Guild Wars 2

Chrispy.5641:

Several Things….

- You could not craft Settler’s Armor until the December 10th update. Before that, you had to have very specific conditions met in order to buy them on Southsun. So, even before, when you had to do some difficult stuff to get it, it did not motivate anyone to go there, niche gear or not (besides the fact that the only gear in this game that isn’t niche, is Berserker’s, because that remains the only stat combination where you can get every single Exotic piece of equipment and upgrade for.)

- Once any of them are sellable on the Trading Post, the cost will drop. Having unique items for every area is something the game really needs (And something I am going to cover in a later post), but, it doesn’t change the fact that the prices will become nothing on the trading post after several months, so in terms of a hard mode, just adding special items to harder areas of the game isn’t going to get anyone moving very fast except for those that see a gold to be made.

- Didn’t matter that Ecto’s were only found in one or two areas. I still had access to them, and I never went to those zones for months/years at a time. They aren’t as exclusive ad you may think they were.

- Heh, some niche gear is more niche than others; Settlers is one that is not in any kind of demand. It’s not enough to be unique; it has to also be desirable.

- Yes, prices will drop. That goes without saying. However, what they drop down to will be determined by rarity and demand. It’s why Dusk sells for over 800 gold while Crystal Guardian sell for over 8 gold and Cobalt sells for over 2 gold. All three are in demand, but they are different levels of rarity. Items not in demand sell for less. And, as much as they drop, they do level out at some point. For years, Totem Axes sold for 4-5 plat. The point isn’t so much to get every single player out to a map to get an item so much as it is to get some players out to a map that was heretofore vacant.

- I wasn’t thinking that ecto was exclusive in the sense that only a few players had it. It dropped, though, almost exclusively in the UW (with some rare instances occurring elsewhere). And while you might not have been a frequent visitor to the Temple, many people were, which is the point. Everywhere there was something worth getting, there was a population of players, some larger, some smaller. Everywhere else was a ghost town, with the odd player playing through.

- It sounds like we’re mostly in agreement and are just quibbling around the edges. Which has been great. It’s been nice reading and participating in a thread where people can quibble without going overboard about it.

All this talk about hard modes reminded me of something I liked in Ratchet and Clank..

Basically once you beat the game, you could play in a new mode where by avoiding getting hit, you could stack up a bonus to your gold from monsters. Get hit once, though, and the stack’d vanish.

So how about that? No overlay needed, just .. superior skill kept up over a long time. That or we just make southsun and orr especially hard zones (again) and make the rewards worth it.

Chris, you said, " feel free to discuss Horizontal Progression systems you have enjoyed in other games."

So, here are a couple:
1. The hats in Parallel Kingdom. Nike mentioned bragging rights. These are the epitome of that. More info here: http://guide.parallelkingdom.com/index.php/Category:Hats

2. The furniture sets in Animal Crossing. If we do player housing, this would be the way to go. Huge variety, some sets more rare than others, and it’s all cosmetic. Interestingly, Parallel Kingdom also has furniture sets, though not much in the way of variety and house skins that change the appearance of the outside of the house. Anyway, more info on Animal Crossing furniture here: http://accf.wikispaces.com/Furniture

Nike.2631:

The absolute king of all: allow a player to buy their way onto the Captain’s Council. This would be a truly unique way to allow a single player to show off in the hugest way possible.

Yeah, I could get behind that.

I’d wish that it wasn’t a way to get there with gold, but rather with actual dedication and investment of exceptional quality, like the Council of Stellar Management (CSM) from Eve online. These are community elected players who are directly interfacing with the developer teams.
I’d rather see the council of Lion’s arch to be actual players holding said positions which haven’t gained that spot through gold, but through personal dedication, investment and sheer awesomeness in whatever they do, pure quality – and then receiving the official acknowledgement of ArenaNet. They would represent a tighter link to interface between community and developers, and also would be represented in the game to also showcase the global awareness of this.

I know what you say now. But allow me to dream for just five minutes :/

Also, rewards could serve some scaling with time.

By this I mean:

The same way you get an exploration bonus for killing mobs that’ve lived in the world for a while, we would have rewards (or maybe a Magic Find buff) relative to how recently “X” has been rewarded. JPs, Champs, Dungeon Paths, etc.

Dungeon paths could stay at 60 tokens per run, but you could gain bonus tokens for runs that haven’t been completed as often, incentivizing running different paths.

Similarly, Champs in champ trains wouldn’t get any MF boost to their tables, but your random Champ out in some lvl45 area could have a table twice as good, all based on the same timing that exists for bonus XP.

There’re lots of ideas that could be implemented using existing systems in place.

Kulvar.1239:

@Margareeta.3461: Worst idea ever… It’s “grind like a korean” mode.
—-
There are two categories of hard mode askers. These who want challenge (and an extend of the dynamic level can be enough). And these who want to feel over other players by showing them their rewards (skin, title, …). The second category do not deserve any regard.

Yes it might sound like that. If some player choose to play Hard Mode, it should not be affected any another character or players around him. It should affect only that specific character. In instance world it is possible to choose Normal Mode or Hard Mode quite easily, like it was in GW1. In open world solution must be something else, because it should NOT be affected another characters.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Margareeta.3461:

Hard Mode could be like Ascencion. Character is dropped to level 2, all hearts and personal story is cleared, all dungeon story modes are cleard again, and they need to be done until character can access to another dungeon paths, and so on.

- Foes are giving less xp, but better looking loot.
- Characters can not use high end armors or weapons (meaning level 80) until they achieve back that level.
- Ascension is permanent until character has been reach lvl 80 again.
- Ascended character will get title Ascended.
- Ascended character need to do map completion again and when it is done, star behind of character name sould be very shiny.
- Ascended characters are glowing.

To me this doesn’t sound like a hard mode but as leveling up an alt with much more grind than before. Nothing which makes any encounter more difficult but just having the leveling phase expanded. Some might buy crafting mats and level up via crafting.

Who said there can’t be a more drastic scaling down system? It is right, you are leveling again from lvl2, but if they apply another down scaling system to you, the encounters will be harder and longer
it may sound like grind, but it opens up the whole new game for people who complain they have nothing to do after lvl 80.
How many people have asked for hearts to be repeatable? How many people wanted to redo all content but they don;t feel like exploring anymore because they ahve done everything and they don’t get anything better

This solution is giving new opportunities for those who think they have nothing to do. it is unlocked after you have the world completion star which is not available to everyone…. and it is a Personal Choice if you want to do it or not.

Some people might access the Ascension Mode by mistake…they can get back to NM through a gem store item that will nullify your Ascension mode

So, it is Open World content which will not affect other players around you except your own character.
If you are just clicking a UI button to get another down scale system just at the right boss fight and not all fights then it is not HM it is just exploit for better rewards

if you choose HM, you need to be in it for good. Think about the vanquishing in GW1. You enter the zone in HM, you can\t reset it NM whenever you see fit and then turn it back without consequences. You need to vanquish the zone entirely to get a reward

I open world this is not possible because you can’t affect other players so Margareeta;s idea, even if taken from some other game which I don’t remember right now, it is a viable solution for implementing a HM.

Ok, maybe the leveling should take the same amount of time like in NM so it won’t feel like more grinding but the fights can be tougher because you are permanently down scaled in a more drastic way What reward is for this? The exploration is open again for you and you can revisit all the zones again. basically it is the same game but more difficult.

