Suggestions / Shower Thoughts About Game Design

[WheezerX.4367]

I'm a returning player, I bought Heart of Thorns as it came out but actually quit shortly after Scarlet's arc. I brought back a few friends into the mix as a result of me just talking on Discord about what I was doing and what there was to do now (holy crap this game is huge now). After about two or three weeks, some criticisms popped up and I just wanted to throw some of these thoughts on to the forums. Maybe some one higher up will see it, but at the very least I can get this out of my head.

I don't see a problem with them doing micros for cosmetics, but stuff like mounts... Well, I think the most basic raptor should be available for all of the game, do a living event to justify it, but keep all of the others behind Path of Fire. One of the issues a few of my friends had was they weren't (one still isn't) completely sure if they wanted to commit to buying the expansions just yet, they feel "pay walled" by not even getting a starter mount. The world is huge, even the basic content, plus the raptor is just cool.

Let us hunt for SOME of the skins for armors or weapons, that are otherwise cash shop-only, in some way. Is there a way to do this already and we're not aware as a returning group? Is this something that could be compromised on by making it per character or account? Hunting for gear, even skins, is fun for anyone.

Go back and re-tweak and bug scrape the dungeons, optimize them for lower level play that they are advertised in game for being, as an example; Ascalonian Catacombs to be for level 35 players in yellow gear but add an option for a "max level" version with slightly higher rewards. Right now, most guides and discussions seem to expect you to be a moderately geared level 80, and it definitely feels like that at times. We managed to beat Path 1, Hodgins, but it took us a looong time at a range of levels between 44 to 60. We ended up needing to switch one of our characters out to something with an ability to pull stuff around to make use of a fight mechanic for the King Howler fight, which otherwise shouldn't have been needed if played as intended.

Are there events besides the Bloodstone-crazed beasts and remnants that could be added to entice more population to play around in the lower level areas occasionally, the increased local population might provide some form of enticement to new players to keep pushing through the game.

I'm curious if changes like these are made, would it effect the statistics of how long new players stick around on average?

There's a bunch of other, smaller critiques that our play group has about the game that I feel like they should look at doing and the changes could pull in more players because it would make it more approachable, without sacrificing game integrity by "making it casual".

Is this a drum beat to death or is this something we could have a discussion on? These are just some of our thoughts.

[Danikat.8537]

@WheezerX.4367 said:I don't see a problem with them doing micros for cosmetics, but stuff like mounts... Well, I think the most basic raptor should be available for all of the game, do a living event to justify it, but keep all of the others behind Path of Fire. One of the issues a few of my friends had was they weren't (one still isn't) completely sure if they wanted to commit to buying the expansions just yet, they feel "pay walled" by not even getting a starter mount. The world is huge, even the basic content, plus the raptor is just cool.

I understand the frustration, because the mounts are cool, but they're absolutely not necessary for the base game. Those maps were all designed and played long before mounts were added and absolutely everything in them can be completed without mounts.

Also I suspect Anet fully intend players on free accounts to feel pressured to buy the game. Free GW2 accounts remind me of 'shareware' versions of old games - you can play it as much as you want (unlike a demo) but the restrictions are going to get annoying sooner or later, and the idea is if you're playing enough that they become a problem it's time to buy the full version. Whether that's a good system or not is debatable, but I doubt Anet are going to give free players a way to get mounts if the most likely end result is that more of them stick with the free version and never feel the need to buy the game.

@WheezerX.4367 said:Let us hunt for SOME of the skins for armors or weapons in some way. Is there a way to do this already and we're not aware as a returning group? Is this something that could be compromised on by making it per character or account? Hunting for gear, even skins, is fun for anyone.

Yes, you're missing it. I'm not sure why but it seems to be a common problem. The vast majority of armour skins are obtained in-game, but relatively few come from random drops. Most skins are obtained in specific places and often with tokens unique to that content. For example each dungeon has it's own armour set (1 for each armour weight) purchased using the tokens earned by completing dungeon runs. When your character joins an Order during the personal story they unlock the ability to buy unique armour sets in the Order's base. Others come from expansion or living story collection achievements, from crafting, from karma merchants, from playing World vs World and PvP and other places.

You can use the Wiki's armour galleries to see what's available (use the menu at the bottom of the page to choose your race and armour weight) and then click the links to each set to find out where it comes from and how to get it: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Human_male_medium_armor

@WheezerX.4367 said:Go back and re-tweak and bug scrape the dungeons, optimize them for, as an example, Ascalonian Catacombs to be for level 35 players in yellow gear but add an option for a "max level" version with slightly higher rewards. Right now, most guides and discussions seem to expect you to be a moderately geared level 80, and it definitely feels like that at times. We managed to beat Path 1, Hodgins, but it took us a looong time at a range of levels between 44 to 60. We ended up needing to switch one of our characters out to something with an ability to pull stuff around to make use of a fight mechanic for the King Howler fight, which otherwise shouldn't have been needed if played as intended.

This might sound crazy but that is how they're intended. Dungeons were supposed to be GW2's ultimate challenge, something players would need coordinated groups and practice to complete. That's why originally the game didn't have raids, the explorable dungeon paths were supposed to fill that role. Of course it didn't quite work out that way and for level 80 players in full exotics (something which was also expected to be harder to do than it is) they can be quite easy, but it's not surprising you're finding it difficult at lower levels and certainly not surprising that you're having to actually use the fight mechanics instead of the typical 'stack up and spam damage' approach you've probably seen from level 80s.

