New Patch: Experiments in alternative progression

[Kageru]

They seem to have given up on the world events. Thankfully. They probably should have seen that wasn't going to work on the drawing board but I guess they had to learn it the hard way.

What they seem to be moving towards is progression via achievements. Limited time events that have a bundle of (often pretty damn grindy) activities and maybe some progressive story behind it. Collect enough tokens or tick off enough activities and you get to see more stories and get titles, achievement points and skins. And people will put a surprising amount of effort into skins they probably won't use. MMO's are all about wasting time on some imaginary goal anyway, and the raiders who focus on gear progression aren't playing GW2 so don't have to consider them too much. And now with the latest patch the achievement points you gain unlock rewards and account upgrades plus can be tracked as goals for completionists.

Oddly, I don't really mind it. A bit of new content, some visits to old content and a bunch of stuff I can ignore if I don't care enough. It's quite an interesting model. You can see them trying to patch in discoverability, slowly and badly, because at the moment I suspect most people need an external web-site to decode what has actually changed in the world.

Here's a summary for those who are not playing but want to see what I'm talking about.

(Edit)

An entire zone based around movement powers that replace your skills bar and jumping puzzles... As one Guild member said some of these zones are like them over compensating for all the complaints about no jumping in GW1. Pretty zone though, their world builders and texture artists are pretty good. Or they're using this to beta-test content that will be in the next expac.

[Ingmar]

I think the time-limited content is an awful idea. Recurring stuff is fine, and I don't really care about time-limited rewards as such, but the living story is pretty obnoxious, and seems like a waste of their time as well. Why spend development hours on something people will only be able to use for a short time? Why *not* make it available permanently? Most of the stuff happens in instanced missions anyway.

[Numtini]

I guess I just don't get it. They're not charging for this content. They're not going to do expansions. Are cash shop purchases really bringing in enough revenue to do new expansions and toss them away a few weeks later?

[Zetor]

I think they're planning to turn either the aetherblade or the molten dungeon into a fractal, which is a start -- I think both of those dungeons were pretty great, myself.

Otherwise... eh. I guess they want everyone to keep logging in (and spend $ in the cash shop on the shiny-skins-de-jour) week after week, or feel that they're missing out. Is it working out for them? Who knows.

[Ingmar]

It acts as a negative incentive to me, I log in every once in a while, find that I'm halfway through some event that I can't finish in the time I have left, get annoyed, and log out. Maybe that's just a me thing, but it feels like it disincentivizes people who aren't playing it as their primary game.

[Zetor]

I agree -- it annoys me as well, and I'm currently playing GW2 as my main game. It hasn't been a big problem in the previous living story bits, since the meta-achievement was achievable with an afternoon's worth of playtime, and that provided a sense of closure. The Sky Pirates / Aetherblade event was where they changed it up a bit, as you pretty much had to do several jumping puzzles for the caches... meaning that you had to put in at least several days worth of effort (unless a mesmer was porting or you knew exactly how to do the JPs). The alternative (farming slowly respawning aetherblade mobs near the chests) was pretty heavily in fuck-that-noise territory for me.

The newest event cranks that up to 11. You NEED to do jumping puzzles to get the meta this time, and the zone itself is a (well-crafted, but still) jumping puzzle. The mario kart minigame is fun the first few times, but it's seriously annoying to play with any kind of latency (I play on US servers from Europe... ugh) and having to do 25 matches for the achievement is 3 hours of minigame time right there. Of course if you spread it out through a month it's not as bad, but... yeah.

Speaking of which, I actually think parts of the current event (the bazaar) will be recurring, considering how much the mario kart-like minigame resembles rollerbeetle racing in GW1. I seriously doubt they'll just throw away all this work for nothing.

So yeah. The content itself is fun, they've done a lot of great improvements to the game for free, and I dig the new achievement reward system. But when GW2 stops being my primary game, this 1-month content rotation is going to be a huge pain...

[Kageru]

I'm not really sure on the psychology of the limited time content. But I consider it as an improvement on their original plan of "it happened once, shame you missed it" for world events. And it does provide a sense of urgency and focus on the content. I notice warframe has pretty much been doing the same thing with timed events giving unique in game items.

