View Full Version : Issue With Repetitiveness
For the Record, I am unsure if 'repetitiveness' is a word; so please excuse that.
I was reading our guild's Guild Chat today, and my friend was discussing GW1 repetitiveness. What he meant was that GW1 is completely based on "go there, kill that, run there, talk to that person, kill this, go get that and bring it back.. etc."
What I am hoping is that GW2 will eliminate the repetitiveness factor that Arenanet has in GW1, and will bring more different variations of gameplay, such as a better crafting feature; perhaps a forging feature.. smithing.. maybe some types of sports (not ones such as football, but team sports)
Many reasons why some have quit Guild Wars is because you are constantly alone with mobs of monsters and a few CPU henchman and heroes. All of the missions and quests are based off of "go there, do this, kill that, bring me this, run over there, talk to that person, etc."
What do you guys out there, reading this wall of text, think about this issue? What would you like changed about this? Lets get some feedback going.
IGN ~ Gilgamesh Ruse
Lamuness
19-06-2008, 03:57
Welcome to the world of MMORPGs.
There are things that you can add that are PvP related, like AB, Dragon Arena, Rollerbeetle Race, and it's a fun break from things. But in terms of PvE and quests, I doubt there's anything else you can do that doesn't follow this formula.
For example:
If you add a sneaking quest, you will probably go to get something, and bring it back.
If you were to do an assassination quest, you go and kill someone, bring it back.
It's how MMO's are made. Or any game. They just need to hide it better.
I just think ANet just needs to have more epic quests, where large scripted events make you feel cool and like a hero. That would make it all worth it. For example, you free and escort a general jailed deep in Old Ascalon all the way to Ebonhawke, or even halfway, and he tells you to meet him outside. So you get there, you both walk in, and all the guards kneel and cheer that he's alive. Then things happen and all those guards get possessed and turn into undead and start rampaging outside and everyone that's in that town gets involved in suppressing this threat. If the world was persistent, that would be epic.
Another example is to have a chain of quests that required you to put items you've collected onto podiums to open the gate to Abaddon. Once that gate was open, hordes of Margonites poured out of that thing, and then eventually, Abaddon sticks his head out of the portal and you had to kill him. That would also be epic.
I like that they added elite quests and elite dungeons, and I have yet to visit them. But I think they need to do more of that in GW2 if they want to hide the quest grind.
patrickvp
19-06-2008, 08:15
I agree its kind of repetitive, but I happen to like just going out to kill a few monsters after a long day at work. :grin:
One thing I think they could do that would be awesome with respect to repetition would be to introduce TRUE labyrinths into the game. By that, I mean that every time you enter it, it's component passages are dynamically pathed to create a new unique maze every time. Assuming all the "pieces" of the labyrinth have uniform connections, this probably wouldn't be much of an issue to make. We already see some elements of interchangeable parts in the dungeons in EotN. Perhaps you could also engineer crazy traps, like good/bad choices within the dungeon. A sample might be a room with two switches. One will open a key door, while the other would lock all the doors for a moment, and reshuffle the labyrinth, rendering the map useless, and you'd have to find your way around again (I'm sure lots of people would hate that, but hey, adds to the sense of an unpredictable adventure).
Dungeons are by far my favorite "task" in GW, but I'd love to always be surprised by one.
raspberry jam
19-06-2008, 13:13
patrickvp that's a very nice idea. Random maps (maybe with some nonrandom parts) is a nice way of keeping things interesting. However in a complex game it must be very carefully done in order to not upset balance.
I think good/bad choices that can screw you up that bad goes better in single-player games though. In multiplayer games, especially online ones, you can't save your progress, so if you do something that causes the adventure to take an hour or two longer than expected people might have to leave in the middle of it, etc.
They could have some more sneaking/disguise missions. Imagine Pogahn Passage, except that you run the risk of having your cover blown if you act strange, or wander too close to a guard causing him to recognize you, etc. If your cover is blown you need to kill the people who know about it before they sound the alarm, and if they do, more guards will be called in, or something. In such a case there could potentially be an epic, though unplanned, battle that the party could win if they are good enough, despite being faced with huge number of enemies (or they could wipe and be kicked out of the mission as punishment for not being careful enough).
ANet whatever you do, keep things non-repetitive if you can, but please please don't resort to crafting or minigames. Make something good and worthwhile out of the actual gameplay instead.
I know you all mean well, and have very good Ideas. However, everything is repetitive and based off of the 'go there, do that..' method; just take a look at any quest out there, read it what you need to do, and it will be something like 'take this to that person' usually.
Also, the elite missions are just based on 'kill this, save the world' type of thing. We need more things to do! Such as better methods of crafting, and be able to connect to the environment more, instead of the whole game really based on killing something.
