Admittedly it's somewhat ingenious from a marketing perspective. GW2 doesn't have an endgame (as defined by your average PvE player) and the leveling grind felt pretty much the same as it did in WAR or RIFT, and even the currency grind works pretty much the same, except maybe that Karma is more valuable than those Planar things you got in RIFT.
How is that different from RIFT's nonstop invasions? In GW2 people are running from event to event, with the occasional boss battle in between. In RIFT people are running from rift to rift, with the occasional boss battle in between. The difference is that in GW2 you just keep doing that when you hit max level, in RIFT you grind raid encounters (which is what PvE players want).That actually happens. And as I said several times- issues of how challenging, epic or demanding or whatever are of no object value to anyone but you. Which is fine. It's cool if the shadow behemoth doesn't impress you much, but that encounter is accessible and triggered early on in the game all the same.
I guess that's the major misunderstanding. The part that most people want to get done with quickly in other games is GW2's endgame. Damn that's good.Just as stated here: They made a very specific point of referencing end game content in other MMO's when discussing this topic. They brought it up, pointed at it, and said, "In GW2, you don't have to be max level to experience that content!" so yes, by doing that they created an expectation that "Level 1 in GW2 will have content like Level 80 in other MMO's!" and not, "Level 80 in GW2 will be just like Level 1 in any MMO!"
The problem here seems to be that "that type of content" means different things to most PvE players and AN.You don't wait till max level to engage in that type of content in GW2. That type of content is meaningful at level 1 as 80.
AN wasn't disingenuous about that part. I don't think they ever claimed that there would be PvE raids. They did, however, lie about gear progression (Ascended, Celestial), made major mistakes concerning gear accessibility (crafting only yielding Power based items, Soldier's gear being the only set attainable through WvW) and class balance, which is most likely why the serious PvP players left.There is no inaccuracy or disingenuous pitch other than perhaps Johnny doesn't think the Shatterer is epic enough. As originally stated; merely reader ignorance &/or misunderstanding.
To me those are open world bosses not raids. And most of those are fairly trivial mechanics wise anyway for the same reason (you outscale the boss eventually). I remember on my server in wow several guilds got tired of not working together due to tagging, so they "rotated" who got the tag each week so everyone could get loot without having to camp the spawn or worry about getting ganked.
Except, the tagline is used as a contrast to a bimodal endgame. Which is accurate.
And both Rift and WAR are linear and bimodal progression systems without a definite cap. Even the currency is linear and bimodal in a game like Rift.
That is to say at some point corrupted sourcestone yields to inscribed sourcestone that than yields to empyreal sourcestone which yields to infinity sourcestone and that doesn't even cover the expert classic currency, raid tier 1, 2 and 3 classic currency, sl expert currency and sl raid tier 1 and 2 currency. Plus gold + plus limited event currency + reputation.
That is a pretty big philosophical difference in design from GW2 where karma & money are always relative and consistent throughout the game. Distinctly singular design.
Because those events are level & gear limited in Rift. One can not even hit the Dendrome baddies or Volan under X, Y and Z thresholds. You have to meet those absolutely in Rift and WAR.How is that different from RIFT's nonstop invasions?
In GW2, this is not the case and the play systems are designed to reward one for completing content above their actual strength.
Whoa, whoa. You mean which is what some PVE players want.... in RIFT you grind raid encounters (which is what PvE players want).
Indeed it does.The problem here seems to be that "that type of content" means different things to most PvE players and AN.
Last edited by Fencers; 2013-07-26 at 04:19 PM.
Well, that's sort of the thing. They didn't say "you're going to raid at low levels", they said you'll get to see those kinds of encounters. Shadow Behemoth can be reduced to "don't stand in bad stuff" and "handle adds/ portals", but so can quite a lot of raid bosses. As compared to the average encounter while leveling which is basically "hit and be hit until one of you dies". I remember them using the Charr starting area Baradin encounter as an example at various points even. I really think you just got a misconception of what they said and it's stuck in your mind, rather than them actually leading folks to believe you'd have raids at level 15.
I think they toned down Shadow Behemoth at some point after launch. There were more AOE circles and they hurt a lot more when I first encountered it. The Fire Elemental in Metrica got majorly toned down, but people also started to figure out the actual mechanics. The first few weeks that thing was a graveyard. Now the fire adds don't really matter much.
The giant bosses do have mechanics, but event scaling just can't keep up with the massive amounts of people there. The way people found a way to trivialize stuff like the Shatterer ruins the entire boss fight. Claw is the only one that forces you to have to play out the boss fight mechanics. Well I guess Grenth Temple does as well.