Fishing, Open world flow and general pacing of the game

[Neva Eilhart.5347]

Hi there,

 

Long time returning player here, as I've been playing GW2 since lauch with a few in-between breaks. As the new expansion is coming soon, the only thing really appealing to me is how fishing could be a great asset for the general pacing of the game and the open world overall design.

 

What I've always been loving about GW2 was the feeling of exploration and the tension coming up from playing through events while having to use your set of skills wisely. I have very fond memories of the game's very first beta weekends, and of course the first year of exploitation. Then came LW season 1 and with it, the zerg logic started ruining it all with huge meta events, champ trains, giant blobs spamming #1 and visual zergfest all over it.

 

From that point, my interest in playing the game went downhill. My skills didn't matter as much as before, as Anet decided (because of the powercreep which is inherent to the Mmo genre to an extent) to merge skills and have them do different things at once (skills which previously only healed now healed and dealt damage at the same time, skills which only buffed now buffed and debuffed at the same time... you get my point). The weight behind the decision of pushing one button slowly felt as if it was taken away from me.

 

For the next couple years, I remember playing the game jumping from one zergfest to another, doing activities to earn currencies only to buy more skins to rince and repeat this zergfest. 

 

When they announced PoF, I had very high hopes for a return to a slower, heavier meaningful gameplay loop in the game, because of the lack of huge meta event based maps (contrary to HoT which was only based on these). It did achieve that in some ways (bigger maps having a better flow for exploration, smaller scaled events providing a welcome break from huge zergfests). But I never got that feeling of running through Kessex Hills, meeting a few players along the way to do some escort, and eventually saving the day when popping out the right skill at the right time I got when the game first launched.

 

Now with the new expansion and what has been teased, I have some of my expectations back thanks to two things Anet announced :

 

- The implementation of fishing, which, even if it's just a small feature, can start providing a side activity to take a break from the neverending zerg/event loop. Gw2 is such a faced pace game, which doesn't even have queues or whatever (compared to other Mmo's), you start playing as soon as you log in, which is great. But I feel like it can only benefit from slower paced activities, things that can allow you to soak in the beautiful world without having tons of meta event info popping up your screen and having a hundred faceless players running around with particle effects all over. I really hope fishing won't be tied to anything fast paced such as meta events or such, because of that very reason.

 

- The new design of scaled enemies, who will have different skills based on their rank (vet, elite, champ...). I'd rather have a harder encounter which will require to dodge and use my whole set of skills, than having an elite mob who is an HP sponge and is able to one hit me without even being able to see it because of the particle effects. Implementing different behaviors for foes based on the amount of players around can bring back some feeling of importance behind the skills you'll have to use. 

 

I don't know if I'm the only one to feel this way but I really hope Anet scales down on the zergs and start really polishing the game to make it a more enjoyable roaming experience. I don't think anyone enjoys spamming #1 to get some gold for hours. Given the competition going on on the Mmo stage, I think it is time to give back some meaning to the gameplay of Gw2 and start designing and implementing ways to give players opportunities to do more than just joining a zerg all day long. I really hope this xpac will be a first step towards this.

[DeanBB.4268]

The choice to join zergs is yours. My play doesn't center on it. Not that I don't join in on World Bosses, the occasional WvW blob, etc, but those are the exception rather than the rule. Limiting my blob time makes me appreciate them when I do.

[linkym.2069]

i think the main problem with gw2 is that it tries too hard to be different to other mmos. Just adding fishing makes the game 1000 times better. Adding simple things that traditional mmos have such as dueling or trading with anyone anywhere would make the game 1000 times better again.

[DeanBB.4268]

Fishing = ok, maybe, we'll see what they do with it.

Dueling = no, we have places for that already.

Trading = you already can, just mail them since you trust them... apparently. Otherwise, Trading Post is there for a reason.

[Neva Eilhart.5347]

17 hours ago, DeanBB.4268 said:

The choice to join zergs is yours. My play doesn't center on it. Not that I don't join in on World Bosses, the occasional WvW blob, etc, but those are the exception rather than the rule. Limiting my blob time makes me appreciate them when I do.

