Curse

uby · Apr 13, 2008, 09:02 PM // 21:02

So, after on-and-off playing GW since late 2005, I've decided to call it quits and move onto other creative efforts. It wasn't until I decided to leave that I realized what, exactly, it was that appealed to me about GW.

The appeal of the game, much moreso than other genres, was that it allowed for an expression of creativity within the gamespace. And not just on a superficial level, but on a competitive gameplay level. Working within a seemingly complicated framework of skills, attribute levels, professions, and group interactions, this game allowed me to explore just how creative I could be in coming up with character or team builds that could meet the PvE and PvP challenges in the game.

This kept me interested in the game for over two years, and I thank the developers who came up with the game designs that were interesting enough to keep my attention for that time. Here are a few parting ideas/suggestions that I hope can still make it into the design cycle for GW2:

1) Passive abilities. Not everyone enjoys micromanaging abilities that require constant attention. Enchantments provide great versatility for short durations, but the opposite mechanic was never really explored in the game. Using attribute levels to boost profession-specific passive abilities was implemented at a very basic level with primary attributes, but could have been explored so much more than that.

2) Dungeon or instance design. Create a tool to allow USERS to develop their own instance or dungeons that other USERS could compete in. This would blend both PvE and PvP realms: dungeon/instance designers would create maps filled with groups of PvE monsters using PvE skills, but would try to counter groups of real-life people who would attempt to defeat the challenge. You could immerse this within the PvE world fairly easily by having NPCs which would "sell" land and mercenaries to guard your land. You'd therefore have controlled map geography and allow for players to come up with challenges. You can even tie it into the economy by making incentives for good dungeon designers and/or monetary penalties for bad ones.

EDIT: This one has generated a few responses and I needed to clarify. This was done with a reply, but I am copying + pasting here in OP.

"This one was by far my most radical suggestion. I still think it's implementable. How's this as a variant that might be better suited to GW:

A guild alliance of some suitable stature (don't know what they would use to determine this - size, or money, or some measure of competitiveness) can purchase, in addition to a guild hall, a "guild grounds". They can hire AI mercenaries to guard the guild grounds, and they can CREATE groups of AI mercenaries with whatever skillsets/attributes/compositions that they desire. There could be some sort of resource allocation system involved: high ranked guilds might have high amounts of resources while low ranked guilds would have less. Defeating the "guild grounds" would be a mini-game prerequisite to challenging a guild to some contest. Different guild ranks could be used for different benefits (GvG rank might increase the mob level, some other rankings might increase the number of AI or how many elite skills are allowed, etc)

This provides another avenue of creativity: guild members (ie - players) will actively create and test their own groups of AI to provide sufficient challenge so as to gain some sort of benefit when another guild challenges them and does not succeed in overtaking the "guild grounds" mission. (Perhaps some sort of guild fame rank)"

3) Titles. Eliminate reputation-based titles altogether. No one wants to grind faction rank, or sunspear rank, or asuran rank. You took a surprising turn in EotN by adding MORE grind. I'm all for titles: but they should be skill or accomplishment limited. You can keep silly ones like drunkard and sweet tooth if you want though

4) In-game economy. You've got to do better than what was offered in GW1. I remember for the longest time there wasn't even a TRADE channel!! That was a tiny step in the right direction, but no one wants to sit around and spam to sell things. Take some cues from games like WoW (auction house) or EVE and incorporate things that will make the economy more interesting.

5) Items. Although I appreciate making items not the focus of PvE gameplay (like WoW does), you really devalue items too much by having so many "perfect" unique items as well as the ability to perfectly mod everything. It ended up hurting the economy a great deal.

6) World interaction. It's already been announced that there are some interesting things in the works for new world interaction mechanisms. GW1 was sorely lacking in these.

That's all. Good luck with GW2, and I hope you don't follow the path that many developers have and try to "streamline" GW2 (ie - dumb down and make LESS interesting) for the masses. Looking forward to 2009!

