I was looking for some information on the changing business structures of MMORPGs when I ran across this post by video-game blogger/software developer known as Taugrim. In the post, Taugrim examines the business-side of MMORPGs and proposes a move towards horizontal scaling. Horizontal scaling, according to Taugrim, is a structure "where new characters have a baseline set of necessary tools and progressing your character is about broadening your capabilities instead of centering on gear acquisition". He identifies Guild Wars 2 and The Secret World as games that scale vertically (at least in some respects).
Since I am already playing The Secret World for this research project, I decided to see what Guild Wars 2 was all about.
The first thing I did was watch the "Guild Wars 2 Manifesto", a video mission-statement released by ArenaNet.
Horizontally scaled MMOs are the greatest thing ever.
For the next few posts, I will examine some core components of MMORPGs, comparing and contrasting my past experiences in vertically-scaled games (World of Warcraft and Star Trek: Online) with my current experiences in horizontally scaled games (The Secret World (TSW) and Guild Wars 2 (GW2)).
However, I want to use the rest of this post to discuss my favorite part of GW2: group combat.
In GW2, a variety of traditional end-game content has been spread throughout the game world. In most MMORPGs, for example, end-game content (usually raids) involve completing a specific series of events in a large group in order to eventually fight and vanquish a Big Bad Boss. In GW2, raid-type events exist in each zone of the map. For example, consider this screencap (taken earlier today):
At this moment in the game, I was fighting against the final Big Bad Boss in a chain of events in which the PCs and some NPC soldiers assaulted a Centaur base. In a chain of four or five progressive events, we routed the Centaurs from their base and took control, defended it from invasion forces, defeated the Big Bad Boss's minions (three giant war dog-like things and a massive earth elemental). Afterwards, the Big Bad Boss lost his invulnerability, descended to the pictured area, and all hell broke loose. As the battle progressed, more PCs arrived to lend a hand and, eventually, the Centaurs were routed.
I love GW2's combat system primarily because it promotes cooperation rather than competition. Every area has quests like this one and many of them can only be completed with a large group of players. In many cases, if there are not enough PCs at the battle, someone will call for additional support via Zone Chat (and, more than once, I have answered the call).
Cooperation is necessary in the Big Boss Battles for a few reasons. First, it is always necessary to resurrect (rez) allies during any of the big battles (and everyone has the capability to revive an ally, given enough time). In one group battle against a mean-spirited Giant, for example, over half of the PCs had been taken out by a repeated stomp attack. The rest of us split into two groups: those who would draw the giant away from our fallen comrades and most likely be the next set of corpses, and those who would swoop in after he had moved in an attempt to rez as many as possible. In fact, it is surprising how often another player has moved away from combat (or has stopped heading towards combat) and taken the time to rez me (or assist in my fight against death).
Second, cooperation is fostered through the combo system embedded within combat. Some class and weapon combinations (such as a Mesmer with a staff, for example) have abilities that create a "combo field", marked by a line or a circle. In the screen-cap above, the purple circle surrounding the Big Bad Boss is a Mesmer combo-field. Once the combo-field is placed, any character (if positioned properly) can use a combo finisher skill to build an attack off of the combo field. This can also be seen in the above screencap (the grey "Confusion" heart indicates that I just completed a combo off of the established field; consequently, my attack applied the "Confusion" condition to the enemy it hit).
In many cases, a well-timed combo-field has made the difference between success and failure. For example, in the Big Battle against Gargantua (a massive spider), the PCs have a set time limit during which they can slay Gargantua and save the Captain. Throughout the battle, Gargantua becomes invulnerable and heals fully, making the battle a true fight against the clock. In the most recent Gargantua battle I participated in, Gargantua had approximately 1/4 of her life left, but we only had about 45 seconds to complete the mission. Another Mesmer dropped a combo field that had the additional side effect of increasing attack speed for all allies and slowing all enemies in the circle. Not only did the field create a ridiculous amount of combos, it also gave us the speed we needed to complete the quest before Gargantua ate the Captain: we only had 2 seconds left on the clock when Gargantua finally died.
And here are a couple more screencaps from group combat!
