Guild Wars 2

Intro

Titles are cool. As a fan of the original Guild Wars, I look forward to getting as many titles as Guild Wars 2 has to offer much like I did in the original. Personally, I’m perfectly okay with adventuring purely for the title, and the bragging rights that come with it. Yet, not everyone is like me, and I am quite understanding of those who are not.

The Problem

There are those players who really enjoy to be continuously rewarded for the hours they put into a single character. Many other MMO games provide this type of continuous rewarding with a weapon/gear treadmill. The more time you spend, the better your gear, and the more powerful your character becomes. Then players would be able to take that power and apply it to other aspects of the game such as PvP or large group raid dungeons. Thus giving players a sense of power, achievement, and that the time they put into obtaining that gear was worth it.

Thankfully, Guild Wars 2 does not have a gear treadmill system. Such a system only hurts those casual players who want to have fun in a timely manner and on a balanced playing field. Gone are the days of losing PvP matches because your gear wasn’t good enough, or waiting for hours to get a raid group together.

Instead, most of the Guild Wars 2 end game has to do with obtaining and crafting better looking armor and those oh so awesome legendary weapons. This is genius, and I love this system. It is just awesome to have that empowering sense that you look cooler than everyone else around you. Yet, I feel this cosmetic gear hunting system does not exactly give the same sense of progress, power, and heroic achievement as the gear/weapon treadmill. In order to successfully replace the weapon/gear treadmill system, another continuously rewarding system will have to replace it. And right now, I feel the cosmetic system does not do this.

The Causes

With a weapon/gear treadmill system, one can look at a piece of gear and say, “Wow, that has way better stats than mine, and looks cooler. I want it”. And so the treadmill continues as players strive for better stats, more power, and cooler looks while feeling the time invested is worth the rewards. Thus, the player never really finds a point of satisfaction.

On the other hand, with the cosmetic system, one cannot directly compare two sets of max 80 gear and factually establish that one set is better than the other. Sure different sets might give different stats to suit different play styles, but chances are there is another set with the same stats some where in the world where the only difference is the cosmetic difference. Thus, it really comes down to opinion, and if one thinks that their particular set or two of gear looks better than any other set(s) of gear in the game, satisfaction has been reached and the strive to achieve more sets of gear has been diminished.

The Idea Behind a Solution and My Suggestion

I know this sounds mean, but I feel the game must deny the player a sense of final satisfaction, that they have done everything there is to do on a single character. The game needs to provide a sense that there is still more to do, and that doing such things is worth the time invested. This is the key to maintain a continuously rewarding end game system. Right now, I feel Guild Wars 2 does not have this, and I certainly would like to see this added to the game. This is where my title hunting suggestion comes in.

Title hunting is just out right fun in my opinion. You get to see every corner of the world, enjoy all the dynamic events, find those hidden jumping puzzles, and have a sense of serious achievement while doing it. For me, it gives the same sort of feeling as leveling does, making it seem as if there is still more to do. However, I will admit that title hunting is just not all that rewarding. Not only that, but I was fairly dissapointed when I checked to see just what titles were available to unlock. I feel if the title system had a major overhaul, it could redefine the end game system of Guild Wars 2 for the better.

For those of use who played the original Guild Wars, you are probably familiar with the Hall of Monuments and can skip this paragraph. For those who aren’t, I’ll briefly describe. The Hall of Monuments was added to the original Guild Wars to ready players for Guild Wars 2. The Hall would keep track of all the titles you earned throughout the game with promises that earning titles would benefit you in Guild Wars 2. These promises came true with cosmetic armor and weapon skins, as well as mini pets, that can only be achieved through the Hall of Monuments.

For me, just the promise that I would be rewarded for title hunting via the Hall of Monuments gave me that strive to play more on my maxed level 20 character in the original Guild Wars. I had already obtained a set of armor that I thought looked awesome, so it was purely the title hunting that kept me playing. I wanted those rewards. However, I feel Guild Wars 2 does not offer much for title hunters.

Obviously, if you get the 100% map completion title for example, you’re going to get the rewards from completing each area as well as the world. However, these rewards just contribute toward the cosmetic end game system. They provide money, experience, mystic coins, crafting materials, etc. All of which allow you to create awesome looking gear.

That is the problem with title hunting in Guild Wars 2. It isn’t an alternative end game option like it was in the original Guild Wars. If one already has epic looking gear, why should they spend a lot of time just to get gear that they’re not interested in. Many players simply might not find title hunting to be attractive because the time invested is simply not worth it.

Thus I suggest having titles give much more helpful rewards that allow the player to do more, but not necessarily make them more powerful. Of course, titles could also give armor skins.

Design

These titles would have to be designed in such a way where achieving the max level of the title is a long term investment, but the player gets rewarded as they progress. Basic rewards can be given within the first tiers of the title, such as money, XP, etc. As the player advances their titles into the higher tiers toward completion, give those rewards that the player is truly seeking.

More titles will have to be added. The current selection of PvE titles is just too small, and not all that difficult to get. I would really like long term titles, much like the reputation titles achievable in the original Guild Wars. Ideas for such titles are endless, and so are the possible rewards.

