Category: Guild Wars 2

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Runaway

This post has a good explanation of long-term design issues in Ingress, similar to the ones that sunk Shadowbane.

In board game circles it’s referred to as the “runaway leader” effect – winning makes it easier and easier to keep winning. It has a few advantages – it is a more intrinsically realistic dynamic. There are some games, like Monopoly, in which a runaway leader taking over is the entire point of the game in the first place. However, runaway leader positive feedback loops are not viewed as good design for longer games because players tend to dislike games where the outcome is decided very early on but they are obliged to keep playing. While nobody is actually obliged to play Ingress, player attrition rarely helps with the underlying balance issues. Note that a game having a runaway leader effect doesn’t mean that a team in a weaker position cannot ever achieve victories – it just means that the odds are heavily stacked against them.

Like Shadowbane, Ingress is not asymmetric, so the rules are not tilted against either side, but the mechanics do make it easier for the winners to keep winning, which tends to have the effect of driving out the losing team and reducing the influx of new players (on either side, because winning unopposed on an empty field in a virtual world gets boring quickly).

I am debating whether I am interested in continuing to play. I live and work in one of those heavily dominated areas, so if I want a competitive environment, I need to drive an hour away. And people who have farmed in the non-competitive environments do that same drive with their farmed gear.

The rumored third faction only makes the runaway leader effect worse unless there is reason to unite against the winning team. MU in Ingress is like PPT in Guild Wars 2: territorial control is all that matters for the scoreboard.

: Zubon

While the rules of Ingress are balanced, the flavor text spurs the current imbalance towards the Resistance. Oddly, the linked post has a commenter who says this is a good thing because it keeps the game competitive. I’m not sure that person understands what “competitive” means.

[GW2] A Megaserver Divided

The megaserver, which is kind of like an underflow map in Guild Wars 2, has been rolled out across the game. I feel like I’ve had enough time with it to take a shot at talking about it, and so does Mrs. Ravious, whose opinion I will convey. We don’t agree.

I like it. With world boss runs and messing around with Orr, things are lively. It feels really fresh, and is hopping just like those first days of a new Living World update. It’s amazing how adding population to that same, old content can really change the feeling of it.  Continue reading [GW2] A Megaserver Divided

Short Term, Long Term, Transitions

City of Heroes needed to implement “enhancement diversification,” a massive nerf in which marginal diversity was achieved by taking away the strongest options, for the long term health of the game. It was a good balance decision, but when the transition happened, it really hurt to log in and see your damage halved.

Guild Wars 2 is making good changes in the big April 15 update. The wardrobe is more or less exactly what I have asked for, the new traits are a good thing, the new sPvP build interface is more streamlined, unified WvW ranks make WvW much more alt-friendly, and let’s give ArenaNet the benefit of the doubt that all the other changes like runes and sigils are similarly good.

In the short term, you need to rebuild every character several times. Your PvE traits were reset, your sigils and runes may have changed, your sPvP build and traits were reset, your WvW ranks were reset, your… I was excited about learning the new options for a character then found it extremely discouraging to need to address three sets of options for each of eight classes, both new options and changes to old options, and then changes to old content.

In a way, this is a breaking point for players. If the newness excites you, this is probably the game for you, have a great time. If you look at re-learning the game as a huge slog, this might be a good time to explore 2014’s new MMO offerings. Or go outside.

: Zubon

Also, at the moment I’m kind of bitter that there are now 10 options for dailies including sPvP, rather than about a dozen plus sPvP.

[GW2] That Feature Pack

The household sounds were filled with sounds of enlightenment and confusion as Mrs. Ravious and I dug in to the Guild Wars 2 Feature Pack. Jeromai has the right of it. This feature pack shook things up. Hopefully all for the better, but time will have to tell on a lot of it. As Zubon warned us, most of our night was re-learning our characters.