--uby

PS - no, you can't have my stuff.

guildwars hero22 · Apr 13, 2008, 09:28 PM // 21:28

/ agreed
i think you hit the nail on the head and if anet wants the good players who have left the game to come back you should implement his ideas into gw2
know all anet does it give us random bonuses almost every weekend which takes away from the value of the game i mean wtf if u make a title keep it you want us to use 10000 party items then let us dont give us double points some one who maxed this title b4 that event is prob pissed off i think the game is dead and hopefully will revive in gw2

Winterclaw · Apr 13, 2008, 09:41 PM // 21:41

Quote:

I'm all for titles: but they should be skill or accomplishment limited.

Some people would argue that being able to grind mindlessly is an accomplishment. I would say that given the fact Anet is giving the finger to the vision of no grinding, I would think the titles we all hate will be back with a vengance.

seandom · Apr 13, 2008, 09:55 PM // 21:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by uby

So, after on-and-off playing GW since late 2005, I've decided to call it quits and move onto other creative efforts. It wasn't until I decided to leave that I realized what, exactly, it was that appealed to me about GW.

The appeal of the game, much moreso than other genres, was that it allowed for an expression of creativity within the gamespace. And not just on a superficial level, but on a competitive gameplay level. Working within a seemingly complicated framework of skills, attribute levels, professions, and group interactions, this game allowed me to explore just how creative I could be in coming up with character or team builds that could meet the PvE and PvP challenges in the game.

This kept me interested in the game for over two years, and I thank the developers who came up with the game designs that were interesting enough to keep my attention for that time. Here are a few parting ideas/suggestions that I hope can still make it into the design cycle for GW2:

1) Passive abilities. Not everyone enjoys micromanaging abilities that require constant attention. Enchantments provide great versatility for short durations, but the opposite mechanic was never really explored in the game. Using attribute levels to boost profession-specific passive abilities was implemented at a very basic level with primary attributes, but could have been explored so much more than that.

2) Dungeon or instance design. Create a tool to allow USERS to develop their own instance or dungeons that other USERS could compete in. This would blend both PvE and PvP realms: dungeon/instance designers would create maps filled with groups of PvE monsters using PvE skills, but would try to counter groups of real-life people who would attempt to defeat the challenge. You could immerse this within the PvE world fairly easily by having NPCs which would "sell" land and mercenaries to guard your land. You'd therefore have controlled map geography and allow for players to come up with challenges. You can even tie it into the economy by making incentives for good dungeon designers and/or monetary penalties for bad ones.

3) Titles. Eliminate reputation-based titles altogether. No one wants to grind faction rank, or sunspear rank, or asuran rank. You took a surprising turn in EotN by adding MORE grind. I'm all for titles: but they should be skill or accomplishment limited. You can keep silly ones like drunkard and sweet tooth if you want though

4) In-game economy. You've got to do better than what was offered in GW1. I remember for the longest time there wasn't even a TRADE channel!! That was a tiny step in the right direction, but no one wants to sit around and spam to sell things. Take some cues from games like WoW (auction house) or EVE and incorporate things that will make the economy more interesting.

5) Items. Although I appreciate making items not the focus of PvE gameplay (like WoW does), you really devalue items too much by having so many "perfect" unique items as well as the ability to perfectly mod everything. It ended up hurting the economy a great deal.

6) World interaction. It's already been announced that there are some interesting things in the works for new world interaction mechanisms. GW1 was sorely lacking in these.

That's all. Good luck with GW2, and I hope you don't follow the path that many developers have and try to "streamline" GW2 (ie - dumb down and make LESS interesting) for the masses. Looking forward to 2009!

--uby

PS - no, you can't have my stuff.

1. I'm interested to hear your ideas on passive abilities. You mainly just pointed out what you thought was wrong without giving any ideas of your own. Exactly how could a.net "explore so much more than that".

2. Dungeon design? I don't really like this idea. Just play the game that was given to you. Let the players play and the game designers game design. I would however like to see more areas implemented at a more frequent basis, much like how Sorrow's Furnace was put into the game shortly after release.

3. Agree with you on this one. Not being able to get into HA groups because of rank is bad enough, but not being able to get into FoW groups because your Norn reputation is too low? Give me a break... I don't mind a little grind now and then, but excessive grind is a chore, not a game.