'Go destroy Abbadon, go kill Shiro, Pwn the Lich...'
Pretty much every MMO crafting system I've seen is more repetitive than killing mobs.
If someone finds a more innovative way to do crafting, I'm all for it... but the current de facto standards for crafting leave much to be desired, and aren't really that much of an improvement over just farming.
I agree with that, but I'm looking for ideas for a more creative way of crafting; instead of going out to collect iron and steel to make armor, you could go out and craft your own materials by - for example - mining the ore yourself.
Lamuness
19-06-2008, 20:14
Which in turn becomes a take this here to that place quest. You see why you really can't break that formula? They are in place to make the experience as interesting as possible. Having a minigame for everything you do gets boring real fast.
My solution to the problem is that they have to make the quests and missions so that the rewards are worth doing. Whether it's an uber weapon skin, just plain making you feel proud of what you did, or even having this epic battle, defending your town, etc. would be a better way to approach it.
Gmr Leon
19-06-2008, 20:37
Random ideas due to the mention of mining.
Necromancer
Animate Bone Miner
If carrying a piece of meat or hunk of flesh from an enemy, you animate it into an undead miner. This miner will be able to carry less, but will produce more, the more of them you have. However, due to their being undead, their arms may fall off, meaning you need someone to be there to help keep it up or just repair it yourself.
Elementalist
Earth Driller
Combining the properties of Air Magic and Earth Magic the Elementalist can drill into the earth to mine for ores. However, it is dangerous as the debris from the drilling may hit you during the process and your mana is being drained by the process.
Ritualist
Mining Spirit
Rather than mining and gaining little, the Ritualist creates a spirit that when around a mine increases the production of miners in the area. Thus helping the Ritualist in question, and those working around him.
Paragon
Shout of the Mines
This would loosen the rocks by the vibrations caused by the loud shout. This makes mining quicker for those in the area, but does not increase production.
Warrior
Enthusiastic Drive
Warrior begins quickly pummeling the rocks with two pickaxes doubling the production for yourself, but risks debris hitting you.
Mesmer
Illusions of Labor
Lessens the amount of mana used by Elementalists and lessens the decay of Bone Miners. This makes them an essential part of any mining team.
Assassin
Hasty Pace
The Assassin either mines quicker or Shadow Steps to the Xunlai Chest to deposit whatever is being mined. This makes them useful as transport during mining when one's inventory is full.
Dervish
Melandru's Release
Pickaxe hits three of the rocks at once, increasing production, but has a chance of causing exhaustion.
Ranger
One with the Earth
Calls upon a set amount of subterranean creatures to assist in breaking up the rocks to make the mining quicker.
I love your ideas, and some are pretty funny too.
Some ideas for a quest I have in mind are like going on a long very difficult trip to - lets say - the bottom of the bottomless pit in the Far Shiverpeaks. As a someone above put: Have quest rewards actually be WORTH DOING! I hope that will occur in GW2, a better way to mask this method.
raspberry jam
19-06-2008, 21:11
You see why you really can't break that formula?While this is true, why "break the formula" at all? If you don't like the game, don't play it.
By the way, all games are like this.
Super Mario Bros: jump around on platforms and on monsters' heads to get to the end of the level
Pokemon: collect monsters and let them fight for you against other pokemon
Starcraft: build and control units in a struggle to destroy your opponent's base
...over and over.
Lamuness
19-06-2008, 21:21
I'm fine with it. They just need new methods of hiding it.
Just the OP wanted something that's not go here and kill this, but all games are made that way. Unless you play a puzzle game, or a Sim game, they're all going to follow that formula.
Btw, I talked about that already in my 1st post :grin:
While that mining stuff is fun, unless it was an NPC that you go up to, and he gives you a challenge to do that, much like Zelda and how they have those minigame houses that tell you to find the heart container while digging, or even that western shootout style thing in Twilight Princess, it seems pointless to have that kind of stuff implemented into the game itself.
BlueHeaven
19-06-2008, 21:23
One thing I think they really need to do is make non-primary quests worth taking the time to do them, either reward wise/title wise, something. Aside from the quests in EotN which you gain PvE skills, once you've reached lvl20, theres really no need to do any of the quests on the other there continents, unless you want an extra 500xp? Theres gotta be a better reason to do them.
life itself is repetitive, wake up, go to work, go home again, eat, sleep, wake up, go to work etc.
there is no way to avoid it. even random maps or labyrint maps would be repetitive after a while. perhaps not how the map looks but you are entering that map for the 500th time.
Gmr Leon
19-06-2008, 21:40
While that mining stuff is fun, unless it was an NPC that you go up to, and he gives you a challenge to do that, much like Zelda and how they have those minigame houses that tell you to find the heart container while digging, or even that western shootout style thing in Twilight Princess, it seems pointless to have that kind of stuff implemented into the game itself.
