The Secret Weapon GW2 Has in the Market

[Adry.7512]

I have seen a lot of reviews regarding GW2. Reviews about how it’s their favorite game or how it’s the best mmorpg out there and they give many reasons why. There is ONE particular reason that in my opinion stands as number 1 and it happens to the something that I have seen NOBODY acknowledge or probably even notice. GW2 has the MOST relevant content compared to ABY other mmorpg due to its basic core theme, it’s mastery over horizontal progression. Basically, you can pick ANY content in the game, old or new, and it’s relevant today, period. That can’t be said over any other game to this magnitude in my experience. Since GW2 mastered and to my knowledge basically created and pioneered horizontal progression in mmorpgs, there is not one single shred of content that you wouldn’t benefit from today. Yes there are older games with more content and Xpacs (very few), but how much of it is relevant? How much of it is challenging? A small fraction of it, the rest is outdated. This method of implementing horizontal progression is key to having a truly huge living world with almost endless content. Obviously that will be hard for devs to regulate years down the line, but it’s still pretty amazing.

[Xperiment.6923]

The secret weapon GW2 has over any other MMO's are the heavy breathing whales that sank 1000's of dollars and hours into the game that would prevent them from uninstalling.

[Lucy.3728]

Except for pvp. As pvp player you don't need any other content the game offers.

As wvw player, like me, you only need the other content for other players to feed the market with the stuff you need (e.g. for equipment).

[Randulf.7614]

I'm pretty certain this is widely acknowledged by everyone. It's not new or soemthing just discovered. You are also slightly confusing downscaling and horizontal progression. GW2 isn't a creator in these (maybe downscaling although I doubt it--I just can't recall an earlier one at this time), it just made them popular and a bigger part of the game.

But yes, content not going out of date has been a key strength of the game. It's always acknowledged to have been

Edited July 23, 2023 by Randulf.7614

[Zekent.3652]

The horizontal progression is one of the main reasons on why i'm playing this game over my past MMO, GW2 is one of the very few horizontal progression MMOs out there and it's doing well on it, just like they did on GW1.

[Hashberry.4510]

Cow dancing, see the other thread. Nods.

[Kalocin.5982]

The thing GW2 has that keeps it next to FFXIV and WoW is that you get to keep your stuff even if you logout for a year. The other part is that it has an unparalleled open world experience with somewhat action combat. It is actually unique and that's why people can even justify playing it next to other mmos. The worst part about GW2 is that you could swear the company wants it to die by having the worst marketing I've ever seen for any product, and by that I mean it's non-existant.

[Batalix.2873]

Horizontal progresion *was* GW2's appeal.

It has been slipping considerably since.

First IBS, which although horizontally compartmentalized, really struggled to create masteries with the same universal utility as HoT/PoF.

Then EoD, which broke down a few horizontal barriers due to being rushed and unable to design it's own new movement paradigms. It especially disrespects PoF's horizontal design space the most Skiffs heavily duplicate skimmers but poorly. Raptors and Springers are just handed out for free. And despite PoF being "the mount" module, EoD felt the need to include its own mount to try to ride that wave. We could have had personal vehicles, cars, skyships. We could have had a jade tech scuba suit. Instead EoD started the process of parting out past horizontal achievements for lack of its own solid designs.

Also, EoD heavily pulled back on self-contained achievements and exploration and designed a lot of its incentive systems around the Aurene Legendaries. And those also break down horizontal design by deriving substantial engagement from playing HoT/PoF/IBS content for the additional skins. I.e. a lot of EoD's incentive systems are not wholly contained to EoD and/or core, but deliberately abandon horizontal progression to plug the other expacs and force players to buy the other modules anyway to really benefit from EoD's one major achievement system.

SotO is just abjectly abandoning horizontal progression. Now the natural, self-contained power curves of gliding and mounts in HoT/PoF will just be skipped over. No one will have much incentive to engage in HoT's horizontal progression toward leyline gliding when they can just get Skyscale. No one will have much incentive to progress through raptor/springer/skimmer/griffin to ramp up to Skyscale when they can just get Skyscale.

