What is GW max level about?

[jvbastel]

Grind, work, effort, name it however you want. Goals are in part defined by what you to do to reach them. Doing a dungeon requires killing monsters inside. The longer the dungeon with more monsters, the more boring it becomes. If clearing the duneong required nothing then it wouldn't be a goal. Sometimes grind is fun, as in there are some monsters in the dungeon, but not enought for you to become weary. But then you won't call it grind, you will call it fun, right? Well, it's still work / effort you have to put into it.
So, each goal requires work / effort, which in fact is still a grind.

I don't agree with that. Grinding is not the same as having to put effort into reaching a goal. If that were true, any game ever made would be a grindfest.

If you are not a fan of not having gear progression, that's perfectly fine, and I can only applaud you for having your own opinion. However, the statement that GW2 has no character progression is just wrong. GW1 had character progression, and so will GW2. Just because the progression isn't gear based doesn't make it less valid.

[NineSpine]

I don't know what is your point, I haven't played any of those games. But hasn't UO have some skill / leveling / economy system?
Didn't SWG offer some progressions system inside the professions? Wikipedia doesn't go into details, and I won't look for those, but I'm pretty sure there were some skills / levels / reputations / whatever else players used to increase to progress.

Yes, but you max out relatively quickly and then the individual character power flattens immediately. There wasn't a new patch every few months that increased the gear level.

Grind, work, effort, name it however you want. Goals are in part defined by what you to do to reach them. Doing a dungeon requires killing monsters inside. The longer the dungeon with more monsters, the more boring it becomes. If clearing the duneong required nothing then it wouldn't be a goal. Sometimes grind is fun, as in there are some monsters in the dungeon, but not enought for you to become weary. But then you won't call it grind, you will call it fun, right? Well, it's still work / effort you have to put into it.

So, each goal requires work / effort, which in fact is still a grind.

That's not what "grind" means. "Grind" means to repeat the same thing over and over and over in order to get something.

What about it?

You lost me.

[Drakhar]

Whoa was gonna reply to the OP, but it seems this thread has just gone to hell in the past few pages.

Frankly, a lot of people need to lighten up on the crowd coming from the WoW-mindset. Allow me to alleviate the fears of the grind-to-BiS folks: there will still be gear progression, it just won't be as simple or linear as WoW (372 BiS -> content patch -> 391 BiS -> content patch -> 410 BiS). Using GW1 as an example, if you're a high end player you'll be collecting a metric fuckton of gear/weapons. And 5 man explorable dungeons are your replacements for raids. There are apparently open world elite areas too, we just haven't had a look at those yet. And that's only on the PvE end.

[Malthurius]

Grind, work, effort, name it however you want. Goals are in part defined by what you to do to reach them. Doing a dungeon requires killing monsters inside. The longer the dungeon with more monsters, the more boring it becomes. If clearing the duneong required nothing then it wouldn't be a goal. Sometimes grind is fun, as in there are some monsters in the dungeon, but not enought for you to become weary. But then you won't call it grind, you will call it fun, right? Well, it's still work / effort you have to put into it.
So, each goal requires work / effort, which in fact is still a grind.

Grind, Work and Effort are not the same thing. If it were, our entire lives are grinds.

Grind - Refers to a repetitive task in order to accomplish a single goal.
Work - To labor
Effort - To try

Work and Effort don't have to be repetitive. Grinding is by definition a repetitive task.

[Deleted]

I think the most serious mistake people are making in this thread is trying to convince people like Procne to like this game. At this stage it's impossible. Mostly because GW2 is not out yet and we can't really hit people like that with enough "proof" that this new design approach actually works. Right now, even if God himself would come down and said to Procne that GW2 is more of a MMORPG than WoW will ever will be - he would not believe it.

Second and maybe even more important issue is that he doesn't now the genre at all. He doesn't realize that WoW is nothing more than an upgraded Everquest clone. Same as SWTOR or Rift are clones of WoW. If your first (and sometimes only) MMO was WoW, then the chance of being "damaged" is very high. WoW did not defined MMOs, it is based on only one of many valid approaches to genre.

I sincerely feel pity for people who only experienced WoW or its clones, they can't grasp the true concepts behind MMOs, it's like looking at the sun for them :/.

