Guesting is coming on January 28th

[-aiko-]

what is true endgame pve? if you mean raiding, you are out of luck

Not necessarily. If I meant raiding I would have said raiding and wouldn't have chosen to be careful with my words. Some large scale, group oriented PvE would be nice though, something other than DEs. It's not my job to design it for them.

"Raiding" in the traditional sense is never coming to GW2, I've come to terms with that fact a long time ago. But why would something similar not be feasible? For a game that lauds that I can "play the game the way I want to" I sure can't play the game the way I want to. With the new rewards system they're announcing, which is basically rewarding you for whatever you do, why couldn't they release something else though? Just have it reward the same rewards. Nothing more, nothing less. Large scale PvE content (or whatever else they come up with) doesn't become "the" endgame. It becomes "an" endgame. People who don't do it can progress at exactly the same pace as those that do it, perhaps even quicker if they're doing many things. This helps GW2 avoid a lot of the issues that games with traditional raiding have.

Edit: For further clarity, let me give you point comparisons.

What I'd like to see:
Lore-based, large scale GROUP content (> 5 people)
Fun and interesting encounters
Sense of exploration
A sense of progression

What I don't want to ever see:
Competitive PvE
Gear drops
"Tiers" of gear
"Gearscore"
"Raid"-only gear, mounts, vanity items, etc.
Automatic group formation

They are never going to add the latter. That is a good thing. No complaints here. Whoopee hooray! The former, however, is not currently in the game (DEs don't make the cut, please don't bring up that argument). So why can't they add that in? What negatives am I missing here? Tie the progression into the rewards system and it becomes completely optional. Encounters don't drop gear, only these tokens. Use these tokens to buy gear if you want, or just pretty vanity items (I have my eye on you, you mysterious cat tonic). Or don't buy anything at all. Just do the encounters for the sake of enjoying the encounters.

[Venziir]

Cool, guess I'll try it out then

[Fencers]

What I'd like to see:
Lore-based, large scale GROUP content (> 5 people)
Fun and interesting encounters
Sense of exploration
A sense of progression

Of those;
A) Is already in the game

B) Is subjective and Arena.net would likely argue the encounters currently are "fun" & "interesting". You may as well have used the term "epic" as it would equally be nebulous and meaningless.

C) Already in the game.

D) Sorta in the game in the form of fractals. Though aside from an arbitrary & artificial mechanic such as agony, it is unlikely Anet can or will do anything else. Unless you can give me some specific idea that would be consistent with the game's current design.

Reality -> | <- Desire.

[-aiko-]

Reality -> | <- Desire.

Oh, this I realize more than you'll know. Sometimes it's just nice to get thoughts out in words, futile as they are.

Unless I'm missing something (I haven't played the game since any major content updates, though I tried to keep updated from fansites), were there any >5 people dungeons? I thought what they added was Fractals of the Mists, which were challenging 5 man dungeons. I'm legitimately asking here.

[Valeron]

greater than 5 mans? No, 5 man is the limit.

[Thelxi]

I don't really care for guesting tbh. I've kinda reached a point of boredom in GW2, almost all of my cyber friends left the game for greener pastures a while ago and other than WvW and grinding for gold there is not much left for me. How about player housing? it looks terrific in rift. I'd be happy with a big budget balancing patch that at least cleans up most of the bugs and tooltips that have been present, bandaided and ignored since launch too. If anything just for Anet to show us they are actually capable and care. Guesting? who cares at this point. Changing servers is still free ffs.

[Karizee]

Oh, this I realize more than you'll know. Sometimes it's just nice to get thoughts out in words, futile as they are.

Unless I'm missing something (I haven't played the game since any major content updates, though I tried to keep updated from fansites), were there any >5 people dungeons? I thought what they added was Fractals of the Mists, which were challenging 5 man dungeons. I'm legitimately asking here.

There is no large scale instanced content but plenty of open raids (the dragon events and the corrupted god temples). It will be interesting to see what the new Guild Missions will entail, if they will be instanced or not.

As an aside, you can bring more than 5 people into a mini-dungeon, they scale up like dynamic events do. Try Flame Temple Tombs for an interesting large scale dungeon (although I can understand why that feels a bit artificial in that you don't NEED 25 people to do it, it's just an option to bring more people and have it scale up).

[Zilong]

Not necessarily. If I meant raiding I would have said raiding and wouldn't have chosen to be careful with my words. Some large scale, group oriented PvE would be nice though, something other than DEs. It's not my job to design it for them.

snip.

I agree with you it needs more content that feels "static" aka not going anywhere. I do have some questions tho and I took too long and Fencers already said.

Lore based group content is in there. I'm not too sure about the large scale and what you mean by it tho.

Fun and interesting encounters - As Fencers said is subjective but also already in the game particularly in Fractals I would say. And my favorite boss is still the last Sorrow's Embrace. It's fun, I find it interesting and there is even a terminator reference on it. CoF last boss isn't too far behind either. I agree that more bosses should be like those in feeling and Fractals were a good start.

Sense of exploration - This is my biggest surprise and I would like you to explain better cause to me it's the only thing that it's almost unarguably gw2's biggest feature.

Sense of progression is also there, subtle not to really wreck the philosophy.


