Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars is a franchise that has been active in my personal MMORPG gaming world for over 8 years now and like many others I know that Guild Wars 2 can easily be the best MMO we have ever played.

That being said, there are many things that I think could be fixed and implemented to make the game more attractive for the non-hardcore/dedicated fan of ArenaNet/NCsoft’s work, and for those of us who have been around for a long time. In this rather lengthy post, I will discuss what I think Guild Wars 2 can do in the near future to help growth and keep the game living.

Suggestions List:
* Leveling
* Personal Story/Quests/Hearts
* Hard Mode
* Crafting
* Dungeons
* High Level Content
* sPvP
* WvWvW
* Character Variety/Usefulness.

-Leveling

• In Short: Feel awesome at Any level.

In guild wars 2, currently it feels as if you don’t have true potential to be great until you are level 80. More often then not you will find yourself in situations where looking for a dungeon at level 40 opposed to level 80 you lack in the power, experience, and overall character development and no smart team will take you. Not only this, but you level at such a rapid pace in Guild Wars 2 when you get new gear for your level 40 and not 2 hours of game-play later you have out leveled that gear and that money you spent on it was wasted.

Suggestions: More Lower level Accessible Dungeons
More diverse Quests/Hearts
More difficult Leveling

Yes, leveling should take a bit longer. I know some people want to grind to the highest level as fast as they can but in order to have a game where I feel great with my new level 40 gear without having the “well ill just out-level it in 20 minutes so no” philosophy I need to sit on that level for just a bit longer. As for dungeons and quests I will talk about that in topics below.

-Personal Story/Quests/Hearts

• In Short: More Attractive.

When I am level 2, I understand that one of the most important things I can really do for the Local Farmers is feed the Cattle they raise. Or I can help kill off the vermin in the area. But as I continue on my journey to level 80, I tend to feel as if I am being thrown in a washing machine; rinsed then repeated. I want to have more hearts where I feel I have a purpose in what I am doing. My gaming philosophy is, if it doesn’t make your character look and feel awesome why is it in the game? So feeling unique and important is now supposed to be represented with the Personal Story. I think the personal story is a wonderful addition to the game. The only problem is that the Personal “Unique” story is really 3 lines that fuse into 1. Within the 3 lines the ultimate goal is the same, and you just do the same quests in a different way. So really the “unique” aspect of each character is really lacking in the Personal Story due to lack of choice. Also, Why is Trahearne’s story the only story? Why is he the real hero and Not my character?

*Suggestions: *More Diverse and Interesting Hearts
More choice with Personal Story development
“Town Missions” (similar to GW1)

I think the best solution to the heart problem, and making the PvE explorable world more attractive is adding in something similar to what Guild Wars 1 had. Town Missions. I am not saying that we need to have the exact 8 person team instance; I am suggesting that in each Zone there is one Story that you can team up to do.

Example:
Level 1-10 Zone: Farmer Bob has lost his cattle to a pack of Ettin to the north, break through their defenses and escort them back before they eat the cattle!
Level 70-80 Zone: A Dragon has been spotted above the Ruins to the east. We need you to take control of the Centaur’s Seige weapons and take the dragon out of the sky long enough for a counter attack before it destroys Divinity’s Reach.

Make the quest a 5 person repeatable story goal, these quests can be similar to a mini dungeon and get people working together early on rather then just a touch and go with hearts.

(continued)

-Hard Mode

• In Short: Bring it back!

Hard mode in Guild Wars 1 was the greatest thing that was added to the game. Not only did it create new opportunities for teams to meet up and overcome a more difficult familiar adventure, but it gave greater reward to those who could actually do it! Right now dungeons are sitting at this awkward stage of being too difficult for the players who don’t fully understand them, and too easy for the people who understand everything about them. If hard mode was implemented, there would be no excuse or complaining about it being “too hard” because it is Hard mode! Of Course its too hard!!!!! This addition to the game would be sure to make some of the more aggressive players happier and more casual players excited to explore the easy side of dungeons.

-Crafting

• In Short: Make it Harder.

