Guild Wars 2

Late to the party, perhaps, but these are my three areas of focus I’d like to see improved in horizontal progression:

1. Skill Diversification
2. Player Housing
3. Character Aesthetics

To elaborate on each point:
Skill Diversification
There’s one thing I’d like to see less of, and it’s Traits, Runes and Sigils that add something simplistic and static like “+10% Damage” even if it’s conditional. For one, they become entirely necessary and in doing, reduce options, and for two, they’re boring. My personal favorite runes and traits are those that change things up, the ones that add options. “On heal, allies gain Swiftness” and “On Interrupt, apply confusion” are examples that come to mind.

I’d like to see more options opened up, the ability to retool utilities, heals, and weapon skills. Give me the option to pull allies with Scorpion Wire, add a Blast Finisher to Spirit Weapon finishers, make my Symbols into Fire/Ice/Water fields, use Arcane Thievery as a support on allies by giving them my boons and taking their conditions. Instead of traits like “Nearby allies gain toughness based on your effective level,” give me “10% of nearby allies’ incoming damage is siphoned to you,” which would also make Altruistic Healing less of a selfish build. Increase the byplay between traits.

Furthermore, I’d like to see traited avenues, so that people aren’t locked into certain trait lines if they want to play with certain utilities. As it stands, if I want to play a Ranger with spirits, I better grab the Spirit related traits. If I’m playing a venom Thief, I should be grabbing all the traits that affect Venoms. Spirit Weapon Guardian? Not viable, but less so without the Spirit Weapon traits. It’s…stifling.

Player Housing
I don’t really have much to go on here, as it’s likely already been said by players more eloquent than I.

Aesthetics
I’d like to see weapons and skillsets decoupled. It’s a little frustrating to see NPCs exhibiting this behavior (There are Charr wielding swords using Guardian mace skills, for instance) and feel as though I’m locked into a weapon to be able to play a certain style. While this may be problematic from a coding perspective, given the bundling system, I feel it would be beneficial in the long run, as it would allow the developers to add skillsets independent of weapons, and visa-versa.

I’d also like to see items gain dye slots. There are some with preset colors that, as a result, clash with whatever my desired coloration might be. Conjurer leggings come to mind, with its omnipresent blue.

As others have mentioned, a skin locker would be nice. Especially since we already have one in the achievement panel. I’d like to be able to use the skins I’ve earned through meta-achievements more than once, after all.

And lastly, I’d really like to be able to change weapon sounds/projectiles/swing arcs. It’s a little odd to have a weapon like Super Hyperbeam Alpha, Levvi’s Detector, and Spectral Wave Modulator shoot bullets.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We are getting close to the formulate section of the thread now and you will see more opinion and metric based discussion from me and everyone else.

Chris

This really gets me excited Chris, I think we need a bit more direction from you devs what works and doesn’t work for you in order to develop good ideas together.

I’m all for new skills!
It gets boring using the same skills the whole time after all.
More skills with different effects makes more builds available, for example , Sword skill A uses bleeding as a condition , then sword skill B uses Posion and a different animation. there could be so many type of skills in this game but only if you make them.

Skill hunting could be brought back , Seek out trainers and do their DE’s to unlock skills , with a great bossbattle at the end for example.

Every class needs every weapon type ‘+ new weapon types , (Whips, Lances, Scythe’s , Two handed axe for example)

When it comes down to emote’s and other little things I would like to see an Emote list ingame somewhere and maybe make you able to bind them for out of combat use.
Being able to interact with the envoirement more. for example little things like sitting in chairs and stuff. great for RP’rs.

Dueling. (with a spam filter , So players should ask one another first for a duel , if the other player says no. the challenger cant spam the dueling button.)

Chris Whiteside.6102:

The topic will be open until at least Jan 6th and probably longer.
The next CDI topic will be a CDI process evolution thread.
The CDI will carry for as long as it is valuable to GW2.
I am able to weight relative feature cost for us when it is appropriate to do so in the thread.
Chris

First off, thank you for the blazing fast answer, this further reinforces the feeling that you guys are actually keeping watch over this constantly and should serve as a healthy reminder to anyone of; “even if devs don’t reply to you, it doesn’t mean they haven’t read it.”

