shysaursoft
Member
The article linked earlier, does a really good job of explaining it all in detail actually: http://www.buzzcut.com/archive/article.php~story=20060303211856230.html
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sackboy2197
Member
It certainly is an interesting article, but I think it's being too negative and generic. Sure, there are a lot of MMOs like that, which pretty much only want people to play them and especially to spend money to feel "important". I think that's the case with most F2P. The sad thing is that sometimes they start out with everyone, paying for items or not, being pretty much equal, but then they focus only on gaining more money (I felt that this happened with Microvolts for example, not sure if anyone knows it). Another thing that most MMO try to do is pretty much copy what other games have done and was successful. Obviously though, just copying isn't enough, you need to put some effort and try to create something new. Taking elements from other games won't make your game better or even on the same level as those.
The simplest way to understand it in this context is that "hooks" are design elements that are intended simply to compel you to continue playing.
That is to say they are not included because they are fun, tell a story, represent artistic vision, etc. They exist only because they activate a feedback loop resulting in you playing for a longer period of time (both per session and over hours/days/years).
The most basic RPG hook (not at all limited to MMOs) is "leveling up." Despite being a translation of a more nuanced tabletop role-playing game concept, when it comes to videogames it's the simplest form of what we'd call vertical progression. You begin at level one, progress more-or-less linearly until content becomes too difficult to overcome with skill, and then participate in secondary objectives to level up, and then continue forward. You'll repeat this process many times until hitting a "ceiling." Your strength/skill as a player may remain constant, but your avatar increases periodically over time. This is the purest version of what I think of as "grinding."
This idea is now such common vernacular in gaming that it's tough to imagine a time when this hook didn't exist, but indeed, this was an addition to early gaming designed to artificially extend the lifespan of gameplay. An easy example is to look at Castlevania 1 vs. Castlevania 2. Castlevania 1 does not contain vertical progression of any kind. It is extremely fucking hard, but your character's strength does not change from the first moment of the game to the last boss. Thus if played straight through without any issues progressing (good luck with that), the game is barely 25 minutes long. Castlevania 2 on the other hand has you improving your character in all manner of ways. Better weapons, stronger attacks- by the end of the game, your strength far exceeds what it was at the beginning. Correspondingly, the game itself is easier and less demanding in terms of skill- but "lasts" for 2 hours or more in a straight playthrough.
sackboy2197
Member
I see, thanks for the explanation Hawkian 
I feel like GW2 is trying to do this with the level-adjustment, in order not to make you one shot the enemies in the first areas after you reach a higher level. I think mostly they kept the actual levels to try to look less "strange" than it would have otherwise been. I mean, it would be pretty strange thinking of an RPG (or MMORPG) with no levels. To me it wouldn't be that much of a problem conceptually, as i don't play to get a higher level (I mean, it's not my objective). It would be a problem practically though, as levels are a way to identify which areas you can go to and which one you can't, and also for equip. If you remove levels then how would equip works? It would be kinda like GW2 PvP, where you can choose freely what to boost., but I'm not sure it would work that well in the PvE.
By the way, I remmber reading of an MMO which had no levels. I don't remember the name, but i think it was set in China and was bout martial arts.
I feel like GW2 is trying to do this with the level-adjustment, in order not to make you one shot the enemies in the first areas after you reach a higher level. I think mostly they kept the actual levels to try to look less "strange" than it would have otherwise been. I mean, it would be pretty strange thinking of an RPG (or MMORPG) with no levels. To me it wouldn't be that much of a problem conceptually, as i don't play to get a higher level (I mean, it's not my objective). It would be a problem practically though, as levels are a way to identify which areas you can go to and which one you can't, and also for equip. If you remove levels then how would equip works? It would be kinda like GW2 PvP, where you can choose freely what to boost., but I'm not sure it would work that well in the PvE.
By the way, I remmber reading of an MMO which had no levels. I don't remember the name, but i think it was set in China and was bout martial arts.
