Guild Wars 2?

[Timex]

As for the actual loot chase and gear churn, Guild Wars 2 seemed pretty typical to me. With the important exception that you'll find yourself caring about your weapon a lot more because it determines so many of your character's abilities.

Any word on where the top end gear comes from?

I don't really mind having to go PvE for gear... what I mind is the idea of "If you want Item X (which is obviously the best of its type, better than any other in the game, without question), then you must perform Objective Y (usually some raid or something)".

I'd much prefer that the uber awesome items were just random drops from anything, rather than the notion that so many games have of getting some awesome item (that every other top end character has) from a mission which serves mainly like a loot grocery store.

[skyride]

I didn't partake in them but in GW1, most of the high end raid was for frill items like different looking armour, titles, pets (cosmetic) and so on. I wonder if GW2 will be similar in that respect.

[Timex]

I don't really mind the idea of rare, awesome items.. in a lot of ways, I actually prefer such an idea. It makes finding them really awesome.

But in virtually all games nowadays, they seem to have removed all of the excitement from loot. Oh, you want the best sword? Run this raid, because "the best sword" drops from this one specific boss.

I'd much prefer a world where you can find random, awesome loot from various different monsters.

I mean, I guess I kind of understand the design decision of making it less based upon dumb luck that you'll get "the best sword", but I guess I kind of like the notion of dumb luck when it comes to loot. Because when you find some really awesome thing, it's an awesome surprise.

[stusser]

I didn't partake in them but in GW1, most of the high end raid was for frill items like different looking armour, titles, pets (cosmetic) and so on. I wonder if GW2 will be similar in that respect.

I doubt it very much. GW1 player progression was intentionally flat to keep PvP fair. GW2 is a much more PvE-focused game, so they want loot to matter.

[Mark Asher]

Yeah, I always liked finding epics as world drops in WoW. It was cool.

If that was the only way to get epics in WoW, however, it would be frustrating. They are very rare.

I remember trying to get a crafting formula. It wasn't even an epic formula, just a blue. I knew where it dropped and from what creature. I must have killed hundreds of those creatures and never did get it to drop. It was frustrating.

[DKDArtagnan]

I'm sick of the loot treadmill - and I'm sick of "soulbound" items. I want legendary items to be LEGENDARY and I want them to be unique and very, very hard to come by.

I want 99 out of 100 items craftable - and I want raids or "adventures" to be about the challenge, the exploration, the story and I want them to be incredibly challenging - functioning as player horizons that you can do if you ever get to be good enough. But I don't want the challenge to be about the amount of people you bring or how well you get people to listen to relatively simplistic commands and perform them in tandem.

I want "raid-equivalent" content to be available for solo players, or small groups of two-five. But make them so that you have to be VERY VERY talented as a player to get through them, and not about a gear-check when you've been on the treadmill for an appropriate amount of time.

I want the players to have the freedom to create as much of the content as technology will allow - and I want the players to be able to bring meaning to the game, more than the actual developers.

I want the game to function as the "gamemaster" responding to what the players do - or what the players invent.

I don't want PvP/PvE servers. I want any server to provide both - and I want "casual" players to have casual gameplay through a "neutral" faction. I want players to create their own separate factions and I want them to give players positions as leaders and subordinates - and I want them to be able to set their own rules/benefits for a faction. If you don't want to partake in the freeform PvP or the faction interplay - go with the neutral faction.

I want combat to be extremely lethal - and be about performing well with your character - rather than being a high level with good gear. I want a person who's played the game for 5 years feel the adrenaline against a player who just joined - because combat is lethal. I don't want combat to be about ability spamming - but about the proper execution of any given move or set of moves. I want the difference in gear between those two people be, say, 25% in terms of numerical advantage.

I want a beautiful world shock-full of content that's worth exploring, and I want to be able to change the world - physically. If I do something to affect the world - I want it visible. I don't want to do the exact same thing that a hundred people did before me. I want quests to be dynamic - and I want most of them designed by other players with their own interests. I don't want to teleport to a separate instance every time I want to do something exciting. I want to do the most exciting stuff right where everyone can be a witness - or where they can help or hinder my efforts.

I want.... a lot of stuff ;)

[Timex]

Yeah, I always liked finding epics as world drops in WoW. It was cool.

If that was the only way to get epics in WoW, however, it would be frustrating. They are very rare.

I remember trying to get a crafting formula. It wasn't even an epic formula, just a blue. I knew where it dropped and from what creature. I must have killed hundreds of those creatures and never did get it to drop. It was frustrating.

See, I guess that my take on this is that the drops shouldn't be bound to some particular mob type... Because if you eliminate the idea of "Object X drops from Creature Y" then it removes the perceived need to kill that particular mob a million times.

