No Character Progression Beyond Lvl.80?

[Deleted]

IIRC some DE's like the shatterer do spawn a loot chest, think I saw this in the convention movies, not sure though

Wasn't that some kind of runes that dropped and could be put in your armor, that added a set bonus the more you had of 'em? Think it was mentioned in an arena net blogpost, but don't know which one anymore.

EDIT: found this on the wiki: Upgrade components
All armor pieces come with a special slot where an upgrade component can be applied. These components grant additional bonuses to the armor, granting an advantage to characters in combat. Each upgrade component has six levels of bonuses. For example, for each Crest of the Legion a scholar has equipped, he gains one extra bonus from the Crest of the Legion bonus list. If the crest is added to each of the six armor pieces, all of the bonuses that the upgrade provides will be unlocked.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Armo...ade_components

[Valeron]

^

Yeah those were rune/crest sets that dropped from the Shatterer, not any particular gear.

[Newbryn]

Year old video but something to look forward to if you're a collector.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvYNLcsw_YU

[Fencers]

I guess saying that I'm and IT guy is really not enough -I am a math freak. Coder by heart. I really liked WoW system because I could swim in spreadsheets, databases while building my next character's setup. My role as a main tank was enforcing it even further. Unfortunately in the end.. my time spent OUTside of the game while crunching the numbers was higher than actual play.

This isn't actually a bad thing. The aspect of Mathcraft engaged you. And so they created a brilliant system. Thinking about the game is as much a part of the experience as playing it.

Naturally, it's nice when the game plays well too.

Huh..? Well.. one can really make it as a goal to concentrate on "cute" ;p. But it's actually all about prestige - it's true both for WoW and GW2. Even in WoW while getting that item with +20 more agi was nice, it was even better when you could show it off to people.

I've seen many people even changing their talent builds after getting an item from final boss of current tier. Your Achievement log is a nice proof of what did you kill in WoW, but nothing says it lauder than big a$$ shoulders made out of that boss's skin :P.

I think this is a WOW-thing, honestly. As in other games that allow wardrobe/cosmetic armor most raiders covered their armor up with whatever they felt was pretty.

The way WOW set up it's tier sets and the fact you really had no wardrobe/costume options reinforced this idea. But it's really not that important, esp. now that WOW is getting Transmog after 6 years.

The carrots GW dangles are cosmetic. And if we look at broader MMO outside of WOW, cosmetic gear was/is as prized as actual upgrades. In Rift for example, a costume hood was 3-4x the cost of a crafted raid item. In Runes of Magic, dresses for cosmetic show fetched real life $ in the 100s. In EQ2, certain rare skins were hunted and fought for by warbands.

Just as examples.

GW2, we just cut to the chase. I WILL go after that blue dress with black corset shown in the races video no matter how many Ragnaros', C'Thun's and Greenscale's I have to slay.

[Blznsmri]

GW2, we just cut to the chase. I WILL go after that blue dress with black corset shown in the races video no matter how many Ragnaros', C'Thun's and Greenscale's I have to slay.

And I will take pictures all the way along...

/endperv

[Deleted]

Guild Wars 2 seems to have somewhat similar game play regarding this matter as Guild Wars 1. I can tell you what made GW1 PvE fun. If the following things don't sound like fun to you, then the game might not be for you. Of course GW2 is a new game, but the concept still seems to be quite similar.

1. You succeed in the game due to your own skill as a player rather than your character gear. In WoW no matter how great of a player you are, you're likely to lose to someone with a lot better gear than yourself (or tougher mob just because it has more hp/armor). In GW everyone get equal gear.

2. There is a lot of skills you can use, literally hundreds per profession (GW term for "class"), and your character could also have a secondary profession which doubles the amount of skills available. Still your character could only carry 8 skills outside of outposts. Think of all the fun of coming up with sets of 8 skills that combo well together and possibly also with the skills of your party members (this will get some more attention too in GW2)! Also, I personally play a mesmer in GW1 and it's an "anti-profession" kind of character which focuses on shutting down the enemies. The better you know what kind of enemies you are facing, the better you can equip yourself to prevent them from doing their job (leads to healers having less pressure and the rest of the team kills stuff faster). That led me create a set of 8 skills for every single PvE area in the game so I could always be as great as possible asset to the team (note that there were no cookie cutter builds so you are allowed to use your imagination a lot too).

3. All max level armor sets and weapons have the same amount of stats, but the stats themselves can vary. Some ranger armor for example had more energy (gw term for mana) and some had more fire resistance. You could get multiple armor sets to match your different skill sets. Also getting different kinds of weapons to compliment your different skill sets was great.

