What the 4th Campaign needs to do...

Thoughtful commentary, thanks.

I would prefer to think ANet has an over all plan, I am sure they do story-arc wise and so forth; but from all appearances it seems the game has grown rather organically.

This isn't totally bad, it really shows a delightfully creative process. But, it can also be a good way for a development team to paint itself into a corner.

No doubt in my mind that the Game must grow to be successful even if they had a more traditional business model.

Heroes are popular and a hugely successful addition to the game, but they also tend to work against some of the things that make a game strong and ultimately enjoyable in the long term.

But, countering the negative impact of Heroes to the game is just a portion of the overall challenges:

-Player base thinly spread and fragmented
-Use of Heroes discouraging/reducing player interactions
-Stalled/static character development after level 20 <this has nothing to do with raising the cap>
-World/global story line becoming jumbled/messy due to chronological issues
-Striking a better balance between a linear, mission driven story line and player freedom and immersion
-Undeveloped opportunities in the first 3 campaign areas

Kuldebar -- when I read your very first post and noticed you mentioned "races", I laughed out loud, because I knew you were just going to get flamed for it. I agree that the aversion is rather psychotic.

If we're specifically trying to not be like WoW, then Anet needs to remove swords from the game as well. Swords are everywhere in WoW, and that's just too similar.

However, if we stop trying to compare ourselves to other games, I fully support the future inclusion of races. Us debating on how they would go about implementing a new race is really a moot point, because in the end it's up to the GW devs. If they want to include a race, they'll find a way. Just as a prediction, though, I believe they would focus their efforts on one at a time, because of the overall complexity of such an addition.

I have to admit, though... my desire for a Norsk-themed expansion supersedes my desire to bring the previous 3 campaigns together. If that ends up being the theme of the next release, I won't be playing anything else anyway.

I feel that Anet would LOSE a lot of customers this way. The way I see it, there's about half people who want to play solo, the other half want to play with real people (This is just judging by the amount of postings for and against heroes and whatnot. Actually, there are a lot more against them, but that's beside the point). I don't think that people should get rewarded just because of their preferred style of gameplay. Discrimination is never the way to go. We see enough of it in real life. Guild Wars, and any other game, is supposed to be an escape.

Now, I agree with most of your other points. I think an expansion to the older campaigns would be cool. I liked the idea of global quests from Scorchio. But I really feel that the next chapter in Guild Wars should be on a different continent. If they had an expansion pack and a new campaign, that would be cool. But just an expansion pack, or the new campaign set in one of the pre-existing continents, would lose a lot of players. A lot of people wouldn't want to go back and see the same old scenery (as I've stated in my other posts). So, if they did both, great. If they just do a new campaign, with new continent to explore, also great. If they just do expansion of old continents, not so great.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but let's say you run a bar that attracts the type of people that start bar fights on a continual basis and intimidate your "other" customers. Perhaps you may want to lessen the bar's appeal to the rowdy bunch by changing how your bar operates: decor, service, bouncers, etc.

At what point do you end up shooting yourself in the foot?

On the other point you raised:

My feeling is that there isn't much of a difference if the next expansion takes place on an entirely different land mass or another planet, effectively it will result in a further disintegration of the player based society and add to the "dead-end" nature of the earlier expansions. I feel that it is in ANet's best interest (as well as the player base) that the previous chapters remain attractive to people shopping for games. In other words, it helps the game if people still play Prophecies because that creates a pool of players that are more likely to buy other campaigns.

We are living in the Days (perhaps, Daze) of Hysteria.

Yeah, I really don't get the Race Aversion thing.

I think what people mean to protest is how WoW has "racial bonuses", but in my mind that has nothing to do with how Guild Wars could implement other playable races to freshen up the game's story line and angles.


-omg PvP!? WoW has PvP!

-omg loading screens!? WoW has loading screens!

-omg magic!? WoW has magic!

and so on...

Even then, racial characteristics could easily fit into the GW model. I think the best (and easiest) way for them to implement races would be to treat it as a profession. For example, you would choose your class as Centaur, gain racial-based skills and attributes to represent your advancement in tauric natural abilities, then choose a secondary profession of your liking. This brings the focus to unique racial abilities, distinguishing them from humans. Likewise, a human could choose a race as a secondary profession to represent the mingling of bloodlines.

