How are hardcore player going to be rewarded?

[Vlad Morbius]

Now-a-days [puts on old lady hat], leveling / non-raid/dungeon content is nothing more than a tutorial or delayed gratification. "One day Sally, you will be a real Paladin. But first you have to do all these Kill X/Collect X/Escort Y quests for 84 levels. THEN the actual game we design for can be played."

It's total bullshit really. Can't wait for that stuff to go away in MMOs.

Bazzzzinga! To the op, for me the reward will be the ability to achieve the status I want in skill and gear with pretty much the freedom of how I desire to go about getting it in this MMO. The only thing that will hold you back in this game will be yourself.

[Mif]

Alright i'm sorry... but this is kinda wrong... They will NOT have the same stats... It's true that all gear will plateau at 80 yes, but you still get to choose between different combos of stats. There are 3 types of armor. 1) those that have a lot of one stat, 2) those that have a good amount of 2 stats, and 3) those that have a "decent" amount of 3 stats.

Here is an example of how stats on items will work, "For example, a Rare Ruby Ring gives +40 power; an equal level Gold Topaz Ring gives +33 power and +25 vitality; and a Pearl Ring gives +25 power, +25 vitality, and +25 toughness. This item system enhances another choice: do you max out one attribute or raise the total effectiveness of all your attributes?"

Source: http://www.arena.net/blog/pax-east-p...-and-iteration

In the Reddit AMA Jon Peters made the point that there will also be an upgrade path via upgrade components in gear.

[Lucky_]

There is a quite a bit of truth to this. Esp. when Warcraft first came on the scene one of it's most radical departures from other MMOs past/current time was the accessibility & speed one progressed at.

I remember on the early Warcraft forums people being worried about leveling too quickly. Since the majority of MMO players were EQ/AO/AC players where leveling and non-raid/dungeons were the norm of content. When Warcraft became super popular, the aspects of MMOs that were pre-endgame became greatly diminished in importance and goal.

Now-a-days [puts on old lady hat], leveling / non-raid/dungeon content is nothing more than a tutorial or delayed gratification. "One day Sally, you will be a real Paladin. But first you have to do all these Kill X/Collect X/Escort Y quests for 84 levels. THEN the actual game we design for can be played."

It's total bullshit really. Can't wait for that stuff to go away in MMOs.

The stuff you're talking about is prevalent in Japanese and Korean MMOs. Well, to generalise a bit, Asian MMOs. Western MMOs in general have been more about endgame content even back in EQ days, although back then leveling was still much of content in Western MMOs as well.

May I suggest you try those Asian MMOs rather then cry over different direction western MMOs have taken the gameplay? Variation is a good thing, and those of us who didn't like the perpetual leveling actually like end game- centric gameplay.

[Milanor]

Alright i'm sorry... but this is kinda wrong... They will NOT have the same stats... It's true that all gear will plateau at 80 yes, but you still get to choose between different combos of stats. There are 3 types of armor. 1) those that have a lot of one stat, 2) those that have a good amount of 2 stats, and 3) those that have a "decent" amount of 3 stats.

Here is an example of how stats on items will work, "For example, a Rare Ruby Ring gives +40 power; an equal level Gold Topaz Ring gives +33 power and +25 vitality; and a Pearl Ring gives +25 power, +25 vitality, and +25 toughness. This item system enhances another choice: do you max out one attribute or raise the total effectiveness of all your attributes?"

Source: http://www.arena.net/blog/pax-east-p...-and-iteration

Yeah, that's what I meant, sorry. ^^"
I just realized that while many of us say "same stats" we really mean same, err, power level, of sorts. I can see how that could really get misleading though.

In the Reddit AMA Jon Peters made the point that there will also be an upgrade path via upgrade components in gear.

Forgot about those. Whee custom armor sets!

[Durzlla]

In the Reddit AMA Jon Peters made the point that there will also be an upgrade path via upgrade components in gear.

Oh i knew about that xD, he mentioned that in his post, i was just saying that all the stats will not be the same on all armor. IE Not all armor will have +X to every stat or something like that.