[grandpab]

Using GW1 as an example, if you're a high end player you'll be collecting a metric fuckton of gear/weapons

I think you'll still be doing that in GW2 if you want to be versatile. You'll want different sets of gear focused on different stats for different situations.

[mafao]

A
I was looking forward to GW2 at first, because some features seemed promising. But then I learned that leveling will make no difference, there will be no gear progression. This thread was about this issue, so I popped in to see if there is anything new about this subject. I have read the summary and few replies and left my opinion. I didn't know this forum is only for GW2 players / fans. Although I can't see why everyone is so concerned about me not liking the game. You ask me why did I come here, I ask you why do you keep replying to my opinion if you have nothing else to say to tell me to go away :S

I am sorry if my post sounded somehow offensive, it was not meant to. It just sounded to me that you were claiming that GW2 design is flawed because it does not offer the kind of progression you want, hence the reaction. As to the original point of the thread, a question was asked and it was answered. The thread just derailed as it often happens

Overall: what I mean is that people have different tastes and that's ok. There are different games which have different design goals and apply to these different tastes. A discussion about tastes cannot be objective by definition

[Drakhar]

I think you'll still be doing that in GW2 if you want to be versatile. You'll want different sets of gear focused on different stats for different situations.

That's what I was trying to say, I actually think there's a chance you'll want more gear. Guess I wasn't entirely clear on that.

[mafao]

I think the most serious mistake people are making in this thread is trying to convince people like Procne to like this game. At this stage it's impossible. Mostly because GW2 is not out yet and we can't really hit people like that with enough "proof" that this new design approach actually works. Right now, even if God himself would come down and said to Procne that GW2 is more of a MMORPG than WoW will ever will be - he would not believe it.

Second and maybe even more important issue is that he doesn't now the genre at all. He doesn't realize that WoW is nothing more than an upgraded Everquest clone. Same as SWTOR or Rift are clones of WoW. If your first (and sometimes only) MMO was WoW, then the chance of being "damaged" is very high. WoW did not defined MMOs, it is based on only one of many valid approaches to genre.

I sincerely feel pity for people who only experienced WoW or its clones, they can't grasp the true concepts behind MMOs, it's like looking at the sun for them :/.

Excellent post!

[BlairPhoenix]

Don't know why you all are bothering arguing with procne. They said so themselves, they care most about character progression, something that GW2 doesn't have an abundance of, so obviously GW2 isn't the game for them. GW2 isn't going to appeal to everyone, I think a lot of you still need to deal with concept and accept it.

[NineSpine]

Don't know why you all are bothering arguing with procne. They said so themselves, they care most about character progression, something that GW2 doesn't have an abundance of, so obviously GW2 isn't the game for them. GW2 isn't going to appeal to everyone, I think a lot of you still need to deal with concept and accept it.

GW2 does have progression though. Virtually every game has progression. What we are arguing is that having a constantly moving gear goalpost is not the only thing that progression is.

[Delias]

Don't know why you all are bothering arguing with procne. They said so themselves, they care most about character progression, something that GW2 doesn't have an abundance of, so obviously GW2 isn't the game for them. GW2 isn't going to appeal to everyone, I think a lot of you still need to deal with concept and accept it.

GW2 not being the game for him is all well and good,
but spewing misinformation is obviously going to bring in some replies.
Saying things like "it's not even an RPG" and junk is just.. come on.

[Cyclone Jack]

So, what will we do at 80, if not farming gear upgrades? or am i simply mistaken about the gear part?

From everything I have read, the entire game is available to you at 80.