If any of you have played tabletop D&D, this very closely parallels the idea of racial hit die adjustments. It could be very balanced and straightforward with some thoughtful planning.

But, I suppose I'm steering the topic away from your original intent, Kuldebar, so I'll shut up about my race rants. :P

The way i see it, the new continent could be connected to a part of an old one. A bit like the desolation is connected to the crystal desert. That way the major part of the storyline would take place on the new continent but at some point, you would go to the previous continent to experience a part the storyline.

I wonder how divisive (if at all) hero implementation was in the developers meetings. While they are solo(ish) friendly, they do detract from the MMO side. Personally, I'd have allowed 2 heros. But that's me.


I'll take the above point by point.

1. MMO's have to update their product as well. These typically have a combination of world/tech/story. The other guys have the same problem/challenges.
2. I agree, but isn't that what they said about henchies?
3. I can agree with this, but at some point, every MMO player faces this issue.
4. I really can't comment on this.
5. I actually prefer the story line. I think Prof did a wonderful job with this. I like the story telling. It actually allows me to 'let go' of Prof when I finish and look forward to the next chapter.
6. This I could see being a mini expansion set. Maybe thru the online store. But I agree, there are many things I'd like to see more work on.

I guess, really, GW is facing what every MMO is facing- to a degree. GW is just going to realize this sooner (I would think) than most.

On behalf of races, I prefer to keep things as they are. Seems right to me. However, I wouldn't be put out if they opened it up- I probably just wouldn't play them.

-AN

1. Since Guild Wars is releasing nearly 4X the number of expansions <roughly> a year than the other big names in the genre; it basically means that ANet increases the inherent challenges by 4 times as well.

In other games an expansion would generally still require your character to "grow up" in the already established areas before moving on to the new expanded content.

But, Guild Wars "drops" its older areas like the Space Shuttle drops booster rockets and empty fuel tanks. It gets expensive after a while.

2. Heroes are just a stronger and more potent dose of the same poison, so most of the commentary about Henchies is very similar.

3. Character development after a certain point isn't one of Guild War's strong suits. Other games raise level caps, that solution won't work in Guild Wars for various reasons. The main reason being that it would go against the basic principles of what Guild Wars is all about. Improving the social scene would out a lot in this area.

4. What I mean by messy and jumbled is how ANet made the different campaigns overlapping chronologically instead of regular time line. Taking characters from other campaigns into another will give you a closer look at the disjointed nature of the story flow.

Additionally, the road blocks placed in the way of characters trying to travel into other campaign areas. (IE. non-Prophecies character traveling to get to Yak's Bend)

5. I have nothing against a mission driven story, but I would have preferred it to have retained a chronological linearity from Campaign to Campaign. (see #4 above) Also, it does lock down a player more than it needs to. Compare how Prophecies allowed freer exploration as compared to Nightfall or especially, Factions.

6. Mini-expansion or full expansion, just something to get the mass of players crossing paths more frequently.

I fully agree that building onto the existing areas would be a nice way to go. There is a lot of open areas in each of the existing areas. A few of my guildies put all of the maps together and there are areas where they adjoin that would be plenty big enough to use as part of the another story. To keep people that want "new" content happy ANet could always expand on these regions somewhat.

Reusing towns and outposts would work out nicely for some of these areas. Especially, where Tyria and Elona join in the desert. I am not saying that the entire chapter should be built in old towns but having new uses for old places would be fun. I really like some of those Tyrian towns but I have little reason to go back these days.

I also agree that it would be nice to not have any new professions in the next chapter. It is becoming increasingly difficult to play through each chapter with all of my characters. Most of my characters beat Shiro in factions but they did so by going through the Kurzik side. I was unable to get them all through the Luxon side also. With Nightfall though, I am likely only going to get half of my characters through the story.

For better or for worse, this is the bed ANet has made. Consider this, however, those chapters no longer produce a relevent amount of revenue for ANet. That being the case, I would imagine any changes involving them would be minor. This is the crux, then. Players will want/expect a full blown chapter every release. I think it would be detrimental to ANet to produce anything less. This is where a mini campaign would have to be how I think your proposal should be handled.