Isn’t this the whole purpose of a Hard Mode? Playing the whole game in HM

buy hey, this is not Nike’s idea or other dev favorites, so people don’t think of them as valid and worth a brainstorming discussion. It just concludes to “no this is not good” or “no this is worse idea ever” like some other guy Kulvar said.
You guys, just want HM to be “your way” and if others have other ideas they attach certain NO to it without event double thinking how to convert the idea in a viable one if the original one was not so good explained

What other people suggested was either separate servers overflows, etc which are separating the player base or a tog-able button in hero panel for making your self more down scaled. Or have extended events which will affect the other players.
None of these ideas are valid in an Open World because they affect others
non HM people don\t want to be left alone in the map because all others are in HM maps. Non HM people don’t want longer and harder events because they are not in HM, and so on.
So, with a bit of touches here and there, Margareeta’s idea is probably one of the best ideas for Open world HM which brings the GW2 closer to GW1: vanquishing = completing all hearts again, HM missions= personal story missions repeatable in HM

Sorry Ronah, I’m only a fan of a Hard Mode in instances, not in the open world. (As a side note, I feel like Hearts are the absolute worst part of this game and am shocked that anybody would WANT to repeat them.)

I’d just like to say that I love the idea of donating to receive some public vanity. Now there’s a real gold sink rather than all those things like waypoint fees, repair costs and respec costs that are claimed to be gold sinks, but actually hurt the newer players (that gold sinks are supposed to protect) more than the established super-rich that are driving inflation.

Personally, if we’re looking at ‘hard mode’ ideas, I’m personally in favour of the “spirit dancer” idea… although I’d call it Ascended or Weh No Su to link it back to past instances of achieving a state where you could see and interact with things others can’t.

We’ve already seen cases of creatures having different levels of hostility and vulnerability to different players, so it should be easy to have “hidden” monsters be nonhostile and invulnerable to non-“spirit dancer” characters. Making them actually invisible or otherwise show different artwork might be a little more complicated, though. (Also, as a philosophical question – should they actually be invisible, or should they appear at some level – possibly with the graphic that allied stealthed characters have – to give that spooky feeling that something is going on at a level the character can sense but not fully perceive?)

Chrispy.5641:

*

• In Extreme mode, even Veteran enemies could have stacks of Extreme Defiance, a new mechanic that players in Extreme Mode need to remove in order to apply stuns, dazes, and other cc effects, but, it does not affect players in Hard or Normal mode.

I had to pull out this particular line to ask:

Don’t you think control has already been made next to worthless in a lot of situations due to Defiance? Is nerfing control even more, even if it is a voluntary mode that players opt in to, really going to make the game more interesting?

Margareeta.3461:

Hard Mode could be like Ascencion. Character is dropped to level 2, all hearts and personal story is cleared, all dungeon story modes are cleard again, and they need to be done until character can access to another dungeon paths, and so on.

- Foes are giving less xp, but better looking loot.
- Characters can not use high end armors or weapons (meaning level 80) until they achieve back that level.
- Ascension is permanent until character has been reach lvl 80 again.
- Ascended character will get title Ascended.
- Ascended character need to do map completion again and when it is done, star behind of character name sould be very shiny.
- Ascended characters are glowing.

This is ringing alarm bells to me – after going to the effort of levelling a character, unlocking dungeons, and such, I’d feel pretty awful having to tell a friend or guildie that I can’t help them with a particular dungeon because my main is in the process of Ascending… which would make it something I’d never use.

What I’d probably offer as a counter-proposal is that once you’ve achieved map completion with a profession, you can make a new character of that profession to seek Ascension. Rewards achieved by the Ascended character can be shared with other characters of the same profession.

timmyf.1490:

Sorry Ronah, I’m only a fan of a Hard Mode in instances, not in the open world. (As a side note, I feel like Hearts are the absolute worst part of this game and am shocked that anybody would WANT to repeat them.)

As you see above, the HM aka Ascension Mode is Optional like it was in Gw1. Not everyone has vanquished the zones or have done the HM missions. The same will be in here. it is something for those who want it.
I doubt they A-Net would like to make separate servers to separate the player base, so any idea to give content for people who feel they have nothing to do is valid in my opinion
Personally, I don’t like instanced content in a MMO so if they add HM to any of the dungeons I will not participate.

draxynnic.3719:

This is ringing alarm bells to me – after going to the effort of levelling a character, unlocking dungeons, and such, I’d feel pretty awful having to tell a friend or guildie that I can’t help them with a particular dungeon because my main is in the process of Ascending… which would make it something I’d never use.

What I’d probably offer as a counter-proposal is that once you’ve achieved map completion with a profession, you can make a new character of that profession to seek Ascension. Rewards achieved by the Ascended character can be shared with other characters of the same profession.

This is a valid issue you pointed out. It may be solved eitherr though an NPC which will sell temporary Normal Mode for 1g/h so you want 5h to be in NM again you pay 5 golds. (thinking the amounts you earn in Ascended Mode this won’t be a problem)
The permanent NM will be only unlocked through gem store item or after completing the HM star.
Your idea of crating an Alter ego of the same character is good too. having a lvl 80 character with world star and story done will unlock the new character slot which will give you access to the HM game.

Ronah.2869:

But hey, this is not Nike’s idea or other dev favorites, so people don’t think of them as valid and worth a brainstorming discussion.

I really don’t know what’s given you the impression my ideas in this thread have been all that well received .

I’m actually quite interested in the potential of a ‘hardmode’ be it one zone at a time or some sort of extended (re)play through… I just would like to see the idea talked through and refined so that it won’t be trivially easy to break it.

As a matter of individual fights its at first glance far too easy to hit something enough to tag it an then let your normal-difficulty buddies finish the heavy lifting. You can’t punish people passing by for helping and you don’t want the hard mode-person screaming curses at them because his progress shut down when they took a swing at a monster he was fighting. I don’t immediately see a way to isolate the challenge-seeker from aid accidental or deliberate… which was why I suggested a whole zone set aside for this and that went over like a lead balloon . Hopefully a more robust version will come out of these discussions because I’d like to see a solution that still works when the slightest bit of weaseling is applied to it. We’re not there yet.

It just concludes to “no this is not good” or “no this is worse idea ever” like some other guy Kulvar said.

If you believe in it, I wouldn’t be distracted by such vague challenges. But some of the points more clearly formulated do need to be considered and resolved. Find the people who are offering good critiques and interact with them instead of getting bogged down in unanswerable statements.

None of these ideas are valid in an Open World because they affect others
non HM people don\t want to be left alone in the map because all others are in HM maps.

I’m sorry but the wants of non-hardmode people don’t have any more sway over my play decision than people who think I should be playing at their precise levels of fractals or going and doing the Dungeon they’re most interested in at this moment. It’s like saying keg brawl is a bad thing because it takes people out of Lion’s Arch. Find the people who like doing what you like doing, don’t block your fellow players from doing something they’d enjoy just because you’re lonely.

Earendil Starsailor.4675:

- Heh, some niche gear is more niche than others; Settlers is one that is not in any kind of demand. It’s not enough to be unique; it has to also be desirable.

Evidently I’m destined to be ‘that guy’…

I have 2 full sets of Settlers armor. One that I bought for an alt coming up because never in my life would I have expected something paid for with common currency would be soulbound on purchase. Yes, that set is still sitting in my vault as I mull over what to do with it. I’m a tiny bit miffed about that.

