I wonder what other things will be left out that ANet said would be available at launch???
Bad sign me thinks. Hold off on your preorder folks, what you are most looking forward too might not actually be in the game
/facepalm to the unf degree.
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 wonder what other things will be left out that ANet said would be available at launch???
Bad sign me thinks. Hold off on your preorder folks, what you are most looking forward too might not actually be in the game
There would be level 80s to upscale to at launch?
Sorry, just poking fun. What i have seen so far from beta and press releases is more then enough to make me preorder since they are just what anet has been promising.
(edit: I suppose you could then go on to say that at the very least they are being honest about what will and won't be in the game... and not making you wait for patch 1.2 before you see it)
I'm sorry but the only one saying anything about the second coming is you. Fans of a game accept its flaws and strengths.
"When a player is defeated, and not just downed, a random piece of their armor will be damaged. When a piece of armor is damaged, it imparts no penalty but serves as a warning. If a player is defeated while all of their armor is damaged, then a random piece of armor will break. When armor breaks, it ceases to provide any benefit to the player and must be repaired by visiting an armor-repair NPC in town. This NPC will charge a small sum of coins to repair any broken pieces of armor, and will repair any damaged armor as well. Having thus transferred the coin cost to the armor-repair NPC, we removed the multiplier on the cost of traveling to a waypoint when defeated."
Once you take armor out of the equation, it totally negates this penalty since their stats are boosted to make up for the lack of level. The upscaling has then eliminated Anet's philosophy that
“When a player is defeated, it’s important for there to be some sort of penalty associated with the defeat.…”
My take is that i wasn't planning on using upscaling anyway, however once i thought about your post and about the things i have read, i felt Anet, after looking at how this feature worked in actual gameplay, decided that as opposed to negating the effect of death on armor, they decided to remove upscaling.
(all items i quoted were from the Beta Development Update By Eric Flannum February 21st, 2012)
Thanks for pointing out a possible technical inability for this system to work in practice, I hadn't thought about the death penalty and such. But I was pretty positive it was the stats on their gear and health that would be boosted to the appropriate level they were sidekicked to, so without there gear, they would be just like any other true player of that level who lost their gear.
Also, I don't believe that would be the huge reason for them not having upscaling in the game. I'd like to think that the abilities for friends to play together whenever they want is a far more important development philosophy though. It is an integral part of the way the game was desaigned, from instant teleportation to free server transfers.
"When a player is defeated, and not just downed, a random piece of their armor will be damaged. When a piece of armor is damaged, it imparts no penalty but serves as a warning. If a player is defeated while all of their armor is damaged, then a random piece of armor will break. When armor breaks, it ceases to provide any benefit to the player and must be repaired by visiting an armor-repair NPC in town. This NPC will charge a small sum of coins to repair any broken pieces of armor, and will repair any damaged armor as well. Having thus transferred the coin cost to the armor-repair NPC, we removed the multiplier on the cost of traveling to a waypoint when defeated."
Once you take armor out of the equation, it totally negates this penalty since their stats are boosted to make up for the lack of level. The upscaling has then eliminated Anet's philosophy that
“When a player is defeated, it’s important for there to be some sort of penalty associated with the defeat.…”
My take is that i wasn't planning on using upscaling anyway, however once i thought about your post and about the things i have read, i felt Anet, after looking at how this feature worked in actual gameplay, decided that as opposed to negating the effect of death on armor, they decided to remove upscaling.
(all items i quoted were from the Beta Development Update By Eric Flannum February 21st, 2012)
Thanks for pointing out a possible technical inability for this system to work in practice, I hadn't thought about the death penalty and such. But I was pretty positive it was the stats on their gear and health that would be boosted to the appropriate level they were sidekicked to, so without there gear, they would be just like any other true player of that level who lost their gear.
Also, I don't believe that would be the huge reason for them not having upscaling in the game. I'd like to think that the abilities for friends to play together whenever they want is a far more important development philosophy though. It is an integral part of the way the game was desaigned, from instant teleportation to free server transfers.
Well, the only sure response i can make to that since i don't work for anet would be this, If i spent a long time making 79 levels worth of content, i would sure as heck want you to play through it instead of using a feature to skip it. However, thats just me and i like a good story. I suppose if when you upscaled you didn't get any xp that would eliminate the "skip," but without any answers from anet, we are forced to only wonder.
I'm sorry but the only one saying anything about the second coming is you. Fans of a game accept its flaws and strengths.
I wonder what other things will be left out that ANet said would be available at launch???
Bad sign me thinks. Hold off on your preorder folks, what you are most looking forward too might not actually be in the game
Side kicking is still there. Just not up scaling. It wasnt so much as it was left out at launch, but more that its been removed. Permanently. Why? Because it didnt work and would have probably ruined the game in a few different ways.
Im more than happy with them removing mechanics that skrew things up before launch, than waiting until after launch, seeing how bad its working, and then remove it.
As far as it being a bad sign, I take it as the opposite. Anet is on top of it. I have to wonder if this was something in Beta that obviously wasnt working out. So they took it out. But down scaling works fine as it is. And no this is hardly game breaking or even a bad thing. Most people in the thread appreciate the decision, as do I.