Just go about your business, and play the game for fun.. and you'll encounter cool loot just by playing. You might not be able to directly find some PARTICULAR piece of gear in this way, but to me that's fine.

[JPR]

shock-full

chock

[Hechicera]

I remember trying to get a crafting formula. It wasn't even an epic formula, just a blue. I knew where it dropped and from what creature. I must have killed hundreds of those creatures and never did get it to drop. It was frustrating.

I've had this thing happen in many games. Sure, sometimes you also get the drop in 10 minutes but ...

I mention it since EVERY time this has happened, I quit the game within two weeks. Not an instant /ragequit, and if the item eventually drops for me that doesn't matter. If I can (or do) give up and buy it from an item shop it doesn't matter (I'm looking at you LOTRO). I have no problem paying for content, but paying to avoid being treadmilled into boredom is not a model I will support.

As soon as I have time to realize a game made me do something that stupidly repetitive, timewasting and most importantly un-fun, I know I need to quit. Or in the case of the item shop cop-out, the game is forcing me to chose between entertainment and money. The two week time frame is usually how long it takes me to argue with myself and notify friends in the game I'm moving on.

[Mark Asher]

Yeah, when you do something like that over and over again you realize you've become the hamster on the hamster wheel.

WoW has lost its grip on me. I haven't subbed in over six months. I'll probably play the panda expansion, but I may not play it until then. And if Guild Wars 2 has good world PvP, I could even skip the pandas.

[Teiman]

WoW its the Geocities of the mmo world. So.. hu

[Timex]

But everyone else is just gonna need everything, so if I want any loot at all I must also need everything!

[Razgon]

I remember when I played WoW, before any of the expansions, and I was exploring a swamp area and a strange pyramid out in the middle of a swamp sea and suddenly, one of the monsters I killed dropped a legendary rifle.

I had never seen a legendary item before, I think I was in the middle 30's, and while I couldn't use it, it was still an awesome thing to experience.

I hope GW2 adds some excitement and mystery to loot again, since I never use the wiki's anyways to learn the mechanics of a game. I want the excitement and mystery a PVE game *Should* bring to the table.

[JM]

That wasn't a legendary :)

[DKDArtagnan]

Definitely wasn't :)

IIRC, only one legendary weapon existed in vanilla - and that was Thunderfury. Spent 1.5 years raiding 4 times a week for that - and I didn't get it...

[JM]

Sulfuras!

[Razgon]

That wasn't a legendary :)

haha okay - I just remember getting around 80 gold for it on the AH but yeah, never been a hardcore wow'er so I probably misremember a lot of things :-D

An Epic weapon then?

[André Costa]

Yes but epics were a lot rarer those days (from what i'm told)

[sharaleo]

Spent 1.5 years raiding 4 times a week for that - and I didn't get it...

Heck, that sounds a lot like working, not gaming.

[None]

Ha, I got my first epic drop in Swamp of Sorrows as well! It was The Green Tower, some shield. Of course, it dropped for my rogue. Luckily it was BoE and I passed it along to a friend and made her very happy.

[Fishbreath]

I want players to create their own separate factions and I want them to give players positions as leaders and subordinates - and I want them to be able to set their own rules/benefits for a faction.

That was what I loved about Shadowbane.

[Soapyfrog]

I want.... a lot of stuff ;)

You want EVE online.

[Stridergg]

I remember when I played WoW, before any of the expansions, and I was exploring a swamp area and a strange pyramid out in the middle of a swamp sea and suddenly, one of the monsters I killed dropped a legendary rifle.

I had never seen a legendary item before, I think I was in the middle 30's, and while I couldn't use it, it was still an awesome thing to experience.

I hope GW2 adds some excitement and mystery to loot again, since I never use the wiki's anyways to learn the mechanics of a game. I want the excitement and mystery a PVE game *Should* bring to the table.

Heh, I played WoW for several years, including beta. I leveled up all classes, some of them multiple times. I have never ever received an epic as a random loot. Ever.

So there you go, that's why I hate DArtagnan's notion of having random drops only and mobs droping no gear.

Excitement and surprise sound great on paper but what thar idea will simply end up in more grind and more frustration when you get 3 pretty good belts and no gloves.

Yes, if the loot droping is on the scale of Diablo, where you kill tons of mobs and get tons of loot and sell 99.9% of it, then yeah, that's exciting and by sheer numbers you get what you need. But that's a completely different kind of game. I really don't want gameplay like that in a game like GW2 though.