The other I brought the mid-level alt out there and parked them at a vendor after dodging an all you could eat buffet of doom serving karka, skelks, and hungry windriders. That set is still on my Super Unicorn Thief now that it’s reached level 80 and it is the best thing since sliced bread for that type of build . That character is a perfect storm out in WvW for my playstyle.

There’s a lot of things the game needs to do to move away from DPS>ALL. Hopefully those things will make some of the options already in play more appealing.

Chris,

Could you please remind in start of the brainstorming topic to all people what are Basic rules of Brainstorming.

I know this is off topics, but I want to remind all those people who are writing in here: What is Brainstorming? It seems that many people don’t know Basic rules of Brainstorming. Here are the rules:

1.Defer judgment,
2.Reach for quantity.

Following these two principles were four general rules of brainstorming, established with intention to :
- reduce social inhibitions among group members,
- stimulate idea generation
- increase overall creativity of the group.

1.Focus on quantity: This rule is a means of enhancing divergent production, aiming to facilitate problem solving through the maxim quantity breeds quality. The assumption is that the greater the number of ideas generated, the greater the chance of producing a radical and effective solution.
2.Withhold criticism: In brainstorming, criticism of ideas generated should be put ‘on hold’. Instead, participants should focus on extending or adding to ideas, reserving criticism for a later ‘critical stage’ of the process. By suspending judgment, participants will feel free to generate unusual ideas.
3.Welcome unusual ideas: To get a good and long list of ideas, unusual ideas are welcomed. They can be generated by looking from new perspectives and suspending assumptions. These new ways of thinking may provide better solutions.
4.Combine and improve ideas: Good ideas may be combined to form a single better good idea, as suggested by the slogan “1+1=3”. It is believed to stimulate the building of ideas by a process of association.

And because of breaking these rules, this whole thing is out of control. People should not have to respond to the objections raised, but to generate ideas and develop ideas already given. Now some of those rule breakers are holding other people brainstorming process.

It is my personal belief that had you added a 100 point achievement for having 8 level 80 professions and a title like “One Man Army” and had each unique combination of race/profession/order learn a combat ability and a non-combat ability that other characters on your account could equip, you’d have created a good case for players to progress horizontally while also providing some vertical progression to your characters.

You’d certainly get more out of the existing content and those character slots, storage, boosters and skins would have a much larger customer base. Ascended has pretty much narrowed many players focus to one character. I’d have gone the other way, give them a reason to focus on more characters.

chemiclord.3978:

And how long do you think that would last before people started flooding the forums screaming that other players are making their events harder because they are engaging Hard Mode for themselves and thus dealing less and taking more damage?

Over/Under line set at 3 seconds after the patch notes are released.

I have to agree to this.
Hard mode won’t help the game one bit.

GW2 should have areas designed to be hardcore for those who needs a challenge and fractals is one of the areas. For some dungeons are (at least 50% of them).

Adding more of those areas will help hardcore players, but they will always scream for more, thats the reality.

As for me horizontal progression should be about many things that you can do on level 80. Working towards something that will show that you spend time actually playing (not gold wise because I’m sick of farming).

So quantity and variety of things to do. Many nonfarmable achievements/activities or those that should be divided in time. That is what I feel as most important for the game. Also rewards that are cool, because lately all the cool stuff is kinda gem bound.
I have problems with thinking about very good looking rewards what didn’t come from gemstore or black lion chests.

Last time it was around election I think that we had those cool looking items like Desert Rose and crystal themed back pieces (I don’t mean that we have to get back pieces, but something cool). The way ascended armors look is kinda terrible and it costs fortune, last updates gave us rather strange items than good looking (but some might not agree). We also have way too many special minipets and too little real rewards like armors (aside from achievement armors which shoulders always look terrible on norns – they are too big).

chemiclord.3978:

You WILL have legions complaining that your idea has ruined the “sense of community in game.” You WILL have people whining that you’re creating two tiers of rewards based on “gimmicks.”

Thats always in there… Yet you have to watch out for those people always.

chemiclord.3978:

“Arena.net loves warriors so much that they’re giving them improved loot! My [insert class here] can’t do hard mode! It’s favoritism!”

Thats already a problem and that is objective since that many people speak about it.
Unfortunately no balance patch ever touched the problem so people will stay sour and leave the game eventually.
Just look how many LFGs say warrior only. This is a real problem in GW2.

Necros were overpowered at the very start, then a lot of people used the way to overpower engineers and thieves. It was all balanced nicely, yet warriors especially in PvE are like the only way to win if you think about people with at least medium skill level.
I will hope we will see it fixed soon…

Kulvar.1239:

Chrispy.5641:

Hard Mode

I have a better suggestion, an idea that came a long time ago in a different context.
I’m a roleplayer and a thing I would like is to use game events and ennemies in roleplay. But when you are 20 it’s worthless to consider each single wolf because he’s instantly obliterated… The idea meet yours.

+ Level adjustement customization
Currently when in a low level zone, our levels are automatically adjusted. (and it’s a wonderful mechanism to play with friends of various level.)
A new option give the ability to setup the level adjustment from 0 (same as actually), to 10 levels of difficulty.

Example : I’m with my 80 in an area where monsters are level 41, I’m automatically down to level 42, but I want a bit more difficulties so I set my adjustement to -3 and instantly my level became 39.

It make fight harder for people like you and for roleplayers in group they can set their level to be threaten by monsters.

This is a very good idea.
I would like this.
We already see events spawn mobs on levels 82-84? if I’m right and they change difficulty of the encounter a lot so thats nice idea to use.

It can be used to redo maps similarly to vanquisher title in GW1. Complete all maps (hearts/kills?) with on heighten level. That could work nicely as an achievement.

Maybe hard mode for guild missions with some extra rewards?

The Lost Witch.7601:

Would I need to unlock hardmode for every single character for the feeling of progression? Or do I only need it for one? Or will it count the progress over all my characters?

I would say one. It would be way to grindy to do it for every character.
We can do normal map completions for every character and thats a lot of work.

Caveth.3268:

There are many zones that are empty or nearly empty at most times because there are little to no reasons to visit them after world exploration. Encouraging players to revisit these zones might not be too hard.

The idea I have is that the Asurans want the players to collect data from various things in different zones and with each bit of data collected, the player’s account gets reduced waypoint costs to that zone permanently.

(…)

Data Collection Ideas:

World Exploration (points of Interest, Vistas, etc.)

• Reward: +3 (per PoI, Vista, etc.)

General Exploration (just roaming the map and passively collecting data)

• Reward: +1 (per 5000 range treaded by your character)

Collecting Skill Points

• Reward: +5 (Per skill point gained)

Completing Events or Heart Tasks (if the zone has any of these)

• Reward: +3 (per event/heart task completed)

Collecting Lost Asuran Data Crystals (hidden throughout the zone)

• Reward: +500 Data (each Data crystals is a one time only find)

Vanquishing Certain Enemy Types (Destroyers, Inquest, Risen, etc.)

• Reward: +1 (For every 10 of one type killed)

Completing a Dungeon in that Zone

• Reward: +25 (Per path completed)

Killing Champions

• Reward: +3 (Per champion killed)

Jumping Puzzles

• Reward: +25 (Per puzzle completed)

Gathering (trees, plants, etc.)