The mining stuff was just an idea, sort of in relation to the comment about gathering ore yourself.
One thing I think they really need to do is make non-primary quests worth taking the time to do them, either reward wise/title wise, something. Aside from the quests in EotN which you gain PvE skills, once you've reached lvl20, theres really no need to do any of the quests on the other there continents, unless you want an extra 500xp? Theres gotta be a better reason to do them.
It would probably have helped if, once you reached level 20, gold rewards from these quests increased to around twice or thrice the original amount.
What I really mean is masking the repetitiveness very, very well as said before. What really needs to happen is to quit making the small, pointless quests where you go and talk to someone, then come back to the person and get your reward. What really needs to happen is make quests more like 'epic uber quest journeys', by that I mean having these small quests part of a bigger one really, putting them all together. What needs to happen is more CHALLENGE!
What really needs to happen is make quests more like 'epic uber quest journeys', by that I mean having these small quests part of a bigger one really, putting them all together. What needs to happen is more CHALLENGE!
That's what main quests and missions are, aren't they? There are of course some quests that are easy (go to place A, fetch thingie B and take it to person C. There are other quests that are difficult. There are a few multi-part quests, especially in NF and EotN, and quests with "master difficulty". The missions are quests with special challenges that take you through the main story.
Playing GW is actually VERY varied. In the other MMOs I've played, there was a lot more focus on killing mobs over and over, just to gain more levels. GW actually has a story, and most of the time there's an interesting story behind each quest as well - it's just that most people don't bother reading what the NPCs say.
Nemeon Lion
21-06-2008, 15:44
If people want so much a crafting system, there is an easy way to implement it without adding grind.
My idea is the following:
There are no level restrictions in crafting items
This means that, as long as you have the materials, you can craft the item. However, there will be some restrictions, which I shall be explaining afterwards.
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In order to unlock an item for crafting, the necessary recipe must be obtained
This is how you would unlock items to craft. The recipes could be obtained mainly through quest rewards.
Some of the rarer recipes, that would allow crafting exotic skinned weapons and armors, could only be obtained through certain events, like the mentioned Dragon / Bridge quest. By completing the event "the right way" ( as in, scaring the dragon off ), you could be awarded a rare recipe + whatever else the reward may be.
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I think this wouldn't be a bad idea. Eliminate grinding from crafting (the only grinding would be the materials, but hopefully, the required mats aren't a lot) AND integrate the system into the quest system of GW2.
At the same time you're exploring the continent, trying your skills to see what eeffects happen, what new paths may open, you may encounter yourself with a new quest that may reward you with a new recipe.
In other words, at the same time you're enjoying the quests, you're advancing in crafting as well, by unlocking it.
Just my 2 cents.
Playing GW is actually VERY varied. In the other MMOs I've played, there was a lot more focus on killing mobs over and over, just to gain more levels. GW actually has a story, and most of the time there's an interesting story behind each quest as well - it's just that most people don't bother reading what the NPCs say.
My thoughts exactly!! Any other MMO I try out, usually lasts two weeks at the most before I tire of having to kill 5 x-monsters and 3 y-monsters to finish my quest, only to find out that the next quest, and the next, and the one after that and all the others after that, consist of the exact same task, only with different monsters.
I ALWAYS read what the NPC's have to say, even if it's the 100th time I'm doing that quest.
raspberry jam
22-06-2008, 01:09
If people want so much a crafting system, there is an easy way to implement it without adding grind.
My idea is the following:
There are no level restrictions in crafting items
This means that, as long as you have the materials, you can craft the item. However, there will be some restrictions, which I shall be explaining afterwards.
-----------
In order to unlock an item for crafting, the necessary recipe must be obtained
This is how you would unlock items to craft. The recipes could be obtained mainly through quest rewards.
Some of the rarer recipes, that would allow crafting exotic skinned weapons and armors, could only be obtained through certain events, like the mentioned Dragon / Bridge quest. By completing the event "the right way" ( as in, scaring the dragon off ), you could be awarded a rare recipe + whatever else the reward may be.
--------------
I think this wouldn't be a bad idea. Eliminate grinding from crafting (the only grinding would be the materials, but hopefully, the required mats aren't a lot) AND integrate the system into the quest system of GW2.
At the same time you're exploring the continent, trying your skills to see what eeffects happen, what new paths may open, you may encounter yourself with a new quest that may reward you with a new recipe.
In other words, at the same time you're enjoying the quests, you're advancing in crafting as well, by unlocking it.
Just my 2 cents.But the only point of crafting is to provide for a grind based economy. If you do it the way you described it would be the same as giving items as quest rewards.