5-Mans - In GW2 you never out-level the 5-mans, meaning they are still fun, challenging content. Once you complete Story Mode you unlock Exploration Mode, which is more like a Heroic with 3 (or more) alternate paths, each with varying DEs inside the dungeon, just to keep things fresh. An example of this for WoW would be taking Blackrock Mountain (vanilla) and making it playable at L80, where it is still fun and challenging for a team, where you choose to go into BRD, LBRS or UBRS, then place in a few random events in each one that can occur. That would be one dungeon in GW2, with 3 completely different paths. Now do the same thing for 7 other dungeons.
Raids - In WoW, you and your guild progress through a series of fights, slowly gearing up for the next tier. In GW2, you do not have to worry so much on gear, and as such, they do not have structured Raids like in WoW. Instead, they have Epic DEs that can take up to 100 players (or more). In WoW terms, imagine if Thunderaan (and a number of other super bosses of relative power) was up once a month in varying areas of the world, then tie him into a DE on the level of MC, where you need a large group of players coordinating their attacks to push through the event to trigger Thunderaan. This brings raids back outdoors like they used to be and builds server community.
Older Content - In WoW, once you out-level something, there is no going back. Perhaps you really enjoyed leveling in Stonetalon Mountains, or you really just liked Azshera (pre-Goblins, of course). In GW2, you can go back to these areas, automagically get scaled down in level, and still have fun in the area while not one-shotting everything.
Structured PvP - Both games have 5v5, but WoW is tier based and heavily based on gear. If you miss two weeks due to a physical injury, then you are most likely out for the season, unless you get really lucky. In GW2, everyone is scaled to 80 and they all have the same level of gear. The only difference is your build and your skill. If you miss two weeks or two months, you can jump right back in and still be competitive. You can also create a custom PvP 'server' like you see in most FPS games (can be password protected as well) with somewhat customizable rulesets (eg: No Guardians, all Elementalists, 3v3, etc).
World PvP - Imagine the Northern half of the Eastern Kingdoms (everything North of the Wetlands) as being a huge game of Alterac Valley with 3 factions all vying for different points of interest. Then make each faction a different server, and as each server captures different points of interest they earn points (and buffs) for their server, further building server community. Then allow this battle to take place over two weeks before shuffling the servers for another two week battle. Now imagine that everyone who participates in this is auto-leveled to 80 (though they may not have all of their abilities unlocked yet), and can level from 2 to 80 just in WvW, meaning that there should never be a big shortage of people in WvW. (and if there are servers with nobody participating in WvW, then these will all be matched up together, as they would all have lower rankings that highly active servers)
Expansions - There has not been much solid info on this, and we're not sure exactly how this will be implemented, but there is one thing that we know for sure. In WoW, you got an expansion and you progressed through it to get to the next tier of dungeons, heroics and raids while all older content became irrelevant since you out-leveled it. In GW2, since the player can scale to the content, not only do you get all the new content, all of the older content is still fun and challenging, keeping it relevant.

Will GW2 be everything everyone wants it to be? Of course not. It will be a different approach to the somewhat stale MMO design we have seen over the past 13 years. Some will like it, some will hate it, some could care less.

As for the hype, the difference between GW2 and TOR is that when TOR was being hyped up at trade shows, they were showing off a bunch of CGI animations and very little actual gameplay. GW2 has instead been showing off gameplay and letting players actually play the game and letting them make their own opinions.

[Deleted]

There are dungeons as well that are suppose to be the most difficult content in the game, but I have reason to believe that some Dynamic Events will reach a close, or equal level of difficulty.

Do you have any idea if Dynamic Events can be done multiple times to try get differnt outcome? Normal (non dailies) static quest cant be repeated again once you did them on same character. If DE can be repeated and you can get differnt outcome, then I find it much more appeling then scalling down of level etc for added challange.

[BlairPhoenix]

This is what i sincerely wonder about.

Its clear in WoW:
-gear up
-next tier/season gear up
-next tier/season gear up

WoW is all about gear and new boss kills, or gear and new PVP seasons.

now from what im seeing GW2 is less focused on gear, especially in pvp. and dynamic events and world progress is a bit solo content that doesnt require a guild.
while i will enjoy WvWvW and leveling etc, what will be there to do as a guild progress. what will there be to grind if you have tons of time?
the only thing not working for me are 5mans in GW2, and im fearing that is the filler noone will enjoy long...

So, what will we do at 80, if not farming gear upgrades? or am i simply mistaken about the gear part?

PVP is about competition. People don't play chess continuously to 'gear up' their pieces, they do it because it's a fun activity.

[Malthurius]

Do you have any idea if Dynamic Events can be done multiple times to try get differnt outcome? Normal (non dailies) static quest cant be repeated again once you did them on same character. If DE can be repeated and you can get differnt outcome, then I find it much more appeling then scalling down of level etc for added challange.

