2649 replies to this topic

[Pipples]

Underdog, on 07 May 2012 - 03:02 PM, said:

But good lord if its so PVP -oriented why the hell is there so much PVE.  you have seen the citys,lore,crafting,personal story, DE's, Explore able  Dungeons

Because limiting the game to one aspect only limits the customers you'll get.

[Cluttered]

Lethality, you are looking a guilds from only one perspective, your own.

You are vastly overestimating the amount of people that join a guild, stay with that guild through multiple games and become best friends away from those games with people in the guild. Speaking for myself, I can say that I never liked multi-game guilds and after joining one briefly in TOR realized all my fears were correct and now dislike them even more. For whatever reasons people join a guild, and there are a multitude of them, few do it with the hopes of making lifelong friends.


Secondly, being part of a guild means much more than raiding (which, yes, is basically all you are discussing in this thread without offering suggestions for different large group content). This whole argument seems contradictory since you are arguing that guilds can extend so far beyond a game and yet seem to continually fall back on raiding as the central point for why guilds exist in the first place.

Going back to my first sentence, it's very clear that you aren't willing to listen to a different opinion on this subject so it's a moot subject. Not every MMO has to appeal to every person. GW2 is taking a different direction than other MMOs. Those various decisions have made some camps unhappy and yet have made others extremely happy with the direction of the game. I know that you recently had a "I'm a believer" thread and that's great; I hope you find GW2 enjoyable. However, please don't project your expectations on everyone else for what you, or your group of like-minded friends, think should be in an MMO.

[Underdog]

Pipples, on 07 May 2012 - 03:17 PM, said:

Because limiting the game to one aspect only limits the customers you'll get.

  yeah its still Vary PVE -oriented.

How ever, unlike most game's of this type, PVP isn't just tacked on.  

Both seem to be equally important.

[Lethality]

Craywulf, on 07 May 2012 - 02:33 PM, said:

Anyone bothered to mention crafting or activities like Keg brawl or snowball fights? How about guilds setting up search parties for newly created DEs? There a lot more going on in PvE than just dungeons.

I think based on what we know this is the right way to look at it... creating guild activities of a different kind. I think I'll just miss some of the more standard measures of progression & competition a bit. And makes me wonder what the rest of my guild will think about it once everyone is max level.

Ubung, on 07 May 2012 - 02:34 PM, said:

Its always very difficult to discuss bringing something like raiding to GW2. This is mainly due to the way it was done in wow. Now everyone who even smells the world raid comes and loudly demands that they dont want that crap in their game. I dont really blame them for this view as wow did make it pretty bad however it would be nice if people could be rational and consider what were trying to do. Were trying to bring the good parts of raiding without bringing in the bad. No gear grind (reinforces no exclusion, get to 80 and craft some gear then your rdy to guild elite DE) No elitism No exclusion (The DE would scale to the amount of people doing it) Just trying to bring something for the large guild that wants to do a boss by themselves without bothering anyone else.

/signed! That's all I ask!

[Ubung]

How would you feel about my proposed idea cluttered? You mentioned this thread OP as having no suggestions. Im being a bit presumptuous here but based on his post I beleive Lethality would be happy with my idea.

Quote

The idea of creating a private DE for guilds seems interesting, although I'm not sure if there are any technical limitations involved. Would the advantage of such a system, as opposed to open world DEs, be that they are on-demand and private?

I dont believe there are any technical limitations for my idea. The tech is already used when you fight the first boss in your starter area (worm, earth ele or statue thing).

The major benefit for raiders would be the exclusivity of the boss yes. I want the option to fight him in a massive group or as a precision strike with my guildies.

As I said in my previous post I dont think most people that suggest some form of raiding really want it to be like wow at all. There is just a great deal of enjoyment from cordinating a guild event for some people. And I also realise this group of people isnt massive and shouldnt be the focus of the game like other games. This is why I emphasised the lack of dev time used in my idea.

Edited by Ubung, 07 May 2012 - 03:54 PM.

[Alberel]

We've already seen from DEs such as Tequatl (I played this one at Eurogamer last year) that higher level DE content actually starts to require raid-level coordination. You cannot zerg these events.

