Entering Guild Wars 2, my impressions after the tragedy of Bless Online!

[Einlanzer.1627]

I think GW2's biggest issue is a total lack of vertical progression in end game combined with pretty limited horizontal progression. The mastery system is cool, but it's not as fleshed out as it needs to be, and character building in general is too restrictive with locked down weapon skills, a limited number of traits, and no ability to cross profession barriers outside of getting new elite specs. I think this combination of factors leads to a lot of people playing for a short time and finding it really cool, but it lacks the stickiness other MMOs have with a very high rate of abandonment and/or super casual play.

Since GW2 is basically built on no vertical progression, I think there needs to be a much stronger focus on horizontal. It can't just be fashion wars. You have to give players a virtually unlimited ability to experiment with different builds and acquire new skills/traits and continue to "grow" in some way. New weapon skills, new weapon types, new trait options, new specialized types of gear to pursue that are based on unique properties rather than stat inflation. All of that is needed to a much higher degree than we're getting it.

While I definitely like getting elite specs a lot better than getting nothing, I don't think it was conceptually the best way to settle on creating more horizontal progression. It's too on-rails and effectively just changes the best build for a given profession from expansion to expansion. I would have created a much more generalized system of skill and trait hunting similar to what GW1 had that allowed all professions to dabble in tons of new areas.

[piitb.7635]

@"Einlanzer.1627" said:I think GW2's biggest issue is a total lack of vertical progression in end game combined with pretty limited horizontal progression. The mastery system is cool, but it's not as fleshed out as it needs to be, and character building in general is too restrictive with locked down weapon skills, a limited number of traits, and no ability to cross profession barriers. I think this combination of factors leads to a lot of people playing for a short time and finding it really cool, but it lacks the stickiness other MMOs have with a very high rate of abandonment and/or super casual play.

Since GW2 is basically built on no vertical progression, I think there needs to be a much stronger focus on horizontal. It can't just be fashion wars. You have to give players a virtually unlimited ability to experiment with different builds and acquire new skills/traits and continue to "grow" in some way. New weapon skills, new weapon types, new trait options, new specialized types of gear to pursue that are based on unique properties rather than stat inflation. All of that is needed.

Or they could add alternative advancement as seen in other MMOs.

AA is a way to keep players grinding without having item power creep.

[Einlanzer.1627]

@piitb.7635 said:

@"Einlanzer.1627" said:I think GW2's biggest issue is a total lack of vertical progression in end game combined with pretty limited horizontal progression. The mastery system is cool, but it's not as fleshed out as it needs to be, and character building in general is too restrictive with locked down weapon skills, a limited number of traits, and no ability to cross profession barriers. I think this combination of factors leads to a lot of people playing for a short time and finding it really cool, but it lacks the stickiness other MMOs have with a very high rate of abandonment and/or super casual play.

Since GW2 is basically built on no vertical progression, I think there needs to be a much stronger focus on horizontal. It can't just be fashion wars. You have to give players a virtually unlimited ability to experiment with different builds and acquire new skills/traits and continue to "grow" in some way. New weapon skills, new weapon types, new trait options, new specialized types of gear to pursue that are based on unique properties rather than stat inflation. All of that is needed.

Or they could add alternative advancement as seen in other MMOs.

AA is a way to keep players grinding without having item power creep.

Well, that's basically what I was talking about. We do have that, but it's not refined enough or executed as well as it could be. In truth, GW2 is arguably designed in too much of an on-rails way to not have vertical progression. AA really works best in more sandboxy games that don't put your character development on rails, such as PoE.

I think the struggles GW2 has had are largely related to that. On-rails leveling in an on-rails world that just stops at the end game with not that much to do outside of cosmetic collections. They should have either gone with vertical progression, or designed the toon building process to be more open-ended.

[piitb.7635]

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@piitb.7635 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:I think GW2's biggest issue is a total lack of vertical progression in end game combined with pretty limited horizontal progression. The mastery system is cool, but it's not as fleshed out as it needs to be, and character building in general is too restrictive with locked down weapon skills, a limited number of traits, and no ability to cross profession barriers. I think this combination of factors leads to a lot of people playing for a short time and finding it really cool, but it lacks the stickiness other MMOs have with a very high rate of abandonment and/or super casual play.

Since GW2 is basically built on no vertical progression, I think there needs to be a much stronger focus on horizontal. It can't just be fashion wars. You have to give players a virtually unlimited ability to experiment with different builds and acquire new skills/traits and continue to "grow" in some way. New weapon skills, new weapon types, new trait options, new specialized types of gear to pursue that are based on unique properties rather than stat inflation. All of that is needed.

Or they could add alternative advancement as seen in other MMOs.

AA is a way to keep players grinding without having item power creep.

