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An Honest Question
Foomerang
Member UncommonPosts: 5,628
in Guild Wars 2
Whats the difference between gear grinding for stats and gear grinding for looks?
Comments
The first one is mandatory to stay competitive.
New expansion or DLC pack.
4/10.
so basically if i find a look i like in gw2 im done? then I can do dungeons for no other reason than the fun factor? I typically enjoy doing dungeons or raids once. If they have multiple paths, i do them all until Ive done everything about them one time. I typically burn through this type of content in a matter of a few days. Whats going to keep me playing gw2 after Ive seen it all in the first few months?
New expansion or DLC pack.
have they said how often they are adding content?
Ultimately, if you don't like to do things just for fun, and you consume content at a voracious rate, there is nothing to keep you playing GW2 until additional content is added. Furthermore, you won't get your armor set after doing a dungeon once; only currency enough for one piece per dungeon run.
There is no exponential stat increase on gear in the game, just varieties on replayability via level scaling, minigames, PvP, exploration, etc. If none of that compels you, then, yeah, take a break.
Either take a break or roll an alt. Only question you need to ask yourself is - is the content worth the box price?
so basically if i find a look i like in gw2 im done? then I can do dungeons for no other reason than the fun factor? I typically enjoy doing dungeons or raids once. If they have multiple paths, i do them all until Ive done everything about them one time. I typically burn through this type of content in a matter of a few days. Whats going to keep me playing gw2 after Ive seen it all in the first few months?
Ultimately, if you don't like to do things just for fun, and you consume content at a voracious rate, there is nothing to keep you playing GW2 until additional content is added. Furthermore, you won't get your armor set after doing a dungeon once; only currency enough for one piece per dungeon run.
There is no exponential stat increase on gear in the game, just varieties on replayability via level scaling, minigames, PvP, exploration, etc. If none of that compels you, then, yeah, take a break.
Sorry I was just under the impression that Anet was trying to eliminate grind. But I find myself wondering in a themepark mmo how they will do that without adding massive amounts of content every couple months.
The biggest difference is that players are not required to gear grind to max out their stats. This means that you are equally viable in team play even if you have the most basic max armor or the most expensive max armor. You don't have to worry about things like gear score, or anything else like that.
This system is also MUCH more friendly to players who take a break and are coming back to the game. These playerrs can basically ignore the fact that their gear is a year or moree old and just play.'
However, It truly believe that making it harder to get those impressive armors means that, while a normal set will do just fine, many people will spend the time to get it anyways. The reasons for this are, of course, purely cosmetic and really don't provide any prestige (except maybe to yourself).
I, myself, have one of the most expensive sets of armor for my paragon in GW1 solely because I found a particular aspect of most of their armor sets to be hideous. Ascetically, these sets of armor are fine, but I really didn't like having to stare at my (male) character's torso and nipples all day. So, as you can see, my motivation for getting the expensive set was purely cosmetic, purely optional, and almost certainly more compelling than simply needing better stats.
In the end, continually raising the stats on armor devalues hte effort that players put into previous sets of armor, whereas making new sets of armor allows players to pick and choose what sets they feel like getting or if they feel like changing armor at all. It is more fun that way, I think...
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
You will need to hunt down traits in the world, rather than grinding for gear. If you want to improve you character in a meaningful way.
Edit: well, to customize your character in a meaningful way.
BOOYAKA!
I totally agree. There were older armor sets in WoW that I hated parting with simply because the stats were obsolete. But at the same time, if i couldve just kept that old gear and stayed competitive all these years, I wouldve burned through content at an alarming rate and Id be wondering whats next after a short while.
Well this is operating under the assumption that they really want everyone to be playing the game non-stop (and of course they don't want the entire population to wander off bored after three months). But they've already said they will be adding additional Dynamic Events periodically after launch - free, not with expansions, and their exact expansion schedule has yet to be determined or revealed to the public.
Note also that it is not the goal of GW2 to have the player base hanging out at level 80 just running dungeons and then more dungeons. The basic path is supposed to be that people re-roll to experience the various storylines (or join others to experience those storylines and gain karma), and through sidekicking and scaling continue to return to "older" areas on the map over and over to experience new dynamic events and/or never-before-experienced chains of dynamic events, etc. Plus, explorable modes of dungeons.
