Guild Wars 2

So, alot of people are getting REALLY up in arms about this whole “Ascended gear” thing. Honestly, if it’s a one time fix for the lack of progression players are feeling, it’s fine. ONE new tier of gear won’t turn this into a gear treadmill. Relax people.

However, this wasn’t the way I thought ANet was going to go in terms of progression. Adding new gear tiers with direct combat stat boosts will only promote a less friendly community and make it harder for new level 50s to get groups. The way I see it, if ANet wants to still keep the “anti-gear treadmill” motto and not be called out as liars, they’ll have to have non-combat progression.

For one, Cosmetics: Naturally, new skins and the like. However, the problem with skins is that once you have the one you want, you don’t really care about any others. So add in things like obtainable auras, or other aesthetic effects like leaving fiery footprints behind you when you walk.

Two, Out of Combat Stats: Now, I’m no programmer so I can’t comment on how easy this would be to implement, however I find it hard to believe these will be too difficult.
Speed: Players have been asking for SOME kind of sprint feature, or out of combat speed boost for a while. At least, the ones that I play with. I really can’t imagine it’d be difficult to add some sort of permanent swiftness ability you can work towards that only works out of combat. Also, feel free to add tiers to this, as it won’t discourage people from grouping with each other.
Magic Find: Again, another fairly obvious one. Having some sort of permanent magic find boost that doesn’t need to take up a rune slot would be something I’d imagine everyone wants and would be willing to work towards.
Jump Increase: Jumping doesn’t really have any effect in combat, however having the extra mobility would be fun and helpful for some of the harder jumping puzzles. Not to mention, a neat way to show off to your friends.
Fall Damage Removal or Reduction: I know there’s a trait that halves fall damage already, but it takes up a trait slot, and no one likes that. So why not add a way to improve this stat? Or rather… reduce it? Hell if I know.

Permanent Gathering Tools: Having to constantly head back to buy gathering tools, or grab some out of the bank that you’d stored, or even just having 5 of them taking up space in your inventory is rather frustrating. So, why not add a way to work towards getting a permanent one. Again, something I’m sure mostly everyone will want to work towards, unlike skins.

Three Professions: Or more. I know that you can learn every profession on a single character, so this will mostly just be to relieve the frustrating of having to pay and switch them out. Why not have players be able to unlock having three or more professions active at once?

Builds: Some of my PvP oriented friends were upset with the lack of the ability to create a build for PvE and one for PvP. So why not add unlockable build slots as a way of progression? Obviously, you wouldn’t be able to switch them in combat. This wouldn’t just benefit PvPers, in quite a few dungeons my groups have run into places where some of us have had to switch out our traits and abilities for a buff removal build, or a more supportive build.

Titles: I know there are titles in the game, but they’re really hard to notice. Unless you click on the player, and even then it kind of just sits there inconspicuously under their name. Just make these more noticeable and add more of them.

Those are what I think are some fairly easy things to put in game. Again, I’m not a programmer, I have no idea, but there are already examples of those values being changed in game. However, there are also long-term progression that could be implemented that ANet may very well be working on.

Mounts: A given. Depending on if they put in the sprint feature or whatever, and how much it affects your character, these may be unnecessary. However even then, I think some players may enjoy having something like this.

More Interaction with Minis: (cough) Pokemon battles (cough) In all seriousness though, any amount of intractability added to those minis would be great. Give them emotes, make them nameable, let them carry your stuff. Anything would make them more worthwhile.

Housing: Self explanatory. I could go into pages and pages of detail about what I’d personally want from this, but I’m sure ANet has much more creative talent than I.

Guild Halls: Again, pretty obvious.

Flight: This may be just because of my time spent in Aion, but temporary flight removed the issue WoW flight created: Lack of a sense of scale. You were still restricted by time and got to enjoy the large scope of the world, however you could also defy those boundaries, and because of the restrictions, when you did it felt great.

Ability Skins My friend made an Asura engineer and was REALLY upset that all of their abilities looked exactly everyone else’s. He felt that the current engineer abilities fit really well with a Charr engineer, but that as an Asura his should look more like Asura technology. I realize that engineer abilities are the most distinguishable, but honestly even something as simple as giving the option for ability color changes would be really cool. I dress my mesmer in red, so if I could make all his purple magic be red instead… well, just something to think about. Not sure if this would affect PvP at all, I personally don’t distinguish classes based on the color of their abilities, but other people might.

