Reward the player! Leaderbords: Dungeons, jumping puzzles, minigames etc

[Mr LazyDazy.8961]

It's has probably been suggested thousands of times, the adding of leaderboards. A score that shows how fast you beat a level of something. Is this a thing? If not, what's the reason not to? I stopped playing some years ago, I simply lost interest in that I lost meaningful goals to pursue. I understand the values of the game to avoid too much grinding and focus on the exploring part, making a more casual and chill experience. What I would like to argue is that, as human beings we are natural seeking a good deal of challenge. That is why the Dark Souls games are so popular, games that reward skill. When things takes practice and becomes hard to master it hooks you, it sparks interest and motivation. I would love returning to Guild Wars, and would love some kind of systems or leaderboards to rewards the player who master his worth.

My suggestion is therefore to implement a leaderboard with all-time, yearly, monthly, weekly and daily showcase. If you win the daily, you get a small reward, a little more to win the weekly perhaps. The rest are just for showcase, with perhaps some special reward, a title or something.Would love other things to pursue, not as a chore or some boring task that takes forever, but a good challenge, an adventure, something meaningful that draws me as a player because the challenge itself is rewarding as well as the in-game reward in glory and gold!

Make use of the natural needs that is in the human spirit, and your game would be much more appealing I would say.

[yoni.7015]

No thanks, this will only lead to a toxic community and players won’t help each other anymore.

[Zaklex.6308]

The 3 Billion people on planet Earth that play all those casual mobile games beg to differ with your opinion.

[Omega.6801]

One of the problems here is that the average GW2 player is not looking for challenge or something to improve him/herself in. As I see it, most of the players play the game to get instant gratification or they riot and the "gAeM tOo HaRd"-threads start popping up, the "play how you want was sold to me 8 years ago" argument gets thrown around and A-Net bows down, nerfing the content to be as easy as possible. The game does include everyone, we're all number one, so no one feels bad. So no one can be number one'est in a leaderboard.

[Randulf.7614]

They tried leaderboards with racing and HoT adventures. It didn't really work - so few cared. I think they intended one for fractals too, but that was dropped.

The problem is, GW2 is mostly a cooperative game. Leaderboards are competitive and aren't really something that gel with that ethos outside of the actual competitive modes. Even the AP leaderboards are barely used beyond a select few.

It just doesn't work here and it hasn't made the game any more appealing where it was added and wouldn't do by adding more

[kharmin.7683]

No thank you. This is not needed in GW2.

[GummyBearSummoner.7941]

Like the previous post mentioned, no one here likes hard content. When HoT was good, everyone complained on the forums on how hard the mobs are etc. No one likes to challenge themselves to become better which is really sad but it is what it is.

[kharmin.7683]

I disagree with the sentiment that no one likes to challenge themselves. Everyone has their own level of skill and some are certainly higher skilled than others. Personally, I challenge myself plenty in GW2. I don't need community-fueled harder content to challenge me.

Not everyone likes the same type of content. That's why there a many different games in this genre. If one doesn't suit a player, they are free to try another.

[Randulf.7614]

@"GummyBearSummoner.7941" said:Like the previous post mentioned, no one here likes hard content. When HoT was good, everyone complained on the forums on how hard the mobs are etc. No one likes to challenge themselves to become better which is really sad but it is what it is.

Sort of, but also it isn't quite that simple. Games have adapted to a wider playerbase which has a lower threshold for focus, concentration and patience than it used to in the 90's and earlier. Many things contribute to that include the advent of mobile gaming, the sheer volume of games that come out and the growth of the industry meaning players move between games very quickly. GW2 has gone down the comfort gaming side of things are has focused - for better or worse - more on sandbox coop stuff and worrying about style, fashions and the quick buck. Players often don't better themselves because from the beginning, it was never pushed that way.

The main issue with launch version of HoT was the difficulty spike compared to what it was. ANet didn't do enough - or anything - to acclimatise players. Instead took players out of an incredibly comfortable open world and dumped them straight into something they weren't used to. Today I wouldn't expect there to be the same level of backlash as players in general seem to have gradually improved even if they often think they don't.

If the game had taught players combos fields, rotations in a natural way players would have fought back less, but we are long past that now and it is simply too late for such implementation to have any effect. The game is wholly reliant on players working together to teach other and both so called "casuals" and so called "elites" are too stubborn and too entrenched to do that (generally speaking - not everyone falls under this ofc). Anet's vision that players would cooperate seamlessly never bore the fruit they expected.