4. I wouldn't call this an ingame economy as much as I'd call it ease of trade. With things like Guru's trade forums and auction center it's become easier then it used to be sell an item(anyone remember spamming amongst the hundreds of others in LA AD1?). However, an ingame auction house is a feature that should be in GW2 and should've been in GW 2 years ago.

5. I actually don't have a problem with the current item system. Decent looking weapons still don't come cheap, whereas if you don't care about the skin, you can get a perfect sword or shield for a minimal price. It really puts the emphasis on skill level and not how legit your items are or how rich you are.

6. World interaction is actually something that I didn't miss while playing Guild Wars. While it would've been nice to have, it wasn't needed for the success of this game. That being said I am looking forward to it in Guild Wars 2.

Overall, good ideas

Alex the Great · Apr 13, 2008, 10:49 PM // 22:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by seandom

5. I actually don't have a problem with the current item system. Decent looking weapons still don't come cheap, whereas if you don't care about the skin, you can get a perfect sword or shield for a minimal price. It really puts the emphasis on skill level and not how legit your items are or how rich you are.

this is the reason that guild wars is so much better than other games!!!

in other games there usually isnt a cap to the damage a weapon does or the boosts mods can previde.

if this is changed in gw2 i will be unhappy. I'll still buy it though!!

uby · Apr 14, 2008, 01:04 AM // 01:04

thanks for the replies.

as to the items critique: I too would hate to see GW fall into the trap that WoW has - that is, never-ending need to upgrade items due to uncapped stats. however, i feel that GW should still have stratification of weapons rather than having none whatsoever. you can do this beyond their looks: you can create trade-offs between set items and unique items that provide equally useful but entirely separate benefits (ie - mutually exclusive stats depending on which type of item you choose to wield).

as to the dungeon idea, it might work better if it were in an arena form. ie- players could create an all AI team using some tool to enter in simple AI priorities and strategies in addition to skillsets and attributes. this would allow for a player to be creative and exhibit skill in a form aside from PvE and PvP.

as to the point about passive abilities: it would be hard to discuss such an idea without setting up the gameplay. if i were to try to "layer" it onto the current GW, i'd allow professions to have "passive skill points" with no associated skills that would benefit their gameplay. it would be separate from skill attribute points. passives could range from simple things like dodge, block, crit., double strike, cast time mods (ie- things already in the game), to things like "chance to ignore armor", "chance to ignore condition", hex breaking, cast-on-ally effects, and even environment changing effects (say, for a necro, chance to spread poison to nearby foes upon minion's death). i'm just throwing these things out blindly at this point, since you can't easily throw this ON TOP of an existing system and try to balance it. you can, however, DESIGN the new game to make these passive attributes significant enough to be another creative aspect of gameplay.

arsie · Apr 14, 2008, 01:18 AM // 01:18

The Primary Attribute line bonus effects are the equivalent to passive skills in other games. Yeah, it is a very basic implementation, and definitely can be expanded upon.

The problem with adding any further complexity to the GW system is that there are more chances of imbalance and optimisations. As it is, not all Primary Attribute line bonuses are born equal.

As for the rest, I largely agree. Protectors, Guardians, Vanquishers, Carthographers and PvP titles are all that really matters to me. And things should get harder for people with high title rank, not easier.

Fear Me! · Apr 14, 2008, 01:26 AM // 01:26

1.Passive abilities:Please elaborate on your passive abilities more.
2.Player designed dungeons:I agree if it's similar to the design-a-weapon contest, where the victor gets their dungeon made playable in gw.
3.Titles:The titles are fine as they are; more grind is only an option, not a necessity. Factions and Nightfall had required grind, but it wasn't that much.
4.Trading:Yes, an auction house would be very nice.
5.Items:By making the items moddable yes, it hurt the old game economy but allowed us to concentrate more on gameplay than item hunts. In short, more time to enjoy the game.
6.World interaction: please elaborate more;do you mean to say you'd like a grawl invasion of which we'd be informed of via the login screen, and which we can choose to stop? Or a large luxon/kurzick invasion perhaps?

