Guild Wars 2

I have some idea on character customization.

Scrap the Town Clothing mechanism – With the restriction in WvW, in combat and underwater, the continue existence of Town Clothing is questionable and better to revamp it to pure cosmetic. Costume Brawl is bound to toys so there is no problem for removing town clothes. Just make the town clothes to skin.

Ascended Weapon Skin – Stat should not be bound with the appearance. Let us choose the color of the weapon when crafting and give us mystic forge recipe for doing it.

Breathing Apparatus – Some people mentioned breathing apparatus crafting, but I think there is no point to spend an extra rune for it. Just make it cosmetic and use the stat from headgear. Just keep adding more skins for it.

Title and Dialogue – Some NPC with have a different dialogue once you earn the respective title. (e.g. the NPC at the dungeon entrance if you have Dungeon Master, festival NPC when you complete all festival acheivement)

Only thing I care about is good looking gear which even after so long…there is a huge lack of…can we get some better armor designs. The leather are horrible and light is pretty bad as well. Only heavy armor has a few decent selections but even then its about less than a handful of ok looking pieces per slot.

The Lost Witch.7601:

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.

Interesting. And the thief is the only class with a resource that you speak of. Thieves are not bound to cooldowns on the 1-5 bar. In other games, you work on resources like mana, rage, energy, etc. Why GW2 needed to be different in this regard? Dont know. I always thought having a resource was a good way to keep builds and playstyles in check so you don’t spam your way through your resource…its a bit more strategic.

Example: WoW Arcane mage…
If the arcane mage spammed through arcane blast, he would be out of mana(oom!) in 10 seconds. So, the spec commanded a burn phase where you burn through 35% of your mana, regen phase, coast phase, and then burn again.

In Gw2…we work on cooldowns. And then we have traits to passively reduce the cooldowns vs the arcane mage where you actively manage your resource.

Curious discussion, one that I think warrants some attention. Why the cooldown system vs the tried and true resource?

And resource != charges aka mesmer clones for shattering or Warrior adrenaline.

I have seen a couple of ideas about having armor/weapons that have switchable stats. I would love to have that convenience, but I wonder what effect that would have on the economy. Games need item sinks the same way they need gold sinks, and keeping money moving from player to player — not creating wealth, but distributing wealth — is important too. If I can switch the stats on an item why would I ever need a new one? What do I do if one drops and there is no demand on the TP? If there is also an item locker for skins, then items aren’t being destroyed for the sake of the skin, either.

All I’m saying here is be very careful what you wish for. In the long run this might end up making players more unhappy than happy.

Esuna.9746:

Only thing I care about is good looking gear which even after so long…there is a huge lack of…can we get some better armor designs. The leather are horrible and light is pretty bad as well. Only heavy armor has a few decent selections but even then its about less than a handful of ok looking pieces per slot.

Agreed. Medium armor has been horrible for ever. if you are not a female character and you didn’t buy that thieves outfit..(I cant remember the name), then your character looks like a SWTOR smuggler or a hobo on the streets.

The light armor looks equally atrocious, especially for male characters. Females have some unique ‘cuts’ to their gear that make it OK to wear.

Heavy armor has the best looks, hands down

cesmode.4257:

In Gw2…we work on cooldowns. And then we have traits to passively reduce the cooldowns vs the arcane mage where you actively manage your resource.

The resource is time. Ironically thieves are also the only class I can immediately think of that has active time management – the trait that allows steal to reset all the cooldowns on a cluster of skills sharing a tag.

Maybe we should be looking at cooldown resets for other classes… ((ponder))

Wait! I did just think of another – the new Mesmer Signet in the heal slot resets cooldowns for phantasm skills.

I think this mechanic shows great potential to make for more active gameplay…

And resource != charges aka mesmer clones for shattering or Warrior adrenaline.

Oh, I think any Mesmer who ever slotted Mirror Images would disagree with that statement. Mirror images is entirely a resource management skill. And the ways Warriors can manage their adrenaline is as diverse and rich as many “power/mana/whathaveyou” schemes in other MMOs.

Ok, so my thoughts on horizontal progression.

In the previous thread I discussed my dislike of vertical progression, so naturally I would likely prefer horizontal progression. Personally I want to see as much horizontal progression in the game as we can get.

Being an artist I tend to speak in broad terms because I don’t feel telling people specifically what to do actually helps anyone but by speaking more generally better results can come about. Here I will make an exception. I really think making ascended gear have the ability to change prefix/stats (zerker, cavalier) will make the vertical progression into a more diagonal progression. Sorry to beat a dead horse, but I just have to.

Beyond that I think there are some important things to take note of with the GW2 systems. It’s already feeling bloated and contrived. So I would suggest not building too many new horizontal progression systems onto it and modifying current systems to be stronger or more approachable. As an example, the stat system on gear coupled with the stat system in traits makes for an unwieldy system. Do I match the stats of the trait line or build in opposition to it? Do I min/max or fill in holes in the stats? I feel like we need fewer systems building on our stats to simplify the whole thing. I have friends coming into this game and they are completely overwhelmed by it all and they are still low levels. My wife has two level 80 characters and she doesn’t fully understand it and I have to advise her on how to handle it all. It’s cumbersome and ugly. The system needs to be simplified and streamlined.

Now, that doesn’t mean we can’t have horizontal progression though. We just need to build a small set of systems that each do something but not conflict. I like the idea of traits and I think they add some diversity to builds but combined with stats they tend to pidgeon-hole builds. By freeing them from stats we should have more options in build diversity. This would take looking at traits heavily too though, because we want to make sure there is that diversity.

Ok, I’ll shut up for now.

Josh

The Lost Witch.7601:

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.

I agree that I wouldn’t want subclasses to force me into a certain role, and that it would take a lot of time to work on them. However, I would very much like them if they opened up additional customization that expanded options instead of limited them. If subclasses simply give us additional options that for example changed/added to our profession mechanic or gave swappable options for our 5, 15, and 25 point traits. Something like this wouldn’t force you into a prebuilt template, but would open up additional customization options.

Vertical Progression: Rebalance existing Runes, SIgils and equalize prices/availability on armor with more obscure stats. Most Runes and Sigils are completely unviable and it limits what kind of builds people can make. Adding skills and Traits over time is a great idea, and the healing skills for the most part have been a pretty enriching addition.

Horizontal: Have an armor locker for each individual character, so we still have to earn our armor sets, but have access to them after you go for a new one, Gem Store sets should be account bound in this locker, rather than soulbound, so we can justify spending the money, the ocker can become available once you hit level 80 . Also, acquiring minor effects you can apply to armor (glossyness, dullness, or any kind of unique texture) to make our own appearance unique form those who have the same set. This would also supplement the grind we have to do by having a "middle ground’ sort of reward for doing so.

draxynnic.3719:

So, horizontal progression is up! Let’s get cracking…

One of the biggest barriers to this, I think, is the charge for respeccing. Testing something out in the Mists is most definitely NOT the same feeling, and while the fee may be relatively small for most players, including myself, it does take a bit of the fun out of it when you know that every time you switch you’re having to fork out at least once, and possibly twice or more if the experiment proves a failure or needs additional trait tweaking. I’ve heard the argument that it’s a gold sink – I disagree for a number of philosophical reasons that probably need their own thread, but if a gold sink associated with respeccing is truly needed, how about having the option to buy a “permanent retraining contract” that allows you to respec at a trainer as many times as you like for free from then on. Make it cost something exhorbitant like five gold so that for most players, it’s not a cost-effective option – but for people who do like to try something different on a daily or weekly basis, this will be a welcome option for removing one of the fun-suckers from the game.

GW1 had something like this for ‘sub-classes’. For an in-game fee at a special trainer (in each campaign), you could change your secondary profession and ever-after you could switch to that secondary. The skills you gained were only the beginner ones you’d have had if you’d chosen that profession in the beginning, but you could train (buy at the skill trainer) or capture (elites) whatever skills you wanted. It opened up a whole new world of possibilities!

