How could GW2 be adapted to work with few players?

[Erasculio.2914]

The original Guild Wars is a ghost town, but most players can access the content by using heroes. The hardest content is probably not available to everyone (like Urgoz's Warren and The Deep), but map exploration, missions, dungeons and even vanquishes are doable for the average player.

 

Guild Wars 2, in other hand, is a very different game. Raids and fractals are the kind of thing that will likely never work without human players, and that's ok, but what about open world gameplay? Not being able to do dynamic events would really remove a lot of the best GW2 content.

 

Thinking of the far future, when we have few GW2 players, how do you think ArenaNet could adapt the game so it would still work?

 

IMO, using the same strategy from the original Guild Wars - NPCs following the player around - wouldn't be a good idea. Likewise, making the events easier so a single player can do them would also be bad, IMO - it would remove a lot of the grandeur from the game.

 

I think the best way to do this would be having NPCs spaw in the events. We already have many of them in which this happens - Pact soldiers, Vigil scouts and so on often participate in events. Spawing NPCs weaker than the average player would be a nice way to keep the us engaged (since they're weaker, the biggest contributor to the event's success would still be the player), while still keeping the illusion of being in huge battles.

 

Meta events would need some changes: events with multiple lanes would have those without players automatically succeeding, so, for example, if there are players in the north entrance of Tarir and nowhere else, the meta events in the east, west and south entrances would automatically succeed, although at the last few seconds. This would allow a few or event a single player to go through the metas.

 

How would you do it?

[Goettel.4389]

I hope they go the exact other way TBH.

I don't want meta events to be scaled to smaller groups. I want bigger meta events.

If there ever is a time when there aren't enough players to do the metas I'll know it's time to move on.

[Faowri.4159]

Ultimately, it's all about the scaling, isn't it? The whole point of the system was to scale appropriately for the number of players that are actually around. Couple that with better tiers of success/rewards so that it's still more rewarding to succeed with more people (to encourage grouping up) but achievable if you find yourself on your lonesome or in a tiny group, and I think that goes part-way to solving the problem.

[joneirikb.7506]

In theory all events in the game should scale already. Most common events scale from 1 player and upward, the group events from 5 and upward. So the majority of open world content would still be possible to play, even solo.

 

(That, and the combat system allows you to compensate a lot, we already have players that has really mastered their classes soloing dungeons, fractals, any champion in open world, and at least 1 raid).

 

That said, I do think the scaling is flawed, and doesn't really work as well as it should do. Most events becomes laughable with lots of players, removing all challenge. More events could probably scale from 1 person rather than 5, but instead have them scale better at higher scaling (among other things scale in more creative ways, getting more aoe attacks with increasing aoe limits, with more aoes, more range depending on scaling, so it's actually a somewhat threat to people other than the 5 players directly in front of the champion's cleave).

 

Too many things in the game feels like a hp sponge solo, and a loot pinata with 10+.

[Gehenna.3625]

> @"Erasculio.2914" said:

> The original Guild Wars is a ghost town, but most players can access the content by using heroes. The hardest content is probably not available to everyone (like Urgoz's Warren and The Deep), but map exploration, missions, dungeons and even vanquishes are doable for the average player.

>

> Guild Wars 2, in other hand, is a very different game. Raids and fractals are the kind of thing that will likely never work without human players, and that's ok, but what about open world gameplay? Not being able to do dynamic events would really remove a lot of the best GW2 content.

>

> Thinking of the far future, when we have few GW2 players, how do you think ArenaNet could adapt the game so it would still work?

>

> IMO, using the same strategy from the original Guild Wars - NPCs following the player around - wouldn't be a good idea. Likewise, making the events easier so a single player can do them would also be bad, IMO - it would remove a lot of the grandeur from the game.

>

> I think the best way to do this would be having NPCs spaw in the events. We already have many of them in which this happens - Pact soldiers, Vigil scouts and so on often participate in events. Spawing NPCs weaker than the average player would be a nice way to keep the us engaged (since they're weaker, the biggest contributor to the event's success would still be the player), while still keeping the illusion of being in huge battles.

>

> Meta events would need some changes: events with multiple lanes would have those without players automatically succeeding, so, for example, if there are players in the north entrance of Tarir and nowhere else, the meta events in the east, west and south entrances would automatically succeed, although at the last few seconds. This would allow a few or event a single player to go through the metas.

>

> How would you do it?

I wouldn't. When there are too few players to keep the game going it will close down. Unlike GW1, you need other players to tackle a lot of content even in open world. The only solution is to add some sort of companion system which I think will be too expensive if a game is declining that much. GW1 is kept alive mostly because of its link to GW2 to the point that getting titles in GW1 gets you achievements and rewards in GW2. So if GW2 will go down to a very small population I think we can expect both games to shut down.

