over by whales and griefers.

Anyway that whole idea sounds like a game designed for totally different population than what GW2 is for. Would be big nope for me.

Edited January 13, 2022 by Ameepa.6793

[Danikat.8537]

Aside from my personal opinion one concern I'd have with this idea is that (as the many examples used in the OP's post show) this would make GW3 a lot like a lot of other existing MMOs.

MMOs are time consuming (especially sandbox ones) and in my experience it's rare to find people who play more than 1 or 2 at a time. I think one of the strengths of the market at the moment is that all the 'major' or most popular ones are distinctly different from each other, which means players have a good chance of finding the one/s which are best for them.

Launching a new MMO which is basically the same as existing ones runs the risk of alienating the people who don't like that format rather than dragging them into it (even if they liked previous games in the franchise) and leaving that game competing for the same pool of players who do like that format, and who are unlikely to leave their current game without an incentive.

Sometimes it works of course, either the new game does it better or it's similar in some ways and offers some key differences, or something happens to an existing game which leaves it's players looking for an alternative. But I think it's more risky than trying to do something original, especially when you've already got that game and it's audience established.

Edited January 13, 2022 by Danikat.8537

[Svarty.8019]

8 hours ago, AusarViled.7106 said:

The developers become creators of TOOLs, not content. This is much more feasible, almost 80-90% of development time is going to making large world interact-able events -

This should have been what WvW was. If the tools were made with thoughtfulness, the players could have placed or designed their own towers, keeps or whatnot. I regret that development time was never available to make WvW into something truly magical. 

 

I hope that one day, after NC shutter the game, someone cobbles together a rogue server and looks at how feasible or otherwise those things would have been.

[Tukaram.8256]

I don't really expect a GW3 to begin with... but... I already play GW2 as a sandbox game.  I do what I want, where I want, when I want.  I do not let the story or the ridiculous collections get in the way of my fun.  I started GW very soon after launch and had fun, but the single player story mode of it all really got on my nerves.  The open world nature of GW2 fixed most of that.

I played Ultima Online from 1997-2008 and am used to sandbox worlds.  😎

[Ellye.9123]

Working on a new game that might or might not be successful - and that it's far more likely to not be successful, given the track record for this genre - instead of working on their already hugely successful one would be a terrible business decision.

[yoni.7015]

I would not play this GW3. 

[Gibson.4036]

The OPs proposed changes are so polar opposite to everything about GW2 that I'm wondering why they even want a GW3. Is the lore (the only thing that it looks like would survive from GW2 to GW3) all that compelling?

The OP doesn't read as a thoughtful analysis of where GW2 could grow, but as a list of what would make up their ideal MMO. You could drop it into any other themepark MMO and it would read the same.

As to sandbox MMOs, I have yet to see one where it makes any sense to be a casual player. The early adopters and the full-time players dominate sandboxes because they are the first to claim land, corner markets, and are most able to defend their holdings.

I totally appreciate the idea behind player-created content, and love the concept of sandbox. In practicality, though, casual players like me and many others that play GW2 because it is is casual friendly have no chance of finding an enjoyable, meaningful place in a sandbox.

Edited January 13, 2022 by Gibson.4036

[Svarty.8019]

There's too little trust in the players, which is very justifiable, knowing them.

[Harak.8397]

Just getting rid of theme park MMO model already gets my vote.

[Freya.9075]

I disagree. One of the strengths gw2 has is that it is different from other games. I would rather they use resources on gw2 and keep adding content. And the pvp part sounds awful but that might be cause pvp is not my cup of tea and I like that it’s separated from pve content. 

[Haishao.6851]

NCSoft pulled the plug on GW3 and fired the entire team who was working on it in 2019.