This is a valid point. One of the reasons I enjoy this game.

I got the jist of your statement, but I am only 1/2 way thru Factions myself. Slow going here=)

Well now, there has to be some incentive to buying the other chapters. Albeit, you still are left with the future chapter characters left out, but you can still enjoy the world.

Agree wholeheartedly.

A. Noid:

Some minor points..

When I spoke of "obstacles" I was referring to owners of all the applicable chapters not being able to take their already leveled character wholly into the new/another chapter...it's not a really good fit. <I won't go into hindsight solutions about how they could have structured the Campaign flow, cat's already out of the bag, so it would serve no purpose.>

Concerning "relevant amount of revenue" from older campaigns...I see each campaign as a foundation block, if ANet makes them "disposable" or devalues them it will just hurt the future of the game. At the end of the day a healthy playerbase is what determines a games success in the market. Additionally, by revitalizing older areas in an appropriate manner, ANet doesn't need to entirely reinvent the wheel, possibly saving some development costs.

But, don't get me wrong, there still must be new and creative content.

Xenophon Ualtar:

Yeah, you understand what I'm saying about the 4th campaigns approach to improving the game. I feel it would be entirely possible to base a new expansion with in the boundaries of the existing Campaigns.

I totally agree 100% with what you just said.


The game really does need more expansions, think how much people loved Sorrows Furnace? It was an end game area, and was totally free, and the drops were nice, but most of all it was FUN.

I would pay 3-5 dollars a month for a cool update in an area, not a SUBSCRIPTION, but something purchased in the online store. And yes, areas need to be overlapped, using the same outposts.

I don't know about all of you, but getting montly, or even every other month optional expansions would be GREAT. Not only that, if the updates went over already existing areas, it would great more people in that area.

Perhaps even cross-campaign missions and quests, or areas. What happens on the top of those mountains in-between prophecies and elona? Who knows, maybe a giant speggetti monster.... . Either way, I'd love seeing a full sized map, and things going on in between campaigns.

Imagine riding a boat for a challenge mission, killing squids along the way as you make your way from Lions Arch to Kamadan along the dangerous ocean....lol. Man...I'm such a nerd.

Long story short, Anet needs a team to work on frequent optional updates, it will only strengthen the community.

I also agree that expansion packs would be cool. But only if they were offered from the online store, as opposed to replacing one of the new campaigns. I think that offering both would be a good idea, since then you are providing for those who are quite happy to stay in their old environments that they enjoy, and also for those who want new places to see and explore.

I also agree that expansion packs would be cool. But only if they were offered from the online store, as opposed to replacing one of the new campaigns. I think that offering both would be a good idea, since then you are providing for those who are quite happy to stay in their old environments that they enjoy, and also for those who want new places to see and explore.

I'd rather have that Anet doesn't add new skills/professions, because that is always followed by a good few months of imbalance.
From a financial point of view it wouldn't be doable though, because no PvP'er would buy the new chapter.

cant remember if i posted...

but aslong as they dont add material which would render the GMC title invalid then im up for it.

I think this is pretty much what would happen if they considered my sea exploration theme. By linking the continents of new and even future locations with a sea chapter, we would see alot of the coast of previous chapters, and perhaps even share a few locations like port towns, with limited access to those who do not have those chapters.

Also, the most likely race choices as Dwarves, Tengu, and Centaur, as those are the 3 that allie you, Char are totally destructive, and would require a revolution in the storyline to add as allies.

But this isn't the issue I thought it would be, intermingling the exsisting chapters is a good diversity and promotional option, but the focus of the 4th chapter really needs to be insentive and promotion of cooperative play.

Heros are the greatest thing, I want to be able to make an entire party of heros, of even 8 units. But cooperative play and social environment is what makes a game community strong, and brings statisfaction that cannot be measured by how good a game is. I think the highest and most significant goal they can achieve would be promoting and rewarding cooperative play, that way, even with hero options, people would choose to play with eachother because of particularly enjoyable features and rewards.

My thoughts as well.

It's not a "Heroes are evil and PuG's are good" argument in my mind.

But, to be intellectually honest, requires that I admit that the popularity of Heroes does represent a detrimental trend in the game.

