Guild Wars 2

Allright, so many good ideas and so many top-level design issues are being mentioned at the forums regularly, but all these single threads often get lost or the big discussion threads usually wind up in too many posts without any apparent conclusions.

What I wish to do is make one constructive feedback thread, here in the suggestions forum where the major design issues are briefly mentioned. Under them, some of the better ideas mentioned on the forums will be listed. I’ll update this first post regularly, to make it, hopefully, an easy go-to post for Anet to find issues that are currently going on within the community and our own ideas on these issues and how the content should’ve been implemented. This can relate to PvE, WvW, PvP, or major concepts like crafting in it’s entirety, gearing up and customization in general, etc. Something like a suggestion for a change of the arrow keys or number field for how many items to craft at once is not for this thread. (Although I’d love to see the change regardless.)

Empty lower level zones
With Anet advertising so boldly that the entire game was the endgame, and that the journey from 1-80 was as much a part of the game as the level 80 gold/karma/dungeon grind, it’s odd to see that zones have become so glaringly empty below level 70. Some starter zones may see some population, but doing any event with more than 1 other (if at all) in zones from level 20ish to 70ish is a rare occasion. This means that some of the content in these zones, meant for more than 1 person, like Champion events, or just generally harder events, are never being completed, due to lack of companions. It also makes it feel that Dev time spent on generating more content for lower level zones is wasted, as most of it will not receive the attention it needs.
Recently, this got somewhat fixed with rewards being higher for level 60+ zones for level 80s, giving an incentive to visit lower zones. Yet, it’s no where near enough to see these zones becomes flooded.

Solutions
     Use of overflows:
A solution I read once (full credit goes to that person) was to put everyone in every zone into overflow’s by default, and not in the zone for that server. With the current technology in place for overflows and servers, it would actually be really a good idea for all players, across all servers of either EU or US, to go into the Kessex Hills Overflow by default when moving to that map. You should then always be able to choose whether you’d prefer playing the map on your own server. The obvious benefit of this, is that it’s way more likely that you’ll play together with different people.

     Increase incentive for higher levels:
Another, perhaps more obvious solution, is to use more aggressive scaling for higher levels for lower level zones, but make the odds of getting on level gear identical to that of a zone like Orr. A level 80 in exotic gear, currently in a level 1-15 zone just plows through content with (near) ohko’s. It makes sense then to not be able to get level 80 rares or exotics from these level 5 mobs.
However, if said level 80 players were to be nerfed into the ground to the point of a level 4 in just white gear (to off-set the access to all skills, traits, etc.), I’d have no issue to see said level 5 (veteran or champion) mob to start dropping level 80 goodies, with also access to rare, just like Orr.

Post 2 ==>

Agony and hard content gating
I will not go into Ascended gear, as I feel the gear in itself is not the issue. The gear does exactly what Linsey Murdock describes here. It gives higher levels who feel they want to proceed a little further beyond exotics something extra, without the exceptional grind towards legendary. Yet the gap is small enough that you can just stay in Exotics too.
Agony, on the other hand, acts as a prime example of a badly thought of gate to keep players feel like they are progressing, because of having to get increasingly large resistances to said condition. Were it even possible, a fresh 80 that would try to join a level 20 fractals, would get creamed by this condition at Jade Maw, one of the unavoidable agony hits that’s a sure kill on those with not enough resistance.
Would this agony be used in other instances besides FotM later on, you would completely split the community between those with resistance, and those without. (which many players see as bad design)
I’ll write down two solutions I’ve found, starting with the one that is the easiest to implement with what Anet currently already has:

Solutions
     Agony resistance consumables:
I’ve read a really good idea, and this is basically a worked out version of that idea. It basically stated something along the lines: In any chest of any fractal randomly x (minimum of 1) vials of agony resistance drop. The amount of agony resistance on the vial is set by the difficulty you’re currently running.
For example, doing a level 1-9 fractal will always be a plus 5 agony resistance vial. Doing a level 10-19 would always be a plus 10 agony resistance, etc.
These vials would also have a few limits to them, like plus 5 vials can only be used when you are in an instance of level 10-19. Vial buffs last for 30 minutes but don’t persist through death, etc. They are also account bound. (Don’t create a skewed market for them)
The main benefit of this idea is that you still have agony and agony resistance that you need to combat the condition. It’ll still gate, more specifically, better players with fewer deaths have a better chance of advancing further through content than worse players. This is due to the need of having to pop agony vials after death and with vials being a limited resource.
If you’d run out of vials, you’d have to go back to lower level fractals to obtain vials there that can be used in your current progression. This also has the benefit that you’ll see people more willing to every now and then drop into lower content. Getting those vials will always prove valuable.
Most importantly The vials can be used regardless of gear. The linking of agony resistance with Ascended gear means that only the rich few or lucky few or those with way too much time on hands, will be able to enjoy all that the Fractals have to offer. For more casual players, obtaining enough Ascended gear to load all agony resistance in will be the major blocker for going on to a new tier (a new set of 10 levels) in Fractals. The vials still allow skilled and elite players to differentiate themselves from other players. They can still benefit more quickly from better rewards (if implemented) from completing high level fractals, and when playing correctly, vial management will be much easier for them.
Less skilled or just generally casual players who are not in a rush, can end up gathering enough vials to still proceed to level 100+ in time, and end up claiming some of the nicer rewards. They won’t need a new set of gear to complete this though.

     Remove agony:
This is the much harder implementation with what’s currently in game, I’d guess. But nevertheless, it’s a solution that I’d personally also still rather see implemented than the above. It basically means the removal of Agony completely, but with additional other content to ramp up difficulty. Stuff like additional skills on mobs, more mobs, more power on mobs, different mob types, etc. Example is the Asura lab harpies that suddenly shoot the lightning bolts over level 10, which don’t kill you through agony, they just kill you because they have a better skill set to use now. This would be a much harder implementation and imaginably would tax the developers much worse, having to come up with content for levels, instead of just having to write one script that basically gives them x level * base agony = z difficulty.

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I’ll leave it for now, but if I find more good threads, or more discussion and solutions in this topic pops up, I’ll edit this first post to reflect this to keep one good discussion topic for suggestion that Anet may use to improve their game.