As an example for the Tequatl DE:

• He can only be reliably damaged when he is stunned.
  
• The only way to stun him is using a manned Asuran cannon.
  
• He summons bone walls to shield himself from the cannon (which require players to run in and destroy them).
  
• He sends waves of adds to attempt to destroy the cannon.
  
• The adds hit HARD and have a LOT of hp. Players need to fight them at range (otherwise they self-destruct and 1-hit KO at melee range) and need the support of other players manning the smaller cannons to destroy them.
  
• If the cannon gets destroyed players need to escort NPC engineers in to repair it, defending them from wave after wave of adds.
  
• All the while Tequatl is raining down AOEs left, right and centre.

A zerg will not win this battle. The players HAVE to be coordinated to win this as they can't all go after the boss; you need people manning the cannons, defending the cannons, destroying the bone walls and clearing the adds.

If content like this isn't made with large guilds in mind I don't know what is.

[Jetjordan]

We also really don't know the level of rewards for World events later on in the game.  I might be worth running the final World event bosses, as raid quality items may drop from their chests.  As well as being used to farm Karma for those epic looking weapons the Karma vendors in the home cities had for sale for like 90 bazillion Karma each.

[Lethality]

Cluttered, on 07 May 2012 - 03:18 PM, said:

Secondly, being part of a guild means much more than raiding (which, yes, is basically all you are discussing in this thread without offering suggestions for different large group content). This whole argument seems contradictory since you are arguing that guilds can extend so far beyond a game and yet seem to continually fall back on raiding as the central point for why guilds exist in the first place.

I don't particularly care about "raiding"... but I do care about 1) the whole guild being able to do content together as a team 2) some measure of progression and competition with other guilds. I understand WvWvW is one of those things, and we'll have to look at it, but from a pure PvE perspective it feels lacking.

Cluttered, on 07 May 2012 - 03:18 PM, said:

Going back to my first sentence, it's very clear that you aren't willing to listen to a different opinion on this subject so it's a moot subject. Not every MMO has to appeal to every person. GW2 is taking a different direction than other MMOs. Those various decisions have made some camps unhappy and yet have made others extremely happy with the direction of the game. I know that you recently had a "I'm a believer" thread and that's great; I hope you find GW2 enjoyable. However, please don't project your expectations on everyone else for what you, or your group of like-minded friends, think should be in an MMO.

I'm always willing to listen to a different opinion, but I certainly haven't seen one here yet that convinces me that I no longer want PvE content that my guild can do together. Again, not facilitating some form of this in a game that embraces the idea of guilds so fully seems like a mistake, and would be a black-eye post-launch.

Ubung, on 07 May 2012 - 03:43 PM, said:

How would you feel about my proposed idea cluttered? You mentioned this thread OP as having no suggestions. Im being a bit presumptuous here but based on his post I beleive Lethality would be happy with my idea.

Yep, and I think (I hope) I replied earlier in the thread... it would be great!

[Alberel]

Lethality, on 07 May 2012 - 03:49 PM, said:

I don't particularly care about "raiding"... but I do care about 1) the whole guild being able to do content together as a team 2) some measure of progression and competition with other guilds.

One of ANet's goals was to entirely eliminate PvE competition; that's the entire design philosophy behind the game. If you're looking for guild competition you'll only find it in PvP.

[Dream Catcher]

Lethality, on 07 May 2012 - 03:49 PM, said:

I don't particularly care about "raiding"... but I do care about 1) the whole guild being able to do content together as a team 2) some measure of progression and competition with other guilds. I understand WvWvW is one of those things, and we'll have to look at it, but from a pure PvE perspective it feels lacking.

This will always be a problem for some guilds, because each guild will be different and have a different amount of members, co-ordinating an event etc, so that it is still extremely challenging and scale-able, simply takes too many calculations for variety/number of class, the higher the number of participants the higher the variable becomes, until you come to astronomical numbers, just to keep the content challenging and balanced.

Edited by Dream Catcher, 07 May 2012 - 03:56 PM.