4. If you wanted to get a rare weapon it just meant getting one with a special graphic, not better stats. You could also sell all weapons that dropped as they don't automatically get bound to you (you could still separately later make them "soulbound"/customized at a merchant to increase weapon damage by 20%) and the loot distribution was automatically handled by the game randomly, so there was no crying or arguing over loot. I think this is one of the reasons why GW community is so much more friendly compared to WoW community.

5. People enjoy playing the game for the sake of playing (it is fun!), doing (even "non-profitable") things with their friends and guildies just because the community is nice (the more the merrier!), testing the skill sets they themselves have come up with (people only really share skillsets in PvP) in order to improve as a player, opening randomly spawning chest with the keys that drop of monsters and are sold by merchants in order to possibly get something shiny to use or sell.

6. The community itself came up with events to do challenging and fun stuff together, it doesn't always require the game to order you to do something. For example the community organised groups of 8 people of the same profession (warrior, ranger, mesmer, monk, elementalist, etc.) to do high level challenging content just to increase the difficulty level of the mission by their own hand. Those events organised via a public forum brought a lot of people together who hadn't even met previously and were a huge success.

Nothing else comes to mind, but it was good times

[Deleted]

Then you can actually compete.

If you don't like to compete... well..

Wrong forum?

@Blznsmri & Fencers, christ you two.. get a room .

[Blznsmri]

@Blznsmri & Fencers, christ you two.. get a room .

Idk man, we were at each other's throats in another thread. I just couldn't resist that.

[Bartuc the Bloody]

snip

There have been meta builds (cookie cutter) in GW since a couple months after it's release. Rangers have 30 extra armor vs. all elemental damage not just fire, light, etc. Skill buffs and nerfs are what changed those meta's.

[Blznsmri]

There have been meta builds (cookie cutter) in GW since a couple months after it's release. Rangers have 30 extra armor vs. all elemental damage not just fire, light, etc. Skill buffs and nerfs are what changed those meta's.

Studded gives +10 or 15 armor against lightning, Drakescale for fire, and Fur for cold, or well, they gave bonuses until they added Insignias and Runes

There were Cookie cutter specs, but those usually only require 3-4 skills, giving you options for the last 4-5. That is unless you were doing specific farm builds.

[Glytch]

The thing I'm wondering is sidekicking.

Sidekicking is great, and adds so much more challenge into the game. However.

I am an level 80 warrior doing a level 27 dynamic event. I am scaled to level 29. And succes, I get a gold medal and I'm running towards the chest. Will I get level 27 stuff? or level 80 stuff.

you'll get karma and gold. the karma is used as currency to buy goodies

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Events#Event_rewards

---------- Post added 2011-11-19 at 08:03 AM ----------

Idk man, we were at each other's throats in another thread. I just couldn't resist that.

but youre not a thief so she'll actually see you

[Mkalafut]

No, it's not.

If it were, then every commercial fantasy venture... like D&D or MTG or WoW... would have flopped, because people would have been perfectly content having fun sans the framework these products were providing.


Also, OBVIOUSLY part of the fun of an RPG for most everyone, including the OP, is leveling and finding new gear and acquiring new abilities. So even if a game were fun without any of those things, that doesn't mean it would be very much fun, or enough fun that people would play it instead of something else, etc.

GW2 does not sound like the game for you, my friend. I also don't really find the gear treadmill too appealing, as everyone I know feels the same. I think that "mostly everyone" is a bit of a horrible generalization. My character has had the same armor and weapons since ~2006 when I got Obsidian and my perfect q9 Fellblade and q9 Magmas Shield.

No, sir. Not even close to most everyone enjoys grinding out gear for the sake of having better purples. GW1 proves that.

---------- Post added 2011-11-22 at 02:55 PM ----------

Uhm.. you will never, NEVER get any items from open world DE. Only EXP, gold and karma (check wiki) - that's official and confirmed. It's because they do not want you to look for "that" particular DE because it has an item you REALLY need. You are free to roam and do whatever DE you want cause you will be able to buy karma rewards you want anyway.

So now the question is : will karma, gold and exp scale? In my opinion: yes. They are putting so much emphasis on replayability of the game that it would be very counter productive if it was otherwise.

Scale as in, with level? I do believe so, yes. I also think though if you're level 80 and you don't contribute as much as that same level 29 in the same DE, you will get less regardless of level.

[Blznsmri]

but youre not a thief so she'll actually see you

Ranger's got Camo bro.