• Reward: +1 (Per item gathered)

Speaking with NPCs

• Reward: (Case by Case basis)

Personal Storyline Completion (within the zone)

• Reward: (Case by Case basis)

Living Story Completion (within the zone)

• Reward: (Case by Case basis)

Achievement Points (while in the zone)

• Reward: +1 Data (per Achievement Point gained)

Guild Missions (within the zone)

• Reward: +50 Data (per mission)

Progression and Diminishing Returns:

Level 1:

• Requires: 100 Data
• Reward: -1% Waypoint Costs to this zone

Level 2:

• Requires: 200 Data
• Reward: -1% Waypoint Costs to this zone

And so on… The amount of Data needed should increase with each level – perhaps by 100 per level; the reward will be the same with each level gained. At Data level 100, the player will have 100% reduced waypoint costs in that zone (although 100% is unlikely to be reached with diminishing returns).

This is interesting idea.
This mechanics fits very good into fraction ideas.
We already help many fractions doing hearts in the open world.

Nike.2631:

Conner.4702:

I’m fully against all forms of hardmode, not because I dislike challenging content (when done well), but because it will take away people from an already desolate area.

Um, if you’re saying all future content has to take place within the maps we have now for fear of spreading things out… that’s pretty much the definition of Dead Game to me. And there were no more worlds to conquer – just maps to endlessly rehash.

While I have lobbied extensively for more Dynamic Events layering, refreshing and expanding the stories of the zones we have now, it was NEVER with the belief that what we have now should be the full measure of real estate the game shall ever present.

If the Living Story has taught us anything, it’s that the Devs can focus population where they want it for as long as they want it. Often to the detriment of any hint of challenge as the zerg consumes all.

Yes, that very right.
We need more space or even more people will go.
I personally struggle to see other games just to explore something because it’s such a dead space in GW2 :/.

Kulvar.1239:

But HM Zone need an interest for players not interested by challenges.
So it means new content (resource, equipment, recipes). And it imply that the old stuff became useless…

Because a HM Zone will be a “general” HM, not a personal HM as I suggested. Or an expansion.
Personal HM let player choose what level of difficulty he want, without impose it on others.

Many player can do HM areas once and be feed by it and never come back.
On the other hand those who need challenges with sit in those areas a lot.
Thats perfectly fine.

Antara.3189:

In GW1 HM was preffered by veteran players due to the upgraded loot tables and for title farming. Of course some players do prefer HM just for the challenge, but for the majority, I found that reward increases were the reason it was played.

I felt the same way in GW1.
This should be the case in those HM areas.

Sirendor.1394:

OPEN WORLD PLAYER BUILDING

• Allow us to customize PvE zones:
  - Herboreal Mastery: Allow us to gather seeds from existing trees and plant new ones in areas where it’s possible for them to grow: variety! Special zones & climates > Special trees. Seeds will drop from specific trees, aka. Ancient Trees, that are permanent (not able to cut them down) and player-planted trees, that are not permanent. You’ll have to go out in the world and gather seeds yourself!
  [Trees will sprout from the ground without players aswell, by chance]
  - Deadwood Mastery: Allow us to cut down player-planted trees on a limited scale (say 1 tree/account/day): trees should give a realistic and big mass of wood. If you cut down a tree planted by someone else, you have to pay that person with seeds from that tree. It is possible to scavenge, but there will be a prize on your head if you do, so be wary thieves!
  - Delving Mastery. Allow us to delve for ‘metals’ (not compared to the ore gathering we have now) in special spots per zone that are rich with ore. You can find spots that are able to be delved (destructible earth) with an ability.
  - Stonegrowth Mastery: Stimulate existing mines to produce more rich metals. This involves dwarven and alchemic rituals. [Ores will be produced by mines without players too, by natural processes]
  - Construction Mastery: Use materials you gather: different kinds of wood, different kinds of metal, rock and earthly materials to build something in the world, also in pre-restricted areas that have stable foundations etc etc.

• All the materials for these masteries should be accountbound and gathered through exploring the world yourself. It is possible to build things in group.

• The beauty of the idea: despite it being restricted to certain areas, everyone will have their shot at all these masteries. Constructions will decay from weather, atmosphere and occasionaly a storm or a monster invasion. They will be damage-able, but not by other players, UNLESS you decide to build in WvW… The need will always be there to explore and master your crafts. You might need a group of people in order to build one house, or be a very dedicated solo player. (it’s possible to build a guild house, or to gain dominance in a city as a guild).

• Adding affiliation in the mix: npcs such as refugees (Frost & Flame) can be convinced to build their own homes around existing player structures, by helping them with heart quests and somesuch.

• The world will become truly dynamic, with NPC’s on the move! This means existing settlements can be abandoned, take Fort Salma in Kessex Hills. NPC’s will migrate and hearts will too! Enemy NPC’s will be able to destroy those existing settlements and change zones with enermous expansion, if nobody stops them.

EDIT: To differ the general principle of these mechanics, it shouldn’t be like a generic ‘kill and gather’ sort of thing:

• Woodcutting could mean… climbing, with risks involved (O_O)
• Delving could mean… exploring underground (also climbing).
• Different classes could also get different ways to gather these resources:
  - Would you like to shoot an arrow up to a tree branch, tug it and test it’s strength and pull yourself up at risk of breaking the branch or wrenching your hooked arrow loose, as a ranger?
  - Would you enjoy dropping a couple of bombs on top of the tree and time-racing to get out of the tree before it explodes, as an engineer?

This really opens up a LOT of possibilities for adventure, challenge and fun!

I love the idea!
You can just plan areas when it can be done and this would be a ton of additional fun for PvE.
If done wisely also in WvW.

Nadesh.7953:

Random Factor

This idea came to me when i saw the Fire Shaman with the “Toxic Corruption” buff. It had this small spiders helping him. Then I thought, what if the big bosses have a random buff (among 50 or more posible ones) that spawn different kinds of minions to help them? some of those minions could be strong and help the bosses to deal damage, others could heal or give buffs. Or like someone suggested (in the thread i suggested this), could even give them new skills (like a new aoe, or summon a turret, etc).

I also enjoyed the buffs on bosses and those were very nice random factors. I would love to see more of those in the future and maybe some chance to see those mini spiders again every 50 champs or so.

Ronah.2869:

Make a zone in the middle of nowhere in which people can build their houses. Let it be an open world zone which territory will increase the more houses people are building
People can buy land and start building a house from a few basic patterns
The house will be account bound and will be related to the achievements.
The houses will develop into others the more achievement points an account has.
People can set up their house as “open to public” or “closed to public”
This will build up a sort of Divinity Reach but all houses are own by players.

I would prefer to rebuild HoM into a bigger and customizable in place of my home and trophy room. Maybe this time the whole building and only last room would be a trophy room?

Convert house instance to guild area. Choose one of the 5 and make it into guild area, then allow people to in there by summoning stone or portal in other home instances.

I don’t think Hard mode is really a great progression feature. I think new content could be more fun than that.
I want to see my character’s progression. things that show he’s been around & done certain things. Scars on his body, maybe part of his body got cursed or marked, new tattoos, a home with unique layout & items in it, special armor fx, special custom attack animations, an idle animation that represents his personality, medals/capes/decorations, relationships with npcs that show in the game.

Basically:
My progression should be visible in game, not in the UI. Making numbers go up is the height for boredom. Having my character covered in medals, in a cool pose, with battle damage, scars, his hand branded by an elder dragon wielding a hammer with customized look & unique fx that represent my character? That’s fun.