I would like to note that all these rewards could potentially be added to the gem store to be bought with gems, but I’d rather have rewards you could ONLY get from titles. Would give title hunting much more of an actual strive rather than just allowing players to grind gold and convert to gems. They really need that awesome factor to give players the strive to get the titles.

Reward Ideas

These of course are just ideas, and can be cooler or weaker depending on the title difficulty.

Lets just assume that long term titles added would have 5+ tiers. Tiers 1 and 2 giving those basic rewards, but tiers 3-5+ giving those rewards that makes the title worth striving for.

Tier 1 and 2
-Money
-XP
-Fine crafting materials

Tier 3
-Teir 1 and 2 rewards
-Mini pets
-Skill points
-Rare crafting materials
-Exotic crafting materials

Tier 4
-Tier 1-3 rewards
-Exotic armor set pieces
-Gloves, Feet, Shoulders
-Exotic accessories

Tier 5+
-Tier 1-4 rewards
-Exotic armor set pieces
-Chest, Head, Legs

This is where some of those really epic reward ideas come in.
Account Titles
These rewards would belong to titles that would be account based, so any character could contribute toward the progress of the title at any time. The rewards would be shared by all characters on the account.

-Cheaper Vendor Gear
-Basic armor and weapons (White Gear) sold by vendor would be X% cheaper. Would be applied across all current and future characters on a players account.

-Increased Guild Influence
-Players who receive this reward would contribute just a little bit more toward the guild influence when guild influence is earned.

-Increased Bank Stack Size
-Crafting materials would be able to stack higher in the bank. A tier 4 reward could raise the stack to 300, while a tier 5 reward could raise it to 400.

-More Bank Slots
-I would love titles that would give more bank slots. I would love this a lot.
-You can buy this via gems in gold, so I’m thinking this kind of reward would be good for tier 3-ish of a title. Unless the title gives you something like 3 bank slots, then it is certainly worth a tier 5+ title.

-Cheaper Gathering Tools
-Would decrease the coin and karma cost of all gathering tools except Orichalcum Tools by X%.

-Increased Exploration XP
-All current and future characters get a little bit more experience for exploring new areas on the map. I suppose this could affect the XP given for finding waypoints or points of interesting as well.

Character Titles
These rewards would belong to titles that would be character based, so only the currently selected character could contribute toward the title and earn the rewards.

-Permanent Free City Travel
-This would allow players to travel to and from any major city from free. This would work like heart of the mists where the player can travel from anywhere, but when traveling back the player would be ported back to where they were before traveling in the first place. Some sort of interface button would be added for this, just like heart of the mists.

-Reduced Dungeon Repairs
-On that really hard boss and dying a lot? Good thing you have that title that decreases repair costs by X% while in dungeons.

-Increased Drop Rates for Dyes
-Who doesn’t like more dyes?

-Increased Armor Durability
-Permanently allows characters to takes more deaths to damage and destroy their armor.

-Increased Salvaging Rates
– Permanently gives more crafting materials from salvaging items on a certain character. Normally get 4 jute scraps from salvaging lvl 15 cloth boots? Now you get 5.

-Increased Movement Speed
-Players would be able to significantly activate faster movement speed for their character, but would not be able to use skills and would take more damage while active.

-Special Emotes
-Gives the player special emotes, dances, and animations only achievable through titles.

-Hidden Places Map
-Would give the player locations where all the jumping puzzles and mini dungeons are located.

-Legendary Transmutation Stone
-Can be used an infinite amount of time

Repeatable Title Rewards
These are character bound titles that are moderately difficult to achieve, and can be done over and over again without increasing in difficulty each time. The rewards will be earned each time, but they are only temporary rewards. You would see this title as “Title Name rank 34” if the player has achieved the title 34 times.

-Waypoint Tickets
-These would allow players to travel to any waypoint for free. There would be a limited amount, but would be rewarded in stacks. So imagine getting 1000 of these for achieving the 100% map exploration title for example. Could be rewarded by multiple titles, or even repeatable titles. These would of course be soulbound.

-Repair Tickets
-Work just like waypoint tickets, except with armor repairs instead. Yay free armor repairs!

-Largest Bags in the Game
-Would grant players bags bigger than what currently exists via crafting. These would of course be soulbound, otherwise crafters would be out of business when it comes to bags.

There could also be content that is only accessible by completing certain titles. Imaging a series of jumping puzzles that can only be accessed by having an Asura reputation title.

Maxing certain titles could also allow players to start earning locked or hidden titles. These would be really awesome, but would have to give some seriously awesome loot like character slots or gems.

Conclusion
Of course, there are endless reward possibilities. If anyone has some neat ideas for titles or rewards, please share.

Overall however, the point is to give an alternative end game system that gives other rewards aside cosmetics. Together, these two end game systems can work together to make the overall Guild Wars 2 end game more enjoyable and awesome.

Sorry about the long post, but hope it was worth the read!

wagnerian death title – Achieved after taking X minutes to die after being in downed state .

return of Party Animal and Drunkard

Glutton title-Eat X amount Foot items

Dungeon Master have done all dungeons X times in Explorable mode