Guild Wars 2

1. I agree with Temariah who said ‘QUESTS’. It’s almost to the point where I miss the exclamation marks over NPCs. Right now in Open-world PvE, you can either aimlessly run around, or follow a zerg. I want some more direction, and to be encouraged to visit the corners of the map.

2. Weapon Skills. Even though GW1 had a ton of subpar skills, it was still fun to play around with the skillbar. Even as a primary elementalist, with the highest number of skills available at any given time, I find myself wishing I could customize the available skills.

3. Better variety in obtaining visual upgrades. In order to get a specific ‘endgame’ armor look, you have to grind a dungeon something like 20 or 30 times. Outside of these dungeon armors, there are next to no skins (weapon or armor) that drop in the open world that have desirable looks (obviously just my opinion). Would REALLY love to see region and even zone specific ‘endgame’ skins, like GW1 had.

1. Improved skills and mechanics. Sub-classes, new traits, and more options all apply.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/6#post3410269
2. “New” areas. with this I tack on brand new zones, revisiting/expanding gw1 areas. and Hard Mode (preferably the gambit/mistlock version). https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/15#post3420593 also including these ideas https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/17#post3423760
3. Player Customization. With this I include Housing, Guild Halls, and the “skin crafting” idea. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/6#post3410269
(I know its bad form to quote yourself, but I’d be filling my list with links if I tried to pick out all the parts I wanted from the rest of the thread. They’re mostly already here, or have been mentioned in previous CDIs/discussions.)

Sirendor.1394:

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.

Also, consider that there are people like me who have no interest in legendaries at all. The lack of interest is due to ubiquitous skins, boring acquisition, and no interest in bragging. I’ve talked to quite a few players who don’t care about legendaries. And I don’t see something silly (unicorn arrows?) as progression.

Also, legendaries progress to the same small number of limited points.

I want progression that makes my character stand out, rather than “progression” that makes me like everyone else.

Just want to promote a post I originally made with regards to how we discuss/approach the ideas of everyone participating.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/14#post3418183

• Let’s look for CHARACTER progression, everyone. Things such as new zones, maps, gametypes, etc… progress the game as a whole, not the character. While I’m sure we all want these things, I feel Anet is aiming at character progression first, because it can be acted upon more quickly and with possibly fewer resources or costs.

With that said… my top 3 (with no links because there’s just been a flood of stuff)

• Add meaning to the existing Personality system (Charm, Dignity, Ferocity). One possible approach – Have choices affect a character’s appearance or features, especially in a character’s face. Introduce a toggle-box to use personality to determine personal look or not use it.

• Add meaning and character development based on the Order a player chooses in Personal story. Other players have gone into detail on what they would like to see. I just see it as having large potential to be built in any number of ways. One thing for certain…please do not just add a “Faction Standing” bar for us to work up incrementally (as has been done in other games, even GW 1). A faction bar or standing could enhance a more in-depth approach of fleshing out each order with Order-specific events, new Order rewards, and a further focus on highlighting the roles of the Orders in the Living Story.

• Improved skill mechanics (re-introduction of “Charge” skills that were dropped in development), New Utility skills, Ability to alter/upgrade/change weapon skills.

oops….uh….only 3….darn it….well…..

(1) Weapon Skills – So long as its balanced, being able to choose different skills on our weapons with different effects would be a wonderful way to increase build diversity, and it will also get players out to skill trainers in far flung parts of the world to gain access to these new skills!

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3413290

(2) Lore – Either the one I just Thought of or Louveepine’s Dragon Age Codex Idea, or the few others in the thread , the simple thing to take away from this one is….I want my Lore in the game!!!!

Louveepine’s Codex : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3419088
Mine : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3425406

(3) Visual Customization – Half the ideas on this thread involve being able to customize the look of our characters in some way, and Being able to Customize a wide array of Profession abilities and looks through a single new equipment slot is, in my opinion, one of the better ways.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3418505

(Those three easily win out over hard mode, individual guild progression, and faction progression, the other 3 ideas I had in this thread.)

