TL:DR By looking at the very core game mechanics already in the game, you can create a system of progression that doesn’t invalidate existing ways of getting Exotic Armors and Items. Want to know more? Read more =)
The Basic Facts (of life)
- With the announcement of Ascended items comes just days ahead of its release, they are here to stay.
- By the time that any meaningful code changes could be implemented, ANet would have to invalidate peoples hard work within the existing system.
- The existing system only affects Rings and the Backslot.
My Argument for change
The basis of my idea stands the typical MMO model on its head. I firmly believe that traditional stat based progression breaks all MMO’s eventually. In a very large glaring example, “The Great World of Panda” has seen an almost exponential rise in a characters Hit points since its original vanilla release. Its also a system that invalidates all the players work to gain “x y z” gear because in the next major patch a new Dungeon will appear with “x y z +1” gear. This shouldn’t be news to anyone that has played most of the mainstream MMO’s.
Such a system would adversely affect GW2. All existing content of collecting “Exotic” items (dungeons, crafting, karma farming) will eventually become meaningless. The concept that all content is “End Game” content will come to an end. All of which would get passed over in favor of the “new patch” content. Dead zones develop because of this. And eventually, the game starts dying because nobody wants to replay levels 1-79 because its all “crap”.
Thankfully, at this MMO’s heart its still Guild Wars and there’s a way to fix it. All we need to do is look at past concepts and bringing them forward to the new format of Guild Wars 2.
The Plan
When creating a new challenge area, whether it be a Dungeon or Explorable area (or both!), two things need to be considered for “Item Progression”: Cosmetic Items and Encounter Stats
Encounter Stats? what?
Encounter Stats would be a blanket concept for things like Agony. They are specific to an encounter. Whether it be a specific Boss, Dungeon, Sub-Dungeon, Exploration Area is left to the content designers.
Cosmetic Armor Items are simply items with new looks. Because who doesn’t like finding a way to look unique?
How would it work? Lets look at each part separately:
Encounter Stats
Oh the Agony! =)
With future content, the base concept of “Agony” and “Infusions” is the RIGHT way to go. The trick is to change a few things about them to make it more progressive to the mentality you helped create with Guild Wars 1 (with help from other MMO’s like City of Heroes).
Though this system could work with any type of encounter/event, I’m going to use a Dungeon as my examples though all of this.
The Core Concept:
As players progress though the dungeon, they will encounter various Bosses and Events. Succeeding at the event gives you an Essence from that Boss/Event. Collect enough of the right types of Essences, Dungeon Tokens (see Cosmetic Items below), and a few Mystic Coins then head to the Mystic Forge.
When at the Mystic Forge, you place the Essences, Dungeon Tokens, a few Mystic Coins, and an existing Exotic Armor piece (with its “Slot” filled with a Rune/upgrade). Once you “Forge”, your armor changes into Ascended Armor.
Ascended Armor has the same Stats as your existing Exotic Armor, but its upgrade (Rune/Gem) is now permanently fixed and can no longer be removed. Instead, you now get a “Infusion” slot that can be slotted.
For the “Agony” Encounter Stat, this Infusion slot is then filled by what ever mean and unusual event system you have to go though to gain these “Infusions”. (From the article it sounds like the Mystic Forge)
The Future
For simplicity’s sake, I would focus it all on the 6 Armor slots.
The intent of this system is that forging your Armor into Ascended is both a stats effect and adds the “slot” needed for the new contents stat. When a new content area is created that uses a different Encounter Stat, you will need to reforge your armor to gain an additional slot with its own unique name.
As new content is released in the same Encounter Stat, as you delve deeper into the Agony, you will need more Infused Armor. Maybe initially people only need one or two items, eventually they may need all 6 Infused to reach the very bottom.
(edited by Beodyn.1024)