The two bolded things are very intriguing to me. If the CDI is going to continue for the coming months, as it seems, and perhaps years (perhaps not in the current abundance) then I am extra curious to know if we would be getting any estimate of “okay, we’re working on this now” or if we are getting our surprise patch along the way

It is also really great to know that you mentioned yourself as being the one who has enough weight to start getting the things mentioned rolling.To me, this is about the most valuable piece of information posted.
It proves someone who sits on a power lever is interacting with us actively, and not just someone who is “proposing things”.
Please do not take this as a hidden insult, I meant none. You know, even though your title is “Studio Design Director” – and titles can be fancy at that – it was no direct indication of how much decision power you have.

But with this very statement of yours, the future for GW2 just got a lot brighter
Cheers, Mr. Whiteside. I guess I’ll be digging up the pages of notes which have been accumulated in the past months to get more active, because now is the time again where I get the feeling that things can get done, finally.

1) Quests/Order Missions
2) New Skills
3) Lore

Khunvyel.3972:

But with this very statement of yours, the future for GW2 just got a lot brighter
Cheers, Mr. Whiteside. I guess I’ll be digging up the pages of notes which have been accumulated in the past months to get more active, because now is the time again where I get the feeling that things can get done, finally.

Don’t get your hopes too high man, this is just a catch so people don’t leave the forums. They didn’t need this CDI if they would have replied to the suggestions people have made over the time in the suggestion forum
Everything that has been suggested in here in these CDI threads can be found hundreds of times in Suggestions but they invented this CDI when people lost hope that they ever read any suggestions.

It is just a move they made to keep people calm down and not spread some bad marketing about the game. It is just a psychological manipulation of the vocal community because the others are not interested in the future of the game: they play or quit playing depending on likes and dislikes but don’t forge their opinion on hopes

Here are 3 ideas that I’ve really liked. Two of which were brought up in the original CDI before verticle progression took over. My 3 things are the following.

Profession Specific Skill Challenges
Example: A Thief challenge to climb a trap riddled tower, without being able to actually walk. A puzzle built specifically for shadowsteps.
Reward: Unique attack/skill upgrade. Via particle effects or casting animation or something to that affect.

Synergy
Inter-profession Synergy is something that could be really exciting. It could also be really complex. It could work something like this:

This would be a Party mechanic that you would set up when you form your Party.
Each Profession has 1 Synergistic Effect with each of the other 7 Professions.
Each Party Member can only have 1 active Synergy Effect at a time.
To set up the Effect, you target the Party Member and “Offer Synergy”.
The Party Member accepts or declines the Synergy.
Synergies can be changed at any time outside of combat.

When the Synergy is active, both players benefit from the relationship. An example would be “Bond of Blood” between Warrior and Necromancer. While the Synergy is active, the Warrior’s attacks generate Life Force for the Necromancer. While in Death Shroud, a portion of the damage the Warrior takes comes off of the Necromancer’s Life Force Pool instead. This encourages players to work together in new ways.

Environmental Synergy is another Party Mechanic that could work in a number of ways, but basically it changes the ways professions operate under different circumstances. For example, a Guardian could have “Valiant Avenger” that grants the Guardian +Power or +Might for every Party Member that is either downed or dead. Necromancers could have “Parasitic Bond” that grants +Condition Damage for every Party Member that is below the Health Threshold. Rangers could have “Alpha Dog” that provides +Critical Damage for every active pet/minion in the party.

Guild Housing/Features
This ones gone over pretty extensively in the thread. More things for guilds in game can only be good

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Conner.4702:

Shadow Blade.1324:

i remember you guys talking about endgame horizontal progression before maybe look at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIExN1GZK_Q
that lasted what 2 months? how long will anything from this cdi last? before you nerf it and promote gold farming for “economic reasons”

given the treatment of the vertical component of this discussion where inconvenient commonly discussed points were flat out ignored, and the most common dev posts were a variation of “im really busy with the holidays will read/reply later” its clear this will be marginalized with a token feature and “we listened to your feedback” when you introduce more unpopular changes.

many of the proposals in this thread have been discussed again and again over the last year
and you guys are always reading the forum’s right?, so its not like its new information, you have not taken action so far, we should believe you will now why exactly? your track record isn’t exactly good at this point, its not even average.

at this point i think this has degenerated into a PR exercise and you wont actually do anything substantial, so im no longer interested in taking you through game design basics you should already know.

