PvE Open World Legendary Armor Proposal (draft)

[Tails.9372]

1 hour ago, IndigoSundown.5419 said:

The explanation (and I apologize if it's been posted already in this thread) is that ANet considers Open World to be a part of a game more, not a separate game mode.  That means that what the current state of affairs with regard to Legendary Armor is that all game modes have an option to get it.

Actually if we go by their officially featured "gamemodes" (which are: Instanced Combat (dungeons, fractals...), Dynamic Events (OW), Personal Story and Competitive Play (PvP and WvW)) then "Competitive Play" has 2 while some of them have none.

1 hour ago, IndigoSundown.5419 said:

If there is discrimination, it is not against PVE players, it's against the unwillingness to engage with any content that has any real difficulty to it.

Doesn't make much sense as there is no really difficulty in the path required for the sPvP / WvW sets.

Edited April 29, 2022 by Tails.9372

[yoni.7015]

4 minutes ago, Tails.9372 said:

Actually if we go by their officially featured "gamemodes" (which are: Instanced Combat (dungeons, fractals...), Dynamic Events (OW), Personal Story and Competitive Play (PvP and WvW)) then "Competitive Play" has 2 while some of them have none.

Where does it say that this are the official game modes of the game? I mean you just turned different aspects of PvE into game modes. 
Legendary armor for completing Personal Story, seriously? 

[Tails.9372]

9 minutes ago, yoni.7015 said:

Where does it say that this are the official game modes of the game?

On their official website ofc.

9 minutes ago, yoni.7015 said:

Legendary armor for completing Personal Story

Is something I have yet to see anyone asking for but the fact that you brought it up in context of what you were quoteing makes me question whether or not you even understood what you were replying to.

Edited April 29, 2022 by Tails.9372

[yoni.7015]

5 minutes ago, Tails.9372 said:

On their official website ofc.

I can’t find it on the website can you post the link where it says that this are the official game modes of the game? 

[Tails.9372]

6 minutes ago, yoni.7015 said:

I can’t find it on the website

???

[yoni.7015]

Just now, Tails.9372 said:

???

The races of Tyria, Professions and Combat are game modes as well. Didn’t know that!

Nowhere does it say that these are the game modes. It’s just a list of aspects of the game. 

[Tails.9372]

13 hours ago, yoni.7015 said:

The races of Tyria, Professions and Combat are game modes as well. Didn’t know that!

Nowhere does it say that these are the game modes. It’s just a list of aspects of the game. 

So I take it that you're just purposefully acting dumb then? It's obvious that the first three are about game mechanics and lore (which is ofc. something one would expect to have in a game overview) while the last four are about the overarching categories of the actual gameplay content which is exactly what people are generally referring to when they use the term "gamemode" but if you really want to be super stingy here then even subcontent like "activities" could be counted as their own "gamemodes".

Edited April 30, 2022 by Tails.9372

[yoni.7015]

3 minutes ago, Tails.9372 said:

So I take it that you're just purposefully acting dumb then? It's obvious that the first tree are about game mechanics and lore while the last four are about the overarching categories of the actual gameplay content which is exactly what people are generally referring to when they use the term "gamemode" but if you really want to be super stingy here then even even subcontent like "activities" could be counted as their own "gamemodes".

What people generally mean when they are talking about different game modes is PvE, PvP and WvW (in the case of GW2). You clearly misunderstood the list, that just shows aspects of the game and not game modes. But nice try. 

[Firebeard.1746]

6 hours ago, The Boz.2038 said:

Source: It was revealed to me in a dream.

Dude, i already made a thread on this. Someone literally @'d me on these forums saying their regulars in their guild that clear the meta regularly run raid builds. People i talked to in game who passed: same thing. The thread i started on this was on the top like over a whole weekend. The only thing this comment reveals is how out of touch you are with this conversation. 