I don't think it would be a bad idea to split dungeons into hard and easy mode, but I suspect if Anet did that the majority of the focus would be on making a new harder version so fully geared level 80 players experience the same sort of challenge you're currently getting instead of being able to rush through or complete them with fewer people.

@WheezerX.4367 said:Is there events besides the Bloodstone-crazed beasts and remnants that could be added to entice more population to play around in the lower level areas occasionally, the increased local population might provide some form of enticement to new players to keep pushing through the game.

That is something which has been done before, and hopefully will happen again. One of the intentions with GW2 is that you're never 'finished' with an area of the game and level 80 characters will frequently go back to lower level areas. Daily achievements are one common way of doing that, as well as collections which require going into low level areas. There have been tempoary events themed around things like world bosses too, and were supposed to be more in future but I'm not sure what's happening with it right now.

[Taril.8619]

@WheezerX.4367 said:I don't see a problem with them doing micros for cosmetics, but stuff like mounts... Well, I think the most basic raptor should be available for all of the game, do a living event to justify it, but keep all of the others behind Path of Fire. One of the issues a few of my friends had was they weren't (one still isn't) completely sure if they wanted to commit to buying the expansions just yet, they feel "pay walled" by not even getting a starter mount. The world is huge, even the basic content, plus the raptor is just cool.

Mounts don't impede your ability to play in the base game, nor in HoT. They're only a necessity in PoF and even then the actual level of "Necessity" is pretty low. They're nice to have but aren't vitally important to play.

It is very possible to get everywhere in the base game and HoT without mounts.

@WheezerX.4367 said:Let us hunt for SOME of the skins for armors or weapons, that are otherwise cash shop-only, in some way. Is there a way to do this already and we're not aware as a returning group?

There is a way to earn cash shop exclusive skins without paying real money. That is, by farming gold and converting gold into gems and then purchasing those skins.

It's not as exciting as actually getting the skins as rewards for doing something in game. But then again, we also have stuff like the Sunless weapon skins, which are oft complained about being so ridiculously rare that getting half of them, let alone the full set, within a persons lifetime while farming Tequatl every single day is a slim chance...

@WheezerX.4367 said:Go back and re-tweak and bug scrape the dungeons, optimize them for lower level play that they are advertised in game for being, as an example; Ascalonian Catacombs to be for level 35 players in yellow gear but add an option for a "max level" version with slightly higher rewards. Right now, most guides and discussions seem to expect you to be a moderately geared level 80, and it definitely feels like that at times.

Honestly, in order for this to be worthwhile, they'd really need to make the rewards for dungeons actually worthwhile. Currently they're really not... Back in the day they were somewhat useful for obtaining Exotics, but these days it's far, far easier to just nab a full set of exotics from the TP for like 5-10g (Or farm Verdant Brink for Bladed Armour)

@WheezerX.4367 said:Are there events besides the Bloodstone-crazed beasts and remnants that could be added to entice more population to play around in the lower level areas occasionally, the increased local population might provide some form of enticement to new players to keep pushing through the game.

I'm sure there could be.

One of the issues with this is that people are already complaining about how it breaks the immersion for newer players whom get these snippets of later storylines from these events (As well as the overall continuity issues of a zone existing in like 3-4 different time periods simultaneously)

While they're trying to be cautious about sticking in more stuff into older zones that exist in a specific time bubble so that the NPC's and events that occur make sense.

@WheezerX.4367 said:I'm curious if changes like these are made, would it effect the statistics of how long new players stick around on average?

Probably.

But the crux for ANet, is does it make those new players spend money? Getting free mounts and free cash shop exclusive skins doesn't sound like it'd be very profitable for ANet... While money is required to pay employees to work on the game and to maintain servers.

@WheezerX.4367 said:There's a bunch of other, smaller critiques that our play group has about the game that I feel like they should look at doing and the changes could pull in more players because it would make it more approachable, without sacrificing game integrity by "making it casual".

Is this a drum beat to death or is this something we could have a discussion on? These are just some of our thoughts.

Discussions are possible. Many of these things have been brought up a ton. At the end of the day, it'll be up to ANet to decide what they consider worthwhile investments.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Here is some content that bring players back to previous maps:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Side_StoriesThere are also several collections that use maps from all parts of Tyria:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/CollectionsOccasionally we have events like this:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Special_event

Welcome return, and good luck.

[XenesisII.1540]

1. You'll probably notice a lot of the core zones have a lot of waypoints to get around, while the newer zones have a lot less due to mounts. Point of core these days with f2p is to see if you even like the game, even then it's a ton of content for free. I'm sure a lot of us have played through core and HoT without a mount. You can call it a paywall, but all expansions in games are paywalls... The game price itself is comparable to other games with expansions, $30usd for core hot pof together, even less when it's on sale for up to 50% off, ton of games have $60 price tags for a whole lot less.

2. Cosmetics is the main bread and butter product of the cash shop which isn't even pay to win. So I don't see a problem with skins being mostly cash shop optional, but even those can be bought with gems which you can buy with gold you earn in game. There's plenty of free skins to get in the game too, including all the dungeon and legendary weapons and armor, as well other skins from wvw and spvp sections, and new ones come out with new living stories and events.

3. Dungeons were dead on arrival 8 years ago, it was basically dropped for fractals which is basically upgraded dungeons. Do the dungeons as you level, then do fractals at level 80 for gear and gold.