"When a player is defeated, and not just downed, a random piece of their armor will be damaged. When a piece of armor is damaged, it imparts no penalty but serves as a warning. If a player is defeated while all of their armor is damaged, then a random piece of armor will break. When armor breaks, it ceases to provide any benefit to the player and must be repaired by visiting an armor-repair NPC in town. This NPC will charge a small sum of coins to repair any broken pieces of armor, and will repair any damaged armor as well. Having thus transferred the coin cost to the armor-repair NPC, we removed the multiplier on the cost of traveling to a waypoint when defeated."
Once you take armor out of the equation, it totally negates this penalty since their stats are boosted to make up for the lack of level. The upscaling has then eliminated Anet's philosophy that
“When a player is defeated, it’s important for there to be some sort of penalty associated with the defeat.…”
My take is that i wasn't planning on using upscaling anyway, however once i thought about your post and about the things i have read, i felt Anet, after looking at how this feature worked in actual gameplay, decided that as opposed to negating the effect of death on armor, they decided to remove upscaling.
(all items i quoted were from the Beta Development Update By Eric Flannum February 21st, 2012)
Thanks for pointing out a possible technical inability for this system to work in practice, I hadn't thought about the death penalty and such. But I was pretty positive it was the stats on their gear and health that would be boosted to the appropriate level they were sidekicked to, so without there gear, they would be just like any other true player of that level who lost their gear.
Also, I don't believe that would be the huge reason for them not having upscaling in the game. I'd like to think that the abilities for friends to play together whenever they want is a far more important development philosophy though. It is an integral part of the way the game was desaigned, from instant teleportation to free server transfers.
Well, the only sure response i can make to that since i don't work for anet would be this, If i spent a long time making 79 levels worth of content, i would sure as heck want you to play through it instead of using a feature to skip it. However, thats just me and i like a good story. I suppose if when you upscaled you didn't get any xp that would eliminate the "skip," but without any answers from anet, we are forced to only wonder.
Yeah. You may be disappointed that players can level entirely in WvW without touching dynamic events or personal story though.
My guess is they decided to appeal to the majority of the market and have some sort of character progression in an RPG. People like character progression. They like character progression so much that they have added it to other genres, such as FPS.
Big budget games will always be created for the widest possible audience. If you don't happen to fit into that widest possible audience. It's unfortunate, but your dollar isn't worth more than 5 dollars from 5 other people that are part of the widest possible audience that would be alienated if things were they way you want them. That would be my guess at least and I would agree with that thought process from a business standpoint.
My guess is they decided to appeal to the majority of the market and have some sort of character progression in an RPG. People like character progression. They like character progression so much that they have added it to other genres, such as FPS.
Big budget games will always be created for the widest possible audience. If you don't happen to fit into that widest possible audience. It's unfortunate, but your dollar isn't worth more than 5 dollars from 5 other people that are part of the widest possible audience that would be alienated if things were they way you want them. That would be my guess at least and I would agree with that thought process from a business standpoint.
To sum it all up, more people like it this way.
I would understand this if upscaling hampered the present progression in Guild Wars 2.
It simply would've allowed players who wanted to the opportunity to play with a higher level friend at their level temporarily. You get no extra skills, traits, attributes, or gear so you have a lot of incentive to actually level up. There is no "skipping content" because the PvE is not designed in a linear fashion, that is, with so much downscaling and ways to level up outside of PvE, your incentive to go do dynamic events is not because they give you experience, but because they're enjoyable.
I don't think giving players the ability to scale to the level of a higher leveled friend would hamper the progression experience for other players, or at least, it wouldn't for me.
I personally prefer it without sidekicking up. And I like that you can sidekick down.
That level 60 can still play with the level 30. He just has to do level 30 content. But he will be scaled down and they can still play together.
Exactly.
My particular problem is that they're limiting the ways players can play together. I don't think it's enough for these players to be able to play together just for the sake of playing together because there stills needs to be mutual gain for both players to enjoy it. And a large part of that, I thought, would be experiencing new content together. With the level 60 player only able to go down in level to play with his friend, it's entirely possible he'll have already experienced that bit of content. Not to say it'll always be that way, there's so many dynamic events happening at different times that it's also likely he missed that content or didn't level in that zone at all, as well as devs adding later DE's into old areas, but you're still limiting the amount of content for players to play together and mutually benefit from significantly.
My understanding is that the player who levels down will still get rewards according to his/her real level, i.e. a level 60 sidekicked down to 30 would still get level 60 rewards.
I mean, I still think there's a thrill in leveling up because you gain access to skills and traits to customize your character with actual leveling, but as I see it with DE's, there are now large restrictions on the amount of content available for you and your friends to play together and still mutually benefit from
Maybe it's not a question of level progression, but more a question of story progression...
My guess is they decided to appeal to the majority of the market and have some sort of character progression in an RPG. People like character progression. They like character progression so much that they have added it to other genres, such as FPS.
Big budget games will always be created for the widest possible audience. If you don't happen to fit into that widest possible audience. It's unfortunate, but your dollar isn't worth more than 5 dollars from 5 other people that are part of the widest possible audience that would be alienated if things were they way you want them. That would be my guess at least and I would agree with that thought process from a business standpoint.
To sum it all up, more people like it this way.
I would understand this if upscaling hampered the present progression in Guild Wars 2.
It simply would've allowed players who wanted to the opportunity to play with a higher level friend at their level temporarily. You get no extra skills, traits, attributes, or gear so you have a lot of incentive to actually level up. There is no "skipping content" because the PvE is not designed in a linear fashion, that is, with so much downscaling and ways to level up outside of PvE, your incentive to go do dynamic events is not because they give you experience, but because they're enjoyable.