 

The people who say raid builds aren't required are far rarer, and tbh weren't aware of the organization in their maps when i've asked. Like they weren't in the squad or the like

Edited April 30, 2022 by Firebeard.1746

[Infusion.7149]

As much as people want to push the idea raids are not PVE, there's only three (3) game modes: PVE, PVP (where legendary is meaningless) , and WVW. You can't lump PVP and WVW together as competitive modes since they are skill split for quite a few skills and traits.
It is plainly evident by template swapping functionality even before the armory and skill balancing.

See also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild_Wars_2#Gameplay

Quote

 

Player versus environment features a scaling system that lowers the players level and stats to reflect the levels of monsters, thereby maintaining a global level of difficulty. In player versus player, a player will have access to almost all skills and items, and compete at the fixed level 80,so that all players will be on a level playing field.

In addition to the small-scale, tactical combat described above, the game features "World versus World", large scale combat taking place in a persistent world independent of the main world.

 

TL;DR: PVE, PVP, WVW

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Endgame
Guild Wars 2 features three different combat game modes: PvE, sPvP, and WvW.

There's far more of a case if we're talking about gamemodes to introduce WVW legendary accessories instead of a PVE armorset.

Edited April 29, 2022 by Infusion.7149

[Tails.9372]

2 hours ago, yoni.7015 said:

What people generally mean when they are talking about different game modes is PvE, PvP and WvW (in the case of GW2).

Yes, some people constantly bring up their own preferred categories; that are not reflected in the official description of the game, if it suits their agenda while also being completely dismissive if the oppsite side of the argument does the same. Nothing new here.

2 hours ago, yoni.7015 said:

You clearly misunderstood the list, that just shows aspects of the game and not game modes.

Different "gamemodes" are different "aspects", these terms are synonymous and can be used interchangeably (e.g. the statements "sPvP and WvW are the different aspects of Competitive Play" and "sPvP and WvW are the different game modes of Competitive Play" have the exact same meaning). But what's important is that these are the overarching categories A-Net choose to highlight in their official discription of the game.

Also, if only "what has been explisitely stated to be a "gamemode"" counts as one then I guess we would also have to remove sPvP and WvW from the list as the official description doesn't call them "gamemodes" either. 

If on the other hand you extend what counts as a "game mode" based on how they phrased things in their blogs and other articles then we do have some examples of them calling e.g. FotM a "game mode dedicated to group play".

Edited April 30, 2022 by Tails.9372

[IndigoSundown.5419]

3 hours ago, Tails.9372 said:

Actually if we go by their officially featured "gamemodes" (which are: Instanced Combat (dungeons, fractals...), Dynamic Events (OW), Personal Story and Competitive Play (PvP and WvW)) then "Competitive Play" has 2 while some of them have none.

Doesn't make much sense as there is no really difficulty in the path required for the sPvP / WvW sets.

How much difficulty is involved in buying raid clears?

[Tails.9372]

5 minutes ago, IndigoSundown.5419 said:

How much difficulty is involved in buying raid clears?

Trying to deflect by moving the goalpost I see.

[Dante.1508]

I agree i'd never get it myself far too much grind but i feel its a good idea.

[Erise.5614]

9 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

As much as people want to push the idea raids are not PVE, there's only three (3) game modes: PVE, PVP (where legendary is meaningless) , and WVW. You can't lump PVP and WVW together as competitive modes since they are skill split for quite a few skills and traits.
It is plainly evident by template swapping functionality even before the armory and skill balancing.

See also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild_Wars_2#Gameplay

TL;DR: PVE, PVP, WVW

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Endgame
Guild Wars 2 features three different combat game modes: PvE, sPvP, and WvW.

There's far more of a case if we're talking about gamemodes to introduce WVW legendary accessories instead of a PVE armorset.

To be fair. The wiki is written by players and therefore not the best source. 