The best thing that Guild Wars 2 could do to boost its economy would be to make you only able to have 2 crafting professions. Right now Crafting does nothing at all for you but gain you some extra levels and make it accessible to craft legendary weapons. No one makes a significant amount from any crafting because EVERYONE can be level 400 in anything very easily too. While I am on the topic of Crafting, why is it not possible to craft a Precurser weapon? The most un-attractive thing of getting a legendary weapon is the precurser weapon and if it were a craftable life would be easier.

Example:
Precurser Recipe: 10g
250 ectos, Gift of Metal, 250 hilt, 250 blade

Problem. Solved.

-Dungeons

• In Short: More Dungeons, and Dungeon Finder.

As it stands, the amount of dungeons in this game are very minimal in what people want to do. I think that implementing a Hard Mode would very much help this and also making a better reward would make the dungeon more desirable. The biggest thing that can help dungeons is a Dungeon Finder. Most teams get put together very poorly because no one wants to sit and ping in the chat for 20 minutes “LF1m!!!”. Also when your team is trying to look for that 1 more person you will most likely be Suppressed for talking to much!!! So why not take out the need to spam, and make a finder.

Suggestions: Add Dungeon Finder
Add Hard Mode Dungeons for Better Rewards

My biggest want here is a Dungeon Finder. Why not make a finder with the exact same system used for finding a Tournament team in sPvP? All you do is goto dungeon finder and Que Up for whatever dungeon then when the team is ready you can join in on the dungeon from where you are if you have completed the story mode for it. That would make people actually do the story mode before doing explorable and it would make dungeons much more desirable.

-High Level Content

• In Short: Put my full exotic level 80 to use!

Right now for a PvE player the only thing to do beyond 100% the low level Explorable area is to play Dungeons and Karma farm. The only problem is with Diminished Returns, you can only do so many dungeons in a 2 hour period before your rewards are chopped, and same goes for Karma! What ever happened to being rewarded for playing more?? What I am missing in Guild Wars 2 right now is more level 80 zones. I am confident more zones will be popping up as time goes on, but this is something that I feel alot of players are leaving for. Some people want to do amazing quests and missions that you can ONLY do if your the max level. Alot of people want to feel “the game doesnt start til your 80” mentality and are missing it so they move on. I can’t wait to see what ArenaNet has in store for high level content but coming from a guy with 5 full exotic level 80’s, I am ready for it!

(continued)

-sPvP

• In Short: Let me be me.

I worked for about 500 hours to get this character 100%, with full T3 armor and my Legendary weapon… only to walk into PvP and show off a look of armor that I had at level 1. I want to play my character in PvP not be completely generic’d out. If this means adding an option to where you can just keep the look of your PvE gear but mess with the stats like it is PvP gear then why not!? I understand the ability to let players play PvP to its full potential right when they begin, but let us at least look the way we want? Guild Wars 1 did it. I may have been playing against a noob that had the game for 1 day but I had my Obsidian armor and it felt great to jump him and laugh over his body with my l33tness

Suggestion: What ever happened to Alliance battles and Kurzick/Luxon?

I understand that WvWvW is kind of the new alliance battle but not everyone wants to run around and then get mobbed by a zerg every 10 minutes just to spawn way back at the beginning of the map (more on that below). What Guild Wars 2 is missing is a simple Alliance battle ground “War Game” structure where 16 on 16 fight with 2 bases and a certain amount of capture points to take over. This would be a miniature version of WvW and would serve those who want to still be their PvE character in a big PvP match while not being in the WvWvW situation

-WvWvW

• In Short: It gets a little old

I love World vs. World, but what it is lacking right now is Diversity. All of the maps are the same exact place with the same exact circumstances. Also, running a NVIDIA 560ti graphics card I still at times drop down below 15 fps in WvWvW when Zerg numbers get too high so I don’t always want to play around when all of the sudden 15 enemys spawn right in my face and I drop only to have to spawn far in the back of the map. Also, currently I have no incentive to play World vs. World other then for map completion. Where is a reward for winning? What do I get (not my server) but what do I get for doing well in WvW?

*Suggestions: *A more personal reward for playing
A Smaller version of WvW (alliance battle or a small War Game)
More WvW environments!