I don't think giving players the ability to scale to the level of a higher leveled friend would hamper the progression experience for other players, or at least, it wouldn't for me.
It doesn't matter if it wouldn't matter to you. It does matter that there are likely multiple people that it would matter to for every one of you. People like progression not just for progression's sake, but to be able to "compete" with other players in PvE. Levels are a form of progression that people know and are comfortable with. I am certain there are people out there that would not buy the game if levels were completely "meaningless". I get it that levels would still matter, but I don't think most people that are comfortable with the status quo in the MMORPG genre would. The people that discuss MMORPGs here are a very small percentage of participants in the genre as a whole.
On a personal note, I prefer having to "earn" or "unlock" content by leveling. I agree with the removal of sidekick up and do think that it would trivialize levels to some degree. If they are going to allow sidekicking up and down, they may as well just remove levels completely and have you unlock skills to progress your character.
I mean, I still think there's a thrill in leveling up because you gain access to skills and traits to customize your character with actual leveling, but as I see it with DE's, there are now large restrictions on the amount of content available for you and your friends to play together and still mutually benefit from
Maybe it's not a question of level progression, but more a question of story progression...
Possible, but DE's, I feel, were designed more to be fun more than context. They obviously have ties to what's going on in the world, but if this was a huge concern, they wouldn't have stressed the ability for players to level the way they wanted, which includes doing so exclusively in WvW. So you'd be in the same boat as a level 1 who could upscale, story wise, coming to PvE as a level 80 from WvW.
My guess is they decided to appeal to the majority of the market and have some sort of character progression in an RPG. People like character progression. They like character progression so much that they have added it to other genres, such as FPS.
Big budget games will always be created for the widest possible audience. If you don't happen to fit into that widest possible audience. It's unfortunate, but your dollar isn't worth more than 5 dollars from 5 other people that are part of the widest possible audience that would be alienated if things were they way you want them. That would be my guess at least and I would agree with that thought process from a business standpoint.
To sum it all up, more people like it this way.
I would understand this if upscaling hampered the present progression in Guild Wars 2.
It simply would've allowed players who wanted to the opportunity to play with a higher level friend at their level temporarily. You get no extra skills, traits, attributes, or gear so you have a lot of incentive to actually level up. There is no "skipping content" because the PvE is not designed in a linear fashion, that is, with so much downscaling and ways to level up outside of PvE, your incentive to go do dynamic events is not because they give you experience, but because they're enjoyable.
I don't think giving players the ability to scale to the level of a higher leveled friend would hamper the progression experience for other players, or at least, it wouldn't for me.
It doesn't matter if it wouldn't matter to you. It does matter that there are likely multiple people that it would matter to for every one of you. People like progression not just for progression's sake, but to be able to "compete" with other players in PvE. Levels are a form of progression that people know and are comfortable with. I am certain there are people out there that would not buy the game if levels were completely "meaningless". I get it that levels would still matter, but I don't think most people that are comfortable with the status quo in the MMORPG genre would. The people that discuss MMORPGs here are a very small percentage of participants in the genre as a whole.
On a personal note, I prefer having to "earn" or "unlock" content by leveling. I agree with the removal of sidekick up and do think that it would trivialize levels to some degree. If they are going to allow sidekicking up and down, they may as well just remove levels completely and have you unlock skills to progress your character.
And here I thought Guild Wars 2 was supposed to be challenging that status quo.
Edit: I don't believe Anet would want to harbor the competetive aspect of leveling. That's condusive to elitism and an inherent barrier to community building within the server. And that's another one of the large overarching game philosophies that the game is supposed to be molded by.
Aside from the loss of a cool feature for bringing friends and guild mates together, I'm now worried about power leveling in GW2. The side kicking system always ensured you got proper loot/xp for your true level. Now, if a high level player helps a lower level player complete content above the lower level character's level, will that character be able to get better XP and loot than they could achieve playing content at or below their true level?
It's not a big deal in the greater context of the game, but it is an issue, more so if it ends up incidentally enabling power leveling that the side kicking system would have otherwise prevented.
Apparently, there were ways to exploit the level raising, possibly because dungeons have fixed level loot. If you survived through a dungeon, your loot could not be leveled to you since your reward was a fixed level (either current level or +5 levels above, if I remember correctly). This could have caused incongruities in min-max behaior. Sidekicking down, both players are supposed to get level appropriate rewards, XP and loot included. A lower level character should not see loot benefits, other than the downkicked player giving him their loot.
Although their manifesto (like many political manifestos) sound great in theory, when the reality of the outcome is staring you in the face, changes occur. I didn't have a problem with upkicking or downkicking, but understand the concern of many to the changes and limitations these changes are bringing. I have to believe in the Beta Process, and that the upkicking became broken during one or both of the tests. Anti-griefing and anti-abuse are more important to this game than the benefits of looser playstyles and player freedoms. Hopefully, this fixed a problem that occurred and makes the game better.
Aside from the loss of a cool feature for bringing friends and guild mates together, I'm now worried about power leveling in GW2. The side kicking system always ensured you got proper loot/xp for your true level. Now, if a high level player helps a lower level player complete content above the lower level character's level, will that character be able to get better XP and loot than they could achieve playing content at or below their true level?