Horizontal progression in this game is as much a lie as "New World Order" was to Magic the Gathering almost ten years ago. A lot of PR speak that maybe had traction in design for a few years, but was quickly abandoned due to a huge lack of developer conviction. Because when you are constantly trying to find new design space year after year to please shareholders, of course you end up giving up on principles and shifting to the easier model of recycling content and flipping your script every six months.

Edited July 25, 2023 by Batalix.2873

[Valfar.3761]

On 7/23/2023 at 6:55 AM, Adry.7512 said:

GW2 has the MOST relevant content compared to ABY other mmorpg due to its basic core theme, it’s mastery over horizontal progression. Basically, you can pick ANY content in the game, old or new, and it’s relevant today, period.

Just because GW2's content isn't utterly trivalized by level cap increases (the ergregious powercreep we have is pretty bad, Mouth of Mordremoth dies in less than 90 seconds and you never get to see his other mechanics) doesn't mean it is relevant to most players. For each map you complete the hearts, complete the masteries, maybe do the Season of Dragons achievements and mine pick 10 flowers, and then move on. You have no reason to come back unless you're going to work towards some legendary that requires you invest a hundred dollars into levelling up crafting and buying mats off of the auction house to finish. For most people there is no reason to go back to Lornar's Pass or Elon Riverlands or Bjora Marches. FF14 does a better job keeping more of its content relevant to most of the playerbase. You can level up other jobs through duty roulette (whereas in GW2 the optimal way to play is to just PvP and use the hundreds of tomes of knowledge you get from there to boost a character to 80 upon creation), and you can do old FATEs (dynamic events) and instanced content to acquire Memories which can be used to create relic weapons, which do not have the deterrent of requiring you to spend a lot of cash in mats to finish or spend thousands of hours farming.

[Shadowmoon.7986]

I do not think mismanaging funds on projects that ultimately get canceled is a weapon I would brag about this game. Imagine IBS if it was fully funded.

[Alsandar.7420]

The main character in WoW is Azeroth. That’s a famous line from circa 2005. And it’s absolutely not true anymore.

But Tyria, the open world, trains and meta events - seeing hundreds of real people all around you enjoying Tyria…

That’s the secret weapon

[AliamRationem.5172]

On 7/23/2023 at 10:27 AM, Xperiment.6923 said:

The secret weapon GW2 has over any other MMO's are the heavy breathing whales that sank 1000's of dollars and hours into the game that would prevent them from uninstalling.

All MMOs have those, even the ones nobody has ever heard of and nobody actually plays.

[Batalix.2873]

2 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

All MMOs have those, even the ones nobody has ever heard of and nobody actually plays.

What if the fantasy we were all chasing was to be the ONLY whale in a tiny game just for us.

I think I just had a eureka moment, someone find me some investors. 😛

[Gibson.4036]

11 hours ago, Alsandar.7420 said:

The main character in WoW is Azeroth. That’s a famous line from circa 2005. And it’s absolutely not true anymore.

But Tyria, the open world, trains and meta events - seeing hundreds of real people all around you enjoying Tyria…

That’s the secret weapon

Last night I was on a trail to get all the fox chests in Kaineng because I'm a few mastery points away from finishing EoD masteries. I see, "Champ at [POI] if anyone can help" in map chat. It's late, I'm just trying to finish the mastery before I go to bed, so for a few seconds I just keep on trucking. Then I have second thoughts. I turn around, book it back to that side of the map, and jump in with another person who showed up to help the player who called out in chat. We finished off the champ together, I springer up into dismount/griffon and zoom back off to where I was. Later, I found an object in my inventory that comes from that champ for a collection achievement I didn't even know I had open.

It felt great.

This is the kind of experience I don't have in other MMOs I've tried. It's what's kept me playing GW2 this many years later.