But even here your point is arbitrary. Obviously raids are PvE. But PvE only has one opposite. PvP. Even the link you sent considers it as such. Pointing out that WvW is large scale PvP.  Very different in nature, so it does make a lot of sense to differentiate between them. Just like raids or instanced content in general are very different from OW content. Different builds are more or less useful, the objectives you follow, the amount of players around you, the content update cycle and formats. All are drastically different between open and instanced PvE. 

If I understand the argument right, it's just that some in this thread don't consider OW to be end game content and undeserving of legendary armor as possible progression path. While the other three styles of gameplay are considered valid end game content that therefore deserve it.

ANet never clarified it one way or the other. The implementation of content and other legendary rewards suggests they consider OW end game. But they may also hold armor to different standards. So it's really not possible to use any third party source to proof or disproof either side. It's really just personal interpretation... which is gonna be based on how much or how little one enjoys the different game modes. 

Edited April 30, 2022 by Erise.5614

[Erise.5614]

7 hours ago, IndigoSundown.5419 said:

How much difficulty is involved in buying raid clears?

Advertising paid clears to get armor is against the terms of service.

You may only sell spots in groups for ingame resources. You may not sell rewards or other content. So while it is possible to do, it's not allowed to talk about it in-game. Which is a quite clear sign of how legitimate this method is in the eyes of ANet. 

[Nico.9361]

29 minutes ago, Erise.5614 said:

Advertising paid clears to get armor is against the terms of service.

Raid sellers don't really care why you're buying the clear as long as you buy them...
Honesly, I'm disappointed to see that 50% of LFG groups are simply raid sellers...

[Erise.5614]

7 minutes ago, NotTooFoolish.7412 said:

Raid sellers don't really care why you're buying the clear as long as you buy them...
Honesly, I'm disappointed to see that 50% of LFG groups are simply raid sellers...

They don't care why but they do care to get more people to buy clears.

There sometimes are services offering rewards and it was a thing in the beginning of HoT too. They ain't around for long though. 
ANet is very clear that advertising on LFG must be for spots in group content and nothing else. No home instances, no selling of rewards behind that content.

Selling armor in-game. Via chat or LFG is against the rules.

[IndigoSundown.5419]

3 hours ago, Erise.5614 said:

They don't care why but they do care to get more people to buy clears.

There sometimes are services offering rewards and it was a thing in the beginning of HoT too. They ain't around for long though. 
ANet is very clear that advertising on LFG must be for spots in group content and nothing else. No home instances, no selling of rewards behind that content.

Selling armor in-game. Via chat or LFG is against the rules.

Maybe that's why they aren't advertising anything but the spots.  The wording is one thing, but the motivation for the purchase  will in the vast majority of cases either be collecting for the armor or achievements -- and the latter is usually going to be a one-time purchase.

 

 

[Erise.5614]

47 minutes ago, IndigoSundown.5419 said:

Maybe that's why they aren't advertising anything but the spots.  The wording is one thing, but the motivation for the purchase  will in the vast majority of cases either be collecting for the armor or achievements -- and the latter is usually going to be a one-time purchase.

Oh, yes. Of course. But the validity of the whole situation is very questionable. I suspect it's tolerated because of the relatively low scale.

Also, considering the first set of armor would still cost you a lot of time to get (though you can be semi-afk) and turn into most expensive legendary if you buy raids and ANet is very explicit about getting scammed being your problem in this situation. Considering these three things it's a somewhat moot point to bring up as legitimate acquisition method.

All 3 armors gained this way are more expensive than any other item in the game. Including all infusions. (If my numbers are up to date it's about 40k gold for 3 sets. 34k of which for raid sellers. Assuming no scams or other problems along the way).

Edited April 30, 2022 by Erise.5614

[IndigoSundown.5419]

11 hours ago, Tails.9372 said:

Trying to deflect by moving the goalpost I see.