It's not a big deal in the greater context of the game, but it is an issue, more so if it ends up incidentally enabling power leveling that the side kicking system would have otherwise prevented.
Apparently, there were ways to exploit the level raising, possibly because dungeons have fixed level loot. If you survived through a dungeon, your loot could not be leveled to you since your reward was a fixed level (either current level or +5 levels above, if I remember correctly). This could have caused incongruities in min-max behaior. Sidekicking down, both players are supposed to get level appropriate rewards, XP and loot included. A lower level character should not see loot benefits, other than the downkicked player giving him their loot.
Although their manifesto (like many political manifestos) sound great in theory, when the reality of the outcome is staring you in the face, changes occur. I didn't have a problem with upkicking or downkicking, but understand the concern of many to the changes and limitations these changes are bringing. I have to believe in the Beta Process, and that the upkicking became broken during one or both of the tests. Anti-griefing and anti-abuse are more important to this game than the benefits of looser playstyles and player freedoms. Hopefully, this fixed a problem that occurred and makes the game better.
I think it makes sense to get rid of if it actually causes same gamebreaking problems, but I can't find any concrete information on what those were and wish I could've played in the beta experience to see this for myself before they removed it.
If upscaling causes gamebreaking issues, then that indeed is a problem and needed to be addressed.
My guess is they decided to appeal to the majority of the market and have some sort of character progression in an RPG. People like character progression. They like character progression so much that they have added it to other genres, such as FPS.
Big budget games will always be created for the widest possible audience. If you don't happen to fit into that widest possible audience. It's unfortunate, but your dollar isn't worth more than 5 dollars from 5 other people that are part of the widest possible audience that would be alienated if things were they way you want them. That would be my guess at least and I would agree with that thought process from a business standpoint.
To sum it all up, more people like it this way.
I would understand this if upscaling hampered the present progression in Guild Wars 2.
It simply would've allowed players who wanted to the opportunity to play with a higher level friend at their level temporarily. You get no extra skills, traits, attributes, or gear so you have a lot of incentive to actually level up. There is no "skipping content" because the PvE is not designed in a linear fashion, that is, with so much downscaling and ways to level up outside of PvE, your incentive to go do dynamic events is not because they give you experience, but because they're enjoyable.
I don't think giving players the ability to scale to the level of a higher leveled friend would hamper the progression experience for other players, or at least, it wouldn't for me.
It doesn't matter if it wouldn't matter to you. It does matter that there are likely multiple people that it would matter to for every one of you. People like progression not just for progression's sake, but to be able to "compete" with other players in PvE. Levels are a form of progression that people know and are comfortable with. I am certain there are people out there that would not buy the game if levels were completely "meaningless". I get it that levels would still matter, but I don't think most people that are comfortable with the status quo in the MMORPG genre would. The people that discuss MMORPGs here are a very small percentage of participants in the genre as a whole.
On a personal note, I prefer having to "earn" or "unlock" content by leveling. I agree with the removal of sidekick up and do think that it would trivialize levels to some degree. If they are going to allow sidekicking up and down, they may as well just remove levels completely and have you unlock skills to progress your character.
And here I thought Guild Wars 2 was supposed to be challenging that status quo.
Edit: I don't believe Anet would want to harbor the competetive aspect of leveling. That's condusive to elitism and an inherent barrier to community building within the server. And that's another one of the large overarching game philosophies that the game is supposed to be molded by.
Fact of life: Money always wins in a corporate endeavor. If there is more money in stretching away from the status quo rather than outright breaking away from it, that's what will happen in a product delivered by a corporate entity. I like Anet as a game developer, but they are still out to make a buck.
I personally prefer it without sidekicking up. And I like that you can sidekick down.
That level 60 can still play with the level 30. He just has to do level 30 content. But he will be scaled down and they can still play together.
Iwas thinking the same im happy that low lvl can sidekik high lvl so we can play toguether but sidkik up is k that they remove it i dont really mind but sometime people have more time that you so they will be high but whit side kik later thye can help you so you can keep it up.
My guess is they decided to appeal to the majority of the market and have some sort of character progression in an RPG. People like character progression. They like character progression so much that they have added it to other genres, such as FPS.
Big budget games will always be created for the widest possible audience. If you don't happen to fit into that widest possible audience. It's unfortunate, but your dollar isn't worth more than 5 dollars from 5 other people that are part of the widest possible audience that would be alienated if things were they way you want them. That would be my guess at least and I would agree with that thought process from a business standpoint.
To sum it all up, more people like it this way.
I would understand this if upscaling hampered the present progression in Guild Wars 2.
It simply would've allowed players who wanted to the opportunity to play with a higher level friend at their level temporarily. You get no extra skills, traits, attributes, or gear so you have a lot of incentive to actually level up. There is no "skipping content" because the PvE is not designed in a linear fashion, that is, with so much downscaling and ways to level up outside of PvE, your incentive to go do dynamic events is not because they give you experience, but because they're enjoyable.
I don't think giving players the ability to scale to the level of a higher leveled friend would hamper the progression experience for other players, or at least, it wouldn't for me.
It doesn't matter if it wouldn't matter to you. It does matter that there are likely multiple people that it would matter to for every one of you. People like progression not just for progression's sake, but to be able to "compete" with other players in PvE. Levels are a form of progression that people know and are comfortable with. I am certain there are people out there that would not buy the game if levels were completely "meaningless". I get it that levels would still matter, but I don't think most people that are comfortable with the status quo in the MMORPG genre would. The people that discuss MMORPGs here are a very small percentage of participants in the genre as a whole.