A British Study <if it's British, it must be "freekin" good"> on people that play online games do so for a fairly small number of definable reasons. In another article on the study, one of the things people seek in online gaming is connecting with others and belonging.

I feel that any game that works against that goal is shooting itself in the foot.

/signed on the races

Because I am a new player who only owns one chapter (nightfall) and hasn't completed the content there, I have no opinion yet on adding new content.

It is kind of a bummer that the other new GW players in my guild also have only one chapter, and a different one, so we cannot play together. And experienced guildies have to choose between helping newbies in Prophecies, Factions and Nightfall, they cannot play with us at the same time.

I think Guild Wars would benefit from another race or more noticable variety with human characters because such choices could motivate people who have quit the game up or haven't bought it yet to buy this new chapter. Hopefully the changes would come with more of Guild Wars' extremely interesting storyline. Reading wow's stories in quests, etc. is like cereal boxes.

There are statistics out there showing how many WoW players play Humans and the other races. I didn't find the links, but it is about 75% of wow players who prefer non-human characters. This is about 6 million people.

It's funny how much resistance there is to the very suspicion that Heroes/Improved Henchies have reduced player interaction with other players to at least some degree within Guild Wars.

It's like after having added salt to a glass of water, someone opposing the idea that the water is now saltier than before...

QFAT on the first post, nothin' else to say. ANet would be Über-stupid by making another continent...

My best guess is that the 4th Campaign will:

-contain new skills for all professions

-will not introduce new professions

-will tie in existing adjacent game locations into new explorable areas

-will introduce new playable races, perhaps one new race for each chapter <4 total>

-introduce broader and more approachable PvP areas to increase PvP involvement

-will introduce expansion-based Trade House functionality

I don't think that heros are a bad thing, and assuming that all online games should foster community just because it is the mainstream appeal of online games is also a slight misconception. There are always some who want otherwise, and with such successful community involved games already out there, an alternative is also a very good position to pursue.

One of the significant appeals of the game is it's division from such mainstream MMOs. Like the use of instances instead of shared locations, a greater focus on PvP equality and opportunity, an economy which isn't totally reliant on player manipulation. These features allow those who don't want to suffer from community stigmatism to enjoy a game. Having Heros is a part of it.

It is funny how people make small complaints about improvements when the situation remedied is far more taxing. The difficulty finding parties, especially for certain professions, was without heros, a very big and taxing issue. Now we no longer have to deal with player scruitiny and poor cooperation. Sure now it is much less social, but if your really doing well in a mission or objective, how much socializing would you do?

This is an action packed game, if your really doing well there really isn't much time to converse. So a real difficulty was fixed, and now a superfical one has replaced it. Well some people wan't to play with others. Either they can find others of the same nature, or seek a game which is more community driven, or Anet can offer better cooperative play features to make it easier and rewarding to play with players. Anything to the effect of displacing heros returns us to a worse difficulty, which is players not getting to play at all because they arn't accepted unless they play by someone elses rules.

I can't say that Hero play has any flaws, I've played several a console game which are more than fun when I was the only human interacting. A great RPG has the elements and content to facinate all by itself.

There are difficulties on both sides of the fence, thing is, this side is much better.

Here are some of my concepts on Chapter features, perhaps you can draw from them. This one has the features on Sea Exploration and activities.
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s....php?t=3014498

And this one is a story I wrote as background for a rather elaborate chapter.
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s....php?t=3035147

Both are rather long, actually, the story is extremely long.

On a guess basis, we are more likely to have another 2 professions than new races, or both. But they may start passing up professions. I still want to see new professions, but it is only because they have yet to make one I can really attach to, and unless they are making one that I can really enjoy, it really doesn't matter to me if they make a dozen more or none.

General thoughts inspired by this thread:

New Races: I have no issue with this presuming there are no inherent racial skills/attributes. If new races can wear existing armor and the female members are easy on the eyes, what's not to like?

New Continents: Exploration is key to many players, so this is mandatory. Also, many players will buy chapter 5 (pointless to make recommendations for 4 as it is mostly designed at this point) as their first entry into the game.

Cross Continent Quests This has already been done (elona desert quest), and I'm sure will be expanded.

