Do you think there will be power creep mechanics in the upcoming expansions?

[A Hamster.2580]

The previous expansion EOD introduced lots of PVE power creep mechanics. I assumed this is to boost sales.

 

We have the jade power core that can give 235 vitality (2,350hp), a new down state ability that quickly rez you for a second life, and the jade offensive/defensive buffs that give a wide variety of boons making it much easier in open world.

 

An open world only player would be at a huge disadvantage by not buying the EOD expansion.

 

Some might argue gliding and mounts are the same, but I think otherwise. Gliding and mounts are actually innovative and fun.

 

I personally think there is a 100% chance that more of this power creep will be added, trivializing older PVE content for the sake of revenue.

 

Do you think the upcoming expansions will introduce more of this. If so, what do you think they can possibly add?

[Ashen.2907]

I think that there is almost zero chance that ANet will choose to refrain from adding more power creep in future releases. It sells. 

[Einsof.1457]

people are already 5 manning w1-4. I don't think anet will rest until raids are soloable. 

[Palador.2170]

Of course there's going to be power creep.

Not only is it the easiest and fastest way to make "rewarding" content, but a slow power creep will match the plans for "mini" expansions going forward. Also, the path forward suggests that they won't be spending any time (not that they do so well at it now) going back to rebalance anything they add that turns out to be a bit too powerful. Easier and faster to just make that the new normal, and go from there for everyone.

Yes, this is one of the things that can kill a MMO. But it's also something that's natural to most MMOs, and fighting against it can damage a game just as badly. I expect some power creep, but I hope they keep it from being too severe.

[Doggie.3184]

I'm still wondering if they intend to make us spam batteries on jade protocol terminals that are placed thoughout the area, in a way that upsets people with OCD, for all future maps with everything having to be balanced around them forever.

[TheThief.8475]

Now make a pool "how much would it suck if they add a power creep mechanic?" (a lot) 😛

[kharmin.7683]

12 hours ago, Einsof.1457 said:

people are already 5 manning w1-4. I don't think anet will rest until raids are soloable. 

When that happens, maybe I'll finally try raiding. 

[Nico.9361]

12 hours ago, Einsof.1457 said:

people are already 5 manning w1-4. I don't think anet will rest until raids are soloable. 

people already 8 man HT CM

[Gibson.4036]

This is the way.

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

15 hours ago, A Hamster.2580 said:

If so, what do you think they can possibly add?

Something that enhances the CC skills. It is one of the most important mechanics in the game. The EMP from the waystation is neat, but EoD is a very good example where you often have a lot of people who do not have IBS unlocked. When I drop the waystation nowadays, there is maybe 1/5 of the people around actually using it = my personal subjective experience. They will not make it accessible outside of IBS, but I think they may add food/buffs which enhance the CC effects artificially. That way players can equip less skills of that type.

A 2nd approach on the shadow-mender topic. The pet is currently overlooked completely? I have not seen a guide ever mention it. On the other hand it is beyond broken and extremely overpowered. If they give it a new try, they will give it a proper name, better aesthetics and probably an easier way to use it. OR they rework it and make it last for a given time, even if you are getting downed. 

Another try with the combo topic. Some of the combos, especially whirl and projectile are kind of lackluster at the moment. They may overhaul the combos for these features and probably make a few more skills causing finishers.

They do not want us to use much boon-gear, so they either improve the concentration-stat, optimize the conversion rate, or just extend the baseline boon-duration.

They may change the aggro mechanics. Either improve toughness-stats, so you need less gear. Or change the way aggro is pulled in general, to prevent celestial-builds from ending up as the group-tank. 

[Sobx.1758]

We might see less power creep if they won't include especs in the expansions. Hopefully there won't be some more free stats like they did with jade bot core.

14 minutes ago, HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:

Something that enhances the CC skills. It is one of the most important mechanics in the game. The EMP from the waystation is neat, but EoD is a very good example where you often have a lot of people who do not have IBS unlocked.

