Thoughts on Guild Wars 2 Raiding

A couple weeks ago, the guys at Arenanet did a live-stream talking about the inclusion of “challenging content” coming alongside the release of the game's first expansion, Heart of Thorns. The stream went on to discuss the nature of its raiding content; outlining its large set pieces and difficult encounters that will require the co-ordination of your group (of which has been set to 10 players) to overcome significant opponents. Over the past couple weeks, I've 'ermed and errred' over this subject trying to think about how I would like to discuss it, but I feel I've got to a point where I feel it best showcases my thoughts. These thoughts come from two particular areas: my interest of architectural theory and my experience of raiding in traditional MMOs such as WoW and Rift.

Many years ago raiding up against Onyxia in WoW.  Screenshot taken 19/08/2006

The subject of raiding in essence is quite simple; stringing together challenging bosses broken up by trash mobs and narrative to give context and pacing to the environment. Its the way a significant force can be tackle in a narrative, that may present them as an almost impossible mountain to climb but through determination and skill it can be overcome. This of course is a strong feeling to have in a game like an MMO (and kinda any game really) but grouping together with like-minded people and having that roar from a VoIP server upon success is amazing to experience. I experienced this in WoW during Vanilla and Wrath as well as Vanilla Rift as both a healer and DPS which to a certain extent was a while ago, but with Guild Wars 2 I have the potential to experience that once again. That being said, I'm not sure whether the game (or myself) can live up to what raiding is.

My first time seeing Rag was a memorable experienced hampered by the nature of Molten Core.  Screenshot taken 17/12/2006

The most clear point on this subject in my opinion is the nature of the current content; that focuses heavily on grouped-up 'blob-like' movement with enemy movement that plays into this. There are of course reasons behind this such as boon stacking (stacking large numbers of buffs on the party in quick succession), ease of access to resurrecting downed players and that players are rarely punished for acting in this way. To a certain extent, it makes me think of the traditional “boss vs. tank” then everyone else that I experienced in my days of raiding in places like Molten Core as the factor of the number of players doesn't matter visually. Of course the damage matters but the enemy doesn't care as it just sees 'enemy'.

World bosses maybe large but the same tactic applies.  Screenshot taken 14/09/2015

The second point, more relevant to my interests, means that the environment and its narrative is somewhat fractured by this. Whether you're in AC, CoE, Fractals or an open world meta event boss you adopt the blob and keep on attacking and the background becomes blurred to a certain extent. You maybe doing world bosses for 3 or so hours but all that's changing is the backdrop; a theatre if you will that revolves the background from a townscape to a forest during a performance but the actors are still conversing in the same prose. A couple weeks ago when I did a post about arenas I did say that the combat loop can be engaging if the arena gives you an engaging environment and narrative to get stuck into, but at the moment Guild Wars 2 content in the above examples doesn't give me the same feeling.

A large boss that hopefully looks to be more dynamic in its movement and actions.  Image from https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/designing-challenging-content/ accessed 14/09/2015

Going back to my earlier paragraph on raiding, one of the pieces I did discuss that its not just the bosses but the connecting sections that add to the experience of a raid. Personally, I feel that this is what Guild Wars 2 currently has a lot of potential to set themselves apart. They have a enjoyable series of jumping puzzles, open world explorable dungeons and guild puzzles that create an interesting mix of combat and cryptic problem solving allowing groups to use logic and deduction to balance the combat they experience in the vast amount of a game like Guild Wars 2. Going back to my time raiding, the process was very much so a “trash->boss->trash->boss” loop and although if the bosses are engaging this can work, having these interest mid sections that replace trash at points (trash->boss->puzzle->boss) it can keep people interested for longer with a level of pacing appropriate.

Using mechanics like gliding has the potential to give us those interesting connecting paths.  Image from https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/designing-challenging-content/ accessed 14/09/2015

These thoughts naturally follow into quite a few posts I've made on this blog in the past. Pacing is a subject from “Walking Simulators” because of the tone rarely changes and the pace remains static alongside the “Arenas” that need to not just be arenas but means to create grand set pieces and times of lull so that the player doesn't tire of the content. In architecture we do this with room sizes, lighting levels, furniture arrangement, level changes, open plan vs. closed and an overall consideration for the human interactions that may go on such a space which together play a lot into our thoughts of how we remember it. Did that museum take you through a story of a by-gone time or did it feel somewhat out of place with a bright background on the content of a tragic event. As space does this in the built environment, so must a digital one.