Our first stop was the wardrobe. We ran through our bank and gear to fill our sticker book of skins, and I gained back about two dozen inventory slots. It was confusing at first with how some skins were working. The equipment was easier to understand because it remained an item even when the copy of the skin went into the wardrobe. Continue reading [GW2] That Feature Pack

[GW2] Login Warning

Read the patch notes and completely re-do every character you have before you do anything. Everything changed, and the mail alerting you that something has been reset can be spotty. I had to play several PvP matches and repeatedly enter the Heart of the Mists before I got any notice that my PvP stats were reset. You may or may not get notice that your WvW ranks were reset. You may or may not get notice that your runes have changed. You may or may not…

Basically, everything you know about your characters and the content may or may not have changed, so go read 10,000 words, and good luck sorting it out. If you’re like me and have characters of all 8 classes, you have a lot of studying and respecing to do.

: Zubon

[GW2] The Impossibility of WvW

The more I play WvW in GW2, the more I must believe that the developers’ goals are different than mine and from what I thought they stated. As implemented, WvW is a PvE system with periodic steamrolls and occasional good fights. Either good fights are contrary to the design or WvW is performing very far from its design.

The dominant problem remains the mismatch in weight classes, and I have heard no solution for it nor even real awareness that it is a problem. Let me narrow that: it is not the case that the weight classes are in neat groups of three, so the majority of the matchups will feature an odd server out (two heavweights with a middleweight or one heavyweight with two middleweights) or even worse matches. The Spring Tourney system designed to mitigate this problem has yet to do so, and unless there is some reason to unite against the winning server, I am not sure that any system can.
Continue reading [GW2] The Impossibility of WvW

Multiple Unlock Options

Hunting for traits in the wild sounds disturbingly like New Content, while being able to buy our way out of playing through parts of the game that we don’t care for seems like a sound compromise.
— Bhagpuss

I find this an enormously wise decision, both for players and the developer.

On the player side, part of the draw of GW2 was “play how you like,” meaning visit whatever zones and repeat whatever events you like, WVW to level 80 if you like, and get your exotic equipment from the open world, dungeons, crafting, WvW, or jumping puzzles. I don’t know how everyone felt about it in GW1, but I don’t think the GW2 crowd would be entirely happy with being required to hit specific dungeons or bosses to get traits. I don’t think the hardcore WvW crowd will be entirely happy with diverting gold from rams to trait books; maybe they will (soon/someday?) allow those to be bought with Badges of Honor or currencies other than cash.

I stepped away from Reus due to its unlocks, and I have yet to get back to it. To unlock iron, which seems like a pretty basic resource, you need to make a fairly prosperous town with no animals. Recall that Reus has animals, plants, and minerals, so you are giving up a third of the game for this attempt, and many plants and minerals depend on animals for bonuses. I made a short game, set up a few towns with no animals on the map so I had a few chances, and proceeded to have almost every special project appear with animal-related bonuses or requirements. I am reasonably certain that I could tough it out, finish that map, and finish my unlock, but doing this just raises the specter of future unlocks that will require similar annoyances. Annoyance is not what I want in my gaming time.

As a developer: gold sink, ho! Players can buy gems and sell them for gold, so new ways to spend large quantities of gold prop up the price of gems and make purchases more appealing. Players are paying to skip the game? Normally, that would sound like a design issue, but $$$.

: Zubon

[GW2] Wuv Downtime

I find it interesting to see what happens with the Ravious household when Guild Wars 2 is not pumping out updates every two weeks. This happened earlier during the winter holiday break, and now it is happening again as we wait one more week for the feature patch update (4/15).

First, I’m back to doing Tequatl. I have fun with that “raid”. I like how TTS does it. Zubon muses on the new event timetable that will be coming in a week. I know I am line generally with the comments in his post. With Tequatl, I’ve been on a timetable for quite a long time. Some nights Mrs. Ravious and I do world bosses, and we’ve headed to fan-made websites that use the Guild Wars 2 API to tell us where to head. For me the timetable is just incorporating something that I (and many others) have taken for granted anyway. Continue reading [GW2] Wuv Downtime

[GW2] World Bus?

As the design of a game, this timetable makes perfect sense. As the design of a world, it makes me sad. “Go forth, hero, and make your legend by following the attached schedule of events.” Someone already made that legend? No problem, the enemy will spawn, disappear within fifteen minutes, and respawn again on schedule no matter what you do.

We may have overshot “theme park” and started approaching TV re-runs.

While the content has always been completely mutable and timer-based, something about making an explicit schedule of villainy weakens the illusion.

: Zubon