At this point they should just pick a lane. Balance encounters around players having EMP and then they should include that -or similar- skill in the encounters by default whether you have mastery or not (something like a free glide/mount unlock in EoD) ooor straight up lock emp in new maps so people have to use their cc skills. Either way that would make thebreak bars balanced more evenly between the players.

[galuf.5741]

12 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

At this point they should just pick a lane. Balance encounters around players having EMP and then they should include that -or similar- skill in the encounters by default whether you have mastery or not (something like a free glide/mount unlock in EoD) ooor straight up lock emp in new maps so people have to use their cc skills. Either way that would make thebreak bars balanced more evenly between the players.

Nah, if the game gets to a decent enough update pace , less and less players present in your map will have a clue about it. Masteries are something you invest time into, their return should never be a zero sum game. Waystation line is designed in a way to give an edge in open world and zergs at first place. If the player base is not renewed enough so everybody in your map has high level masteries, good for you, maybe it will be a clown fiesta in the future(would be a good sign for the game).

Edited February 23, 2023 by galuf.5741

[Razor.6392]

do you think the sky is blue?

[Sobx.1758]

21 minutes ago, galuf.5741 said:

Nah, if the game gets to a decent enough update pace , less and less players present in your map will have a clue about it. Masteries are something you invest time into, their return should never be a zero sum game. Waystation line is designed in a way to give an edge in open world and zergs at first place. If the player base is not renewed enough so everybody in your map has high level masteries, good for you, maybe it will be a clown fiesta in the future(would be a good sign for the game).

"Nah" as in you think it should remain like it is and the maps should be balanced around people not having emps? I think that's basically the worst of both worlds.

Edited February 23, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[galuf.5741]

3 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

"Nah" as in you think it should remain like it is and the maps should be balanced around people not having emps? I think that's basically the worst of both worlds.

Yeah totally. If the game was healthy, a critical mass of emps in the map to insta stun bosses would be a relatively rare occurence for unorganized players. What you advocate for is punishing players for investing into content. Masteries are designed to give an edge in open world by the way and EMP doesn't do "that much" actually, it just wrecks break bars and does a neglectible amount of crowd cleaning, on top of that it requires players to still manage it actively. Don't blame the playerbase for playing properly :).

[Khisanth.2948]

There has been power creep long before EoD. There is no reason to believe they will be stopping any time soon. GW2 never manage to get away from the bad designs of "other" MMOs and overtime they keep falling further and further back the "traditional" designs. Can't really blame them. Those designs are used because they make things easy to create and bad is subjective of course. A bit sad though, like seeing a former addict relapsing. This is just another form of vertical progression.

The EMP skill seems like it was added without considering future consequences.

[Firebeard.1746]

I hope there is. Power creep has only helped popularity of various pve game modes, which is the most important factor in keeping those modes alive. 

[Sobx.1758]

56 minutes ago, galuf.5741 said:

Yeah totally. If the game was healthy, a critical mass of emps in the map to insta stun bosses would be a relatively rare occurence for unorganized players. What you advocate for is punishing players for investing into content. Masteries are designed to give an edge in open world by the way and EMP doesn't do "that much" actually, it just wrecks break bars and does a neglectible amount of crowd cleaning, on top of that it requires players to still manage it actively. Don't blame the playerbase for playing properly :).

I don't know where you come with the idea that a healthy game somewhat keeps "going through players", which is what would be required to achieve what you'd want to achieve. Meanwhile there's nothing punishing about the masteries being usable on their respective maps, even moreso when the content would be balanced around not having those. Having masteries expected to have in later maps scrapes rather close to being gear-treadmil (and level cap-increase) levels of power creep, because now you're suddenly not expected to be able to go from core to Xth expansion, but instead to go through every previous expansion to match the power of other players. Both ways I mentioned work against that and I fail to see how it's supposed to be bad for anyone involved.