I see, thanks for the explanation Hawkian
I feel like GW2 is trying to do this with the level-adjustment, in order not to make you one shot the enemies in the first areas after you reach a higher level. I think mostly they kept the actual levels to try to look less "strange" than it would have otherwise been. I mean, it would be pretty strange thinking of an RPG (or MMORPG) with no levels. To me it wouldn't be that much of a problem conceptually, as i don't play to get a higher level (I mean, it's not my objective). It would be a problem practically though, as levels are a way to identify which areas you can go to and which one you can't, and also for equip. If you remove levels then how would equip works? It would be kinda like GW2 PvP, where you can choose freely what to boost., but I'm not sure it would work that well in the PvE.
By the way, I remmber reading of an MMO which had no levels. I don't remember the name, but i think it was set in China and was bout martial arts.
MMOs without levels do something called skill ups. Where for example the more you use a 1h Sword, the better you get with it and you can specialize into being better and better with it. Here's a look at UO's skills:
The way this worked was you had 700 points in which you could allocate in any way you wished to make your character. A character could reach the maximum of 100 points, or Grandmaster, in seven skills, or 50 points in 14 skills, or any combination for that matter, but all skills ultimately adding up to a maximum of 700 points.
Here's Star Wars Galaxies:
The Secret World:
Kos Luftar
Member
I was getting very impatient waiting on the news for the next update because of all the hype but now that I saw the trailer I am way more antsy about the update...I want it now. The wait to Tuesday feels longer then the wait from December 10th till yesterday.
You guys want these two new bosses to require as much coordination as Tequatl does? Do you want it to have a 15 minute time limit, or long/shorer?
Has it been said that the new Wurms in Bloodtide Coast have appeared because of the Mysterious Probes thumping the ground and disturbing them.
What if Scarlet really does burn the world down, and all the zones change...like GW1 pre-searing and post-searing?
You guys want these two new bosses to require as much coordination as Tequatl does? Do you want it to have a 15 minute time limit, or long/shorer?
Has it been said that the new Wurms in Bloodtide Coast have appeared because of the Mysterious Probes thumping the ground and disturbing them.
What if Scarlet really does burn the world down, and all the zones change...like GW1 pre-searing and post-searing?
Mr_Antimatter
Member
Used another of my insta-lv-20 scrolls to create a mesmer. Wow, interesting class, hadn't played once since beta.
Still trying to figure out a leveling spec for it though.
Still trying to figure out a leveling spec for it though.
I don't think it'll require as much coordination as Taco, but will still be possible to fail. My hopes is that there isn't a mechanic that a single person out of 100+ can completely blow the entire fight. My guess is there won't be cause I'm sure they've seen that it didn't work well for Taco. As for length, my guess is a 10 min timer. Wait wut...new wurms in Bloodtide?
Kos Luftar
Member
Our very own etoilate (Zed Zebes) has shared his PvE and WvW builds here http://gafguild.com/index.php?threads/mesmer-builds-10-13.617/
I think they are mostly for 80 but you can use it as a guide to level up so that when you get to 80 you have those stats and the skills.
At the time, GW1 had some unique "hooks" that were (and imo, still are) absent from the MMO genre in general. Unfortunately, there are not in GW2...
In your traditional MMO game you will have that well-known (gear) treadmill, where you are constantly in pursuit of better and better (tiers of) gear for the newly added instances and raids. And with as new expansions are released, the level cap is raised, leaving place for higher gear.
In GW1 there was no such thing. Even leveling wasn't a "hook", because the level cap is low (20) and it's naturally achieved in the first half or so missions.
Yes, there is the grinding and farming for better looking skins, ie cosmetics, but it isn't that bad, because most of the skins were craftable in one way or another, and all the materials were available at merchants (prices were depended on the supply/demand).
Also, there are the title and achievements "hooks", which for the most part are fun to do.
What is really unique in GW1, is the skill collection mechanic. Imagine all the skills in the game as cards. And you are working on completing this huge deck of cards (if I recall correctly, there are 1314 skills in the game) by various activities in the game. Be it questing, boss hunting or just random drop in the form of "skill tomes", you are always expanding your "deck" of skills.
And from this comes the next "hook", "what can I do with all the cards(skills) I have?". And you start experimenting, or as it's known - build brainstorming. And with this huge number of skills, there is a lot to explore in terms of possibility. Just a quick math:
Your character have 2 professions at a time, with every profession having access to ~150 skills, at a time your character have access to total of 300skills. In a build where you can place 8 skills (and they cannot repeat), we are getting close to 5 trillion combinations.
