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ArenaNet: Guild Wars 2 Year End Development Update
romanator0
Member Posts: 2,382
in Guild Wars 2
http://www.arena.net/blog/guild-wars-2-year-end-development-update
Hey, there! It’s time for another update on some of the new things we’ve been working on. Jon and I have a lot to talk about this time, so I’ll get started with our achievement system before I hand things over to Mr. Peters, who’ll talk about some more subtle combat refinements as well as recent changes to the thief.
Comments
Great info. Thanks
From the article "As some may have noticed in the G-Star demo, Backstab is no longer on the normal dagger skill bar. It now falls into a new category, which we like to call “stealth skills.” The first skill for every weapon now has a skill that replaces it while the thief is in stealth. For example, the first dagger skill becomes Backstab, which does increased damage when used from behind the target. The first pistol skill becomes Sneak Attack, which is a rapid-fire attack that causes bleeding. Because the first weapon skills are free to use, this creates a clearer moment of opportunity without limiting their use due to a lack of initiative. It also helps to differentiate the effectiveness of stealth on thief versus stealth on other professions."
^That sealed it, First toon is definitely a thief.
I still think the complete removal (read: dumbing down) of resource (energy/mana) management - while initially fun - will dumb the gameplay down to a point where the people who enjoy the deep strategic complexity of GW1 PVP and other MMOs will get bored.
I worry that GW2 will be little more than an arcade game with persistence.
Yes, because running out of mana really makes things complex.
I'm all for constructive crticism but really?
On topic: It's hard to think of any mmo were you could swing at nothing now you have animations were you can jump and smash the ground yet it's literally just as what I said in an MMORPG?
Though to be fair I wonder what other attacks look like in the air, I do like the mobility part.
I might get banned for this. - Rizel Star.
I'm not afraid to tell trolls what they [need] to hear, even if that means for me to have an forced absence afterwards.
P2P LOGIC = If it's P2P it means longevity, overall better game, and THE BEST SUPPORT EVER!!!!!(Which has been rinsed and repeated about a thousand times)
Common Sense Logic = P2P logic is no better than F2P Logic.
I agree whole heartedly. If you add in the like of truly defined roles and the soft grouping, it really seems to be headed that direction. I hope that it isn't.
Anything about beta? If not, then don't care.
No, but having resources to manage does.
Ahh ok I see what Polar was talking about due to your post, he does have a point, that's another possible downer for those who like traditional style.
I might get banned for this. - Rizel Star.
I'm not afraid to tell trolls what they [need] to hear, even if that means for me to have an forced absence afterwards.
P2P LOGIC = If it's P2P it means longevity, overall better game, and THE BEST SUPPORT EVER!!!!!(Which has been rinsed and repeated about a thousand times)
Common Sense Logic = P2P logic is no better than F2P Logic.
Account-wide achievement score! Sounds like heaven for us altaholics!
You want tab targeting back too?
Some people just fear change and so they attack the changes that threaten what they have grown used to. It's common human nature, nothing to be otherly concerned about and will die down once the game is out and players have had time to grow use to it. Similar to how all modern shooters have some form of regenarating health now.
The changes to Stealing really show me how much ArenaNet "gets it." It wasn't a bad system before, but it made you pretty much have to use the stolen item immediately. Not to mention realizing that stealing into an item with multiple options would be overwhelming mid combat.
These are simple changes but they have a big impact and I think they're going to make the experience that much better.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
I totally agree. Combat should feel fluid like in one motion instead of being cut off in noticable segments. This was a much needed update.
Complexity isn't always a good thing. I could design the most complex game ever, but more than likely nobody would want to play it. Fun is what's important here. Complexity be damned.