Which brings me to this point —- Anet, do you see how many times references have been made to the original GW? Granted, it is not a perfect game, but if something is ‘broken’ (several things in GW2), why reinvent an already existent fix? Please listen to us veteran players when we suggest some mechanic similar to the ancestral game.

TheDaiBish.9735:

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?

It doesn’t matter. There is no reason why something that reflects skill or willingness to grind has to be better to reflect that – it can just be different. Take the Liadri mini you mentioned – there are plenty of other minis people would like just as much or more, depending on their preference, based upon its appearance alone. Its value is in in what it represents, not in being superior in appearance. And, there was a considerable amount of grinding going on in a short period of time for a lot of the people that got that mini.

As for the legendary weapon, a year was a realistic target for someone playing an hour or two a day, especially if they gem-to-golded some of the mats/runestones. It may not be now, with all the changes. The karma nerfs and adding ascended gear as an intermediary step pushes things back a bit, but you get more for your dollar in gem-to-gold so that might even out a bit.

But that breaks down when there are multiple things that are going to take over a year and/or drain resources from the year-long -plus goal of a legendary weapon. Then, if gear obtainable is of lesser quality than that which is unobtainable, why bother at all?

The current systems on appearance work. There are things you can only get by grinding. There are things that take money/gold. There are things that take karma. There are living story things that are easily obtainable. There are living story things that are more difficult. But all of them are of the same quality overall, just different. The exception is legendary weapons, which work now because it is realistically obtainable to get one in a year or so and it is only one category of gear. But when you have multiple classes of items like that, it pushes a group of players into nothing better than second-tier-quality gear, because now you’re talking about multiple years to gear your character fully because the quality of items keeps improving and that improvement is tied to increased cost of some kind, which whether it is increasing stats or improving appearance amounts to vertical progression.

I don’t see players wanting to support a game in which they are locked into being second-class citizens with lesser quality items. Maybe there are so many hard-core players throwing money at the game that those ‘casual’ players dollars don’t matter. But it is something to consider.

draxynnic.3719:

Conski Deshan.2057:

Just two more points I’d like to add based on the current discussion:

Preventing Homogony: (Aka preventing everyone looking the same.) A major problem in Guildwars 1 (one of few) was that “endgame” wise there was a uniform of sorts that most accomplished players would end up wearing,
Obsidian armor (most expensive, required completing a 3 hour hard map clear in addition making it the most prestigious)
Torment weapon (requires repeated completion of an elite area, expensive)
Chaos gloves: (Really expensive hand item that literally glows)
GWAMM title progress: (shows how many other titles you have total)

Looks wise this looked really good but the problem was this was objectively the most prestigious outfit, it requires the most money,skill and well roundedness to get.
So everyone wanted it, and many people got it, there was one point when you couldn’t walk into an outpost without someone having the same outfit as you which shouldn’t happen in a good Horizontal progression, but how do you stop this?

Ehhhh….

I always rolled my eyes when I saw someone with obsidian, chaos gloves, and Tormented weapons, but that’s because, to me, they’re the equivalent of the nouveau riche wearing cloth-of-gold and mink fur and enough jewellery to sink a small boat not because it looks good, but because it serves purely to show off that they can afford to be that ostentatious.

Yes, that may have been the most expensive combination, but if you actually want customisation rather than simply going straight to the most expensive option to show off, there were literally dozens of alternative options out there. I’m sorry, but if you found yourself running into people who looked exactly like you because you chose to adopt the “uniform”, that’s entirely self-inflicted. When you choose to follow the herd, it’s not anyone else’s fault that you end up looking like all the other sheep.

Having said that, there is something we have in common here – in that I fear that we truly will see a uniform developing. As things are at the moment, everyone who isn’t willing to fork out for transmutation crystals is eventually – if they get there and don’t conscientiously object to ascended armour – going to end up with one of a short list of looks – the ascended armour as it is normally, hall of monuments armour, or possibly one or a mix of the above with some Radiant and/or Hellfire pieces mixed in. Not because they chose to adopt the uniform, but because these are the only looks available to ascended armour without resorting to crystals (which costs not only the value of the crystal, but also the value of whatever armour was sacrificed to provide the skin…).

This, I think, is what really needs to be solved. We don’t need some uber-hard-to-get armour that just shifts the goalposts for getting the “look at me and how much virtual money I was able to spend!” ‘uniform’ – what we need is a substantially larger range of appearances that can ascended armour can be found/crafted/otherwise acquired with without transmutation. Otherwise, I’d predict that, given a few years for people to get ascended armour, the ‘uniform’ issue will become many orders of magnitude worse than it ever was in GW1.

I’m glad that I DIDN’T BUY and FARMED all of the above AND I REALLY ENJOYED WEARING THOSE. Sweet jesus, really, people like sheeps? I was a kitten good looking sheep then and proud of it.

This is why most of my friends are getting back to WoW and I’m playing both atm. I have everything I ever wanted in GW2 ( tho that ascendend gs drop was just lucky ) so atm I have nothing else to do. I can’t go to raids to try to get that epic drop, cos there are no epic drops here. It’s just rng and cosmetics. Well, in my case just cosmetic, cos I don’t like how legendary weapons look so RNG doesnt affect me.

This is the biggest issue with GW2 – you can’t get “better” than anyone. Well, for a lot of people, playing games is fun when you can get better, have better dps, better drops, better looking armor etc. – for me and my friends at least.

So again, while I have nohing else to do since the only 2 classes that I like are well… finished I would like to remind everyone how long obsidian armor farm or Torment weapons grind took.

Horizontal Changes related to Armor: The following would be upgrading componants that could be applied to armor like dye, so let’s start with that one.

• Dye Duplication: If you are going to keep dye soulbound. Allow Alts to copy a dye from one character to another. So let’s say I find a Celestial Dye and put it on my Main, now I get a dye duplicator and copy the Celestial Dye and put it on an Alt, another duplicator, another Alt etc. These duplicators could drop in the same manner as dyes or maybe you earn them by completing certain quests or there is always the Cooking Craft.
• Blended Material Component: If armor is made of different material it will have a different look. For example a Gossamer/Cotton blend Light armor might have deeper saturation levels but if it was a Gossamer/Silk blend it might be shinier. The same could be done with Tanning agent for Medium Armor or Alloys for Heavy.
• Paterns: Stripes(horizontal, vertical, diagonal), dots(small, medium, Large), checks, tie-dye, camouflage, heck even paisley would be an option. Each pattern would Not be armor weight dependent so the same pattern drop could be applied to light/medium/heavy.
• Grandmaster Upgrades: Upgrading armor looks would also be possible by using an elite crafting option available to Grandmaster Crafters.
  Light: Beading, Patching, Embroidering
  Medium: Stamping, Alternate Material Layering, Studding
  Heavy: Gilding, Emblazoning, Etching

Wardrobe functionality for PvE — That will make me want to collect skins even though I don’t plan to immediately use them. Make Transmutation Crystals (or rather ‘Wardrobe Ticket’) add a skin permanently to the wardrobe, and make it withdrawable for free after.

New animations for characters — If I’m not mistaken animations are not resource intensive for the game client and its performance, and letting players change their idle, run, sprint, walk, combat stance animations will be a meaningful alteration (as opposed to the dance-book) for your character’s identity.

Nike.2631:

cesmode.4257:

In Gw2…we work on cooldowns. And then we have traits to passively reduce the cooldowns vs the arcane mage where you actively manage your resource.

The resource is time. Ironically thieves are also the only class I can immediately think of that has active time management – the trait that allows steal to reset all the cooldowns on a cluster of skills sharing a tag.

Maybe we should be looking at cooldown resets for other classes… ((ponder))

Wait! I did just think of another – the new Mesmer Signet in the heal slot resets cooldowns for phantasm skills.