Lastly, when Guild Wars and Prophecies were one and the same, anet's decision to silently nerf Thunderhead Keep by making it easier increased the amount of people being able to enjoy the game, but diluted the skill of the playerbase. This was later followed by the catastrophic ursan blessing. Clearly, anet prioritizes all players being able to enjoy the game over a skilled playerbase.

shoyon456 · Apr 14, 2008, 01:52 AM // 01:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by uby

Working within a seemingly complicated framework of skills, attribute levels, professions, and group interactions, this game allowed me to explore just how creative I could be in coming up with character or team builds

1) Using attribute levels to boost profession-specific passive abilities was implemented at a very basic level with primary attributes, but could have been explored so much more than that.

2) Dungeon or instance design. Create a tool to allow USERS to develop their own instance or dungeons that other USERS could compete in.

3) Titles. Eliminate reputation-based titles altogether. No one wants to grind faction rank, or sunspear rank, or asuran rank.

4) In-game economy. no one wants to sit around and spam to sell things.

5) Items. Although I appreciate making items not the focus of PvE gameplay (like WoW does), you really devalue items too much by having so many "perfect" unique items as well as the ability to perfectly mod everything.

--uby

These things make you my hero

(1-
Totally agree, however like you said, this can only be viable in GW2. Having primary attributes such as Expertise, Mysticism, Strength, Fast-Casting, hell ALL of it, would severly imbalance gameplay. Whole professions would need to be reworked (as i hope anet is doing) around this principle for gw2.

(2-
Creative idea. As long as there are enough customization options, the rewards are worth the effort (for the people making them AND the people playing them) and it is regulated, I dont see why not. Other than the potential programming nightmare for anet devs. After all, they do have a budget since they plan to keep gw1 up for quite some time.

(3-
Titles and minis, titles and minis, I knew it was going in the wrong direction when all anyone spent their time talking about or working towards were titles and minis.

(4-
Old news, obviously.

(5-
I find that inscriptions were a good addition, however, they should have NEVER made weapons that appeared in previous campaigns non inscript, as inscriptable. That was a big mistake.

Bront · Apr 14, 2008, 02:37 AM // 02:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by shoyon456

(5-
I find that inscriptions were a good addition, however, they should have NEVER made weapons that appeared in previous campaigns non inscript, as inscriptable. That was a big mistake.

Actualy, I disagree.

They should have made inscriptions in all campaigns.

As it is now, a PvP player can't unlock inscriptions in PvE without Nightfall and/or Eye of the North.

That is a big power imbalance issue.

bhavv · Apr 14, 2008, 08:00 AM // 08:00

I agree that the reason I keep coming back to GW is because of the amount of versatality in the builds. There are hundreds of way to play the game on each character and plenty of customising to do with your heroes.

In GW2 they are removing heroes, but at the same time making the game soloable. This means that if you play alone like I do, you will be playing as just you and your companion, but you should be able to play the whole game this way.

This is the most exiting feature I have heard about GW2, and I cant wait to see how it gets implemented.

Cebe · Apr 14, 2008, 08:08 AM // 08:08

General Discussion belongs in Riverside.

/Moved.

strcpy · Apr 14, 2008, 09:26 AM // 09:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by uby

The appeal of the game, much moreso than other genres, was that it allowed for an expression of creativity within the gamespace.

Very true - for me the real leap from a casual to a more hard core player occurred with the heroes. I could finally work with *team* builds and that opened up a whole new world.

As to the rest

Quote:

1) Passive abilities.

Hmm, passive ability spells would be fairly interesting but I don't see more things linked to the attributes to be that nice. It gets too complex - complex isn't exactly the right word (complex isn't a bad thing) but it is the best word I can come up with. I guess "hard to balance" would be in there also - inherent passive abilities should be VERY rare though I would like to see more passive skills with a Mesmer able to disable them for a period of time, it would be quite nice to have more things like "Charm Animal" wherein simply having the skill on your bar confers an effect.

Quote:

2) Dungeon or instance design.