The only thing your complexity does is unnecessarily widen the skill gap between novice and experienced players by creating systems that are difficult to understand. In most games, mana is an obvious concept. In GW, it was confusing because it was so limiting. A player may be enticed by the idea of a death knight and makes a Warrior/Necromancer, only to learn that he is unable to manage his energy well enough to use nearly any of the necro skills. He has to resort to using a guide to even learn how to play. (If he tries PvP he very likely may literally not be able to play considering how easy his build probably is to shut down.) Getting better should come with practice and training, not following guides.
Energy in GW2 was completely redundant. Remember that skills can miss very easily. When you try to hit with a powerful attack and miss, you waste that skill and have to wait for it to recharge. If you hit your big skill every time it recharges, you're making yourself very predictable, which makes your skills very easy to avoid. It's a different game. Importing old systems without considering how they work in a new environment is one of the worst things you can do in game design.
A well-designed game is inspired, intuitive, and fun. Complexity (convolution) is usually bad. That's the reason they kept changing the thief mechanic. If it isn't obvious, it's too confusing.
Oh no, we wouldn't want things to be easy for new players to understand. They might actually become... competent?!
"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." -Dr. Seuss
I think you are somewhat missing the direction Anet is trying to take. Everything they have done so far appeared really simplistic on the surface, but when you dug into it, you realized the full complexities of the system. They want a game that someone will be able to easily pick up, get into, and most importantly have fun. So they create a system that's easy to use, but difficult to master.
Also, you still have 1 resource relating to skills. It's probably the most difficult resource for someone to learn how to manage too. These would be cooldowns. Every skill has a separate cooldown. Some will be short, some will be longer. You need to decide when in the middle of a fight "do I use this now, or should I save it?". Once you use it, the skill is unavailable for a certain amount of time. There is no global cooldown.
When you have an extremely large pool of energy (typical of most MMOs), and it's only the extremely long fights that you really have to worry about your energy, is it really dumbing down the game by just removing the resource completely?
This article was just plain awesome. IT shows me how much closer they are to showing the release date. GO GW2!!!
I figured they'd add an achievement/title system similar to Guild Wars. For the people who like grinding for achievements(whether it's on the consoles or PC), this is your calling card.
Yeah I remember not being able to Hadoken with Ryu because I ran out of mana. Really helped me plan my strat-oh wait, that didn't happen?
I'm sure the argument that "this is an RPG, it's different" is rolling around in some heads, but it's not. It's about keeping the action moving. There are plenty of more action-oriented RPGs that don't use mana systems, look at the DMC and Dynasty Warriors series, the recent Final Fantasy games which, while still turn-based, have ditched the mana mechanic all together.
It's a different type of playstyle. If you read about the combat system, you'll see that instead of mana management, you're instead managing the cool downs of your skills. Yeah, you can cast them indefinitely, but that's not going to save you if you used a skill before you needed to and now, it's on cooldown, and you don't have access to it. Combine this with the highly mobile nature of combat, the emphasis on positioning and teamwork, and you have enough to worry about without thinking "crap I'm out of mana." It was a ridiculous mechanic to begin with (warriors can swing swords 3x their size as much as they want but mages become useless because waving their hands and chanting takes too much effort, wtf?)
Screw mana, you don't need it. You just think you do because that's what most games have had until now, but Anet doesn't want to make another game that's just like all the others. That's what SWTOR/Rift/WoW/99% of everything that came out in the last 10 years, is for.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
It doesn't make things complex, it just adds boredom. Drinking that water after every fight wasn't fun. That' why I switched from mage to lock in WoW:TBC.
MMORPG genre is dead. Long live MMOCS (Massively Multiplayer Online Cash Shop).
you clearly didn't play GW1. energy management is GW1 was a big deal as it was a fast-renewing but highly contestable resource (as in, full regenation in seconds, not minutes), and there were many skills to both buff and debuff the amount of energy available to players. energy denial was a big part of the GW1 mesmer for example.
energy is good because it prevents mindless spamming of abilities, and it makes combat more interesting than just deducting hitpoints from each other and using skills on cooldown refresh. intelligent use of abilities should be a feature of combat.
Thief update is great!
