Has the GW2 design philosophy changed?

[Tanek.5983]

First off, I know the GW2 we have today is not exactly the GW2 we had at launch. Things have changed over the past 11 years and many, I think, have changed for the better.

That said, I never felt the core design philosophy had changed. Parts of this were laid out years before launch (https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-design-manifesto/) and the choices that have been made in creating GW2 are a big part of why it stands out for me among all MMOs I have played.

Now, a couple of the things I thought of as part of the core design of GW2 feel like they have changed (or at least glitched).

One of those things is the cooperative nature of the game in PvE. Going back to that 2010 post,

Quote

MMOs are social games. So why do they sometimes seem to work so hard to punish you for playing with other players? If I’m out hunting and another player walks by, shouldn’t I welcome his help, rather than worrying that he’s going to steal my kills or consume all the mobs I wanted to kill? Or if I want to play with someone, shouldn’t we naturally have the same goals and objectives, rather than discovering that we’re in the same area but working on a different set of quests?

Some of the daily or weekly objectives in the Wizard's Vault have, however, introduced a kind of kill-stealing. The "defeat x enemies while under a nourishment/enhancement effect" only counts kills where you make the killing blow. Maybe this is a bug, but why does the killing blow mechanic even exist here? Where else in the game is it used? Have I just never encountered it before? Either way, unless and until this is changed, I have to worry when jumping into a fight whether I'm taking kills away from someone's weekly objective. And I have to worry that someone will take mine. Also, the incentive to help downed players is lessened when removal of those players will mean more kills for you.

I like to think that the GW2 community is good enough that the effects of the above "kill-stealing" won't be too pronounced. But is this the game they intended to make?

Another quote from that manifesto,

Quote

It all gets back to our basic design philosophy. Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment.

This, to me, has always been reflected in how the game is played right from the time you make an account. You want to level up through story and exploration? Great. You want to run around doing events all day? Go for it. You want to map-complete all the core zones before finishing the personal story? I've done that. Maybe WvW or PvP are more your thing, or something you want to try? Supported.

Now, with the Wizard's Vault and removal of the basic daily achievements, a new player might feel more pressure to "get to 80". Which many people might not think is too hard, but it is still an odd choice that wasn't present before. Getting to 80 always opened up "the rest of the game", but I never felt like anyone was missing out with so many things to do as they leveled. Now, despite the WV rewards being archived for access even after the current season, there is a FOMO element in even unlocking it and a "only max level matters" feel that I'm very used to seeing in other games, but not here.

Then, once at 80, you have to choose what kind of content to be locked into for the daily and weekly objectives. Again, this feels like more of a "play the way we want you to play" than a "play the way you want to play". Personally, I liked doing some WvW each week. Now, because I don't want to be locked into whatever objectives it spits out, I will only ever pick PvE. Sure, I can still do some WvW when I want to, but what, exactly, is the point of locking away those objectives? What is the goal here?

I know most of this centers around the Wizard's Vault, but that was a major change with the latest expansion and is a great way to look at where I think current design goes against where we had been before. There are also aspect of this in the expansion itself.

I'm never going to claim there are not some very grindy things in GW2. Achievements, legendaries, some event rewards, etc. But there were so many ways to get to those goals it never felt to me like a grind. Now, unless I am missing something, rifts are the thing to do for new materials and rewards. The only thing to do. Over and over and over again. Rifts with the same basic mechanics all day.

Will these change with more content later? I have no idea. So far what I have heard just sounds like adding more bosses and tiers with the same rift hunting. I know many people do not mind this or even think rift hunting is better than other content in the game. Great. I want those people to have this as an option. Hunt rifts all daty every day if it is fun. But THIS is what feels grindy to me. And I don't see a way out.

I guess the real problem for me is that I worry if the core design goals of the game have indeed changed, GW2 will keep moving in this direction and get farther away from the things I felt made it stand out. Made it be the game I wanted to play in my free time. I hope this is not the case and it continues to bring something unique to the field of MMOs. I hope the feedback players provide leads to some good iteration on the current choices. I just find myself wondering why they were made in the first place.

[Randulf.7614]

I think these are oversights not philosophy changes. They are certainly changing the game in some quarters in order for a new team to take ownership of the game. We have seen that with relics and their poor approach to professions and balance—and burying their head in the sand afterwards so they can’t look at the feedback .