This ones tough. If you do this you can't have them drop things or give experience otherwise you will have a dungeon full of a zillion really high level rangers with no interrupts or degen (that is - hundreds of bunched up no scatter 55 monk kills in HM). I don't see any real way to have user created areas with user created rewards that isn't going to mostly be used to farm things, if you don't give rewards then people will rarely play them. It's a good idea in single player games, but even in them that is one of the main uses of player created content. Anet is not going to have time to vet them and a community vetting system suffers from the same thing. It would be nice to have, but I don't see it happening.

Quote:

3) Titles.

This is fine as is - the grind based stuff isn't *that* good yet it still gives those that like grind something to do. In this case they have one of two choices - make one side happy and the other side angry enough to leave or make both sides not unhappy enough to leave. The second will almost always win and really it *should* do so. Though since I'm not on the grind based side I would also like all my characters to have a good Pain Inverter to cast or my least player caster be to join an Ursan group without having to grind a title out - however I understand why it is there. That is, personally /signed but I don't remotely expect this to change.

Quote:

4) In-game economy.

As other said - economy is fine as is. I like it that a casual player can pretty much afford all their needs to play and extra gold confers little advantage. I also agree with those people that you really mean "in-game trading" and that is lacking. An auction house would go a LONG way, or at least an automated trader for the basic items (inscriptions, weapon mods, tomes, etc).

Quote:

5) Items.

Only part I *really* disagree with you. Any change much towards making things more rare and we get worse than the title grinds. It is already hard to play only on drops if you have more than a few characters. I have a backlog of golds waiting for even near max mods to drop as I hate using the trade channels. However, a slight tweak along with an automated trade house would probably work OK, but it still would be much closer to the current allegiance title "grind" (it's currently easier to fill books for max EOTN and grind out SS/LB in Nightfall than to find three +18-20% enchant scythe mods).

The main thing that made max stuff not worth much is greens - those afore mentioned golds are sitting there because I can easily get a green that is exactly what I want. Yet those greens made it such that many casual players can play at a decent enough level to compete.

Quote:

6) World interaction.

Meh, can't say as I agree or disagree. I find both methods quite nice and don't care. For some it is a big deal, for others not.

Avarre · Apr 14, 2008, 09:32 AM // 09:32

A huge problem with passive abilities is a number of factors that balance other abilities. They cannot be removed or stopped in just about any way, for one thing.

ANet recently has been making a lot of skills more active in play, by reducing durations and recharges (hex changes) because having skills that last a long time make them more difficult to deal with and take less tactical play to use.

Passive general boosts are typically balanced as they are because there are so few, and because of how they integrate with the character itself. I wouldn't like to see very many added - the NF HA meta comes to mind, where massive paragon defense, non-removable and with long durations, effectively made a team invulnerable. Adding in passive defense could end up in that manner.

The effectiveness of your skill usage is one of the factors that makes a good player. Removing this to an extent by providing more passive abilities that take no thought whatsoever isn't necessarily a good thing. Making the game shallower and easier is not a good thing - if you want the benefits of multiple skill micro, that should depend on your player skill, not whether you just pumped a stat up for it.

Jongo River · Apr 14, 2008, 10:42 AM // 10:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by strcpy

Only part I *really* disagree with you. Any change much towards making things more rare and we get worse than the title grinds. It is already hard to play only on drops if you have more than a few characters. I have a backlog of golds waiting for even near max mods to drop as I hate using the trade channels. However, a slight tweak along with an automated trade house would probably work OK, but it still would be much closer to the current allegiance title "grind" (it's currently easier to fill books for max EOTN and grind out SS/LB in Nightfall than to find three +18-20% enchant scythe mods).

So true - I was in factions before I got my first zealous bow string, and I play a ranger! I've never quite forgiven GW for that.

Mods should not be part of the rarity factor of a weapon. The current blue/purple/gold system is ludicrous and undermines the sense of any weapon being worth anything. Most weapons have no value, unless they are gold. Most golds have no value, because they actually have a common skin. On top of that we're made dependant on finding as many golds as possible, just for the damn mods. Tying golds to mods and title point farming, whilst often having a less then desirable weapon underneath, has essentially made them into a consumable. Get your wisdom/treasure hunter points, rip off the mods and merch if there's anything left.