[kharmin.7683]

On 7/24/2023 at 6:12 PM, Valfar.3761 said:

Just because GW2's content isn't utterly trivalized by level cap increases (the ergregious powercreep we have is pretty bad, Mouth of Mordremoth dies in less than 90 seconds and you never get to see his other mechanics) doesn't mean it is relevant to most players. For each map you complete the hearts, complete the masteries, maybe do the Season of Dragons achievements and mine pick 10 flowers, and then move on. You have no reason to come back unless you're going to work towards some legendary that requires you invest a hundred dollars into levelling up crafting and buying mats off of the auction house to finish. For most people there is no reason to go back to Lornar's Pass or Elon Riverlands or Bjora Marches. FF14 does a better job keeping more of its content relevant to most of the playerbase. You can level up other jobs through duty roulette (whereas in GW2 the optimal way to play is to just PvP and use the hundreds of tomes of knowledge you get from there to boost a character to 80 upon creation), and you can do old FATEs (dynamic events) and instanced content to acquire Memories which can be used to create relic weapons, which do not have the deterrent of requiring you to spend a lot of cash in mats to finish or spend thousands of hours farming.

Hard disagree here.  As a very casual OWPvE player, I travel throughout many maps in central Tyria and although they are not heavily populated, I always find players on them doing all kinds of activities.   To me, this doesn't seem to appeal to you, and that's ok but it's a bit disingenuous to believe that there are no reasons to return to older maps.

[Danikat.8537]

On 7/24/2023 at 12:32 AM, Zizekent.2398 said:

The horizontal progression is one of the main reasons on why i'm playing this game over my past MMO, GW2 is one of the very few horizontal progression MMOs out there and it's doing well on it, just like they did on GW1.

Same here. Before I discovered GW1 I'd given up on MMOs because I couldn't devote enough time to them to keep up with other players. I've never cared about having the best equipment or whatever but if I log in and find I can't play with my friends or guild or whatever group because they've finished the stuff I need to do and I'm not able to survive the stuff they've moved onto we can't play together.

Also because I have limited time to play I suspect I'd spend all my time chasing new equipment and then something else would come out and I'd never get to the point where I can just focus on what I want to do and enjoy it without having to do a bunch of preparation first. In GW2 I never have to worry about that and can spend all my time doing what I enjoy.
 

On 7/24/2023 at 7:30 PM, Batalix.2873 said:

Horizontal progresion *was* GW2's appeal.

It has been slipping considerably since.

First IBS, which although horizontally compartmentalized, really struggled to create masteries with the same universal utility as HoT/PoF.

Then EoD, which broke down a few horizontal barriers due to being rushed and unable to design it's own new movement paradigms. It especially disrespects PoF's horizontal design space the most Skiffs heavily duplicate skimmers but poorly. Raptors and Springers are just handed out for free. And despite PoF being "the mount" module, EoD felt the need to include its own mount to try to ride that wave. We could have had personal vehicles, cars, skyships. We could have had a jade tech scuba suit. Instead EoD started the process of parting out past horizontal achievements for lack of its own solid designs.

Also, EoD heavily pulled back on self-contained achievements and exploration and designed a lot of its incentive systems around the Aurene Legendaries. And those also break down horizontal design by deriving substantial engagement from playing HoT/PoF/IBS content for the additional skins. I.e. a lot of EoD's incentive systems are not wholly contained to EoD and/or core, but deliberately abandon horizontal progression to plug the other expacs and force players to buy the other modules anyway to really benefit from EoD's one major achievement system.

SotO is just abjectly abandoning horizontal progression. Now the natural, self-contained power curves of gliding and mounts in HoT/PoF will just be skipped over. No one will have much incentive to engage in HoT's horizontal progression toward leyline gliding when they can just get Skyscale. No one will have much incentive to progress through raptor/springer/skimmer/griffin to ramp up to Skyscale when they can just get Skyscale.

Horizontal progression in this game is as much a lie as "New World Order" was to Magic the Gathering almost ten years ago. A lot of PR speak that maybe had traction in design for a few years, but was quickly abandoned due to a huge lack of developer conviction. Because when you are constantly trying to find new design space year after year to please shareholders, of course you end up giving up on principles and shifting to the easier model of recycling content and flipping your script every six months.

Horizontal progression doesn't mean everything is self-contained and you have to play every area of the game to get everything (often it's the opposite). It means that new releases don't make your character stronger and don't require bigger numbers to survive.

