[Poll] Hardcore Servers

[asket.5674]

19 hours ago, Nothing.8564 said:

I'm sure there is a cost for Arenanet spending time developing HC servers, but with how popular the idea has become in the MMO community with streamers/content creators uploading videos, it'd put GW2 on the map for a lot of new players. As someone with 9,755 hours on the game, I'd like to see this game continue to thrive.

Add a new realm location for fresh start:
Hardcore North America
Hardcore Europe

Two features disabled and HC exists.
Disable waypoints(make them all contested)
Disable reviving dead corpses


Personally, the open world feel the game would have with waypoints disabled, and PvE content having risk would be fun for me, especially with a community behind it.


To those that read this post, please post your thoughts on the topic.
 

Play mortal online 2 if you want a hardcore game

[JTGuevara.9018]

(sips coffee)...

Wildstar is that way! ----->>

Oh wait, no it's not lmao!

Hardcore servers = dead on arrival. Nobody is going to play it. For an mmo to even be relevant, you need the masses. Accept this fact.

[Hsanrb.1570]

I think it's going to be one of those activities that "seem great at the time" and then die off in a fiery blaze. Considering I just watched a bunch of videos from other games with a hardcore mode saying "Things about the game need to change..." when they die in HC and have to replay the entire game to get back to where they died. It'll be alive for probably 2 weeks, and then you'll either be alone in the world or you'll be at the point in the game where everyone who plays HC knows the content well enough to exclude you because you DID die and not put the other players at risk of dying.

Or you can botch a jump in a jumping puzzle and watch all your progress disappear in one press of the spacebar. 

[Linken.6345]

Op cant u just play southsun survival instead?

[Zebulous.2934]

So if a fractal boss fails to move to the next stage, the group is just dead.  You can't /gg to try the boss again.  I imagine that a raid boss that glitches would be the same, just on a larger scale. Seems like dead content in an HC server. 

For that matter, my mesmer will still teleport into a wall occasionally.  Does /stuck work when even city waypoints count as contested?

[Sobx.1758]

I'm not sure what "hardcore server" would exactly be if I wanted it, but I know for me it wouldn't be what OP described.

Edited May 5, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Nothing.8564]

While HC realms are naturally for a smaller audience, GW2 has many elements that naturally compliment a HC server setting.
Releasing a game mode that would fail is never good for business, but when has that stopped GW2 devs? lol. Hardcore World Of Warcraft is right around the corner and we all will get a glimpse of if it succeeds or not. While these are two completely different games, I still think a HC GW2 would have way more to offer as its fluid combat design makes for much more thrilling fights and the idea of account progression helps keep long-term HC players involved in the game mode.

Here's a few existing elements that I think would make a HC GW2 server succeed in the MMO market:

1. Account progression/unlocks.

   -Mounts / gliders

   After reaching max level content and obtaining mounts the world becomes greatly more accessible and gives your alts/reset characters an easier progression. 
    

   -Cosmetics armor unlocks & Dyes

   Fashionwars remains after death, so you can enjoy your reset in style.
    

   -Legendary equipment

   Those looking to push end-game content can retain the gear they've upgraded to legendary thanks to the existing legendary wardrobe system.
    

2. Gem store
   -Gold/Gem conversion
   The balance between earning gold and converting it to gems has always been amazing in GW2's history, there are undoubtedly advantages to buying Gem Store items in a HC environment but with the generous conversion rate I see this being a win for both the players and ANET.
   
   -Convenience items
   Shared Inventory Slots, Teleport To Friend, Teleport to Hub passes that have teleports to all major cities, these would become a necessity for HC players which again I think is a win for the players and ANET due to the gold/gem conversion rates.
    

3. A large world with a fresh start
   The world feels smaller the more waypoints you unlock and the more veteran status your account gets the less you need to do to obtain anything. I do like and prefer GW2s progression system which is horizontal instead of the vertical system every other MMO out there has, but after a decade of sitting on the best stats it'd be nice to have a fresh start world to mess around in.
    

4. Support roles
   There are awesome support roles that currently will never see the light of day due to the meta being dps race.
   
    

5. Putting the Guild back in Guild Wars
   No doubt there would be a lot of active guilds trying to fill specific roles that the HC environment makes more challenging. The fact that you can be in multiple guilds at once is nice.
   
    

6. Risk
   Infusions, non-legendary equipment, inventory items, mastery points and levels all go down the drain with death. None of these are light losses and are enough to keep people on edge throughout their content exploration.

