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Grinding
Lord.Bachus
Member RarePosts: 9,686
Will the DE's take away the feeling of grinding..
Because when i first played EQ, i was allways exploring things and killed stuff inbetween, but later on killing got more important, and the game started feeling grindy
Because in WoW at first i was allways doing quests, which took away the grindy feeling, but at the end i ended up with grinding quests.
Because in every MMO out there, i ended up grinding and loosing interest to the game.
The only thing exciting enough not to feel like a grind was DAoC's RvR, but then DAoC's PvE was the most grindy of them all. And WoW made even the PvP battlegrounds grindy.
So will the dynamic nature, combined with explorations and WvWvW be enough to take away the grindy nature fo MMO's?
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Comments
For a while ... if you're tired of MMOs in general, I don't think GW2 will help. Look at it this way, GW2 dynamic events are a massive revamp of WARhammer's dynamic events. (When you had people around you) they were interesting, but doing them over and over again did lose some of the appeal. Can't help with that. Same thing with Rift's invasions really.
I kind of fear that if DE are the one pillar of GW2, the game will crumble the same way SW:TOR did with the one pillar storyline. Or maybe not, SW:TOR seem to be quite the success at this point, although it's not much of an mmorpg.
I've not played Guild Wars 2 yet, but I've seen quite a bit of footage from it. I would say to you that 'Grind' is really a personal mindset.
For example, I might enjoy PVE and killing monsters and doing these events, multiple times, just because I find them fun. But doing the World PVP or Structured PVP repeatedly might piss me off because I'd find it 'Grindy' whereas someone like you might not.
Its in your head, man. All MMOs have some sort of grind, its just the way they design them.(I don't support the idea of including grind in every mmo, but it is what it is, unfortunately).
For me a part of the feeling of grind was the large number of quests in my log that I had to 'grind through' in a sensible fashion. With GW2 you can only have one 'quest' active at a time - the DE where you're at. So that for me will get rid of the feeling of some grind.
With quests, you get all the 'story' (wall of text) up front and then just have to concentrate on killing 20 rats. Having played Warhammer public quests is seems to me that with Dynamic Events the story unfolds as you discover the event, enter dialog, play through the first phase, observe the results and then maybe discover and play through other phases/chains. For me this breaks up the bit where I'm focusing on just killing 20 rats and so I believe will get rid of that part of the grind feeling.
The only grind that is left would be having to repeat dynamic events because they are the only ones available (unlikely it seems) or because they give way more xp than other ones (but then that's your choice to repeatedly grind the same DE).
And yes, having WvW, and the often forgotten personal story, gives you alternative ways to level up. This breaks up the feeling of grind, because there is less repetition, and for me grind is all about repeating the same voluminous shiiite over and over.
I disagree that DE's will feel anyhting like Warhammer, as you will not be able to grind the same ones time after time.
I do agree that rifts started to feel grindy very fast, but the mobs spawning from them kept the rest of the world more dynamic and alive.
In the end i hope that things like personal story (comparable to SWtoR), DE open world content, exploration, mini games, structured PvP, WvWvW, can hide the grinding nature of MMO's for a long time. And the fact that there will be no reason to grind for gear, will also remove part of it, but i am affraid many people will start grinding for other things, like titles and such.
Its hard for gamedevelopers to hide the repetitivness of games...
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
For a couple of reasons you can't compare Dynamic Events to Public Quests or Rifts:
1) Dynamic Events scale to the number of active players.
2) Player level scales to the zone of the Dynamic Event.
3) Dynamic Events chain depending on the outcome.
4) Dynamic Events replace quests as the main PvE content (instead of being there as something you do in between quests).
5) Well... not that important for the discussion but the combat mechanics, lack of trinity, lack of loot stealing etc will also change the experience.
I think this is the most important part of the entire concept of Dynamic Events in Guild Wars 2.
On topic, I think that theres so many things to do in Guild Wars 2 that if you're in it to have fun instead of be the max level, you will be fine. Unfortunately most people are all like ZOMG I HAVE TO GET TO LEVEL 80 JUST LIKE ALL MY FRIENDS AND GUILDMATES, and then they typically burn themselves out on doing the same things over and over to maximize their leveling speed.
If you don't have this mentality, and instead try to enjoy all the features of the game, I have a good feeling you'll avoid 'Grind'.
There are some oldfashioned quests left touth, thats what they call your personal story mode...
I think my heroe will be on his personal story, and then all these things in the dynamic outside world happen to him, and he will feel part of that world, but the personal story will be his lead on what places to visit in the world.
This is how i think i will play, i love the part that a great story allows my heroe to roleplay and feel like a true heroe.
