Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Will it lose 'staying power' due to lack of endgame?
MMOtoGO
Member Posts: 630
in Guild Wars 2
WoW and RIFT, to a degree, have maintained their relative popularity due to the developer focus on "endgame" i.e., "hardcore progression" in instances with 10+ players.
As of this writing, GW2 has not mentioned any instances other than 5 player dungeons. Sure, they will have "world events" that allow cooperation between multiple players, but grouping isn't even requred for those.
What do you think about this?
Comments
Lack of end game? I'd say the best end game to this point... What do you think epic dynamic events are for? Why do you think Anet will keep on adding dynamic events post launch? Next to this we will also be able to do adventure mode 5 man instances, WvWvW pvp and structured pvp. Not to forget GW2 will feature an epic story which has a high replayability value.
None of this is "merely" leveling content, all of it will also satisfy our hunger for end game.
No. Raiding is not mandatory for lasting appeal. If someone thinks so, they need to play different games more.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Nope, endgame is the dumbest thing to ever be developed. Or at least in the way of progression gear raiding that has taken over most MMOs. It should have always been about the adventure, story, exploration, and most of all socialism with your fellow players. Progressing your character through permanent horizontal stats is the better way to go about an endgame of sorts, so I'm glad GW2 hopefully won't be following the progression-raid trend!
OP, did you ever play ANY mmo (or game for that matter) except WoW?
GW2 has plenty of endgame, it just doesn't have WoW-style raiding (blyeh).
(Playing devil's advocate here)
Public events do not require the organization or strategy that instanced endgame often requires. In my experience most public grouping is nothing short of a cluster.... (bunch of players running around and flashy lights everywhere...nobody really making a difference)
My opinion is that as replayable as GW2 might be, many players who have invested so much time in their character arne't going to want to 'start over' again. They want to develop and progress their character beyond what a casual player might do. If there is no "progression raiding", how is a player going to progress his/her character. What about a player that doesn't PvP?
(Devil's advocate hat off)
The pvp is the endgame. As long as the player killing is fun and exciting, that's all I need. I am sick to death of the instances and the tier-gear. I just hope the WvWvW pvp in gw2 is well-populated and fun.
There are dungeon armor sets for those people to work twords.
My theme song.
Endgame raiding was an early developer mistake that got totally out of control and has nearly taken over the genre. They needed a time sink and some artificial difficulty to keep players engaged until expansion time...and a whole culture ended up getting built around that.
What GW2 is offering is actually a completely different take on the original problem, rather than another re-hash and distillation of the same tired formula.
The only people who are likely to not find enough to do in GW2 are those who rigidly play ONLY one style - militaristic raid / gear grinding. This game isn't for them. For anyone with an open mind, I think they'll find that not having a rush to endgame and a bait and switch raiding focus will be quite refreshing, and that there will be plenty of things to do in the game at max level.
Apparently you've never heard of Alternate Advancement from games like EQ/EQ2, and soon to have Rift. Also in FFXI, there is a system of Merits that you can earn once at the cap, and every 10,000XP you earn grants you 1 merit, and you then use those merits to permanantly upgrade your base stats.
Endgame doesn't have to be 'only' about gear progression and raiding...
No raiders want to step forward and admit that GW2 needs raiding? I know you're out there! LOL...oh, it's 10:15 AM EST, you're still in bed.
For PvE people I guess you'll have Epic/Hard dynamic events (It's been mentioned that not all DEs scale to the same level of difficulty) and hard mode (explorable) dungeons.
And if those turn out to be too easy, ANet prides itself at creating robust & fast content generating tools. They mentioned that a few devs can create a working DE in a couple of days... So... I'm sure that as the time goes by we'll see super-hard global DEs that would require real team coordination as well as maybe even a next level of difficulty to the explorable dungeons (Like if you finish all 3 explorable versions of the dungeon you unlock the 4th one which is insanely hard.)
Imo the appropriate difficulty of content can be properly assesed by the dev team only after the game goes live. So I guess we'll see some tweaking in that area in the first few months after the release.
Are you saying instances like for example IC in WoW required actually strategy? The epic event involving Tequatl the Sunstrider involved as much strategy as your basic boss encounter in instances.
Also these players that actually like "progression raiding" can still have their share of it in GW2. Every instance will have its own armour sets and armour style. The only players GW2 does not seem to catter to are the ones who like to acquire better "stats/attributes" which will be obsolete next patch.
ofc NO.......