 

[JTGuevara.9018]

4 minutes ago, Nothing.8564 said:

While HC realms are naturally for a smaller audience, GW2 has many elements that naturally compliment a HC server setting.
Releasing a game mode that would fail is never good for business, but when has that stopped GW2 devs? lol. Hardcore World Of Warcraft is right around the corner and we all will get a glimpse of if it succeeds or not. While these are two completely different games, I still think a HC GW2 would have way more to offer as its fluid combat design makes for much more thrilling fights and the idea of account progression helps keep long-term HC players involved in the game mode.

Here's a few existing elements that I think would make a HC GW2 server succeed in the MMO market:

1. Account progression/unlocks.

   -Mounts / gliders

   After reaching max level content and obtaining mounts the world becomes greatly more accessible and gives your alts/reset characters an easier progression. 
    

   -Cosmetics armor unlocks & Dyes

   Fashionwars remains after death, so you can enjoy your reset in style.
    

   -Legendary equipment

   Those looking to push end-game content can retain the gear they've upgraded to legendary thanks to the existing legendary wardrobe system.
    

2. Gem store
   -Gold/Gem conversion
   The balance between earning gold and converting it to gems has always been amazing in GW2's history, there are undoubtedly advantages to buying Gem Store items in a HC environment but with the generous conversion rate I see this being a win for both the players and ANET.
   
   -Convenience items
   Shared Inventory Slots, Teleport To Friend, Teleport to Hub passes that have teleports to all major cities, these would become a necessity for HC players which again I think is a win for the players and ANET due to the gold/gem conversion rates.
    

3. A large world with a fresh start
   The world feels smaller the more waypoints you unlock and the more veteran status your account gets the less you need to do to obtain anything. I do like and prefer GW2s progression system which is horizontal instead of the vertical system every other MMO out there has, but after a decade of sitting on the best stats it'd be nice to have a fresh start world to mess around in.
    

4. Support roles
   There are awesome support roles that currently will never see the light of day due to the meta being dps race.
   
    

5. Putting the Guild back in Guild Wars
   No doubt there would be a lot of active guilds trying to fill specific roles that the HC environment makes more challenging. The fact that you can be in multiple guilds at once is nice.
   
    

6. Risk
   Infusions, non-legendary equipment, inventory items, mastery points and levels all go down the drain with death. None of these are light losses and are enough to keep people on edge throughout their content exploration.

 

You seem to miss a basic point: nobody would play it. It doesn't matter how many goodies an mmo has if people don't show up. That is the whole POINT of an mmo.

Besides, hardcore settings in mmos have already been tried(and failed). It's called open-world pvp.

Edited May 5, 2023 by JTGuevara.9018
add

[Randulf.7614]

In principle you might have a point with those, but the argument remains that is highly unlikely the game can support divided servers. You are basically doubling the map count and cutting the population into two. Something is going to suffer. 

The game is built on the premise of everyone working together and all content in the open world being relevant. This works against that pillar which means its not really a natural fit for GW2.

For it to work, it needs to not split the population and not create needless work for devs for little gain.

[Nothing.8564]

2 minutes ago, JTGuevara.9018 said:

You seem to miss a basic point: nobody would play it. It doesn't matter how many goodies an mmo has if people don't show up. That is the whole POINT of an mmo.

An ancient proverb for you: If you build it they will come.

The original idea of HC World of Warcraft would have had the sea of nay sayers, but thanks to some modders who built it in as a  feature, people came, the mode thrived, official support from the devs began.

[ShadowCatz.8437]

13 hours ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

What would be the 'high rewards' associated with this?  Something like Legendary Armor, so a portion of the playerbase would be dissatisfied, yet again?

I think you are asking the wrong question here. The real problem would be that Legendary Armour and weapons would be required to even get into any group that play in HC mode as without it, it would simply be too much trouble to even survive long enough in certain area of game.

Most player in HC would feel pressure to work directly towards Legendary gear instead of just using what they can get as rewards from kills, loot, chests or trade (BLTP). It would mean that this HC version of game would turn into a much heavy expectation of buying Build Templates and Equipment Templates for fast changes of gear with a key press and end in a pay to win situation as without this players would have less chance of stay alive or do damage.

This game where developed with the ability to revive other players, especially when waypoint have been blocked (as most WP will be when there is certain stages on map like close to Orr when there is active map meta going on - which there where a lot of complains about and later changed in the new maps to always have open WP to teleport so dead players could get back into map).

Another issue is that when nobody want to die from doing mistakes, there will be a lot of players going for high vitality and/or toughness (which make those HC player to do almost no damage, but can still keep continue to stay alive as now this kind of player will then demand other players to do enough damage which means those players going for damage will be loosing progress as they can not keep themselves alive even when there is "healer" or "support" to help them out).