I think this mechanic shows great potential to make for more active gameplay…

And resource != charges aka mesmer clones for shattering or Warrior adrenaline.

Oh, I think any Mesmer who ever slotted Mirror Images would disagree with that statement. Mirror images is entirely a resource management skill. And the ways Warriors can manage their adrenaline is as diverse and rich as many “power/mana/whathaveyou” schemes in other MMOs.

You are correct, the resource is time. But unlike other resources, you can hardly manage it. You pop the ability, and then wait. You cannot use an ability to regen it quicker. Its more passive than active.

Aside from the arcane mage, the rogue is an example. Energy. You could have specced into a talent that crits return some energy spent, or misses return some energy lost. So your gameplay can keep your active combat going, rather than watching a number count down and theres nothing you can do to speed it up mid battle.

Edit: before reading the rest of your post, as I was writing this one I thought of the mesmer healing skill too. Thats a good start. I wish it weren’t tied to a healing ability though. Makes no sense. The mechanic should be tied to something else.

Edit again: Running a zerk mesmer…traited for shattering, after I have 3 illusions/clones, I will shatter them. Chances they will live to see the next 10 seconds are minimal. This is especially true in WvW.

Warriors…greatsword warriors are run of the mill…most common. Most of these warriors are traited that you do more dmg the more adrenaline you have. Spending the adrenaline reduces overall damage significantly. I never do this on my war.

Suggestions for miniatures:
1. Add a new tab to the hero menu. There you could dedicate your miniatures to your account (permanently removing it from the inventory in process). In the menu you can select a dedicated miniature for automatical use whenever possible.
2. Rename title “Miniature Collector” to “Miniature Collector of set Alpha” and add the title ""Miniature Collector of the set Beta" to the achievement track for the 2nd set (it currently has none).
3. Add a new infinite title track which rewards lets say 5 AP per dedicated miniature (each miniature can only be dedicated once per account). It should have no cap since there is only a finite amount of unique miniatures —> people will keep having an incentive to get or buy all new miniatures even if its just for the AP.
3.1. Add unique titles to this infinite achievement track.
e.g.:
Beginner Miniature Collector – Dedicate 10 Miniatures
Experienced Miniature Collector – Dedicate 50 Miniatures
Respected Miniature Collector – Dedicate 100 Miniatures
Acclaimed Miniature Collector – Dedicate 200 Miniatures
Heralded Miniature Collector – Dedicate 350 Miniatures
God of Miniatures – Dedicate 500 Miniatures
4. Add minigames where you can make use of dedicated miniatures such as miniature arena or polymock.
4.1. Miniature Arena should have a daily rotation of game modes: Death Match, Team Death Match, King of the Hill, Domination, Everyone against Everyone.
During the match you will be turned into your choosen miniature. Each miniature should have 5 skills and the strength of the miniature should mainly depend on its quality level (white to exotic). Rewards for playing: achievements, tokens for miniatures exclusive to the minigame.
4.2. Polymock similar to GW1
5. Make all miniatures tradeable. It seems pointless to me to make collectors items account bound.
6. Turn Mini Rytlock to Rare quality, like the other destiny edge miniatures.
7. Add ascended miniatures (eg. dragon champions like tequatl —> promote Tequatl from exotic to ascended), add legendary miniatures (special creatures like Zhaitan)
8. make the minis actually keep up with you and stay near your side a lot better
9. Make humanoid miniatures react to your emotes like heroes/henchman did in GW1
10. Put miniatures who cant swim into a bubble underwater.

Embracing the Strengths of Sub-Classes

While I actively oppose the introduction of sub-classes, I think it’s important to recognize some of their strengths, and look at benefiting from that without the worrisome downsides.

While we have a rich language of Build-crafting here on the boards, the casual player in-game may not ever come into contact with that. Further, the sheer immensity of choices can be daunting. While I think the distribution of character options over the 1-80 level progression does a pretty decent job of introducing concepts and considerations at a measured pace, the game could still do a better job of teaching about professions from within the game.

One of the great strengths of sub-classes is the power of an evocative NAME. There’s a reason why when people share builds on the boards they often name them – its equal parts short-hand and trigger for the imagination. ((mind you, I still giggle every time I go into the Thief boards and mention I’m running a very satisfying and successful “Super Unicorn”… And people there actually know what I’m talking about…))

Further, I find it sort of telling that most Sub-class schemes offer 3 choices (at least for an initial implementation). The number 3 has a very important place in game design: its the highest number of options you can introduce without players having a previous deep understanding and not trigger massive ‘Option Paralysis’. I previously argued that there were around 2,000 plausible builds per class – not competitive, plausible. Set-ups that wouldn’t make you look like a complete dufus while wandering around Orr or Frostgorge shooting up the locals and taking their stuff. Level 31-80 are entirely dedicated to easing players into that massive array of choice, but its still a deep sea to be thrown into. Slowly unlocking more trait slots and gradually unveiling the higher trait tiers helps. It can still be completely overwhelming, and I think ‘sub-classes’ are one way to try and address that.

But here’s another:

What if the Trainers for each profession had a conversational branch that offered to explain some common, reliable, and even highly competitive archetypes. Three of them per profession, in fact .

Then you could ask the Warrior Trainer to tell you more about the Berserker, Duelist, or Legionnaire builds. Maybe the Mesmer trainer could show you the existence of the Mantra-Healer along with two other potent builds.

Through dialogue it walks you through weapon choice, skills array, and major Trait choices. In addition to telling you what the key synergies are, what stat points will help you most, and how all that serves the theme you can have a conversational button at the bottom that says~

“Yes, that sounds great, make me one of those!”

That button then spends all your trait points and sets the Trait choices for you with a single click (well, a click and confirm choice panel, but you get the idea ). Then you can go out and explore being a Berserker for a few hours before making informed choices about how you’d like to fine tune it for your own playstyle preferences.

Lets make these great sub-class names powerful tutorials and training tools without binding players to them once they understand the merits of playing their profession that way.

I looked over most of the 9 pages of the thread so far and I echo a lot of the suggestions pertaining the topic so for easy read ill try to make this real short and touch what i didn’t see:
- Racial skills:
while I’m aware these skills are not used on PvP and sPvP so focus on them is not paramount. Also, I know they where made so that Racial wasn’t a deciding factor into what profession I should play if If i want a certain race. Either way it would be good to see these skills be a little more relevant in certain builds (good example the Norn transformations, making each have a certain synergy with a certain profession like Bear-warrior, Wolf-Ranger,SnowL-Thief, Raven-Mesmer) I have faith it can be done and would enjoy a LOT to dash on WvW as a Nornbear wrecking Havoc.

-New Skills and Elite skills:
The last Healing skills released profession based where a good example of what we need at every skill level

-Elite Skill hunt:
The system on GW1 for Elite skill gaining was somewhat fun. Not asking for a signet of capture but sort of like having legendary heroes or profession masters we can complete solo quests for them for the honor of to be their apprentices (get the option to buy the skill from them with skill-points)

-New Weapons:
there’s probably already some mention of this but its a good reminder. Spears on land, daggers on water, whips , scythes, Flails there’s a few options and this would add some vertical progression to some crafting professions as well.

-Ascended gold-sink went a bit too far:
I understand buying insignia recipe, I understand buying armor piece recipe. Having to buy recipe for armor piece per insignia stat plus the insignia recipe seems a bit excessive. The time restriction on material production and the material gathering expenses are already a good farm and rush crafting deterrent.

Just my two cents. Hope this was helpful

Andrige: You touched on the dance book. I don’t think dancing’s been noted in this thread. It’s not a major part of horizontal progression but yes, YES. More dances! Preferably ones that fit the world rather than being imported current fads from our world.

LotRO had something where you could go learn other races’ dance steps as part of a festival. The dances fit, too, like jigs for the Dwarves. That would be a start. Then we could have Book of Dance style hotbar alterations so we could change up the steps in an individual dance.

(Which reminds me of another thread where chair items were proposed, using one would plunk you down in a chair — be it a throne or a stool or a recliner or a tavern chair — that appeared when used. No need for interacting with game world assets not designed for it, and you could get hotbar skills to pick your seated pose).

If only you have the option to see your own name and title that would be a good thing for me and additional icons near my name to distinguish I achieved some feat or anything as such

Hi Chris,

Big fan of all content in the game actually, I would have never believed I would be playing a game this much.. so much love for the crew that makes Guildwars what it is today!

On topic: I love my fractal backpiece and the fact you really need to work hard in order to get it ascended and shiny… I would love to see the same 3 level upgrade on the fractal weapons.. Just imagining my fractal GS breing all shiny and glowy.

Anyway that has been a dream for me, for some time now hope someone actually sees this comment and puts the coding work into it.. I know it would make my day if they could!

Much love,

Mesmatiks

Though not entirely horizontal, nor fully vertical (perhaps diagonal would better suit), some additions I would like to see would revolve around the character itself – not just cosmetic. Offer some additional tasks/chores/jobs that are more solo related, but could be completed with a party.

Like, I love guild missions, and think their inclusion was sound – it gives a guild something more to do than just grind dungeons and living world content… but, perhaps have similar themed jobs for our individual character instance. If character is a member of the Whispers, have an NPC that offers available “jobs” to take on (i.e. personal bounty hunts, personal puzzles, etc. – hunt down and kill a specific NPC, hunt down and find a specific item, explore a mini-dungeon, etc.), and upon completion and returning to said NPC, we can select from reward items or craft materials (a shining example would be some of the different account-bound ascended materials that are harder to obtain – not bloodstone, dragonite or empyreal). Perhaps, also, we can work towards having “neutrality” with a specific type of enemy (not to be confused with “friendly” green-status), through these “mercenary tasks.” As much as I do enjoy a good grind now and then, methodically progressing through one map harvesting and killing everything in sight – there are some times when I don’t want to deal with a pack of pirates, or a group of grawl, or a heaping of hylek, or skritt, or whatever… I’m not saying the option of obtaining neutrality with every denizen needs to be in order, but it could make a nice addition… further, toss in that should we engage said neutral (or after a few), neutrality is broken with that group, and we’d have to re-grind the tasks again to regain that standing…

Content like Forsaken Fortune “mini-dungeon” was great, and I had a blast working on that. It didn’t require a group, nor was it offensively difficult. Having additional mini-dungeons and puzzles for solo play (or group, if desired), and some small reward or other means of “showing off” said accomplishments would be a plus. There’s a heaping amount of solo-able content, and though this is an MMO (as I know that argument is bound to come up), there are many players (at least per the large guild I’m part of) that do enjoy some good solo action at times… but, solo content starts to feel lacking once you’ve “been there, done that.”

With general character content – perhaps having different weapon styles might allow for more diversification, without turning everyone into everything else? For example, I know a few melee rangers (I play one myself) who would love the option of being able to use an axe mainhand in more of a melee fashion, instead of ranged. Sure, giving that option to melee an axe is akin to the warrior class, but perhaps the ranger could have a more “evasive” axe skill-set similar to how the sword mainhand is far more evasive than the warriors sword set… A little more weapon skillset customization could go a long way to letting players “flesh out” their character more to their liking, while not fully detracting from the core of their class. Perhaps offer the ability to form our own weapon skill-chains? Not sure how hard that would be to do, considering the animation chains for it, though. I’m not saying add additional weapons to a class, either, just perhaps a little more customization, like we can already do with our class utility skill slots.

In regards to current content and soloing – the only recommendation I have is to make dungeon story modes scaled for solo. Please keep the explore paths as group oriented, though. It’s simply that, in terms of the character’s personal story, having story mode geared towards a group just doesn’t feel right… in the same regard, you have to worry about other players who’ve done them countless times – so there’s pressure on new players to skip the story content that they might be interested in, and the elitist players can potentially come down harsh on a dungeon rookie that doesn’t yet know where to stand when, and which egg to crack when their sword glows a specific color of an underwater rainbow.

Anyhow, just a few of my current ideas… again, they’re not 100% horizontal, though not really vertical either.

Not sure how well this would work… but imagine a class of weapons where you could choose from a variety of options (say, for a sword, hilt guard and blade) with an added visual effect, craft (or acquire by other means) the components then combine the pieces in the forge for a customized looking weapon?

The Lost Witch.7601:

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.

The problem with this, and with GW1’s system, is that it’s very pretty in theory, but it just doesn’t works very well in practice.

You want to build your own character? So do I. But does the current system gives us a viable option to do that? No, it doesn’t. We can do it for the fun of it, but ultimately, if we want to make the best build possible, we’ll have to sacrifice flavor sooner or later.

The trait system that in theory gives us unlimited role-playing options in practice is making my elementalist either a buff bot or a Lightning Hammer auto-attack bot, because it’s all about stacking the most statistical traits as possible. Not very interesting, is it?

You can say that more creative traits can simply come out, but they won’t replace the old ones. They won’t replace all the flavorless and superior +10% damage traits out there. And they won’t do it for two reasons: first, because it would take a long time, probably years. Two, because there’s not enough design space for that.

Design space is, as I define it, how many creative options a designer can make until they dry out and new ideas are no longer possible to be made or become very scarce. It’s pretty much what you said about GW2’s skills versus GW1’s skills: there’s less design space for skills in this game, due to their simplicity, than in the prequel.

The trait system gives a lot of design space for anything that is passive, because it was designed exactly to be passive. Including those boring +10% damage traits. If most of the boring, passive traits were removed out of this game, we would be left with almost nothing, and no matter how many interesting new traits Anet could come out, they would inevitably come to an end or become very repetitive someday. Why? Because Anet wouldn’t be taking full potencial of the trait system. But if they DO take full potencial of the trait system, then we get those boring passive traits.

So the problem isn’t the existence of those traits. It’s the system that promotes those traits to exist to have any semblance of diversity of options.

A simpler solution would be for more traits that directly improve existing skills. But then, this would make traits… guess what? Too restricting. “Oh, I have to equip a sword for this… and a scepter for that one… and an axe for the other… and a signet for that one over there…”

Altenratively, they could make more traits that enhance our core profession skills, but how many do we have? Very few. The elementalist has four attunements. The warrior has a single burst skill. The necromancer has five DS skills, plus the one to transform them. The guardian has only three.

Many interesting traits have been made and can still be made to revolve around those skills, but you can’t build the entire trait system this way either. Or else, pressing a single button will trigger 4-5 traits, pressing another button will trigger other 4-5 traits, and so on. It would transform those core mechanics into god-mode skills.

But if the trait system was fused with the skill system, Anet wouldn’t need to force themselves to tie every single trait to every single skill from weapons, utilities or core mechanics to prevent boring +10% stuff. Anet could simply add… new skills from traits.

This would give them so much more freedom, because they could literally just scrap half of the boring trait stuff, and replace it with currently existing skills.

There would be a lot more design space this way.

Back to class subtypes, when you give players options, they will always look forward to create the most optimal build possible. That’s why that, even though in theory a sandbox system might be an excellent role-playing mechanic, in practice, it’ll be “exploited” and “abused” for the best mathematically possible build.

(To be continued…)

(…Part 2)

How does class subtypes help this problem? By keeping apart the flavor from the efficiency. By allowing the players to choose their flavor without messing with their build efficiency, and by allowing players to be as efficient as possible without sacrificing flavor.

This already happens with weapons. And true, not all weapons are equally good either, and some are under-used, but you can be a spellcaster support guardian or a hammer control guardian first, and only worry about efficiency after choosing your weapon. Currently, the fixed skillsets in weapons give to professions far more flavor than any “freedom” the trait system offers, because that freedom mostly translates to finding the most mathematically optimal build. In a way, profession subtypes could be an expansion of the weapon system. The traits that offer creative and very efficient flavored gameplay are so few, and they could very well be subclass-defining effects instead.

This is a flaw with the RPG genre. The fact that role-playing is so deeply-tied to mathematics. Because players feel bad about using bad builds, they’ll always pick the better mathematical options over the most flavored options.

The best way to “build our own character” in a RPG is with cosmetics, not with stats. The advantage of subclasses is that they separate one from the other. Yes, it does comes at the cost of a requirement for pre-defined base templates. But ultimately, those “restricting base templates” in theory are not any worse than “the freedom to create the ultimate mathematical build” in practice, I’d say.

VOLKON.1290:

Not sure how well this would work… but imagine a class of weapons where you could choose from a variety of options (say, for a sword, hilt guard and blade) with an added visual effect, craft (or acquire by other means) the components then combine the pieces in the forge for a customized looking weapon?

So something like this?
Vertical Weapon progression without causing a ruckus

Subclasses will inevitably lead to pigeon-holing, and that’s never a good thing. If elementalists ever had a subclass that enhanced healing would there ever be any other elementalists welcome in dungeons? WvW would require them as well.

Subclasses terrify me as to how detrimental they can actually be for the overall health of the game. Sir William of Ockham probably twitched uncomfortably in his grave at the thought, poor fellow.

I’ve been thinking about this ‘sub-class’ system (and I apologize for my mis-classifying it in a former post). An example was given as Guardian with sub-class Templar. While there wouldn’t necessarily need to be tons of new skills involved with the sub-class, it would introduce a very nice customization feel to the character that is currently lacking, I believe.

For example, my rangers (in every game I play which has rangers!) tend to be ranged/bow nearly exclusively and not beast-master types. Yes, they have those abilities and do use such on occasion, but the basic character builds include neither. This would obviously lean towards a hunter type sub-class which could then include a few more specialized skills such as tracking or trapping (brainstorming, and I know that traps are already in-game). A beast-master sub-class would have a subset of skills to include specifically beast-related options.

I could definitely envision this in all classes – and would not be all that difficult to enable since such was already done so in GW1 and other games. Armor skins/sets could reflect the idea, as well.

All in all, such an idea would/could add an incredible amount of horizontal progression and realization for a character.

Alternately, with enough customization mechanics, sub-classes would be unnessecary. People would make their own, which is even more awesome.

In order for this game’s horizontal progression to really take off what’s needed is a wider variety of unique skins.
Rare skins – that aren’t insanely hard to obtain but can’t be bought off the TP. The kind of thing you can work for – put effort into making – and know that once you’ve done it it will count for something.
Right now there’s a real lack of new armor and weapon skins in the game that are obtainable through hard work and not the TP.

The only such set of weapons are the fractal ones ( but here the method of obtaining them is very broken) – apart from that you can pretty much BUY anything. So it won’t give you any sort of bragging rights apart from " This guy can farm" or " he plays the TP well"

I think the idea i’m proposing was originally what legendaries were supposed to be – but somewhere along the way they wanted to integrate them into the economy so what should have been a journey of exploration, great feats and legend – turned out into a shopping list off the tp with a little world exploration thrown in the mix ( The only decent and acceptable parts of legendary making are the gifts of x dungeon and world explore).

This sort of idea is too good to be left out of the game – so please – give us something to WORK towards.

New skins would be great as well – or the ability to further customize existing skins with effects or new dye patterns that would be unlocked by doing various things.

Also – I hope to see more horizontal progression and less vertical – we’ve had enough gear grinding. The cost of an ascended set is insanely high – and with PVE and PVP balance being intertwined you can never truly invest in a set and be satisfied since there’s always the possibility of some patch coming and destroying your build, and boom – 300 gold down the drain.

Twinny.9304:

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.

I disagree with this very strongly, the same with the guy suggesting a way to get dungeon tokens outside of dungeons.
From a functional standpoint it won’t work as intended, players will find the most efficient token generating activity and then run that again and again, similar to the champ farms which is the opposite to progression.
From a personal standpoint if you want any item you are going to earn it from the same place as everyone else, regardless of how much you like or dislike that aspect, you don’t get to invalidate another persons work because you don’t want to do the activity.

As a general thought to any further suggestions by people, have this consideration: Does my suggestion involve nullifying or invalidating anothers work?
That is, suggestions like lowering ascended stats to exotic, giving legendary stat changing to ascended, giving any reward earned from a specific activity to people who have not done that activity.

Also the thread seems to be drifting towards traits/skills/combat which I feel don’t make for good progression, just general customization.

VOLKON.1290:

Subclasses will inevitably lead to pigeon-holing, and that’s never a good thing. If elementalists ever had a subclass that enhanced healing would there ever be any other elementalists welcome in dungeons? WvW would require them as well.

Subclasses terrify me as to how detrimental they can actually be for the overall health of the game. Sir William of Ockham probably twitched uncomfortably in his grave at the thought, poor fellow.

This is why I (mistakenly) thought people were using ‘sub-class’ and ‘secondary profession’ interchangeably.

There could very well be pigeon-holing. But no more than there is already with the Burst-this and Condition-that. Elementalists already have healing capabilities in the Water line. It was part of the destruction of the holy trinity. Why would anyone welcome a non-water ele into a dungeon group now? It’s been a problem in probably every game known – if you’re a (GW1) monk, you heal. Period. Prefer smite? Nope, you’re on your own. If you’re a warrior, you’re expected to tank. Necros are expected to be minion masters, cursers are not particularly welcome. Yet if you tend to play those sub-classifications instead of the cookie-cutter builds and your team is willing to recognize possibilities, the entire game (and instance) opens up in crazy good new ways.

In some ways this type of sub-class is already present. A death-focused necromancer specializing in minions, for instance. What this idea would do (if I understand the suggestions correctly) would be to formalize and refine those specialties.

‘Sub-classes’ would need to be a specialization, similar to but not a secondary profession. A secondary (in the GW1 sense) could be changed for a particular dungeon or instance. A sub-class, however, would be a more permanent change. A Guardian Templar would be a certain type of guardian which – yes, might be pigeon-holed by short-sighted people – would provide another level of character depth. It would not need to be something so simple as ‘go to the trainer and give him X gold, be hit on the head with the Sub-class Wand’. It would require questing, story, whatever just as the Orders do (or at least should). It would need to be a decision, not an automatically granted anything.

(The broken mechanics of this game have largely driven me away for a while now. If I have missed any significant change in the elementalist’s abilities, I apologize for speaking out of turn. Threads like this give me renewed hope for returning.)

Regarding my previous post: replacement functionality was a bad idea.

DiogoSilva.7089:

But ultimately, those “restricting base templates” in theory are not any worse than “the freedom to create the ultimate mathematical build” in practice, I’d say.

This is where great balancing should come in, and more varied encounter design. So more buildtypes have merit as well. (Assuming that they do have internal synergy)

Numberchasers may eventually end up at a select set of subclasses anyways. (Unless all subclasses start shining at the same things, which kind of defeats the purpose.)

Oh well, I think we understand one another, so let’s agree to disagree on this one.

Horizontal Progression for Existing Weapon Skills
- This Can be done by giving us the ability to pick variants of our weapon skills just like we would pick our Utility Skills (click on a little bar on the top of the skill and a menu comes up for different skill options).
- This can be accomplished by just leting us buy the new skills for skillpoints, but, to give us a sense of acomplishment, it might be better (also, alot cooler) to let us seek out Specific Skill trainers/challenges across the world that will teach one specific variant of a skill.
- The Skill Challenges could give you access to the skill, and you have to learn how to use that skill variant to complete the challenge, but if you fail, you lose access to the skill until you try again.

For my Example, we will be using the Ranger Short Bow, and Specifically Skill #3, Quick Shot. Lets say that there are Four variants of the skill out there in the world to find (For a total of Five) :::

• (0) Quick Shot ::: (Base skill) Fire a quick shot in an evasive retreat. Gain swiftness if the shot hits. This can be used while retreating.
• (1) Stealth Shot ::: Fire a quick shot in an evasive retreat. Gain stealth if the shot hits. This can be used while retreating. (Learned from Gary Silent Arrow in the Iron Marches)
• (2) Pin Shot ::: Fire a quick shot in an evasive retreat. Inflict Immobilize if the shot hits. This can be used while retreating. (Learned from a Skill Challenge in Bloodtide Coast)
• (3) Tormenting Shot ::: Fire a quick shot in an evasive retreat. Inflict Torment if the shot hits. This can be used while retreating. (Learned from Bobbbo Beefriend in Brisban Wildlands)
• (4) Druid’s Retreat ::: Fire a quick shot in an evasive retreat. Heal you and your pet for a little if the shot hits. This can be used while retreating. (Learned from a Skill Challenge in Caledon Forest.)

If times and amounts are balanced properly, none of these skills would be any more or less powerful than the other, they all have the same flavor of the original skill, and they all accomplish the same thing that the original skill did. Some opinions will differ, but I think the purpose of this skill is to minimize damage you take, and get away from the enemy. All of these skill variants accomplish that.

With Different Variants like this, some players would want to take the Stealth shot to run into someone in WvW, fire off a few shots, and get the heck out of there! Some will take Tormenting shot instead for the extra damage. Some will take Druid’s Retreat for the extra healing. The variety of different builds that could come out of this can be nearly endless

I’m not sure if this is the right thread for this, but one thing that I’d like to see is some more interesting and challenging pve content that takes the form of open world (ie not instanced) dungeons. Something really huge with many levels, lots of monsters, roaming groups of npcs, lots of veterans, and some champions. Something where there is progress, and it’s difficult, but you get rewarded for going farther in and taking risks. Maybe have each micro area within the larger whole be adaptive, so that if you’re in a group rather than soloing, the # of monsters that spawn in the area increases to keep the relative difficulty constant.

SKINS FOR SKILLS!
I dont know if someone have already sad anything about it but why not give players an ability to customize the animation of their skills leaving responding mechanics and damage intaked. Skills could look different both for the races and for some achievements. This way the immersion with a certain race can be much higher, if charrs are brutal mechanics so let it be seen in their skills, charr mesmer with purple butterflies looks a bit eclectic, its also nice, but I would like to go with something else.
So please consider this idea.

Replay Value

So what if a player unlocks an aesthetic? Back in the days of GW1, aesthetics were only as good as the journey they accompanied; they could only be enjoyed if there were content to play through. Be it vanquishing, elite missions, or skill capturing.

Looking back at GW1, there were many goals to achieve after beating the game: Vanquishing, Elite dungeons, Skill Capturing, and Missiong Completion.

What GW2 needs are chhallenges in a similar vein to those things. FoTM and WVW are a start, but here’s my suggestion:

Non-Linear ELITE dungeons.
— UW and FoW for example. They let us complete objectives in any order we want, with lots of backtracking and events.

— Wipe = Boot. Dungeons SHOULD be difficut and challenging, and they SHOULD punish players for losing. This process of trial and error to clear a difficult dungeon is called “horizontal progression”, and it is why UW and FoW were loved so much. I cannot emphasize enough how learning to clear difficult content is itself a form a horizontal progression.

— Likewise, rewards SHOULD reward good players, and SHOULD be worthwhile!

Vanquishing/Area Completion
— Unfortunately map completion wasn’t enough for most players. So what if you turned up the scale? What if we had an “Event” title track attached to clearing EVERY event chain in a zone? As in, what if rather than farming a single event, the title track required players to hunt and clear every single event chain in a zone?

— To keep players coming back, what if repeats rewarded BL Keys, or a shot at ultra-rare skins?

Open-World Dungeons similar to the Tower of Nightmares
— Tower of Nightmares was a remarkable experiment. Why not create a new endgame zone similar to it? An Open World dungeon where you collect key pieces to open a chest at the end, containing a chance at ultra-rare loot, karma, and tokens for a NEW set of armor?

— Warp us back to the start after opening the chest. That way people must redo the dungeon, and help others, instead of camping level 3.

We Need MORE RNG Loot!!!
— I’m going to play devil’s advocate.. We need MORE RNG loot! And NOT accountbound either! We need SELLABLE loot worth 400g! The fact is, in GW1, people loved to run Shards of Orr and Slavers’ Exile because there were high money incentives at the end of it: The chance at a Bone Dragon Staff or Voltiac Spear, both some of the most valuable items in the entire game. The reason we’re not seeing Tequatl run much is because we cannot sell the exclusive items he drops. Allow players to sell their ultra-rare loot, and I predict you will see a significant increase in Tequatl clearing.

Underflow Servers
— I miss the days of release, when I could explore Dredgehaunt Cliffs and call out events for people to join. These days, those maps are abandoned, and it’s not necessarially a gameplay issue either. Fact is, you have too many servers. When I go into Fields of Ruin, there are only 2 other players in that area. However, you also have 24 servers… If you were to move them all into the same map, this would be 48 players instead. Is it fair to divide 48 players into only 2 players each map?

— Developing an underflow server would be beneficial for newbies entering the game, to experience GW2 as it was meant to be experienced when we played it at launch.

— High level players do not do events because they are not rewarding. The events are not rewarding because not enough people are joining. You can break this catch-22 by adding people back to the zone, with an Underflow server.

— Ultimately, the community is the core of any MMO. Without players, your maps are nothing more than empty space. Please bring life back to open world PvE. Please give us underflow servers!!!

Conski Deshan.2057:

Twinny.9304:

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.

I disagree with this very strongly, the same with the guy suggesting a way to get dungeon tokens outside of dungeons.
From a functional standpoint it won’t work as intended, players will find the most efficient token generating activity and then run that again and again, similar to the champ farms which is the opposite to progression.
From a personal standpoint if you want any item you are going to earn it from the same place as everyone else, regardless of how much you like or dislike that aspect, you don’t get to invalidate another persons work because you don’t want to do the activity.

As a general thought to any further suggestions by people, have this consideration: Does my suggestion involve nullifying or invalidating anothers work?
That is, suggestions like lowering ascended stats to exotic, giving legendary stat changing to ascended, giving any reward earned from a specific activity to people who have not done that activity.

Also the thread seems to be drifting towards traits/skills/combat which I feel don’t make for good progression, just general customization.

I basicaly agree I think if they should do anything they should pull out a bunch of titles and items that are tied to a specific sector and Need to be earned there ( NOT WITH RNG OR MONEY).

Biggest Problem atm is that you can basicaly buy everything with Money.. -Dungeontokkens you can buy with buying a spot of one of the countless sellers..
. legendary can be bought with Money
- whole ascended armor can be bought with Money ( I know there actually are things like bloodstone dust and empyral and dragonit ) But you can buy presents and triforce key that give you dragonit / empyral and bloodstone. So it can be bought with Money.

Only Thing that can’t be bought with Money : Tribunational mode Skins, Liadri , Fractal weapons.

It should be a bit concering that everything can be bought with Money and that People who actually Play the game can’t afford a legnedary even with 4k hours played.

Btw speaking of moves that makes Progression of other Players meaningless. The nerfs to dungeons like cof 1 ( the endboss of cof 1 was a nice fight first weeks ) , Fractals reset, no reaction to skyhammer farmers , Allowing dungeonselling.

Those were moves that made Progression of People meaningless and I hope they won’t occur that often again or at least won’t be ignored so hard ( fractals reset and skyhammer farming).