This may be buried too far in for any of the devs to read, but a prime example of how GW2 failed in horizontal progression was the ease of acquiring skills.

By the time a character is level 30, a majority of skills (utility/heal/weapon) are already unlocked. I would hope that in the future when introducing new skills, there will be some sort of system that would take time and effort to acquire them.

Skill progression/acquisition is one way you guys can truly improve on horizontal progression. Create elite quests that have to be completed to actually acquire elite skills. You get the idea.

There was some talking about “Hard Mode "(HM) here; just to say that: The original GW1 Hard Mode gave the player another instance with harder monsters. That was all, technically speaking (besides some slightly better loot). More important were the titles that needed HM; for a lot of titles, there were two versions of it – one for normal mode (NM) and one for HM.
So I think talking about ‘messing up events because some players have activated HM and others not’ isn’t really needed here, except you’re talking about an absolutly new HM that has nothing to do with the HM from GW1.

GW1 had a very time-consuming HM-title: Kill all monsters in a map in HM and it’s counted as ‘conquered’, conquer all maps and you get a shiny title. Whether an area was conquered or not was visible on the map.

How GW2 could do that: As soon as you have reached 100% from a certain map (e.g. Metrica Province), you can go to an NPC that lets you enter your own instance of Metrica Province with activated Hard Mode. The monsters are harder (lvl 80?) and, most important of all, they don’t respawn after death (and no events spawn). There is a counter that says how many monsters are left. Happy slaughtering. The rest can be the same as in GW1; a title that requires conquering all maps.
This is very time-consuming (good for hardcore-players), doesn’t give you any advantage in stats or whatever (good for casual players), and gives you a shiny title that shows how hardcore you are (this is really missing in GW2; most titles are just utterly garbage compared to the titles one could achieve in GW1).

DarksunG.9537:

I don’t think Hard mode is really a great progression feature. I think new content could be more fun than that.
I want to see my character’s progression. things that show he’s been around & done certain things. Scars on his body, maybe part of his body got cursed or marked, new tattoos, a home with unique layout & items in it, special armor fx, special custom attack animations, an idle animation that represents his personality, medals/capes/decorations, relationships with npcs that show in the game.

Basically:
My progression should be visible in game, not in the UI. Making numbers go up is the height for boredom. Having my character covered in medals, in a cool pose, with battle damage, scars, his hand branded by an elder dragon wielding a hammer with customized look & unique fx that represent my character? That’s fun.

this!!
I have no interest in hard mode simply for the sake of heard mode- as I am sure many of you can see Southsun doesn’t get played all that much, neither does teq on most servers and there were many more people zerging the pavilion than fighting the gauntlet.

We need fun content to show that our characters are more than the day they started- not just bigger mumbers

Septemptus.7164:

Sirendor.1394:

OPEN WORLD PLAYER BUILDING

• Allow us to customize PvE zones:
  - Herboreal Mastery: Allow us to gather seeds from existing trees and plant new ones in areas where it’s possible for them to grow: variety! Special zones & climates > Special trees. Seeds will drop from specific trees, aka. Ancient Trees, that are permanent (not able to cut them down) and player-planted trees, that are not permanent. You’ll have to go out in the world and gather seeds yourself!
  [Trees will sprout from the ground without players aswell, by chance]
  - Deadwood Mastery: Allow us to cut down player-planted trees on a limited scale (say 1 tree/account/day): trees should give a realistic and big mass of wood. If you cut down a tree planted by someone else, you have to pay that person with seeds from that tree. It is possible to scavenge, but there will be a prize on your head if you do, so be wary thieves!
  - Delving Mastery. Allow us to delve for ‘metals’ (not compared to the ore gathering we have now) in special spots per zone that are rich with ore. You can find spots that are able to be delved (destructible earth) with an ability.
  - Stonegrowth Mastery: Stimulate existing mines to produce more rich metals. This involves dwarven and alchemic rituals. [Ores will be produced by mines without players too, by natural processes]
  - Construction Mastery: Use materials you gather: different kinds of wood, different kinds of metal, rock and earthly materials to build something in the world, also in pre-restricted areas that have stable foundations etc etc.

• All the materials for these masteries should be accountbound and gathered through exploring the world yourself. It is possible to build things in group.

• The beauty of the idea: despite it being restricted to certain areas, everyone will have their shot at all these masteries. Constructions will decay from weather, atmosphere and occasionaly a storm or a monster invasion. They will be damage-able, but not by other players, UNLESS you decide to build in WvW… The need will always be there to explore and master your crafts. You might need a group of people in order to build one house, or be a very dedicated solo player. (it’s possible to build a guild house, or to gain dominance in a city as a guild).

• Adding affiliation in the mix: npcs such as refugees (Frost & Flame) can be convinced to build their own homes around existing player structures, by helping them with heart quests and somesuch.

• The world will become truly dynamic, with NPC’s on the move! This means existing settlements can be abandoned, take Fort Salma in Kessex Hills. NPC’s will migrate and hearts will too! Enemy NPC’s will be able to destroy those existing settlements and change zones with enermous expansion, if nobody stops them.

EDIT: To differ the general principle of these mechanics, it shouldn’t be like a generic ‘kill and gather’ sort of thing:

• Woodcutting could mean… climbing, with risks involved (O_O)
• Delving could mean… exploring underground (also climbing).
• Different classes could also get different ways to gather these resources:
  - Would you like to shoot an arrow up to a tree branch, tug it and test it’s strength and pull yourself up at risk of breaking the branch or wrenching your hooked arrow loose, as a ranger?
  - Would you enjoy dropping a couple of bombs on top of the tree and time-racing to get out of the tree before it explodes, as an engineer?

This really opens up a LOT of possibilities for adventure, challenge and fun!

I love the idea!
You can just plan areas when it can be done and this would be a ton of additional fun for PvE.
If done wisely also in WvW.

:) Glad you like it! Only thing I wasn’t too sure about is how it will fit in the current ‘gathering’, since you chop down trees/mine ore there aswell, but rather for armour/weapons than for ‘construction’ of houses or environments.

I guess both have their purpose in this game, though the crafting system is rather unrealistic. It should have involved more actual action from the player. Need to gather that dragonite ore for your ascended weapon? Descend into the pits of the underworld and fight your way back out! For one, Anet should take Skyrim and Assassin’s Creed as their example, combined with Minecraft with a load of world customization.

I guess they could simply delete the current gathering and place a challenging variant like the one I suggest instead. :P

Earendil Starsailor.4675:

Chrispy.5641:

Several Things….

- Heh, some niche gear is more niche than others; Settlers is one that is not in any kind of demand. It’s not enough to be unique; it has to also be desirable.

This post explains it better than I can ::: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3424070

Also, I used Settler’s gear as well, and I had a set for my Ranger for a good long time. I since salvaged most of it for ascended weapons/armor, but I am thinking of buying another set, because It annoys Warriors and Thieves to no end when they try to single out little ol’ me in WvW, and they can’t get a quick kill.

And the fact that all gear except for Zerker’s is Niche in some way because of how this game is designed, definitely needs to be addressed.

draxynnic.3719:

Chrispy.5641:

*

• In Extreme mode, even Veteran enemies could have stacks of Extreme Defiance, a new mechanic that players in Extreme Mode need to remove in order to apply stuns, dazes, and other cc effects, but, it does not affect players in Hard or Normal mode.