Im sure in time WvWvW will expand into a larger diverse world, and much more is in store for WvWvW but until then I will stick to PvE. I like the large battles only so much before it makes me cringe just to know a zerg will pop up soon and I am screwed.

-Character Variety/Usefulness.

• In Short: I want to feel useful. On Any character. And More variety of Skills

I can say, after rolling a Theif, Ranger, Ele, and Warrior not ONE of them do I ever feel like I benefit the team like I do with a Guardian. Right now in the world of Guild Wars 2 I feel most classes are so “balanced” and can heal and survive that they hardly do much for the team the way most people play them. What I want to know is why not make each class a necessity, so that everyone has a huge role on a team in their own way.

Examples:
Warrior: A banner that creates a temporary spawn point for your 5 person team
Necro: Creates a undead version a teammate that just died(controlled by that teammate)
Ele: Creates fire/ice/earth/air boon that turns all teammates attacks into that damage type.

Things like this would help the team and make characters feel like they help in many ways, more then they do now.

Also, call me old fashioned referring to Guild Wars 1 all the time but what happened to such Diverse skill choice? I am not saying add a ton, but being able to select from 10 axe skills on my warrior or 10 sword skills on my guardian and letting me customize what I do with them would make the world of individuality in Guild Wars 2 SO much more apparent. Nothing is worse then knowing that when I see a warrior with a greatsword I know exactly what it is he is going to do. Endure pain Frenzy Hundred blades. But what if he had a choice to not role with Hundred blades.. what would he do? Also with skills why do most the elites in Guild Wars to not feel elite? I like the concept of guild wars 1 where your build was many times based around what you chose for your elite. Maybe this means giving in to making more elites for each character, or maybe it means making the ones that are elite better.

(Final continued)

As you can see I have a diverse range of thought that I have put into what could be done to make the game better. There is alot more to be said, but these are some primary focus points that I wanted to address. I feel right now that the game is somewhat pushing away people because of the lack of higher level content and character freedom as far as skills go; also Diminishing Returns forces the more Hardcore players to feel like they are being punished for wanting to play the game more.

I cannot wait to see what this game has in store for the future, and I believe it has set the bar for MMO’s in what to be expected. Not to mention it is a beautiful game

Please let me know what you think about my ideas!

Here is a link to the original GW2guru post I made:
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/78643-how-guild-wars-2-can-be-more-attractive/

-Ace

I’d rather the crafting stay as it is, I don’t want to spend mountains of gold on crafting of all things.

Sparky Sights.9174:

I’d rather the crafting stay as it is, I don’t want to spend mountains of gold on crafting of all things.

I am not saying make it more expensive, what I am saying is make it more difficult and make it to where everyone has an Incentive to craft.

The problem right now is that anyone can do anything which makes crafting pretty much pointless. When I was level 50 and had my Armorsmithing 300 I asked my friend if he wanted me to make him some armor! I said I would make it if he provided the materials. It turned out it was cheaper to buy something from the TP rather then do it that way, and the item from the TP was better!!

So what is the point in having such an easy to obtain goal when you gain nothing from it.

I say make it more about the quality of crafting professions you choose and what they actually do for you not the quantity of crafting professions you have that do nothing for you.

You’ve just proved my point, if you make it harder (by needing more mats and such) then people will simply turn to the trading post even more then they already do, thus driving up prices, thus making the crafting more expensive, which could well see more bots return to annoy everyone.

There are more important things for ANet to fix, like the bugs in the game rather then deal with something that is working and is fine and accepted….. and for the love of god will they stop nurfing Engineers.

Haha! Yes! I also feel Engineers are under-powered in comparison to other classes.

I guess I am just trying to say that I disagree with how easy it is to level with professions and the fact that everyone can have every profession makes them virtually pointless.

Yes if it was made harder to level professions the prices would go up for some things, but if it was made worth your time to get those professions leveled up then it wouldn’t be a problem.
For example: As it stands right now you can make a 20 slot bag and sell it in the Trading Post for less then it cost you to craft it (after TP cut)

This is because everyone and their virtual mom can craft a 20 slot bag. However if it were made that you could only have a select few crafting professions per character the bag problem would virtually disappear. Less people would be throwing them in the Trading Post and it would actually be worth your time and effort to make them to sell. This money issue we are talking about, would eventually fade away because people would begin to be rewarded for investing so much time and experience into the crafting profession of choice.