1. Earning stat-swappability on exotic/ascended equipment

2. More “Fractal Capacitor”s – Earning items progressionally, and being able to show off your in-progress states.

3. Better rewards for Living Story completion consistency – If I completed x of y living story meta achievements (like, say, 11 of 13) in LS Season 1/2/3/etc, it means I’ve been playing consistently for a year and I really should get something legendary for it!

Extra: I’d add skills and traits (and the journey to get them, which is probably more important), but balance is something this game takes very seriously and I understand that new traits/skills cannot just be conjured up and released quickly in case they disrupt that balance. I would add it to my top 3, but I know that it is just wishful thinking.

My top 3 ideas are :

• Progressive Horizontal Skillset- Something that lets us change the graphics/colors/effects of our abilities through completing fun and interesting challenges. Example: Changing Guardian skills from blue/wavy effects to red/spikey effects on swing/ability use.

• New Weapons/Armor skins – The game is in need of an update here with non cash shop skins. The choice hasn’t changed hardly at all since release, we need at least 20-30 new armor skins for each type and a lot of new weapon skins as well. Whenever you see the same outfit everywhere in LA, it’s time to add new good ones

• Unlocked Weapon Skills/ Other Skills – I think we should be able to choose what skills we want on our hotbar. There is no reason to restrict us to the same 5 buttons for a weapon type. True skill and weapon skill free choice would go a long way in making the game more enjoyable.

To expound upon this, let us choose which stats we want to get bonuses to with our trait points as well, let us select from a pool of say 4 stats instead of 2, and pick the 2 that best matches our character. That way, Guardians don’t have to get useless condition damage to get precision, etc.

• 1. Guild System/Activities Improvement: Guild Halls, GvG, Alliances and everything new about guilds.

• 2. Skill Customisation & Skill Upgrades: more weapon types, more Utility and Weapon skills, more skill customization such as multiple upgrades.

• 3. More Weapon and Armor sets: Fractal Armor, Guild Armor, Dragon Weapons & Armor… and don’t forget capes!

Have a nice day Mr. Whiteside

With all of the talk of Vertical and Horizontal Progression I have an observation. The introduction of the new healing skills on the classes I have observed looked like they where stronger but also required more skill to be effective.

I do like that these skills are not initially available to a class in spvp because personally I enjoyed feeling like I earned the skill and I also felt I needed to learn the class to appreciate what the skill could do.

This to me looked like both a horizontal and vertical progression. I am excited to see more of these skills and hopefully weapons that are unlocked by playing the class. I don’t know how but it would be great to have to unlock abilities in a different way other than just skill points.

Keeping it simple:

1) More meaningful skills

2) More places to explore.

3) More character customization

1. Guild Halls: So many posts on Guild Halls I will just include my vision – A meeting place for like-minded individuals. Filled with fantastical wonders both great and small. A place to spur the imagination in whimsical delight, touching the very soul of all who enter. A bastion of hope and embodiment of dreams. Where even the 6 gods would envy to tread. Now THAT’S a Guild Hall.
2. Soulbound less, Accountbound more: – Drastically reducing Soulbound will encourage more Alt Character development.
3. Increase Skill Options/Templates: – Build crafting like in GW1 allowed for an option to expand and grow a character via extended build opportunity.

1) Skin locker particularly for Gem purchased or living story skins that cannot be gotten anymore…

2)Quests to gain things rather than relying on TP, crafting, or store. Give me an epic quest to get a set of ascended armor or weapon…or a legendary….it doesn’t have to be easy, but it should be able to be done by the average player (legendary might be more).

3) More Character customization (skins to go after that can be mixed-matched, maybe effects-like dyes (glowing dye), things like that…the ability to upgrade items like the fractal capacitor would go along with this (the last upgrade is purely cosmetic).