So if you think you didn't move a goalpost (because the thread has been all over the place), your point must have been that there is an easier path to get the two competitive sets.  Well, mine was that there is an easy path to get the PvE set.  As far as the difficulty of the three types of content, competitive or raids, well... remember that raids were designed to be beaten.  The players who play competitive are trying not to be beaten.

 

The real elephant in the room is entitlement -- on both sides of the debate -- but only one side wants to allude to that and it all rolls one way.

[IndigoSundown.5419]

4 minutes ago, Erise.5614 said:

Oh, yes. Of course. But the validity of the whole situation is very questionable. I suspect it's tolerated because of the relatively low scale.

ANet has, since GW, tolerated players selling services in game.  At one point, they even made the Droknar's Forge run in GW harder (my thought was they did so to see what the runners would come up with.

4 minutes ago, Erise.5614 said:

Also, considering the first set of armor would still cost you a lot of time to get (though you can be semi-afk) and turn into the single most expensive legendary item if you buy raids and ANet is very explicit about getting scammed being your problem in this situation. Considering these three things it's a somewhat moot point to bring up as legitimate acquisition method.

Obviously, ANet intended that players raid to get the raid set.  Just as obviously, they intended players to actively play the competitive game modes rather than the approach some take.  At times, ANet seems to think the best of players, despite the fact that some of us prove them wrong a lot.  To be fair, they certainly can't come out and say that some players are kittens. 😉

4 minutes ago, Erise.5614 said:

All 3 armors gained this way are more expensive than any other item in the game. Including all infusions. (If my numbers are up to date it's about 40k gold for 3 sets).

Decent point.  I certainly don't care a fig for the look of the raid armor (ommv), so I would never spend 1 gold to get it, never mind more gold than I've made in ~10 years of GW2.

[Erise.5614]

27 minutes ago, IndigoSundown.5419 said:

Obviously, ANet intended that players raid to get the raid set.  Just as obviously, they intended players to actively play the competitive game modes rather than the approach some take.  At times, ANet seems to think the best of players, despite the fact that some of us prove them wrong a lot.  To be fair, they certainly can't come out and say that some players are kittens. 😉

I mean. Obviously ANet would prefer people to be fully invested in everything they create. Especially when it is related to their own passion. PvP. Which is the origin of the entire franchise.

Only they had to adapt and move away from the elements they like again and again because it turns out, those aspects can not hold player interest to a significant degree. We've seen this in GW1 and the start of GW2 which even had a deliberate eSports push for PvP. The originally intended gameplay progression seems to have been: Personal Story -> OW -> Dungeons -> WvW -> PvP.

Which did not work out quite spectacularly and resulted in that weird handling of PvP content ever since. Repeatedly calling it a key pillar of the game and what not while not supporting it in any meaningful fashion. ANet clearly agrees and values hardcore content highly. But notices again and again that they are not good at getting people to enjoy those.

I don't believe it's expecting the best or the worst of players at all. Loading that dynamic with morality is just distracting. We know for a fact that even mainstream audiences can enjoy extremely challenging content. However, GW2 does not manage to create that pull into challenging content.

And my hypothesis is that it's got nothing to do with rewards. Rewards just encourage or discourage playing of certain content. Enjoyable gameplay sustains engagement for a long time without relying on big, shiny rewards. 

I believe ANet misjudged their audience, ending up with a situation where a lot of people are pushed by rewards into content they do not enjoy so they can keep progressing in content they do enjoy. Keeping some of that content on life support with exclusive QoL rewards. Despite a significant part of the already small audience doing it without desire to. A somewhat toxic dynamic.

A fourth armor could fix that problem. It would have to be implemented carefully and it is valid to be more expensive and slower to get in OW than through the other methods. And it would absolutely have to be implemented requiring deliberate effort to progress instead of being earned passively. No pip shenanigans. No existing currency you can spend to fast forward. But letting people who are building up frustration and disdain against the game doing things they don't enjoy go for an alternative path. 

