Guild Wars 2

I think we all have our list, but If I could add only one thing it would be dynamic event instancing as an option… I’ve been playing > 200 hours. Being active in a few guilds I’m seeing a pattern. People often play alone in this game. Yes there is the social aspect in guild and map chat, but people sign-in to play together not just wonder around the same world playing solo-able content (although I do think solo-able experience should not be touched for those who do enjoy it).

Independence is a cultural thing in the west. We don’t take help unless we need it. I can’t count how many times I’ve offered to help or just team up and got no response. I also see people requesting LFG on map chat and expressing frustration.

The game is designed to not need a party to play and outside dungeons people rarely party up. This design has a negative impact on play experience for dynamic events. Most events have an optimal party size (5-8 players perhaps) where you will feel your contribution to DPS or support. When you play events with an optimal size team you will have fun. Once the number of players grows too large the event becomes a giant mob (zerg). There is no strategy and the only competition is with other players to get in as much damage as you can on the boss. The connection between players effort and reward is lost in this scenario. Yes you get the reward at the end, but what you did to achieve that is unclear… On the other end of the spectrum you have events that don’t have enough people to pull off. We’ve probably all run through a zone where an event was happening and no one was playing (if you haven’t, you will). In these cases player must avoid the event.

TL;DR I think dynamic events as implemented fail to be fun more often than not because the mass of players participating is either too large or too small. If I could make one change suggestion that made it into a future patch it would be a feature that allows a party to enter an instance of any event. This would add team-oriented play back to the open world and not limit it to dungeons, it would be a significant change for the better and bring the fun back. This would allow the events to be experienced with optimal team size (scaling for events as implemented is not the same thing. It controls the damage output of boss which will not impact play mechanics with a large team. Scaling as implemented does nothing to enforce strategic play). If this system is implemented greater rewards should be paid out for instanced play… Nothing ridiculous but a bit more than non-instanced.

More Character Progression
More “things to do when you dont want to grind”
A crafting system that you can actualy earn money from

I would like to see a comprehensive guild recruit or search for a guild tool similar to the one in Everquest 2.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

If I could make one change suggestion that made it into a future patch it would be a feature that allows a party to enter an instance of any event. This would add team-oriented play back to the open world and not limit it to dungeons, it would be a significant change for the better and bring the fun back.

While you’re absolutely right in that events are often dull because there are too many or too few people, this could be fixed by tweaking the scaling. Instancing the whole world is simply not doable. And I do find plenty of teamwork on the open world, especially in the tougher areas. Players will spontaneously group up to explore the maps or do event chains. They don’t party up because there is no need to.

Now to answer the original question, I’d change downscaling. As it is, you are still too strong when you get back to lower level areas, and the loot is orders of magnitude worse. I’d be happy to explore low-level areas if I could still have some semblance of challenge, and the loot was at least in the same ballpark.

SevenSigma.7462:

While you’re absolutely right in that events are often dull because there are too many or too few people, this could be fixed by tweaking the scaling. Instancing the whole world is simply not doable. And I do find plenty of teamwork on the open world, especially in the tougher areas. Players will spontaneously group up to explore the maps or do event chains. They don’t party up because there is no need to.

I don’t mean instancing the entire world. I envision a short window of time once the event begins (perform ~2 minutes after it starts up) where anyone who’s in a party inside the events area would be prompted with the option to enter an instance. The instance would have bounds just like Personal Story chapters do and would kick the player once the instance ends.

The bottom line is without instancing you can not control the zerg rush. When you have 15+ people on an event it becomes very difficult to weigh your contribution to the total effort. It’s different experience than playing with a small team where everyone knows your contribution and you know there’s. That team oriented dynamic does not have to be limited to dungeons.

Look man, I get you, but it’s just not doable. Think of how much work it would be to create instances for every single dynamic event in the game. How many are there? Think of the server load as every party in every event in the world gets its own copy of the map. There is a point where it stops being a suggestion and it starts being a magic wish.

And like I said, DEs are supposed to scale to the number of players. This system works well for middle-ground numbers, and breaks for too many or too few players. Fixing this issue could be as simple as tweaking the scaling.

More complex equipment improvements/crafting.