I would like to add….that even though there is no trinity, I would love to see dungeon mechanics that take advantages of certain class strengths / weaknesses.

For instance, a dungeon that actually has 3 paths that are dictated by who is in the group….there is a direct fight path…where you fight your way through, but there also is a way to go over a ledge utilizing either a mesmers or a thieves teleport to then open a door….while the third path might have an area necessary for invisibility to cross (utilizing the thief, ele, or Mesmer invis).

All three paths would have equal loot, but it would give more meaning to the different classes…and all three paths are do-able by the entire party if they have just one person of the “special ability” class to get past the obstacle….

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?
……..

Did completing campaigns to unlock hardmode feel worthwhile and characterbuilding in GW1? Or was it more frustrating that your friends couldn’t join your challenges because they didn’t have it unlocked?

…….

I have been playing GW1 since right after release of Prophecies and have all chapters and EotN. While I don’t have every single achievement, it’s more because of a lack of time (you know, real life stuff) than boredom or frustration.

Hard mode was unlocked in each of the games long ago for my characters. Has it ever been frustrating because I could HM but my friends could not yet? NO. In fact, it allowed me to share parts of the game and tips on missions to make their experience perhaps more enjoyable so we could then adventure on together later.

That’s what community is all about – and GW2 at this point does not offer much of it. (Personal opinion)

There is very little replayability, very little horizontal progression. Emphasis is more on gear for dungeons more than your individual character.

The “personal story” is just like everyone else’s – i.e. not personal at all – and actions do not change your game at all. The NPCs do not change toward you if you’re a Charr in The Grove or a human in Old Ascalon.

There is nothing else, really. Except for dungeons wherein you are forced to party up, there is no incentive to group.

The POI and Vista system does not encourage world-wide exploration. Perhaps the GW1 style of kissing every rock and scraping every sand dune might not be the answer, but it is a darned sight more complete of an idea. This is a beautifully rendered world, it goes to waste under the present farce of ‘exploration’ and ludicrous respawn rate.

I really like a LOT of ideas posted in this thread. Here are three (ok, four… I cheated) of them in no particular order.

• More armor customisation options, this idea has been posted and refined by many. DanteZero deserves the link though.
• Challenge missions, a return to a GW1 classic, but better!
• Head hunters, a rough idea by Marcus Greythorne: Capture champions and fight them in an arena.

Bonus: Dungeon assets, an idea in progress, but with a lot of new progression potential.

The hard mode sounds like a good idea, but what worries me about this mode is that player will only want warriors and guardians in the party.

Hmm this is tough, there’s a lot of great ideas.

Guess I’ll go with:

1. Player housing: I mean most of horizontal progression is collecting nice things right? Once we can’t fit any more on our bodies, it’d be nice to have something else to decorate.

2. More non-gem armors/clothes: Because gems aren’t all that horizontal. BONUS: Add out of combat first person zoom so we can more easily look-at/screenshot people in their nice new stuff.

3. Any sort of quest/hard mode/whatever that applies to solo content. I’ve been having a hard time finding stuff to do by myself. (Note: co-oping with randoms in open world still counts as solo content because we’re not tied together.)

I’m not sure if this was mentioned earlier… But I would like to see new weapon skills.

I would like these new skills to be customizable akin to the utilities/heal/elite skills…
ie. Weapon _, slot __ has 2 (or more) skill options

I feel that this will bring about a huge variance in gameplay mechanics, ups the skill level of players without increasing the amount of effort players have to invest into their builds.

Allowing for player customization of their play

1) Sub-classes (more traits, weapons and skills in general)

2) New ways to acquire skills

3) Quests! More interaction with the orders and other organizations in Tyria

Dungeons – something to do with dungeons.

Right now, you have to go into a dungeon what, 4-5 times, to complete it? Three or four story lines then the final. Boring. With few exceptions, you take the same basic paths, simply face different foe maybe in a different room (w00t) and then – assuming the NPC you’re escorting/protecting hasn’t suicided or died – hop over to the last room/chamber to kill the Big Bad Enemy. Timer to make sure you don’t overstay your welcome.

