End game content

I don't think end game content is that important. Or, in other words, I don't think end game content is the most important part of the game.
A very common myth in many MMORPGs is the idea that the end game content is the only thing that matters. It creates a somewhat paradoxical situation in which the entire point of everything between level 1 and the maximum level is to grind in order to finally reach the end game, when the player would finally play the "real game", which more often than not consists on doing raids in order to very slowly grind gear. Everything until end game is considered just as mindless grind, just a wait until the real thing (while ironically it takes as long to reach the level cap as people stay playing in the end game).
One example may be seen at the Aion forums, in a topic in which a new player asked which class would be more suited to him. The answer he was given was, "Don't worry about how your class plays in the beginning of the game, worry only about the role each class has at the end game content when playing in groups". I felt really bad for that player, since he will spend a significant part of his playing time (if not most of his playing time) soloing monsters with a very different gameplay than what he was told to focus on.
In GW2, we know ArenaNet is trying to fill the world with events, so players have a lot to do. However, that leaves us with two problems:
1) A significant part of players will do their best to skip most of that content. Since in other MMORPGs people think the only thing that matters is the end game, it's only logical that players will try to move as fast as possible from level 1 to level 80 in order to reach the "real" game. If ArenaNet added to each starting city one enemy that could be killed over and over giving enough experience to, after a week of non stopping grind, make a player go from level 1 to 80, I'm sure we would have one week after release a small army of players with level 80 characters who had never left the starting areas complaining how the game lacks end game content.
2) The more effort ArenaNet puts in the middle of the game, the less content the end game will have. If we have a lot of content between levels 1 to 79, there won't be as many resources as possible to invest in content for level 80.
IMO, the end game doesn't matter that much. When reading a book with 600 pages, what is more important - for the last 50 pages to be really good, or for the 550 pages before the end to be really interesting? Same thing with the game - if we are going to spend so much time before reaching the level cap, it better be interesting as well.
In fact, it would not bother me if GW2 had very little end game content. Those usually are linked to a lot of grind - see the gear grind that players of other MMORPGs call "raids", the reputation points farming in GW:EN, the Hall of Monuments, etc. Content designed to keeping players playing every day for the rest of their lives is not necessary on a game like GW2, which does not rely on a monthly fee or on the income from consumable items sold for real life money. Just like single player RPGs (such as Mass Effect, Dragon Age and etc) reach an end, and don't try to make people continue to play them over and over and over, so could GW2 have an end instead of placing grind over grind in the path of level 80 characters.
Erasculio|||I say we scrap the idea of endgame content, and instead go with what GW1 offered:
1) Hard mode
The whole game offers an increased challenge for replay value. Basically, difficulty isn't set by area, it's set by players demanding a challenge.
2) Elite areas
Elite areas can be anywhere, but offer a challenge regardless of how developed your character is. In GW2 terms, those would be challenging areas like 5-man dungeons that require a good team, and would adjust to player level to always offer a challenge.
3) The game is the endgame
Forget the idea of endgame starting at level 80. Endgame in GW1 starts as early as mainland, right outside the tutorial area. All areas beyond offer a decent challenge (ok, maybe not so much in nm, but at least it's balanced for lvl 20). You can move back & forth in the game without ever really feeling that it gets too easy or too hard. The difficulty level is flat, or at least independent of your character level etc.|||From what I've seen, the devs agree with you- they try to make non-max level content just as exciting as max ("end game") content. Perfect example is the demo- we have the earth elemental at level one, the Shadow Behemoth at level 15, and the Shatterer at level 50. All epic-feeling boss fights, at nowhere near max level.
I personally disagree- I think that max level content is very important, but as a direct result of having a leveling system in the first place. Regardless of whether you run through the low level content or stop and smell the Red Iris Flowers, for players like me who invested thousands of hours into the first game, a huge percentage of our characters' lifespan will be spent at max level.
Because of this, there's the problem that you might have accidentally passed by some non-max content, and once you've been max level for a while you become bored, because 1) you've done all the max content already, and 2) any non-max content would be trivially easy at your level. There might be this really cool level 35 dungeon, but if you got from level 30 to 40 by doing other stuff, you have no reason to go there anymore. Or to use a GW2 example, a level 80 character has no business fighting the level 15 Shadow Behemoth.
GW1 avoids this problem by making most of the game max content, and GW2 seems like it will partially avoid it by scaling down your level for events outside your level range. No details yet on exactly how that will work, though.
There's also the Hard Mode solution, which turns the entire game into max-level content, but I don't think a HM option would be feasible for persistent areas. (I wouldn't be surprised if they implemented it for dungeons, however.)|||While I never had time to do them that often, I thought things like UW/FOW/DOA/Urgoz were a lot of fun when I did play them. But I didn't think resources were spent on them out of proportion to the rest of the game. I imagine until we get more info, that Anet will balance end game content vs. the rest of the game similarly in GW2, and that's fine with me.

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Because of this, there's the problem that you might have accidentally passed by some non-max content, and once you've been max level for a while you become bored, because 1) you've done all the max content already, and 2) any non-max content would be trivially easy at your level. There might be this really cool level 35 dungeon, but if you got from level 30 to 40 by doing other stuff, you have no reason to go there anymore. Or to use a GW2 example, a level 80 character has no business fighting the level 15 Shadow Behemoth.




I believe that your character's power will be scaled to the area you are in, so if you are fighting a lvl 15 Shadow Behemoth as a lvl 80 character, your effective lvl will be about 18 or so.|||Personally, I usually prefer non-endgame. I like acquiring skills/power/equipment depending on the game. Once I've gotten all the skills, for example, the game just becomes repetitive. You're not doing anything that's very different than you did for the previous endgame content. Games that require "strategy" don't really require much, so I get the bulk of my enjoyment in seeing my character progress and trying out something that I didn't have access to before.|||Quote:








IMO, the end game doesn't matter that much. When reading a book with 600 pages, what is more important - for the last 50 pages to be really good, or for the 550 pages before the end to be really interesting? Same thing with the game - if we are going to spend so much time before reaching the level cap, it better be interesting as well.




