Feedback:User/Konig Des Todes/Fixing the Power Creep
Fixing the Power Creep
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| User | Konig Des Todes |
| Categories | Player vs. Environment |
One of Guild Wars' biggest sufferings is that of power creep. Since Prophecies, the idea of how to balance has changed in both philosophy and practice in not only every game, but every content update as well - reasons for this varies, be it due to a change in mechanics (such as addition of heroes) or change of those who have the main say in what to do (such as when John Stumme took over after Linsey Hargrove). My suggestion here is focused on fixing this power creep - and it is my main suggestion, as it is by far the largest such case. I will be going in detail, but first I want to specify what I believe needs alterations for such a situation to be solved:
- Firstly, skills need to be balanced - given the lack of skill updates since GW2's release (only one being in September, I shall be working under the presumption that the Live Team won't be doing major skill balances, though I hope that's not the case and if not, my suggestion for how to go about this lies [[Feedback:User/Konig Des Todes/Helping Skill Balance|here].
- Secondly, heroes and henchmen need to be balanced - both simply among themselves, as well as among each other. My suggestion for how to go about this lies here.
- Now we get to the power creep itself!
- Rebalancing NPC (particularly Prophecies, Factions, and Winds of Change) and placements (particularly Prophecies).
- Rebalancing Hard Mode - not just NPC builds, but NPC placements.
- Rescaling the level progression in Prophecies so that it is more equalized in level for when folks hit the port town per campaign.
- Rescaling Prophecies and Factions quest(/mission?) rewards (Prophecies is too slow, Factions too fast, Nightfall's just right).
Now, to go in detail:
Changes to NPCs[edit]
Prophecies[edit]
Factions[edit]
Nightfall[edit]
Eye of the North, War in Kryta, and Hearts of the North[edit]
In my opinion, these do not need any changing. Eye of the North builds feel like a proper step down from (thus a proper lead into) the War in Kryta and Hearts of the North NPC builds, which in themselves are both challenging but not too hard. If there were anything I'd change, it'd probably focus on ally builds - for example, despite being big bad brawlers, friendly norn sure do fall fast.
Winds of Change[edit]
Normal Mode vs. Hard Mode[edit]
Hard Mode Only Quests[edit]
Prophecies Level Scaling[edit]
Prophecies levels at a peculiar pace, especially since after all the updates and new games. The reason for this is that about 75% of the game is all "lead up" to level 20 content, which takes place solely in the Southern Shiverpeaks and the Ring of Fire Islands. Even ignoring Factions and Nightfall content, one can still get to level 20 fairly fast by doing all the side quests - though much much slower than other campaigns. On the same level, other campaigns only give less than a quarter of its content to building up to level 20 - Factions has the first three missions (of 12 or 13 depending on whether you do both The Eternal Grove and Gyala Hatchery) while Nightfall has the first four missions of 20 dedicated to under level 20. In both cases, you're leaving the starter "island" at level 20. To Prophecies, this would equate to "before Lion's Arch" - the first six/seven missions.
To fix this oddity, I would increase the rate of level progression in Prophecies - expecting players to reach about level 18~ by reaching Lion's Arch, and 20 by reaching the Maguuma Jungle. This can in turn be used to help give more chances of the mission-only and random spawn-only elites in the game, by creating a full 1.5 regions that contain enemies with elite skills.
To keep the later content from becoming to stale in difficulty increase, this would cause for a need to improve mursaat, Titan, and later Stone Summit and White Mantle builds - for such see above - and to help negate this keeping the attribute quests where they are would allow players to improve themselves past level 20 (though this remains odd compared to Factions and Nightfall - to fix this, rather than bringing Prophecies' attribute quests sooner, I'd push the others' later - removing the attribute reward from Lost Treasure and Rising in the Ranks: Master Sergeant, and adding quests available after Nahpui Quarter and Hunted!).
Rescaling Prophecies & Factions Quest Rewards[edit]
Blessings[edit]
Not mentioned before, since it's an addendum kind of thing and not really "power creep" but still an affect from the game's continuous growth.