Urgoz, The Deep, FoW and The Underworld were interesting places where you could, if you survived long enough, explore and find new corners which might make you ooh and aah.

Why not have an exploration mode for each dungeon area? They are instanced already, so it wouldn’t take a boatload of new coding.

1.) Skins/armor/dye locker – A tab to store armor looks, and especially dyes to that armor look, so I can go back to an entirely new wardrobe as I see fit to customize my character.

2.) What I call Legendary Legendaries – The legendary weapons are fantastic, don’t change them or add visuals to the game that water down the experience of having a legendary weapon. I want my legendary to be the coolest big-bad weapon out there, and if some legendary dye comes out for say swords, that trumps my Bolt, I would be very upset.

3.) More Living Story related to the core story of Gw2 – Use the Living Story less as a tool to keep players interested in XYZ event this week, and more of a vessel to tell the core story through. Meaning, the big-bad Elder Dragons that haven’t done anything but watch their underlings get dismantled time and time again.

Three, eh? Hmm…

Well, first I still am fond of the personal area we can modify and grow, and how that opens up something like tinkering as a crafting profession.

Secondly… a long time ago I posted a concept for fishing, which would have things like new skills on the bar (cast, jiggle bait, reel in, etc), craftable fishing poles, etc. It may not sound like horizontal progression to some, but it opens a whole different direction for your character to grow if fleshed out. (Imagine accidentally hooking the big toe of a Champion Krait and the chaos that a simple cast of the line could cause…)

Third would be getting around to what Colin had mentioned about all characters having access to all weapons, but I’d add the additional weapons through various means and not a simple “pick it up and use it” because they’re not core to the professions to begin with. Perhaps an event chain leads to a item you return to a great sword trainer who in turn teaches your necromancer the fundamentals of great sword use and how to adapt them to necromancy, things of that nature.

1.) World story progression and consequence
This means wrapping up the things we already did to give them meaning and inject continuity. Give us Order Missions and get the Elder Dragon storyline back on track, the living story is wasting our time as it is. Go on an alternate schedule; main Elder dragon storyline – buffing world – living world (aka sidestory). I’ve written a deal about this HERE °click°

2.) Content that challenges our skill and not our wallet or gear stats
Bring harder variants of dungeons. Bring achievements that are worth skill and don’t just don’t happen along the way like doing 25times the same thing. Don’t gate harder content with better gear because then the only challenge is obtaining it, not doing the content.

3.) Give us more incentive to explore our class and be diverse
Switching builds and traits WITHOUT needing to purchase a gem-store item should become interesting. Reward people for wanting to be diverse and carry different item sets, and don’t punish them. Do not punish them even more for trying to keep the look they sunk a decent chunk of money in, for that keeps many players from getting more into their class. °insert skin locker proposition here°
Introduce alternate weapon skills, which would be either be simply inverting the skills or change a bit of the utility. In this context, bring a few more support and elite skills which should ultimately address underwater combat. I’ve written about it HERE °click° and also THERE °click°

Oh, and Polymock.

VOLKON.1290:

Oh, and Polymock.

Seconded

Instead of scaling individual character power output, i think Arena net should focus on increasing the difficulty of content, by making it utterly impossible to solo end game content, and to scale content and participation requirements such, that a simple 5 man team can not cut it.

There are many ways this can be done, let me suggest two;
1 – increase group size to 10 and balance new content from that perspective. When the currently off limit areas of Tyria is made open, scale the open world exploration such that you must be 2-3 players to have even a slight chance at making it.
Say you open up 3-4 new areas, these areas are considered end game content, require dynamic and continuous group play to even REACH a quest or town, let alone survive on the road. Then once it is time for opening up new areas of the game, you can increase the character level first and foremost. Opening up yet another trait line (Legendary line) which has epic OP effects but cost 3x the trait points. (just a wild suggestion)

2 – Currently, most content is balanced on a 5 man group. The rewards and difficulty would indeed be appropriate if events only had 5 people attending. However we have upwards of 40+ players on some events. This means that the content is too easy and the reward too great. Fixing these “hotspots” of activity will not do the game any good in the overall sense, it will only drag out the time it takes to grind. And people will always grind.