[Mr LazyDazy.8961]

But the added challenges won't harm the casual or average player. It wouldn't be necessary to complete, only reward those who compete. So it would be like it's not even there for those who don't care. But if you do care that's it's there in a negative way, why? Why don't you want this in the game? Now you are only punishing those who seek greater challenge for no good. I would like to think of mutal respect, both for the casual and the "hardcore" player.Those who didn't care for the leaderboard perhaps needed a better system. Coins and gear are good motivational factors or just a title. It works like this in real life, so why not in the game? If you do not satisfy the human needs, you will end up with a shallow game that gets boring to many.

You're right Kharmin, "Not everyone likes the same type of content. " But why not include both? Why not give something to the hardcore player? Now it's not there, good for you. If it's there, why don't you stay that way? Let those who seek the challenge go for it, while you explore the silent and calm hills. Freedom of choice.

Guild Wars 1 had Hardmode. I would suggest adding this to the game. A player should be able to go into this mode and be punished for slip ups, while being rewarded with greater rewards. For exploit reasons, have the player do 75% of all the damage for the bonus to get in.

To me, it seems somewhat tyrannical to disprove harder content for the safety of oneself.

[Randulf.7614]

@"Mr LazyDazy.8961" said:But the added challenges won't harm the casual or average player. It wouldn't be necessary to complete, only reward those who compete. So it would be like it's not even there for those who don't care. But if you do care that's it's there in a negative way, why? Why don't you want this in the game? Now you are only punishing those who seek greater challenge for no good. I would like to think of mutal respect, both for the casual and the "hardcore" player.Those who didn't care for the leaderboard perhaps needed a better system. Coins and gear are good motivational factors or just a title. It works like this in real life, so why not in the game? If you do not satisfy the human needs, you will end up with a shallow game that gets boring to many.

You're right Kharmin, "Not everyone likes the same type of content. " But why not include both? Why not give something to the hardcore player? Now it's not there, good for you. If it's there, why don't you stay that way? Let those who seek the challenge go for it, while you explore the silent and calm hills. Freedom of choice.

Guild Wars 1 had Hardmode. I would suggest adding this to the game. A player should be able to go into this mode and be punished for slip ups, while being rewarded with greater rewards. For exploit reasons, have the player do 75% of all the damage for the bonus to get in.

There is no reason not to add it beyond the fact it's fairly pointless to add soemthing which has previously not worked when already implemented. I'm certianly not against it and have often used them to improve my own performance. The other problem of course is leaderboards can be and were, exploited heavily, making the further redundant.

As for hard mode, well that's been discussed before. It just doesn't fit GW2. GW1 is a totally different game and it only just worked there (barely) despite the initial backlash. It serves little purpose here beyond splitting the playerbase and that is not something that can be afforded with a waning population

But I do agree GW2 should continue to cast a wide net in terms of content it offers.

[zealex.9410]

@yoni.7015 said:No thanks, this will only lead to a toxic community and players won’t help each other anymore.

Why would it lead to toxicity if it can exist outside your average dailies?

[zealex.9410]

@Randulf.7614 said:They tried leaderboards with racing and HoT adventures. It didn't really work - so few cared. I think they intended one for fractals too, but that was dropped.

The problem is, GW2 is mostly a cooperative game. Leaderboards are competitive and aren't really something that gel with that ethos outside of the actual competitive modes. Even the AP leaderboards are barely used beyond a select few.

It just doesn't work here and it hasn't made the game any more appealing where it was added and wouldn't do by adding more

Cooperative to the extend the content allows, theres no cooperation between 2 diff groups doing the same dungeon or fractal so i dont see why leaderboards for that cant exist in a game like gw2.

[Solanum.6983]

I agree with what your saying, A lot of the good rewards in the game are a chore because of farming and time gates. It'd be nice if they shifted focus for a change but I'm not sure your idea would be the solution.

[Cuks.8241]

Races should naturally have leader boards. They do have something but I am not really sure what they represent. I would propose 2 things for races and timed activities.All time top 100 leader board. Or maybe due to balance changes a yearly or monthly best and you can also see all the leader boards for previous years/months.A daily race. Complete silver to get the daily. Top 10 fastest players of that day get a special reward. First gets into the hall of fame.