[Ubung]

Dream Catcher, on 07 May 2012 - 03:55 PM, said:

This will always be a problem for some guilds, because each guild will be different and have a different amount of members, co-ordinating an event etc, so that it is still extremely challenging and scale-able, simply takes too many calculations for variety/number of class, the higher the number of participants the higher the variable becomes, until you come to astronomical numbers, just to keep the content challenging and balanced.

I understand what your saying and they are valid concerns but what your saying applies to standard raiding in another game. Why cant we change raiding so it does fit into the GW2 game style? In my idea there is both scaling and balance as it uses the already scaled and balanced content in the game.

[Vesuvias]

Ubung, on 07 May 2012 - 02:34 PM, said:

Its always very difficult to discuss bringing something like raiding to GW2. This is mainly due to the way it was done in wow. Now everyone who even smells the world raid comes and loudly demands that they dont want that crap in their game. I dont really blame them for this view as wow did make it pretty bad however it would be nice if people could be rational and consider what were trying to do.

Were trying to bring the good parts of raiding without bringing in the bad.

No gear grind (reinforces no exclusion, get to 80 and craft some gear then your rdy to guild elite DE)
No elitism
No exclusion (The DE would scale to the amount of people doing it)

Just trying to bring something for the large guild that wants to do a boss by themselves without bothering anyone else.

But that is exactly what you are asking for. Your asking for a guild to go off on its own and be by itself at the exclusion of everyone not in that guild. 5 mans do this true. But having the entire guild do this is something else entirely. It is a huge slippery sloop that leads down and away from the philosophical objectives of this game.

Anet's way is entirely different from current games which is why I can perfectly understand why your asking for it. By really Anet doesn't seem to want you doing large scale events by yourselves. Meaning they aren't including game mechanics that allow for exclusion of other players based on something as uncontrollable (by them) as guild membership. Even in PvP where you can capture structures as a guild and express guild pride through flags on the structure, you aren't allowed to exclude non guildies from playing with and along side you.

Understand that the mechanics that allow for exclusion, while they may foster tighter social bonds within the guild (which is debatable as we have all experienced "guild drama"), they don't necessarily positively impact the server community as a whole. In fact I would argue this whole gang mentality of previous MMOs is partially responsible for their communities being so deplorable.

Edited by Vesuvias, 07 May 2012 - 04:03 PM.

[Dream Catcher]

We all know that competition brings out the very worst in some individuals, you only have to look at games that have others competing against each other. I know the whole PvP community is not this way, but some of them are the best advert you could possibly wish for as to why you shouldn't add competitive features into the co-operative part of the game.

[Ubung]

Vesuvias, on 07 May 2012 - 03:59 PM, said:

But that is exactly what you are asking for. Your asking for a guild to go off on its own and be by itself at the exclusion of everyone not in that guild. 5 mans do this true. But having the entire guild do this is something else entirely. It is a huge slippery sloop that leads down and away from the philosophical objectives of this game.

Anet's way is entirely different from current games which is why I can perfectly understand why your asking for it. By really Anet doesn't seem to want you doing large scale events by yourselves. Meaning they aren't including game mechanics that allow for exclusion of other players based on something as uncontrollable (by them) as guild membership. Even in PvP where you can capture structures as a guild and express guild pride through flags on the structure, you aren't allowed to exclude non guildies from playing with and along side you.

Understand that the mechanics that allow for exclusion, while they may foster tighter social bonds within the guild (which is debatable as we have all experienced "guild drama"), they don't necessarily positively impact the server community as a whole. If fact I would argue this whole gang mentality of previous MMOs is partially responsible for their communities being so deplorable.

You mention yourself that 5 mans also exclude people. I think that the people who would be doing my guild elite DE would otherwise be engaged in dungeons which is the alternative to raiding in this game currently. So your only switching people from one instance to another.

The other way you can look at exclusion is the fact that people cant get enough people together to complete a elite dynamic DE. This is why they have the normal DE's to support people that want to do the content but dont want to have the hassle of forming a guild.