The killing blow thing is just a bug or poor programming. It could be a case of not progressing in mass events too easily, but that seems rather silly. I’m inclined to oversight/bug.

I don’t think the pillars have been altered to any great extent, but there are changes which are being rushed or the result of not learning from old mistakes

[Luthan.5236]

The last hit thing (kill steal) is not that much of a big deal. A lot of empty areas where you can trash some white mobs (yes that one-shottable animals also count!)
The mechanics for giving something for getting the last kill ... exists in one PvP map. (There it actually is annoying and should be removed or changed.)

Other than that I do not see many issues. Reaching level 80 is easier than ever before I think. Even with normally slowly exploring your first char and the core personal story ... it should not take too long. Not like you'd spend months to do that.

The wizards vault rewards actually seem to try to counter the fear of mising out. By trying to offer older stuff as well. (Probably at a reasonable price.) There are other parts in the game where it is much harder to do certain content. Old dailies were actually worse. If you wanted to get everything you'd have to do all 12 (everyone gave a lil bit of something). Here to do all it is doable with less pressure. Festivals have kind of a pressure: Having to play a lot in that time frame to get most out of it. Even if you would not like to play that much (and more in a few weeks later you have more time) ... you still feel the pressure cause otherwise you have to wait until the next year. Making completion there taking longer.

Then certain pretty hard stuff (skill based titles in PvP - for the top 250 ranks) or so grindy (some achievements) that one might not reacht it at all with their "normal" amount of playtime and play style. The small wizards vault issues some people have ... are a tiny pea compared to that other issues.

The main problem with new content that I have: They market it to new players as well. (Or even have the main focus on new players?) The 1st SotO map feels like they wanted to showcase certain parts of the older expansions (fractal islands showing how parts of the other expansion's maps looked) - to get people to buy that content as well and play it ... later. Can lead to confusion. And oddly influence the process of creating new content. (Cause they are limited by that - having to design it that way when other ways might be better.)

Edited September 11, 2023 by Luthan.5236

[bruakumfd.4817]

I want to give you the benefit of the doubt when it comes to kill stealing. That's because ever since PoF came out, people have been using their raptors to gather up a whole group of mobs. And I'm talking about other people being there since that tail spin stings.

That aside, I'm so glad for this post. Those are excellent points to make because it used to be for me ,"Oh, I can't get all the PvE objectives? Guess I'll play a spot of WvW." Now it's "Oh, I can't complete all them? I guess I'm not getting my reward tonight..." Oh, and whole we're here, can we please mention that this is game wide? That's pretty scummy when you consider how not everybody has the expac. 

s
 

[willow.8209]

I agree with OP

[Sobx.1758]

2 hours ago, Tanek.5983 said:

Now, with the Wizard's Vault and removal of the basic daily achievements, a new player might feel more pressure to "get to 80". Which many people might not think is too hard, but it is still an odd choice that wasn't present before. Getting to 80 always opened up "the rest of the game", but I never felt like anyone was missing out with so many things to do as they leveled. Now, despite the WV rewards being archived for access even after the current season, there is a FOMO element in even unlocking it and a "only max level matters" feel that I'm very used to seeing in other games, but not here.

Looks like the natural progression of the 10+year old game, considering now the vast majority of the game consists of lvl 80 content, which wasn't exactly the case at the game's release. Something that's also reflected by the addition of "new player guide" -or whatever it's called- rewarding additional experience for easy "tasks", which not only shows the player direction, but also intentionally speeds up the leveling process.
WV isn't the first element doing that, even if we forget that rewards were (almost?) always higher at lvl 80+, so that "pressure" was already there for people looking for "more value".

Edited September 11, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Tanek.5983]

3 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Looks like the natural progression of the 10+year old game, considering now the vast majority of the game consists of lvl 80 content, which wasn't exactly the case at the game's release. Something that's also reflected by the addition of "new player guide" -or whatever it's called- rewarding additional experience for easy "tasks", which not only shows the player direction, but also intentionally speeds up the leveling process.
WV isn't the first element doing that, even if we forget that rewards were (almost?) always higher at lvl 80+, so that "pressure" was already there for people looking for "more value".

If this is the case, then I would say the answer to my question is that yes, the design philosophy has changed. Which, if that is what the devs have decided to do, I'd just like to be told. Because while it is something I've come to expect from other games and dev studios, I'd have hoped ANet would keep doing things their own way.

I'd argue that the vast majority of content was level 80 from very early on in the game's life and I never felt I was missing out on something until I got there or that somethng was taken away just because I was not level 80 yet.