Adding a completely optional timer to JPs (something like SAB already has) with leader boards like proposed above would be cool also (portals disabled for you if you turn the timer on). It would probably spark some competitive people to showcase their jumping skills and while I would not be close to the best it is always cool to see creative and skillful speed runs.

I don't see how this would affect anyone that doesn't do these activities.

[Rasimir.6239]

@"Mr LazyDazy.8961" said:But the added challenges won't harm the casual or average player. It wouldn't be necessary to complete, only reward those who compete.Competition may be what you enjoy, but many people play this game because competition is not something they look for in their entertainment. There's a fundamental difference between cooperative play that in its nature rewards all that participate and cooperate, and competitive play, that pits every participant against each other and primarily rewards those that come out on top .

As such, it will harm the "casual or average" player. It will tilt the distribution of rewards, even if just in a tiny way. It will lead to more people speed-running dungeons, jumping puzzles, whatever, and those people will interact with the ones just there to enjoy the scenery, ignoring those who have fallen to their death in a jp, or being unfriendly towards the inexperienced in their lfg dungeon run.

To many of us competition is a part of everyday life, and we've chosen to play this game instead of other, similar ones partly because it does an awesome job at keeping competition out of a large part of the game. We can choose where and how we challenge ourselves, instead of being forced to compete with others.

There are leaderboards for adventures and races. There are people that enjoy comparing their fractal or dungeon clear times. If you want competition, find like-minded players and compete with them. You can already do it, there's no need to formalize competition in this game, nor is there any need to move away from the current system that rewards everyone for playing to a competitive system that rewards the "top" competitiors over the rest of the participants.

[Linken.6345]

You already get something for peak preformance, you clear content faster and can do other stuff.Finish CM+t4 in 30 mins compared to others that take 1hour you got 30 mins to do something else.

[GummyBearSummoner.7941]

@Randulf.7614 said:

@"GummyBearSummoner.7941" said:Like the previous post mentioned, no one here likes hard content. When HoT was good, everyone complained on the forums on how hard the mobs are etc. No one likes to challenge themselves to become better which is really sad but it is what it is.

Sort of, but also it isn't quite that simple. Games have adapted to a wider playerbase which has a lower threshold for focus, concentration and patience than it used to in the 90's and earlier. Many things contribute to that include the advent of mobile gaming, the sheer volume of games that come out and the growth of the industry meaning players move between games very quickly. GW2 has gone down the comfort gaming side of things are has focused - for better or worse - more on sandbox coop stuff and worrying about style, fashions and the quick buck. Players often don't better themselves because from the beginning, it was never pushed that way.

The main issue with launch version of HoT was the difficulty spike compared to what it was. ANet didn't do enough - or anything - to acclimatise players. Instead took players out of an incredibly comfortable open world and dumped them straight into something they weren't used to. Today I wouldn't expect there to be the same level of backlash as players in general seem to have gradually improved even if they often think they don't.

If the game had taught players combos fields, rotations in a natural way players would have fought back less, but we are long past that now and it is simply too late for such implementation to have any effect. The game is wholly reliant on players working together to teach other and both so called "casuals" and so called "elites" are too stubborn and too entrenched to do that (generally speaking - not everyone falls under this ofc). Anet's vision that players would cooperate seamlessly never bore the fruit they expected.

I agree completely. I’ve been here since launch & you are right when it comes to this game not introducing “harder content” since the beginning but I don’t understand what’s wrong with the people (like myself) who do want it. Why do I & others who want more challenge, have to be “Forced” into casual ? Why not give us an option as well? Like on guild wars 1 we were able to play the game in difficulty if we wanted to. It wasn’t forced upon but it was an option for those who want it. It can be the same for guild wars 2. Every time someone wants something more challenging you get those who posts who make excuses not to have harder content.

[Raknar.4735]

@GummyBearSummoner.7941 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:

@GummyBearSummoner.7941 said:Like the previous post mentioned, no one here likes hard content. When HoT was good, everyone complained on the forums on how hard the mobs are etc. No one likes to challenge themselves to become better which is really sad but it is what it is.