[Barrowmore]

PvP has a very high skill ceiling in this game, especially with the advent of the animation weaving ridiculousness in yesterday's blog post. Anet definitely has PvP covered on this front imo.

[Fencers]

The stuff you're talking about is prevalent in Japanese and Korean MMOs. Well, to generalise a bit, Asian MMOs. Western MMOs in general have been more about endgame content even back in EQ days, although back then leveling was still much of content in Western MMOs as well.

Not really, no. It was a few expansions before endgame as goal of the game became prevalent in EQ.

The phenomenon of endgame as goal was popularized & refined by Warcraft almost totally. Aside from pace of combat, the 2nd great innovation Blizzard brought to the market was slimming down the errata of previous MMOs. Cutting to the chase of drawn out leveling ala previous MMOs invariably lead to their major focus.

I am actually quite a big fan of Asian MMOs, but in the interest of not going too far off-topic we can talk about stuff like Megaten, PWI, Jade and RO and TOF some other time.

May I suggest you try those Asian MMOs rather then cry over different direction western MMOs have taken the gameplay? Variation is a good thing, and those of us who didn't like the perpetual leveling actually like end game- centric gameplay.

Heh, you're not very good at forums. I am saying I hate leveling as a process. I want the "endgame" in MMOs to be from word go already

[Merendel]

Read what Fencers said. Skinner-box design isn't inherently flawed. It's a design/reward tool that can enhance a game just like every design tool.

I agree with you that its a design tool and likely an important one the difference is wow and similar modern MMO's tend to use it as more of a cudgel than a precise tool. There has to be some reward, even if its as simple as pride in good play, or people loose intrest. However when your forced to use this one tool to keep people doing the same dungeon week to cover for the fact that your last patch provided almost no content outside that dungeon it becomes a problem. A design toolbox needs a wide veriaty of tools, Bliz weilds Skinner's-box as a hammer, its their main tool and every problem looks like a nail to them.

Wow has tons of content but the design makes most of it irrelivent as you cant see more than 1/6th of it on any particular leveling run and its boring to go back at high level. Many of the dungeons and raids of past expansions may as well not exist for anything but nostalgia due to level and gear inflation. All end game content funnles into a very small point, a point that bliz is either unable or unwilling to expand at a rate that would be acceptable to players without heavy handed use of skinner-box mechanics.

[Fencers]

Wow has tons of content but the design makes most of it irrelivent as you cant see more than 1/6th of it on any particular leveling run and its boring to go back at high level. Many of the dungeons and raids of past expansions may as well not exist for anything but nostalgia due to level and gear inflation. All end game content funnles into a very small point, a point that bliz is either unable or unwilling to expand at a rate that would be acceptable to players without heavy handed use of skinner-box mechanics.

Yea this is the problem with MMOs and power creep. I don't mind raiding/dungeons- I love them in fact. But if I want to go back to Nax or SSC it becomes a ROFLSTOMP as I can do more damage than certain mobs even have HP.

To a degree power creep isn't that bad at early MMOs- but after 7+ years it's just escalated to the point of MEGADAMAGE. This is even a problem with EQ, I went back recently and areas that once required a full raid are trivial now and soloable.

Think MMOs being attached to the gear cycle for too long will always lead to this situation. Scaling, side kicking and so on are powerful tools I hope we see more of in games. Yea, I know some MMOs already have such features but it's far from the norm.

The whole, "All of the game is endgame" is an immensely intriguing concept for me.

[Svava]

Chuck Norris is Chuck Norris.

When you understand this, then you will be wise.

And this relates to the thread how? Please post constructively. Infracted. -Edge

---------- Post added 2011-12-21 at 05:17 PM ----------

Chuck Norris is Chuck Norris.

When you understand this, then you will be wise.

And this relates to the thread how? Please post constructively. Infracted. -Edge

The goal was to express that simply being able to prove how hard core you are is enough for those who are hard core. The praise chuck norris gets just for being chuck norris is enough, he doesn't need any other reward.

I suppose I should have been more obvious.

Sorri.