What you are suggesting is basically that instead of giving an actual quest reward, you give players a quest reward kit that they can build their own rewards with. You might then, of course, ask what the point of that would be, really. Since, apart from possibly skins, it's no different than the pay-5k-to-weapons-guy-to-get-max-weapon model of crafting that we have in the current GW.
Nemeon Lion
22-06-2008, 15:47
But the only point of crafting is to provide for a grind based economy. If you do it the way you described it would be the same as giving items as quest rewards.
What you are suggesting is basically that instead of giving an actual quest reward, you give players a quest reward kit that they can build their own rewards with. You might then, of course, ask what the point of that would be, really. Since, apart from possibly skins, it's no different than the pay-5k-to-weapons-guy-to-get-max-weapon model of crafting that we have in the current GW.
That's true, but it still is the same if you had to grind by constantly repeating the same action, over and over, just to unlock the next tier in crafting.
At least, by this way, most of that grind is removed.
Also, you could also grant skins that could only be obtained through crafting. Kinda like an incentive.
Finally, I never said that getting a recipe would be the only reward of a quest. Imagine that normally, a quest gives a reward of 2k exp and 600 gold. A quest that gives a recipe reward could give you a recipe + 1.5k exp + 500 gold. Either way, a recipe should never be the only reward of a quest.
raspberry jam
22-06-2008, 16:53
Incentive for what, exactly? Crafting? But you don't need to grind crafting skill. Doing quests? But shouldn't the quest itself be incentive enough?
Nemeon Lion
22-06-2008, 19:30
Incentive for what, exactly? Crafting? But you don't need to grind crafting skill. Doing quests? But shouldn't the quest itself be incentive enough?
Some people find incentive in the rewards, others find it in the fun of doing it. It's simply both worlds united.
Those that want to do quests will still do them, those that like the rewards will find incentive from doing the quests.
raspberry jam
22-06-2008, 22:10
Ok. Well, it's one of the best ideas for crafting system that I have seen in a very long time.
i like the current system, more mats i don't mind, but a forge thing is not my type of playing GW......if you like that, go play LOTRO, there is plenty of that to do.
Nemeon Lion
23-06-2008, 00:12
i like the current system, more mats i don't mind, but a forge thing is not my type of playing GW......if you like that, go play LOTRO, there is plenty of that to do.
I never mentioned using a forge.
Simply having the item unlocked and having the mats in your inventory should be all there is to it.
You could then implement the system in a way where you craft it yourself, or make an NPC craft the item for you. Much like the current GW weaponsmiths and armorsmiths.
perhaps a forging feature.. smithing..
does that answer your question?
My smithing and mining ideas were simply sudgestions, those have led to many great ideas here for the last 2 or 3 days. I never ever said that I did not like GW, I am rather saavy at it actually. I've played the storyline a multitude of times, and have watched the cinematics and read what npcs had to say and more, I have also read a lot of Lore and a lot on the GW2W.
What I want and what a majority of players want is better ways to hide the current 'take this over there, kill that thing (and so on)' method, with witty storylines that add a lot of suspense to the game.. sort of like, for say, your favourite soap opera?
(edit) Also, I love the Nightfall campaign; it has great quests and missions, and the developers did an excellent job at it (armor, dervish and paragons and all). Mallyx was a good challenge, and I would like to see more of it.
raspberry jam
24-06-2008, 07:51
What I want and what a majority of players want is better ways to hide the current 'take this over there, kill that thing (and so on)' method, with witty storylines that add a lot of suspense to the game.. sort of like, for say, your favourite soap opera?The problem is that the storyline will still be go here, kill that, talk to him, no matter how well you hide it, since you can always skip the dialogs/cinematics. Some games force you to actually pay attention to them by making the player make storyline choices; unless such choices lead to near instant mission loss for the party they are highly inappropriate for a multiplayer, online game. And if they do cause near instant mission loss, they
1) are stupid ("So you don't want to save the kingdom? Guards! Kill them!")
2) would be well known to players, and just another part of a mechanical go here, kill that, click option B storyline.
That said, of course there should be a good storyline. It's part of why I like PvE in the current GW. :smiley:
Gmr Leon
24-06-2008, 08:00
They could make those options not be part of the main storyline though. Instead just put them in quests, so you could kill person B and get item V or talk to/save person B and get item Y.
raspberry jam
24-06-2008, 19:14
They could make those options not be part of the main storyline though. Instead just put them in quests, so you could kill person B and get item V or talk to/save person B and get item Y.Yeah. The problem comes if you want completeness: When there are two sides to a story, you want to see both. In a single player game, no problem since you play it through in like 10-30 hours, you can take the other option the next time through. In an MMO it's different.
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