You can do whatever you'd like. Me personally will be trying to see all the DEs (If it's fun), otherwise I will probably spend much of my time in Orr and other lvl 80 plus zones... to each their own.

But yes, DEs can be repeated, but I believe the only variables are success and failure. Some events do overlap and create other such variables.

[Delias]

As for the hype, the difference between GW2 and TOR is that when TOR was being hyped up at trade shows, they were showing off a bunch of CGI animations and very little actual gameplay. GW2 has instead been showing off gameplay and letting players actually play the game and letting them make their own opinions.

QFT (the whole post was good, but I'm going to comment on this real quick)
The amount of people saying that GW2 will flop 'because SWTOR was overhyped and flopped' don't seem to recall how much of SWTOR's hype was built around having very little information about what the game was actually like.
For GW2, with the sheer amount of information they're giving us, they're letting us find out exactly what the game is before we get hyped over it.
They don't seem to be scared of sharing any information about their game, as they are making the game how the like and are confident that people will enjoy the game, even if not EVERYONE does.

[grandpab]

Do you have any idea if Dynamic Events can be done multiple times to try get differnt outcome? Normal (non dailies) static quest cant be repeated again once you did them on same character. If DE can be repeated and you can get differnt outcome, then I find it much more appeling then scalling down of level etc for added challange.

From what I've been able to gather so far, if every one of your attempts succeed then the DE will be the same each time. It's when you fail that it changes.

For example you'll either push back the mobs, and fight them back to their base and take it over, or at any time if you begin to fail the mobs will push you back and they'll take over the town. Even once the mobs have the town taken under their control you can take it back and push them back to their base.

Some of the DE's chain pretty long, they've said there's some that chain up to 20 times, so who knows exactly what kind steps there are for each chain and what might happen if you fail in between them.

[procne]

It's totally fine to list the reasons why GW2 won't appeal to you. It's obviously not made for everyone. But saying it's an arcade game and that it's not an RPG is a bit absurd... don't you think? You honestly can't see why people would argue with you when you say things that are silly like that?

Well, RPG without character development is absurd to me. Ok, there is progression until you reach max level. It works like standard RPG then. There is story, quests and my character is increasing in power allowing him to progress within the story and to reach new areas. But at the max level (which seems to be most important) what sort of progression remains? Can I somehow make my character better / stronger? If there is no gear to improve, nomore levels to gain, no abilities to gain? Unless unlocking those elites takes more time? But after that?

I can explore some areas, kill some mobs in a dungeon or fight some players in PvP. So i can fight with a pretedermined character (since all stats and abilities are the same), to make said character prettier or for the fun of victory.

Aren't arcade games like that? Mortal Kombat type of PvP - each character has a set of moves, characters of same type are totally equal. They fight, one wins.
Or the games where you walk to the right, enemies are pouring at you and you defeat them. That's how I imagine PvE.
Sure, it's much more complicated than those arcade games - your character has more moves, world is 3d and is prettier, it's less linear, and more people can play with each other than 2.

Maybe I did use the wrong word. What's the english word for all those games where it's more about your agility and reflexes than strategy, they are usually divided into levels. Without building anything or improving. Very broad category, including most FPS games (half life, quake etc.), TPP (tomb raider and similar) and sports games (fifa, need for speed etc.)

[Deleted]

Why do I get the feeling you hate world of warcraft ? And your post was completely one sided and opinionated against WoW :S

I have some 8k achievment points in WoW, so I have enjoyed the game very much thank you, even though I mostly likely won't play it again. And how was it one sided? I did point out that I believe downscaling in GW2 will fail once you get down to the lower levels due to traits and elite skills and those zones being more "tutorial" focused. Perhaps even level 30-50 will be too easy when downscaling from level 80.

But at the end of the day, the simple fact remains, gear progression is a huge destructive force in MMOs. Destructive as in reducing the amount of content that is effectively available to you. And worse, if you play some specific content that you like, you will come to outgear that specific content by default just from getting loot. As MMOs are all about content, destroying content in this manner is not a good thing.

And that is my honest opinion. As for hype, I am not really hyped. I am just tired to see people come in and claim that WoW has such a huge amount of content and things to do, when 95% of it goes unused.