[Deleted]

Some of the dungeons are are hard as WoW heroic raids. And some of the bosses, I think the special ones, are tuned for 10 players up and have quite a bit of tactics attached to them that all most be followed.

[Deleted]

How about reason​ to be the best at their class/profession?

This is my main 'reward' as well. Especially in PvP, winning just makes me feel good.
In PvE I'm content with flashy weapon skins, armor skins, titles, minipets and clearing/exploring content with other players.
In WoW, having gear progression in PvP was really annoying. Every season you had to get all the new gear or you would suffer from a great disadvantage.
But in the end it only meant you would one-shot newbies in BGs even more easily (and baddies owning your fresh alts even more easily ) since all real competitors would grind the new gear as well.. So in the end, everyone just wasted time grinding the new seasons gear. Unless you feel skilled owning undergeared people of course.

[enzi]

Hardcore players aren't hardcore players because they want the best rewards. They play that much because they like what they are doing and to get better.

It's rather depressing that this misconcept exists at all. I blame all the damn MMOs where the endgame is simply the vertical item progression.

Content is what's really important and from what we know GW2 has a lot of it!

[Lucky_]

Hardcore players aren't hardcore players because they want the best rewards. They play that much because they like what they are doing and to get better.

It's rather depressing that this misconcept exists at all. I blame all the damn MMOs where the endgame is simply the vertical item progression.

Content is what's really important and from what we know GW2 has a lot of it!

The one with misconception is you. Hardcore players are typically very goal-oriented, and tend to suffer from significant motivation issues when there is no goal in sight.

References: top guilds in WoW raiding between raiding tiers after race is over. Arena players not really playing with any meaningful effort between seasons.


Casual players on the other hand often enjoy the act of playing itself, rather then striving to achieve goals.

[Fencers]

It isn't simply goals- hardcore players are attracted to the prestige & exclusivity of those goals. The desire to work on a singular boss for 16+ hours weekly is fueled not so much by the carrot or the simple goal of killing the boss- but the fact only a handful would be able to do so at the highest level progression.

[Lucky_]

It isn't simply goals- hardcore players are attracted to the prestige & exclusivity of those goals. The desire to work on a singular boss for 16+ hours weekly is fueled not so much by the carrot or the simple goal of killing the boss- but the fact only a handful would be able to do so at the highest level progression.

As the old saying goes, "your mileage may vary". There are different goals, and I specifically used term "goals" rather then any specific form of achievement to describe what hardcore people are striving for, because these goals differ. Arena players can be striving to get into tournaments or be best at their class on the ladder, or something else. PvErs can be ones striving for world firsts or solo kills or something else.

The thing that does link hardcore people together is not a specific goal, but general presence of a difficult goal and lengths they're willing to go to achieve those goals.

[Fencers]

The thing that does link hardcore people together is not a specific goal, but general presence of a difficult goal and lengths they're willing to go to achieve those goals.

Correct.

We are on the same page here.

[Enosh]

Their goal is to make all content available to everyone from the very beginning.

ha?
nothing I have seen indicates anywhere that all content is available to everyone from the beginning, quest still have lvl suggestion and you won't be able to do a lvl 50 quest at lvl 10, not sure about dungeons, but I will probably work in the same way
so no, all content isn't available to everyone from the beginning

Not to gripe on WoW too badly, but that was always one of the fundamental things which is just wrong in my opinion. Better players have better gear. That's insane to me, but I've come to accept it as the norm. In PVP (in any game), everyone should have the same stats.

I'm fine with better players having better gear in pve and world pvp, but competitive pvp should have a set gear for everyone so everyone is on the same playing field in all MMOs, it's why I hated pvp in wow when I played it (the few times that I did, I mostly stuck to pve)

[Auralian]

I know in most games there are titles,gear,rankings,collectables. So how will the players who put more time into the game be rewarded , other then the fact they get to know their class better.

You get a shinny medal and a shirt that says "Kiss me I'm a Elites Jerk"

[Lucky_]

You get a shinny medal and a shirt that says "Kiss me I'm a Elites Jerk"

Considering that in WoW you get a "don't kiss me, I'm an elitist jerk" version of that medal...