Removing players from WvW who just idle around. Removing a section of players from PvP who don't intend to play seriously. Taking away significant parts of the raid seller audience. Reducing their prominence and negative impact in LFG without banning the practice. And frankly. Compensate the other modes with better flat rewards. Liquid gold, mats or what not. Taking away the exclusivity while making it more worthwhile to engage with the content. So players who enjoy it and players who kinda enjoy it keep being encouraged to participate. GoB still nudges players to try it out. A PvP equivalent to GoB could be interesting too. A raid / strike one as well. If it's like 5 LI per piece of OW armor. So people experienced the content and can make a decision for themselves. 

But allowing people who do not at all enjoy it to mostly avoid that content. Improving the experience for everyone. 

Edited April 30, 2022 by Erise.5614

[IndigoSundown.5419]

5 hours ago, Erise.5614 said:

I mean. Obviously ANet would prefer people to be fully invested in everything they create. Especially when it is related to their own passion. PvP. Which is the origin of the entire franchise.

Only they had to adapt and move away from the elements they like again and again because it turns out, those aspects can not hold player interest to a significant degree. We've seen this in GW1 and the start of GW2 which even had a deliberate eSports push for PvP. The originally intended gameplay progression seems to have been: Personal Story -> OW -> Dungeons -> WvW -> PvP.

Which did not work out quite spectacularly and resulted in that weird handling of PvP content ever since. Repeatedly calling it a key pillar of the game and what not while not supporting it in any meaningful fashion. ANet clearly agrees and values hardcore content highly. But notices again and again that they are not good at getting people to enjoy those.

I don't believe it's expecting the best or the worst of players at all. Loading that dynamic with morality is just distracting. We know for a fact that even mainstream audiences can enjoy extremely challenging content. However, GW2 does not manage to create that pull into challenging content.

And my hypothesis is that it's got nothing to do with rewards. Rewards just encourage or discourage playing of certain content. Enjoyable gameplay sustains engagement for a long time without relying on big, shiny rewards. 

I believe ANet misjudged their audience, ending up with a situation where a lot of people are pushed by rewards into content they do not enjoy so they can keep progressing in content they do enjoy. Keeping some of that content on life support with exclusive QoL rewards. Despite a significant part of the already small audience doing it without desire to. A somewhat toxic dynamic.

A fourth armor could fix that problem. It would have to be implemented carefully and it is valid to be more expensive and slower to get in OW than through the other methods. And it would absolutely have to be implemented requiring deliberate effort to progress instead of being earned passively. No pip shenanigans. No existing currency you can spend to fast forward. But letting people who are building up frustration and disdain against the game doing things they don't enjoy go for an alternative path. 

Removing players from WvW who just idle around. Removing a section of players from PvP who don't intend to play seriously. Taking away significant parts of the raid seller audience. Reducing their prominence and negative impact in LFG without banning the practice. And frankly. Compensate the other modes with better flat rewards. Liquid gold, mats or what not. Taking away the exclusivity while making it more worthwhile to engage with the content. So players who enjoy it and players who kinda enjoy it keep being encouraged to participate. GoB still nudges players to try it out. A PvP equivalent to GoB could be interesting too. A raid / strike one as well. If it's like 5 LI per piece of OW armor. So people experienced the content and can make a decision for themselves. 

But allowing people who do not at all enjoy it to mostly avoid that content. Improving the experience for everyone. 

I'm not opposed to the idea.  Maybe having an open world set not be the Envoy skins would be enough of a nod to the raiders, but maybe not.  I am, however, cynical about ANet and about people, so please forgive my focus on the negative reactions of some within the community.  I've certainly seen scads of it on these boards over the years.

[Xerxez.7361]

Open World Raid Bosses with mechanics that kill all players in the area if they fail group mechanics would be fun. Example 5 Blue Circles Spawn and based on the amount of Players in the area 1-5 Per Circle or Wipe. A definite easier version of Raid Bosses since you can respawn or Revive Orb!