In the promotion of the game, Arena net claimed to have a very dynamic quest system. I liked how it was marketed and the intention. Perhaps make World Events like bounty hunts? They suddenly appear, no fixed or estimated timer, with a short warning, kinda like current scarlet system.
This way, a champion of jormag could suddenly appear at the gates of Hoelbrak. Without warning, without any time to plan. This would increase difficulty, add a sense of “X-factor” but also make the game more immersive. The fact that we “know” when all the events will happen (it’s random, but not random enough) and where, that kills off some of the fun. By making a global world event or perhaps a global event? that requires certain groups to defend/defeat nodes, while others take down bosses? Stuff that forces a group to spread out, thus making content indirectly more challenging due to the lack of focused DPS.

1) Mounts and mounted combat for diversifying the movement and combat

2) Players houses in cities visible by everyone and not a single home instance behind a gate

3) Personality system should be important

My top 3 will be:

1. Racial Titles
- Giving more importance to the races.

2. Add meaning to existing Personality system
- Giving more importance to Personality ( Charm, Dignity and Ferocity)

3. Order specific events
- Giving more importance to the chosen orders (Whisper, Priory, Vigil)

1) Guild Halls and Personal Instance upgrades.
2) Missions for Orders and Factions within the GW2 world.
3) Ability to repeat Heart quests for level 80s for crafting materials. In fact anytime I’ve finished that heart mission would be nice.

1. Order Specific Events (Vigil, Priory and Whisper)
2. Racial Titles
3. Add meaning to existing Personality System (Charm, Dignity and Ferocity)

1.) Head Hunter Challenges:
Fight champions you find on a map in an arena (in each zone) – find and kill them all! Arenas also offer dueling queues against other players.
(https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/11#post3414208)

2.) Spirit Dancer Mode:
In short: you toggle the Spirit Dancer Mode and from then on hidden demons, evil spirits and other evils appear in the world. Sometimes they are the ancestors of living creatures and join them in battle. They only aggro Spirit Dancers and heroes have to fight both: demons and normal creatures.
A version of a hardmode system in the open world, for people who have progressed past maximal level and world completion.
(https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/15#post3420201)

3.) Zone Progression:
A tokensystem for each zone which isn’t about grind but finding unique events, artifacts, secrets,… in that zone. More things to do in each zone and prestige skins for people who found / experienced most of it.

Worth mentioning:
-) The New Masters – Nike’s awesome idea how to implement new weapons
-) the lore codex, an awesome idea to unlock lore entries and collecting those
-) “guards and treasure maps” https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/11#post3414263
-) mounts as a +30% speed buff for everyone + a drastical decrease of waypoints (only 1 per map) but instead allowing summoning of friends once each 15min.

DarksunG.9537:

Many of these suggestions are not about Horizontal Progression, but about balance & class changes. We should try to focus on real horizontal progression.

To my understanding horizontal progressions means having many choices and things to do, “each different, all equal” or at least as close to that as possible.

Fixing game balance and bugs greatly aids this goal, giving new builds, class roles and reasons to get new armor/weapon sets and try new approaches to pve and pvp content, both solo and in team. That’s pretty horizontal to me.

Only 3 of them?!!

1) Add the meaning to existing Personality System
2) Order Specific events and rewards
3) Racial Titles

1. Player customization/lockers/unlocking system. Lots of people have suggested this one way or another, but I have to link my own suggestion :P https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3425035
2. Guild Halls and Player Housing. The first is a must, the second desirable.
3. Weapon Skills. Adding more skills to the weapons can add a ton of things to do. Good ideas here. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3413290

Chrispy.5641:

oops….uh….only 3….darn it….well…..

