Guild Wars 2

Hi guys, Some things may have already been mentioned I haven’t read every thread in the forum, I will just highlight some of the features of gw2 I have seen, what would be nice and what other GW1 players like myself are surprised are not in the sequel.

1. Guilds, Guild Halls and Alliances

One of the great features of guild wars was actually having or being in a guild, representing yourself on one, and I stress ONE guild. You could then join up with other guilds to form alliances, which in turn allowed for the acquisition of combined faction to then use in sponsoring/controlling a town, which in itself gave you privileges such as cheaper merchant items, most notably lockpicks. This was a great system, a simple system, guild upgrades were relatively balanced for purchase and the system really was user friendly. In GW2 they decided to go with a more complex system which didn’t really promote guild loyalty and has so far been a pain in the backside for a lot of players.
Another feature was the acquisition of a guild hall which was your home away from home, where you could buy merchants, dye traders, xunlai storage agents etc. to enhance your guild and allow you to do all the basic things you would want to do with your character while adventuring without the need to make lengthy trips to racial cities.

2. Map Travel Tax and Auction House Tax

The more I play the more this annoys me. Map travel costs nothing in Guild Wars 1, why there is a map travel fee in GW2 is beyond me, there is no need for a tax for map travelling as someone who can say they have achieved 100% map completion I can quite comfortably say that I have seen all of Tyria for now, if the motivation for map travel costs was so people roamed out of sheer defiance of paying money to go from place to place you may be succeeded, on the other hand I know just as many players who find this just unnecessary. The silly thing is I had a friend die in the field and didn’t have enough coin to travel to the nearest waypoint, what are you supposed to do? Wait for another player who is considerate enough to revive you? I’m pretty sure removing this fee would make many players happy. As for the Auction House, I kind of understand the listing fee, but again does It really need to be there? Sometimes the fees nullify any profit and that just makes using the AH irrelevant, sooner or later due to frustration I’m sure Lion’s Arch will find itself being the new Spamadan, and no-one really wants that. I believe this implementation is already underway, but I will mention it again, previews for the AH would be muchly appreciated.

3. Downleveling and Non-Level Matching Loot

Downleveling is a brilliant idea, works well and have loved it since beta, I am also very impressed at how seemless it is in the game, keep up the great work here. My only concern is the inconsistent loot drops, I was level 80 with a friend who was also 80 and we went to gendarren fields to help a lower levelled guild member with some content, while the dynamic events awarded appropriate rewards for level 80 exp/karma wise, the drops from monsters etc were still comparative to the zone. The same also applies with Jumping Puzzles. The JP loot is zone level not player level. Just some small changes so that loot is comparative to level and players are rewarded equally when playing with other friends would be also greatly appreciated.

4. What’s the deal on Magic Find?

Is this a functioning attribute or still in the works? My character has been running around in dungeons and high level content zones to test my magic find attribute, currently my armor assigns me 50% to MF, I have been using magic find boosters as well as food. Which makes my MF roughly 140% I maintained my buffs for a few days when I played through events, dungeons, trash mobs etc, with the highest quality loot I obtained being masterwork. So is: A. Magic Find a Stackable attribute, B. Quantifiable in any way, and C. Working at all. What are actually the real bonuses to Magic Find with these boons, runes etc. I have yet to really find any concrete information in regards to Magic Find.

5. Diminishing Returns and Craft Cost/Rewards

Basically Diminishing Returns needs to be removed, when GW2 was first starting to be explained, functionality wise, you were fervent in your view we could play the game however we wanted to play and level. We could craft, go into dungeons, roam from event to event and do whatever we want. Since the start of the game these options have slowly been trickled away, crafting received a huge exp nerf, diminishing returns carves through event and dungeon rewards, I did twilight Arbor once before the completion dropped from 15 blooms to 5, which is ridiculous. The thing that annoys me the most is that if we contribute as much or more to an event as anyone else why should we receive less rewards purely because we do it more than once? It’s illogical, and frankly turns me off doing content I want to do if I’m not going to be rewarded for it. Another thing that has affected the crafting costs is the adding of cooking ingredients to loot bags e.g. Bag of Shinies, Thorned Sack etc. They used to be a good source of crafting matts, now I seem to get an endless source of butter! I understand the extra mats from crafting nodes, but seriously chefs should have the cooking materials back.

An addition to the crafting hubs could be a material purchaser, where you can sell crafted materials for a baseline price, as currently they have no value in the AH, a standardised value would add incentive for players to work in crafts and make items. Either for themselves, their guild and friends or for sale. There are not many ways to make consistent coin through regular means since diminishing returns carves up your profits, this could be an alternative way to reward all players for crafting, and potentially stimulate the AH.