As for the rest! Oh yes we all know that all of you professional game developers know the only way to make a game strategic is with the use of mana! After all that is why all games use mana and the ones that don’t are just mindless zerg-fests. You are so creative in your logic.:)
There is no way anyone ever could come up with another systems, there is no way! /sarcasm
Oh no, we wouldn't want things to be easy for new players to understand. They might actually become... competent?!
And I think complexity is overrated. The best games are not very complex, but have depth in other ways.
My favourite examples of this are Chess and Othello. Neither game is complex. Both games have limited move options, and the depth comes not from overly complex rulesets, but from the variety of options available to players within the simpler ruleset.
The most complex game is not necessarily the most difficult or deep game. I could design an incredibly complex game that has little depth (WoW before its several dumbings down is a good example. So many numbers, but only one or two ways are best.)
Complexity =/ depth.
Depth comes from having many solutions, and giving players a wide variety of options to counter one another's solutions and plans. Guild Wars 1 had many, many attacks and strategies and counters and counter-counters and counter-counter-counters. Having to manage energy is just one more thing to worry about. Shutting down players and manipulating energy was part of the game in Guild Wars 1. Just because it isn't something adding to the complexity of Guild Wars 2 does not mean it not be a deep game. It means they are focusing on other things. From the PvP videos I have seen, combat is going to be very deep, just not so complicated that beginners feel daunted by all the variables and don't want to jump in.
In my opinion, depth without unnecessary complications is a good thing. More people trying PvP, and more people trying new ideas, can only be a good thing for the inevitable metagame. It also means more people for me go toe-to-toe with.
Maybe they will implement some wall in my personal instance home on which I can mount all your heads.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
WTF? No subscription fee?
What you're not taking into account is that most of the energy management skills from GW1 were weaved in with skills that damaged/buffed, very few skills existed purely to give someone energy. For instance, one of the dervish's energy management skills being the buff that returns energy based on the amount of hits given while under the skill, once it goes away. But the only reason for that mechanic in the first place in the energy. If there is no energy, there is no need for that mechanic.
The mechanic is the only thing giving itself context, it's there to be manipulated and thus there are skills to manipulate it, which makes it "part of the game." If there is no mechanic, the skills to play with it aren't needed and the focus is instead elsewhere. As already stated, you now have cooldowns and placement of your abilities and your character at any given moment on the battlefield to worry about. If you're just standing one place spamming skills, you are going to die, and very quickly.
Standing somewhere and spamming skills, even without mana, is not an option in GW2. When you say "intelligent use of abilities should be a feature of combat" you assume that Mana is the only way to make smart choices, and completely ignoring that there are other decisions that affect what skills you use, and when, in the middle of combat. Ironically, that last sentence proves that standing in one place spamming skills is exactly what you are used to doing...standing about skill spamming until you run out of mana and need to either pop a potion or sit and regen. Goodness, what would we ever do without that?
I honestly can't believe people are being so stubborn about this. Arguments keep being brought up that have been shot down time and again, but they are still held on to for dear life as if the sky would crumble should some development team dare to do something different.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
I have to admit I don't like the GW1&2 achievement system, mostly because I like titles to reflect what the player is doing, reflect his gamestyle, rather than being the reason for a player to do something.
Most of all, I think achievements are a cheap way to provide "content" through grind.
I'm really disappointed.
I was really hoping that in adition to the achievement titles there would be many other titles in GW2, titles that could be used as a way to costumize your character and add flavor to role playing, something that works a statement of character/player, not necesarily his achievements (especially since ArenaNet has already decided to add RP elements into the game).
It wouldn't hurt the "leet" achievement titles in any way; players would still be able to recognize which title means that someone killed those 100 000 centaurs.
Exactly ... not that GW2 had any problems with fluidity of animations before but this tweak (pretty big imho) is what got me so so excited again - back on the hype train baby!
I think I actually spent way more time reading and theorycrafting about MMOs than playing them