So for me Dynamic events are the things that happen while i travel through the world, pursuiing my main story
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
I think the key here is how organic these DE's are represented to us as players, from what i saw of it though it felt organic.
By stating Organic i mean: is it something thrust upon us like a guy standing with an " ! " over his/her head or is it more like an NPC running across the road your traveling on and 5 bandits chasing him, you make the choice to go and help him or you just keep on down the road.
I feel pretty confident that ANet has gone the organic route with this. The major drawback is if your down tha road again a day later and the same event happens in the same spot.
I think that ANet has a long hard uphill road here, but if done correctly (example: new DE's released often, instead of occasionallly) they will help us as gamers forget what grind means, and just let us enjoy the world around us.
Lolipops !
Not much to add to above points already made. As last poster says, grindy but for whom & when?
If you repeat something enough you'll discover it's basic pattern and if the motivation is not firing eg the combat is not enjoyable or the ppl are no fun etc, sooner than later. But I think DEs will have a little bit of grind to them unless the chains are very long and the branches are very forked and the variety is very high. They are a good feature but to really dampen grind the above needs to be exceptional.
That said, with all the other quality permeating GW2 I think grind will be at least far, far less than usual themepark exponential kill 10 rats level curves. The big thing is the range of options at any stage your char is progressing during the game. YOu might leave your PS for ages while frolicking around for the hell of it GTA style?!
That's my guess. Still think DEs will fall a bit short of the above but not a stake through the heart of the game eiher!
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
I think most events will start from a static NPC, but then that NPC will only be seen by one player and others will join the event when its allready started and never see the one " ! " from there on things will feel dynamic.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
You have this a little sideways. There are NPCs you can talk to which will provide you information on an event happening near by but they don't actually start the event. The event will happen with or without speaking to the NPC first.
From watching some Yogscast videos it actually seems more of a detriment to speak to NPCs while there is an even going on nearby because while you're busy talking to the guy you're not gaining participation points that go toward acquiring better loot for the event.
There are, of course, other NPCs that do have more traditional WoW-style quests to offer but the dynamic events will be triggered by things happening within the game-space, not by speaking to an NPC.
Special note: That's not to say that talking to NPCs might not be a part of some dynamic events, but the system itself does not require this to function.
"There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer."
I am not talking about scouts, there will be NPC's and other things starting the first step of a dynamic event chain. From there on it flows, but every event chain needs an initial trigger, most times that will be NPC's you interact with or stuff you touch. It could also be the first of a certain mob type you kill that starts a chain, or another action... but many times it will be an NPC you chat with...and those NPCS might be very recognisabe.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Your points does not in any way make my fear less valid I'm afraid.
Point 1 is irrelevant really. Whether they scale or not mean little if you're doing the same event over and over again.
Point 2 is the same.
Point 3 adds indeed variety.
Point 4 adds little. So you have no quest giver and the reward is automatically given to you. Not much of a change there.
Point 5 is also irrelevant. If anything, it makes the game more of a Diablo spinoff than an mmorpg
So basically the only thing that adds spice is the possible different outcomes. My estimate is that at first at least the outcomes will be the same. The influx of players will mean that the events will be won. Later on we may see more variety, if people don't learn to game the system by then.
Obviously you need to think out of the box to understand why those 5 points are correct and very important.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Not really, I've played classless systems before, I've played levelless systems before, I've even played systems where events scale and you can mentor lower levels.
All I see in GW2 dynamic events is an evolution of WAR's system. And WAR's dynamic events were pretty fun to play. The only thing that prevented fun there was the lack of players, something that Anet seem to try to battle in multiple ways. Still, DE do and will get boring eventually and I do hope that this is not the only feature that Anet will offer, because a similar approach didn't work for me in SW:TOR.
Then again, Anet is not asking for a subscription, so it balances out.
Point 1 and 2 together mean that Dynamic Events always stay challenging for players so they are repeatable.
You say point 4 adds a little because you think Dynamic Events is just a fancy name for quests but Dynamic Events are actually quite different.
I'm not sure if you've read/seen these but you should read/see them:
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1013691/Designing_Guild_Wars_2_Dynamic_Events
http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/dynamic-events/dynamic-events-overview/
http://www.arena.net/blog/colin-johanson-answers-your-dynamic-event-questions
http://www.arena.net/blog/eric-flannum-answers-more-of-your-dynamic-event-questions
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dynamic_event
especially when comparing DEs to rifts...
1. not irrelevant as Rift with a crap ton of ppl become VERY trivial and because there are many raids fighting over mobs... it become a nasty battle for tagging the boss first.
2. not irrelevant because again.. in rifts high lvls go and bulldoze through rifts making them WAY TOO trivial.
3. no need for me to comment.