I believe the thinking that 10+ man raids define endgame is outdated. It doesn't matter how many players participate in a raid to make it "endgame". Even the idea that endgame = raids is old and really doesn't portray the way GW2 is going to be played.
There is no specific endgame content, because ArenaNet is creating a game that is fun from lvl 1 to 80.
GW2 will launch
Millions of WoW, Rift etc refugees will come
They will hit "cap level" in two weeks
They will whine "baaaaaa wheres my better gear baaaaa i wanna be better as i do instances and hardcore pvp i deserve it and and i want raids and LFG tool and pvp balance i'm class X i cant solo kill class Y fix it"
(hopefully) GW2 devs wont fall for it and follow their vision
The ADD gamers will leave crying
These boards will be full of "GW2 sux", "There's nothing to do, what, achievements, exploring? They dont GIVE you anything"
The rest of us will stay
GW2 will become a good game and live for years after years, same as GW
Sorry, but I call BS here. If it required the same stragegy, then people will quit. All you need is one person who doesn't do his/her job, stands in the wrong place or hits the wrong mob and everybody wipes. World events with groups of "whoever is standing around" will never require the same strategy of an instanced, progression boss fight. Let's see how well a public group would do with Yogg Saron or Ragnaros.
I think raiders better just settle with the possibility that Guild Wars 2 is just NOT going to be the game for them and focus on some other game.
I, for one, am thrilled that GW2 will NOT feature larger scale raiding as part of the game. I'm happy with 5 man content.....VERY happy. Finally all the obnoxious parts of raiding will be gone. I think it's brillliant to do away with all that. Oh sure...it will attract a different part of the gaming population than a game WITH raiding, but that doesn't worry me. Statistically raiders aren't a huge percentage anyway. I remember when there was research made on raiding in WoW and they stated that less than 2 percent of the game's population would ever see the inside of Black Temple. Pity.
Anyway.....no raiding? I'm all good with that.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
BS, i know ppl who made a lot of mistakes in my raid, specially in ICC.
I pugged the 25man ulduar raid, just me and a couple guildies leading, about 3-4months into the tier.
Following week with mostly the same raid we got our 25man meta achievments all done (the drake).
Pugged TOC and TOGC, got TOGC about 3 months before ICC release, with 49 attemps left.
Then got invited to a hardcore raiding guild and absolutetly recked ICC. Think we done our ICC25man LK HC kill in may (first world kill was march)
There is plenty of mistakes, infact with the overall nerfing of the instances over time, after 3months of release everything is puggable on HC dificulty, if you got a competent leader that can weed out the muppets.
Alas, I am completely done with raids, I don't even want look at them, or have them in the next games I am going to play.
"I am not a robot. I am a unicorn."
No the game will not suffer because there is a lack of "traditional" raiding. I know raiders wat to beleive they are the majority and without raiding as the end game carrot-on-a-stick then a game will have nothing to do and a game cannot keep anyones attention without it. I have played other games where raiding didn't exist and while it was fun to dabble in it in WoW because it was actually new to me at the time, I quickly saw that I personally hated it and by having this system, older raids became meaningless due to the progression. Gathering 10+ players was an annoyance and it doesn't necessarily mean the content is more difficult or more fun.
I am freaking exstatic GW2 will not have this style of raiding. While I do understand that some beleive it should be an option, I hate when it is in game because it forces me to get into raiding just to experience the lore. I hate missing out on story.
RIP Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan and Paul Gray.
this picture of the future is actual a little to grim , because alot of the leavers will come back, when there comes expansions , and they realise that they actual had a blast playing GW2.
When will people finally realise that the traditional raiding gear grind is something disliked by the majorrity of MMO players...
On top of that, developers have said that after launch they will provide players with what they want most... If players want 10 man or even 20 man instanced dungeons... I would not be surprised if they would create raid mode dungeons from all excisting and new dungeons....
But they will never add an extra top layer of gear for such content....
Poeple that want a geargrind end game should really look at those other MMO's.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
You just nailed one of the things I didn't like about some of the raids in WoW. I have seen a lot of people rage quit WoW because of it. lol
My theme song.
Nope. The game was built to destroy that mindset of having an end-game progression. What you see in those games you mentioned are players holed up in cities lining up for those instances collectively comprising 1% of the game world. Sure, you may craft and do dailies and whatnot - but, make no mistake, all of it is done to grind on that solitarity road of gear progression. There are no alternatives in those kinds of games. Alternatives may come in doses, but to get the best gear you are stuck with only one option. You are essentially playing and paying for that tiny portion of the entire game world.