Of course, these are all possible permutation between the 300 skills, so some build may repeat and a lot of them will be unusable within the game, but still it had room for this kind of stuff, and I know a lot of players just brainstorming for hours, and they enjoyed it.
GW2 tries to please everyone, and for me it kinda fails to deliver on every front. There is the grind for cosmetics, but everything is really easy to obtain and for one reason or another, there are hardly new armor skins (but we are getting lots of weapon skins).
Fractals represent the grind for better armor and there are tons of achievements and titles, that noone cares about, because everyone have them unlocked.
And what I said about the "skill deck", was planed for GW2 as well, but in the form of "trait deck", where we'd be asked to explore the world, kill bosses, do events and solve puzzles in order to collect various traits.
Why they completely dumped what made GW1 unique and addictive to so many players is beyond me. I hope with all this talk about progression in the CDI thread in the official forums, we will get some sort of replacement to this system...
In your traditional MMO game you will have that well-known (gear) treadmill, where you are constantly in pursuit of better and better (tiers of) gear for the newly added instances and raids. And with as new expansions are released, the level cap is raised, leaving place for higher gear.
In GW1 there was no such thing. Even leveling wasn't a "hook", because the level cap is low (20) and it's naturally achieved in the first half or so missions.
Yes, there is the grinding and farming for better looking skins, ie cosmetics, but it isn't that bad, because most of the skins were craftable in one way or another, and all the materials were available at merchants (prices were depended on the supply/demand).
Also, there are the title and achievements "hooks", which for the most part are fun to do.
What is really unique in GW1, is the skill collection mechanic. Imagine all the skills in the game as cards. And you are working on completing this huge deck of cards (if I recall correctly, there are 1314 skills in the game) by various activities in the game. Be it questing, boss hunting or just random drop in the form of "skill tomes", you are always expanding your "deck" of skills.
And from this comes the next "hook", "what can I do with all the cards(skills) I have?". And you start experimenting, or as it's known - build brainstorming. And with this huge number of skills, there is a lot to explore in terms of possibility. Just a quick math:
Your character have 2 professions at a time, with every profession having access to ~150 skills, at a time your character have access to total of 300skills. In a build where you can place 8 skills (and they cannot repeat), we are getting close to 5 trillion combinations.
Of course, these are all possible permutation between the 300 skills, so some build may repeat and a lot of them will be unusable within the game, but still it had room for this kind of stuff, and I know a lot of players just brainstorming for hours, and they enjoyed it.
GW2 tries to please everyone, and for me it kinda fails to deliver on every front. There is the grind for cosmetics, but everything is really easy to obtain and for one reason or another, there are hardly new armor skins (but we are getting lots of weapon skins).
Fractals represent the grind for better armor and there are tons of achievements and titles, that noone cares about, because everyone have them unlocked.
And what I said about the "skill deck", was planed for GW2 as well, but in the form of "trait deck", where we'd be asked to explore the world, kill bosses, do events and solve puzzles in order to collect various traits.
Why they completely dumped what made GW1 unique and addictive to so many players is beyond me. I hope with all this talk about progression in the CDI thread in the official forums, we will get some sort of replacement to this system...
sackboy2197
Member
The thing about skill decks sounds so cool *__*
Kos Luftar
Member
I don't know if it was as cool. A lot of the skills were duplicates just with different names because they were from different continents. Also most of the Dual Profession combos didn't make any sense, ie like Monk/Warrior, Any/Monk would never compete with a monk and even the monk skills you got never healed you a swell as a primary profession heal.
I never played PvP so I never theory crafter or designed builds, I just used the ones that were popular on PvX and GuildWarsGuru.
I really want to know what's on the paper behind the X wooden bars. It's very interesting.
Failed tests?
You're right on the money, GW2 uses the traditional leveling hook but lessens its impact with level scaling (especially apparent in dungeons *cough hour-plus AC story run last night cough*) and GW2 mitigates the grindiness a couple of other ways as well; though any individual player's mileage will vary:I see, thanks for the explanation Hawkian
I feel like GW2 is trying to do this with the level-adjustment, in order not to make you one shot the enemies in the first areas after you reach a higher level.