On a personal note, I prefer having to "earn" or "unlock" content by leveling. I agree with the removal of sidekick up and do think that it would trivialize levels to some degree. If they are going to allow sidekicking up and down, they may as well just remove levels completely and have you unlock skills to progress your character.
And here I thought Guild Wars 2 was supposed to be challenging that status quo.
Edit: I don't believe Anet would want to harbor the competetive aspect of leveling. That's condusive to elitism and an inherent barrier to community building within the server. And that's another one of the large overarching game philosophies that the game is supposed to be molded by.
Fact of life: Money always wins in a corporate endeavor. If there is more money in stretching away from the status quo rather than outright breaking away from it, that's what will happen in a product delivered by a corporate entity. I like Anet as a game developer, but they are still out to make a buck.
Well, then this undermines the sanctitity of ArenaNet as a developer for going back on their own design philosophy in exchange for more money. In other words, selling out.
However, I'd much rather believe that there was some gamebreaking issue with the technical limitations of upscaling that caused it to be removed from the game. I don't like to think that ArenaNet would be so hasty to ruin the reputation they've built, even with game design pressure from NCSoft to maximize profit.
As far as I can tell, you're the only person to introduce this concern, and I'm not resisting it. I actually wanted to elaborated. You're telling me what DID happen, not how it happened. You explained that this was a mathematical fact of the way these systems worked in CoH, but offered little insight as to how that may apply to GW2. How is this abuse if levels aren't a goal of the game and dynamic events aren't supposed to be done just because they give you experience but because they're actually fun.
I admit complete ignorance on how this system progressed and apparently failed in traditional MMO's in the past, but your explanations give me little reason to believe that this couldn't properly be executed in a game like GW2 where there isn't nearly as much emphasis placed on levels.
Yeah I'm prone to excessive brevity and I know it.
As for why it couldn't... that goes with something else I've gruffly mentioned often including in this thread but never elaborated on. Anet is great at not just offering promising new features, but even coding them and playing with them. The problem comes when it's time to actually deliver them to us, the players. Half the time those optimisms die AFTER it goes through testing. So yes they put it IN the game. But No, we can't have it b/c someone fucked it up for everyone. ...then they don't try to adapt a work-around.
They got lot of exceedingly Talented designers there at Anet, but the one thing they don't have, is the "MacGuyver" who can instantly take those failed creationsand get them working again. And the exploits for powerleveling lowbies in End-Game is definintely one of those areas that they can't de-couple from the game's economy & DE system. (it doesn't mean they won't find a way later, it just means they can't right now)
This is a great change and I expected it to happen. A lot of my friends kept asking me "Why should I bother leveling if I can just get sidekicked up and see everything without leveling?" I could not give a decent response to this cause it was a stupid system. You should have to play the game to see content. Its a shocking thing, I know.
Anyone who honestly doesn't think this change is in the right direction just wants to be instant max level. They don't want to play the game, and I have to ask you this: Why not? You play games to enjoy them. Do you really get enjoyment from being at level cap as soon as possible and miss out on 95% of the game? These are the same people who play new MMOs and then complain there is nothing to do at level cap. Play the game, take your time, enjoy it. You shouldn't be in a rush to see everything as soon as possible. And you are not entitled to see higher level content while being lower level.
Technical limitations aside, I'm dissapointed in this. One of the absolute BEST features of CoH was sidekicking. It really helped bridged that level gap between friends.
I really wish they would reconsider this as a major game feature.
My guess is they decided to appeal to the majority of the market and have some sort of character progression in an RPG. People like character progression. They like character progression so much that they have added it to other genres, such as FPS.
Big budget games will always be created for the widest possible audience. If you don't happen to fit into that widest possible audience. It's unfortunate, but your dollar isn't worth more than 5 dollars from 5 other people that are part of the widest possible audience that would be alienated if things were they way you want them. That would be my guess at least and I would agree with that thought process from a business standpoint.
To sum it all up, more people like it this way.
I would understand this if upscaling hampered the present progression in Guild Wars 2.
It simply would've allowed players who wanted to the opportunity to play with a higher level friend at their level temporarily. You get no extra skills, traits, attributes, or gear so you have a lot of incentive to actually level up. There is no "skipping content" because the PvE is not designed in a linear fashion, that is, with so much downscaling and ways to level up outside of PvE, your incentive to go do dynamic events is not because they give you experience, but because they're enjoyable.
I don't think giving players the ability to scale to the level of a higher leveled friend would hamper the progression experience for other players, or at least, it wouldn't for me.
It doesn't matter if it wouldn't matter to you. It does matter that there are likely multiple people that it would matter to for every one of you. People like progression not just for progression's sake, but to be able to "compete" with other players in PvE. Levels are a form of progression that people know and are comfortable with. I am certain there are people out there that would not buy the game if levels were completely "meaningless". I get it that levels would still matter, but I don't think most people that are comfortable with the status quo in the MMORPG genre would. The people that discuss MMORPGs here are a very small percentage of participants in the genre as a whole.
On a personal note, I prefer having to "earn" or "unlock" content by leveling. I agree with the removal of sidekick up and do think that it would trivialize levels to some degree. If they are going to allow sidekicking up and down, they may as well just remove levels completely and have you unlock skills to progress your character.