As I mentioned the other possibility is they are using these events to test new mechanics or zones that will become permanent as part of a content expansion. That was their GW1 model. They certainly are learning some lessons on better sign-posting the events such that you get fairly specific e-mails with a button to show it on the map.

[Dark_MadMax]

I get their angle on time limited content but I am not entirely happy . GW2 achievements are very grindy so I dont care for that anymore , what I do care though is that some of their good content only available for a month. If you miss it - well its gone...

 I just missed sky pirates dungeon entirely :(

[Threash]

The sky pirate stuff wasn't around for anywhere near a month, couple weeks tops.

[Tyrnan]

Didn't they announce recently (before sky pirates I think) that they were switching to a 2 week update schedule?

Edit: the announcement was more recent than I thought but yeah, updates every 2 weeks from now on

[Nevermore]

Non-recurring, expiring content is a terrible idea if you ask me.  It just screws people who might only want to play occasionally.

[Threash]

Not just that, it's just a huge waste of resources.  It has to take a fuckton longer than 2 weeks to make the content they are rolling out and then throwing away.

[Setanta]

Aussie latancy + a hatred of jumping puzzles - for the first time in 3 months I played for 40 min and logged out totally dissatisfied with the game.

Why the hell did they gate the area behind a jumping puzzle ffs.

[Kageru]

Yeah, more fun if you are a Norn too.. and the camera is ditzy. But Wildstar is picking it up as a good thing.

I don't really understand the economics of it. I guess their tools and asset pool might be large so it's not as expensive as it looks, or they have some plan for re-use in part or in whole.

But I think the psychology is they want you to stay active. Once people drift off from the game it's not easy to get them back. And if it's not timed content there's no incentive to keep active. Same reason warframe or PS2 will give you benefits if you log in regularly. I assume they also figure activity is a pre-requisite for people to notice the latest specials on the cash shop.

[Zetor]

Aussie latancy + a hatred of jumping puzzles - for the first time in 3 months I played for 40 min and logged out totally dissatisfied with the game.

Why the hell did they gate the area behind a jumping puzzle ffs.

Pretty much this. I play from Europe on a US server (because I'm in an international guild and apparently the GW1 approach with US/EU district switching is too hard to implement or something) and play with 500+ ping all the time. This is actually OK in pve and wvw, annoying-but-manageable in spvp (esp since I play a less twitchy build there), but a massive pain with all the high-speed movement skills in this new zone.

I *did* end up getting 40 air crystals, but the last 3 were... not very fun to get at all. I must have spent at least 5 hours on it total (1 hr on those last 3), and the novelty wore off after the second hour or so. I imagine it's a lot more enjoyable if you don't rubberband, your skills actually fire when you use them [!], and the lightning grapple actually moves you to where you aim it at (which was the case in all the videos I watched, but even if I did the same exact things, I'd either end up overshooting or undershooting the same spot. Gee, what fun.)

Sanctum Sprint is even worse. It's really fun getting knocked back by invisible bombs, the jump ability not firing at all, being slowed down by the waterfall even though I hit the light dash ability a second ago, and the 'anchored' lightning grapple ability misfiring, causing me to fall to my death. I did 25 laps for the achievement, and I'm pretty sure I'm never going back there again.

/angryface

That said, the REST of the game has improved a lot. In this particular patch, the new Celestial stuff and the various scepter / staff improvements for my ele are pretty great, as are all the achievement rewards (btw, they ninja-buffed the GW1 HOM rewards achievement-point-wise which bumped me over 5k, yay!).

[March]

It acts as a negative incentive to me, I log in every once in a while, find that I'm halfway through some event that I can't finish in the time I have left, get annoyed, and log out. Maybe that's just a me thing, but it feels like it disincentivizes people who aren't playing it as their primary game.

Same with me... I always feel lost with GW2.  Shame because it was the very best levelling game I've played.  The other head-scratcher is why after almost 1-yr there is nothing on the cash shop for new armor/weapon skins.  The itch this game scratched was exploring... why they seem to think that compressing that into a short window coupled with jumping puzzles is a path to victory, I just don't understand.  The good news is that it costs me nothing to not play; the bad news is that I gave Rift money because their cash shop actually pulls you in and catches you up.

[Modern Angel]

There are weapons and armor on the cash shop. They just tend to be time-limited as well. Exclusivity of your look is what the game is about and that's in keeping with it.