I had to pull out this particular line to ask:

Don’t you think control has already been made next to worthless in a lot of situations due to Defiance? Is nerfing control even more, even if it is a voluntary mode that players opt in to, really going to make the game more interesting?

I was just throwing it out there as an idea.

Also, With the exception of some crazy event scaling, where Anet takes the Defiant mechanic just a little too far…, I think there is Barely enough Defiant in the game. Consider that Champions running around in the game world have 3, just 3 stacks of defiance, and Champions in Dungeons have a few more. If your group (or a solo player) is seriously having trouble removing 3 stacks of Defiant, then there might be a distinct possibility that your group has a little too much Zerker in the mix, and not enough Control. A well Coordinated Group (or skilled enough Solo player) can keep pretty much any boss in this game totally locked down with their control effects, and even a very large zerg, if they weren’t always so concentrated on DPS, could do the same. Defiant is one of the very few cases in Guild Wars 2, where DPS does not matter, so it needs to stay unless someone can think of something better.

also, that’s why raid type content will barely work in this game. no one is coordinated enough to do it 90% of the time (whether defiant is actually in play or not). The other 10%? Well, look at Tequatl. That barely works, and thats when you somehow have over a hundred players working together, yet still wanting to go off and do their own thing. (my point stops here, but I want to go on into DPS a little bit, even if its not really related to Horizontal progression)

I believe “DPS only” is also a problem, and I know that many players agree with me. Anet gave us the tools to do most of these fights differently, but when they were balancing how stats worked, they were trying as hard as they could to get rid of the Holy Trinity, that unholy union between Tanks, Healers, and DPS, so they made Power, Precision, and Crit %, the absolute most powerful stats.

I actually made a post a long time ago explaining how Tripling your Power will triple the damage you do, and doing the equivelant of Tripling your Condition Damage (since it starts at 0) will also Triple the damage you do with Conditions. but, Tripling your Toughness will not Triple your damage reduction. Tripling your Vitality will not Triple your Health, and the equivelant of Tripling your Healing Power will not Triple your healing.

While that is very good balancing to have in PvP, where battles between Tanks and Healers could go on for days at a time (thank god thats not the case here). And its not exactly a bad thing in PvE and WvW, because you don’t have to see any Warriors running around with 6000 armor and 45,000 health, or Rangers with unkillable pets. Its not exactly helping the case either, because once players discovered how powerful DPS only builds are, even without a support or control build helping them, the game moved to a ‘DPS ONLY!!!" way of thinking, which probably happened within the first month of the game’s release.

I’m going to get off the subject now since its better left for another time (there is no horizontal progression in this discussion), but just like a sentence I said at the begining of this post. The fact that all gear except for Zerker’s is Niche in some way because of how this game is designed, definitely needs to be addressed.

At some point, we were asked for examples of games.

Housing :
I like the system of Runes of Magic, except pay diamonds every month for maintain position of objects. Really, the system password is very convenient for Roles Players! it avoids limiting the arrival of friends.
http://en.runesofmagic.gameforge.com/game/index/housing

exploration secrets:
I appreciate the mechanics of Tomb Raider (entire series), enigma, lever to uncover hidden doors, climb ladders, crawl, use ropes. running-jump-hook. Trudge everywhere.

Books on lore:
see Aion, There are books on the history of places, maps, in hostels and houses, or in camps.

Housing here housing there, also one guy just above me suggest`s open world building, which i doubt that gw2 engine support`s it i dont know it maybe does, but the point is one: Give People Power To Create! We need it.

Ronah.2869:

Most MMOS if not all focus their progression in 2 ways: increasing the level cap or adding more better gears. Both mechanics imply they need to add more High level content while the low level content is ignored.

My idea – which is not new to some MMOs – is to add levels to the skills which in GW2 style they don’t mean to be more powerful due to the scaling down system, but they need to have better visuals.

I will give different examples:
A lvl 1 “barrage” will have visually less arrows then a lvl 3 “barrage”
A lvl 1 “stomp” will make visually less dust then a lvl 3 “stomp”
A lvl 1 “minion” will be visually smaller then a lvl 3 “minion”
etc.

I would say the idea is very nice but most wont look into it and too flashy effects like “more dust” might hurt the game due to less visibility.

I would prefer other ideas joined to that. Skills might get better dmg or time of conditions by some minor % or maybe some additional effects that would imply that you have mastered it, but please don’t make the game some kind of titan’s fight.

Caveth.3268:

• Each jumping puzzle you do could reward 1 Lost Token. These Lost Tokens can be traded eventually for armor or weapons from a collector in Lion’s Arch. The armor and weapons from jumping puzzles should have a theme of exploration, discovery, secrets, and intelligence shown off in them; perhaps weapons and armor made of clouds, magical runes, feathers and light.
• Fractals already grant tokens, but the weapons are still RNG drops and there is no armor set – only a back piece and weapons; a Fractals armor set could potentially look amazing if it has the same theme as the weapons.
• Guild Missions have an exclusive weapon set already, but releasing an exclusive guild armor set for Guild Commendations would be a great idea as well. If they use the same theme as the weapons, they might look absolutely amazing.

Permanent Unlocks

Additionally, unlocking any of these skins should unlock them on your account or character permanently; after which, the player may re-use the skin on as many times as they want. The same should be done for pretty much any skin in Guild Wars 2; most should be soul-bound unlocks, but some could unlock on the entire account permanently (like the Hall of Monuments skins and the Achievement point skins).

The Living Story has a habit of releasing one-time only skins that can only be applied to one piece of armor and never is usable again; instead, these skins from the Living Story should be permanent account unlocks that may be applied over and over.

I very much like the idea.
Hopefully others will also.
We really lack a good rewards for things like JP and that is why nobody does the seriously. Skins from LS – also great point.

Caveth.3268:

Gem Store – Exclusive Rewards

The same unlock system should be done for any armor or weapon sets purchased in the gem store; they should be usable as many times as the player wants on their account. If someone spends ten dollars to buy a skin, it should definitely be usable as many times as they want for any character.

Speaking of the Gem Store, to reward players who actually buy gems with real money and support this game being free, Arenanet could reward exclusive armor and weapons to players. The more gems they buy with real money, the more unlocks they can choose.

There would be a full range of items to choose from: all weapon types, boots, shoulders, chest, leggings, helm, gloves, back pieces, aqua breathers and perhaps even mini pets, town toys, finishers, or tonics; there could potentially be other items as well. There may also be temporary awards (like a Royal Pass); adding in Royal Passes will encourage players to continually spend gems to keep their royal pass active.

Reward Ideas (every 400 Gems bought):

• 400 Lifetime Gems Bought: Choose one of the following Weapons, Armor pieces, Back Pieces, Mini pets, Toys, Finishers, or Tonics from this exclusive set; this will unlock it permanently on your account. Also awards 1 Royal Pass (2 weeks), and a random item from the Gem Store.
• 800 Lifetime Gems Bought: Choose one of the following Weapons, Armor pieces, Back Pieces, Mini pets, Toys, Finishers, or Tonics from this exclusive set; this will unlock it permanently on your account. Also awards 1 Royal Pass (2 weeks), and a random item from the Gem Store.
• 1200 Lifetime Gems Bought: Choose one of the following Weapons, Armor pieces, Back Pieces, Mini pets, Toys, Finishers, or Tonics from this exclusive set; this will unlock it permanently on your account. Also awards 1 Royal Pass (2 weeks), and a random item from the Gem Store.
• 1600 Lifetime Gems Bought: Choose one of the following Weapons, Armor pieces, Back Pieces, Mini pets, Toys, Finishers, or Tonics from this exclusive set; this will unlock it permanently on your account. Also awards 1 Royal Pass (2 weeks), and a random item from the Gem Store.
• 2000 Lifetime Gems Bought: Choose one of the following Weapons, Armor pieces, Back Pieces, Mini pets, Toys, Finishers, or Tonics from this exclusive set; this will unlock it permanently on your account. Also awards 1 Royal Pass (2 weeks), and a random item from the Gem Store.