You could even just give the dungeon gear out for the guild DE's or even just reward karma points for it. This even removes the gear exclusivity from the equation.

Edited by Ubung, 07 May 2012 - 04:17 PM.

[Underdog]

dosnt this game have some form of Guild reword like Renown or somthing like that,  whats that about

[Alberel]

Ubung, on 07 May 2012 - 04:06 PM, said:

The other way you can look at exclusion is the fact that people cant get enough people together to complete a elite dynamic DE. This is why they have the normal DE's to support people that want to do the content but dont want to have the hassle of forming a guild.

As long as the elite DEs are open world there will always be enough people. The only case in which they would become exclusive is if you had your way and made them instanced... only then would it require people to deliberately organise enough people. As it is currently the people needed for a given DE congregate organically simply due to the mechanics of the game.

As has been explained multiple times already anyway, this goes against the entire design principle of GW2 so you won't get what you're after, no matter how much you want instanced raiding.

[grey_foxx082]

Here's my idea:

Anet should put some focus and importance to 'fail states' or alternate event path.  There has to come a point in a group event chain, where an uncoordinated zerg has to fail, but, instead of the event, being stuck in that state, and zerg just repeat and tries to hammer through it til it succeeds, it branches out and goes through an 'alternate' path that is more appropriate for an uncoordinated zerg, balanced for a zerg with same rewards but a different story.  This is the path that most people who just levelup and play casually will see... The other path is for a group, guild or zerg that is highly coordinated and well organized.  The challenge ramps up for each event that follows, and the best way to see this content is to run it as a guild, or if you're solo, see if there's a guild running the event, join in and help out.

Scenario would be something like this:  Big monster is going to try and destroy a town. Condition for 'hardmode' path would be to kill the creature with the town 100% intact (difficulty would require people who are downleveled 80s, with max gear and highly coordinated).  Events that follow this will be more challenging and appropriate for the group that unlocked the hardmode path.

Anything less than 100% (killing the creature with town 50% intact, for example) then triggers the 'zerg mode' path, with the events that follow appropriate for less coordinated, casual players just leveling up.

In both scenarios, both groups succeeded in stopping the creature, but the coordinated zerg gets a more challenging sequence of events after, than the uncoordinated zerg.

Edited by grey_foxx082, 07 May 2012 - 04:32 PM.

[Ubung]

We will just have to see how the elite DE's fare in terms of providing a challenge for a guild and whether the excess of players affects this negatively. Im just not sure how something like that can be balanced and challenging.

[Zilong]

I rather like the idea of an "instanced" large scale DE designed for guilds/ large, well coordinated groups.

I doubt they could add it for launch at this point but it makes for an interesting concept for additional content.

They could ramp up the difficulty a bit and add special skins similar to those obtained through the explorable mode dungeons as a reward for completing a harder challenge.

(Sorry if this was specifically suggested. Read most of the thread but might have missed something.)

[Alberel]

Zilong, on 07 May 2012 - 04:41 PM, said:

I rather like the idea of an "instanced" large scale DE designed for guilds/ large, well coordinated groups.

I doubt they could add it for launch at this point but it makes for an interesting concept for additional content.

They could ramp up the difficulty a bit and add special skins similar to those obtained through the explorable mode dungeons as a reward for completing a harder challenge.

(Sorry if this was specifically suggested. Read most of the thread but might have missed something.)

This already exists in the elite DEs in the open world. To make them instanced makes them exclusive and to make them exclusive betrays ANet's philosophy behind the game. The five man dungeons aren't so bad due to it being relatively easy to find just four other players... but finding 19+ other players is where guilds get power and start getting elitist and excluding people. This is exactly why GW2 does not have instanced raiding; it is a breeding ground for elitism and exclusion.

[Zilong]

As a side note: I think the elitism you are describing will be present no matter what Anet does. Just the way we humans behave.

On topic:
Since my proposed rewards would be no better/worse than any other gear there should be no problem in this regard. They could even implement it without any sort of extra reward. It would just be a nice thing for the larger guilds to have if they wanted.