To conclude, challenging content is a great more than just difficult encounters. The importance of the spaces engaging the player so that context and motivation is given for players wanting to overcome the challenge. Difficult bosses is one thing, but difficult bosses with pathways, narrative, times of intense feelings and lulls in the pace all make an experience like a raid so much more. Will GW2 do this? Time will tell but I hope that becomes a memorable experience for those who look to take on its content. Only like 5-6 weeks to find out and personally I'm looking forward to it.   

The Joy of Exploration: Coins, Badges and a Jumping Puzzle Drydock Scratch

This is somewhat becoming a running theme with me where I plan to write on the Monday and don’t get to it until Friday, but having IRL commitments does put a spanner in the works unfortunately.  I had planned to write something a couple days ago on my next topic, but I didn’t want to jus rush it out and not give it a proper post.  Because of this, I want to take a little bit of time talking about an early morning playing Guild Wars 2 last Tuesday. 

As I have mentioned in the past, one of the biggest draws for me in MMO games (as well as single player games) is the feeling of exploration when going into new games or pieces of content.  It’s a factor that can potentially save a game with mechanics that I’m not fond of or that I have great difficulty with.  Finding out “What’s around the next corner?” or “What’s over the next hill?” ties into that natural curiosity which can come from both physical actions and in-game.  As it may come across, I’m quite the curious person and as such would like to travel the world, experience other cultures and learn new languages; so on a similar level when I find myself finding a large cavernous area I never knew existed in GW2 I want to just forget my previous intentions and explore. 

This area in question features in the Silverwastes (one of the new maps brought out during living story season 2) where after clearing a skritt camp taken over by bandits, I find myself under the map with a large ship precariously positioned over a dark void of nothingness.  This area signalled the start of the “Drydock Scratch” jumping puzzle.  

For those who aren’t aware of, a jumping puzzle is a platforming mystery that tasks the player with reaching an end chest through a series jumps, leaps and logic solving through item collection.  These puzzles can vary in size, from single structures like “Under New Management” to multi-staged monoliths like “Hidden Garden” and can sometimes have a polarising view from players due to the potential pitfalls and lengthy retries.  I for one love these puzzles, so being met with this challenge even in the early hours of Tuesday evening / Wednesday morning pushed sleep to one side as I took in my surroundings.

Progress for this puzzle started off slow, seeing a number of potential places to go and a cavalcade of golden badges littering the surrounding area giving me a mixture of confusion and intrigue.  This mixture of feelings kept with me as a chose a path and started to encounter large rock formations, more badges and milestones which somewhat informed me that I was going in the right direction; even thou I could see a number of other opportunities to take whether they be intentional or not.  Being an engineer and having access to a rifle, the combination allows the player to use a ‘leap shot’ ability which has allowed me to skip parts of puzzles in the past. 

I continued on, finding more milestones and gaining a bit of verticality when suddenly I was met on the top of a mesa-like formation overlooking the map of the Silverwastes.  At first my thoughts were that of relief as it seemed I was making clear progress to a goal, but on the other hand a sense of still being overwhelmed by the land mass.  I continued into my ~20-30 minute journey when I started to see other players below me going about their events defending one of the forts for the meta, only for it to hit me what this meant.  Pressing M to see the map I noticed that I was half way across the map, a sizeable distance from where I started covering a lot more land than what a normal puzzle would present itself with.  This made me think “how far does this thing really go?” as I spend the next 30 minutes continue to explore this ‘map within a map’ collection the golden badges and trying to figure out how to get around, before realising that it was rather late and I was needing to get up in just a few hours.  Although I didn’t find the finishing point on this occasion, it entertained me for this hour period and that is one of the many ways in interact with this medium of games. 

This feeling has similar reactions when it comes to other game genres.  RPGs have that ‘one More quest’ 4x’s have ‘just one more turn’ and multiplayer shooters just one more round’.  In this jumping puzzle, it was ‘just one more badge’ or ‘just one more milestone’ and I’m happy that I was able to experience this piece of content very naturally beyond the thrall of day one explorers or through the use of companion guides detailing every turn.  I’ll probably look to have another stab at it tomorrow but for now, that was a pretty cool thing you did there. 

Next time, “running up that hill” physical and mental hills and viewpoints from architecture.