Well, that's basically what I was talking about. We do have that, but it's not refined enough or executed as well as it could be. In truth, GW2 is arguably designed in too much of an on-rails way to not have vertical progression. AA really works best in more sandboxy games that don't put your character development on rails, such as PoE.

I think the struggles GW2 has had are largely related to that. On-rails leveling in an on-rails world that just stops at the end game with not that much to do outside of cosmetic collections. They should have either gone with vertical progression, or designed the toon building process to be more open-ended.

The mastery system more in line gives character bonuses for sake of convenience.

True AA would increase the power of your character through stat upgrades and added effects to say weapons and skills.

The beauty of an AA system for GW2 is to balance it, AA can be disabled for pvp, which makes it better than item power creep.

[CJH.2879]

Guild Wars 2 definitely has the friendliest player base that I've come across in any MMO, sure you will on occasion come across a sour grape (which you can always promptly block/report), but overall people are quite helpful & friendly.... welcome to GW2 =D

[Rauderi.8706]

@"Nuka Cola.8520" said:Fractals are no replacement for dungeons. At first they may look like one, but when you've done a dozen of runs, you see how shallow they are.

Let's be honest here, dungeons age equally as badly. There's nothing that spamming CoF1 that makes it different from Swampland or whatever other tier is on farm now that Molten Boss got extended.

If it's the "explorable" illusion, then that's just three fractals with re-usable assets and a simultaneous/revisionist story.

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

@Nuka Cola.8520 said:

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:

@Nuka Cola.8520 said:I believe that a ton of people will join and leave because there's no dungeons. This game is missing the main endgame content in an mmo. You may say that gw2 is different, but people don't want different endgame, and leave.

GW2 has Fractals, which fill the exact same ecological niche as dungeons in other games. Also, unlike other MMOs, there is endgame content that

isn't

running the same instanced thing over and over, so you can actually, y'know, do stuff in the world.

That said, GW2 is totally not for everyone. If people come here, decide that the one thing they are willing to do is missing, and leave because they don't enjoy it, then that is

GOOD

. I don't want someone here if they don't enjoy the game, and they don't want to be here. We shouldn't be sad they leave to find something they do enjoy better!

Fractals are no replacement for dungeons. At first they may look like one, but when you've done a dozen of runs, you see how shallow they are.

I'm afraid I'm really not seeing the distinction you are here. Could you explain why dungeons are "deeper" than fractals?

(Oh, and I'm assuming you mean "dungeons in GW2" here, but if you did mean examples from other games, please note which.)

[piitb.7635]

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:

@Nuka Cola.8520 said:

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:

@Nuka Cola.8520 said:I believe that a ton of people will join and leave because there's no dungeons. This game is missing the main endgame content in an mmo. You may say that gw2 is different, but people don't want different endgame, and leave.

GW2 has Fractals, which fill the exact same ecological niche as dungeons in other games. Also, unlike other MMOs, there is endgame content that

isn't

running the same instanced thing over and over, so you can actually, y'know, do stuff in the world.

That said, GW2 is totally not for everyone. If people come here, decide that the one thing they are willing to do is missing, and leave because they don't enjoy it, then that is

GOOD

. I don't want someone here if they don't enjoy the game, and they don't want to be here. We shouldn't be sad they leave to find something they do enjoy better!

Fractals are no replacement for dungeons. At first they may look like one, but when you've done a dozen of runs, you see how shallow they are.

I'm afraid I'm really not seeing the distinction you are here. Could you explain why dungeons are "deeper" than fractals?

(Oh, and I'm assuming you mean "dungeons in GW2" here, but if you did mean examples from other games, please note which.)

The only real difference between fractals and dungeons is the story element from my, albeit, brief time running fractals. Now if fractals have added story elements since they were first released I stand corrected.

[JDub.1530]

@Sephylon.4938 said:Duno about eu, but in na I still see dungeon posts every now and then. And when I post for one, takes about 2-10 min to fill up depending on the time amd dungeon path. There's also raids if you want to get into that, though it's better to do it with a guild than to pug it, especially if you're new.

I didn't mean neglected by the player base, but by the devs. The rewards for running dungeons are far less lucrative than running Fractals. The only material benefit is farming dungeon tokens for skins, but those can be acquired elsewhere too.

[Dayra.7405]

Funny that you mentioned hearts but not event-series. Sounds like you didn’t noticed the best part of gw2 open world so far :)You only know a map, if you know the story told you by it's events. Have fun discovering it.

[SlippyCheeze.5483]

@JDub.1530 said:

@"Sephylon.4938" said:Duno about eu, but in na I still see dungeon posts every now and then. And when I post for one, takes about 2-10 min to fill up depending on the time amd dungeon path. There's also raids if you want to get into that, though it's better to do it with a guild than to pug it, especially if you're new.