If they were to put this in (I doubt it will happen, but it's nice to dream) it should be on the level of explorable dungeons in terms of difficulty. That way it would be different and would give the larger, more cohesive groups something to do if they want more of a challenge/structure.

Also I meant more of a rescaled DE not a completely new encounter. That would definitely be out of the question, imo, since it would lock certain players out of content which is something none of us want to see.

edit: grammar

Edited by Zilong, 07 May 2012 - 05:13 PM.

[Lethality]

Alberel, on 07 May 2012 - 04:59 PM, said:

This already exists in the elite DEs in the open world. To make them instanced makes them exclusive and to make them exclusive betrays ANet's philosophy behind the game. The five man dungeons aren't so bad due to it being relatively easy to find just four other players... but finding 19+ other players is where guilds get power and start getting elitist and excluding people. This is exactly why GW2 does not have instanced raiding; it is a breeding ground for elitism and exclusion.

It's extremely hypocritical to think that PvE competition is bad but PvP competition is good. Elitism? Exclusion? Hello.

That doesn't make any sense.

[justaguy]

I disagree that a bunch of random people coming in behind your guild will make it easier. It will probably make it more of a challenge rather than less.

If the fights are designed properly, then personal responsibility will be the most important issue.

If youthink about it, that is the case with games like WoW as well - in the instanced raids. While it seems like guilds spend alot of energy devleoping strategies, that is usualy just an illusion. Those fights are about memorizing the "dance" involved with a particular boss and then waiting for the entire group to come up to speed - while, at the same time, gear progression makes the fight easier and easier until it is completely invalidated.

A couple of things to remember about world bosses -

- scaling means more people means more of a challenge
- you can easily have as many people as you want - there is such a thing as a 22 man raid in this fight.
- If you do not like the way a fight is going because of others on the server, just guest visit a different server and do it there.

Im not completely against instanced raids, but I think we should see how the world raids play out first. If done right, I think they will be much more fun that what many of us think of as raiding.

[Ubung]

Alberel, on 07 May 2012 - 04:59 PM, said:

This already exists in the elite DEs in the open world. To make them instanced makes them exclusive and to make them exclusive betrays ANet's philosophy behind the game. The five man dungeons aren't so bad due to it being relatively easy to find just four other players... but finding 19+ other players is where guilds get power and start getting elitist and excluding people. This is exactly why GW2 does not have instanced raiding; it is a breeding ground for elitism and exclusion.

Just to confirm for clarity. My idea would not require finding 19+ players. it would require finding 1 more than the standard group of 5 that is present in dungeons. The event itself would scale to the amount of players you have which it does anyway.

Also it would not replace standard DE's it would just be an added bonus. Guilds dont get any extra power over standard groups as they can do it just as well with their group of 6. Or they can just choose to do it the normal way and still experience the same content.

justaguy, on 07 May 2012 - 05:51 PM, said:

I disagree that a bunch of random people coming in behind your guild will make it easier. It will probably make it more of a challenge rather than less.

If the fights are designed properly, then personal responsibility will be the most important issue.

This is my concern tbh. If personal responsibility is so important then how do you balance it against the less skilled players out there. What about when the raid scales difficulty but there arnt enough people doing it properly. Assuming everyone does there job is hard enough in smaller groups never mind hundreds of people.

Edited by Ubung, 07 May 2012 - 05:54 PM.

[carralpha]

Lethality, on 07 May 2012 - 05:26 PM, said:

It's extremely hypocritical to think that PvE competition is bad but PvP competition is good. Elitism? Exclusion? Hello.

That doesn't make any sense.

It depends on your definition of PvP and PvE. In Guild Wars 2, players in PvE are competing against the environment, players in PvP are competing against players, and worlds in WvW are competing against worlds. Does this make no sense? I'm not saying large-scale competition in PvE is inherently bad (and I definitely wouldn't consider it inherently elitist), but I don't think you can say PvE should involve as much inter-player competition as PvP.

Edited by carralpha, 07 May 2012 - 06:00 PM.