My final thought on your comment:

For a game that lauds that I can "play the game the way I want to" I sure can't play the game the way I want to. With the new rewards system they're announcing, which is basically rewarding you for whatever you do, why couldn't they release something else though? Just have it reward the same rewards.

If they would have the same rewards (and they do in different aspects of the game such as PvP/WvW/PvE stuff but considering PvE as the subject here..) there would be even less "omg what to do" in the "endgame" scenario. Rewarding different yet non-mandatory gear/potions/cosmetic stuff from different aspects of the game is if nothing else is healthy to the game's philosophy. The "play the game the way you want" is there, you do what you want and no matter that is you will be rewarded, do more and you will get more rewards and most importantly playing because it's fun.

[-aiko-]

Snippity snip go the scissors

Perhaps my decision to avoid using the word "raiding" is the cause of most of this confusion. I just didn't want people to jump on the word.
What I mean by large scale is basically greater than 5 people, and by group content I mean instanced. I play with a lot of friends, and we would greatly benefit from larger group content. I am committing a sin by mentioning WoW here, I know, but the reason we all still play WoW is because the 10 man content fits our needs (although 15 man would probably be more ideal). The "level 80" DEs I've done weren't satisfying as they didn't require much teamwork at all. I won't go as far as to call them zergs, but there isn't much coordination apart from the occasional person (I noticed usually me) reviving people. I don't have too many complaints about dungeons (apart from being able to run back if you die - is that fixed?) but 5 people hurts my circle of friends.

By exploration I mean to take the same exploration elements GW2 uses for the zones and apply them to the instances. WoW has created some awesome looking (and bland, blech HoF) raid instances but they lack exploration. They are, for the most part, a linear path from A to B. What if an instance incorporated GW2s exploration elements? Jump puzzles, easter eggs, perhaps even zone completion!

If they would have the same rewards (and they do in different aspects of the game such as PvP/WvW/PvE stuff but considering PvE as the subject here..) there would be even less "omg what to do" in the "endgame" scenario. Rewarding different yet non-mandatory gear/potions/cosmetic stuff from different aspects of the game is if nothing else is healthy to the game's philosophy. The "play the game the way you want" is there, you do what you want and no matter that is you will be rewarded, do more and you will get more rewards and most importantly playing because it's fun.

That's kind of what I was trying to get at, it's hard to put things into words when you're full of emotion. Let's blame the hormones! Sounds good to me!
The "I can't do what I want" comment was an admitted, self-entitled whine. I want large scale (EPIC as Fencers says I should put it! :P) instances.

As an aside, you can bring more than 5 people into a mini-dungeon, they scale up like dynamic events do. Try Flame Temple Tombs for an interesting large scale dungeon (although I can understand why that feels a bit artificial in that you don't NEED 25 people to do it, it's just an option to bring more people and have it scale up).

Is this true? Somehow I missed that you could bring more than 5 people, all the articles just mention 5 people. This could be interesting, I'll have to convince my friends to give it a try. Doesn't cost us anything after all! But what you do mean by "mini-dungeons"? Exactly as it implies? How long are these dungeons?

[Valeron]

Perhaps my decision in avoiding the word "raiding" is the cause of most of this confusion. I just didn't want people to jump on the word.

Probably my fault in changing this discussion toward that. It is just that every time I see the word endgame brought up it invariably ends up being about raiding. I'm happy that you were thinking of a slightly different path but the majority of the time that is what endgame means to people.

[Karizee]

Is this true? Somehow I missed that you could bring more than 5 people, all the articles just mention 5 people. This could be interesting, I'll have to convince my friends to give it a try. Doesn't cost us anything after all! But what you do mean by "mini-dungeons"? Exactly as it implies? How long are these dungeons?

It's 4 rooms, a bunch of mobs and a one boss. Some puzzle type aspects (you need to free a sword), traps and the boss fight is underwater.

It's a really cool dungeon, boss is HARD. Like all mini-dungeons it's not a closed instance, any passing person can jump in so that's why it scales. You have to complete a meta event to open the portal to the dungeon, give it a shot, you might like it

[Fencers]

That underwater boss always gets stuck in the ceiling every time we do that puzzle.

First time we cleared it was with like a zerg of 30 or so people. The boss wasn't harder than normal. He just had a massive hp bar. Like fucking massive.

One of the Mesmers used that toilet bowl flush underwater skill and got the boss stuck in the platform near the chest. I lol'd.

[Zilong]

Snip

Yeah. I actually never think much about raiding really so it wasn't a problem, I just wanted to know what you really meant on it. Maybe and very hopefully the mission guilds could be what you want and what people need. One thing that could be cool is an Instanced DE from a lore-perspective and not "huge" like a dungeon. So people can make groups to complete it and the DE scales up..which is kinda what I'm expecting from Guilds missions...not getting my hopes to high tho.

The exploration stuff is not a bad idea, I just think it's very surreal haha because you do that outside the instanced area already unlike on WoW where you probably won't explore much. The game is already very pretty on "graphical exploration" "externally" level and even inside dungeons we have alot of good details (That fractal where you need to jump on plataforms comes to mind). Again not a bad idea but it's sorta of a too much ideal game for everyone haha, they provide a good bunch of that and the "free world exploration" thing like (for me) no other game.

[Fencers]

Bet the guild missions will be more or less like ZQs in GW1.

Again, there isn't really a lot they can do.