4. of course it matters, there is no wall of text to ignore and for you not to care about... you can fail... you can win.. it may be different from the last time the event happened... as when comparing to rifts its all the better.. your quest hub that you are the only one near being taken over by a rift you cannot solo... well now.. that will never happen!
5. even he says its only a sidenote.. but it does matter because the GW2 playstyle allows you to solo if you need to... again when comparing to rifts.
back to the op... I have never thought any questing game felt grindy anyways. My real MMO life began in Lineage 2.. I love questing.. I think back on the 14 days of 14 hrs of hard grinding to get from lvl 50 to 51 and I die a little inside. I like DEs or the concept of them because I love the storys but I am a slow reader and when grping with others they dont want to wait for me to read the text and often the text is boring anyways.
I honestly hope it works out the way ANet is planning it. I do however detect the same fervor from people just prior SW:TOR launched. Post launch and after a month and the honeymoon period is over, people realised what they were actually playing. That game is of course quite successful, so nothing says that a one pillar game can't turn a profit. Still, a game that relies on one thing to keep people entertained, can't possibly do it for long.
As for the points mentioned earlier, I was viewing them in terms of repeatability, not challenge. Yes, events that don't scale can be either too challenging or not challenging at all depending on attendance, but the point of the thread is how much of a grind these DE will be, not how much of a challenge they'll be.
Or to put it differently, do you see yourselves do the same DE over and over again in three months time? Could be, I suppose. Some of us were doing the same warzones over and over agains for just that carrot on a stick.
And again, I'm not implying in any way that the game won't be successful. If SW:TOR can be such a success being just a disquised single player game, I don't see why GW2 can't be a success, being so much more an MMORPG than SW:TOR will ever be. Well, at least on paper really, until we play them all we have is a feeling of what the game might be.
that is true but then again those of us who were trying to tell everyone just how bad it was and getting cursed and called names worse than a troll... we tried to warn them. It was known how bad SWTOR was, so far GW2 that hasn't happened. I just hope I get to be in beta for GW2 so I can really tell!
even if I cant tell... lol
you edited, I do see myself doing the same evnt over.. there are so many that it wont happen often, but I like to explore and I like to complete things so I will most likely be in zones for a while and repeat events just because I am there. I cannot see myself running away from an event.
i used yur quote to summarize the thread. so, please dont take offense if what i have to say is misrepresentative, in any way.
i hope anet get's it right too. the DE's are really just "kill ten rats quests", only they are offered up in a different way. i won't have to run back and forth between different npc's to continue on the quests. the quests update, and i continue on my merry way in an easier fashion. the world progresses with me as i progress the story of that particular event.
the de's may be fun to do a few times, but after maybe 3 or 4 times they will get boring. just like any other game, i can only do the same thing so many times. i dont care if my level is reduced to be equivalent, after i have done the same event a certain number of times i will be bored with it.
I've got the straight edge.
See thats a little misleading.. there certainly are some kill so many events but many are way more than that. I have also not seen an event that was the same as another event, in sequence or style. Even ones that are doing the same thing like retaking a village, you do different things to get that village back. Also this is not refering to the hearts, those static events that are pretty simialr to normal quests in other MMOs.
The "relies on one thing" part: there's WvW PvP, competative e-sport PvP, and personal story. So relying on one thing isnt really accurate. You could spend all your time in WvW or arena-type PvP and entirely ignore DEs.
The red part: you cant do the same event over and over again. They move along a chain and when they are pushed to one end it will take some time for it to come back to step one again. And there's 1500 DEs at launch (maybe more: its an old number).
Sure, you could stand in a field waiting for the centaur attackers to come back, but how long that would take is anyones guess. 30 minutes..? 3 hours..? And someone might hop into the chain as its on its way back and push it to the end again.
You'd pretty much end up being the Weirdo of the Server standing in an empty field.
You forgot dungeons. And that's besides the smaller things such as crafting, minigames, exploration, filling hearts etc.
However, the bulk of the PvE content consists of DE's.
What you're saying is that somebody can rely on one thing to keep them entertained (WvWvW in this case) and it's fine really.
As for the number, it holds since the DE switch states, it holds as much relevance as the 300 hours gameplay of SW:TOR per class, ie little. You interpret it that it means that they have 1500 separate dynamic events, while I find it closer to the truth to believe that the dynamic events have 1500 states that the players can find themselves playing. (Edit: Come to think of it, 1500 is not such a big number if it was meant for states, so I hope it means actual events).
It's great money for value, no question about that. It's just not the mmorpg that'll rule them all that some people are utterly convinced to the point of being fanatical about it. Such a thing simply does not exist.
Edit: My only hope that there will be a smither of competence in GW2 are those dungeons. Basically in any other part of the game you can be utterly bad and noone will notice or care or even have a way of telling.