Animation Sets: Again, something Aion had. Which may dissuade ANet from implementing something like this. Also, I’d imagine this is quite a bit of work. But adding different running or jumping or idle animations for players to work towards might be interesting. As well as adding more emotes.

Collectibles: No not minis or crafting resources. Little shiny things on the ground that are part of a set and when that set is completed you get some cool interesting item. Again, done in previous MMOs. I’ve seen this in both Everquest and Rift. But it was fun and a good way to keep player’s attentions. So long as the collection completion rewards are worth it.

I think I’ve made this post long enough. These are just a few of my ideas, a few things I’d like to see in the game. People may disagree or agree, ANet may disagree or agree. These may be things they want to keep for the Black Lion Store. It’s up to them. I just wanted to toss in my two cents, like anyone really gives a kitten anyway.

ALSO, I’ve mentioned some other MMOs in this post. Please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please please
NO FLAME WARS.

Oh I forgot. Uhm.

This is a thing apparently.
TOO LONG DIDN’T READ:
Instead of improving stats that affect combat, improve out of combat stats, add ways to reduce player frustration, or add other fun/interesting ways of progression.

anet wont listen they havent so far.

Possibly problematic: Speed, Jump, Fall Damage decrease- these are might not affect combat directly at a glance, but higher jump/less fall damage would allow people to use routes others cannot or escape a battle more easily. And it would also open up possible shortcuts/exploits in dungeons again. Speed would also lead to some elitism during dungeons or wvw, because travel time between battles is important for speed clears, and because combat mode isn’t combat mode doesn’t start til your hit, so until then its a boost for kiting/avoiding mobs.

Flight: I feel flight can have problems with the way the game is currently built, since it might allow people to skip over things they shouldn’t be able to. No flight zones might fix this though. Obviously no flight in pvp/wvw
Mounts:These aren’t really necessary and either fall under the speed or flight category. Mounts for just visual/fun purposes would be okay.

Permanent Gathering Tools: I would like the convenience of tools not taking up space so I wouldn’t have to keep running to a merchant to repurchase them. However, permanent ones would either have to be expensive, so just semi permanent- you can just keep stacking unlimited charges or something on them. Making tools stackable would have the same affect.

Titles: Please make more noticable
More Interaction with Minis: YES. This would be awesome.
Collectibles: This would also be a nice way to introduce some rare item skins as well as scavenger hunts/boss bounties for parts and materials.

Well allowing people to use routes others can’t and escape or avoid battle more easily is the point. People already do that with swiftness, mesmer portals, certain class abilities, etc. In structured PvP everyone is on equal footing anyway, and in WvW people are already somewhat uneven due to gear and actual levels. As long as the boosts aren’t in effect DURING actual combat, it’s fine. As for the kiting boost, just make the buffs turn off when you hit something. Can’t be too difficult.

Hoped this would get a small discussion at least.

Sometimes when I’m alone I cover myself in Vaseline and pretend I’m a slug.

Lorrik.6503:

Sometimes when I’m alone I cover myself in Vaseline and pretend I’m a slug.

Lol, that may not create the sort of discussion you were looking for :P

Back on topic… I like most of your ideas, but I disagree with mounts, unless they are sized appropriately. Nothing worse than a place full of oversized ground or flying mounts. (like WoW, in particular pre-Cataclysm Stormwind)

I’ve got another suggestion to add to this list — Character appearance:

Can we get some of the baby faces replaced with a bit more mature looks? Or even better, could we have something like EVE Online’s character appearance editor? (I do realise that the latter poses a challenge in terms of performance if many very different shapes meet in game)

Also, will there be a way to change appearance (or even character names) later on? Obviously Anet appreciates that looks matter (dyes, transmutations, armor skins etc), so it’s kinda surprising that you can’t currently change your appearance later on.

I suppose character appearance could be developed as progression. Unlocking new hairstyles, faces, builds and such. Could be interesting.

Naturally, mounts need to be handled with care.

As for appearance and name changes, I’m almost positive they’ll put those in as gem store services.