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Lack of Food/Water mechanic in GW2...Good or bad?
iamthekiller
Member Posts: 93
in Guild Wars 2
So what do you guys think about them leaving this MMO typical mechanic out of GW2?
And to clarify, I'm referring to the type of eating and drinking that's required to fill your health/mana bar.
I'm pretty sure food buff type food is in GW2, but not 100% on that so don't take it to bank.
Comments
There are food buffs.
There is no mana or any other such resource so drinking to regain it would be pointless. They said they wanted to minimize the pointless downtime between activities hence the out of combat regen is really fast. That mechanics served no purpose in other MMOs other than slowing you down so they removed it completely, with good results. Whyw ould they want to slow you down if they dont have to depend on you paying subscription fee for as long as possible?
GW2 isn't your typical MMORPG, so they've broken quite a few of the traditional mechanics.
Eating / drinking are hold overs from when MMO's tried to more accurately represent realistic virtual worlds and that was not a core design tenant for ANET.
So no, GW2 doesn't need food/water to slow people down from having their fun.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
No doubt. Adding food/drink is the antithesis to GW2.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't that mechanic already get thrown out with the last wave of MMORPG's? I'm not sure how The Secrete World does it, but I know that SW:TOR and Rift neither have that mechanic and instead have a fast-heal-replenish when out of combat just like GW2 has.
Slowing you down was not pointless at all actually, it was actually a tool used to increase interdependence between classes (because some classes had abilities to reduce down time) and provide time for socialization between fights.
This helped encourage players to group up more regularly and behave more civilily towards one another.
But your right, if all a player wants to do is solo or fight, fight, fight, then I understand how you missed this.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I think it's good. If you're going to always have enough food and you're always going to regen health between fights, then what does doing it through food add to a game experience?
I think food buffs can fall into this category as well. It's less likely with buffs, but the same idea could apply.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I get the concept, I just know from personal experience it never really worked out once MMOs became more popular genre. It's the ideal that everyone playing MMO would play it like PnP RPG with full, cliche, group set up. The reality is that if you play with friend neither of you might be a healer and you just get to chug those drinks/food every 10 mobs.
It's something never really worked that well when confronted with how people play games. Eventually developers figured out that players will not always play in group and mor eoften than not they will roam solo, hence we got rid of paying for buffs (like it happned in Lineage), the resting mechanic was changed (in TOR each class had a skill that would fully restore health/energy out of combat) and more passive out of combat regen was given across the board.
Well, yeah, they don't use it. EQ2 does. I'm pretty sure Fallen Earth had something like EQ2s when I played it. But FE was a long time ago and I just don't remember all the mechanics.
I wouldn't mind it coming back. But it's pretty much of a niche/sandbox thing anymore and I don't think it will play well in a more of a mass-market oriented game. People want to have fun in their MMOs and that sort of thing can be a real limiter...
Oh I agree, once they decided to change MMO design to cater more to soloing which was what contributed no doubt to improving their popularity the mechanic no longer was useful. WOW launched with significant downtime that had to be replenished by eating/drinking but they eventually reduced the impact of the mechanic. (Remember how people used to yell for mages to please supply them with water?)
But back to the OP, GW2 is the latest evolution in this particular game design and eating/drinking would serve no real purpose. They've employed other mechanics to help players group together, even if they really don't increase the socialization side all that much.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
There are other ways to encourage players to group up more regularly.
GW1 promoted interdependency by introducing it in combat. For example, not preparing a way to heal may wipe the party in combat, not having a good tank may wipe the party in combat.
Interdependency is a different matter. I agree that GW2 doesn't look like it promotes interdependency, but I can't say for sure because people haven't had enough hours in the game, but the answer for interdependency is not only having food/water in-game.
There may be a reason for food/water to be in GW2 to slow down the game for interdependency, and I can go for either (having or not having food in-game).
Edit: To correct logic (on my part)