Players spreading too thin. I agree this is a valid concern, although Anet already has answers to this. They're called events. Each weekend, Anet introduces something to draw players together. This seems to work fine.

Also, I just took my Canthan monk thru Prophesies and had no trouble pugging my way in every mission with nearly all full-human groups. Yes, monks have an easier time finding groups than most, but I'm not seeing the shortage of players I keep hearing about.

Heroes vs. Pugs I've posted on this previously, and I agree that Heroes have reduced player interaction too much. I think future chapters should continue to develop elite/challenge missions where multiple human teams have advantages over full AI teams. Think coordination or simultaneous exploration of multiple areas, etc.

No new Skills / Professions Not going to happen. New chapter will likely introduce 2 new professions in addition to the Prophesies core with new skills / elites for the expansion professions. Every profession has their devoted followers, so they've got to give a little love to everyone. New professions and skills are one of Anet's ways to make the game a "must purchase" for PVP players. I believe you can bank on them continuing this formula.

What I'd like to see in a future expansion

I'd like to see a mechanism to facilitate grouping to combat the solo-with-Heroes phenonemon. I've already posted on this at length elsewhere and repeat that.

The random element. I was taking my 3rd or 4th character thru Elona when I "realized" the NPC I was headed to was in a new location. I remember getting excited that I was going to see some new part of Elona as part of the same primary quest line. Once I realized I had the wrong quest selected, it occurred to me that Anet could really spice up PVE by making things a bit more random. Why does an instanced NPC have to be in the same place every time? Why does the sequence of encountered Mobs have to be identical. A certain degree of repeatability allows for controlled experimentation of builds and tactics. Too much leads to boredom. I'd like to seem them turn it up a bit.

I don't agree with this, if they make players settle in 3 previous continents it will be harder to expand it later on and too much trouble moving again. It kills the world growth.

I like the OPs idea with races, but adding centaurs/charr would mean that you would need to make these races hostile to each other. That just wouldn't work with the current GW engine. Furthermore, due to the fact that players will obviously buy the original game first, and the expansion later. The ratio of humans vs. everything else would be too large. And I do think GW is dieing, and that there aren't enough possibilities in the current extremely balanced game engine to keep this up. By chapter 6,7 or even 5, there won't be anymore possibilities. And Green items, aren't they supposed to be UNIQUE, I have seen the same stats in a green item repeated at least twice, and now they are even using the same skins as normal items. In chapter 4, I'd like to see them balance out the skill numbers, no new professions. And it would be really cool if it was a prequel.

/signed for everything but races

I played WoW. I don't need gw to change to it.

If ANet takes a "break" from creating a whole new continent in the 4th campaign, how would this prevent them from expanding in the next campaigns?

There is much that can be accomplished with out driving active players apart from already established areas. The game is primarily made up of instanced areas, after all.

Example:

A portal has appeared in the capital cities in Elona, Tyria and Cantha...that portal leads to another place...there's a story here, yada, yada..

Bingo! You have a new content area but the crossroads of the player base doesn't have to change.

The trick is to keep the old stuff alive while providing new and exciting content.

Some interesting ideas here.

I like the concept of re-using existing continents but having new stories on them. I always wonder what happened to Ascalon after Rurik left. Did the Charr take over? I know there are a whole lot of Titans I still have to do something about, but I always feel a little sad when I return and things are otherwise just as I left them at the beginning of the game. Same with Cantha and Elona; exactly what did I achieve by killing Shiro, Varesh and Abaddon? And of course the scenery could change, especially in Ascalon, it could become green again. Perhaps the forests and seas in Cantha become un-petrified.

Heroes: I'm for them. I think a new story could bring along some heroes with it, but not too many, probably just one each for any new profession introduced. In my opinion people who are anti-hero haven't found out how to use them properly. The reason I don't want too many new heroes is that it costs a fortune to get them runed up and properly equipped. Plus there's a huge investment in finding builds that work under AI.

Plus I'm an adult, and I really, really, really don't want to play with kids who think they are being grown-up by hurling insults, shouting n00b and Dc-ing when things don't go their way. I have fun playing with a couple of regular playing companions and their equally well-equipped heroes.