(1) Weapon Skills – So long as its balanced, being able to choose different skills on our weapons with different effects would be a wonderful way to increase build diversity, and it will also get players out to skill trainers in far flung parts of the world to gain access to these new skills!

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3413290

(2) Lore – Either the one I just Thought of or Louveepine’s Dragon Age Codex Idea, or the few others in the thread , the simple thing to take away from this one is….I want my Lore in the game!!!!

Louveepine’s Codex : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3419088
Mine : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3425406

(3) Visual Customization – Half the ideas on this thread involve being able to customize the look of our characters in some way, and Being able to Customize a wide array of Profession abilities and looks through a single new equipment slot is, in my opinion, one of the better ways.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3418505

(Those three easily win out over hard mode, individual guild progression, and faction progression, the other 3 ideas I had in this thread.)

Add epic quest lines to lore and then

/signed

Do I have to pick just three? /whine

I will try …

1) Guild and Player Housing. A robust, complex, deeply customizable system that doesn’t cost you all your hard work if you’re logged out for a while. No mortgage, taxes, or rent. Those are NOT fun. Instanced, because we can’t choke the world with suburbia nor should we have enormous flamefests and community warfare over who grabbed some land first. I liked someone’s comment referencing another game where anyone you give a password to can access your home, but caution that there need to be tiered permissions for what can be done once inside it. Crafting of items for the home. I had so much fun making beautiful rugs in LotRO and watching them sell rapidly at auction (after making enough for my house and all my guildies’ houses, that is).

2) Increased character animations and emote choices. Having them reflect the personality type generated via game play selections is a bonus. Sittable chairs via objects that deploy a chair for the individual rather than trying to re-code the world to sit in the chairs already there. Dances that make sense for the world, I’m so very tired of RL fad pop dances becoming racial moves, and that can be shared/learned across races.

2a) More variety in character appearance. From creation to kits to earned looks, more more more armors and hairs and faces and weapons and town clothes (assuming the separate town clothes system is kept). Faciliate this with account wide skins a’la the Zenith and Radiant/Hellfire items.

3) Factions/Reps. This has been fascinating because I bet you all can implement it in a non-daily fashion. Zone specific items unlocked by earning karma in that zone, little rewards from escorted NPC’s, dyes specific to Orders — heck, Order specific missions that lead to more rewards. I’ve loved this idea and all the brainstorming that went with it.

Prysin.8542:

Instead of scaling individual character power output, i think Arena net should focus on increasing the difficulty of content, by making it utterly impossible to solo end game content, and to scale content and participation requirements such, that a simple 5 man team can not cut it.

There are many ways this can be done, let me suggest two;
1 – increase group size to 10 and balance new content from that perspective. When the currently off limit areas of Tyria is made open, scale the open world exploration such that you must be 2-3 players to have even a slight chance at making it.
Say you open up 3-4 new areas, these areas are considered end game content, require dynamic and continuous group play to even REACH a quest or town, let alone survive on the road. Then once it is time for opening up new areas of the game, you can increase the character level first and foremost. Opening up yet another trait line (Legendary line) which has epic OP effects but cost 3x the trait points. (just a wild suggestion)

2 – Currently, most content is balanced on a 5 man group. The rewards and difficulty would indeed be appropriate if events only had 5 people attending. However we have upwards of 40+ players on some events. This means that the content is too easy and the reward too great. Fixing these “hotspots” of activity will not do the game any good in the overall sense, it will only drag out the time it takes to grind. And people will always grind.