Please leave gem store out of systems of this kind.

timmyf.1490:

(As a side note, I feel like Hearts are the absolute worst part of this game and am shocked that anybody would WANT to repeat them.)

This only serves as proof and healthy reminder for everyone in this topic to remain open and objective, for there are a great many of different mindsets playing Guild Wars 2. And I am one of those who want to repeat hearts for my previously mentioned reasons.

timmyf.1490:

Sorry Ronah, I’m only a fan of a Hard Mode in instances, not in the open world.

I pick that to show my support for this.
Hardmode in instances only. Selectable open world hard mode is a relic of GW1 that worked well because EVERYTHING was an instance, but people fail to see how big the split of the community would be if this actually was done in a true open world. You punish so many people doing that, and drive a wedge into the playerbase.

Arenanet can later seed by-default very hard zones which are like southsun cove, so not required for map completion, thus the achievement hunters or people who do not seek the challenge are not forced to go there. All achievements for this zone / Event would provide ZERO points, but give you certain titles and other goodies instead. An example would be something like Orr, but way more linear and much harder. Instead of random attacks throughout the map, we would be pushing a border into enemy territory, reinforcing the frontlines, and the enemy fights back hard and fast so people have to keep at it, else they lose ground. The further we get in, the harder it is to establish a foothold and keep it.

What they COULD implement into the regular open world without needing to fiddle with a hardmode version is extra stuff on the map, not required for 100% explorer completion but as a separate bar. Skill challenges would become “hardmode” on selection, which either phases you into a different sub-instance or just leaves things in the open, and the skill challenge becomes a lot more difficult and diverse.
They could also introduce a completely new type, similar to guild challenges, but only in enclosed areas. Special dwarven keys which unlock hardmodes, and only people who have that key can enter with the others. Effectively making “hardmode pockets” in the same zone, but you are still on the same map, playing with the same people, reading the same map chat.

First of all, my english is not my main language so please forgive my possible mistakes and excuse me if some of the terms of the game are not properly used in the post. Anyway, I hope I can explain myself enough.

I didn’t read all the thread, and I see some people already suggested about unlocking, but I’ll do my own unlocking suggestion.

One thing everybody seems to like nowadays is to be able to customize his characters. To improve the horizontal progression in this terms, the best thing I can think of is to base it in an unlocking mechanism, pretty much expanding the systems there are for dyes, account rewards… and not that much like the PVP locker, that is more item based, and in the end dropping in part the transmutation system the game has now.

On the other hand, I guess Anet wants to keep selling gems, and I guess the system now, with transmutation stones/crystals gives them that, so I’ll try to keep this in mind in my suggestion.

So, the suggestion itself is as follows.

In general, there should be two kinds of unlockables. Account Bound and Character bound (surprise!).

Account Bound
Account bound should be all the things related to achievements. This include the current Account Rewards by achievement points, HoM rewards, and should include every reward obtainable by achievements, especially those of the living world. Every backpack or helmet skin of this should be selectable anytime for any character in the account once is achieved.
If the reward is an item with a stats, then only give one, but unlock the skin (if it’s unique) for the account.

Character Bound
This should include most of the elements in the game, including armor and weapon skins, town clothes, dyes, etc. Being character bound assures there can be always something to get for a character and gives something to earn for a much longer time.
To unlock each one of these there could follow some rules. What I think of is:

• Every normal ugly weapon skin (e.g. pvp standard) should be unlocked for every character always.
• Every item/skin can be unlocked by an special item that could be sold by gems (more of this later)
• Max level crafters (or 400+) can create the skin-only version of the items they normally can create. This can be more or less expensive with a variety of recipes (adding fuel to professions). This items should be sellable, and on use, it will unlock the skin for the character. Keep adding skins to the crafting system, with new recipes and there will be new things to do periodically. Add skins to weapon crafters professions and will revamp the profession.
• Token based items should always unlock the skin for the character when it is equipped. This include Black Lion and dungeons skins.
• Legendary gear and cultural/order/guild armors/weapon skins will be unlocked when bought.
• For orange max level weapons, there can be an item or a mystic forge recipe that transform orange cool skin weapons into the unlockable skin-only version.
• Dyes will work much like now. (Well, expanding dyes to weapons will be the perfect, but that’s another thing :P )
• Town clothes will unlock the skin (or the item in this case) on equip too.
  With a system like this, there will be a lot of things to do ingame, and everyone could customize his character much more deeply than now, not worrying worry for changing his appearance, since nothing is lost.

About the gem business, there can be some opportunities.

• Universal Unlocker: When used with an item, it’s skin is unlocked for the character, without destroying the object nor bounding it, so the item itself can be sold, gifted, transferred, recycled…
• Character Unbounder: Can be used to transform a unlocked element into an a account bounded skin-only item, locking the skin again for the character. This way, an item unlocked for a character can be transferred to another character in the account.
• Account Unlocker: Used with an unlocked item will unlock the item for all the account, so all characters, (existing and/or future created) can use that skin. I’m not that sure about this, but it’s a possibility anyways.
• “Itemizer”: An item to transform an unlocked into a skin-only not-bounded item which can be sold, gifted… locking the item again in the process. Of course, not usable with account bound items.
  All this items could be used with dyes too. And all the system can be expandable. For example, this can be used to unlock hairstyles or hair tints (specially the exclusive ones), which can be unlocked used the already existing items for changing the hair.

With a system like this, the customization opportunities for a character are endless. Can revamp the professions and even help to sell more gems. For example, I’ll be much more interested in Black Lion Chest Keys if the weapon I can get is usable anytime I want with my character. I’ll be much more interested in doing dungeons, even if I don’t like the skins, only for collecting purposes.

1. Legendary Armor SKINS and Legendary Dyes – Have a way to earn this and make it very difficult. Once you earn this and unlock it, it saves to your account in the same spot as your Zenith skins. As for dyes, make dyes account bound, not character bound.

2. Homes and Guild Halls – I really think that it would be cool to actually build and customize a home and guild hall for your character and. You already have some items to go into your home instance, but the designers choose where it goes, how it looks, etc. Give us the freedom to move stuff around and add items where we see fit.

3. Hard Mode – I loved hard mode in GW1 and would love to see it again in 2. It was refreshing to revisit dungeons and have a whole new challenge awaiting me.

1: QUESTS! I want to receive mail from my order/other affiliates (my college as an Asura, ex.) requesting me to do something in game. There are so many secret thing like hidden chests and environmental weapons, make it so that once I have this quest, a random chest has this special quest item in it in addition to its normal loot.

2: MOUNTS: Make it so we can only WP when near a WP, and give us mounts. This will create a lot of build diversity because people can stop stressing over swiftness or that 25% passive in their builds.