New professions. Always tricky, I don't want a huge stable of characters, but I could go for a bard.

Storyline. I absolutely need a storyline. I drive the 11-year olds mad when I play with them because I want to watch the movies and get the storyline. There has been a certain sameness about the storylines so far; lich lord/abaddon wanting to take over the world. I never fully understood Shiro's case, or even if the emperor really wanted to kill him; I guess he was just nuts. So a breath of freshness in a new storyline would be nice.

Someone suggested profession-specific quests. Great idea! Tailor-make your own game! That would encourage more playing together too, because you would have to play with other professions to play their quests!

I'm not too keen on races myself. One is plenty.

Good points.

Grouping and Heroes:

I play solely with Heroes and Henchies myself. I can't completely explain why, because I was very grouped very much in DAoC, Horizons and WoW as well as with guildees. PuG's generally considered inferior in every game, just more so in Guild Wars. Also, more younger people are playing than before and that changes the "society" if you will.

Guild Wars appears to be very guild dependent...that's not too shocking given the name. The game doesn't lend itself well to playing with utter strangers...you need to learn how other people play and build teamwork. I would prefer to play with real people on a regular basis but after 600 hours of play that still seems to be an an obstacle.

The times I have grouped in Guild Wars has been a rather disappointing and disjointed experience.

Considering the "greening" of Ascalon, and so forth:

I would be leery of creating the next expansion in too much of a forward chronological manner...I believe it tends to divide up the world even more than it already is... the time line issues have already made some weirdness for cross campaign characters. It's an understandable conceit but one that chops up a world already divided by campaigns, instances and continents.

4TH Campaign:

Time for it to flesh out the world and it can be done with out following the same "Shadow rising in Mordor" formula.

At the end of the day, Guild Wars isn't a persistent world...and that may be what doesn't fit well with our ideas of how it should be.

Any race or new culture that is added to the game would have to have a back story. But, remember that there are always various factions, splinter groups and rebels part of any civilization, and they wouldn't have to be necessarily hostile but there could be tension with the other cultures. Combinations and possibilities are endless.

I don't think the game is dying, I do consider it to be a mostly undiscovered gem just waiting for more people to come across it. After 2 years of WoW, I see the strengths of Guild Wars, I would love to have my old WoW Guild in the game with me. Guild Wars is very player dependent. Ultimately, expansions are just stage dressings that allow us to strut our characters about on.

It really is what you bring to the game that keeps it fresh and fun. This is why I harp on the idea of implementing/introducing social improvements into the game. Make it easier for people to cross paths.

Nothing can make people team up (or should make) and play the game, but the game can be become more conducive to the social aspects of online gaming.

I find it strange that I don't often cross paths with the same person twice in the game, it's very weird.

In WoW and DAoC, there was a familiarity...a home town feeling when you went to the cities. New faces, but the "regulars" as well. It really was a social scene and the opportunities to help, be helped, trade, discuss strategies and group up were far more prevalent.

I don't explain it well, but Guild Wars needs more of society in it.

Needs to rethink pve, better ememy builds. Give themm all a self heal and generally balenced mobs. And tyria style random spawns (only for everything and not just bosses). The ridable wurm was a step in the right direction more intresting things like this hopefully .

Also gotta bring the multiplayer back to pve dumb fixed enimies with dumb builds are to easy to hench, enimeis should force a player to think and act rather than just straping and anti (insert monster) build on their heros and go.

If I could only change one thing about Guild Wars PvE it would be to add more areas like pre-searing ascalon. To quote myself...

If I had to take a guess, I'd guess that ANet has realized that they need to make a fundamental game change in the next chapter to keep people interested. This is the change I'd like to see them impliment.

I still think Prophecies, particularly Pre-Searing was a very nice PvE experience. I loved the Catacombs and felt it could have been expanded into post-Searing. I liked the idea of the Catacombs because it tied in the overall world.

Same concept could be used to unite the existing chapters.

/begin topic necromancy

Well, the news is just coming in, but you heard it here first folks!

Now gimme a cookie!

Intrepid reporter LiQuId StEeL brings us this tantalizing glimpse:

Imagine that! Tying in the existing game world with adjacent explorable areas to counter the expanding universe trend. Hmmm, perhaps, playable? races?