Sort of, but also it isn't quite that simple. Games have adapted to a wider playerbase which has a lower threshold for focus, concentration and patience than it used to in the 90's and earlier. Many things contribute to that include the advent of mobile gaming, the sheer volume of games that come out and the growth of the industry meaning players move between games very quickly. GW2 has gone down the comfort gaming side of things are has focused - for better or worse - more on sandbox coop stuff and worrying about style, fashions and the quick buck. Players often don't better themselves because from the beginning, it was never pushed that way.

The main issue with launch version of HoT was the difficulty spike compared to what it was. ANet didn't do enough - or anything - to acclimatise players. Instead took players out of an incredibly comfortable open world and dumped them straight into something they weren't used to. Today I wouldn't expect there to be the same level of backlash as players in general seem to have gradually improved even if they often think they don't.

If the game had taught players combos fields, rotations in a natural way players would have fought back less, but we are long past that now and it is simply too late for such implementation to have any effect. The game is wholly reliant on players working together to teach other and both so called "casuals" and so called "elites" are too stubborn and too entrenched to do that (generally speaking - not everyone falls under this ofc). Anet's vision that players would cooperate seamlessly never bore the fruit they expected.

I agree completely. I’ve been here since launch & you are right when it comes to this game not introducing “harder content” since the beginning but I don’t understand what’s wrong with the people (like myself) who do want it. Why do I & others who want more challenge, have to be “Forced” into casual ? Why not give us an option as well? Like on guild wars 1 we were able to play the game in difficulty if we wanted to. It wasn’t forced upon but it was an option for those who want it. It can be the same for guild wars 2. Every time someone wants something more challenging you get those who posts who make excuses not to have harder content.

Same thing goes for harder solo / low man(1-3man) content. You'll instantly get people saying the only hard content should be for 5-10man instanced content.

And if you post about wanting easymode/storymode raids, you'll get people making excuses not to have them.

[kharmin.7683]

Because GW2 wasn't designed like GW1. Instanced content is probably easier to make varying levels of difficulty and those who wish to engage with higher degrees were able to do so. The open world concept of GW2 probably wouldn't allow for this segregation. Increasing difficulty affects everyone, as was shown with the initial release of HoT.

And we all know how well that went.

Players, such as myself, aren't making excuses to not have harder content. Instead, we don't see how Anet can provide such with limited resources that would take away from the existing model of the game. True, they made raids, but those were released with an expansion. If players are going to get any additional "harder" content, then it will probably be in instances like raids.

[Randulf.7614]

@GummyBearSummoner.7941 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:

@GummyBearSummoner.7941 said:Like the previous post mentioned, no one here likes hard content. When HoT was good, everyone complained on the forums on how hard the mobs are etc. No one likes to challenge themselves to become better which is really sad but it is what it is.

Sort of, but also it isn't quite that simple. Games have adapted to a wider playerbase which has a lower threshold for focus, concentration and patience than it used to in the 90's and earlier. Many things contribute to that include the advent of mobile gaming, the sheer volume of games that come out and the growth of the industry meaning players move between games very quickly. GW2 has gone down the comfort gaming side of things are has focused - for better or worse - more on sandbox coop stuff and worrying about style, fashions and the quick buck. Players often don't better themselves because from the beginning, it was never pushed that way.

The main issue with launch version of HoT was the difficulty spike compared to what it was. ANet didn't do enough - or anything - to acclimatise players. Instead took players out of an incredibly comfortable open world and dumped them straight into something they weren't used to. Today I wouldn't expect there to be the same level of backlash as players in general seem to have gradually improved even if they often think they don't.

If the game had taught players combos fields, rotations in a natural way players would have fought back less, but we are long past that now and it is simply too late for such implementation to have any effect. The game is wholly reliant on players working together to teach other and both so called "casuals" and so called "elites" are too stubborn and too entrenched to do that (generally speaking - not everyone falls under this ofc). Anet's vision that players would cooperate seamlessly never bore the fruit they expected.

I agree completely. I’ve been here since launch & you are right when it comes to this game not introducing “harder content” since the beginning but I don’t understand what’s wrong with the people (like myself) who do want it. Why do I & others who want more challenge, have to be “Forced” into casual ? Why not give us an option as well? Like on guild wars 1 we were able to play the game in difficulty if we wanted to. It wasn’t forced upon but it was an option for those who want it. It can be the same for guild wars 2. Every time someone wants something more challenging you get those who posts who make excuses not to have harder content.