Support and healing in this game haven't been designed to fully replace self healing or active defensive while doing damage which is necessary for HC player. Most heals are in short range (reason why stacking or "clouding" is still a thing in WvW), players need to be in range of heal over time (regen) to compensate for conditions that reverse healing ticks and it is a limit of 5 players for every group AoE skill (both supportive skills and heals). Removing all skills that can revive players, that are part of trait lines and everything else would mean a lot of work which in the end would be mean a complete different game that only looks the same, but at the very base is another game then GW2.

Almost every map in open world PvE have also been designed on timers in GW2 which means that when group can not manage to kill final boss or finish different stages in time, then HC content will lose its charm as it will take much more time to finish map meta and some NPC have high damage which is now part of this games design (balance) which make it even less likely that HC would enjoy to play this kind of game.

Looking at GS it also would mean less sales as a lot items are related to make things easier for player like Level 80 booster (give your character a base equipment in form of Celestial attributes with exotic tier), unlock of WP (skipping map completion), increase duration of any consumed food or tools to 24 hour from its default time and so on. All this would have to be changed or blocked to prevent HC from getting advantages in HC content which new players wouldn't even know existed if they haven't player Gw2 before. This would mean that HC player would not use GS at all as much as normal players would with less sales from Gem Store.

[Nothing.8564]

13 minutes ago, ShadowCatz.8437 said:

Almost every map in open world PvE have also been designed on timers in GW2 which means that when group can not manage to kill final boss or finish different stages in time, then HC content will lose its charm as it will take much more time to finish map meta and some NPC have high damage which is now part of this games design (balance) which make it even less likely that HC would enjoy to play this kind of game.

The fact that most events have timers before you fail I think is an overall positive. Thanks to stat, trait, utility and weapon diversity, if you wanted to be 99.9% unkillable you could, but this comes at the cost of damage output. If enough players didn't balance their damage output with their ability to survive, they wouldn't succeed in timed events. This type of player diversity has benefits as not everyone needs to be DPS heroes but some do. Those who want to participate in content they might not have the skill level to perform in, could find themselves in the tanky support role and still be able to participate. This is true especially for players learning content, they can start off with the 'training wheels' of a tanky set, and ease into more damage as they become more confident with encounters.
 

13 minutes ago, ShadowCatz.8437 said:

This would mean that HC player would not use GS at all as much as normal players would with less sales from Gem Store.

I think this would also be the opposite, too many quality of life items exist that would complement HC playthroughs such as the convenience items I referenced in my earlier post. Additionally, a new realm location does mean existing Gem Store obtained cosmetics/items would not be transferred over.

Edited May 5, 2023 by Nothing.8564

[stormemperor.3745]

I would rather they start banning, pve/pvp bots, wintraders, wvw wall runners, raid/strike sellers in LFG, stop asking if I want discard nonsense materials, consume 79 tome at once to lvl 80 and receive all level up rewards at once, legendary gathering tools, legendary (stat changeable) infusions, bind infusions to account instead of character, I could keep going for years...

 

QOL and Anet doesn't go well together. Took them 10  years for legendary armory, I expect 10 more years for legendary infusions or remove aquatic headgear once for all.

Edited May 6, 2023 by stormemperor.3745

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

43 minutes ago, ShadowCatz.8437 said:

I think you are asking the wrong question here.

OP mentions 'high risk/high reward'; I am interested in what said 'high reward' would be.  If not Legendary gear, then what?  Dozens/hundreds of Gold?  Gem Store items?  What?

[Nothing.8564]

5 minutes ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

OP mentions 'high risk/high reward'; I am interested in what said 'high reward' would be.  If not Legendary gear, then what?  Dozens/hundreds of Gold?  Gem Store items?  What?

Reward and risk are perspective, I don't expect any exclusive rewards for HC content, maybe a title or something easy to throw in as someone mentioned GW1 had. Trivial rewards under normal conditions can feel monumental under challenging conditions, like making it all the way to level cap and unlocking some mounts, or helping others unlock theirs. Standard account progressions and clearing challenging group content for gear would fit my definition of high reward.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Meh.  The poll seems to indicate it is not a very popular suggestion.  Hopefully, the Devs use the limited resources on something more of the playerbase is interested in.

[Zebulous.2934]

Perhaps not Hard Core, but Rogue Like or Rogue Lite instead.  If there were some way to pass important things, like infusions, to your bank upon character death then the idea might be more popular.

