Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Guild Wars 2: Peek at Maguuma & the Mastery System
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
A new video and article have appeared over at IGN that give Guild Wars 2 players and fans a look at the Maguuma Jungle, the setting for the upcoming Heart of Thorns expansion. In addition to seeing the setting, the article goes into some detail about the newly-announced Mastery System that will give players new ways to advance through the game.
One of the most salient quotes is as follows:
“With combat, it’ll be more like a reveal like you might see in a game like Zelda where there’s a feeling like wow, I got this tool and now I remember when I was trying to fight this creature before I couldn't get past this one ability; this tool clearly tells me this is the key to that lock and now I'm going to open it,” adds Mastery design lead Crystin Cox. “That feeling is one of the things we're really going: now I have more power, not because a number went up but because I can actually do this thing.”
According to ArenaNet, the goal is for players to unlock Mastery in a variety of areas that can be utilized throughout the game world, not only in the highest levels of the game. In addition, with account-wide unlocks, players benefit by not being forced to continually 'grind' out skills they've acquired over and over on alts.
ArenaNet feels the Mastery System is something revolutionary and that it solves many of the issues players complain about in MMOs today:
“I think we sought out with Guild Wars 2 to solve a lot of big problems that we've seen with the MMO genre and I think some of those we successfully tackled,” says Cartwright. “But we want to seek out and solve some other problems and I think the way progression is handled is one that we've seen that creates both problems for the developer and for the player." (Isaiah Cartwright)
Read the full article at the link above and be sure to check out the video below to see Maguuma Jungle.
Comments
im back in the game since some days and .... i have no idea why i ever did leave! Its all there.
Same but I remembered why I left xD
Yep it's all still there alright. The imbalanced PVE experience, the Zerker zerg fest dungeons/events, the lack of rewards, the TPcentric nature of the out of balance economy....all sitll there. One wonders if these things are going to change with a new expansion in fact, people have asked them that very thing in the forums.
I still want more details, but I am very glad to see this.
Having a progression system similar to that of Zelda or Metroid is something that has been completely absent from MMOs. It does solve a lot of problems, and is one of the best progression-oriented design choices I've seen in gaming history. Very excited to see just how far they take this concept.
They've already started to address some of those things w/ the newer content currently in game.
Both Silverwastes and the new bossess require a mixture of different specs, and indeed zerker is one of the least desires specs for that content atm (partially because it's so popular, but also because it has a more limited role now). With this content they've started introducing enemies (both mobs and bosses) that have heavy resistance to pure damage, but are more vulnerable to conditions. They've also implemented actually functioning boss mechanics to these encounters, so you can't simply glitch these bosses into a corner and zerker them down. Things like reflects are also very important to many of these fights.
If you're curious, look into the current Triple Trouple boss fight (technically it's 3 separate bosses), the current Tequatl fight, and silverwastes.
The older content still has the older problems, but you can definitely see the direction changing with the stuff they've added with season 2. Many of the features seem like test runs for what's to come w/ HoT.
Of course, the ironic part is that Zelda for the Wii-U is moving away from it's own progression system in lieu of more freedom of choice vs. having to obtain specific items in a specific order in order to progress.
Depending on how ANet implements this style of system it's either going to be a complete breath of fresh air or it's going to feel linear and contrived.
Finally, the proper fauna is coming to the Meguuma jungle: the dinosaurs. We only had the raptors so far.
Eh, sort of. I wouldn't say they are moving away from it, but rather making it more open. I.E. they're trying to make it so there are multiple keys to each door, instead of just one.
We'll see how this plays, for general stuff this is probably a good thing. But there's something to be said about finding secrets that are actually difficult / obscure to obtain. I know the internet mitigates this severely, but it's still good to have some of these things in games imo.
- Btw there are more games than just Zelda and Metroid, and the more I've thought about this, nearly every last one of them are great games. (Some examples, Arkham City / Deus Ex) Just something to think about.
Comparing to Zelda means putting the expectations quite high.
I hope they won't create a hype that can't be matched.
There is a lot of truth to your last statement. Thinking back on all of the games I've most enjoyed over the years, they've all been games like Zelda, Metroid, Deus Ex, etc. All of them had multiple ways of attacking challenges head on...or even circumventing them in other ways.