Vertical progression would actually be closer to what you seem to want - that would mean anyone wanting to play EoD would have to have completed IBS first because they'd need the masteries (or more usually new skills and upgraded equipment) only available there to survive in EoD maps, and to survive IBS they'd need ones from PoF and so on - each release would add new and better stuff and then future releases are balanced around that so you have to keep playing each one and unlocking the required rewards before you can move on to the next thing.

The ability to choose your own order and priorities and play the stuff you're most interested in right away is often considered one of the benefits of a horizontal progression system - as mentioned by some people in this topic.

[Batalix.2873]

3 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

Same here. Before I discovered GW1 I'd given up on MMOs because I couldn't devote enough time to them to keep up with other players. I've never cared about having the best equipment or whatever but if I log in and find I can't play with my friends or guild or whatever group because they've finished the stuff I need to do and I'm not able to survive the stuff they've moved onto we can't play together.

Also because I have limited time to play I suspect I'd spend all my time chasing new equipment and then something else would come out and I'd never get to the point where I can just focus on what I want to do and enjoy it without having to do a bunch of preparation first. In GW2 I never have to worry about that and can spend all my time doing what I enjoy.
 

Horizontal progression doesn't mean everything is self-contained and you have to play every area of the game to get everything (often it's the opposite). It means that new releases don't make your character stronger and don't require bigger numbers to survive.

Vertical progression would actually be closer to what you seem to want - that would mean anyone wanting to play EoD would have to have completed IBS first because they'd need the masteries (or more usually new skills and upgraded equipment) only available there to survive in EoD maps, and to survive IBS they'd need ones from PoF and so on - each release would add new and better stuff and then future releases are balanced around that so you have to keep playing each one and unlocking the required rewards before you can move on to the next thing.

The ability to choose your own order and priorities and play the stuff you're most interested in right away is often considered one of the benefits of a horizontal progression system - as mentioned by some people in this topic.

Not at all, and don't presume what I want please.

What I want is precisely the opposite, and what GW2 more closely approximated with HoT/PoF under a true horizontal progression model: totally modular, self-contained expansions. Where you can get gliding in HoT but it's not necessary for PoF content. Where you can get mounts in PoF but it doesn't obviate gliding in HoT. The systems add, but they are all complimentary in a way that neither obligates the player to buy other expansions, nor obviates the utility of those other expansions. An important feature of the past horizontal progression system was not just that each expansion was fairly self-sufficient in its mechanics, but also that each expansion stand solidly on its own mechanics without poaching on other expansions' features.

EoD and SotO decidedly are moving away from that horizontal progress model. It belies (1) a lack of creativity on the developers' part to make new systems that dovetail with the old to the same extent they did in HoT/PoF, and (2) a general indifference as to whether old content's utility is preserved.

Edited July 26, 2023 by Batalix.2873

[Vayne.8563]

On 7/24/2023 at 2:27 AM, Xperiment.6923 said:

The secret weapon GW2 has over any other MMO's are the heavy breathing whales that sank 1000's of dollars and hours into the game that would prevent them from uninstalling.

So let's get this straight. This is Guild Wars 2's secret weapon. Tell me, what percentage of the population do you think are whales.

Because from my point of view, every single person who's played WoW for a year has spent at least $180 on the game, and if you played WoW for ten years that's $1180 plus expansions.  WoW has a cash shop too, and it also has, or had anyway, paid server transfers.

Seems to me, like a small percentage of Guild Wars 2 players would suffer from this issue, but EVERY WoW player would suffer from it.  And  you know, I don't care about investment or money personally. I've sunk lots of money into lots of things, get my money's worth from it or don't and if I don't like it I'm out the door.  Some people will stay with a game they don't like. But not everyone.  And yeah, most people would probably consider me a whale. This is still some of the cheapest entertainment per hour I've ever enjoyed.

[Geralt.7519]

38 minutes ago, Vayne.8563 said:

Because from my point of view, every single person who's played WoW for a year has spent at least $180 on the game, and if you played WoW for ten years that's $1180 plus expansions.  WoW has a cash shop too, and it also has, or had anyway, paid server transfers.