[Deyadissa]

I was excited about this game for a while now, but never really got around to doing any serious research. I had some time on my hands tonight and looked around. There is 1 issue I have with the game, or perhaps just simply didn't get the idea.

From what I understand upon reaching level 80 all players will achieve a maximum (Skill>Gear) level of gear relatively quickly. This can be both a good thing and a bad thing in my opinion. What exactly will keep me playing? The whole point of MMO's to me is character progression.
If by the time I hit 80, and play for a week or two I will be at the peak of gear/power what more is there to achieve? Sure, you can improve your actual skill, but in reality if you are an experienced MMO player you will get the basics down while your leveling, and it will take you a week at most to get used to all the combat innovations GW2 brings. After that the skill growth in my experience is VERY slow. Example WoW Arena - It will take an average player from 2 weeks to a month to reach a rating of 2200, but to reach (reliably) a rating of 2800 can take years. May not be the best example, but I hope you understand what I'm trying to say.

Let's use WoW as an example again, by playing the game to improve your actual character (get equipment etc.) you also inevitably get more experienced at the game. I just don't understand what reason I have to do dungeon X over dungeon Y? Or do any dungeon at all after I have already seen it? I guess there will be "cosmetic" drops but is that it? So far GW2 hasn't dissapointed so I'm sure I've missed something here. What was it?

PS: Sorry if I rambled, English is far from being my first language and i'm very tired ^^

That's not true, a WoW player can be playing for months and months and never reach 2200; while someone can reach it under a fortnight as a first time player.


Time played has nothing to do with Arena rating, it is simply awareness.


With that being said:


There are cosmetic drops for extremely hardmodes and rated PvP.


That's it.

There have been meta builds (cookie cutter) in GW since a couple months after it's release. Rangers have 30 extra armor vs. all elemental damage not just fire, light, etc. Skill buffs and nerfs are what changed those meta's.

There have been plenty of metas where someone discovered a new build. After that, the meta changes again.

Not to mention even Guild wars at its cookie cutter state it has multiple cookie cutter builds, not just one like most games.

[Glytch]

fortnight

/snicker

teehee

---------- Post added 2011-11-22 at 10:59 AM ----------

Not to mention even Guild wars at its cookie cutter state it has multiple cookie cutter builds, not just one like most games.

and even then the builds usually werent 100% cookie cutter or the major abilities in the builds had another move that was just as good in other situations (ie the myriad amount of barrage varieties)

[Waltzinblack]

I don't suspect GW2 will be the kind of game where end-game gear is what you're progressing for. Like the original GW, it was based on skill. Although, there wasn't much required, gear didn't partake in whether you succeeded with hard-modes, it was how you played.

[Maarius]

GW1 was famous for a concept: you are max level and have still plenty of skills to "find" in the world, to make your desired build.

GW2 is no different:
-) there are skills that you have to get in the world: currently it has been revamped: The healing, utility, and elite skills are now unlocked with skill points. Skill points can be acquired by undertaking what we call a skill challenge. There are 200 skill challenges in the game, and they range from defeating tough opponents, to answering riddles, to drinking a particularly potent drink. (source: Anet blog gw2)
-) there are traits, that change your skills (and therefore your build). We don't know yet how to get them. There are tons of them and it's very very likely that you will find them in the world too.

you probably won't have all of them when you get 80... a hell lot of progression after levelmax, if you ask me!

[Futhark]

This design philosophy is so very wrong, and sadly so omnipresent.
Here.

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/the-skinner-box

Nice reference.

[Azsune]

I think of it more like in wow Imagine if all the gear was equal but more badass looking as time went on and the fights were fun. Now if you thought that the next tier looked ugly and you hated the content you could just skip it all. Stick to what you find fun and keep playing. In wow with higher level stats on each tier (I remember thinkin I had alot of hp as a mage at 3k hp unbuffed at 60 XD) the gear stats get to be such hueg numbers. Also you can't just skip a tier, everyone will be like you scrub your not geared enough for this content. Kinda like the idea of finding gear that looks awesome over what has better stats.

[NineSpine]

If doing the dungeon, or boss, or whatever is fun then it is fun. If it isn't then it isn't. The fact that you receive more powerful gear at the end really has no bearing on whether an activity is fun or not. As a real world example, cleaning up horse crap with your bare hands is certainly not a fun job. Paying you $2000 per hour for it may fix your attitude for it, and persuade you to do it, but it won't make it as fun as watching your favorite movie or playing your favorite game under any circumstances.