 

[JTGuevara.9018]

12 hours ago, Zebulous.2934 said:

Perhaps not Hard Core, but Rogue Like or Rogue Lite instead.  If there were some way to pass important things, like infusions, to your bank upon character death then the idea might be more popular.

 

"Rogue-like" aka procedurally generated crap full of death traps. No thanks!

[Danikat.8537]

@Nothing.8564 - Have you tried playing a DIY perma-death character?

That could both be a good substitute while an official mode isn't available and could help show Anet there's demand for this sort of thing, especially if you can get other people to join in too. I know some other people have done it on and off, and I've heard that a streamer did it too (can't remember their name) but I don't know how many of them, if any, are still doing it.

The nice thing about a DIY challenge is you get to set your own rules. I've been working on one on and off for a while now where I've gotten to level 57 (which is nearly my personal best) and as well as perma-death I've got a bunch of additional rules to ensure it's actually a challenge. (Otherwise I could just use a bunch of tomes of knowledge to level instantly.)

This is my current rule set, if anyone's curious:

Spoiler

• Permadeath - If the /deaths count ever gets above 0 the character must be deleted. (It’s ok to clear their inventory, equipment etc. first)
• Only white (common) quality equipment - If there are no white items for that slot (e.g. aquabreathers) then the lowest available quality is the only one allowed. (I also allow the Hero’s Band due to tradition, and because it’s so weak.)
• No food, utility items or boosters - Unavoidable buffs (like the Lunar New Year boost) are permitted.
• No help from my other characters - No passing gear to this character or crafting stuff for them. Ideally they should only spend coin they’ve earned but I estimate it rather than tracking it.
• No infinite gathering tools or salvage kits - As this would give an advantage in earning their own money.
• No Waypoints or using the PvP lobby for travel but Asura Gates are permitted.
• No mounts until PoF or skiffs until EoD.
• No gliding until HoT - Accidental gliding is allowed, because it’s so hard to avoid, but if I can’t get to a place without gliding I can’t get there.
• Cosmetics are allowed - Reskinning equipment through the wardrobe, dyes, outfits, novelties, minis, finishers etc. anything which does not affect your stats or abilities is allowed.
• Buying from the TP is allowed - If they’re spending coin they’ve earned and what they buy fits the rules about equipment above.

 

As I said earlier in the thread a lot of those rules wouldn't be needed if I was using a free account instead of my main one, but if I did that I'd probably forget about it or switching over would seem like too much hassle, so I don't.

Edited May 6, 2023 by Danikat.8537

[Cuks.8241]

I would probably play it a bit. Not much though. And I dont really see the point of locking way points. I don't think it would add much to the game. What would need to be locked is all the account bound stuff and just make everything character bound. So when you die you loose it all including bank which should be also character specific.

But yeah I find the concept fun for a little while. You really need to utilise everything that game offers to get far. GW2 severely lacks any real community outside of end game content and even there much less than other mmorpgs. This would definitely have real communities because grouping would be so much more desired. 

I would even think about leaving downstate in the game. Perhaps a nerfed version where you can't self ress, can only be ressed by others.

[b k.1648]

I'd play a HC-based WvW mode, but it'd require a very different system to work, so that could be expensive to develop.

I don't really see the point in doing it in PvE though. I can do no-respawn in PvE already, and splitting off a new server where everyone is subject to that rule would just result in no-one playing the risky content there.

[Ashen.2907]

What is described in the OP does not come close to what I would consider, "hard core."

Taking longer to get where you are going is not hard core, it is what obstacles you have to overcome along the way that makes that distinction. When watching a movie where the protagonist catches an international flight do you find yourself wishing that the movie had its run time increased by twelve hours so that you can experience the full travel time?

[Cuks.8241]

36 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

What is described in the OP does not come close to what I would consider, "hard core."

Taking longer to get where you are going is not hard core, it is what obstacles you have to overcome along the way that makes that distinction. When watching a movie where the protagonist catches an international flight do you find yourself wishing that the movie had its run time increased by twelve hours so that you can experience the full travel time?

The "hardcore" in this context usually means when you die your character and everything with him dies and is deleted.

[kharmin.7683]

1 minute ago, Cuks.8241 said:

The "hardcore" in this context usually means when you die your character and everything with him dies and is deleted.

Except, IIRC, they wanted to be able to keep their infusions?  I thought I had read that somewhere along this trip.  If so, then could it really be considered HC?

[Cuks.8241]

4 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

Except, IIRC, they wanted to be able to keep their infusions?  I thought I had read that somewhere along this trip.  If so, then could it really be considered HC?

I don't think its a strict term. If its cosmetics it doesn't matter to me one way or the other. If its convenience or power I think it should be deleted.