 

What ArenaNet should've been doing is build another game so they have more than GW. Now that some project fell through it's still all they have. So I reckon that when GW2 stops being profitable enough, ArenaNet will no longer have a reason to exist unless Ncsoft invests into them to build something new. In my view they should've already started on that though. Just keeping GW2 going for as long as it's profitable is not really a long-term plan.

[Pit Hawg.8632]

Sadly, Guild Wars 2 may become a ghost town according to how the layoffs go. Fewer developers means less updating, less fixes and well the doom and gloom of it all is very real and sad. Just going to cry in my soup now.

[Trise.2865]

Why do you people insist on burying this game? Do you hate it that much? If so, why are you still here?

[Khisanth.2948]

> @"Faowri.4159" said:

> Ultimately, it's all about the scaling, isn't it? The whole point of the system was to scale appropriately for the number of players that are actually around. Couple that with better tiers of success/rewards so that it's still more rewarding to succeed with more people (to encourage grouping up) but achievable if you find yourself on your lonesome or in a tiny group, and I think that goes part-way to solving the problem.

 

For the vast majority of cases when it comes to scaling you want quality over quantity anyway.

[Tyson.5160]

> @"Trise.2865" said:

> Why do you people insist on burying this game? Do you hate it that much? If so, why are you still here?

 

I think the phrase is misery loves company...

[Erasculio.2914]

> @"joneirikb.7506" said:

> In theory all events in the game should scale already. Most common events scale from 1 player and upward, the group events from 5 and upward. So the majority of open world content would still be possible to play, even solo.

 

I wonder if that would be fun, though - doing the events as the single character there, with the bare minimum spaws required for the event to happen.

 

And how would that work for large meta events with multiple lanes, like most metas in the HoT maps?

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> How could GW2 be adapted to work with few players?

Since there aren't currently "few players," I think it's a strategic mistake to worry about it any time soon. Heroes made GW1 easier for the solo player, sure. But it also made it harder for the non-solo player to get into a group, because those who can will run full hero/hench (and these days, full hero) teams.

 

Unless ANet sincerely wants to stop working on the game, there's no reason for ANet to spend any energy at all considering it.

And there's no evidence that such is the case.

[Erasculio.2914]

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> Unless ANet sincerely wants to stop working on the game, there's no reason for ANet to spend any energy at all considering it.

 

That's contradictory. If ArenaNet wanted to stop working on the game, it's unlikely they would take the extra work to make sure that dynamic events would be viable with few players.

 

It would be better to make changes now - while ArenaNet has the resources to apply big changes to the game - than wait until they're about to leave GW2 behind.

 

 

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Erasculio.2914" said:

> > @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > Unless ANet sincerely wants to stop working on the game, there's no reason for ANet to spend any energy at all considering it.

>

> That's contradictory. If ArenaNet wanted to stop working on the game, it's unlikely they would take the extra work to make sure that dynamic events would be viable with few players.

No, if they wanted to stop working on the game, then they'd divert a small number of resources to automating it, so they can continue to make money without spending much more than server costs.

 

 

> It would be better to make changes now - while ArenaNet has the resources to apply big changes to the game - than wait until they're about to leave GW2 behind.

If they make the changes now, it will undermine all the multi-player aspects of the game. That might make it more to your taste, but it wouldn't make it a better MMO.

 

It's a little odd that you've taken the position that they shouldn't wait, since you brought up the GW1 example: heroes made it possible to leave GW1 behind.

 

[Obtena.7952]

> @"Erasculio.2914" said:

> > @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > Unless ANet sincerely wants to stop working on the game, there's no reason for ANet to spend any energy at all considering it.

>

> That's contradictory. If ArenaNet wanted to stop working on the game, it's unlikely they would take the extra work to make sure that dynamic events would be viable with few players.

>

> It would be better to make changes now - while ArenaNet has the resources to apply big changes to the game - than wait until they're about to leave GW2 behind.

>

>

First, I doubt any player favours Anet making changes to the game of the kind your are talking about over new content.

 

Second, even assuming we will need these changes in the future (debatable to begin with), I don't see any advantage of Anet doing it now vs. later.

 

Frankly, I think it would be a disaster for Anet to implement changes to the game to accommodate a smaller population at this point because populations aren't small. The question isn't what Anet should do if they didn't want to 'work' on the game. I've yet to see a game, even in maintenance mode, that didn't have people 'working' on it. If you mean stop providing new content, then they know that the nature of the MMO players that stay will organize better to complete the content they want to do. There isn't actually a reason to do what you are suggesting.

 

In fact, many games in maintenance mode do just fine. It's the players that love the games that stay and they self-organize to get things done. You can actually already see this in action in GW2 ... older content is organized by guilds all the time for completion.

 

[Erasculio.2914]

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> No, if they wanted to stop working on the game, then they'd divert a small number of resources to automating it

 

Which becomes an issue if those small resources are not enough to make a proper solution to this issue.

 

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> If they make the changes now, it will undermine all the multi-player aspects of the game.