The President of the ITT Corporation Harold Geneen quoted:
“In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later.”

Simple philosophy, even can be applied to something as simplistic as a crafting profession in Guild Wars 2.

If you want to show off your pve achievements stay in pve.

If u want a purple item in pvp get steady item.

Nothing legendary about a rank 1 rabbit, sorry friend.

PS Get owned by engineers.

Bad Element.4613:

If you want to show off your pve achievements stay in pve.

If u want a purple item in pvp get steady item.

Nothing legendary about a rank 1 rabbit, sorry friend.

PS Get owned by engineers.

I don’t see the point in attempting to start a fight on here, Im simply saying that in PvP its not the Look that makes you “l33t” its how you play your character because everyone has the same skills. I am stating that more people from PvE would play pvp if they could play the same character they have worked on.

And I was rooting for the engineer not dumbing them down so why are you being immature and trying to start a fight?

I am talking about how the game can be more attractive and if players can use the same model of character they have in PvE for PvP it would be more desirable. If you played GW1 you would know that I am talking about.

I agree with alot of things the thread maker writes especially that leveling is way too easy. What’s the point rushing through the game content? Getting to lv 80 should be a challenge!

And I also think normal quests are a little too easy. Less and harder enemies would be nice and perhaps would make the game feel less grindy in my opinion.

(It would be nice if you wrote shorter posts though. It takes alot of me to want to read through everything… :P)

Sparky Sights.9174:

I’d rather the crafting stay as it is, I don’t want to spend mountains of gold on crafting of all things.

Ditto to this. Making crafting ‘harder’ by slowing down progress to max level means that people must spend more gold on crafting. I’m not talking necessarily about wealthy people who make money through the TP or know good farming techniques, but i’m talking about those who are barely scraping by (gold-wise) on their way to Level 80.

Also, the complaining would be endless. If you think all the complaining threads on the Engineer forum are bad (due to the 35% grenade damage nerf), it would only be a tiny fraction of what the complaining would be like if crafting was ‘nerfed’.

Mejo.3198:

especially that leveling is way too easy. What’s the point rushing through the game content? Getting to lv 80 should be a challenge!

For hard core grinders let it be fast, it is their own choice but for casual players it is long enough. I got to lvl 80 in 3 months because i don’t have so much time to play. What you saying is I should get to lvl 80 in 6-8 months? Are you crazy? If i could get lvl 80 in month that will make me happier and I wont mind if people would get lvl 80 in 1h.

OK, maybe I used the wrong words. But I think leveling is too easy right now. Making a little harder wouldn’t hurt. As the thread maker said, getting special weapons before lv 80 is a waste of money since you have outleveled them in a few hours (no matter how often you play the game).

You are perhaps right. However, I think that if any leveling speed should be slowed down, it should be the higher levels, like at level 60 make leveling progressively harder — though not like ‘WoW’ hard where it takes days of grinding just to gain a single level.

Yes, that too. In GW2, it’s harder to gain a lvl around lv 10-20 then around lv 60-80. That seems kinda off…

Making it harder to level would make getting to lv 80 actually feel like an achivement. If everyone would get to lv 80 in an hour (not like anyone would be silly enough to change it to that) is like giving the grade A to all students, no matter the testresult.

Might aswell have just pass or fail grades then…or just pass.

1. In Short: Feel awesome at Any level.
2. In Short: More Dungeons, and Dungeon Finder.
3. In Short: I want to feel useful. On Any character. And More variety of Skills

1. What do you mean by “awesome”? The reason leveling is easy in GW2 is because it was one of the basic development principles, to minimize the amount of “grinding”. Heck, even now you pretty much have to go to several areas in your level range to get enough levels to get to the next area. And there are dungeons which you can play at a lower level, so the problem lies more in the players than the content.

1. I haven’t played WoW, but from what I’ve read around, Dungeon Finder gets a mixed response. Some like that it eliminates the need to hunt for groups, while others hate that the resulting groups are often subpar.