That's a terrible analogy. A story is built fundamentally different from a game. This is very off topic though, so just PM me if you want to discuss that.
ANet seems to be focusing on providing an equal amount of content on all levels and to provide ways to allow players to play all content with their level scaled down when appropriate. This is a roundabout way, as just having no levels, or having levels only affect the character very lightly, would be much simpler than trying to constantly rebalance everything around players coming back etc. but I'm guessing we're too far along in the dev cycle to see that change (*gruntle*).|||Quote:








I believe that your character's power will be scaled to the area you are in, so if you are fighting a lvl 15 Shadow Behemoth as a lvl 80 character, your effective lvl will be about 18 or so.




Yes, I mentioned that in the following paragraph. Still no details on this feature, though.
To add to my earlier post, I was bouncing around ideas in my head for various ways to get around the level/content problem.
Hard Mode. GW1 does this to good effect, but as I already mentioned it wouldn't work in a persistent MMO. Diablo is probably the most famous game to use this, with two extra difficulties, effectively getting people to play the same game three times. Also a bit of a copout, since you're just replaying old content.
Make the level cap so high (or require so much exp) that the players are unlikely to ever reach max level. Diablo 2 v1.10+ does this, with level 98-99 requiring literally thousands of Baal runs. Of course, this greatly encourages mindless grinding for the endgame, but since D2 endgame is already all about item farming, it's forgivable. In other games it also makes the problem worse in that you have that many more levels to spread your content across.
Go to the other extreme and have no levels. Basically GW1, except everyone starts at level 20. This has the side effect of disallowing any character growth and eliminating one of the core elements of being an RPG.
Force your character to temporarily delevel to suit the area/quest. What GW2 seems to be doing. This has a similar effect to the previous option in that it devalues your character growth- why does it matter how many levels you earn if you're always going to be level 12 when going on a level 12 quest?
Give your character the option to temporarily delevel their character, along with incentives to do so. The only game I've seen this put to good use in was The World Ends With You, which allows you to lower your level in exchange for an improved item drop rate. (Incidentally, you also had four difficulty levels to choose from.)

All this is really just an intellectual exercise, since most of these options wouldn't be suitable for GW2. We'll have to wait and see what ANet plans on doing with the deleveling system. It does sound preferable to the standard MMO system where once you've leveled past an area, it's never a challenge for you again.
And all this is from the perspective of a max-level character. From the perspective of a low-level character, ANet's philosophy is great- they get to partake in epic battles long before they reach max level.|||Quote:








I say we scrap the idea of endgame content, and instead go with what GW1 offered:
1) Hard mode
The whole game offers an increased challenge for replay value. Basically, difficulty isn't set by area, it's set by players demanding a challenge.
2) Elite areas
Elite areas can be anywhere, but offer a challenge regardless of how developed your character is. In GW2 terms, those would be challenging areas like 5-man dungeons that require a good team, and would adjust to player level to always offer a challenge.
3) The game is the endgame
Forget the idea of endgame starting at level 80. Endgame in GW1 starts as early as mainland, right outside the tutorial area. All areas beyond offer a decent challenge (ok, maybe not so much in nm, but at least it's balanced for lvl 20). You can move back & forth in the game without ever really feeling that it gets too easy or too hard. The difficulty level is flat, or at least independent of your character level etc.





yeah This
this is my biggest issue with the giant numbers we see in the trailer
my char does say 23dmg average to anything in the gameworld(varying depending on armor values) i can never just run through even one of the earlier mission's one shotting stuff and then theres HM to increase the challenge everywhere(something we cant do with a persistant world( i guess it could be achieved by debuffing the player instead)
and while some builds have made alot of the content simple anyway
i still enjoy playing through the mission's because there actually created as if they were real levels as opposed to in most MMO's where its heres a Map and then heres a bunch of overbuffed enemies (which have suddenly learned to work as a group as opposed to being easily singled out) fight forward till you get to the boss for some loot
goals other than kill till you get to a room with only an entrance, are what make GW fun( i still remember my first time in vizunah when i didn't know that thier was another team in the mission thinking that we were screwed until they popped up out of nowhere and saved the mission)|||Presumably, with the event system in place, there's always going to be stuff to do, even when you're done levelling, and done going through your personal storyline. Especially since these events appear to have a sort of cascading effect. Hopefully there's a chance that an old area can be re-experienced in a new way if you turn up at the right time/do the right thing.
I'd still like to see dungeons/elite areas - you know, stuff you have to think about before starting, and that makes you feel super proud when you finally figure out how to beat it. Hopefully these sorts of things will require teamwork - there's just no point for me if I can't share the experience of stomping some superboss.
Of course, for me, PvP is also endgame content. I hope it will be suitably impressive, as nothing else about this game has impressed me or even genuinely interested me yet.|||Quote:








3) The game is the endgame
Forget the idea of endgame starting at level 80. Endgame in GW1 starts as early as mainland, right outside the tutorial area. All areas beyond offer a decent challenge (ok, maybe not so much in nm, but at least it's balanced for lvl 20). You can move back & forth in the game without ever really feeling that it gets too easy or too hard. The difficulty level is flat, or at least independent of your character level etc.




This.
I think endgame is really important. Otherwise, once you hit max level, what are you supposed to do?
But, yeah, I agree with Alaris 100%: The game should be designed that everything after the introduction IS the endgame, regardless of your level.