- XP from a huge variety of sources, from outright exploration to crafting to taking on content well above your level
- A much gentler-than-standard leveling curve, one which plateaus around level 35, and from my perspective actually begins to accelerate after level 60
- A rather generous amount of freebie "skip" items, i.e. tomes of knowledge for an instant level and scrolls of knowledge to skip 1-20 on a new character
Oddly, GW2 in the earliest conceptual stages played with this idea, but it was just too radical for such a mass-appeal game.
The game was often called "Build Wars" because, similar to the evolution of Magic: The Gathering decks over time, new class/skill combinations would become powerful and prevalent and either (in PvE) encourage others to make even more-effective ones, or (in PvP) have counter "decks" built around them which sometimes themselves became the new ubiquitous builds and required their own counters, and so on. It required a lot of ingenuity and trying something unorthodox that wound up working was a blast, and allowed for some of the most unique, bizarre builds I'd ever seen in a game. Check out this description of a nearly invincible Monk with 55 maximum hit points.
Coming up with skill builds in GW1 was not a "hook" as we've been discussing them at all; it was legitimately fun in its own right, and was there to encourage creativity, not extend playtime.
For my part, swnny's claim that GW1's cosmetic grinding "wasn't that bad, because most of the skins were crafting in one way or another" reads to me as ludicrous at face value; Obsidian armor in GW1 was much, much further out of my reach than anything I might want to aim for in GW2 despite a similar number of hours invested, the differentiating factor being an unwillingness to grind. Similarly, grinding for titles and achievements in GW1 struck me as just as insufferable as I find it in GW2, and I simply ignore it (while gladly accepting the coincidental rewards for my play) in both.
People get different things out of games.
Mr_Antimatter
Member
Cool, thanks!
Kos Luftar
Member
Does the text even look new krytan?
shysaursoft
Member
Speaking of Guild Wars 1, right now I have never hated the game more. I've been stuck on the same mission (Tahnakai Temple) for five hours now, having attempted it 10+ times.
I forgot how bad some of the missions were, especially ones where you have to babysit an autopilot Togo who loves running first into danger and getting one-shotted by 10x Mindfrack of Doom, which is instant Mission Failed.
Escort Wars.
/frustrated vent
EDIT: Frakking finally did it, after six hours of bashing my head against it. Gods I hope it's downhill from here.
I really do feel sorry for GW1 veterans who got to GW2 and were confronted by a completely different design paradigm. The two games could not be more different.
But on the flip side, I'm 100% super-happy they didn't follow GW1's design, because I enjoy GW2 far... *far* more than GW1. Much of what I hated about GW1 are the things many people say they loved, so while there is no "right" answer, as long as GW1 exists and GW2 isn't GW1 part 2, I'm surprised nobody's tried to make a spiritual successor to GW1. You'd think the market was there.
I forgot how bad some of the missions were, especially ones where you have to babysit an autopilot Togo who loves running first into danger and getting one-shotted by 10x Mindfrack of Doom, which is instant Mission Failed.
Escort Wars.
/frustrated vent
EDIT: Frakking finally did it, after six hours of bashing my head against it. Gods I hope it's downhill from here.
I really do feel sorry for GW1 veterans who got to GW2 and were confronted by a completely different design paradigm. The two games could not be more different.
But on the flip side, I'm 100% super-happy they didn't follow GW1's design, because I enjoy GW2 far... *far* more than GW1. Much of what I hated about GW1 are the things many people say they loved, so while there is no "right" answer, as long as GW1 exists and GW2 isn't GW1 part 2, I'm surprised nobody's tried to make a spiritual successor to GW1. You'd think the market was there.
Nope. Scribbles
Damn it man, if it's an AC rut you know who to call!!! XD
On the topic of playing a game (part of a game) just for the fun of it and not rewards: One of my, if not my most enjoyable moment in GW2 (outside pvp) was the queens dome boss challenges. I forget the name. I got to admit I first started it for the mini liadri reward but quickly forgot there was even a reward, when every new encounter made me feel like I was a kid again playing mega man for the first time. That moment when I finished the last encounter without having seen any guide, cheezuz that was glorious. Forget the stupid mini reward this content was hands down the best Ive played in GW2. The best part about it, is that it didnt end there. I could add modifiers to the boss and keep challenging myself to even harder encounters.