I really hope they have skins locked to a particular rarity in GW2 (assuming the rarity system stays). eg.

White/Blue - rough makeshift items like a "Machete".

Purple - Well-crafted, but otherwise common military weapons like a "Gladius"

Gold - Ornate, elaborate or unusual weapons like a "Crystalline".

I'd also happily say make golds far rarer, so long as all mods drop within any rarity band. The perfection of the mod should be more connected to the stage of the game, than rarity, though I could still see some mods being rarer than others - so long is it's not by too much and there is an improved trade mechanism for obtaining them!

MoriaOrc · Apr 14, 2008, 10:56 AM // 10:56

0) (why you played) I agree wholeheartedly. The versatility of roles a "max level" character can fill is one of the things that keeps me coming back.

1) Interesting, but I think they would have to have very small effects or risk being hugely imbalanced (like Avarre said).

2) Disagree for several reasons. I find player created content is overly focused more on utility to and/or challenge for the player. While those are admirable goals, and letting players have some suggestions towards those ends might be a good idea, having them design whole areas would be problematic.

3) Somewhat agree. The only problem I have with titles is the pressure they place on single-character play. Getting to SS/LB/Gwen Rep max (or near max) once isn't too bad, it's doing it two or three or 10 times that I don't like. And don't get me started about TH/Wisdom.

4) Pretty much a solid agree. Still got some hope for a XL market in GW1, though.

5) Mostly Disagree. The easy availability of max-stats weapons was a great design decision. However, the concept of more "trade off" mods is interesting.

6) Mixed bag. Could be good, could be bad. Depends on how it's done.

MoriaOrc · Apr 14, 2008, 11:04 AM // 11:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jongo River

I really hope they have skins locked to a particular rarity in GW2 (assuming the rarity system stays). eg.

White/Blue - rough makeshift items like a "Machete".

Purple - Well-crafted, but otherwise common military weapons like a "Gladius"

Gold - Ornate, elaborate or unusual weapons like a "Crystalline".

I'd also happily say make golds far rarer, so long as all mods drop within any rarity band. The perfection of the mod should be more connected to the stage of the game, than rarity, though I could still see some mods being rarer than others - so long is it's not by too much and there is an improved trade mechanism for obtaining them!

Now this is an interesting idea. Also, don't forget greens.

With this system, maybe change the entire mechanic behind gold drops to make them not solo-farmable (in the sense we think of it now, since GW2 will be full-world solo). Gold drops are from specific places, like the elite/dungeon chests only. This guarantees a certain level of difficulty in obtaining them.

To a certain extent, something like this is already in place. Many weapon skins only drop gold, and they are usually the more ornate/sought after skins. Of course, normal skins can still drop gold, and I'm not aware of any "purple only/and up" skins (with the exception of very rare Sorrows Furnace/UW/FoW purple Crystalline drops).

Vanquisher · Apr 14, 2008, 12:09 PM // 12:09

I read your first suggestion and can't really say much more than I disagree. I could go into far more detail and say why I disagree, but I'll attempt to keep it short.

Primary Attribute lines have helped break game balance with their passive effects. For examples see; Thumpers, Blood-Spike, FCAS, etc. etc.

More passive effects added like this kind of stuff will merely result in far more things to abuse, and when that abuse is happening in a competitive game it's a big problem. Honestly, I don't care what's done with PvE. I like playing it but the two types should be completely seperate and other suggestions in your post make me want to stress that further (ie. pt. 5). As such, it makes it hard for me to agree with your point about title grinding when those titles help seperate the two game forms.

Targuil · Apr 14, 2008, 12:14 PM // 12:14

/Agree with most of these. I only complain about 1. I think passive abilities are nice, but those aren't really good for active gameplay. I like the idea that all skills are active and removable and usually quite low duration. And passive abilities also fight with game balance too.

masta_yoda · Apr 14, 2008, 12:17 PM // 12:17

imo make a godlike mode lvl 99 creeps