Also, question when it comes to content rather than level. When that new player gets to level 80 and the WV objectives are in SotO, is that ok? Or should the player be able to progress through the content in the order of release without skipping ahead?

[Linken.6345]

4 minutes ago, Tanek.5983 said:

If this is the case, then I would say the answer to my question is that yes, the design philosophy has changed. Which, if that is what the devs have decided to do, I'd just like to be told. Because while it is something I've come to expect from other games and dev studios, I'd have hoped ANet would keep doing things their own way.

I'd argue that the vast majority of content was level 80 from very early on in the game's life and I never felt I was missing out on something until I got there or that somethng was taken away just because I was not level 80 yet.

Also, question when it comes to content rather than level. When that new player gets to level 80 and the WV objectives are in SotO, is that ok? Or should the player be able to progress through the content in the order of release without skipping ahead?

Well at release we had 1 map and 1 dungeon that was level 80 everything else was below it, so how is that the majority of the content?

[Sobx.1758]

9 minutes ago, Tanek.5983 said:

If this is the case, then I would say the answer to my question is that yes, the design philosophy has changed. Which, if that is what the devs have decided to do, I'd just like to be told. Because while it is something I've come to expect from other games and dev studios, I'd have hoped ANet would keep doing things their own way.

As I said: that looks like a natural game progression considering the released content is almost entirely for lvl 80 characters.

I'm also not sure why you'd need to be suddenly officially informed about it considering you're not even a new player. What is the issue with any of that for you specifically?

9 minutes ago, Tanek.5983 said:

I'd argue that the vast majority of content was level 80 from very early on in the game's life and I never felt I was missing out on something until I got there or that somethng was taken away just because I was not level 80 yet.

If that's what you think then just look at the amount of content added through expansions and living world seasons/episodes (+instanced) and tell me your "vast majority during core" is anywhere near the current "vast majority" I'm talking about. Spoiler alert: it isn't. If currently it's "vast majority", the core might have had barely a majority, if even that.
I seriously struggle to see by what logic you're trying to compare somehow equate these two.

Edited September 11, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Tanek.5983]

1 minute ago, Sobx.1758 said:

If that what you think then just look at the amount of content added through expansions and living world seasons/episodes (+instanced) and tell me your "vast majority during core" is anywhere near to the current "vast majority" I'm talking about. Spoiler alert: it isn't. If currently it's "vast majority", the core might have had barely a majority. I seriously struggle to see by what logic you're trying to compare these two.

To be clear, I never said "vast majority during core". By the time Heart of Thorns was released there was quite a bit of content at level 80. Season 1 was "gone" but that is one of the areas where I think things changed for the better and shifted to repeatable story content.

[Sobx.1758]

1 hour ago, Tanek.5983 said:

To be clear, I never said "vast majority during core". By the time Heart of Thorns was released there was quite a bit of content at level 80. Season 1 was "gone" but that is one of the areas where I think things changed for the better and shifted to repeatable story content.

Ok, sorry, the "from very early on in the game's life" fooled me. Now add lw/ibs seasons and 3 more expansions and it's still not anywhere close. I'm talking about the current state of the game and how it naturally moves in a certain logical direction. You're talking about "what it was in 2015". That's right, HoT release was 8 years ago and... I really don't know where you're trying to go with this. Is this supposed to change anything I wrote in the previous posts? Please make it easier for me to understand, because I don't see it.

Edited September 11, 2023 by Sobx.1758
3 expansions, not 2

[Flasterko.4087]

Very nice written OP.  I also see the new way like that.

[Futa.4375]

I think they have been trying to change it since EoD but they have no idea what they want to do or how to do it. What they have been doing seems very amateurish, lack of polish, lack of thought being put into what they add/change, lack of testing, very uninspired content, etc...
I don't even think they really care about balance, they just put a bunch of kids to do whatever and now "balance patches" act as pretend content patches that people look forward to. The game will never be balanced, they will keep us in this neverending loop.

But as long as people buy overpriced things on the cash shop made by third parties for cheap why bother anyway?

Edited September 11, 2023 by Futa.4375

[Obtena.7952]

I think the path was determined a long time ago. Decisions on Horizontal progression, no added levels every expansion, etc ... things like that point to a game where the game design is more around a story and added content than filling the newest empty gear slot with a new shiny thing to make you more powerful. 