Finally, ANet has made it clear that since there is no subscription fee "tying" you to the game, you are free to take breaks and return at any time you want.
None of that is inconsistent with the no-grind philosophy (unless you're referring to doing a dungeon 5 times for the armor set, but given that there is story mode + 3 branching explorable modes + random events, it's really not doing the same dungeon 5 times).
There is a difference between eliminating grind and making grinding unneccesary. Providing completionists with something to do for long periods of time is easy, so long as they find the process worth doing, but for a vast number of players without the kind of time/personality required to find grinding fun, this can be a barrier. Anet has shown in GW1 that they can make a game that is fun without requiring grind, while still having content that completionists can complete without feeling short-changed...not that they should, with the prices for the entire trilogy + expansion as they are.
I am very optimistic about the amount of content that GW2 will have upon release, even if I never touch PvP (and I totally intend to do PvP
).
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
thanks to everybody for the clarifications. I have a much better idea of what this game is about now. cheers!
Your first time through leveling will be at least 100 hours. You can then do what ever you want to get the look you want. Crafting gear is equivalent to dungeon gear. So find the look you want, and do what ever you want. Nothing is really mandatory in the game. About the only thing you have to do, if you want to play the game fully is level. And even then...
Here is all you can do:
You can explore the world. Yes, believe it or not, Anet is putting a few things in there to make exploring exciting. A lot of Guild Wars 1 players explored, unlocking every town, uncovering every part of the map. They even had a title dedicated to exploring.
You can participate in dynamic events, even ones from the starting area.
You can complete your personal story.
You can play the minigames.
You can craft.
You can participate in PvP (WvWvW, structured tournaments, hotjoinable matches).
You can run dungeons, even rerun them and see what events pop up in the dungeons.
I will be dressed like a bum and doing nothing but mists hehe
Well, if having the best gear is your only goal in a game so yes. That doesn't mean that there is nothing more to do, a lot of GW1 is titles.
Most MMOs are very gear based and getting better gear is the point of the game. In GW1 you can actually level up and get the best gear in a day and still many plays it for years. GW2 will have a lot more leveling than the first game but gear stats will be the same, doing anything else will mess up the PvP balance, like it do in most MMOs.
Not all players will like this, in fact I think it will be the major turnoff for MMO players for this game, but there will be a lot of other things you can do if you want to. Otherwise you could still buy the game since it have no monthly fees but you probably just stay until you leveled up a few chars to max (still a good deal compared to Dragon age 2) but TOR is a more likely game for you to spend a long time in than GW2.
In fact do I think that is great, we need more MMOs with different type of endgame. For the last few years have more or less all of them had exactly the same one.
Also keep inmind that there is quite a variety of looks in the armor for GW1. I would be very surprised if the same wasn't true for GW2.
What a lot of players end up doing is mix-matching armor sets to get an appearance they enjoy. Much of the time people grinded the hardest to obtain gear for e-peen rights, and that's about it. Though, some of the faction gear was kinda badass on a couple of the classes.
One a side note, they also do a pretty good job of making the easier to obtain gear look pretty tough itself. My warrior in GW1 still wears a mix of 15k plate, and knight armor, and people still ask me where / how I got it (the armor's not that tough to get, and can be obtained from the 1st release).
- and as Loke said, a lot of the rewards will be achievements / titles / cosmetic, brag perks / and (as far as I know) skill capturing. (not sure if they stated anything about this aspect of the game yet, but it was a pretty big part of GW1. Finding which elite monsters had the best skills, then going out to hunt for them in order to get your characters the best skills for the best builds).
(Yellow)- i just wonder how the mass MMO audience will handle this, we know how they are about end-game, it's one way or the highway it seems, even with massive grinds to get gear they want more and more and burn through it at a fast rate. Three months in they've mastered everything, and jump ship. PVP no matter how weel implemented is not something a large portion of the MMO playerbase plays for. The diablo esque nature of the world (ever-changing dynamics) will have to be superb it seems if there's going to be a large PVE player base over time...