Well, give me the credit now just in case all this is proven wrong later, please.

But, I hope the expansion information is true because it will round out the whole game world.


/end topic necromancy

Here's my opinion on what needs to be done with Chapter 4 PvE, although, I doubt that Anet will actually read this because it's buried under 4 pages of lengthy posts and making a new thread is offlimits.

Anet needs to examine the following Question and try to build the campaign around the answer:

Other than Unlocking new stuff for PvP characters, why do players play through PvE campaigns? What makes the game interesting enough to keep those players playing?

My opinion is that players play PvE for 2 main reasons, one of which becomes obsolete after the first time through:

- To find out what happens in the storyline.

- To experience a sense of Progress.

I have found the last 2 campaigns to be seriously lacking in the sense of progress aspect. In Prophesies:
- Players were not given access to all the skills that came with the chapter all at once.
- Players were not given access to all the types of armor that came with the campaign at once. In fact, certain types of armor and weapons were exclusive to the Henge of Denravi outpost, which was well out of the way, in a remote part of the jungle.
- Players had to complete quests to recieve their last 30 attribute points.
- Ascending actually felt like an accomplishment.
- Gaining experience was slower and thus leveling up meant more.

Now, I'm all for having choices and I understand why Anet changed a few of these things in order to provide more variety to the builds. However, I believe they took things too far, thus eliminating a good portion of the PvE experience. If you hit level 20 and have all the skills you want to use and you have access to all the armor you need for your builds within the first quarter of the game, progress becomes stagnant. All that's left in PvE after that point is testing out how good your character is. This loses it's appeal very quickly. I find myself grinding my way through the game rather than playing my way through and that isn't how it should be.

Having goals after you reach level 20 isn't enough. Fighting my way through the story to get to the outposts with 15K armor and running around trying to improve titles doesn't make the game fun. Farming to improve my wealth doesn't make the game fun. Watching my character become more powerful as he goes up in levels and unlocks new types of armor and skills is fun.

Nightfall had a couple of steps in the right direction after the overkill that was Factions. Distributing heros throughout the campaign gave characters something to unlock by progressing through the game. This is good. Also, introducing hero skill trainers was an excellent idea, but it fell a little short. If they were going to make the hero skill trainers better, they should have moved some of the skill availability from the regular skill trainers to the hero skill trainers, offering 10 or so skills per profession at the hero trainers.

Here are my suggestions for the Chapter 4 PvE

- Remove all armor crafters from the game.

That's right, all of them. Instead, make the players responsible for crafting all of their own armor. As they progress through the game, they can meet blacksmiths on the way that can teach them to make new types of armor. What type of armor the blacksmiths teach them should be up to the players. Players could earn special crafting points by doing quests and trade those points with the blacksmiths to unlock a new armor type. When the player wants to craft new armor for themselves, they just need to pay for the materials and pay to use the local blacksmith's forge. When they get into the late game, they can encounter NPCs that will teach them to make the 15K variants.

- Make skill availability scarce at the skill trainers, like it was in prophesies.

At the same time, add a new NPC that will accept special points that are earned as a player levels up; say 2 points for every 5 levels. In exchange for these special skill points, the NPC will train the character to use any 1 skill available in the campaign. In total, the character will only get 8 of these special points by the time they reach level 20, so they will have to choose carefully what skills they want to unlock early on.

- Go back to requiring quests that require more than attaining a certain rank in a title to earn the additional 30 attribute points.

This way players will feel like they've accomplished more.

- Make ascention difficult.

In Prophesies, you had to complete 4 missions and you got a whopping 50K experience point award. Most characters were already level 20 by the time this happened as well. That felt good. Bring it back!

- Make experience gain slow enough that at least half the game is finished by the time they reach level 20

PvP players complain that they don't want to have to grind a long ways to get to level 20. Well, they should make PvP characters and PvP instead of going through PvE then. PvE should take a while. That's part of what makes PvE fun. If you're powerful quickly, what's the point? PvP is currently set up so that everything you need can be unlocked with faction. You don't need to PvE to have a good PvP character.

Thanks. That's all. Opinions are welcomed. Maybe if enough people quote me in their posts, Anet will notice what I've said.