I would be so happy if we had an arena were every 2 or 3 LS updates we got new challengers to fight!
We have a lot in common, Miktar. I loved the crap out of GW1 in its prime, but having obtained 3 more HoM points and leveled another character post-GW2 release, I found it very difficult to enjoy, and the most recent time (after having multiple 80s) I could barely even tolerate it from a moment-to-moment gameplay perspective. GW2 is much more "my game."
That said, I'd actually play a new skill deck-based, buy2play CORPG in a heartbeat.
As long as you could jump.
That said, I'd actually play a new skill deck-based, buy2play CORPG in a heartbeat.
As long as you could jump.
Hell yeah. The queen's gauntlet. I came so close to looking up a guide to Liadri after having tried her so many times, but stuck with it and daaaaaamn satisfaction. I wound up using a build/skill loadout completely different from what I started with and it made me better at the game in general too. Great content.
sackboy2197
Member
I was actually thinking of something purely skill or "knoweledge" based, like many recent Rogue-Like-Like. For in Isaac or Spelunky, while there are items and they are essential, the skill of the player is absolutely necessary and is something that improves over time.
LiveSpartan235
Neo Member
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/for...stream-on-Friday-at-2pm-PST/first#post3501152
The next episode of ready up is all about balance, rune and sigils rework, crit damage changes, and new spvp stat combos
The next episode of ready up is all about balance, rune and sigils rework, crit damage changes, and new spvp stat combos
Okay, usually I don't do this, but I'm about to check if there's any popcorn left in my house because just mentioning crit damage changes should rile up both the PvE (Berserker meta) and PvP (wishing for more Burst meta) crowds.
They also confirmed that the balance preview post/thread won't be up this week since they're still locking things down, so the episode will be about the high level direction they want to go. They hope to have the thread up with the details next week and in the Profession Balance forum.
Personal opinion on it... I'm still undecided. At least in PvP while the condition meta still has its problems, the Burst potential of a lot of classes is still high enough to bug me. Especially when dealing with Thieves and Fresh Air Elementalists.
They also confirmed that the balance preview post/thread won't be up this week since they're still locking things down, so the episode will be about the high level direction they want to go. They hope to have the thread up with the details next week and in the Profession Balance forum.
Personal opinion on it... I'm still undecided. At least in PvP while the condition meta still has its problems, the Burst potential of a lot of classes is still high enough to bug me. Especially when dealing with Thieves and Fresh Air Elementalists.
Traveler's Runes lose speed buff
Buffs from buff sigils go away if you swap to a weapon without it
There you go, now you have choices!
Principate
Saint Titanfall
Wait don't commanders uses portals for golem rush, I'm not sure the speed buff is so great it eliminates options.
Umm... I wouldn't hold my breath.
For the rune changes, I except some bug fixes and a major overhaul on the rune of Lysa.
The critical damage may refer to the recently mentioned changes to beserker gear, so maybe a decrease in the %crit dmg stat?
Now, the new amulets in PvP may prove a bit interesting, but given the last time they added new amulets, noone use, they may just as well have changed them to something more suitable.
I too want to see some metashifting changes, but we are stalled in this condi-shitstorm since last summer, so I'll stay skeptical.
Which only proves my point on the uniqueness of the system. Altho, you are right that:
Still, a lot of people spent countless hours brainstorming, which may not be "hook" as discussed here earlier, but it extends playtime just as well(for some players). Also, on my major point about collecting skills, now, that is a "hook" as we have talked about and it stills drives players back to the game, as some enjoy running around and killing bosses to "capture" their elite skill.
Actually, the Obsidian armor set (and maybe the Elite Kurzick and Elite Luxon) is the only prestige armor that have so huge cost. Shortly before GW2's release, crafting Obsidian in GW1 would require you to spend ~1200platinum and now (i'm in gw1 at the time of writing) the price have gone up 3 times, so you will need ~4000plat, if you are going to buy all the materials from the mercant. That sure is insane!
Of course, if (like me) you have a bank tab full of zaishen key stacks, then money ain't a problem at all. As I'm looking at the rates now, zkeys to ectos are 4:3, a ratio that haven't changed for years.
