My theory about new Nightfall classes

Without a doubt, the biggest worry when it comes to second expansions is how to make the existing players buy them.

Factions sort of made the mistake of containing 2 classes and a whole bunch of skill that the average player can do without.

It's going to be a lot harder to sell Nightfall than it was to sell Factions. So what does ANet do? Simple, they invent 2 overpowered classes and what a predict will be a whole bunch of overpowered new skill for the existing classes. This gives current players a huge incentive to buy.

The choice becomes: buy Nightfall or become obscelete.

There is no way that no one in the whole of ANet did not see that the Dervish was way overpowered. It is so obvious. With more than a year of balancing, it is impossible that they unintentionally made the Dervish too powerful.

there may be skills that balance the overpowered new professions that are given to the existing professions.. you never know..

Like I and many have said a thousand times before. This is BETA TEST. The professions will be balanced for nightfall. ANet has said not all chapters will have new professions. And Nightfall is more PvE oriented anyway. And lets not forget Nightfall is being made by the dev team that made chapter 1.

Sorry if that was a bit rantish. Having to repeat yourself like a parrot can become a frustration.

Why not let the game evolve a bit.
See which direction it moves.
What kind of new skills existing classes recieve.
What kind of mechanic changes occur.
And see the tempo of the game itself move forward.

... before crying about things not being the same as they were.

Otherwise, what's the point?

Factions was a let down--in my opinion.
It was great for others.

Nightfall looks to be a winner--in my opinion.

Did A.net miss some things? Of course. Look how fast they swooped down on Sand Shards. Like flies on bull-excement. Are Dervishes too powerful currently? Well, it took a little while, but that's the difference between thousands of people looking for ways to make a Dervish utterly effective, compared to a handful of people who have already been balancing those skills for months on end. The same concept of proof reading, via a 3rd party. A.net needs the people to look at it. We'll find their problems faster than they can.

So maybe have some patience.
Watch where the game goes.

If you don't like it--don't buy or play it.

This may or may not be true, and I'm not arguing for it or against it, but it's interesting to note that it is kind of the route that Magic: The Gathering took with their recent expansions. The recent expansions have made cards pretty darn powerful, in order to entice new players. Well, just my $0.02

P.S. I think ANet or Gaile confirmed that at least part of ANet's business strategy is based on that of Wizards of the Coast, the maker of M:tG.

Anet of course observes how their new professions are being used, why not. That is the whole reason for the pre PVP event allowing the new characters to be used. Wait for the game to come out before saying somethings to powerful, alot of people thought assassins were terrible characters but alot of people choose them and also alot of people still think assassins are terrible since they die to quickly. Not the case if you play your cards correctly.

They have to have some sort of gimick to keep people and/or n00bs buying the expansions. How else would they make any money? ANet doesn't charge monthly like WoW.

PS. 10 bucks for one character slot is a bit ridiculous. -.-

This thread makes no sense. I wouldn't call Paragons overpowered, they seem fairly balanced for a beta. And Dervishes arent any worse than Rits were in Factions beta. I dont see what's the whole marketing bs. MY theory on the new profs: they wanted to make a melee caster and a ranged fighter class, and they did just that.

In some games, they call it codex creeping. In others, expansion creeping. The same can be said for Guild Wars. It's a tried, tested and true way to keep an audience.

You can re-do the same thing 50 times, and some people will go for it. But the majority will lose interest after the first two times, if not even just the first. So they have to kick it up a notch. Otherwise, especially with today's gaming market targets, the attention spans are gone.

Think of good games from the past. For your older folk, maybe you enjoyed playing Zork. Maybe you played a couple of role play BBS games on a portal. The same game, 10 times in a row. The mechanics never changed. Nothing did. But we still played them. Why? The story was so cool and good that we wanted to play it, no matter what. It was like reading a good series of books or watching a trio of films. You don't care if the next didn't "out do" the previous. You just cared to see the story progress. To learn more. To answer those questions you have.

Now, the point I was getting to:

Guild Wars has a story line. But it's very weak, at best. Your typical Hero kind of thing. There's no twists really, no thick plot. No fan fiction to really write about it, no theorizing about elements of the complex story. No depth to the aspects other than humanity that we encounter.

This is why A.net has to "one up" their chapters, to try to meet the demand and market. They can't release their game over and over, with new content, and the same old drab story line and call it a role playing game. People lose interest in that and it becomes a stocking stuffer. A.net is paying close attention to where their market is--which country, which age group, what these groups like outside of Guild Wars so that they can impliment that into the game, to further the attraction, to further keep people playing.