I dunno. I don't really mind the timed content. It makes the world feel like it's in motion. There are only really two ways to do that (and no, instanced content isn't one of them): player generated sandboxy shit or very large, very temporary creator generated events. We know how the former turns out; if that's your bag, sweet, it's not for a lot of people and other games are already doing it. But nobody's doing the latter other than Anet. So far I'm good with it. I'm willing to bet pops would be a lot lower without it, too.

[Crumbs]

These events I can take or leave.  Mostly leave.  I thought the Halloween event was the best so far, with a good short dungeon and insanely fun labyrinth instance.  For the most part, events have just meant a dozen stacks of 250 items (Zhaitaffy?) that I don't feel like spending on anything and aren't worth much on the ah. 

To me, the best part of expansions have always been new races and new classes.  If there won't be any Xpacs in GW2, will they ever have new races and professions?  If so, how will they roll out?

[Kageru]

Why would you expect there not to be xpacs? That was their model in GW1 and they're spending a lot of money on content... though I would not be surprised if the cash shop is fairly lucrative.

Interestingly the latest event consumes any zhaitaffy you have, there is a vendor in the new zone that accepts it in exchange for a supply chest.

[Crumbs]

Why would you expect there not to be xpacs?

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/GW2-unlikely-to-get-expansions-Interview

Not set in stone I suppose, but they seem to be considering these frequent content updates as alternatives to Xpacs.

Thanks for the heads up on Zhaitaffy, I will check that out for sure.  Vendor in the new zone?

[Kageru]

Yes, It's near the "important vendors" you need for the achievement.

That article is interesting. I guess the subtext is they're actually making some good money out of the cash shop. Given that putting out a substantial flow of content to keep people engaged probably is part of keeping that going.

I'm sort of saddened though. The idea of these small teams and short cycles is good but having another team working on a major new content in terms of land-mass and mechanics would also be nice. I'm not sure you can really do that without substantial time and I'd be happy to pay money for that. Though I guess it's not like GW2 is short of landmass to play with and they have added new zones.

[MediumHigh]

Its ArenaNets way to silently work on a major expansion until its good and ready to be live while the small teams keeps the playerbase happy.

[Modern Angel]

Yeah, they'll come out with an expansion. They're just yakking. Expansions push boxes.

[Crumbs]

The RNG sales might be enough though.  Maybe the rest of us can benefit, and for those still buying chests I offer this:

[Kageru]

Don't cure them! they're funding the game for me :)

[Modern Angel]

I did the RNG chests for the Halloween event. Got the staff skin. Sold it for 20 gold or so. Decided to keep going. Ended up losing money when it was all done with. Never did it again.

[Ingmar]

That scythe staff skin sells for a lot more than 20 now.

[Crumbs]

Don't cure them! they're funding the game for me :)

Yea pretty much, I hate to say it but this could be a great thing for those of us who skip the gambling games.  Maybe one day they'll just patch in new races, profs and character slots.  Here ya go...BTW new items in Gem Store!

[Modern Angel]

That scythe staff skin sells for a lot more than 20 now.

I am very, very, very aware. 

[Ingmar]

I'm still hanging onto the one I got, I should probably sell it before it gets too close to Halloween.

[murdoc]

I sold mine for 22g, but it pretty much paid for all my level 80 gear on my warrior at the time so I was happy enough with that.

[Threash]

Stuff coming up

[kildorn]

Champion Rewards
Champions in the game will be updated so each will always drop a guaranteed reward box for any player that qualifies for a reward from the boss. This chest will contain things like crafting materials, skill points, unique skins, lodestones, and more. This change will make champions more rewarding, and will make playing in Orr and Southsun Cove (where events can scale up to add champions) more exciting and fruitful for guilds and players joining together in the open world.

.. THANK YOU. Christ, was that so hard, ANet?

Also, hesitant on the removal of Magic Find as a gear stat. Need more data on the replacement system to know if it's going to be annoying or not. Overall it looks like a solid direction for the game. I'm kind of happy with ascended gear going crafted.

[Threash]

Magic find as an item stat is a horrible idea, whatever system they come up with has to be better than having to give up combat effectiveness for loot.

[Fordel]

Agreed. Magic find is dumb.