And here I thought Guild Wars 2 was supposed to be challenging that status quo.
Edit: I don't believe Anet would want to harbor the competetive aspect of leveling. That's condusive to elitism and an inherent barrier to community building within the server. And that's another one of the large overarching game philosophies that the game is supposed to be molded by.
Fact of life: Money always wins in a corporate endeavor. If there is more money in stretching away from the status quo rather than outright breaking away from it, that's what will happen in a product delivered by a corporate entity. I like Anet as a game developer, but they are still out to make a buck.
Well, then this undermines the sanctitity of ArenaNet as a developer for going back on their own design philosophy in exchange for more money. In other words, selling out.
However, I'd much rather believe that there was some gamebreaking issue with the technical limitations of upscaling that caused it to be removed from the game. I don't like to think that ArenaNet would be so hasty to ruin the reputation they've built, even with game design pressure from NCSoft to maximize profit.
Appealing to a wider audience is not exactly maximizing profit. They could be charging a sub fee and would probably get it. You have to remember that Anet basically went all in on GW2. Anet as a company lives or dies on the success or failure of GW2. I have a feeling they would like to get to a point where they can develop and release a new game without the entire company's future being determined by the success of that game.
Fact is, they made a game that they believe will be fun. I assume they are trying to make it fun for the largest number of people possible, as that would be the most intelligent business decision. A small element of progression that caps and eventually everyone is even does not seem like "selling out".
GW1 had progression. Not just in lvl 1 to 20, but in accumulating the proper skills, gearing with the proper runes and proper weapon sets. A fresh lvl 20 is not going to be doing "elite hard mode runs" because they would be a liability to the team. It looks like the progression track is a little different in GW2, which makes sense because the game itself if pretty different.
This is a great change and I expected it to happen. A lot of my friends kept asking me "Why should I bother leveling if I can just get sidekicked up and see everything without leveling?" I could not give a decent response to this cause it was a stupid system. You should have to play the game to see content. Its a shocking thing, I know.
Anyone who honestly doesn't think this change is in the right direction just wants to be instant max level. They don't want to play the game, and I have to ask you this: Why not? You play games to enjoy them. Do you really get enjoyment from being at level cap as soon as possible and miss out on 95% of the game? These are the same people who play new MMOs and then complain there is nothing to do at level cap. Play the game, take your time, enjoy it. You shouldn't be in a rush to see everything as soon as possible. And you are not entitled to see higher level content while being lower level.
This is a very rude post, and I'm annoyed that you approached it with such arrogance. It's filled with outright lies and misrepresentations of character. Especially when I already explained the exact reason why I supported the system multiple times, none of which are mentioned in your reply. Guild Wars 2 is NOT a game about vertical progression.
Dynamic events are designed to be fun, not just content you do because it'll get you to max level. "It's a shocking thing, I know." Max level is a non-factor in Guild Wars 2. Do you know what is at max level? The exact same stuff that was in the rest of the game.
This is not a typical MMO and one of the large overarching design philosophies of the game that ArenaNet has brought up many times before is that there would be virtually no barriers to playing with your friends. Since they've planned the sidekick system since very early in development and anouncing features, it stands to reason that the upscaling feature had a lot to do with heralding that philosophy. And now that they're removing a feature which is integral to that cause, their previous emphasis on this philosophy is undermined since players now have a traditional and unnecessary barrier of levels keeping them from enjoying the game with their friends.
And you and your friends haven't been following GW2 that much if you can't answer their question. Which would be that you do no gain traits, skills, attributes or additions to your gear which are all obvious integral mechanics of combat and utility and required to be of equal power to someone of the level you were upscaled to.
There was also an opbvious focus on making a game that you can play the way you want to play it. This is why you can level up in 3 seperate ways entirely exclusively, whether it be open world PvE, personal story, or WvWvW, and all content would be relevant to you at anytime because of scaling. So removing the choice for players to go and play with their friends is a negative in this respect.
Before you post with such hostility and misinformation, please realize that you're about to post with hostility and misinformation.
Technical limitations aside, I'm dissapointed in this. One of the absolute BEST features of CoH was sidekicking. It really helped bridged that level gap between friends.
I really wish they would reconsider this as a major game feature.
I agree... but not without some serious limitations in the way players are allowed to "farm XP". It's not something they've ever tackled in any of the GW1 chapters because they didn't need to.
Additional Brainfart explained: By referencing Razah, I'm referring to a Hero who was originally promised to have a changeable PRIMARY class but at the time Nightfall came out, they couldn't get the "Tech" working. 3-4 years later, they finally did.... Hopefully lowbies won't have to wait that long for this to be re-introduced once there's cohesive means.
Comments
/facepalm to the unf degree.
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.
There would be level 80s to upscale to at launch?
Sorry, just poking fun. What i have seen so far from beta and press releases is more then enough to make me preorder since they are just what anet has been promising.
(edit: I suppose you could then go on to say that at the very least they are being honest about what will and won't be in the game... and not making you wait for patch 1.2 before you see it)
I'm sorry but the only one saying anything about the second coming is you. Fans of a game accept its flaws and strengths.
Thanks for pointing out a possible technical inability for this system to work in practice, I hadn't thought about the death penalty and such. But I was pretty positive it was the stats on their gear and health that would be boosted to the appropriate level they were sidekicked to, so without there gear, they would be just like any other true player of that level who lost their gear.