It's not the story that is doing it here, folks.
It's the media. The presentation. The creeping of the series. It just goes up.

Eventually though, creeping goes too far, and the game collapses.

Anyhow, enjoy the game(s) for what they are.

i gotta agree. I for one will be buying nightfall. the Ritulist may still be my fav class.. but it 55 new explorable areas! gd.. wtf.. and yes you can sign me up.

After the first beta weekend in which not even both genders for both classes were done, let it be known: These classes are overpowered and can't possibly be changed by release.

Not really....its the price that people wanted.
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On topic: THeres no way they would make the next one a "mandatory" expansion.

Only pvp players who want to be in the top of the game are obligated to buy all expansions.

im not so sure that that true, everyone wants or atleast imo everyone wants to be at the top of their game, even in PvE. although i have no like for the new classes, (paragon=w/r, mo/r or the dervish=a/e or w/a) if i get the expansion ill still make a necro first, just to taste the new skills. but i am still waiting for a deep/detailed storyline other then the bland hack and slash dribble

Magic's last "block" (one large set and two small ones, all designed to be played together, for those of you unfamiliar with the game) was pretty average in terms of the total power-level. The block immediately before it was universally considered the most underpowered of the last four years... Probably because it came after a block that was overpowered beyond belief.

In other words, they don't just do power-creep for the sake of it - that's a great way to destroy your game's prospects in the long term.

Magic has one significant advantage over GW: Their different sanctioned tournament formats, the most significant one of which is Standard, in which only the last two 'blocks' of cards are legal. This lets them engineer power levels specifically to the format without having to worry about the brokenness that is an unrestricted Magic card pool... And actually lets them control 'creep' by ramping back power in successive sets.

This can't really be applied to Guild Wars yet - there aren't enough total skills and variants out to make, say, Factions + Nightfall skills only tournaments a fixture; never mind the player base. If Guild Wars becomes some kind of massive popular phenomenom on a Pokemon scale they'll probably need to look into it, but that's not looking likely.

GW's significant advantage, as has been pointed out, is that they can always nerf skills in realtime.

you can be sure that Anet will take care of things, they're reading these forums, looking into PvP matches(they can do that right?) so they'll know something is wrong and it'll get fixed

Actually, that kind of marketing drove me away from several games. I only stay interested when the core game changes with the rest of the changes, because im not interested in chasing the latest thing just to stay competitive.

Some sooner than others, thats why people who actually play the game for long periods of time absolutely detest that style of marketing.

Worry not sir, the new classes will not be unbalanced and overpowered, if that is an issue, it will be fixed very soon. We will not certanly not be forced to get chap3 or to be obsolute.

Although essentially true, the fact that you don't need to buy new chapters to stay on top of your game seems a bit... optimistic. It seems ANet have settled on the 25 new skills per core prof (15 regular, 10 elites) format for each new chapter they release. Well then... surely in Factions there are skills that put you at an advantage to people who do not own Factions... PvP wise at least. Now lets flip this over. Clearly Factions only players are missing on some really powerful stuff - Spites, Eviscerate, Ineptitude to name a few. So- you see- the whole argument that you don't have to buy new chapters to stay on top of your game is- in fact- questionable.

As has been said, this was a beta test. Who knows they might make them a tad weaker and maybe nerf the D/Mo build, even though since I didn't have time to try them I don't know how that build works. But I don't think Paragons are too powerful, just think of what mesmers can do, I believe at least the Paragon will fit right in. The Dervish I don't much about.

This was a Beta run with a massive amount of new perspectives (and a vast amount of them looking for uber exploits). This allows for multiple lines of thought outside of the limited ANet staff, which allows for imbalances to show up at a level they could never do inhouse. For balances sake, these beta runs are brilliant, and things will be adjusted for the PvE Beta, then adjusted again after that, and periodically through time.

Fear not, the scales will balance when it counts.

I wouldn't say 100% that it is marketing ploy to get you to buy chapter 3, but it really is. How can they drum up sales? Show you classes/skills/forms that make you tingle with POWAR as you chew up the opponent and DPS your way across the terrain.

Of course, what you are going to get will be a nerfed down version of the character you tore the weekend up with...but An won't talk about that too much. They want you hooked on the idea of POWARRRR!!!

AN knew when they released them for the weekend, that they were going to dominate, as it was, hence the temporary nerf..(if only permament *sigh*) of zealots, etc. Would have been like weeding a daisy bed with a combine, otherwise.


And.. melandru rocks.