There is much to explore in this game. The options are not limitless. They aren't meant to be. Just be more open-minded and you'll see that there is more to end-game than simply repeating a choreographed raid until the next one comes along.
Not that endgame needs or even should be PvE based but even if it is, does that mean that groups have to automatically increase in size 2 -8 times just to make the instance a "raid" and therefore hard? What is wrong with PvE content remaining "5man" at the end game? And does it even need to be instanced? Does it need to be 5man? what about 9 man? Why not out in the open? Why use a fixed number of players? Does it have to be "trash, trash, boss, trash trash boss"?
And must the reward always consist of gear that gets incrementally better in stats? If you think this then you have never played GW. In GW, you hit max level and would could easily pick up a set of max gear in a month and well before you had done even half of your first campain out of 3 not to mention the expansion. So what do you get for continuing? more skills! That game has hundreds and hundreds of skills. So instead of gaining more raw power though higher levels or better gear you gain more diversity in what you can do. More precise control over how you build your character for any given encounter.
There are so many different ways to approach endgame. We just need to be open to new experiences. ArenaNet already has a good deal of history doing things outside the norm. If you want WoW with a new skin on it, preorder TOR. It will be a very good game but not very groundbreaking. But if you want something different because even the prospect of another gear grind drains the last happy thoughts from your soul, well then, go with the company that is know for doing wierd stuff with their game. GW2, might or might not be great, or successful. It is much more of an unknown but that is because they are taking some big chances. But one thing we know for sure that GW2 won't be is just the same old thing.
All die, so die well.
After much discussion on the gw2guru forums on this subject, I notice mmorpg.com managed to crack a really comprehensive answer out of Colin Johanson. Up until then it had been piece-meal responses including: eg quote-unquote: "Endgame starts at Level 1 in GW2," or, "Dungeons are our equivalent or Raids," or, "We really hope ppl see that Alts are really viable in GW2."
etc Guild Wars 2: Gamescom Interview with Colin Johanson , August 22, 2011:
MMORPG.com:
Tell us more about the endgame.
Colin Johanson:
The endgame in Guild Wars 2 is extremely rich. Ton of things to do when the game is launched. Let's talk about the stuff you can do when [1] you reach level 80 on our first character! High level dungeons both with story mode and explorable mode which you unlock by finishing said dungeon in story mode. Explorer mode let's you repeat the dungeon but with different paths to take inside them. Each one of the paths has different kind of encounters and gives you a unique/different experience. Completing the paths gives you unique and rare items. Weapon sets, armor sets.
Also, thanks to our [2] sidekick feature you can experience any area and event in the game, so it opens up a lot of possibilities to play with others no matter the level.
Next thing is that there's high level [3] explorable dungeons with really cool events. Gain gold, karma and whatever else you might need for crafting and what not. These are made much harder and are intended for experienced players.
There's also crafting which is a huge part of the game. Which you can do all the way up to level 80. When you get to level 80 you can continue working on it, selling and trading items and materials. We anticipate players will dedicate a lot of time to this and the marketplace.
Moving on, there's [4] world vs world vs world PVP. Which you can take your PVE character into at any time. This is your server matched up vs two others. In a two week long battle where you are fighting over giant keeps, you also have catapults. There's hundreds of players fighting with and against each other for the pride of their server. At the end of the week, the server that earned the most points win and gains a bonus for the next two weeks. Currently we can't talk about the details of these bonuses.
Our [5] PVP system is also end content, an example being our competitive PVP system which we're actually showing the first time this week at Gamescom! It has truly ranked completive play which are tournaments you can join that have as small as four teams or huge tournaments. These have their own ranking system and rewards.
We also have the [6] achievement system in Guild Wars 2. Where there are various types of achievements which you can accomplish to earn titles to show off to everyone.
Interestingly that's all without talking up importance of [7] ALTs to GW2 Endgame, which I'm sure is the case. He mentioned crafting, but that's imo just additional eg minigames etc. What's to like is most of these options are simultaneously accessible apart fom the high level ones which is as it should be.
More interesting is how quickly will PvE-centric players burn through PvE, and especially hardcore raiders might burn through too quickly also? Basically if players enjoy adapting what they do in mmorpgs they'll enjoy endgame/end of game more, but if they are niche of the above less so.
To answer OP, imo, Dungeons with explorable option and fitted into the story of PvE (efficient content eg!) and pvp-structured with multiple types including tournie and customizable hot-joinable should be a lot SMARTER solution albeit it's not exclusively PvE.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem