Guild Wars 2

DiogoSilva.7089:

TriggerSad.2597:

Shockwave.1230:

Lord Kuru.3685:

For those who want new skills/weapons — that works in the short term to keep the game fresh, but it’s not sustainable. If you keep adding skills, balance becomes a nightmare (Anet’s already having a terrible time of it right now).

How do you propose they Anet deals with this?

They did it with Gw1, and are probably better at now

No they did not. Balance in Guild Wars a complete nightmare! Skills that needed buffs were ignored for a long time, and builds that desperately needed to be nerfed were around even longer. The biggest issue was the fact that although we had access to hundreds of thousands of different builds, only a small handful was used by the player-base because it otherwise wouldn’t have been playable.

And how is it any different in GW2? Mindless, auto-attacking zerker builds that desperately need to be nerfed and weren’t yet? Plenty of skills, stats, traits and weapon sets that are ignored for the optimal DPS one? Only a small handful of builds playable?

With the way PvE’s design currently is, with the overload of passive effect systems (runes + traits + sigils, and someday in the future, infusions), with the lack of mechanisms to make support or control builds any better or more enjoyable, and with the lack of mechanisms to prevent spam, GW2 is a balancing nightmare too.

One year after the game is out, and pvp’s balance is actually at a worse state than it was half a year before, and every single time Anet tries to buff underpowered options, more spams comes into the game. Aoe spam, auto-attack spam, condition spam, boon spam, passive proc spam, AI spam, particle effects spam, etc.

And let’s not talk about skills like Ride the Lightning or Mist Form, which were made to be more less enjoyable for the sake of balance, because there was no other way to nerf them (for example, no energy system) other than outright stripping enjoyable functionalities out of them.

GW2 is pretty much a balancing nightmare too.

Without touching on the sPvP portion…

I am dumbfounded why GS warriors, specifically hundred blades, has not been looked at…heavy armor that can spit out 15-18k in two seconds or so, and repeat it a few seconds later? Every ability on the greatsword does respectable damage with one of them being insane.

Elementalists, recently, might have gotten a damage increase but their survivability still sucks. I’ve leveled a Thief, warrior, mesmer, guardian, necro… I never had the survivability problems with any of those like I am with the ele. I die every few minutes, regardless what build Im running. It is a very gear dependent class, and leveling up just doesn’t give you the gear you need.

I agree, balance is a problem in the game… especially build balance and diversity. You can do all content with zerker. And when arenanet encourages people to zerg around via open world LS updates and content, theres no need to deviate from zerker. Even in dungeons, the vast majority of it you can do in zerker.

However, I dont think this line of thought belongs in this thread. Its more of a balance thing than horizontal progression.

Or, to stir the pot…how can horizontal progression attempt to fix some of the balance issues or build diversity issues the game has?

cesmode.4257:

An idea Id like to toss out to see if it sticks:

From the WoW days, they introduced a system called reforging.

Example:
Armor has
45 power
47 precision
+3% crit damage

I am able to visit a reforge NPC to change up the stats a bit. Via a pre-determined scale, I am able to take, for example, 9 power out of the ‘45 power’ portion and I can place it into Precision(to give me 56 Precision) or into a new category, for example Condition damage to give me 9 condition damage.

Just an idea. I think Blizzard is removing this mechanic from the game, or already has, since they have a better system in place. But this wasn’t a terribly bad system either. It gave you a bit more flexibility on gear.

Interesting idea, but it could really be bad in the way it works.

I would prefer recrafting armors/weapons to make them from exotics to ascended. It should need some effort but should be usable as an alt gearing support system.

Items should remain with their looks and stats template but became ascended.

There’s a lot here, but, in case it wasn’t mentioned, a lot of “horizontal” progression items trip over each other. For example, if you want a new skill you spend a large number of skill points, which impacts your ability to get bloodstone shards for a legendary. At the margins, you have to pick one or the other.

I think horizontal progression would be better if you could pursue multiple paths at the same time.

Personally I would love to see the following things:

-Wardrobe system for pve-skins. (it has probably been mentioned a lot)
There is a lot of amazing armor in this game, yet at endgame you will have to pick something, or spend tons of gold/time/inventory-space in order to be able to switch between those skins.

-Minipet slot, but also – move them closer to the owner. Whenever I have a mini out, I can not see it as it is so far behind.

-More weapon options for classes. I am not certain if this is counted as horizontal progresssion – but I often pick weapons on how they look visually, also for roleplaying options. I would love to be able to use a weapon like Infinite Light on my elementalist…

-More emotes – and please… let us use chairs. Emotes could be rewards for doing different events or personal story steps, sitting on chairs – it would just be awesome.

DiogoSilva.7089:

…

You have brought many causes for problems with balance to my attention, thank you for the insights you offer. In my opinion your example with RTL is great. Anet had “no choice” but to outright nerf RTLs effectiveness.
cough Increase energy cost if there was any, separate PvE/PvP entirely skillwise

I am yet unsure if I want a resource other than time to effect skills. How does Anet feel about this, considering the rather small amount of skills (compared to GW1 at least)?

The thing is, many players want a deeper customization for their chars. I really wish GW2 would take (at least small) steps towards the soft trinity. (Decrease base CC, do away with Defiant in PvE)
__________________________________________

Back on topic, I think many ideas are great but some are quesionable. I feel uneasy about the ability to share gear or professions like some have mentioned. It just doesn’t feel right to “altoholics” (as they seem to be called^^)

DIVA

PS: Thank you Anet for asking us. By now, the forum posters are your loyal fanbase. (Logged into gw1 this morning too see that you remebered my 7th birthday, thanks^^)

Good Morning,

Some of the ideas I have:
1 – I love that you are looking into the home instance a little more by adding nodes. I would love to see crafting tables within the home instance as well.
2 – I would love to see Meta award skins be listed in the achievement pane for you to use more than once (I won’t be greedy and ask for all skins)
3 – Removing the soul bound runes that drop in dungeons, at least make them Account bound
4 – More movement towards account bound rather than soulbound
5 – Account wide story mode completion

cesmode.4257:

reforging.

-snip-

I think Blizzard is removing this mechanic from the game, or already has, since they have a better system in place. But this wasn’t a terribly bad system either. It gave you a bit more flexibility on gear.

what’s the system in place? Didn’t they remove it because the game had a too high emphasis on stats? Personally I don’t want GW2 to become all about statistics (when you don’t feel small changes in gameplay). Here a quote from Blizzard:

Reforging was supposed to be something that let players customize their gear to change their playstyle a little bit. It ended up just being extra work (and math) that had to be done if you wanted the most optimal gear.

If GW2 could adapt something from WoW, I’d say it’s their new ideas about stats:
Stats where you feel the difference in combat.
-) movement speed (on boots)
-) cleave (increased aoe damage; on weapons)
-) sturdiness (no durability loss)

cesmode.4257:

However, I dont think this line of thought belongs in this thread. Its more of a balance thing than horizontal progression.

Or, to stir the pot…how can horizontal progression attempt to fix some of the balance issues or build diversity issues the game has?

Balance is very important to make horizontal progression meaningful, be it either to validate more builds and gear stats, or to create challenging content that demands skill and not zerk-spam from players to beat it and get their cosmetic rewards. However, I do agree that this topic should be discussed in depth in its own thread. I hope Chris considers making a CDI about this someday, one that revolves around balance, combat systems and pve encounter design, and how they all tied to each other.

Encounter design and balancing aside, horizontal progression can be a vehicle or work as an excuse for Anet to revamp some of the game’s current character progressions systems, not only to improve their progression potential, but to fix existing issues in the meantime.

In the previous thread for vertical progression, there were a few people against the idea for subtypes/ advanced types of professions because, in theory, the trait system can already achieve something similar. Although that is true, the real question is, can a new system improve upon or fix the flaws of the old one? I think it can.

I’ll write about it bellow.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

cesmode.4257:

reforging.

-snip-

I think Blizzard is removing this mechanic from the game, or already has, since they have a better system in place. But this wasn’t a terribly bad system either. It gave you a bit more flexibility on gear.

what’s the system in place? Didn’t they remove it because the game had a too high emphasis on stats? Personally I don’t want GW2 to become all about statistics (when you don’t feel small changes in gameplay). Here a quote from Blizzard:

Reforging was supposed to be something that let players customize their gear to change their playstyle a little bit. It ended up just being extra work (and math) that had to be done if you wanted the most optimal gear.

If GW2 could adapt something from WoW, I’d say it’s their new ideas about stats:
Stats where you feel the difference in combat.
-) movement speed (on boots)
-) cleave (increased aoe damage; on weapons)
-) sturdiness (no durability loss)

I can’t remember what the new one is..I think they removed it because a lot of the gear that you can get now, you can modify the stats when you get it or something? I could be totally wrong. My buddy who still raids in WoW mentioned that they are doing away with reforging.

Going along with what you said..about feeling a difference in combat. Agreed.

And I mentioned this in this thread or some other one this morning, that the support guardian that is participating in the Dwayna fight…does he FEEL like he is supporting the people around him? Does he see and feel their health bars going up when he heals, or that the protection and stability buffs he provided are making a true difference? Other than ele water fields, where you see your HP jump up 1/3 or a half, I dont see a ton of impact from a support guardian, or support engi or whatever…they are probably definately helping, but you just dont see it.

How can we weave this into horizontal progression, where you see these things actually helping your teammates and those around you?

Imho factions reputation could be interesting, when done in a non-grindy way. Instead of doing the same events for the faction over and over again, maybe it could work when finding a certain number of unique events for that faction hidden all around the world and do each of those once.

I come here with a top 5 things that shouldn’t be added to the game.

+ Mounts
Asura’s waypoints is faster and enough. It will prevent overloading issues and NPC obstruction too. Also, it feel more appreciable to me to see my character go afoot in his journey, dodging and fighting ennemies instead of running like a steamroller across countries without looking at the landscape. We’re adventurers and the world is so rich and beautiful ! And it can be enrich

+ Tank & Healer roles
Boring as hell for at least one role and cleaving players. “You can’t join us you’re not a [insert role]”. And when solo, tank & healer are boring, taking hours to kill an ennemy with no challenge because you are the ultimate front-liner or can heal every wound.

+ Subclasses
Trait/Weapon choice is a better customization mechanism. I find more valuable and interesting to ask for improvements than imposed game style. Weapon skill selection, new utilities and traits. The new heal skill go this way.

+ Manichaeism
Shining and righteous heroes against the terrible bad and so dark villains… So tasteless… I put manichaeism in the same box than Mary Sueism : the garbage can.
Shades of grey is more interesting, adding depth to a story. And it can provide a base for future content. And not only for NPC, us player can benefit of questionnable choices.

+ New Races/Classes
Arena.net already have difficulties to give time to every race and manage each class. Asking for new ones when they can’t take care of the existing ones will be regrettable if implemented.
When Arena.net have the ability to develop lore and story for every races, new ones can be considered, but not currently.
Also, new classes mustn’t be implement for satisfaying the “new class” envy, but to add a completely non-existent and solid gameplay mechanisms.

devs,

there are a lot of interesting ideas in this thread, but please focus solely on profession development and improving combat first. there is much more potential to the character and combat experience, and it will take a lot more than just another year of trait number reshuffling to produce something meaningful. right now is the time to step back, reinvest and work on core systems before you add in more things that don’t address issues or inequities.

the current leveling up skill point acquisition to purchase abilities is perfect. I hope you all don’t make a convoluted mess of the current system or force players to do more things they don’t want to do to achieve new abilities.

thanks!

TRAIT SYSTEM vs PROFESSION SUB-TYPES
I’m putting one against the other, because I believe they would fight each other for the same or similar goals. They can definitely (and mostly likely would) co-exist in some way or another.

First, balance and design issues:

• The trait system is way too passive
  In a game that is highly criticized for too much passive spam, Anet has expressed their wishes to go towards the opposite direction. But they will always be crippled as long as they depend on a system that is of passive nature in an attempt to try to design a more active combat playstyle. To put it bluntly, the trait system offers restricting design space for more active playing when compared to, say, the skill system itself. It is therefore healthier to the game to make skills more important and traits less important. But here lies new problems:
• The trait system is both way too important, and too risky to expand upon
  14 passive effects. 75 total passive effects for each profession. And the only way to expand the trait system is to add even more passive stuff. That’s crazy. It’s a total, passive effects overload. How can Anet ever fix the passive problem with such a system? Meanwhile, the skill system is fairly underwhelming in comparison. While traits have all this ornate system with tiers, trait lines, minors and majors, what does the skill system have?
• The skill system is underwhelming and hard to expand upon
  Yes, you can always add more skills into the game, but the system itself will always be the same, rather generic, get skills points from anywhere and unlock skills from a UI. Three empty utility slots to fill do not add much customization, I think, for being too few, and for players simply picking those slots for the most useful utilities (which do not necessarily mean the most unbalanced utilities). Most utilities have high cool downs and are very situational too. There are no flavored quests that offer you skills, nor is there any skill hunting. Elites are generally unexciting.

How to fix that?

• Why not fuse the trait and the skill systems into one?
  Make it so that the highly ornamented trait system, with its trees, tiers and majors/ minors, is used not only to unlock and customize passive effects, but active skill effects as well! Why not?
• This would remove dependence from too many passive effects
  Instead of 14 passive effects, what about, say, 7 passive effects and 7 skill slots unlocked? This would give more freedom for Anet to create more active effects without being crippled or restricted by the (no-longer) passive nature of the system. Even more so if, in addition to active and passive effects, there would exist combo effects, like FFVII’s blue materia that could be attached to active skills and give them new functionalities. This would also allow the system to be:
• Easier to expand
  Also because skills would be categorized within each trait tree, it would be easier to balance skills against each other, and thus easier to create more and more of them. Likewise, it would be easier to create active effects, putting less pressure on the balancing/ skill team from creating way too many passive effects, which the game is already flooded by.
• It would make skill-building more exciting
  Having to invest on trees to unlock skills would lead to more thoughtful build-crafting, than simply picking any utility you want from three slots. Also, what’s more exciting, investing 20 points in fire magic for a passive proc off cleansing fire, or investing 20 points in fire magic to unlock the utility cleansing fire, which would require manual input and thus more game play interactivity and skill ceiling?
• It would thus ease the balancing problem
  Was the old Mist Form too strong? Instead of stripping enjoyable functionalities out of it (being able to heal while in mist), Anet could simply move Mist Form to a higher tier, and make it require 20 points in Water Magic instead of 10, or even 30. This way, not every build would be able to use it, yet the skill would remain as fun as it was.
• It would give a new point to elite skills
  This, in turn, would not be called elite but grandmaster skills.
• It would create a greater sense of progression
  Skills in higher tiers would be inherently stronger than skills in lower tiers.
• The sense of progression would last longer
  Players would not simply get all their skills in the first few hours of the game and then get bored.
• It would be simpler to understand, easier to teach new players and more elegant
  Instead of two distinct systems, there would only exist one.

(Part1)

It is true that this thread is magical, by all the creativity of everyone! =D

Erf. Kulvar for Races is true that it is not … yet this, but I’m sure it will ripen!

• It could learn a bit from FFVII’s Materia System
  Where you could equip both active and passive effects within the same UI, and even better, where there was a third type of effect, where you could combine to active skills to enhance them further. Kind of like how the trait system was originally envisioned before launch. If 20 points in water unlock Mist Form, the 25 point-slot could be used for an effect that would directly enhance Mist Form’s functionality. And so could the minors for 35, and 45, and 55, because it would be much easier for Anet to expand the trait trees vertically this way, by simply slightly enhancing existing skills.

Finally, how would a sub-type profession system enhance all of this?

• It would cover the whole system with an extra layer of flavor
  The current trait system is too abstract. Players like flavor, and it is good for world immersion too.
• Flavor wouldn’t come at the cost of efficiency
  Players can currently pick flavored options within their traits, but are those the most efficient options? More often than not, efficiency and flavor clash with each other, even when flavored traits are strong enough, if they simply do not fit within the same build. But with a sub-type profession system, flavor would be defined before any option was made, and so the player could simply pick the best traits without sacrificing flavor.
• It would be easier to expand
  Anet could simple add more subtypes through the game’s life, and depending on the execution, that wouldn’t need to compromise balance much, because:
• It could further ease the balancing of the game
  Skills and traits could be further categorized by each subtype. Each subtype could have, for example, its own trait tree, even if a small version of it (for example, with only 3 lines instead of 5, with only 40 or 50 points to spend instead of 70), and several of its passive or active effects could be shared with other trait trees from other subtypes within the same profession, even if at different tiers. Mist Form could be a 20 trait-investment for a glass cannon elementalist sub type, because they would need it more, and a 30 trait-investment for a battle mage subtype, because the higher natural defense of a battle mage could make the skill too strong. Or vice-versa, if easier access to defense in trait tiers is what defines the battle mage over the other options.
• It doesn’t needs to come at the cost of customisation
  Some players are fearing this system because they believe it would give less freedom to build crafting than the trait system. But if both systems were to co-exist, would it really? Imagine that each profession would have, say, between 3 and 12 subtypes, and each subtype would have its own (smaller) version of the trait system. That would be offer a lot of customisation. And if many skills and traits overlap between different subtypes, and if skills were fused into the trait system, Anet wouldn’t need to design a ridiculous amount of new effects to make this work.

TooBz.3065:

There’s a lot here, but, in case it wasn’t mentioned, a lot of “horizontal” progression items trip over each other. For example, if you want a new skill you spend a large number of skill points, which impacts your ability to get bloodstone shards for a legendary. At the margins, you have to pick one or the other.

I think horizontal progression would be better if you could pursue multiple paths at the same time.

Well, an important part of progression is the ability to choose. If you decide to invest in a legendary, you are likely to miss out on other things. At the same time, if you invest in other things, a legendary might be unreachable.

If everyone pursues multiple paths at the same time, then the hardcore players will soon be done, while the more casual players still have goals to reach. On the other hand, if we have to choose between the paths, then the hardcore player will be busy for a while to get all of the things, while the casual player will make a choice and decide on what is worth his time.

That said, you make a good point and I do think that skill point unlocking is rather dull. But to progress in all directions at the same time, I don’t think that would be the best way to do it. The choices define our characters.

Marcus, I like that. Even better, it could be a random mixup or random spawn. Guides like Dulfy are a delight for many things, but I’d like an element of discovery even with a guide. I know one needn’t go straight to a guide, and I usually don’t. Still if the idea in improving the player experience is to avoid ticking off a checklist and making the play more immersive, we should aim for flexibility of play and a semi-unique experience each time we do the content.

So without making it a frustrating needle in a haystack, there should still be a whole menu of DE’s and actions that can lead to a particular faction thinking you’re the bee’s knees and wanting to shower largesse upon you.

Now as to the largesse — armor skins, weapon skins, minis, bundles, all themed to that faction. Perhaps special dyes, though it’s getting hard even for someone with perfect color vision to see the difference in some shades. Someone above mentioned gradient dyes with our choice of two hues, many plus ones to that. Also effects to add to armor though I’m sure reworking all the armor in game to have an effects version would be no trivial task.

Hi,
One horizontal progression system I would like to offer up…and don’t laugh…

Pet battles.

Blizzard introduced this with Mists of Panderia and I quickly dismissed this as fluff and stuff that we did not want or ask for… but after trying it, it is freakishly fun! Think Final Fantasy 7 (camera angle and all…even the music was final fantasy-esq), with you standing beside your pets(choose 3 of them), and you battle other peoples pets, or pets (such as ambient creatures like a rabbit) in the world. Each creature and pet has its own set of abilities, and level. You level up your pets, etc. Its a fun, side system to do when you have free time and nothing else to do.

It sounds pokemon, or fluff, but with the theme of horizontal progression…its a nice side game to play.

I do think it would need a queue or be added to the LFG tool some how so you can meet up with players and battle with them.

Just imagine your Queen Jenna fighting a mini Toxic Krait.

I bet the craze for mini pets skyrockets.

The Lost Witch.7601:

TooBz.3065:

There’s a lot here, but, in case it wasn’t mentioned, a lot of “horizontal” progression items trip over each other. For example, if you want a new skill you spend a large number of skill points, which impacts your ability to get bloodstone shards for a legendary. At the margins, you have to pick one or the other.

I think horizontal progression would be better if you could pursue multiple paths at the same time.

Well, an important part of progression is the ability to choose. If you decide to invest in a legendary, you are likely to miss out on other things. At the same time, if you invest in other things, a legendary might be unreachable.

If everyone pursues multiple paths at the same time, then the hardcore players will soon be done, while the more casual players still have goals to reach. On the other hand, if we have to choose between the paths, then the hardcore player will be busy for a while to get all of the things, while the casual player will make a choice and decide on what is worth his time.

That said, you make a good point and I do think that skill point unlocking is rather dull. But to progress in all directions at the same time, I don’t think that would be the best way to do it. The choices define our characters.

Choices are good. I didn’t mean to imply that I wanted to be able to pursue everything. But I do think having a single gating currency is a bad idea. Whether it’s obsidian shards (for the VP) or skill points (for the limited HP to date). Instead, I’d rather have flavors, things that could actually bridge the gap and be obtained during the legendary hunt without really setting you back too far.

Also, regarding the hardcore player, watching Nike get a full set of ascended armor the day it came out makes me think that you just can’t slow down the hardcore, no matter how much you try.

Edit: 2, for example, a hardcore player has enough skill points for both the bloodstone shard and the healing skill.

Cesmode, that’s what this polymock is that everyone speaks of. Apparently GW1 had it? So everyone keeps hoping their minis one day will battle in the polymock arenas.

Donari.5237:

Cesmode, that’s what this polymock is that everyone speaks of. Apparently GW1 had it? So everyone keeps hoping their minis one day will battle in the polymock arenas.

Oh, then I am for the polymock!

My name is cesmode, and I approve of polymock.

Don’t know if this was already mentioned BUT:

Maybe all armor/weapons could be cosmetic and you could place your stats how you wanted for more customization. Kind of like traits, and maybe even a new vendor called Armor/Weapon-Mender or something. Seemed interesting- so at lvl 1 you have 20 points, lvl 2 40 points, so on so forth. Its probably not the best idea- I just thought it sounded nice and would really alleviate the armor/weapon grind need to stay competitive in PvE/WvW especially when coupled with a skins locker. Thoughts?

@Serious Thought :
Can cause unbalanced side effect. If a player invest all his points in power he can shoot anyone in one hit. if one invest all in toughness, he can’t take any damages and be nearly immortal.

I love this thread. I haven’t had a chance to read many of the posts yet, but am looking forward to going back and doing so. In the mean time though, I had a thought come to me that I wanted to offer here. I apologize if it has already been suggested previously.

I was considering the problem of where horizontal and vertical progression meet. Since this game stresses horizontal progression in many areas, going out and finding a skin—or skins—that you love the look of and obtaining them, etc, tends to, as some have pointed out, create a clash when you’re forced into one armor set that is BiS. For example, once you apply a good skin you enjoy to ascended armor, you’re probably not going to be willing to overwrite that same armor with another skin. This is the point where vertical and horizontal meet in a negative light, and it discourages collecting and utilizing a variety of skins.

I, and many others, have wished for a wardrobe feature of some sort in this game. I also understand, however, that transmutation stones/crystals are a big source of income from the gem store and wouldn’t wish to take that away from Anet.

So the solution I had was to perhaps change the way transmutation stones function. Make them have the ability, perhaps, to “shatter” a piece of armor. Ie, you still have to purchase the armor, and you still have to purchase the stone (if the armor isn’t already merely an applicable skin such as gem store armor), then use the stone on said piece of armor, allowing its visual appearance to be torn from the base armor and thereafter applied to a wardrobe slot for use whenever the player wishes. This would still maintain transmutation stone sales, but would require they only be needed one time per armor piece, etc. Perhaps the wardrobe slots could be set up so that normal armor can’t go in them, only extracted skins (ie bought in gem store or shattered/extracted with a transmutation stone or crystal.)

Anyway, it’s just a thought, something I hoped could encourage variety, skin collection and variety with players, as well as maintaining the source of income from transmutation stones that Anet currently receives.

cesmode.4257:

Or, to stir the pot…how can horizontal progression attempt to fix some of the balance issues or build diversity issues the game has?

Well you might find it amusing in the The New Masters proposal that Engineer was the only class that received 3 new skills in a category they don’t currently have… Signets.

There was a lot of frustration that Engineers didn’t get to join in any reindeer games when the Superior Runes of resistance were added to high-difficulty Fractals. Having Centurion Crushpaw open up a trio of Signets was a direct example of tweaking class-to-class parity through horizontal growth.

Most balancing will continue to focus on adjustments to existing character options, but horizontal progression most definitely can be used to address that problem, sometimes in ways tinkering with the numbers can’t, correcting broader, more systemic issues.

Kulvar.1239:

I come here with a top 5 things that shouldn’t be added to the game.

+ Mounts
Asura’s waypoints is faster and enough. It will prevent overloading issues and NPC obstruction too. Also, it feel more appreciable to me to see my character go afoot in his journey, dodging and fighting ennemies instead of running like a steamroller across countries without looking at the landscape. We’re adventurers and the world is so rich and beautiful ! And it can be enrich

Personally I’d love mounts. Waypoints take away the sense of having a HUGE world in front of you imho. The reason why they added waypoints (? correct me if I’m wrong) is the fact that you should be able to play with your friends whenever you log on.

My solution to this would have been: A player should be able to summon his friend/s at any time to any place (once an hour).
And 1 waypoint per zone (at the entrance of that zone).

A mount is an awesome prestige object with a lot of potential for horizontal progression. I’m against flying mounts, but groundmounts are just a part of a fantasy world imho.

I have yet more positive points to add to the profession sub-types idea.

Not all subtypes would need to be available at the same time. In fact, most of them should be unlocked by leveling, world exploration, etc.

This would ease the learning curve (newer players would have a more restricted number of options), while add a lot of value and excitement to horizontal progression. Players would want not only to collect new subtypes, but they would then have to level up each of them individually. Great way to extend gameplay duration too.

Transferring some ideas over from our pre-discussion thread:

•Legendary questline. I don’t know anyone that gets excited about collecting 250 of every material required for the current crafting of one. There needs to be a Legendary Quest arc that gives us a reliable way to get a legendary.

•Account bound all magical items you use on your character. Why can’t I use my Guardian’s old gear on my Warrior? It’s not like I can sell it on the TP. Or do anything at all useful with it.

•New skill sets and 2-3 new trait lines that give us new combinations of stats. Why do I have to get condition damage to get precision on my Guardian? What a waste. Or let us choose from a pool of stats available to each trait line.

•More skins and weapon skins. Like, a lot more. The game seems devoid of choices in this category. I can walk around LA and everyone is wearing the same stuff, because it’s the only stuff that looks good.

•More titles, means of achieving said titles, and making the WvW Ultimate Titles actually obtainable

•I’d like to see a progressive horizontal skill set. Something that maybe changes the color of guardian skills from blue > red and changes the skill animations accordingly. Doesn’t add any power, and let’s us customize our characters spell effects.

•Fixes for costume disparity: Why can’t I buy the good looking armor with my WvW badges? Why are there next to no skins in WvW? Where are the exclusive WvW skins for season participation? Inquiring minds are wondering!

Thanks again for the topic Chris, hope you are having a wonderful holiday season

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Personally I’d love mounts. Waypoints take away the sense of having a HUGE world in front of you imho. The reason why they added waypoints (? correct me if I’m wrong) is the fact that you should be able to play with your friends whenever you log on.

My solution to this would have been: A player should be able to summon his friend/s at any time to any place (once an hour).
And 1 waypoint per zone (at the entrance of that zone).

A mount is an awesome prestige object with a lot of potential for horizontal progression. I’m against flying mounts, but groundmounts are just a part of a fantasy world imho.

It’s also against time sink travel. The other day a friend show me some jumping puzzles in different locations. If we haven’t waypoints, we had lost more than two hours of traveling. It would bothered us and she didn’t show me more than two.

I’m also a roleplayer, we use specific places suitable for our needs because others exist but aren’t fitting to roleplay because they’re infested by monsters with too fast respawn timers or aren’t visitable out of personal story quests. Waypoints are used to switch our location faster and save time. It can be helpful to save 2 hours in a 5 hours roleplay session which otherwise will take 7 hours and let us go to bed at 3 AM.

Huge world doesn’t mean you have to waste time when you just want to reach some location. It don’t make the world huge, but boring.

Something I’m seeing in a lot of ideas is what amounts to, for lack of a better term, ‘vertical appearance progression.’ When it was just legendary weapons, that was OK. There was a realistic shot at getting there, but it just takes a little more time.

But a lot of ideas seem to be expanding this so that those that grind have a better appearance in any way, creating a system where ‘casual players’ – those playing an hour or two a day, and throwing some money in the gem store now and again would essentially look like peasants alongside the grinders who would have legendary dyes, effects based off item levels and other stuff. And realistically, no way to ever get those things themselves in a reasonable time frame.

If everything in the game that doesn’t require a grind or ridiculous expense ends up being second tier, that is a real turn off to bother playing at all if you can’t devote time to the grind.

It is especially a turn off to putting money in the gem shop to pay for the privilege of being a second-class citizen of Tyria.

Great Thread and Great Suggestions

A few thoughts of my own

1. Guild halls: And the ability to add features like Merchants/Banks/Trade posts/Repair guys etc similar to the features in GW1 Guild halls with that added GW2 touch to it. Also the ability to GvG within the Guild halls. My fave from GW1 was the Imperial Isle hall.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Imperial_Isle

2. Elite Skills: On most characters there are many utilities that serve more purpose than most elites, some elites after using them to see what they are about, I will never use again, which is a shame really. Some changes need to be made to this and this thread has already provided some great examples in which way to go with this.

3. Currency Conversion: Since there are so many currencies in the game each specific to different sectors of the game, it would be wise have the ability to convert currencies. For example: I do not play fractals but find some of the Fractal rewards appealing, but have no other way to get these rewards. Or I need a new set of ascended trinkets but used the last of my laurels on ascended weapon/armor recipes. I may have masses of 1 particular dungeon token or WvW badges or Karma which could be converted to the currency i require at that moment in time. which makes things less time gated and forcing ppl to do something they don’t enjoy to get something they want/need.

4. HoM for GW2: A place to be proud of and continuously build to improve upon, where all ur achievements/titles/armor sets and mins can be displayed. See GW1 HoM, say no more

5. Make use of dead maps: All these champ farms have created a large influx of players to certain maps i.e Queens dale and Frostgorge (I do it myself occasionally), but this has made other maps less attractive to go to. I love going to a map that’s full of life, players everywhere each doing their own thing, weather it be in groups/guilds or solo. A place that I have always been fond of is Timberline Falls (but it’s completely dead), this is just 1 example, there are many more. Perhaps Weapon Skins and titles specific to zones which require items from that specific zone to craft said skins, thus creating constant player usage of each zone/map.

6. Build Templates: This is a big one and needed so much, Perhaps keep the cost of resetting traits by purchasing crystals from the traits guy at the current cost, consume a crystal when loading a new build, by loading a new build the armor and trinkets will be automatically slotted as per build providing the armor and trinkets are in your inventory.

7. Mini pets: I have a few mini’s but never use them as i see no point, perhaps if they have an ability like renew food buffs when they expire (providing u have some in ur inventory to renew with) or +2 to each stat or +5 to a specific stat certain mini’s connected to certain stats etc etc. this would not only make them more appealing to use but also more appealing to collect.

8. Weekly: Since we have a daily and a monthly why not a Weekly too? as someone with many alts, trying to gear them in ascended trinkets is a challenge laurels are too few to come by, if i only played 1-2 characters i’d have plenty of laurels but i don’t. just a simple idea.

9. City invasions: Since most of the influx of players are normally in LA why not bring the fight to them once in a while? “Legendary [insert named boss] has broken our defenses, and is destroying our Docks, we must save our primary trade route.” something along the line of the karka invasion in LA we had, different random boss every week, in an hour long battle to protect LA, with loot rewarded similar to the way Tequatl is rewarded. Or perhaps change cities randomly each week without prior notice. Just a big announcement on screen saying X is attacking at Y.
would love to see this^^
Scarlets minions used to gather a good influx of players but unfortunately now the rewards doesn’t benefit the worth to leave Frostgorge/Queens dale.

Okay, brainstorming a bit.

Elementalist – Battlemage/ Conjurer Subtype

• Three traitlines, for damage support and control respectively.
• Focused on melee tactics and defense. Access to conjures, Arcane Shield, Signet of Earth, Rock Solid, Arcane Brilliance, etc.
• Plenty of traits for conjures.
• Control line would unlock Lightning Hammer, and further investment would allow LH to teleport-on-cast for more mobility, and unlock traits like Tempest Defense.
• Support line would unlock traits like Rock Solid and Powerful Auras, conjures like Earth Shield and Frost Bow (?), etc.
• Damage line would unlock skills like Conjure Flame Axe (adept tier), Cleansing Fire (master tier) and Fiery Greatsword (grandmaster tier). Arcane Shield somewhere there. For traits, it would offer Conjurer (adept), +20% damage to foes with vulnerability while in water (to be used with conjures), Persisting Flames (grandmaster), etc.
• Would equip heavy armor, mh daggers, and new melee weapons. Not scepter. If an elementalist would wish to go for scepter + persisting flames, they would have to choose another subtype that would have both available.

More subtypes for elementalist:

• Auramancer
  With access to a skill called Glyph of Elemental Auras, with access to aura-on-signets trait, with the best aura-driven weapon sets, etc.
• Arcanist
  With access to everything-arcane, mostly long-ranged fighter, etc.
• Elemental Dancer
  With faster base attunement cooldowns, and everything related to improvization, adaptability and stance-dancing. Some traits that would mimic on-swap sigil effects.
• Pyromancer
  Condition-mentalist with great access to burning (primary) and decent access to bleeding and torment (secondary). Burning on critical, more burning duration, all burning utilities, nice might stacking, “lava” skills or traits that proc on earth skills (= earth skills that apply burning), faster fire attunement cooldowns (both skill and attunement swapping).

Septemptus.7164:

I would say rewamping zones and adding to them is important. I already wrote that I love the idea of regional achievements, but new zones should be really a priority. It’s just because many people like me feel like suffocating when we run the same zones over and over again and for half of the year I had to revisit almost all of them to do some LS that forced me to repeat the same things on various maps.

So I would say new zones, them please add some regional achievements so we have something fresh and some new things to do in spare time if we want. Not like “it’s the only thing you will get so zones can be reused”, I think we all are past that.

Yeah, I want new zones badly. Not just because it’s fun to explore new places, but because of the stories/lore that could be introduced from places like Far Shiverpeaks, Cantha and Elona. I’m telling you Anet, if you did a Cantha or Elona expansion (or massive patch if you insist on this no expansion thing…I think that’s a mistake though) people would come back for that. People want to know what is going on in those areas.

MisterEction.9382:

> When it was just legendary weapons, that was OK. There was a realistic shot at getting there, but it just takes a little more time.

> But a lot of ideas seem to be expanding this so that those that grind have a better appearance in any way, creating a system where ‘casual players’ – those playing an hour or two a day, and throwing some money in the gem store now and again would essentially look like peasants alongside the grinders who would have legendary dyes, effects based off item levels and other stuff. And realistically, no way to ever get those things themselves in a reasonable time frame.

Surely these two points are a contradiction? Legendary weapons cannot be gotten in a ‘reasonable time frame’ by those who only play an hour or 2 a day.

Although, I suppose it depends on what is a ‘reasonable time frame’.

MisterEction.9382:

If everything in the game that doesn’t require a grind or ridiculous expense ends up being second tier, that is a real turn off to bother playing at all if you can’t devote time to the grind.

You can gate things other than ‘collect x’ and ‘spend y’.

Example, the Liandri minature and the gauntlet titles.

The truth of it is, those with more time are going to reach a goal faster than those who don’t. The problem is, if you make it so the ‘best’ looking stuff is achievable in a ‘reasonable time frame’ by people who only play 1 or 2 hours, how fast are the ones who can play longer going to get it?

Nike.2631:

PopeUrban.2578:

The barometer of “can you kill a plains wurm faster” is flawed.

If I was able to derive some specialized “Arthropod toxin” that made me better at killing a plains wurm while simultaneously making me worse at running, or magic find, or killing wolves or whatever… that’s still horizontal progression.

If its more effective than a Potent Potion of Wurm Slaying (+ 10% damage to wurms; – 10% damage taken from wurms) I am gonna be pretty skeptical that a penalty to magic find or stabbing wolves is more than just a distraction from the vertical progression compared to consumables in game now.

If you are fully fed, potioned, runed and rocking a Sigil of Night at night… wurms go down mighty fast. Players can hit really, really hard. Most of the time none of us bother to push to that ultimate limit. There’s a bit more wiggle room in my barometer than you might think .

In this case our “gun” is our overall character in terms of skill selection, weapon, class, and gear. If you could make fair trades for offense versus defense, better damage in certain regions while getting worse damage in others, etc. that is, I believe, horizontal progression. It’s the act of specializing rather than simply getting more powerful, and I believe that is something that should be considered when thinking about progression moving forward.

Agree fully. So if you do breach the ‘wurm limit’ I would plan on having a really compelling explanation of what you gave up to do it. And careful consider if the down side of your trade-off is something that can be completely mitigated. “Vulnerability to wolves” is meaningless if I can switch the exchange off before fighting a wolf…

For sure. The Wurms/Wolves limit was an off the cuff thing, but I’d see stuff working as more semi-permanent persistant ascpects of a character, like a sort of hybrid of traits and WvW ranks.

My basic rough idea is that one could “rank” in to all known available consumable buffs, and that these buffs don’t stack with consumables, though certain buffs (say, the mob damage ones, or mob defense) would stack with each other. So, with enough time and skill points, you could essentially “perma-buff” yourself in interesting ways.

Similarly, I wouldn’t see a problem with being able to pick an attribute to +100 out, provided that the +100 doesn’t stack with consumables or sigils.

Then there are more interesting avenues, styled like old hardcore RPG systems where one can choose some massive buffs that carry massive drawbacks. Lets say you’re a seasoned adventurer, and in that time you decided your character has been pretty beat up so you choose to “lose an eye”

This is a cosmetic and semipermanent change (All of these systems I’d envision would be able to respec, but the respec would be extremely expensive) that increases your base (the 1000 points from leveling) toughness, but removes from your base crit chance. Similarly, if you could “Become an honorary citizen of Skrittsburg” you might find that all skritt now con yellow to you, but certain more “refined” entities that used to be friendly are now less so.

The important thing about this sort of specialization is that it is both optional and meaningful. There need to be large gameplay-shifting choices and small ones that are merely convenient or just a little pretty. They should offer benefits both tangible and esoteric, and should encompass a variety of goals winde enough to have broad appeal.

What if you learned the ability to “capture” minis, but doing so made all of your current and future minis soulbound?

What if you could equip 8 runes, but lost the ability to equip one armor slot?

What if you could earn a third (or second!) weapon swap, but your swap cooldowns were doubled?

These are all interesting, powerful effects with cool gets and equally interesting gives, and that’s what horizontal progression should be about, cosmetic or functional, there should be a lot of cool gives for interesting ets so that players really have the opportunity to be individuals.

DiogoSilva.7089:

TRAIT SYSTEM vs PROFESSION SUB-TYPES
I’m putting one against the other, because I believe they would fight each other for the same or similar goals. They can definitely (and mostly likely would) co-exist in some way or another.

First, balance and design issues:

• The trait system is way too passive
  In a game that is highly criticized for too much passive spam, Anet has expressed their wishes to go towards the opposite direction. But they will always be crippled as long as they depend on a system that is of passive nature in an attempt to try to design a more active combat playstyle. To put it bluntly, the trait system offers restricting design space for more active playing when compared to, say, the skill system itself. It is therefore healthier to the game to make skills more important and traits less important. But here lies new problems:

I think you are over-focusing on the Trait System’s place in horizontal growth and in how much it defines any particular build or thematic sub-class. Traits are half of a character, and deliberately the passive half at that. Rather than ‘restricting design space’, they organize it . Active elements in a carefully sized UI are set by weapon and skill choices. Passive modification of those choices are set by traits.

When you say traits should be more active, as close as I can see is having a trait unlock/enable a new skill… and from a practical standpoint, they already do that. The difference between a Warriors warhorn #5 giving a speed buff and the same button giving a party-wide condition cleanse is night and day. They are all but separate skills despite sharing an icon. So I don’t see traits being nearly as passive as you suggest.

Likewise, I run a Mantra-Healer Mesmer. The ‘Restorative Mantras’ Trait is literally the difference between being in the spec or not, and applying that Trait is anything but passive.

• The trait system is both way too important, and too risky to expand upon
  14 passive effects. 75 total passive effects for each profession. And the only way to expand the trait system is to add even more passive stuff. That’s crazy. It’s a total, passive effects overload. How can Anet ever fix the passive problem with such a system? Meanwhile, the skill system is fairly underwhelming in comparison. While traits have all this ornate system with tiers, trait lines, minors and majors, what does the skill system have?

Again, I’d suggest reading over The New Masters. That was an example of horizontal expansion of the skill system without relying on new traits whatsoever. There’s a good range of tags already in place. Using them allows new skills to tie into existing trait effects without calling for more traits to cover them.

• The skill system is underwhelming and hard to expand upon
  Yes, you can always add more skills into the game, but the system itself will always be the same, rather generic, get skills points from anywhere and unlock skills from a UI.

Same comment as above. That assertion does not have to be true. Even in the live game, while you can buy anti-toxin spray with skill points there was also a completely new avenue offered, trading a combat-harvested mat and some coin for a new skill. The potential for gating skills behind other requirements is CLEARLY on the table for discussion .

Twinny.9304:

7. Mini pets: I have a few mini’s but never use them as i see no point, perhaps if they have an ability like renew food buffs when they expire (providing u have some in ur inventory to renew with) or +2 to each stat or +5 to a specific stat certain mini’s connected to certain stats etc etc. this would not only make them more appealing to use but also more appealing to collect.

I greatly, greatly disagree with this. Minis are supposed to be vanity items only. They should not add stats or do anything to give an actual in-game advantage to players. Especially since so many minis are in the gem shop. And I’m saying this as someone who actually owns minis from that shop and would have that advantage over others. They are just cute pets to have following you around.

If they want to do something with the minis it should be something like polymock.

On a mini related note, I don’t suppose we could “transfer” minis we have in GW1 to GW2 somehow? I would love to have my mini Kuunavang in GW2. It would be also awesome to have Canthan New Year again and have the special celestial minis be released like GW1 does.

Part 1
The current state

If you take all the underwater areas in the game it at the very least makes up around 4 entire zones, or roughly 1/8 of the current playable map. So why is 1/8 of the world in such terrible shape as far as combat and content goes, and why has there never been a serious discussion or anything addressing underwater development from Anet (as far as I have searched)?

So to start I will list some of the current problems with underwater content that drives many players from it entirely.

1. Current trait builds have little to no added benefits for underwater combat.
2. There are no joined underwater/on land traits, so pretty much everyone suffers underwater.
3. Breathers cannot be crafted, the highest quality of breather is “rare”, and they only are obtainable as a rare drop Tequatl or on the TP for an exorbitant price.
4. Breathers only have 3 available skins (white, grey, and red)
5. There are no World Bosses for underwater content.
6. Dungeons with underwater parts are avoided or disliked due to the disadvantage of
   playing in them.
7. There are no Major Dynamic events that take place underwater, and those dynamic events that do are often flooded by mobs and undoable by single people (talking about the inquest event in bloodtide near Sorrowful Waypoint.
8. Ground targeted utilities have no use underwater as you can only target surfaces.
9. Thief, Necro, Guardian, and Elementalist have only 1 elite that works underwater.
   Warrior has 2, however one is a banner (see above for ground targeted skill problems)
10. No races have any underwater Elites.
11. Most Area of Effect skill ranges are impossible to determine while underwater, unless against/near a surface.
12. There is a lack of diversity with underwater enemies. (dragon corrupted -primodus, sharks, 1 whale, inquest, pirates, krait, hylek, baracudas, skelk, wurms, jellyfish, maybe 3 largos, and drakes)

Part 2

Now proposed Ideas on how to fix/help with these issues.

1. No need for a separate trait build like that in pvp, simple additions/ alterations to current traits will do fine. Traits that benefit land only abilities/ weapons have added traits that will benefit aquatic only abilities and weapons. I.E. (10% of toughness is converted to power = no changes. Greatsword skills recharge 20% faster = GS and spear abilities recharge 20% faster.)
2. Craftable breathers of all qualities, including ascended. Breathers now drop from underwater mobs only, helmet drops removed from underwater mobs (or keep them in, doesn’t matter to much on that detail)
3. Additional Skins for breathers. I was super disappointed that “gas mask” skin was not for underwater. Ideas for additional skins: full helmet, gas mask like helmet (can see your face), breather/goggles combo, breathers like those from SW: Episode 1, old timey dive helmet, or anything you guys can think up.
4. Add an underwater world boss. Since underwater fights include the Z axis the mechanics will need to change from normal world bosses. Possible mechanics: multi level shockwaves that run in the X and Z axis (alternating for increased difficulty), all encompassing aura of damage while in close proximity (like Claw of Jormag’s Ice field), “Water tension”: boss sends mobs to wipe out those trying to escape to the surface, whirlpools: drag you to the bottom or throw you in a random direction… most ideal location for this would be Aquabase Terror Seven: Inquest, while researching “insert plot device” Unleash/ Attract from neighboring waters a (Water Elemental, Crazed experiment, Giant something, etc.) Terror base seven has a large enough area with sparse naturally occurring mobs. and it has 3 waypoints somewhat close by so people can get there accordingly ( block off the closest during the boss fight of course)
5. One of my favorite parts of this game is the underwater mini dungeon in Diessa Plateau, it has puzzle mechanics, a difficult boss, and a good dynamic event leading up to it. Hell it is the best underwater dungeon in the game. HotW has underwater parts, but the boss fights seem crowded and have terrible camera angles/obstructions. Add additional underwater paths to dungeons, or an entire new dungeon that is mostly underwater. Large underwater areas (openish world, or a large sea cavern. Final boss fight in a not super clustered room, add smaller hallways for the inbetweens (ex: Underwater fractal) or even darkness like in the aforementioned fractal. New dungeon armor that is underwater themed.
6. Adjust the scaling for underwater events so that it correctly scales to the players in the vicinity, add dynamic event chains that are more than an escort quest (Orr).
7. Remove the ground targeting aspect of those utilities while underwater and have them just drop wherever the player is. Banners can turn into bouys or bobbers, aoe rez skills just rez in the immediate area.
8. Add at least one additional underwater elite for each class or alter the current ones so they can be used underwater. (reskin the lich form to something underwatery, call in the thieves guild while underwater, new underwater only tome (mix of offense and defense) “waterlogged Tome”, not sure what to alter for elementalist, so maybe just an new elite.
9. Add one underwater elite for each race. Charr: depth charge (sends out depth charges all around the charr, enemies explode on impact. Human: Servants of Lyssa (dolphins come to your aid and attack your foes). Norn: Become the Polar Bear (same as become the bear). Asura: Summon Dive suit (you summon a dive suit golem to attack foes, looks more aquatic than the normal suit). Sylvari: Algae ( send out and aura of algae, blinding/crippling foes and healing allies
10. AoE skills that normally are only shown via circles on the ground should be aesthetically altered to be thin bubbles surrounding the area they are effecting, it could be anything from a color change to particle effects surrounding/filling that area. kind of like the guardian bubble or elementalist boil/ electric field.
    #More/diverse whales, combatable dolphins/turtles, eels, squid/octopi, water elementals, alligators/crocodiles (if they exist in this world), giant versions of sea creatures, pirana, deep sea fish, karka (while underwater)
11. Finally what would really float my boat is a mostly underwater area, with only a few areas of actual land (small islands, a conglomeration of sea vessels, floating town/city) The rest of the map ranging in coral life, caves, deep waters, shallows, and tide pools.

Any and all thoughts, criticisms, contrasts, previews, or really any information at all would be greatly appreciated on any of these topics.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, if you have.

what i miss is a little more shiny for the wvw players. ok, i understand. we all want to avoid pve farmers in wvw. but we need more the ascendeds as anybody else. military always need the best weapons. pls let us to buy ascended chest for badge+laurer. like this we need time and active playing

Kulvar.1239:

@Serious Thought :
Can cause unbalanced side effect. If a player invest all his points in power he can shoot anyone in one hit. if one invest all in toughness, he can’t take any damages and be nearly immortal.

Well maybe a cap. Like (spvp example) berserker amult gives you 798 power. An example I could give (developers can figure out real numbers if they like this idea, which I hope they do along with my racial wardrobe change from gemstore/black lion chest) is say you are going from level 38 to 39 (thats the rare lvl right, 39?):

Your armor would jump from giving 10 points a lvl (common) to 15 points a lvl (fine) to 25(masterwork) to now 35 a lvl.
So you saved up 40 points (from common) + 150 points(from fine) + 600 points(from masterwork) + 35(first level of rare now) for a total of 825(again example, this might be too high or too low) for total armor (not per piece, as pieces are now cosmetic) and weapon. Defense and base damage would go on their own like they do now, the points only apply to changes in power/prec/tough/vit/crit dmg/etc.
It would take 2 points a stat (except for boon duration, condition duration, crit magnitude) and you decide to first invest in power: at this lvl, the stat cap would be (still an example) 150. You spend 300 (2 points a stat unless a age, %age at 25 this high lvl and costs 4) leaving you 525 points and also want max precision putting you at 225. You max out crit magnitude (25%) and that leaves you 125. You then raise your vitality to 30 leaving you 65 and your toughness to 30 leaving you 5…
Does that work better maybe?

DiogoSilva.7089:

cesmode.4257:

However, I dont think this line of thought belongs in this thread. Its more of a balance thing than horizontal progression.

Or, to stir the pot…how can horizontal progression attempt to fix some of the balance issues or build diversity issues the game has?

Balance is very important to make horizontal progression meaningful, be it either to validate more builds and gear stats, or to create challenging content that demands skill and not zerk-spam from players to beat it and get their cosmetic rewards. However, I do agree that this topic should be discussed in depth in its own thread. I hope Chris considers making a CDI about this someday, one that revolves around balance, combat systems and pve encounter design, and how they all tied to each other.

Encounter design and balancing aside, horizontal progression can be a vehicle or work as an excuse for Anet to revamp some of the game’s current character progressions systems, not only to improve their progression potential, but to fix existing issues in the meantime.