Also, I don't believe that would be the huge reason for them not having upscaling in the game. I'd like to think that the abilities for friends to play together whenever they want is a far more important development philosophy though. It is an integral part of the way the game was desaigned, from instant teleportation to free server transfers.
Well, the only sure response i can make to that since i don't work for anet would be this, If i spent a long time making 79 levels worth of content, i would sure as heck want you to play through it instead of using a feature to skip it. However, thats just me and i like a good story. I suppose if when you upscaled you didn't get any xp that would eliminate the "skip," but without any answers from anet, we are forced to only wonder.
I'm sorry but the only one saying anything about the second coming is you. Fans of a game accept its flaws and strengths.
Side kicking is still there. Just not up scaling. It wasnt so much as it was left out at launch, but more that its been removed. Permanently. Why? Because it didnt work and would have probably ruined the game in a few different ways.
Im more than happy with them removing mechanics that skrew things up before launch, than waiting until after launch, seeing how bad its working, and then remove it.
As far as it being a bad sign, I take it as the opposite. Anet is on top of it. I have to wonder if this was something in Beta that obviously wasnt working out. So they took it out. But down scaling works fine as it is. And no this is hardly game breaking or even a bad thing. Most people in the thread appreciate the decision, as do I.
Yeah. You may be disappointed that players can level entirely in WvW without touching dynamic events or personal story though.
My guess is they decided to appeal to the majority of the market and have some sort of character progression in an RPG. People like character progression. They like character progression so much that they have added it to other genres, such as FPS.
Big budget games will always be created for the widest possible audience. If you don't happen to fit into that widest possible audience. It's unfortunate, but your dollar isn't worth more than 5 dollars from 5 other people that are part of the widest possible audience that would be alienated if things were they way you want them. That would be my guess at least and I would agree with that thought process from a business standpoint.
To sum it all up, more people like it this way.
I would understand this if upscaling hampered the present progression in Guild Wars 2.
It simply would've allowed players who wanted to the opportunity to play with a higher level friend at their level temporarily. You get no extra skills, traits, attributes, or gear so you have a lot of incentive to actually level up. There is no "skipping content" because the PvE is not designed in a linear fashion, that is, with so much downscaling and ways to level up outside of PvE, your incentive to go do dynamic events is not because they give you experience, but because they're enjoyable.
I don't think giving players the ability to scale to the level of a higher leveled friend would hamper the progression experience for other players, or at least, it wouldn't for me.
My understanding is that the player who levels down will still get rewards according to his/her real level, i.e. a level 60 sidekicked down to 30 would still get level 60 rewards.
Maybe it's not a question of level progression, but more a question of story progression...
It doesn't matter if it wouldn't matter to you. It does matter that there are likely multiple people that it would matter to for every one of you. People like progression not just for progression's sake, but to be able to "compete" with other players in PvE. Levels are a form of progression that people know and are comfortable with. I am certain there are people out there that would not buy the game if levels were completely "meaningless". I get it that levels would still matter, but I don't think most people that are comfortable with the status quo in the MMORPG genre would. The people that discuss MMORPGs here are a very small percentage of participants in the genre as a whole.
On a personal note, I prefer having to "earn" or "unlock" content by leveling. I agree with the removal of sidekick up and do think that it would trivialize levels to some degree. If they are going to allow sidekicking up and down, they may as well just remove levels completely and have you unlock skills to progress your character.
Possible, but DE's, I feel, were designed more to be fun more than context. They obviously have ties to what's going on in the world, but if this was a huge concern, they wouldn't have stressed the ability for players to level the way they wanted, which includes doing so exclusively in WvW. So you'd be in the same boat as a level 1 who could upscale, story wise, coming to PvE as a level 80 from WvW.
Hmmm I wonder why removed and if the cash shop has anything to do with it...
Not really interested in the first place, and not excited by the alternative either.
And here I thought Guild Wars 2 was supposed to be challenging that status quo.
Edit: I don't believe Anet would want to harbor the competetive aspect of leveling. That's condusive to elitism and an inherent barrier to community building within the server. And that's another one of the large overarching game philosophies that the game is supposed to be molded by.
Apparently, there were ways to exploit the level raising, possibly because dungeons have fixed level loot. If you survived through a dungeon, your loot could not be leveled to you since your reward was a fixed level (either current level or +5 levels above, if I remember correctly). This could have caused incongruities in min-max behaior. Sidekicking down, both players are supposed to get level appropriate rewards, XP and loot included. A lower level character should not see loot benefits, other than the downkicked player giving him their loot.
Although their manifesto (like many political manifestos) sound great in theory, when the reality of the outcome is staring you in the face, changes occur. I didn't have a problem with upkicking or downkicking, but understand the concern of many to the changes and limitations these changes are bringing. I have to believe in the Beta Process, and that the upkicking became broken during one or both of the tests. Anti-griefing and anti-abuse are more important to this game than the benefits of looser playstyles and player freedoms. Hopefully, this fixed a problem that occurred and makes the game better.
I think it makes sense to get rid of if it actually causes same gamebreaking problems, but I can't find any concrete information on what those were and wish I could've played in the beta experience to see this for myself before they removed it.
If upscaling causes gamebreaking issues, then that indeed is a problem and needed to be addressed.