I still feel we have a game where we are still free to choose how, what and who we want to play with, but we are definitely entering a phase of the game where Anet appears to moving towards a more traditional concept ... encounter design, team balancing design around roles, adding gear and options. I guess they are satisfied their previous experiment worked and it's time to implement something more familiar to MMO players at the later stages of the game so they can continue to offer the market a compelling service. 

This might be inline with the OP but my primary concern is how established content is affected by Anet making new design decisions. The whole point of some of the older design decisions is to keep established content gameplay relevant to players, which points to the idea that build choices by players shouldn't trivialize established content.. Some of the changes we see with the game don't align with maintaining that relevance. Addition of Jadebot, Relics, Weaponmastery, etc ... 

 

Edited September 11, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[TeeBeeNZ.1963]

There has been several changes.  When the game moved from B2P to F2P you can see the move to grinding content, and pushing convience items.  More focus on money, less on fixing problems.  When EoD came out you can see them move into funding mode pushing out small pieces of content quickly to get money for future game dev work.

[Phatbody.2697]

For me it was the horrible...and I mean HORRIBLE map population in EoD.  That got me to just do my dailies until something better came along.  

Now that the dailies are trash, I'm on the fence of just leaving the game be.

I wish I liked the direction everything is going but I don't 😞

 

[Astralporing.1957]

10 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

I still feel we have a game where we are still free to choose how, what and who we want to play with, but we are definitely entering a phase of the game where Anet appears to moving towards a more traditional concept ... encounter design, team balancing design around roles, adding gear and options. I guess they are satisfied their previous experiment worked and it's time to implement something more familiar to MMO players at the later stages of the game so they can continue to offer the market a compelling service.

Problem is, that shift in design is not about adding things on top of what worked so far. It means changing things to move away from what worked before.

[kharmin.7683]

4 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Problem is, that shift in design is not about adding things on top of what worked so far. It means changing things to move away from what worked before.

There is a difference between "what worked before" and "what makes enough profit for the investors" which is why I believe things are changing.

[Vayne.8563]

19 hours ago, Tanek.5983 said:

First off, I know the GW2 we have today is not exactly the GW2 we had at launch. Things have changed over the past 11 years and many, I think, have changed for the better.

That said, I never felt the core design philosophy had changed. Parts of this were laid out years before launch (https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-design-manifesto/) and the choices that have been made in creating GW2 are a big part of why it stands out for me among all MMOs I have played.

Now, a couple of the things I thought of as part of the core design of GW2 feel like they have changed (or at least glitched).

One of those things is the cooperative nature of the game in PvE. Going back to that 2010 post,

Some of the daily or weekly objectives in the Wizard's Vault have, however, introduced a kind of kill-stealing. The "defeat x enemies while under a nourishment/enhancement effect" only counts kills where you make the killing blow. Maybe this is a bug, but why does the killing blow mechanic even exist here? Where else in the game is it used? Have I just never encountered it before? Either way, unless and until this is changed, I have to worry when jumping into a fight whether I'm taking kills away from someone's weekly objective. And I have to worry that someone will take mine. Also, the incentive to help downed players is lessened when removal of those players will mean more kills for you.

I like to think that the GW2 community is good enough that the effects of the above "kill-stealing" won't be too pronounced. But is this the game they intended to make?

Another quote from that manifesto,

This, to me, has always been reflected in how the game is played right from the time you make an account. You want to level up through story and exploration? Great. You want to run around doing events all day? Go for it. You want to map-complete all the core zones before finishing the personal story? I've done that. Maybe WvW or PvP are more your thing, or something you want to try? Supported.

Now, with the Wizard's Vault and removal of the basic daily achievements, a new player might feel more pressure to "get to 80". Which many people might not think is too hard, but it is still an odd choice that wasn't present before. Getting to 80 always opened up "the rest of the game", but I never felt like anyone was missing out with so many things to do as they leveled. Now, despite the WV rewards being archived for access even after the current season, there is a FOMO element in even unlocking it and a "only max level matters" feel that I'm very used to seeing in other games, but not here.

Then, once at 80, you have to choose what kind of content to be locked into for the daily and weekly objectives. Again, this feels like more of a "play the way we want you to play" than a "play the way you want to play". Personally, I liked doing some WvW each week. Now, because I don't want to be locked into whatever objectives it spits out, I will only ever pick PvE. Sure, I can still do some WvW when I want to, but what, exactly, is the point of locking away those objectives? What is the goal here?