Because it wont work with the living, breathing, open world GW2 has. They have to find a balance between the spectrum of skills which is enormous. I mean even if they could - given that each map already has some difficulty variations, how do you then find the sweet spot for difficulty? How do you ensure events have enough people to be played? How will metas work? How will normal open world cope with the population split? (hint - it wont)

It's completely unfeasible and pretty much impossible to make it hard mode work. GW1 is a completely different type of game and whilst hard mode isn't particularly great there, at least was set up for it. Here it is not for open world.

If they want to add challenge they already have the means to do this in other areas of the game like story instances, fractals, dungeons and so forth and that is the use of challenge motes which are criminally under utilised.

[Cuks.8241]

Leader boards is not harder content. Any game can be competitive as long as everyone is on equal footing and there is a measurable degree of success.

[Danikat.8537]

I'm not against leader boards, but I also have absolutely no interest in them. Why should I care that some random I've never heard of did something 3 seconds faster than I did? Or that some other random I've also never heard of did it 2 seconds slower? It's totally irrelevant information to me.

I find it useful to get told my own time in the mount races and some adventures, but only so I can see how close I was to getting gold and if it as better or worse than my last attempt. I don't see how knowing other people's times makes it harder or more interesting to do, surely that depends on what you're actually doing?

[Mr LazyDazy.8961]

@"Danikat.8537" said:I'm not against leader boards, but I also have absolutely no interest in them. Why should I care that some random I've never heard of did something 3 seconds faster than I did? Or that some other random I've also never heard of did it 2 seconds slower? It's totally irrelevant information to me.

I find it useful to get told my own time in the mount races and some adventures, but only so I can see how close I was to getting gold and if it as better or worse than my last attempt. I don't see how knowing other people's times makes it harder or more interesting to do, surely that depends on what you're actually doing?

It's relevant for those who are competitive by nature I guess. Like, why do we hold the Olympics? Why do we love sport and football? Why do any of those? Because we love the challenge, human accomplishments, the skill that some have mastered.Personally I think GW2 would benefit, the causal players too for making the game harder. The people who left because they felt bored would join the fight, and thus bring more life to the game. I don't understand the arguments that it would split the community. Games die when the devs succumb to the people who wants to casualize the game. Communist systems are the evil of this world for this exact reason, treading people and the system as a collective rather than individual. Individualize the game, make it free, allow people to get rich and seek greater rewards for skillful play. Having a high loft with room for improvement is a gain for the game. If you're casual, play as you always have, play relaxed, you don't have to strive. It's the same thing in real life, you can choose by yourself, but don't tyrannise those who choose differently by forcing your way on the rest. Great games like Dark Souls, MOBAs, competetive games like Counter-Strike etc, are games that is hard to master with great rewards. Guild Wars need a rewarding system to make it interesting and less boring in my opinion.

The game could use an overhaul to the combat system as well. One of the things that made Guild Wars 1 great was the complex combat system. Make it more rewarding, make combos, make the resource management for using skills more complex, rewarding strategic gameplay rather than the quite "spammy" system that is present.

@Cuks.8241 said:Leader boards is not harder content. Any game can be competitive as long as everyone is on equal footing and there is a measurable degree of success.

Following this logic, a 2D game with the ability in-game to go left or right makes everyone equal in the game. Because the majority of the players couldn't handle a 3D world. The game would greatly benefit from this, but the devs left the game as a 2D game, to equalize as many as possible. The game had much potential, but was destroyed because of a majority , or is it a minority(?) that wanted the game as it always was.

I find this logic to be self-defeating to a very high degree.

[Tommo Chocolate.5870]

I'm not against leaderboards for activities that are timed anyway, like adventures and races. I'm not convinced that adding timers to content that doesn't already have them would be beneficial though. And I don't see how it would even work for jumping puzzles - one of the great things about their design is the they're just out in the world somewhere without a well-defined or signposted starting line.

I also wonder whether "competitive" people would actually enjoy leaderboards. Many competitive people really like to win, but with a global leaderboard there can be only one winner. I imagine this would lead to a lot of dissatisfaction and frustration amongst those who don't get to the top of the leaderboard (which, bear in mind, would be almost everybody).

Hard mode is a different question. It's hard to see how it could work well, since the game isn't instanced. Personally I don't think it would split the population much though, because I expect most people interested in playing a hard mode aren't that interested in the open world as it currently is, and are probably focussed on other content anyway.