The Dungeon Master title had some meaning in the start of the game but is meaningless now since dungeonspotselling is officially allowed ( somwhere in the dungeon Forum it was mentioned that it is a legit way to make Money).
Skyhammer farming made the work spent in over a year of pvping in tourneys for some People completly meaningless because others could get their ranks within 2 weeks.
Fractal reset finally made some People completly lose faith in progressing in the game since they have the Feeling it can be taken away anytimg ( THIS IS A MAJOR ISSUE FOR ME ATM)

If you want to have a System for Progression you NEED to make sure that Progression takes always more or less the same time. But as Long as progression of 1 Player with 500 hours spent can be farmed away / taken away or bought for the Money and time of 10 hours… People will just ask themself is worth progressing if it can’t be assured that the Progress you make where you spent several hours won’t be for nothing laters.

Well, what kept me playing GW1 long after (years) I had completed the last mission on each continent was the unadulterated appeal to my completionist nature. Titles, minis, weapon skins, armor skins, elite skills, mission bonuses, etc. In GW2, though, titles and minis don’t have the same appeal they did in GW1, and there’s no room for weapon and armor skins. There are no missions and there’s no need to hunt down skills.

So, anything that appeals to innate desire to collect in people will greatly expand the horizontal progression of the game. Some suggestions:

• As already stated by a billion people (perhaps a few less), a pve locker for weapon/armor skins like the one in pvp would be dandy. It would set this completionsit on the path to contentment.
• Speaking of armor skins, it would be nice to add different (read “new”) armor skins to the crafter’s menu. Not adding new tiers, but variety to each tier. Preferably, these would be skins that would only be available by crafting. Make them via recipe rather than by discovery with the recipes available from npc’s after completing a certain event. By the way, if we’re going to give a weapon a cool/unusual name (e.g. “skritt herder”), could we give it a cool/unusual skin?
• Housing. It’s been mentioned already numerous times. But a house with a few knickknacks won’t do the trick. You need to channel Animal Crossing on this. Many different ways to change the look with collectible sets (including the music that’s played) would keep people busy for a while. Seems kind of silly, but play Animal Crossing for a bit, and you’ll see what I’m saying. Mix it up and make some items functional and others purely decorative. Increase interest further by having an immediate (and free) access to the house just like the HoM. And, yes, you’ll need a locker for this, too. Note: Guild houses could operate in a similar manner).
• More town clothes, costumes, hats, and masks to collect from many different venues (not just the TP). Even better if the hats/masks can be worn over the helmet. This is something Parallel Kingdoms does very well. GW2 could do it better.
• Something for the middle maps. Again, from GW1, unique weapon skins (and minis) that are rare drops that are only available on that map.
• First person camera view. I know. Bear with me. My main point is that much of what makes horizontal progression valuable is its appeal to the collector or completionist. Here’s the thing. There were quite a few of us that enjoyed collecting pictures of scenery (without our big heads in the way). Not to mention, some peeps liked to make movies and the like. If you’re worried about it affecting game play at all, for whatever reason, perhaps the skill bar could be disabled while in first person mode.

Anyway, it’s been great reading all of the ideas. Looking forward to reading more and seeing some (many) of them implemented. Thank you for the opportunity to throw in my two cents.

@Kain Francois:

Great list, as long as by RNG you don’t mean via black lion chests. I made a similar point in my post (rare, unique drops that are only available on a certain map). Love the idea of the underflow server.

Earendil Starsailor.4675:

@Kain Francois:

Great list, as long as by RNG you don’t mean via black lion chests. I made a similar point in my post (rare, unique drops that are only available on a certain map). Love the idea of the underflow server.

By RNG, we need rare loot we can sell. Preferably NOT limited by time-gated either.

I don’t see anything wrong with more BL keys dropping from challenging content, either. It would be good for ANET’s profits, since it gives people a taste, to buy more from the gem store.

A Win-Win situation? Perhaps.

I don’t have the time to read all 9 pages so I apologize if my ideas are previously stated.

I would like to see some of GW1 mixed with GW2. Vanquishing was a fun, difficult, and time intensive activity in GW1, but there isn’t a clear parallel in GW2. I would like to see a way to make the explorable areas vanquish able.

Im thinking along the lines of every area has an instance for lvl 80 only that gets a story to go with it (centaur invasion, ghost siege). Every or select maps become battle grounds with two armys of NPCs hashing it out, and the player and party have to go around defeating the army and it’s generals. Similar to the charr or human intro story. Enemy groups seek out the player n’ party and try to stop them lead by vets or mini champs. This would be a lvl 80 only instanced event and would encompass the entire area map taking place in all the cool and exciting side areas people only visit for POIs and hidden chests. All the cool lionguard forts are under siege and recusing them gives bonus troops to help fight the hordes and losing them sends more seeking groups after the players.

Titles could be given for completion, Possible Hard Mode difficulty?, rare loot, yada yada. Its time intensive, requires people to work together in groups, endless reward possibilities. Something lvl 80s can enjoy and do something other than champ farm.

This is just something I think gives the player more to do without necessarily boosting their already decked out characters, but can give them completion rewards.

P.S. this might be considered vertical, but I duno.

While discussing guild halls (why don’t we have these already? Srsly!) and personal housing (ditto), I would direct your attention to the EQ2 system. You can purchase and maintain several different levels/sizes of home/hall according to your choice and in-game funding abilities with the uppermost being a choice of prestige model(s) purchased in the cash shop. Some furnishings are event specific (events such as Frostfell which offer special crafting and rewards), some are regular quest rewards, some must be purchased through the cash shop but an incredible amount of furnishings can be crafted by the player!

Kulvar.1239:

…

While I agree on most points, I think ceating sub professions [keep your language clean] would be a great horizontal progression. One the one hand it would greatly compliment a certain way of playing. On the other hand, it would offer much needed customization options and diversity.
Problem: While this is a great idea, I personally believe implementing auto attacking mobs (and other mechanics) to reduce zerker-only playstyle. Zerkers should have their place in a group, but it should come with a price. That drawback would be lowered by either control or support.

How:
How this is implemented doesn’t really matter. I personally believe in more option to choose from especially weapon skills. Also Elite skills should play a role in a player’s build as they did in GW1: Defining a build

Other than that I completely agree and think it’s important to also express negative feelings towards ideas. (in a constructive manner like you)

DIVA

I would love to see them bring back the pre-beta Trait System.

I agree with those that say Skill capturing should get back into the game. However, as an alternative, they could bring the “old” trait system back or at least a system that compliments the current system and uses the “old” idea.

For those that weren’t following Guild Wars 2 for a long time, the first blog post of Arenanet on Traits/Skills mentioned an amazing system that tied the Traits/Skills to Lore/Quests/Tasks etc instead of the system we have now.

Basically in order to get a trait, you had to find an npc that could teach it to you, OR a certain item that contained the knowledge. For example I remember during a very very old interview an event in Wayfarer Foothills at the Svanir boss (North side, Son of Svanir settlement), once the players cleared the meta event and entered the Svanir’s dome (now it’s empty) they found a special book there that tought them things.

That’s how Arenanet envisioned players getting skill points and traits in the very very old days. I can understand why they scrapped that system, it was way complicated and it required players to actually explore the world to get their traits/skills, oh wait that’s a good thing

Instead of revamping the whole system, I can understand it’s impossible now, tie the NEW Skills/Traits to Events.

A summary post so far on Page 1 basically: – Part 1
I’ll do 1 per page, listing up all new ideas as much as possible liek a sponge and do at the end then 1 postign with links of all the summaries in them.

