I think you may have completely missed the point to this game. 'Mob Tagging' is part of a series of design decisions all based around the idea of players helping each other. You're mostly right about hearts, they are the MOST far removed from Anet's design approach. They exist, because many people needed help 'guidance' as to where to go in the game. And were either incapable, or unwilling to go out and explore on their own. They were lost, they needed some amount of handholding. That is what hearts are. On face value, you're right, they don't encourage group play. However, what they do is direct players to areas with nearby events. Many of which do encourage group play. And indeed what happens is you have players going along in their own little world and then start bumping into other playes doing events. These are tools that are designed to push players towards each other, even if you yourself don't see it. Furthermore hearts don't exist in any of the upper level content. They are there solely to ween new players into the gameplay experience.
That said, there are a multitude of reasons to play with others, to help out others. To say otherwise is basically electing to be a dodo bird. You get better loot for grouping with others, you get rewarded for reviving others (it helps progress many events, you can get exp, and players often thank you for it as well). Furthermore, with the more elaborate events you have entire zones of players coordinating to achieve goals. Look at Vinewraith for example. You have players communicating in map chat 'hey how are you guys doing over there, do you need help, we may need backup over here!' etc. etc. etc.
I'm sorry, but you just don't see those kinds of things in other MMOs. The closest thing other mmos have to that is endgame raiding, and Cyrodil.
I think you see some version of it in most games. FFXIV for example, with their boss battles... CoX with their zone bosses at the end of the day.. a single person by themselves can beat Tequatl, simply because theres a lot of other people just jumbled in the mix. Sure it requires some coordination, but it doesn't require everyone to be coordinated. Thats the main thing.
Its like when a grocery store calls on the loudspeaker and says "Everyone, cupcakes are 50% off today" And everyone goes to the bakery to get cupcakes, they aren't helping each other, or in a cohesive group because they are doing the same thing at the same time. Even if one person hands the other person a cupcake, theres no lasting connection that you have in other games that require standard grouping procedure.
Events in GW2 are pretty much useless. Its too cyclical for it to ever really matter, if you fail Teq this time, just wait for the next group...or go to another server. The idea of grouping and community is that you actually party with people, and find players you want to play with. GW2 is much less conducive to that then... say... ESO, or FFXIV or even SWTOR. You may only have a handful of "world events" that you need to complete, but more times than not you NEED to be in a group to get credit for them, and that requires you to unflinchingly party with other people. In GW2... aside from dungeons.. you don't ever truly need to group with anyone.
I simply worry that there still wont be choices. They say that specializations are like old gw professions, but if you only have one to pick, how is that a choice?
Listen here now. This is all dandy but I don't really need any reasons to grind in games. Getting more lvls or skills, pffff, just open them up all at once, it's fine by me
What I want from an expansion is CONTENT! I had some fun with guild wars 2 when it launched just exploring maps, killing diff types and lvls of mobs, having to team up with others to complete quests, searching for achievements, doing puzzles, reading and watching the story of the game unfold, gearing up, changing my visuals, doing pvp while I was getting that other stuff done.
If you're launching an expansion then that's what I want. All of that. Gimme me a massive amount of content darn it.
Comments
I think you see some version of it in most games. FFXIV for example, with their boss battles... CoX with their zone bosses at the end of the day.. a single person by themselves can beat Tequatl, simply because theres a lot of other people just jumbled in the mix. Sure it requires some coordination, but it doesn't require everyone to be coordinated. Thats the main thing.
Its like when a grocery store calls on the loudspeaker and says "Everyone, cupcakes are 50% off today" And everyone goes to the bakery to get cupcakes, they aren't helping each other, or in a cohesive group because they are doing the same thing at the same time. Even if one person hands the other person a cupcake, theres no lasting connection that you have in other games that require standard grouping procedure.
Events in GW2 are pretty much useless. Its too cyclical for it to ever really matter, if you fail Teq this time, just wait for the next group...or go to another server. The idea of grouping and community is that you actually party with people, and find players you want to play with. GW2 is much less conducive to that then... say... ESO, or FFXIV or even SWTOR. You may only have a handful of "world events" that you need to complete, but more times than not you NEED to be in a group to get credit for them, and that requires you to unflinchingly party with other people. In GW2... aside from dungeons.. you don't ever truly need to group with anyone.
I really hope they don't screw this up.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
Listen here now. This is all dandy but I don't really need any reasons to grind in games. Getting more lvls or skills, pffff, just open them up all at once, it's fine by me
What I want from an expansion is CONTENT! I had some fun with guild wars 2 when it launched just exploring maps, killing diff types and lvls of mobs, having to team up with others to complete quests, searching for achievements, doing puzzles, reading and watching the story of the game unfold, gearing up, changing my visuals, doing pvp while I was getting that other stuff done.
If you're launching an expansion then that's what I want. All of that. Gimme me a massive amount of content darn it.
Thank you