 

You're right to an extent. The whole open world game design has been revolving around meta events, huge zergs and champ trains since season 1. If you want to play the open world, chances are you're going to run into a crowded event during your playing time, whether you want to limit it or not. Chances are you're going for a JP or a vista and you'll end up amidst a huge fight on the way. I personaly enjoyed way more the first year of GW2 after the launch because it had a good balance between something happening and nothing happening at all.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining the core of the game being meta events and zerg, I'm just happy they're putting something different into the world to give the players another approach to it.

 

Fishing is a nice addition because it's a first step towards another type of activities. When you look at other very popular Mmos, these kind of activites are here to enable players to take a break from the main gameplay loop. That's why they're so popular among players (even though fishing in Wow, compared to FF14, isn't the most fun thing to do because you just click at the right time, it's still a nice break from questing).

 

GW2 would improve tremendously in my opinion by adding more activities like that, which don't involve meta events at one point or another.

 

GW2 is one of the fastest, if not the fastest paced MMo I've played. No queue times, no long journey from one point to another. There's always something happening around you. Which is great, but can become overwhelming from times to times.

Having activities inside the game (and I'm not counting standing in LA playing fashion wars as a game activity per se) which enable you to enjoy the world without feeling overwhelmed by the amount of things happening in it is an improvement to my eyes. 

 

 

Edited July 29, 2021 by Neva Eilhart.5347
typo

[Ashantara.8731]

There is a thread dedicated to fishing. Why not use that one?

[Raknar.4735]

9 minutes ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

There is a thread dedicated to fishing. Why not use that one?

Because fishing is only a part of this post, an example of an activity that changes the general flow of how the game is played. Similiar to racing.

 

While I don‘t agree with OP‘s strawman argument about „only pressing 1“, I share the sentiment that most of the GW2 content has a samey feel to it. I‘d even go further and say side content like fractals and raids is also more of the same.

 

Edited July 29, 2021 by Raknar.4735

[DanAlcedo.3281]

I work hard and sometimes I'm to tired to play as focused as I did 10y ago, which makes group content not fun for me. 

 

Fishing is solo content that Gw2 desperately needs. 

 

Can't wait to to have a warm meal, a cold drink while fishing somewhere. 

Chilling my butt off. 

 

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I think there are many 'activities' that don't involve groups of players.

There are certainly lots of Renown Hearts.  Many scavenger-type collections.

Map completion for dozens of maps.  Vistas and Jumping Puzzles.

Hundreds of events that aren't meta.  Out-of-the-way locations to discover and dialogue to listen to. 

 

I hope fishing will be fun;  lots of new recipes for foods coming, so new things to sell and for Chefs to create, as well. 

[DanAlcedo.3281]

41 minutes ago, Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

I think there are many 'activities' that don't involve groups of players.

There are certainly lots of Renown Hearts.  Many scavenger-type collections.

Map completion for dozens of maps.  Vistas and Jumping Puzzles.

Hundreds of events that aren't meta.  Out-of-the-way locations to discover and dialogue to listen to. 

 

I hope fishing will be fun;  lots of new recipes for foods coming, so new things to sell and for Chefs to create, as well. 

 

The only solo activities I can think of are gathering and world map completion. 

 

Well AP farm too, to some extent. 

 

I don't see a reason to do events outside of metas.

 

Also im not really an RP guy, so finding locations and dialogue isn't really content for me. 

 

I would like content  like the Gw1 killroy dungeon. Basically a solo dungeon. 

 

 

 

[Yakuzai.6593]

Iam also excited for Fishing but whats strange is that so far i only read about connecting "recipes, food, cooking" with fish rather than with "loot".

I know from another mmorpg that after you caught a fish, you could consume (double click) it to get something like money or rare items. Imagine there is another ressource for getting rare infusions like for example the chak infusions from a chak fish xD ... obviously chances would be like 0,000000000000000000000000000001% but it would be a very TIME independent way - means people are not forced to wait 2 hours for an event or do not have to log in to a certain time to participate at an event. This would really slow down the overall pacing, which im looking forward to. 

One of the problem of the current state, which really is fast paced, is the fact that i feel like i just cant "randomly" log int and play the game. Whenever iam logging in iam watching the clock to see what time it its to not miss out a certain event that i need for a collection or general mats/gold acquisition. Fishing would be a way to solve this problem by adding ressources to fishes that are meaningful but that you can do whenever you want to 😄 

And the higher your mastery for fishing the more increased are chances for better loot paired with magic find .... uff delicious 😍

Edited July 29, 2021 by Yakuzai.6593