General Progression & Quality of Life Improvements
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406139 – More Emotes and Character Battle Phrases
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406159 – Completely remove Soulbound Item, everything accountbound on usage
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406159 – Make Item storing more convenient similar to PvP Locker, Reduce the RNG
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406181 – Skin Wardrobe for all kinds of Equipment
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406223 – Add Minipet-Slots
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406259 – *Item Sharing between Characters, getting rid of having to use the Account Chest to swap items between Charas
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406262 – Character Build Tabs, Commander Tags
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406378 – Make Shop Buff Item Effects for more Exp, Crafting ect. accountwide
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406459 – Make all Order Armors buyable for Characters after Game Completion

Housing and Personal Instance
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406371 – Implement proper Housing in general

Horizontal Guild Improvements
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406378 – Add more social Features, add more Banners to play aroudn with

New Skills, New Weapons, New Traits and Improvements around them
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406216 – Skill Balancing/Redesign, making SKills more impactful for builds, Stronger Racial Skills ,when used in racial territories
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406330 – Equipped Weapons influence the Weapon Skills, Redesign of Elite Skills

Horizontal Dungeon Improvements
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406043 – Making Dungeon Tokens more accessible outside of Dungeons
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406082 – Redesign more Paths, Vanquish Mode, Non Instance Exploration, Upscaling of Low Level Dungeons to Lvl 80 Quality, more Dungeon Rewards for Tokens to exchange

New Achievements, New Titles and general Improvements here
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406139 – Reward Panel Expansion, Achievement Dyes, more unique item rewards from Meta Achievements, Achievement Rewards should be dyeable
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406181 – In general more diversive titles with more unique/challenging ways of gainign them
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406384 – Make made achievements with titles more visible, add titles to the slayer achievements for example with visible rewards attached to them

Part 2:

Cosmetical Progression – Legendary Equipment, Skill Skins, Finishers, Weapon Dying
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406043 – Cultural Armors for Mystic Force Recipes, Fractal Armor Set
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406099 – More Armor Customization, Ability to turn one sided Armor patterns at Arms/Shoulders as example into a synchron version that has the pattern of the design on both sides
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406159 – More Achievement Skins
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406216 – Make Dyes accountbound again
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406221 – Visually upgradable tiers of Equipment/Equipment Refining
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406233 Make dyes in general more accessible, including the Gem Store Dyes
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406371 – Add ascendent Dungeon/Cultural Armors
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406399 – Upgrade cultural Armors with particle effects, Implement also a Pact Armor Set
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406459 – Add Class specific Armor Sets

PvP Horizontal Progression
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406139 – direct Rank Emote Chat Commands through numbering them

WvW Horizontal Progression
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406355 – Different colored Commander Tags

Crafting Progression
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406181 – Costume Crafting
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406237 – Dismantling of Crafted Items into all the smaller parts, real individual unique player named crafted items, Non RNG based Item Fusion

New Features and reimplemented ones from GW1
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406216 – Reimplement/rework the Hall of Monuments for GW2
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406223 – Add a kind of Minipet-Pokemon that basically already exists in Lions Arch
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406278 – Reimplement Dungeon Books
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406371 – Add a Faction based Reputation System
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406459 – Add more Search Functions to the TP

General Technical Improvements
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406233 More technical Support for various Mods, that can improve significantly the game experience visually as like mechanically
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406459 – General Fixing of Clipping Issues, be it for armors, tails, hair, or whatever

General Gameplay Improvements
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406278 – Fix Downscaling for all Low Level Areas, Make World Exploration resetable for repeatable rewards, More map wide Events similar to Scarlets Invasion
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406329 – Make all Skills for all Gameplay Modes seperate
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406492 – Redesign/Revamp of Runes and Sigil-System

Reward and Loot Improvements
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406278 – Make unique Minipets dropable for all the specific regions
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406331 – Retroactive Rewards

Orders

I think the Orders should have a bigger roll in the game other than just in the Personal Story.

With the Personal Story, we are sent to different places to do quests. Some of those quests are given by the Orders.

Monthly Quest

The Orders would send us to do a monthly mission which would be a mix of the monthly achievement and some kind of living story. It would be like the missions at the start of the game in which we go to some place and an npc of each order is there and we must select which tactic we want to follow to complete the mission.

Daily Quest

The daily quest would be like the daily achievement. We would be send to kill x amount of a specific mob or complete x amount of events in a specific map. Also could be kill a specific boss or complete a specific dungeon. We could have options for different character lvls.

But the most important thing would be a focus on complete events on specific maps, help a village and also complete mini-dungeons (including jumping puzzles). For example, an Order could send us to solve the puzzle of “Tears of Itlaocol” or defeat the last boss of “Vexa’s Lab” or open the chest of “Griffonrook Run”: i imagine a lot of people running with the bombs and others cleaning the way to complete the mission. There are a lot of great places in the world map, and not many people go there, i think the Order’s missions should send the players to the less visited places.

Champion’s Duels

It would be like the “Queen’s Champions” from the “Queen’s Jubilee”. And would be part of the daily missions.

This champions could be of all kinds (charr, ogers, trolls, bats, etc) and the Orders would send us to defeat them. They can be blocking bridges or roads, or attacking a village, etc. When we defeat them, some surrender and others must be killed. The victory not complete that daily mission but also give a chest or another reward.

Rewards

We could win points when complete each order’s quest. Our reputation would increase with the Order we are working for and when we get x amount of reputation we could gain access to buy things in special npcs.

A post of mine from a couple months ago seems to fit more in line with this CDI, so I’ll repost it here, with a few tweaks.

New Armor Sets through gameplay not gem store
For example, it would be great to have some sets themed around the world bosses. A Tequatl set, Shatterer, JoJo, SB, etc. Perhaps have them drop some sort of world boss specific token that you could turn in for armor sets. Along the same lines as dungeon armor.

More Story missions. Let’s kill those elder dragons!
Honestly, while I love the living world stuff, it feels like none of it matters because there’s so little to do in each one. I genuinely hope there is an expansion of some kind in the works. The thing that won me over to GW2 was the overwhelming sense of wonder when I first started. The world felt genuinely MASSIVE and there were people friggin everywhere! Now everyone just huddles together in LA and the various dungeons/champ farms. I’m reasonably confident the current storyline is going to deal with a/the dragon(s), and I hope this means a continuation of the personal story.

Guild Halls and a United Major City Chat
I give a caveat with this one. I would love it if Guild Halls were not only customizable with things like Vendors, Crafting tables and a Guild Hall of Monuments that expanded as you researched different guild upgrades, but actually were instances within buildings within the major cities, not just LA. I love Divinity’s Reach but have almost no reason to ever go there. But if my Guild Hall were based there, I’d be there all the time! Especially if the city chat were the same no matter where I went so I didn’t miss anything.

Major Events throughout the World reflected in Major Cities
This actually harkens back to my WoW days. I distinctly remember how awesome it was walking into Stormwind City or Orgrimmar and seeing the Head of Nefarion hanging from the gates and getting a buff because of it. How great would it be if we could hang Teq’s head over the Mystic Forge in Lion’s Arch? It would be a reason to celebrate and band the players together to cheer for one another!

I agree with many of the ideas thrown out here….particularly

I would love to see more specialized skills to add more utility to the various classes…like healing specialized skills, or crowd control specialized skills, that give the ability to “specialize” a class to a particularly type of class….this would give a sub-class feel to a class without the subclass….or, just make a subclass for each class to give that specialized feel….people who don’t like the subclass can still stay with the main and be the “jack of all trades” type.

I really like the idea that anything in horizontal progression should require some sort of quest, or personal achievement to unlock. You want personal housing? Maybe you have to gather the materials to make it first…you want to be able to dye your weapon….maybe you need to learn that secret from the secret order of weapons-dyers. You want a new skin locker? Put on a fashion show for the locals and they will buy you a closet! Want a new Ranger Pet? Go out and hunt it…or learn to tame that special pet by an ogre….

I just like the idea of having to do something to get something…rather than the feeling that is out there right now that in order to get something you need to farm gold. I hate farming for gold, but I would love to have an epic quest to unlock something special for my character….

Just remember that anything that has to be “done” to unlock something should be able to be stopped / started over time to cater to the casual users as well (not require someone to put in 4 hours in a single shot for instance).