Another factor for diminishing returns that is hurting players when they reach level 80 and start delving into dungeons and looking at orrian karma armors or cultural armors, is the price. I for one really like the Karma armors available at the Temples in Orr, but they cost something like 54k for each piece, that would make it 270000 karma for one set of armor that I know I only want for its cosmetic value. Karma events award you roughly 340 karma each, making the armor available for purchase after doing level 80 DE’s 794 times. That is just ridiculous; especially considering karma is character wide not account wide. Then we get into Dungeon rewards, while being nice and unique they are way too overpriced, if I wanted a full set I would need to do one dungeon a minimum of 48 times just to get a set of armor, which isn’t nearly as large as karma armor, but is still rather excessive. Considering the Anti-grind philosophy you wanted to bring to the game. Finally Cultural armor, I don’t even know what to say, 150g, are you kidding me? Most players are stretching to make 5g. Perhaps a way to make this all a lot easier would be to cheapen the prices of it all, and make them armor unlocks, same way we have heritage armor unlocks in the Hall of Monuments, have a prestige armor-smith that has the cosmetic armor unlocks for your players as they are unlocked. The cosmetic unlocks are unlimited use once unlocked they can be applied to any of your armor pieces. Keep the expensive prices for exotic variations for those who want to grind for the high end armor, but make the cosmetic option available for everyone without the need for excessive grinding.

6. Return Crafting Prestige Armor like it was in Guild Wars 1

One of the best features Guild Wars 1 had was the creation of prestige armors, the satisfaction of finally crafting your elite armor, that has been removed from GW2, and I am not sure why. I liked gathering the materials to make the armor, and then forging it yourself to then customise how you like. Everything so far is acquired through drops or from merchants, I have no satisfaction in crafting my prestige armor, and myself and many friends from GW1 say the same thing, this was a working system, took a moderate amount of time and was fun. A return to the old school armor making would be an excellent addition to the game, even creating the armors from GW1 after getting rare recipes from dungeons or in the world. E,g, Deldrimor Armor or Monument Armor Recipes from Dwarven ruins or far northern shiverpeaks etc. We have Profane and what not in the gemstore, so we know you can the armors, I’d love to get my old school norn ranger armor. And I am sure people would love to get obsidian armor again haha.

7. Achievment Passive Bonuses, PvE only skills, and Faction Ranks

In GW1 we had functional Title Ranks that offered passive bonuses to players dependant on where they were in the game, most notably were the Eye of the North ranks but there were other ranks in Nightfall that offered bonuses as well. E.g. The Lightbringer rank for helping the Order of Whispers offered you a passive bonus against demons and servants of Abaddon, it was a title and a passive boon. There was also Asuran, Ebon Vanguard, Norn and Dwarven ranks each giving different passive bonuses, mainly combat boons. What says we cannot have the same bonuses in GW2, we have factions we have different races, why not earn titles like we did in GW1 that eventually award us with decent passive bonuses. Games such as Star Trek Online award passive bonuses based on accolade you have achieved especially in kill accolades, only something like +2-3% damage or resistance vs an enemy type on max tier but something that rewards the players. Perhaps even ranks in the orders that unlock different tiers of vendors as you progress in rank, In Guild Wars 1 to craft prestige armor for Norn, or Asura etc you had to achieve a minimum of Rank 4 in their title.

PvE skills was another fun feature of Guild Wars 1, they added a different flavour to our skill choices and they got more powerful the more you ranked with a particular faction. Some of those skills are now racial, but perhaps there is still some room for PvE skills, I’m not really sure what you could have with regards to the current factions maybe things like Ebon Vanguard Assassin Support or Sniper Support but a Whispers variation, some magic/tech utility ability like the spectral weapon we get in the PS from durmand priory, and vigil air support etc. Something interesting.

8. More Skill and Weapon Choices

I am still trying to cope with the lack of skill choices and bizarre choice for skills, certainly not ones from the classes I would of chosen. I would very much like to see more skills, more weapons per toon. If I was to use a class as an example, I’ll use my Ranger.

Currently we have a good lot of weapons and skills but some things seem to be missing that don’t really make sense, being a master of ranged combat and not having rifle or pistol is curious, I know you probably chose to neglect them because the engineer has them but logically as times progress rangers would use guns as well. Most GW1 players would know what the Bunny Thumper was, for those who don’t it was a heavy Knockdown build using a hammer in GW1. On top of this we are still missing a lot of elite skill choices. We get tonnes and tonnes of skill points and surely we can slot more utilities and elite skills to learn. I’d like to see an Elite Trap skill, some new wilderness skills, a beastmaster elite that calls out 3 random terrestrial or aquatic pets to attack at once, just a few more choices would be nice.

On skill choices, I’d also like to see the implementation of weapon swapping on all classes, just to make it fairer, my engineer has 2 weapon combination choices, surely a weapon swap wouldn’t be such a hard thing to ask for.

