Guild Wars 2

If there’s one game element that badly needs an adjustment it’s these character attributes. During character creation we go so far as to choose one of them. Then they cease to have any real impact on our characters for the rest of the game. This is really a missed opportunity. I would suggest that if you max one out, like 1000 points in ferocity, or have some combination of a few, you can unlock a final reward. A piece of unique back armor that shows off your personality. Or at the very least a displayable title like “Warmonger” if you get enough Ferocity. Or “Seductress” if you get enough Charisma. SO much could be done by revamping this game mechanic. We should have to think hard about which dialogue choice we choose, what we are increasing. It will also encourage people to finish their personal quests. Maybe the reward should be a permanent finisher? An explosion of hearts if you max out Charisma? Or perhaps a unique emote that’s unlocked. Even something small would be a vast improvement. At least an achievement.

Except for the part where you can just talk to a speed NPC over and over again until you change your personality from one to the other. Your personality is only tracked from the last 100 conversations with an NPC. There are also 10 types of personality and you’re idea of getting a special reward for maxing each one negates 7 of the types (though the finisher tied to your personality isn’t a bad idea).

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Personality
“Personality affects gameplay by offering certain dialogue options only to some types and altering the reactions of certain NPCs. However, the game is designed to avoid extreme consequences, i.e. players are able to take on different personality types without fear of losing out on overall rewards or benefits.”

I have gotten some dialogue options tied to my personality at some time or another, but I can’t really remember with who. And I haven’t played around with it enough to see if NPCs actually act different to me based on my personality.

I was just thinking about this too. They could do a load more with this than they have. It’d be very interesting if it opened up some hidden side-stories based on which you’ve invested most into. A base dignity would have you dealing with certain characters a bit better than ferocity, whereas ferocity might allow you to fare better with some than others, and so on.

Each would open up little elements of the world for players based on how they chose to interact with others, without being so much so as to penalize those that had no real clue whether they’d influence anything.

I wouldn’t be against a title being integrated somehow, but the title would have to be per-character, and go away when your personality changes, which I don’t believe is possible with the current system.

As for any tangible reward—absolutely not. If you add a reward, the system ceases to be about personality, and becomes about the reward.

What is so stupid about the current system,it is the fact that you can ,,set,, your wanted personality by clicking dialoge line with the appropiate symbol you desire. This is not how RPG work you have to think by yourself which dialoge line could fit to character personality you want to be and the current situation, without seeing the symbol representing it. Also most of the personality bar should be filled via personal story rather than random NPC. And also they maybe should result in differnt ending or approach to whole fight with Zahitan. For instance someone barbaric will defeat Zahitan by ,,Pyrrus Victory,, making all friends hating hero at the and while someone charismatic will move bigger crowd to fight, and at the end may become known socialite of Tyria.

Blumiere.1489:

What is so stupid about the current system,it is the fact that you can ,,set,, your wanted personality by clicking dialoge line with the appropiate symbol you desire. This is not how RPG work you have to think by yourself which dialoge line could fit to character personality you want to be and the current situation, without seeing the symbol representing it. Also most of the personality bar should be filled via personal story rather than random NPC. And also they maybe should result in differnt ending or approach to whole fight with Zahitan. For instance someone barbaric will defeat Zahitan by ,,Pyrrus Victory,, making all friends hating hero at the and while someone charismatic will move bigger crowd to fight, and at the end may become known socialite of Tyria.

Great idea. That could be accomplished very easily. There are already so many personal story moments where you have to choose a course of action. Having each one of those actions reward you with points in the emotions makes sense. “Charisma” choices would be more sneaky and deceptive, “Ferocity” more direct, and “Dignity” more diplomatic.

Wallace MacBix.2089:

Except for the part where you can just talk to a speed NPC over and over again until you change your personality from one to the other. Your personality is only tracked from the last 100 conversations with an NPC. There are also 10 types of personality and you’re idea of getting a special reward for maxing each one negates 7 of the types (though the finisher tied to your personality isn’t a bad idea).

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Personality
“Personality affects gameplay by offering certain dialogue options only to some types and altering the reactions of certain NPCs. However, the game is designed to avoid extreme consequences, i.e. players are able to take on different personality types without fear of losing out on overall rewards or benefits.”

I have gotten some dialogue options tied to my personality at some time or another, but I can’t really remember with who. And I haven’t played around with it enough to see if NPCs actually act different to me based on my personality.

In reference to “speed-talking” NPC’s —- This would not be a grind reward hit the box and kill the monsters sort of thing. It would be the end result of a ton of gameplay. And in terms of it being “all about the reward” most people choose the Priory, Vigil, or Shadows based on what end game armor they want. Why can’t we have both with emotions? I don’t see a problem with a finisher or even a tangible reward.

Blumiere.1489:

What is so stupid about the current system,it is the fact that you can ,,set,, your wanted personality by clicking dialoge line with the appropiate symbol you desire. This is not how RPG work you have to think by yourself which dialoge line could fit to character personality you want to be and the current situation, without seeing the symbol representing it. Also most of the personality bar should be filled via personal story rather than random NPC. And also they maybe should result in differnt ending or approach to whole fight with Zahitan. For instance someone barbaric will defeat Zahitan by ,,Pyrrus Victory,, making all friends hating hero at the and while someone charismatic will move bigger crowd to fight, and at the end may become known socialite of Tyria.

You forgot Trahearne is the actual hero of this story, not the player character.

The game needs dialogue options like games ala Mass Effect or Dragon age, where your choices really have an impact on your characters personallity that reflects how other characters react on you.

It was a silly decision to put absolutely no rewards/consequences into the system, what makes the whole personality system of gw2 completely obsolete and worthless.
anet could instantly remove totally this crap out of the game and absolutely no one would ever miss it !!! Thats the true sad fact !!!