And right here we have yet another fuckup from ArenaNet.
In GW1, whatever you play, be it dungeons/speedrunning for quick gold, farming ectos in Underworld or just playing GvG or any other of PvP, you are always making money and thus working towards your goal (in our example - the Obsidian armor).
In GW2, they just started fixing this problem for sPvP a month ago, and earlier last year for WvW. Before that, if you didn't farm your thing in PvE, you ain't working towards your legendary (again, as example).
It is this kind of problems in their design theosophy that annoys me. I don't want them to make GW2 a remake of GW1 only with better graphics. But also, I don't want them to reinvent the wheel.
Is it that bad for them to be inspired of their previous game?
Mega Post incoming, you've been warned.
It's from 2006, when a lot of the modernization of MMOs hadn't really kicked in and it was still very much a "raid or die" genre. I don't think he's overly negative, he's just distant enough from the genre to find the obviously scammy methods distasteful. In the same way I don't bat an eyelash at North American or even Korean methods of separating players from their money, but the Chineese approach to game design scares the fuck out of me;
IDon'tWantToPlayOnThisPlanetAnymore.jpg
Not only does your post explain the concept very well, but you make a reference to Castlevania to boot, which makes it that much better.
Also, Castlevania 2 is padded by having a grind; if you die, you lose all of your hearts, which are the currency needed to buy items. Since the game will kill you at a moment's notice due to bugs, the day/night transition, tricky jumps and old school enemy design/placement, you'll often be on your way to purchase an item and get killed. The end result is that it's almost always easier to just stay near the objective and just farm hearts.
Also, 2 hours? Maybe with a guide, save states and a prayer.
Fun Fact: Guild Wars 2 originally didn't have levels, but early testers also found it 'pretty strange' and couldn't get their heads around an MMO without an obvious progression track. It's also why we have Renown hearts; testers just couldn't deal with the idea that events could happen anywhere, and needed specific points on a map to psychologically guide them to areas where events are more likely.
More on this subject: Treatise on Character Advancement Systems
I want them to have event triggers like Karka Queen so the event is triggered by players actually coordinating to accomplish something rather than just afking in the zone until he pops and everyone who hasn't been sitting around for an hour getting shut out. Beyond that, everything else is just having fun learning a new fight.
But that's not in Guild Wars 2 either. Even if you want to make the argument that Ascended gear is somehow a treadmill mechanic, the fact that it's such a minor upgrade over exotics, gated, and doesn't represent a larger development trend means it's a treadmill in which you only step forward once and you're off it (which is to say, not a treadmill at all... but... one of those step things.)
That's because:
One Weapon skin = 19 skins (one for each weapon type since they tend to do them in sets)
One Armor skin = ~168 skins (3 weight classes with 6 armor pieces for 5 races and 2 genders, minus 12 for the Asura and Charr who usually don't have different skins for each gender). Approximation because norn, sylvari and humans are close enough they only require minor tweaks rather than large changes.
If I recall correctly, this was dropped because they felt it made it too easy for players to miss vital traits and felt more like padding than exploring. I do agree with you though, I hope they have more exploration-based progression from here on out.
Appears to be a root system, probably a map of the wurm tunnels that run beneath Blood Tide coast.
Their high level stuff is always fun because they don't mention specifics but still enough hints that you can sort of figure out what's going on. It's like a scavenger hunt with game design theory, which in addition to being fun to figure out also sparks interesting discussion.
Speaking of which, the Profession Balance forum is so god awful (it is literally pages upon pages of people coming in and demanding buffs for their class or nerfs for another) that I believe it is actually part of a clever plan. By creating a place where all of that selfish armchair game design is theoretically supposed to take place, they have a reason to move or lock those kind of posts that occur outside it. Essentially, it leaves a pleasant vacuum where real discussion can take place without insufferable shitlords coming in every other post and whining about their class not being uber.
It's from 2006, when a lot of the modernization of MMOs hadn't really kicked in and it was still very much a "raid or die" genre. I don't think he's overly negative, he's just distant enough from the genre to find the obviously scammy methods distasteful. In the same way I don't bat an eyelash at North American or even Korean methods of separating players from their money, but the Chineese approach to game design scares the fuck out of me;
IDon'tWantToPlayOnThisPlanetAnymore.jpg
Not only does your post explain the concept very well, but you make a reference to Castlevania to boot, which makes it that much better.