3: A MINIATURE SLOT: Give us a reason to collect the cuties.

I’ve listed 2 of my own ideas, because I found them really important, though they might not be the best ones about those topics, just easiest for me to find.

1- Player-changeable world
(https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/15#post3421456)

2- Horizontal stat/skin/class progression: unlock them all and never have to worry again.
(https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/5#post3409333)

3- Story-driven quests/missions that allow your character to progress in different ways: skin ‘transformation’, affiliation, PvP missions, guild content.

One thing I would love that would help horizontal type improvement/fun would be a revamp of how minis work. They should be in their own interface where you can open that interface to summon them instead of them residing in the collection part of your bank inventory. With the current system I have a bunch of super cute minis that never see the light of day because it is to cumbersome to use them and not have them instantly poof the first time you go to clean up your gathering materials.

I think a lot more people would be interested in minis if this was done. I have friends who did not even realize they even HAD minies until I told them where to look for them. They got them and then they were deposited to the collection before they even realized they ever received them.

Magnus Heartseeker.7958:

1. Legendary Armor SKINS and Legendary Dyes – Have a way to earn this and make it very difficult. Once you earn this and unlock it, it saves to your account in the same spot as your Zenith skins. As for dyes, make dyes account bound, not character bound.

With all due respect… legendaries are probably for <5% of the GW2 population, because of their insane cost. They are considered, by the majority, as a horrible grind and an item that shows not the professed skill of a player, but his grinding activities. I’m sure if the developers come up with legendary armour/legendary dyes… it will end up costing 2000 gold too. In that perspective… they would be a huge letdown, as the legendary weapons are.

1. New Dungeon Achievements I would love a new way to explore the dungeons we currently have, a way to make them more fun and give me a reason to go back and run dungeons that are done less frequently. Meta Dungeon Achievements. Each dungeon will have 10-20 quirky things to do/find/kill that award new achievement points. Things like killing the Ooze King/Queen in CoF. No player going down. Time trials. Finding a secret room. That kind of thing. Perhaps with a special skin or item specific to each dungeon once you finish so many of them.

2. New Non-Gem Store Armor Sets I love the idea of giving new life and new reasons to slay the world bosses. I’d love to see a way to either craft world boss specific armor or purchase them. Any number of ways to do this: new boss specific tokens/new crafting items (Shatter Scale, Shadow Behemoth dust, Jungle Wurm claw, etc) Either way, I feel like a lot of people are starting to all look the same. I’d love for some more variety.

3. New Heart Quests/Order Missions I want a reason other then Living Story to venture out into the world! Many people complain about how they don’t like the zerg mentality that occurs with the Living Story and forcing entire servers essentially into one map. Why not give us a real reason to venture outside of LA besides WvW, dungeons and world bosses? How about new heart quests that pop up once you’ve 100% completed a map? Or perhaps a MAP Heart that was a sort of map-wide quest to help someone there.

In conjunction with this we discussed incorporating the different Orders and having them give their own quests. I would include not just the Order of Whispers, Durmand Priory and Vigil in this but also The Pact and even the Seraphs. Perhaps even the different races!

1. Customisable Housing and Guildhalls. Through earning things , not buying ideally. i.e the champion farmer can buy a big house but won’t have anything in it cos they haven’t unlocked any items. Where as the player who has achievements from PVE,Dungeons,Wvw and living stories have a rich and varied house.

2. Legendary Dyes, with all steps and the end product being account bound, this is a personal goal not an earn the money goal.

3. An elite area with unique, you guessed it account bound rewards, Fow, underworld, DOA style.

I feel really strongly that all rewards from horizontal progression should be account bound so that you can guarantee a player actually earned it themselves. Guaranteed completion rewards for some of the unique items but not all (there has to be something for them to hunt) would minimize RNG rage.

1. Player Housing / Improvement to home instance.
“The place to show progress”
Lots of interesting NPC’s, mementos, visually recognizable progress, QOL etc…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/7#post3412024

2. More “earnable” character customization.
“Manga teaches us to never fight people that glow or shout louder than you”
Animations (Stance, walk, emote, skill etc…), More skins (Preferably ones that “Ascend” to look more flashy), Titles with effects (Like map complete star) etc…

3. Faction Based Reputation
Several idea’s have been bounded around about dedicating to a cause, either the current three or preferably adding race factions (Skrit, Kodan etc…). Rewards around titles, skins, emotes etc… Also top 1000 / 100 / 10 contributions give elite rewards.
This can tie into my two suggestions above as its more of a vehicle than a destination.

Horizontal Progression and Lore
Tyria is a world rich in Lore, but, whenever I want to find out about something, normally it takes me out of the game, through the Forums/internet/wiki, and then several hours later, I finally find the information I am looking for. Sometimes, it will be in the game, but the specific piece of info is held by a lone NPC….somewhere, and it takes me even longer to find the info ingame! Also, There’s nothing wrong with the short stories that get posted on the website, but, there really needs to be a better way to collect Lore that isn’t hours and hours out of the way.

So, here’s the system I am thinking of:::
- First Make a new Tab in the Hero Panel called the Living World Tab, or Expand the Hero Panel for that. There should be a way to read a summary of what happened in the game.
- Make a New Tab in the Hero Panel. Call it the Lore Tab. This is the quickest and easiest way to give us access to info on stuff in the game. Set up the Tab like the Personal Story.

• On the Left, there is a list of all the lore we grabbed so far, seperated by section (History, Mythology, Places, People, Creatures, Bosses, etc.) and next to the name tells us how many pages we need to collect in that section (People (48/120)).
• On the Right, There is Concept art or a Model on the Top, and the Wall of Text on the bottom that Lore Masters love to read.

- Collecting Lore in the world can be as simple as just adding a page when you fight a certain boss, or visit a place, or it can get as complex as finding Items in your loot drops, and using that to unlock a new page or get a skillpoint. They can even be tradeable so the rarest pages of Lore need to be bought for alot of gold or found.

- The Rewards aren’t hard. Collect all the Lore, get achievement points, and get a new Title to show off (Loremaster?). Also get an Item skin like a Scholar’s cap or a new Back item thats shaped like a book, or something of the sort.

Other ideas I had in this Thread
Horizontal Progression and :::
Weapon Skills : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3413290
Factions : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3413603
Characters in Guilds : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3417006
Ranger Pets/Profession Looks : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3418505\
Hard Mode : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3420078

There, I’m done!

Hard mode is just rehashed content. Boring. And yes, I did vanquishing (hard modes zone clears) in GW1, where it served to revitalized low-level zones to a limited extent. I wouldn’t complain if we could solo-vanquish zones in GW2 for really nice awards.

But I wouldn’t want ANet to spend a lot of time implementing hard mode.

I’d rather see a gradual and constant addition of new level 80 material and zones.

I’m not objective at all .. but ..

Kulvar and me hard work to reflect to our ideas.

it is for us, what it lacks in game.

Kulvar:

lore:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3419452

Guild Hall:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3416621
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3416623

My ideas:

Armor, personalization and Explorations:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3407529

Yes, I’m selfish … But there are so many good ideas everywhere it is already a heartbreaker to choose… sad

My Top 3 is the ideas developed with my friends :

• Lore Codex
• Guild Halls & Housing Part 1, Part 2
• Order Quests

1. More armor skins (Legendary Armors, new tiers of cultural armor)
2. Legendary Dyes
3. Improvements to miniatures