This here is one big thing, that has to be redesigned together with the personal story in itself, but to be realistical, this is something, what we will seee either never, or maybe just in x years, because redesigning these systems would be heavily time consuming.

@shedim
,,You forgot Trahearne is the actual hero of this story, not the player character.,,

My idea still could fit. Just like I said, our personality could still show different approach to Zahitan fight as well as other NPCs like Treharne for example. Characters ther are more ferocious,and barbaric might be in conflict with him, which could result in ,,Pyrrus victory,, that I came up with, and those charming and charismatic could have more normal dialoges and maybe Treharne could admire our charisma or admit that we are charming in some sense :p

And Orpheal is right, more consequences with our personality,because as for now it is no different than standard MMO quest where you go to point A or B and kill X mobs, it has only little ,,spirit,, thanks to dialoges. Nothing more nothing less.

Edit : Anet should not be afraid of creating consequences from which there is no turning back. It is our character ,our personality we want to be and we want coherent choices to this ( at least I want ). Also different approaches could promote creating more characters to see the whole story form different angle.

Edit again, the current personal story design still makes me wonder what do producers where thinking telling that they want to make RPG in GW2, because as for now there is little RPG to personal story, especially thanks to no ,,growth,, of our character. Instead of ,,from zero-to hero,, we have american hollywood kitten ( sorry Americans no offence) from the start. I personally do not like heroes, that are ,,Supermen,, from the start. It should be journey about adulthood ,responsibility resolves and kept promises.

I love Gw2 and think they did some things extremely well, but I agree that the whole personal story (and the personality system) was really poorly handled. A lot of it is the writing combined with the lack of real, cinematic cut scenes. It’s hard to get into dialogue scenes when two characters are just standing there facing eachother in some black, negative space.

SWTOR did personal story extremely well. Every choice you made had drastic consequences in the plot that increased or decreased your character’s standing in the light or the dark. I had to think very hard about what choices to make. I recall early on in my SWTOR personal story I had to choose whether or not to kill a child’s father or spare his life. My finger lingered over the keyboard for 20 minutes as I debated the morality and effect my choices would have.

It wouldn’t have been hard for GW2 to write dramatic scenes that were personal and emotional. They have good voice actors. Games should be written as well as movies and have the same emotional impact. Witcher proved that. I’ll never forget the opening of the original “Dungeon Siege” where you start as a simple farmer who’s life is interrupted by a massacre. Such a simple opening but the emotional impact really sets the player up well. GW2 seemed to shy away from any serious, sophisticated themes in their personal story quests and I’m not sure why. Obviously they didn’t want to go as extreme as Game of Thrones because of their age demography, but some serious writing would have gone a long way.

Having said that, there are some good scenes. spoilers the Pale Tree’s vision of Orr quest and the dragon’s assault on LA are all great. But Trahearne really steals the spot light. The whole story you feel like a flunky who’s just hanging around because they got nothing better to do. There’s ZERO emotional reaction from your character, even when your mentor is in danger. On one personal quest in Orr, I recall a moment where a victory was a success, but with great loss of life. There’s a brief moment where your character meekly brings up the fact that the victory is a bitter one because of all the soldiers that perished. This could have been a moment of great, dramatic tension. A reflection on the madness of war, a moment your character feels regreat, remorse, and guilt. Instead, the chipper Asura I was talking to just brushed the moment aside with a cheerful grin saying something like “But the mission was accomplished, and that’s the important thing! Good work commander! Let’s go back and tell Trahearne of our victory!” It’s just lazy writing. Cut scenes would have REALLY helped. It was so refreshing to see that noir cut scene in the last few patches.

Wallace MacBix.2089:

Except for the part where you can just talk to a speed NPC over and over again until you change your personality from one to the other. Your personality is only tracked from the last 100 conversations with an NPC. There are also 10 types of personality and you’re idea of getting a special reward for maxing each one negates 7 of the types (though the finisher tied to your personality isn’t a bad idea).

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Personality
“Personality affects gameplay by offering certain dialogue options only to some types and altering the reactions of certain NPCs. However, the game is designed to avoid extreme consequences, i.e. players are able to take on different personality types without fear of losing out on overall rewards or benefits.”

I have gotten some dialogue options tied to my personality at some time or another, but I can’t really remember with who. And I haven’t played around with it enough to see if NPCs actually act different to me based on my personality.

Not to be bashful, but yours is the kind of posts we don’t need on these forums.

The OP started by saying that the system needs to be changed to be more meaningful.
From there, you miraculously:

1. - Assume that we would only be able to get 1 reward
   I don’t see where the OP said anything to suggest this.
   In fact, the current system is perfectly compatible with all the suggestions the OP presented – you might be able to get each and every reward.
2. - Assume that all the “speed exploits” would be available
   Where did the OP hint at that?
   Your claim doesn’t make any sense either.
   If you can only get 1 reward as you “feared”, then the “speed exploit” would be meaningless.
   If you can get all rewards, then the “speed exploit” will not give you anything special other than a severe headache.
   Nevertheless, if something meaningful was added to the personality system, perhaps it would become slightly harder – and certainly not spammable – to change your personality.

Too add some constructive criticism, I say that so that players aren’t encouraged to have multiple personality disorder or severe cases of bipolarity – by changing the character personality to obtain all rewards – perhaps the system might reward you first with the personality’s respective reward, and then grant you something cool weekly/monthly for keeping a consistent personality, rather than changing it.

The personality rewards should be purely flavourful, like titles and equipment skins.
Any non-vanity rewards – like crafting materials, currency or consumables – should only be rewarded weekly/monthly for “keeping the same personality”, and should be the same across all personalities, so that you don’t get encouraged to pick a personality for its reward.