Also, Castlevania 2 is padded by having a grind; if you die, you lose all of your hearts, which are the currency needed to buy items. Since the game will kill you at a moment's notice due to bugs, the day/night transition, tricky jumps and old school enemy design/placement, you'll often be on your way to purchase an item and get killed. The end result is that it's almost always easier to just stay near the objective and just farm hearts.
Also, 2 hours? Maybe with a guide, save states and a prayer.
I see, thanks for the explanation Hawkian
I feel like GW2 is trying to do this with the level-adjustment, in order not to make you one shot the enemies in the first areas after you reach a higher level. I think mostly they kept the actual levels to try to look less "strange" than it would have otherwise been. I mean, it would be pretty strange thinking of an RPG (or MMORPG) with no levels.
Fun Fact: Guild Wars 2 originally didn't have levels, but early testers also found it 'pretty strange' and couldn't get their heads around an MMO without an obvious progression track. It's also why we have Renown hearts; testers just couldn't deal with the idea that events could happen anywhere, and needed specific points on a map to psychologically guide them to areas where events are more likely.
More on this subject: Treatise on Character Advancement Systems
I want them to have event triggers like Karka Queen so the event is triggered by players actually coordinating to accomplish something rather than just afking in the zone until he pops and everyone who hasn't been sitting around for an hour getting shut out. Beyond that, everything else is just having fun learning a new fight.
But that's not in Guild Wars 2 either. Even if you want to make the argument that Ascended gear is somehow a treadmill mechanic, the fact that it's such a minor upgrade over exotics, gated, and doesn't represent a larger development trend means it's a treadmill in which you only step forward once and you're off it (which is to say, not a treadmill at all... but... one of those step things.)
That's because:
One Weapon skin = 19 skins (one for each weapon type since they tend to do them in sets)
One Armor skin = ~168 skins (3 weight classes with 6 armor pieces for 5 races and 2 genders, minus 12 for the Asura and Charr who usually don't have different skins for each gender). Approximation because norn, sylvari and humans are close enough they only require minor tweaks rather than large changes.
If I recall correctly, this was dropped because they felt it made it too easy for players to miss vital traits and felt more like padding than exploring. I do agree with you though, I hope they have more exploration-based progression from here on out.
Appears to be a root system, probably a map of the wurm tunnels that run beneath Blood Tide coast.
Their high level stuff is always fun because they don't mention specifics but still enough hints that you can sort of figure out what's going on. It's like a scavenger hunt with game design theory, which in addition to being fun to figure out also sparks interesting discussion.
Speaking of which, the Profession Balance forum is so god awful (it is literally pages upon pages of people coming in and demanding buffs for their class or nerfs for another) that I believe it is actually part of a clever plan. By creating a place where all of that selfish armchair game design is theoretically supposed to take place, they have a reason to move or lock those kind of posts that occur outside it. Essentially, it leaves a pleasant vacuum where real discussion can take place without insufferable shitlords coming in every other post and whining about their class not being uber.
shysaursoft
Member
Every day I don't need to roll for a chance on the gear item that had a chance to drop from a boss, a gear item I *need* so that I'm moving towards the armour tier needed to do the next piece of content - which will then repeat in a few months when the next tier is released and the new content requires the next tier to be able to even think of playing it...
Is a good day.
Every day I didn't have to wait 30-45 minutes for a tank to enter the dungeon finder, just so I could do a dungeon.
Is a good day.
Is a good day.
Every day I didn't have to wait 30-45 minutes for a tank to enter the dungeon finder, just so I could do a dungeon.
Is a good day.
I immediately looked up this place on the wiki and saw that it cost money to go there. I am going to cry.
shysaursoft
Member
Permanent Royal Terrace Pass, bought with gold. The only way to fly.
Yeah, the permanent Terrace pass was 1000 gems (about $10 US). That said, there's still quite a few places like it. Rata Sum is very condensed, with the bank, GBank and TP all in the central area and crafting stations not terribly far away. Divinity's Reach has a similar setup, with the crafting areas down an elevator from the bank/tp.