I just want to say I VERY MUCH agree with both Diogo’s and Cesmode’s points in this conversation. Also, I agree with Diogo that game balance needs to be addressed in order for more Horizontal progression in the form of skills to be meaningful. If PvE is still about “stacking” and “auto-attacking” than they might as well not bother.

Also, Diago, I believe the next PvE CDI topic after progression is PvE Balance. Since we’re alternating PvE, WvW, and PvP topics, I’m not sure when that one will happen. It’s interesting how some of our discussions roll into other topics (i.e. we will probably still be talking about subclasses in the balance CDI, haha).

EDIT: I also agree with Cesmode’s point that this thread isn’t the place to discuss PvE balance in depth. Please don’t mis-interpret my post and think I’m trying to derail this thread.

Serious Thought.5394:

Kulvar.1239:

@Serious Thought :
Can cause unbalanced side effect. If a player invest all his points in power he can shoot anyone in one hit. if one invest all in toughness, he can’t take any damages and be nearly immortal.

Well maybe a cap. Like (spvp example) berserker amult gives you 798 power. An example I could give (developers can figure out real numbers if they like this idea, which I hope they do along with my racial wardrobe change from gemstore/black lion chest) is say you are going from level 38 to 39 (thats the rare lvl right, 39?):

Your armor would jump from giving 10 points a lvl (common) to 15 points a lvl (fine) to 25(masterwork) to now 35 a lvl.
So you saved up 40 points (from common) + 150 points(from fine) + 600 points(from masterwork) + 35(first level of rare now) for a total of 825(again example, this might be too high or too low) for total armor (not per piece, as pieces are now cosmetic) and weapon. Defense and base damage would go on their own like they do now, the points only apply to changes in power/prec/tough/vit/crit dmg/etc.
It would take 2 points a stat (except for boon duration, condition duration, crit magnitude) and you decide to first invest in power: at this lvl, the stat cap would be (still an example) 150. You spend 300 (2 points a stat unless a age, %age at 25 this high lvl and costs 4) leaving you 525 points and also want max precision putting you at 225. You max out crit magnitude (25%) and that leaves you 125. You then raise your vitality to 30 leaving you 65 and your toughness to 30 leaving you 5…
Does that work better maybe?

EDIT Oh, probably need to say how armor/weapon transition would work. You would level up normally and when you reached the level to go up in armor/weapon a popup like the chests you get for completing a dungeon or meta event would pop up (no idea what symbol would be, but not a chest…or a bunny…) and you’d click on that, prompting you to upgrade. Might have to retrospec stat points or something…no idea, but this would help horizontal progression a bunch.
Common-lvl1=free
Fine-lvl4= 5 silver
Masterwork-lvl14=40 silver
Rare-lvl39=2 gold
Exotic-lvl65=7 gold
Ascended-lvl80= 80 laurels and 150 gold
Legendary(weapon only)-lvl80= 1500 gold? I have no idea how this would all work. Maybe include trinket stats and stuff? Or not…=/ not the best thought out idea it seems. Thoughts though?

A REAL cartography achievement, not this go to X point then bounce to Y point, etc. GW1’s cartography demanded you visit maps and corners of maps that otherwise were ignored because there wasn’t really anything (quests) in them. A player had to become very familiar with the entire region, and it took a bit of time. Trust me, some of those spots are every bit as gorgeous as anything in GW2, and it was a joy to discover and explore. It enabled a player to even connect a few lore dots with the discovery of statues or other ‘oddities’ in outlying areas previously populated perhaps but abandoned, similar to how some of the POIs work now. The current POI and Vista system cheats the player, in my opinion, of having this sort of experience.

(Connected to that is the incessant spawn which makes simple enjoyment of an area possible. I understand this is now a persistent world rather than the instanced one of the original game, but still. I shouldn’t have to kill foe every 10 seconds just to have a good look at a particular piece of map!)

Serious Thought.5394:

Thoughts though?

First I encourage you to do a quick read on this the post about numerically symmetrical exchanges.

Now, that said, where I think your idea shows promise is if the point swaps are limited to back and for the between the secondary bonuses.

With an exotic Rampager coat giving you primary Precision and some Power & Condition damage, you could potentially shift a limited number of points from Power to Condition Damage or from Condition Damage to Power without radically altering the overall value of the item. Stat combos that include crit damage as a % are a lot more granular (you have to go up or down a full percentage point in either direction) but equivalencies almost certainly already exist under the hood.

But pushing more points into its primary stat is pretty much right out .

I want Guild Halls, like in Gw1. This would be a great way for horizontal progression and a great way to be able to interact with your guild.

DiogoSilva.7089:

On boring traits and interesting subclasses

I think you are still underestimating the potential of traits. But also perhaps overestimating the potential of skills. This results in a very black/white evaluation of traits.

Let me try to explain:

At the moment we have a bunch of skills. Yet many of them seem to do rather similar things. Unlike a game like GW1, skills in GW2 are more simple.

• We don’t have an energy system. If you take a look at GW1, you can see that there are a LOT of skills that either give energy to you/your teammates or take away energy from opponents. And skills are wildly different to use based on their energy cost.

• The skill system is much more action based, so long cast times feel extremely slow. If you take a look at GW1, you’ll find that there are many more skills there that take 1,5, 2 or 3 seconds to cast. (It even goes up to 6!)

• We use boons instead of enchantments. So if skills give a buff, we are dealing with durations, not with the strength of boons, since those are always the same.

• We use conditions instead of hexes. So we are much more limited in the types of curses we can throw on our opponents. (In GW1 we have a hex that deals damage to a foe that is healing, and one that deals damage to a foe that is attacking. In GW2, those would both be confusion)

This means that it is much harder to make skills feel different in GW2 than in GW1. So adding a bunch of skills isn’t as easy to do. (Not to mention the amount of time it would take to animate these skills)

Now GW2 has a system that GW1 doesn’t have: traits. These typically come without an animation and have an effect on the strength of your skills, but also on their function.

I agree with you when you are saying that many of the trait picks are dull, especially when compared to skills. But I do not see the future of traits quite as dim.

We do not need to add more traits. We just need to improve the ones that we have. (As they are already doing, even if it is too slow for my tastes.) ‘+5% damage while using daggers’ is terribly boring, but ‘bomb explosions heal’ is quite an interesting one. ‘Phantasms have +20% health’ is rather dull, but ‘share venoms with allies’ is fun.

Now this doesn’t mean that there cannot be subclasses. But I do believe that a lot of the requested skill-customisation can be done within the trait system. And that it would make the traitsystem more interesting.

At the moment, I do not believe that we need subclasses. I think that some grandmaster traits could be more build-defining and that in combination with more impactful (skill-changing) traits may very well be enough to make us feel more specialized.

My main argument against subclasses is that I want to build my own character. I do not want to build a pre-made template. I wish for my character (Dwokk) to be Dwokk, not a duelist or a chronomancer. In an MMORPG I get to build my own subclass.

I picked up two armor sets, one that portrays me more like a demon that will haunt you with his illusions, the other more like a scholar of some sort. Neither seem to be valid options for mesmer subclasses eh?

The GW1 dual professions allowed for even more role customisation, but I guess it became too messy for the devs.

Another argument against subclasses is that it would take a LOT of time to build, and we would need to reassess balance from the start. Against builds within the subclass and against other subclasses. And all this while the current balance isn’t where it should be. I’d prefer working on the current system.

Inspiring as subclasses are, I don’t think it would be a good thing for arenanet to invest in at the moment.