[Stridergg]

I want combat to be extremely lethal - and be about performing well with your character - rather than being a high level with good gear. I want a person who's played the game for 5 years feel the adrenaline against a player who just joined - because combat is lethal. I don't want combat to be about ability spamming - but about the proper execution of any given move or set of moves. I want the difference in gear between those two people be, say, 25% in terms of numerical advantage.

Dude, you contradict yourself in pretty much each of your "I want...", for example this one. You want to have a skill based combat but at the same time you want a 5 year vet to be afraid of a 1 week newb. Not happening in games like BF3 or League of Legends, not going to happen in the game you want. :)

Besides, having 25% advantage through gear is HUGE in PvP even if everything else is equal (which is obviously not, if one guy is a vet).

[Mark Asher]

That was what I loved about Shadowbane.

Yeah, Shadowbane was cool for that stuff. It did have a problem, though. If you were a grunt there wasn't a lot for you to do. The political stuff was handled by the officers.

I should probably try Darkfall one of these days.

[DKDArtagnan]

Dude, you contradict yourself in pretty much each of your "I want...", for example this one. You want to have a skill based combat but at the same time you want a 5 year vet to be afraid of a 1 week newb. Not happening in games like BF3 or League of Legends, not going to happen in the game you want. :)

Besides, having 25% advantage through gear is HUGE in PvP even if everything else is equal (which is obviously not, if one guy is a vet).

I want him to fear the newbie because the newbie might be a very good player and the veteran might be an average player - even despite having spent 5 years in the game. The fear is not based on EXPECTING to lose - but the possibility of losing - even if it's relatively small. Are you saying new players aren't killing BF3 veterans ever? We're talking about an MMO with actual consequences when you die.

There is no contradiction.

As for the 25% - I don't think it's "huge" when we're talking the two extremes (newb versus 5 years vet). In fact, it's TINY compared to the average MMO out there. Want to compare a green-geared low-level dude with top tier raid gear in WoW?

[DKDArtagnan]

Heh, I played WoW for several years, including beta. I leveled up all classes, some of them multiple times. I have never ever received an epic as a random loot. Ever.

So there you go, that's why I hate DArtagnan's notion of having random drops only and mobs droping no gear.

Excitement and surprise sound great on paper but what thar idea will simply end up in more grind and more frustration when you get 3 pretty good belts and no gloves.

Yes, if the loot droping is on the scale of Diablo, where you kill tons of mobs and get tons of loot and sell 99.9% of it, then yeah, that's exciting and by sheer numbers you get what you need. But that's a completely different kind of game. I really don't want gameplay like that in a game like GW2 though.

Point out where I said random drops and mobs dropping no gear. I'm actually talking about having the vast majority of loot available through crafting - or at least having it be one way to achieve it. Legendaries shouldn't drop randomly. They should require serious exploration/dedication/skill and whatever. That's the whole point of having dynamic quests (as in, you won't find complete guides on the internet) and very challenging gameplay (without guides, it can be). I *hate* random drop rates for top-gear because they're almost exclusively in place to ensure the grind. Replacing the random with "tokens" is slightly better - but it's really just the predictable version of the grind. Raids shouldn't be about repetition - but about execution and excitement.

I want the reward to be ensured and appropriate to the investment to get it. I want to trust the players to have fun - and not force them to stay so they can have fun in small doses for a long time.

[DKDArtagnan]

You want EVE online.

Actually, EvE online doesn't have a world worthy of exploration and I don't enjoy the gameplay.

But as a concept, it's not too far from what I'd love in an MMO of a different style. Put the EvE overall design paradigm in a fantasy/sci-fi MMO with avatars and the ability to identify with your character - and have the core mechanics be FUN (I know EvE is fun because it's very risky and challenging - but it's not fun because of the pure combat mechanics), and we'd have something akin to what I'm wanting.

But I'm not into the whole spreadsheet gameplay.

[DKDArtagnan]

Heck, that sounds a lot like working, not gaming.

I had fun socialising and trying to stay number 1 on the damage meters. But I eventually grew sick of raiding and the whole loot-whorish drama some people brought to the table.

I'm glad I didn't get Thunderfury - because I didn't know MMOs well enough to expect a gear-reset with TBC. I would have been kinda sad to have my legendary obsolete by blue gear that I could get in 2 weeks.

That was actually one of the first wake-up lessons I had about the genre.

[stusser]

My mistake there-- I clicked "edit" rather than "quote" on your post. Sorry! My reply was:

I didn't know MMOs well enough to expect a gear-reset with TBC. I would have been kinda sad to have my legendary obsolete by blue gear that I could get in 2 weeks.

Nobody expected such a huge gear reset. Everquest certainly didn't do it; some raid loot and even raid zones remained relevant for years.