The only thing really missing from those are the Mystic Forge and Asura gates. I admit those are pretty important too. It seems expensive, but the pass is (well, was, I think it's gone now) about what you'd pay for drive-thru for two people, and it lasts for ever. I do wish it was an account-wide pass instead of an item, but that complaint as been made already and hopefully they tweak it.
Umm... I wouldn't hold my breath.
For the rune changes, I except some bug fixes and a major overhaul on the rune of Lysa.
The critical damage may refer to the recently mentioned changes to beserker gear, so maybe a decrease in the %crit dmg stat?
Now, the new amulets in PvP may prove a bit interesting, but given the last time they added new amulets, noone use, they may just as well have changed them to something more suitable.
I too want to see some metashifting changes, but we are stalled in this condi-shitstorm since last summer, so I'll stay skeptical.
To be fair, the Condi meta was shifting more and more towards Burst in autumn (Hammer Warriors with Unsuspecting Foe, Sleight of Hand S/D Thieves), and once winter hit we started seeing a resurgence of interest in Mesmers, Elementalists, and even DPS Guards and Power Burst Necros. The Condi meta is currently propped up mostly by Engineers, Spirit Rangers, and an S/S Warrior here and there. Then again, it's been essentially off season for the past month but the standard team comp is some combination of Engineer, Ranger, Guardian, Warrior, Thief, Mesmer. Two of those are condition based, two burst damage, one support, and the other can be condition but is usually run as a pressuring power build with Berserker or Soldier's Amulet.
The burst from certain builds bug me a bit, but I can't call them inherently unbalanced. Just unpleasant.
Also, the longer I think about it, the more I'd guess the crit damage nerf will be mostly for PvE, and will hopefully be bundled with an overall health reduction to AI enemies. Especially Elites/Champions/Legendaries. Then again, if it was a PvE primary change then we wouldn't see it in an episode of the PvP focused Ready Up...
One option I could picture if they didn't want to touch gear and protect peoples' Ascended investment is to change the base critical damage to 1.2 instead of 1.5. Then if you get 30% extra crit damage from traits you'd be back up to 1.5, and gear steps in from there.
It isn't a lot of money at all but what it is and the price rubs me the way of bad monetization. Same as the server transfer that costs as much as buying the game, its not a lot of money but I won't pay it.
My main desire in a spot is faster loading times. I should probably just memorize one of the full service outposts and use it. I have in the past ran around my home instance and not understood how it couldn't be a base of operations.
I am going to watch some tv shows then do my dailies on one of my lower level characters instead of worrying about all the negative.
shysaursoft
Member
That's my tactic for when things are getting me down. I turn off map chat, close the chat window, set myself to 'offline', load up something to watch in another window, and do some PvP or run around doing dailies, WvW, or finishing up a story on an alt. Funny how much more fun the game is once you start ignoring everyone.
This is one of the earliest examples of forced farming (mob grinding for progression) in gaming, so far as I know, and the hate I felt for it back then is precisely the same I feel when I hit a boss in a modern JRPG I haven't leveled up enough for by grinding random encounters... it's just such manipulative design. Intolerable.
Of course in practice, Simon's Quest is more like 8 hours and Castlevania more like 12,000 (I've never actually beaten it legit).
This stuff is so much more important to me in a game than 80% of the crap that gets complained about regarding this one...
Sorry bro
Kiel's death is near, I can feel it!
shysaursoft
Member
shysaursoft
Member
Wait - if I want a Kurzick skill, I *need* to be in a Guild allied with Kurzick, so I can raise the Title track "Friend of the Kurzicks"?
That's not cool, Anet.
That's not cool, Anet.
I didn't think it had anything to do with your guild?
Looks like donating to an allied guild is just one method of raising the track
Noisy Ninj4
Member
Just make a guild, ally with kurzicks...profit!
shysaursoft
Member
I didn't think it had anything to do with your guild?
Looks like donating to an allied guild is just one method of raising the track
You get very, very little faction points doing quests (it'd take months to get the 100k needed). The other options aren't economical either. I guess I'm going to have to make a guild, bleh.
EDIT: 60,000 / 100,000 - and I'm out of faction to donate. Foo.
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