 

Assuming that the solution ArenaNet would implement would be a bad one. Which, ironically, would be more likely if they waited until they're almost done with the game to try to solve this.

 

You sound like you think the solution for this issue would be adding Heroes to GW2. That would be the easiest solution, but also the worst one. A good solution would be one that doesn't interfere with events that have a lot of players, while also helping players who, today, try to do events in areas with few people (such as the mid level areas during off hours).

[Obtena.7952]

The solution already exists; players have always organized themselves to get content done when games get long in the tooth. Players in GW2 will do the same ... they DO the same now.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Erasculio.2914" said:

> You sound like you think the solution for this issue would be adding Heroes to GW2.

On the contrary, I am saying that there isn't any issue to address at all.

 

 

[Tekoneiric.6817]

> @"Gehenna.3625" said:

 

> I wouldn't. When there are too few players to keep the game going it will close down. Unlike GW1, you need other players to tackle a lot of content even in open world. The only solution is to add some sort of companion system which I think will be too expensive if a game is declining that much. GW1 is kept alive mostly because of its link to GW2 to the point that getting titles in GW1 gets you achievements and rewards in GW2. So if GW2 will go down to a very small population I think we can expect both games to shut down.

 

One of the devs said it's possible to make GW1 a stand alone game. Hopefully if they ever decide to end it they convert it to a stand alone game or let Steam take over running the servers. I think GW1 could be remade into a mobile and console game with some effort. Since mobile is big it might worth their effort since it would bring in a whole new generation of players.

 

> What ArenaNet should've been doing is build another game so they have more than GW. Now that some project fell through it's still all they have. So I reckon that when GW2 stops being profitable enough, ArenaNet will no longer have a reason to exist unless Ncsoft invests into them to build something new. In my view they should've already started on that though. Just keeping GW2 going for as long as it's profitable is not really a long-term plan.

 

IMHO I think ANet could be doing much better to promote and market the franchise. They need to get more aggressive with their marketing maybe make changes in the game to bring more people in. A web/mobile social platform attached to the game would allow more people to interact both in and out of the game while sharing in game achievements, doing group planning and chat, etc. The interface could provide in-game webcam like functions that could show non-player fly on the wall views of the most populated maps and events.

 

Outside of the game itself there is much they could do; dozens of books, comics, animated and live action programs. Imagine a Game of Thrones like series based on the GW franchise. They could get better at marketing related toy and action figure items also. A successful franchise requires that it be multi-faceted in it's approach. As long as the GW franchise is just a game it will always be at risk of getting the axe at some point but with other sources of income (if invested wisely) they ensure that the game itself continues for a long time to come.

[joneirikb.7506]

> @"Erasculio.2914" said:

> > @"joneirikb.7506" said:

> > In theory all events in the game should scale already. Most common events scale from 1 player and upward, the group events from 5 and upward. So the majority of open world content would still be possible to play, even solo.

>

> I wonder if that would be fun, though - doing the events as the single character there, with the bare minimum spaws required for the event to happen.

>

> And how would that work for large meta events with multiple lanes, like most metas in the HoT maps?

 

What I'm trying to say is that 99% of open world is already playable with 5 players (or less), as long as players are willing to do the smallest amount of organization, they can manage 5 players for anything. That will also let them do dungeons and fractals as well, so got entire pve save Raids covered.

[Gehenna.3625]

> @"Tekoneiric.6817" said:

> > @"Gehenna.3625" said:

>

> > I wouldn't. When there are too few players to keep the game going it will close down. Unlike GW1, you need other players to tackle a lot of content even in open world. The only solution is to add some sort of companion system which I think will be too expensive if a game is declining that much. GW1 is kept alive mostly because of its link to GW2 to the point that getting titles in GW1 gets you achievements and rewards in GW2. So if GW2 will go down to a very small population I think we can expect both games to shut down.

>

> One of the devs said it's possible to make GW1 a stand alone game. Hopefully if they ever decide to end it they convert it to a stand alone game or let Steam take over running the servers. I think GW1 could be remade into a mobile and console game with some effort. Since mobile is big it might worth their effort since it would bring in a whole new generation of players.

 

I would like that. I'd buy that for sure. Most of the content in GW1 you can solo with heroes/mercs anyway. Just the sort of endgame stuff like HM dungeons and things like DoA, The Deep, FoW etc. will just need some toning down or get difficulty modes. Whether or not the investment is interesting to Ncsoft is the real question there. If they think they can do a minimal investment and make some decent cash out of it, they might do it. If they have other things that will make them more money though then that might not even be interesting for them.

 

As for mobile games it seems better to make GW2 the mobile game and there have been rumors about that. Maybe that's one of those projects that fell through. Ncsoft seem to focus more on the Asian market as it is. GW2 didn't do that well in China and that might've shut the door on that. Who knows?

 

But GW1 as standalone game? Yeah, I'd buy that for sure.

[bbop.9706]

shouldnt the question be how can it be adapted to work with fewer staff??