9. World Event Announcements or Cooldown Timer

I always miss these events, I never know when they are on, or when they are on next. Something as simple as saying “The vigil are preparing for an attack on Kraalkatorrik’s forces in: [Insert Time], would be a lovely edition, So I don’t waste 20 kitten silver mapping from point to point (again another problem with mapping costs)

10. Homes Instances

Home instances were initially meant to be our home, that was going to evolve as we progressed through the game. This could still be in progress I understand, but have yet to really see many changes, I completed my story to max so far and the only change is the addition of Ikniu and some hylek, no order of whispers contact, no pact contact, no scholars, surely there would be some affiliate npc’s around. I would like to see eventually a system where we can assign members of our order to do tasks like the mini-game quests they have in Star Trek Online, you assign some orders agents to do some recon on a certain place, you choose a difficulty and location and say each mission has a 24hr cooldown, when you come back you have a chance of getting items and exp/karma for the mission. Just something small and fun to do, and potentially a way to find new recipes or rare item components.

11. WvW Diplomacy

I’m not sure the feasibility of this, but a system that allows for the forging of world pacts in WvW would make for an interesting and evolving World combat scenario, e.g. You and another World are getting thrashed by the enemy, so someone initiates a diplomacy panel and members of each world have the opportunity to vote for a treaty to come into effect, say a non-aggression pact, or a full blown alliance. Members can only vote in one of the WvW maps and initiating the diplomacy has a cooldown on initiating a treaty. So once you forge the pact it stays in effect for a minimum of 24 hours before being able to be contested.

In conclusion there is a lot of features from Guild Wars 1 that made it successful that wasn’t implemented in the sequel, which a lot of players from GW1 would like to see come back, I do hope you have the opportunity to peruse and consider some of the suggestions and I hope some of the community read and post some of their suggestions as well. There may be some negatives in what I said but these are the only concerns I have seen, the rest of the game I really do love like the first, you guys have done an amazing job.

• I Apologise for the wall of text lol*

Some of these are good suggestions but I disagree with weapon swapping on engineer and elementalist my ele does just fine swapping elements.

Engineer is nothing like elementalist, and kits are hardly a viable weapon choice in any circumstance, they are nothing like attunements, I’ve used em enough to know that. Elementalists are unique in their ability to switch attunements, but I’m sure if you polled it most ele users will say the same thing as will engineers, why should engineers miss out on utilities to compensate for weapon swapping. Its not a major change, it would make alot of people happy.

1. Totally agree with you about guilds, halls and alliances as I miss them dearly too. They unnecessarily fixed a good system that wasn’t broken by introducing this whole multiple guild thing and removing alliances.

2. At level 80 the map travel price is pretty high and considering how they nerfed farming gold is not easy to make so this discourages me from map traveling to low level areas to help friends, unless I do events frequently to make up for it. I don’t mind the Trading Post tax but the fact that it’s down as often as it is is annoying.

3. I have no problems with mobs dropping loot appropriate for that zone’s level rather than the player level because this allows players to get lower level equipment and mats somewhat more efficiently for their alts or friends rather than dedicate a separate character for it. If I want level loot appropriate to my level I can just go to a high level map or WvW, problem solved. This also prevents players from farming high level stuff in easier areas rather than doing high level maps.

4. My biggest mistake after hitting level 80 was spending about 10g on making a rare set and accessories with magic find. I seldom get rares from drops and overall I haven’t noticed significant increase in income since I started using it so I’m with you on this. Until there is enough information on Magic Find on the wiki I think it’s a waste to make a MF set unless you already have your endgame set(s) and can afford a MF set.

5. The diminishing returns does suck and I find it harder to make gold to buy stuff I want now but I guess it’s good for the economy since if this wasn’t done people who had enough time to play would have just done CoF all day and become so wealthy and caused severe inflation. High level Karma items and Cultural items are overpriced indeed but the thing is, Guild Wars 1 was marketed as a CORPG whereas Guild Wars 2 is a regular MMORPG and by nature MMORPG’s just have to be grindy, otherwise people just lose interest and run out of things to do. Compared to other MMO’s this game isn’t very grind intensive.

6. There are cultural armors and dungeon armors with unique appearances and are fairly expensive. I suspect they will add legendary armors at some point in the future. All these sets are presumably the equivalent of Prestige Armors I guess.

7, 8. Not sure if they will add PvE skills but I preferred GW1’s skill system as well. You had more freedom in making a build whereas here 5 of your skills are determined by the weapon you wield and the 6th skill has to be a healing skill. In GW1 despite having only 8 skill slots you were free to go full dps without any healing or take a tanking build and so on, I guess this was intentional. I also dislike how you have to spend money to reset your trait points. One of the things I liked about GW1 was how you could change builds easily depend on what mission or area you were going to do, this type of flexibility is discouraged in GW2 because of how difficult it is to make gold and how much it costs to retrait.

9,10,11. I have to go now so I haven’t read them yet ;p