In the promotion of the game, Arena net claimed to have a very dynamic quest system. I liked how it was marketed and the intention. Perhaps make World Events like bounty hunts? They suddenly appear, no fixed or estimated timer, with a short warning, kinda like current scarlet system.
This way, a champion of jormag could suddenly appear at the gates of Hoelbrak. Without warning, without any time to plan. This would increase difficulty, add a sense of “X-factor” but also make the game more immersive. The fact that we “know” when all the events will happen (it’s random, but not random enough) and where, that kills off some of the fun. By making a global world event or perhaps a global event? that requires certain groups to defend/defeat nodes, while others take down bosses? Stuff that forces a group to spread out, thus making content indirectly more challenging due to the lack of focused DPS.

I would have to strongly disagree with this. Why punish players who venture out into unpopulated areas of the game with quests that are impossible to complete? I think that there are enough unpopulated areas that I would go as far as to say that group events should scale down to a single player if no one else is around.

On the other hand I like the idea of instanced 10-12 man content, similar to the Deep, FoW, etc. But for open world, I don’t think it would ever be a good idea to mandate that a certain number of people be required for any of the events.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Lots of ideas and discussion. I think it would be useful now to list your top three favorite ideas with either a link to your favorite description of that idea in the thread or a single sentence description of your own.

I feel a number of the ideas that have caught my eye and imagination spring from one underlying concept~

Make the world more aware of my choices.

1. More respect for Race. Its the very first thing you choose coming into the game. Add goals that are race specific, but also NPC dialogue that notices and responds to one of the essential facets of the character you have created. Small flourishes like the Hearts in each of the 5 starter zones sending out one letter if you are a native to that zone, and a different letter if you are one of the other four races passing through.

2. More respect for Personality. We have dialogue choices and the game tracks the last 100 of them. USE that information. Weave it into anything and everything it could influence. When we tell the game-world who we are, it should listen!

3. More Respect for Order. This is probably the single biggest decision in the game, with 15 different personal story missions dedicated to making sure we make an informed decision. Choosing your Order can and should be opening a doorway to a long and fascinating journey.

order missions
personal housing
new weapon skills

Nike.2631:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Lots of ideas and discussion. I think it would be useful now to list your top three favorite ideas with either a link to your favorite description of that idea in the thread or a single sentence description of your own.

I feel a number of the ideas that have caught my eye and imagination spring from one underlying concept~

Make the world more aware of my choices.

1. More respect for Race. Its the very first thing you choose coming into the game. Add goals that are race specific, but also NPC dialogue that notices and responds to one of the essential facets of the character you have created. Small flourishes like the Hearts in each of the 5 starter zones sending out one letter if you are a native to that zone, and a different letter if you are one of the other four races passing through.

2. More respect for Personality. We have dialogue choices and the game tracks the last 100 of them. USE that information. Weave it into anything and everything it could influence. When we tell the game-world who we are, it should listen!

3. More Respect for Order. This is probably the single biggest decision in the game, with 15 different personal story missions dedicated to making sure we make an informed decision. Choosing your Order can and should be opening a doorway to a long and fascinating journey.

Without adding any changes to the core mechanics of combat, introducing entirely new features, or creating new assets (skills and traits), I’m in agreement that Nike’s three selections seem like the largest area of impact for horizontal progression that Arenanet could actually implement more quickly than the larger concepts.

1) New weapon skills so we can choose among two options for slots 1-5 and make our own weapon-build.
2) Character progression through personal story quests (e.g., unlock the new skills through class-related personal story elements).
3) Improve the existing Personality System and evolve it into a new Relationship System with NPCs. Some relationships can lead to gain new skills, traits or buffs.

I wanted to add to the guild halls, and if someone already said this I apologize but I am at work and don’t have time to read all 18 pages of thread. By giving us instanced guild halls one of the things we can add to it that a lot of players have been asking for, guild raids. It could function the same way missions do currently, but it brings us to an instanced zone where we have to accomplish objectives and finally confront a final boss. This would be a great way to introduce some of the iconic elite areas from the original game like UW, FoW, DoA, Urgoz, The Deep, etc. They can have varying difficulties the same way bounties do that are determined by the max number of players allowed into the instance (I realize this part would require a lot of work on the programming end).