Meanwhile you seem to be basing your expectations on your own version of idealized game community/player retention (but actually not player retention, more of a player mill) and count that it will somehow even itself out. Instead of leaving it to the chance, we could just... have objectively balanced encounters. For me it's an easy choice, even moreso when the CC bench works directly against including utility skills in your builds. Where exactly did I somehow "blame the players for playing correctly":)? If anything, the inclusion of bench for non-bench-balanced encounters does the opposite and allows more people to ignore mechanics while less of the playerbase takes care of those. It's the very thing that was wrong with core, which made mechanics meaningless and then some players couldn't handle expansions' OW "because why would they learn something core never required them to do".  Seems like a little bit of a misplaced resoning on your side?

Do you consider yourself punished or blamed for playing properly (still confused where this one even came from) because players buying EoD got gliding and 3 mounts unlocked upon entering the new map without playing through HoT and PoF? All it did was level the playing field a little the same way first of the two proposals in my initial post would in regards of the bench.

Edited February 23, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[SuavePuppy.2809]

Always is, but at the very least we can hope for more than just bigger numbers 

[Gibson.4036]

Power creep in moderation is healthy for MMOs. Over time it lets lower skilled players tackle content and pursue rewards that were otherwise out of reach.

[Linken.6345]

3 hours ago, Gibson.4036 said:

Power creep in moderation is healthy for MMOs. Over time it lets lower skilled players tackle content and pursue rewards that were otherwise out of reach.

Works well in vertical progresion game yes but are you sure it works in a horizontal one?

Im not.

[Gibson.4036]

15 minutes ago, Linken.6345 said:

Works well in vertical progresion game yes but are you sure it works in a horizontal one?

Im not.

Especially in horizontal. Without being to overgear and overlevel, lower skill players would never be able to access some content.

Im not advocating massive power creep, and not weighing in on whether GW2 has hit the sweet spot, but I’m glad players can now do some things they’d never have been successful at in the past.

[Sobx.1758]

3 hours ago, Gibson.4036 said:

Power creep in moderation is healthy for MMOs. Over time it lets lower skilled players tackle content and pursue rewards that were otherwise out of reach.

Might be good in gear treadmill mmos, isn't exactly good here since it trivializes gameplay for everyone. Solution here isn't really some kind of constant power creep, more like better difficulty curve.

Edited February 23, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[fatihso.7258]

Amount of power creep exploded with the eod on top of what we already had, I expect this trend to continue with next mini exps to the point we won't be able to run any content without having related buffs and adjustments from a dozen regions and their masteries unless you are ok with hindering yourself with less stats and rewards, in which many players will not be.

 

 

[Woof.8246]

On 2/22/2023 at 4:34 PM, A Hamster.2580 said:

We have the jade power core that can give 235 vitality (2,350hp), a new down state ability that quickly rez you for a second life, and the jade offensive/defensive buffs that give a wide variety of boons making it much easier in open world.

If the enemies attack based on your percentage (%) of your total hp - minus the % of Protection/Toughness , then it doesn't really matter if you have a Necro with 28.000 hp or 14.000 Ele in your party .

(otherwise lets go back in the old formula where bosses should do 14k damage flat and 1-shot the squishy target , and would be better to stack the high hp ones)

 

I agree Jade offensive/defensive buffs (+20% damage -protection from specific maps), should be removes and the Bosses/Npcs , needs to be scaled down accordingly . But i don't see the reason to implant them in other maps , and soon it will be a forgotten mechanic.

 

We could scale down the existing gear stats + boons effect we have and create some controlled powercreep .

So example Exotic gear that you buy to TP can be equipped with Stat Agony Infusions , (but not Ascended or Legendary gear) that is destroyed with each expanion (lets say that are imbueded with Krakatoik magic and when killed , the magic disperse) ,   or create a new progression system where mobs/bosses occasionally drop some ancient  weapons from their backs (from old enemies) and they need an "x" amount of 'new' stats to be used (and broke after few turns).

(Sigh...dual wielding tree , Edit: break/lap-dance (evasive chirography  maneuvers)  booty chest that you can kick/throw to soften the rusty lock and search for more weapons . And magic find stats  for "rare weapons" that last few turns longer)

Edited February 24, 2023 by Woof.8246