(orange)-Doesn't seem to be a popular ideal in reference to TOR.
(green)- sure, however too many take breaks and the playerbase shrinks to nothing adding a hinderance to sales.
To SB fans, please stop making our demographic look bad.Stop invading threads that have nothing to do with sandboxes.
SW:TOR Graphics Evolution and Comparison
SW:TOR Compare MMO Quests, Combat and More...
All your points are much more of a negative to a subscription game than a B2P game. You must note that although it is easier to leave a B2P game, it is also easier to return to it. So, yes, there will be people who jump ship, but the next time an expansion or new dynamic events are added, or there is a holiday event, etc., they will be right back, just as they return to buy DLC for a single-player game, etc. People take breaks from subscription games all the time, and are more than happy to pay $15+boxed expansion price just to check out something new.
I'd also like to point out that it isn't only the mass MMO audience that GW2 is directed to, but also those who do NOT like MMOs and who have avoided getting into MMOs either because of the expectation of an ongoing commitment, or the subscription fee. As to how many people who play single-player games for these reasons can be swayed to give GW2 a try (and these will be among those who will gladly re-roll to experience new story and lore, etc.), that remains to be seen.
In short, I agree it will be interesting to see how the numbers will bear out. I happen to think ArenaNet hasn't much to worry about; they aren't so much trading one audience for another as they might lose portions of one audience (second-career MMO gamers - and how many of them only temporarily?) but gain a whole other one.
If you take a look at the first game, I think you might find that many of your fears have already been answered. While GW1 doesn't have as many players as it used to, it's still fairly healthy (surprisingly), considering how long it's been around.
- Players will learn early on that this game is not a gear grind. It's more about exploration, strategy, and getting engaged in the fights and the combat.
- Also, as was true with the first game, there isn't a whole lot of incentive to dungeon grind, as is true with most gear grinders.
- Again, as was true with the first, the game's designed in a way that accepts players taking a break. Because it doesn't force players to stick around if they don't want to (time sinks / carrot on the stick), it accepts a changing populos and still functions fine with that. Also, with every new expansion saw a return of most of their players (and even some new ones). Players always like to check out whats new and shiny, and if anything GW offers that fairly frequently (in comparison to most other MMOs).
This held true for the first, all the way up until the point where they stopped adding new content (a short while after Eye of the North). This was directly due to the decision to make GW2, and even still there are new players trying out the game to get a feel for what they missed, or others returning to try and unlock titles & achievements for GW2 via Eye of the North.
Remember there was also the War In Kryta, Hearts of the North, and Winds of Change as content added for free since Eye of the North. I believe Winds of Change is still in progress, in fact (I haven't completed the content released thus far).
I knew that would be the reply I was given and no it's not, if people had fun repeating the same thing over and over again, they'd have no problem paying a sub, the fact that they do not enjoy it, is because of the game-play itself, a sub has nothing to do with that. GW2 needs to have players to be a great game, if too many of them leave after 3 months it will have the same problem any other MMO has when this happens, in turn that will generate negative buzz, which will lead to poor sales going forward. Which GW2 completely depends on for it's future.
To SB fans, please stop making our demographic look bad.Stop invading threads that have nothing to do with sandboxes.
SW:TOR Graphics Evolution and Comparison
SW:TOR Compare MMO Quests, Combat and More...
I'm amused that being forced to repeat activities is content, while repeating them because you want to is not.
Oh well. That in a nutshell is one of my biggest problem with MMORPGs, I suppose. The idea that they think they can trick me into thinking that making me do something I don't want to, repeatedly, that I've already mastered is actually content, just by appending a carrot to it.
GW1 is a popular game, but I can't really use that as an example to hold GW2 above the possibilities I pointed out above. The MMO climate is far different than it was in 2004-5, not to mention GW2 is not the same game.
GW1 has large a PVP base I'm sure, but how is the PVE base?
To SB fans, please stop making our demographic look bad.Stop invading threads that have nothing to do with sandboxes.
SW:TOR Graphics Evolution and Comparison
SW:TOR Compare MMO Quests, Combat and More...