I didn't mean neglected by the player base, but by the devs.

I'm not sure I'd choose the word "neglected" there, since this is a deliberate decision not to change them, and to ...

The rewards for running dungeons are far less lucrative than running Fractals. The only material benefit is farming dungeon tokens for skins, but those can be acquired elsewhere too.

...reduce the rewards, so that they are less valuable than the content where the effort to build repeatable small group content has gone.

There is, at least to me, a connotation that "neglected" is something that might happen accidentally, or that might change; this is a deliberate policy decision, and won't be changing any time soon, for horrible historical technical reasons. Basically, the dungeon stuff is super complicated and really, really easy to break, so they decided that the would not be touching it -- too much effort for too little return because of that.

[Nuka Cola.8520]

@Rauderi.8706 said:

@"Nuka Cola.8520" said:Fractals are no replacement for dungeons. At first they may look like one, but when you've done a dozen of runs, you see how shallow they are.

Let's be honest here, dungeons age equally as badly. There's nothing that spamming CoF1 that makes it different from Swampland or whatever other tier is on farm now that Molten Boss got extended.

If it's the "explorable" illusion, then that's just three fractals with re-usable assets and a simultaneous/revisionist story.

Depends. GW2 dungeons, yes. Absolutely yes. But when they're well built like the gw1 dugeons, don't have time gating and a bunch of different skins for you to acquire, it doesn't get old. I never got tired of fow/uw/the deep in gw1, and i did thousands of runs of each.

[Ashen.2907]

@Nuka Cola.8520 said:

@Rauderi.8706 said:

@Nuka Cola.8520 said:Fractals are no replacement for dungeons. At first they may look like one, but when you've done a dozen of runs, you see how shallow they are.

Let's be honest here, dungeons age equally as badly. There's nothing that spamming CoF1 that makes it different from Swampland or whatever other tier is on farm now that Molten Boss got extended.

If it's the "explorable" illusion, then that's just three fractals with re-usable assets and a simultaneous/revisionist story.

Depends. GW2 dungeons, yes. Absolutely yes. But when they're well built like the gw1 dugeons, don't have time gating and a bunch of different skins for you to acquire, it doesn't get old. I never got tired of fow/uw/the deep in gw1, and i did thousands of runs of each.

I loved GW1 high end content and spent literally thousands of hours playing it. I think that some fractals are on par, or would be if I liked the rewards.

[Urud.4925]

Good that you gave the game a second chance. I did the same: I started the game more than 2 years ago. I liked how they revisited (and solved) a lot of common issues in MMOs: the competition to grab gatherable and get the quest items or the kills for the quests, the more challenging combat style (vs the old targeting system), the level downscale that doesn't force you to keep low-level alts to enjoy some old dungeon or if you want to help some friend on a low-level map, no completely dead maps that you use just to level up and then forget forever, and many many other good points. Nevertheless, after few days I stopped to play it. For more than 1 year.

There was something that just didn't convince me completely: it was probably the small size of my character. The landscapes were already gorgeous, but I was used to see my character very dominant at the center of the screen. I could zoom in sure, but it didn't work as I hoped. That's because the surrounding is much more important than your character, to know where the danger comes from. I'm happy that I gave the game a second chance, and I hope that other players will do it as well.

[JDub.1530]

@SlippyCheeze.5483 said:

@JDub.1530 said:

@"Sephylon.4938" said:Duno about eu, but in na I still see dungeon posts every now and then. And when I post for one, takes about 2-10 min to fill up depending on the time amd dungeon path. There's also raids if you want to get into that, though it's better to do it with a guild than to pug it, especially if you're new.

I didn't mean neglected by the player base, but by the devs.

I'm not sure I'd choose the word "neglected" there, since this is a deliberate decision not to change them, and to ...

The rewards for running dungeons are far less lucrative than running Fractals. The only material benefit is farming dungeon tokens for skins, but those can be acquired elsewhere too.

...reduce the rewards, so that they are less valuable than the content where the effort to build repeatable small group content has gone.

There is, at least to me, a connotation that "neglected" is something that might happen accidentally, or that might change; this is a deliberate policy decision, and won't be changing any time soon, for horrible historical technical reasons. Basically, the dungeon stuff is super complicated and really, really easy to break, so they decided that the would not be touching it -- too much effort for too little return because of that.

Neglect is literally not showing proper care or attention. Deliberate or not. I don't know what technical reasons you are referring to, since all they need to do is alter the rewards for dungeon runs (which they've done in the past) or alter the loot tables to make the rewards competitive with doing fractal runs.

[Ashen.2907]

To be fair, it can be argued that the proper care and attention for a game mode no longer in development, such as dungeons in GW2, is essentially zero.