Seems to me, like a small percentage of Guild Wars 2 players would suffer from this issue, but EVERY WoW player would suffer from it.

Not even close. 1k$ in 10 years is nowhere near a whale, a whale would spend that in a month, you can be a whale in GW2, you can't in WoW, unless you pay for dozens of accounts.

There's a limit on how much money you can spend in WoW, paid services have cooldowns, there's a limit on how many tokens you can buy, shop items are extremely limited in numbers, so unless you have dozens of accounts and you pay for all of them, you won't be able to reach whale-level of spending in WoW.

You can in GW2, on top of lots of expensive items in the cash shop, GW2 has a form of gambling in black lion chests, that's what attracts whales and why F2P games implement them.

That's not to say I agree with the one you're answering to, just to clarify what a whale is.

Edited July 27, 2023 by Geralt.7519

[Vayne.8563]

2 hours ago, Geralt.7519 said:

Not even close. 1k$ in 10 years is nowhere near a whale, a whale would spend that in a month, you can be a whale in GW2, you can't in WoW, unless you pay for dozens of accounts.

There's a limit on how much money you can spend in WoW, paid services have cooldowns, there's a limit on how many tokens you can buy, shop items are extremely limited in numbers, so unless you have dozens of accounts and you pay for all of them, you won't be able to reach whale-level of spending in WoW.

You can in GW2, on top of lots of expensive items in the cash shop, GW2 has a form of gambling in black lion chests, that's what attracts whales and why F2P games implement them.

That's not to say I agree with the one you're answering to, just to clarify what a whale is.

It's not the point. 1k, isn't a whale and it may not be much for you personally, but I know a whole lot of MMO players who were bored with WoW but had already invested so much, even a couple of hundred dollars, that they felt they had to keep going.  The sunken cost fallacy has nothing to do with the amount you spend,. it had to do with how much you've invested over time, from your own  point of view.

You think the tiny percentage of the audience that are whales is why people keep playing this game, but if it's only a tiny percentage, and where are the other players coming from? Or are you trying to suggest they're all whales.

Plenty of people who have never spent a penny on the game play and it continue to play it. The entire premise is flawed.

Edited July 27, 2023 by Vayne.8563

[Geralt.7519]

1 hour ago, Vayne.8563 said:

It's not the point.

It was in your previous post, you were talking about whales. The sunken cost fallacy is a totally different matter, it has nothing to do with whales and it can affect everyone, GW2 and WoW players alike.

 

2 hours ago, Vayne.8563 said:

You think the tiny percentage of the audience that are whales is why people keep playing this game, but if it's only a tiny percentage, and where are the other players coming from? Or are you trying to suggest they're all whales.

No, I don't think that, people play GW2 regardless of the existence of whales. Whales are always a minuscule minority, tho if they exist, they may account for a non-insignificant amount of revenue.

[Vayne.8563]

2 hours ago, Geralt.7519 said:

It was in your previous post, you were talking about whales. The sunken cost fallacy is a totally different matter, it has nothing to do with whales and it can affect everyone, GW2 and WoW players alike.

 

No, I don't think that, people play GW2 regardless of the existence of whales. Whales are always a minuscule minority, tho if they exist, they may account for a non-insignificant amount of revenue.

The point of the specific poster, who brought up whales was about the secret of the success of Guild Wars 2. He's saying that people are paying money, a lot of money and that stops them from uninstalling. The implication of what he said is that this game is only played and successful by people who pay a lot of money, that everyone else uninstalls. There's not enough whales for that to happen.

On the other hand, there are plenty of people in other games who pay what they consider enough money that they have to keep playing. It's far more prevalent in sub games than it is in a game like this, for most of the population I'd wager. I was looking at what they poster was trying to imply and replying to his implication. I could have been clearer.

You decided to take me literally, instead of looking at what I was replying to and trying to say. So hopefully, now that I've clarified, we can get back to that topic. I don't disagree with what you're saying, it just doesn't really have anything to do with what I was saying.

[Dyers.1567]

Been playing GW2 since Beta and this keeps me going as well.