1. You can feel useful, you just have to know what to do. I got a level 80 Warrior, and I feel really useful knowing that I can provide my team with tons of Fury, Swiftness and Might, along with pretty decent heals. It all just depends on what you think of as “useful” and how you play your character.

Olba.5376:

1. In Short: Feel awesome at Any level.
2. In Short: More Dungeons, and Dungeon Finder.
3. In Short: I want to feel useful. On Any character. And More variety of Skills

1. What do you mean by “awesome”? The reason leveling is easy in GW2 is because it was one of the basic development principles, to minimize the amount of “grinding”. Heck, even now you pretty much have to go to several areas in your level range to get enough levels to get to the next area. And there are dungeons which you can play at a lower level, so the problem lies more in the players than the content.

1. I haven’t played WoW, but from what I’ve read around, Dungeon Finder gets a mixed response. Some like that it eliminates the need to hunt for groups, while others hate that the resulting groups are often subpar.

1. You can feel useful, you just have to know what to do. I got a level 80 Warrior, and I feel really useful knowing that I can provide my team with tons of Fury, Swiftness and Might, along with pretty decent heals. It all just depends on what you think of as “useful” and how you play your character.

1. I mean I want to feel at level 20 like I have achieved something rather then saying “good only 60 levels to go”. I have 5 level 80’s now, 2 of which I leveled the legit way then the other three in 6 hours each by crafting. I can tell you after playing through the game once on one character I wanted nothing more to get to level 80. Because the “low-level dungeons” you speak of are impossibly hard on a character who is weak and with terrible gear opposed to a character who has Full exotics, 2 ascended rings and is fully traited. I want a sense of achievement even when I am not 80.

1. A Dungeon finder is already being used (www.gw2lfg.com) the GW2 Forums Moderators even bumped it to the top of the posts so more people would look at it. I agree that sure some groups could be “subpar” but ANY group can be subpar. This just enables the player to have freedom to join a group in a fast, efficient, and more enjoyable way. If everyone could make the flawless perfect thing all the time then they would but until then they need a group finder to help with PUG groups.

1. I agree with you have to know what to do, but the problem as it lays right now is that many people don’t know what to do. I think it should be clearer and more precise on what each class can do to assist the team rather then most people thinking since they role all Berserker gear and go down every 3 seconds but they can do “damage” means they are helping the team.

I invited many of my friends to come play this game before it came out, 4 of which actually bought it before launch and 3 of which have left. After they got to 80 and maxed out, it wasn’t so clear on what content was available for them to do. So I think making things like dungeons easier to get into, and helping players realize the potential of each character would help drive the game into a more successful and sustainable environment for ALL gamer’s not just the players who have been in the MMO world for a long time.

Mejo.3198:

I agree with alot of things the thread maker writes especially that leveling is way too easy. What’s the point rushing through the game content? Getting to lv 80 should be a challenge!

And I also think normal quests are a little too easy. Less and harder enemies would be nice and perhaps would make the game feel less grindy in my opinion.

(It would be nice if you wrote shorter posts though. It takes alot of me to want to read through everything… :P)

Sorry for the Lengthy post I just wanted to lay most of what I think out and tried to go in the least amount of detail that I could while still explaining why I think the way I do

Thanks for the suggestion though

I am a bit disappointed with the “endgame” myself. Being a PvE guy, it seems like there isn’t much to do. Orr fails the majority of the time and it seems like most players are just in Cursed Shore farming two events, spamming LFG in Lions Arch or waiting for dragons to spawn. People are doing dungeons and fractals, but most of them just seem…not so rewarding. I haven’t played all the dungeons myself but the ones I have done are pretty easy.

I’m tired of people skipping mobs and champions because they just aren’t needed. To fix this they could just simply make it were enemies won’t stop chasing you in dungeons. I’m just looking for more challenging and rewarding PvE content. Bosses just seem to have a big health pool and hit hard and the occasional dodging of the red circles. That’s their mechanics and it’s pretty sad actually.

Maybe I’m just going on about this too much. But it seems the game is lacking stick.

Hey guys, I created a more in depth look at everything I talked about in my blog.

check it out, leave a comment and let me know what you think!

http://videogamesuggestions.blogspot.com/2013/01/Guildwars2.html