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

1.)
2.) Spirit Dancer Mode:
In short: you toggle the Spirit Dancer Mode and from then on hidden demons, evil spirits and other evils appear in the world. Sometimes they are the ancestors of living creatures and join them in battle. They only aggro Spirit Dancers and heroes have to fight both: demons and normal creatures.
A version of a hardmode system in the open world, for people who have progressed past maximal level and world completion.
(https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/15#post3420201)
.

I really like this idea and think it could be accomplished with the current game system. We already have similar things with the “heart” items only appearing to players that haven’t completed that heart yet. This would utilize that same subsystem toggling on “hard mode” for those that want it, while everyone else doesn’t see / interact with the “spirits”.

Order Progression

For skins, achievements, and maybe even use of the titles we were given in the personal story. Major rewards for Order members, minor rewards for non-Order people who join to help out.

Housing

A place to show off trophies and maybe any symbols related to achievements. Evolvable. Weapon and armour racks to show off any skins we have. Something of a money sink but not too appalling.

Epic dyes/effects

I have a few characters who wouldn’t mind glittery shoulders or lava lamp boots.

1. More customization! (new armor(particle upgrades), body types, hair, tattoos, voices)
2. New weapons (2h axe, pole arms, nets, fist weapons)
3. Permanent content (map changing events, nightmare tower was a good step in this direction.)

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Customization-is-Key-character-armor/first#post3370496
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Top-5-Things-You-Think-Should-Be-Added/first#post3392460

Three, huh?

In no particular order, and from no particular person:

1) The Skin Wardrobe

In whatever form, before there can be cosmetic progression, I feel there needs to be a system that records said progression.

2) Deeper Importance of Order and Personality

These are choices that we make. However, they aren’t meaningful in any way, out in the open-world. There’s no way to show progression in these choices.

3) Skill and Traits Progression

Personally, I’d favour a GW1-esque system, or a system where you use skill points to unlock challenges to unlock skills. I feel that making us hunt for skills and such for our builds would:

• add more longevity than simply allowing us to unlock them from the UI.
• add more immersion (actually learning a skill from someone vs seemingly suddenly remembering how to do it).
• good way to re-use lower level content.

Also, I’m going to link my thoughts. I personally think they’re good ideas. I mean, if I didn’t, why else would I post them?

My Thoughts

First, I want to say how much I enjoy the reading of the posts, there are so many really smart and insightful opinions on this game, and I think it proves how much people care to see the game succeed. I may not agree with everything (as I am sure the devs feel the same) but at least the passion people have for the game and the genre is great to see. Now my 3…

1. Character – I think more customization/expansion to builds is the biggest key here: such as all classes can wear multiple types of armor classifications with certain stat penalties/enhancements, more skills for more weapons. I agree with an earlier post that better skills / traits should never just be given, but should be earned whether via a quest or some training mechanism. The more we can do to diversify ourselves the greater variety of accomplishment can be obtained.

2. World – All zones/cities need to matter to encourage the playerbase to explore and be part of them. Lions Arch and too many waypoints I think is a crutch, and hurts the overall travel and immersion that the home cities / wilderness were supposed to give us. Also events in all zones need to somehow have a greater pull to them rather than just zones that have World Bosses.

3. Things to do – quest expansion is my biggest thing with Orders or Race or Guilds or Factions. But there should be a strong reward / consequence to them. Maybe you can have Non-Race / Non-faction NPC’s become hostile to you as you progress but unlock new armors / weapons specific and giving you now a new source of loot.

Just ideas… look forward to reading others’ suggestions.

Seeing a lot of common threads here. Here are mine.

1) Order Missions and progression, especially in new areas.
2) Skin Locker
3) More character customization options, including account-bound Legendary dyes

add new weapon types for all classes
add new utilities and elites
make ascended gear easy to obtain
never add equipment with new, higher stats

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Retroactive-Account-Wide-Rewards-Locker/first#post3404646