Fact of life: Money always wins in a corporate endeavor. If there is more money in stretching away from the status quo rather than outright breaking away from it, that's what will happen in a product delivered by a corporate entity. I like Anet as a game developer, but they are still out to make a buck.
Iwas thinking the same im happy that low lvl can sidekik high lvl so we can play toguether but sidkik up is k that they remove it i dont really mind but sometime people have more time that you so they will be high but whit side kik later thye can help you so you can keep it up.
Well, then this undermines the sanctitity of ArenaNet as a developer for going back on their own design philosophy in exchange for more money. In other words, selling out.
However, I'd much rather believe that there was some gamebreaking issue with the technical limitations of upscaling that caused it to be removed from the game. I don't like to think that ArenaNet would be so hasty to ruin the reputation they've built, even with game design pressure from NCSoft to maximize profit.
Yeah I'm prone to excessive brevity and I know it.
As for why it couldn't... that goes with something else I've gruffly mentioned often including in this thread but never elaborated on. Anet is great at not just offering promising new features, but even coding them and playing with them. The problem comes when it's time to actually deliver them to us, the players. Half the time those optimisms die AFTER it goes through testing. So yes they put it IN the game. But No, we can't have it b/c someone fucked it up for everyone. ...then they don't try to adapt a work-around.
They got lot of exceedingly Talented designers there at Anet, but the one thing they don't have, is the "MacGuyver" who can instantly take those failed creations and get them working again. And the exploits for powerleveling lowbies in End-Game is definintely one of those areas that they can't de-couple from the game's economy & DE system. (it doesn't mean they won't find a way later, it just means they can't right now)
This is a great change and I expected it to happen. A lot of my friends kept asking me "Why should I bother leveling if I can just get sidekicked up and see everything without leveling?" I could not give a decent response to this cause it was a stupid system. You should have to play the game to see content. Its a shocking thing, I know.
Anyone who honestly doesn't think this change is in the right direction just wants to be instant max level. They don't want to play the game, and I have to ask you this: Why not? You play games to enjoy them. Do you really get enjoyment from being at level cap as soon as possible and miss out on 95% of the game? These are the same people who play new MMOs and then complain there is nothing to do at level cap. Play the game, take your time, enjoy it. You shouldn't be in a rush to see everything as soon as possible. And you are not entitled to see higher level content while being lower level.
Technical limitations aside, I'm dissapointed in this. One of the absolute BEST features of CoH was sidekicking. It really helped bridged that level gap between friends.
I really wish they would reconsider this as a major game feature.
Appealing to a wider audience is not exactly maximizing profit. They could be charging a sub fee and would probably get it. You have to remember that Anet basically went all in on GW2. Anet as a company lives or dies on the success or failure of GW2. I have a feeling they would like to get to a point where they can develop and release a new game without the entire company's future being determined by the success of that game.
Fact is, they made a game that they believe will be fun. I assume they are trying to make it fun for the largest number of people possible, as that would be the most intelligent business decision. A small element of progression that caps and eventually everyone is even does not seem like "selling out".
GW1 had progression. Not just in lvl 1 to 20, but in accumulating the proper skills, gearing with the proper runes and proper weapon sets. A fresh lvl 20 is not going to be doing "elite hard mode runs" because they would be a liability to the team. It looks like the progression track is a little different in GW2, which makes sense because the game itself if pretty different.
This is a very rude post, and I'm annoyed that you approached it with such arrogance. It's filled with outright lies and misrepresentations of character. Especially when I already explained the exact reason why I supported the system multiple times, none of which are mentioned in your reply. Guild Wars 2 is NOT a game about vertical progression.
Dynamic events are designed to be fun, not just content you do because it'll get you to max level. "It's a shocking thing, I know." Max level is a non-factor in Guild Wars 2. Do you know what is at max level? The exact same stuff that was in the rest of the game.
This is not a typical MMO and one of the large overarching design philosophies of the game that ArenaNet has brought up many times before is that there would be virtually no barriers to playing with your friends. Since they've planned the sidekick system since very early in development and anouncing features, it stands to reason that the upscaling feature had a lot to do with heralding that philosophy. And now that they're removing a feature which is integral to that cause, their previous emphasis on this philosophy is undermined since players now have a traditional and unnecessary barrier of levels keeping them from enjoying the game with their friends.
And you and your friends haven't been following GW2 that much if you can't answer their question. Which would be that you do no gain traits, skills, attributes or additions to your gear which are all obvious integral mechanics of combat and utility and required to be of equal power to someone of the level you were upscaled to.
There was also an opbvious focus on making a game that you can play the way you want to play it. This is why you can level up in 3 seperate ways entirely exclusively, whether it be open world PvE, personal story, or WvWvW, and all content would be relevant to you at anytime because of scaling. So removing the choice for players to go and play with their friends is a negative in this respect.
Before you post with such hostility and misinformation, please realize that you're about to post with hostility and misinformation.
I agree... but not without some serious limitations in the way players are allowed to "farm XP". It's not something they've ever tackled in any of the GW1 chapters because they didn't need to.
Additional Brainfart explained: By referencing Razah, I'm referring to a Hero who was originally promised to have a changeable PRIMARY class but at the time Nightfall came out, they couldn't get the "Tech" working. 3-4 years later, they finally did.... Hopefully lowbies won't have to wait that long for this to be re-introduced once there's cohesive means.