[KazNaka]

You know, GW2 is very similar to Realm of the Mad God. Dynamic events are like the gods in godlands or dungeons where anyone can participate. Perhaps what we need is an "Oryx's Castle". It's basically a dungeon that brings everyone in the realm together to kill this really challenging boss call Oryx. It can have a maximum of 85 people participating.

Perhaps the 5 player limit to dungeon parties is too small. In Rappelz, the dungeon parties there has 8 people, and it was really fun and social to be in one. Maybe ANet could increase the limit to 8 or even 10 people and adjust the dungeons accordingly.

Also, the game's name is Guild Wars. So wouldn't it mean wars among guilds?

Edited by KazNaka, 07 May 2012 - 05:55 PM.

[Kaysin]

grey_foxx082, on 07 May 2012 - 04:23 PM, said:

Here's my idea:

Anet should put some focus and importance to 'fail states' or alternate event path.  There has to come a point in a group event chain, where an uncoordinated zerg has to fail, but, instead of the event, being stuck in that state, and zerg just repeat and tries to hammer through it til it succeeds, it branches out and goes through an 'alternate' path that is more appropriate for an uncoordinated zerg, balanced for a zerg with same rewards but a different story.  This is the path that most people who just levelup and play casually will see... The other path is for a group, guild or zerg that is highly coordinated and well organized.  The challenge ramps up for each event that follows, and the best way to see this content is to run it as a guild, or if you're solo, see if there's a guild running the event, join in and help out.

Scenario would be something like this:  Big monster is going to try and destroy a town. Condition for 'hardmode' path would be to kill the creature with the town 100% intact (difficulty would require people who are downleveled 80s, with max gear and highly coordinated).  Events that follow this will be more challenging and appropriate for the group that unlocked the hardmode path.

Anything less than 100% (killing the creature with town 50% intact, for example) then triggers the 'zerg mode' path, with the events that follow appropriate for less coordinated, casual players just leveling up.

In both scenarios, both groups succeeded in stopping the creature, but the coordinated zerg gets a more challenging sequence of events after, than the uncoordinated zerg.

No such thing as a coordinated zerg, those are called battalions or regiments (depending on numbers). I like your idea but having the same rewards for "easymode" as i see it seems unappealing and takes away from even trying to find a veteran team. If you can zerg to win the same stuff, then id just zerg.

[Dream Catcher]

KazNaka, on 07 May 2012 - 05:54 PM, said:

So wouldn't it mean wars among guilds?

You mean like WvW?

[Kaiem]

I hope what we will see here is content along the lines of DAOC's high end PvE content, in particular things like the dragons. They were kept within the open world and were technically there for anyone to take on however; the difficulty of the encounters (before the game moved on through TOA etc and they became farmable) meant it required good coordination to be able to take them down. The zones them selves were also difficult enough that only the coordinated groups would be getting near to the raid boss anyway without a lot of hassle.

I think as long as the elite DE in GW2 are in sufficiently challenging areas it should allow everyone to be able to access content simply by pooling together enough randoms whilst also allowing guilds the opportunity to have a crack at them without there being several solo people stood around joining in.

I'd actually like to see GW2 take another leaf out of DAOC's book and add a dedicated guild alliance system with seperate chat and officer systems. This allowed smaller guilds to pool their resources and tackle larger content together. It would also improve communcation and organisation in WvW and help to build a better community on the server, providing a good forum to allow people to get to know and play with others outside their guild.

Edited by Kaiem, 07 May 2012 - 06:10 PM.

[carralpha]

KazNaka, on 07 May 2012 - 05:54 PM, said:

Also, the game's name is Guild Wars. So wouldn't it mean wars among guilds?

You can look at it in one of three ways:

• It's an artifact title carried over from Guild Wars 1, and doesn't actually mean much. A surprisingly large number of series (video game and film particularly) do this, so it's not uncommon.
  
• The title refers to the "Guild Wars" which play a small role in Guild Wars 1 and a smaller role in Guild Wars 2 (the Battle of Kyhlo, for instance, takes place during the Guild Wars.
  
• There are still wars between guilds in this game as part of WvW, as Dream Catcher said, so the title refers to that.

Edited by carralpha, 07 May 2012 - 06:08 PM.