[Laila Lightness.8742]

Gw2 raids is just dungeons dubbled

[Huskyboy.1053]

@"Moco.6479" said:Original Link with pics: http://moco.net/index.php/2018/06/02/entering-guild-wars-2-impressions-tragedy-bless-online/

Guild Wars 2 was a game I tried to like, quite a few times but it just didn’t grab me. Up until now that is.

I’ve been on an MMO phase recently, getting back to WoW even leveling a new pally to 64, but alas I got bored of it. Then I tried Rift, which I liked but the community wasn’t there. Along came Bless Online and it was supposed to be the next big thing. Supposed to be, being the keywords here. I tried it and to be honest I liked what I played but in between constant bugs and paying 40 dollars for something I could not play (9 hours game time, with about 2 being actual playing) I decided to get a refund and look elsewhere. Then somehow Guild Wars 2 comes along onto my plate and I gave it a shot. GW2 never gelled with me, I don’t know what it was, but it just didn’t seem like my kind of game. I decided to try it out anyways.

That brings me to right now, and I’m enjoying the hell out of it, I’ve kind of accepted the fact that most MMO’s now are full of single players just going about their business. This however does not remain true with GW2 for the most part, people are just going about their business doing their own quests, BUT now other people are doing it with them, and the need to ask to join up isn’t there. Again you still are helping each other though. Interesting enough the way GW2’s quests work aren’t quite like any other MMO I’ve played. Quests are usually kill X amount of this, or grab X, escort that. That remains the same way here, BUT those 3 objectives can be mashed into a single one. Quests here are represented by hearts on the map, telling you where to go. This is unique because people group up and are doing the same thing you are, and you can gain credit by helping others around you, making grouping up kind of a must, kind of forcing you to play with others.

You can join more than one guild at a time too, hopping/representing one to another to join in on the discussions. I’ve met some good people so far this way and by the way of main chat. There are also jumping puzzles here too, tricky platforming to get a good piece of loot. I met someone that stood by me as I failed a jump over and over again but with immense satisfaction as I finally completed it and was awarded with a nice chest of items. I’m in over my head when it comes to customizing my character, I blame WoW for that. There’s a bevy of different skills to choose from, and this is a GREAT thing to have. I haven’t played a game with this much customization since Warcraft initial launched.

The maps in this game are pretty big and varied with TONS of stuff to do in them. For example, maps can have 12 Hearts (quests) 6 Vistas, the camera spins around and shows you an interesting sight. 8 mini boxs (point of interest) 12 checkpoints that you can jump between all of them for a low cost. Finally we have 5 or 6 Hero Point nodes, which usually has you fighting something/one to earn your point. The developers really took the time to make this game shine. Not to forget Jumping Puzzles, they usually go hand in hand with Vistas, an MMO with carefully, sometimes aggravating, timed jumps to get you the reward. Cool Stuff!

I go through spurts of gaming look for the next one that will put me in the zone and overlook anything else that happens to release for months. With Guild Wars 2 I think I’ve finally found that game. I urge everyone to try it. Thank You Bless, you turned me to a forgotten gem that I still have the Heroic version to the left of me in my stand. Here’s hoping I continue to play it.

Let me know if you wanna do dungeons, you don't even need to be level 80 for most of them. I used to run them all the time and I still enjoy doing them from time to time. Add me!

[Leo G.4501]

Haven't read the thread but judging from the title, have you played many MMOs at launch? I'd say all of them end up hitting some roadblock or issue that "ruins" the game. Just give it time.

No reason to blame (or credit) a game for the appeal to another. If Bless Online (lol when will they stop putting "online" behind their titles? so 2009...) is like any other newly launched MMO, they will fix some of their issues and add new appeal to their launch and those that flocked away in disgust will migrate back.

[Sojourner.4621]

@JDub.1530 said:

@Sephylon.4938 said:Duno about eu, but in na I still see dungeon posts every now and then. And when I post for one, takes about 2-10 min to fill up depending on the time amd dungeon path. There's also raids if you want to get into that, though it's better to do it with a guild than to pug it, especially if you're new.

I didn't mean neglected by the player base, but by the devs. The rewards for running dungeons are far less lucrative than running Fractals. The only material benefit is farming dungeon tokens for skins, but those can be acquired elsewhere too.

Dungeon tokens can be converted in to gold by buying the rare armor pieces and salvaging the mats from them. Medium in particular to salvage out leather. Dungeons don't reward as much liquid gold, but actually are MORE rewarding for the casual dungeon runner (The ones who only did 8 paths BEFORE the nerf) because of the massive number of tokens the repeatable plus the path rewards gets you. The math has been done, the only people receiving fewer rewards are the ones that were doing less than 8 paths or significantly more than 8.