- The ability to have make your equipment have more rune/sigil slots.
- The ability to upgrade the base stats of your weapon from using special scrolls.
- The ability to add small effects to your weapon (like a small burst of light when you kill something).
- The ability to customize the appearance of equipment you craft.
- Many more rune and sigil effects.
- 2h weapons by default have 2 rune/sigil slots
- Runes and sigils work better together and stack (possibly at a reduced effect).

SevenSigma.7462:

Look man, I get you, but it’s just not doable. Think of how much work it would be to create instances for every single dynamic event in the game. How many are there? Think of the server load as every party in every event in the world gets its own copy of the map. There is a point where it stops being a suggestion and it starts being a magic wish.

And like I said, DEs are supposed to scale to the number of players. This system works well for middle-ground numbers, and breaks for too many or too few players. Fixing this issue could be as simple as tweaking the scaling.

1.) It would be a significant undertaking but it could be rolled out in phases by zone starting where the high level zones and moving down. 2.) It’s not more server load if the backend is designed well. Instancing generally reduces server load. They have the back-end architecture to scale for instanced zones through personal story and dungeons, the plumbing is already in place. 3.) As much as I’d love to see GW2 retooled for current events, it would also be nice if this feature would be considered for future expansions and sold as a feature of future expansions instead. At this stage it would be nice if all the dynamic events they created worked properly. There are still a number of bugged events.

One thing?

Hmm…

This will probably never happen, but I would love to have the option to summon henchmen for Story Mode Dungeons (and only story mode dungeons).

For those of us that work odd hours and find ourselves playing when the server is relatively dead, etc. it’s not always easy to PUG a dungeon… which really sucks because I want to see the story that plays out in those dungeons. In GW1 you could fill out a group for missions and some dungeons with henchmen and/or heroes. It certainly wasn’t an ideal solution, but it was an option that offered some flexibility and freedom while allowing you to progress through the game.

I would love to be able to purchase a summoning stone in the Gem Shop that would allow me to summon a henchmen or two to round out a group for a story mode dungeon.

I know it’ll never happen, but still…

I agree that my change would be DE scaling:

I disagree with instancing events. That completely removes the intended come-and-go-as-you-please social aspect of DEs.

IMO, DEs need to be able to scale down to solo difficulty or scale up to zerg difficulty on the fly. At the moment, they’re supposed to, but they don’t. Most events seem to be set up for a range of 5-10 people, and even 10 people can usually burn things down so fast that the event is gone if you blink at the wrong time.

The enemies shouldn’t just increase in number, they also need to improve in stats, AI tactics, skills used, maybe Vet or Champ designations, etc., as SevenSigma alluded to. I would go so far as to say that DE difficulty should scale exponentially, rather than proportionately, to the number of players involved. The loot should scale the same way. An epic number of people should create an epic event, even if the premise is just killing wurms in a farmer’s field.

EDIT: Discussion of outward scaling for DEs is being discussed here

One thing I’d change is more ways of how Meta Event can develop – for one we have always the very same events for each Meta, so it’s becoming boring. I’d love to see some variations – for example in Harathi Highlands players keep pushing Centaurs back to eventually fight a Big Bad Centaur with Wolves, what if sometimes some other boss will spawn? Or when players will get ready to take the last camp, some centaur “allies” (Skritts will do anything for shinies) will attack human camps, forcing people to go back and leading to different events.

Vick.6805:

Discussion of outward scaling for DEs is being discussed here

From that thread:

Siege us. Nuke us. Blast our groups, break our formations, bleed our lines. Make players split up to take down multiple objectives in a massive fight, and force teamwork by giving the opposition their own strategic cohesion. The zerg won’t be defeated by more zerging by the NPCs. The zerg will be broken when the opposition steps up its game, and forces players to do the same.

A thousand times this.

Remove channel spells when you go stealth. Complete fail in WvW when a ranger can channel multi-shot onto you and “see” where you are going.

New camera system.

Including:
- first person PoV (to be able to fully enjoy the scenery without character in way);
- adjustment of its position relative to the character (maybe a little higher up);
- smoothing toggle on/off (personally I’m happy with smoothing off, but give people an option);
- FoV slider (long discussion about this elsewhere)

The camera is the way we are immersed and engage in the game. ANET have clearly gone to great lengths to create a gorgeous world, and I believe some improvements to the camera system as a whole will increase the enjoyment and immersion.

I would add a first person camera option.