I know most of this centers around the Wizard's Vault, but that was a major change with the latest expansion and is a great way to look at where I think current design goes against where we had been before. There are also aspect of this in the expansion itself.

I'm never going to claim there are not some very grindy things in GW2. Achievements, legendaries, some event rewards, etc. But there were so many ways to get to those goals it never felt to me like a grind. Now, unless I am missing something, rifts are the thing to do for new materials and rewards. The only thing to do. Over and over and over again. Rifts with the same basic mechanics all day.

Will these change with more content later? I have no idea. So far what I have heard just sounds like adding more bosses and tiers with the same rift hunting. I know many people do not mind this or even think rift hunting is better than other content in the game. Great. I want those people to have this as an option. Hunt rifts all daty every day if it is fun. But THIS is what feels grindy to me. And I don't see a way out.

I guess the real problem for me is that I worry if the core design goals of the game have indeed changed, GW2 will keep moving in this direction and get farther away from the things I felt made it stand out. Made it be the game I wanted to play in my free time. I hope this is not the case and it continues to bring something unique to the field of MMOs. I hope the feedback players provide leads to some good iteration on the current choices. I just find myself wondering why they were made in the first place.

I think the nourishment thing is a bug, and it will likely be fixed sooner rather than later. Just a guess. We have a patch coming out today so I'll wait to see before I make a statement. It's a new system, it's bound to have some bugs to iron out. And since the game at launch was massively buggy and hot was massively buggy, to assume this same game all these years later won't also be buggy makes the rest of this comment questionable. 

No, I don't think that design decision has changed. I do think people need for the 2 week old game to get a patch or two, before they draw conclusions.

[Zok.4956]

19 hours ago, Tanek.5983 said:

Again, this feels like more of a "play the way we want you to play" than a "play the way you want to play".

Yes, I have the same impression.  I think this is something that you can see in several changes.

I also think that these changes are not intended to make the game better for players so that players can have more fun in the game. Rather, it seems to be essentially about achieving ever more consistent numbers of players and thus ever more consistent sales with fewer development costs and development risks. Even if that means that GW2 is becoming more and more like those "other games" that GW2 once wanted to differentiate itself from.

[kharmin.7683]

17 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

Yes, I have the same impression.  I think this is something that you can see in several changes.

I also think that these changes are not intended to make the game better for players so that players can have more fun in the game. Rather, it seems to be essentially about achieving ever more consistent numbers of players and thus ever more consistent sales with fewer development costs and development risks. Even if that means that GW2 is becoming more and more like those "other games" that GW2 once wanted to differentiate itself from.

Precisely.  We don't have the relevant data, but I can almost imagine that to remain profitable, the studio had to make changes that made the business model from 4, 6, or even 11 years ago unsustainable today.

[Danikat.8537]

I agree the nourishment kills thing is probably a bug. My guess is it's set to check for credit when something dies, but that means it only checks the last hit and therefore the last player. It needs to be done the same way as getting XP from kills, which I assume tracks all players that damaged an enemy.

Once you know it's happening it's not hard to work around, but it was very confusing and I hope it gets fixed before that achievement comes up again.

[Obtena.7952]

5 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Problem is, that shift in design is not about adding things on top of what worked so far. It means changing things to move away from what worked before.

I think it's time some people realize the goal here isn't to keep established players happy with what worked before. Obviously what worked before isn't works as well now. 

[FalanuLachance.4576]

20 hours ago, Tanek.5983 said:

Now, with the Wizard's Vault and removal of the basic daily achievements, a new player might feel more pressure to "get to 80". Which many people might not think is too hard, but it is still an odd choice that wasn't present before. Getting to 80 always opened up "the rest of the game", but I never felt like anyone was missing out with so many things to do as they leveled. Now, despite the WV rewards being archived for access even after the current season, there is a FOMO element in even unlocking it and a "only max level matters" feel that I'm very used to seeing in other games, but not here.

 

It's not just that. You need to start every story and get to the regions to fulfill the assignments, if you want to or not. It's not difficult to create tasks based on regions unlocked/visited at all, so why this strange way?

[Astralporing.1957]

29 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

I think it's time some people realize the goal here isn't to keep established players happy with what worked before. Obviously what worked before isn't works as well now. 

Obviously, if you change things for the worse, they do stop working as well as they did before. And yes, it is also clear to me that keeping players happy seems to no longer be a concern.