Sadly this is how I see it at the moment. I do not feel this initiative is serious no matter how many times it is said to be taken serious. Simply because the actions do not reflect the words. Asking for a top 3 after 17 pages of ideas looks more like not wanting to go through it themselves and all that it accomplishes is rehashing the same old that has been talked about already without rhyme or reason.

Hi Shadow Blade and Conner,

The fruits of everyone’s hard work have already begun to show through, specifically in regard to the first CDI- Living World. The return on investment will take time to present itself due to the nature of game development.

However if you don’t feel like the initiative adds any value then you don’t need to partake in it.

Chris

I would like to comment on this: the living world seems to be taking some suggestions of players into account. For one the ‘impact’ discussion got driven home with the Nightmare Ends, which resulted in a PERMANENT change of the area. A step in the right direction for me. Thanks

It’ll be interesting to see the future impact this thread in particular has on the game. No MMO has really nailed the horizontal progression (altho most of us seem to agree GW1 did a fine job) and yet so many players gravitate towards it.

There’s a huge potential in this thread alone to direct the game to something quite unique, but combined with the living story thread, we could see a intriuging 2014/15 for the game. WHilst the game hasn’t embraced the horizontal progression quite like its predecessor, it is well set up to embrace many ideas here. Many MMO’s aren’t that lucky. It’s a great position for GW2 to be in.

On a slightly side note, only a small proportion of the community are contributing to this discussion, as good and valuable as it is. If you as devs are as behind this as you say, it might be worth highlighting these initiatives a bit more to the wider community. Granted, if people don’t use the forum now, they probably wont, but may be a link on the news part of the login page is a good way to alert ppl to visit here.

Dunno if I’m too late.

1. More weapon:class combinations
2. Gear customisation
(Incredibly vague; one thing in particular I’d like to bring up would be perhaps changing individual shoulderpads. For example, the Norn T1 Light armor has a sheepskull for one of the shoulders; maybe being able to remove it would be cool)
3. Maybe fiddling about with some guild housing. Maybe modding WvW objectives to accommodate this, or open world guild/personal houses?

My top three:

• Skin wardrobe
• New skills(weapon and utility)
• Order/etc. quests. Could be tied with triggering small-size dynamic events, or entering a small instance. I would really appreciate this.

And bonus:

• Build templates(don’t know if this was mentioned here, but I could really use it for PvP)

AlanaTheStrange.1463:

Updating the tally. Includes new votes up to Marcus Greythorne.6843 before this post:

Weapon Skills 47

Would be a great thing to have, even if is only a change of effect in the same attack (same animation).

Quests/Order Missions 38

The Orders could send us to complete existent events, bosses, mini-dungeons, dungeons, etc, all over the world map.

Homes 37

This would be great if the world map was a WvW, but since it isnt, they could use the home instance and let us pick a house there and be able to customize the interior, etc.

PvE Skin Locker 31

That would be great, over all if they let us unlock more new skins with achievements (we have a few now).

New Skills 30

I would like more the weapon skills but any extra skill is great.

Faction Reputation/Titles 30

I think a reputation system could work as an extention of the renown hearts. This reputation could be with races, cities, towns, maps, regions, etc. It could keep people moving over all the world map, over all if the reputation can go down if the player dont do any quest for them in some time.

Guild Halls 24

The same as the homes. I was thinking that besides of a guild castle or something like that, the guild could have an airship (this idea came to me with the Bazaar of the Four Winds and their big airship) that lets them move all together to a new map (if the capacity of the map is exceed, then all go to the overflow). Also, could be guild events that could be done from the ship, for example, kill a flying dragon with cannons and other weapons.

Dyeable Weapons 6

It would be great.

Mounts 3

I would like mounts but not for travel. I would like fight mounts like the siege golems. They could add new models of golems, for example use a catapult blueprint + golem blueprint and get a golem with some of the catapult’s skills.

Legendary Skins 2

Could be unlocked with achievements and be able to change them for free, but only would be usable over other legendaries.

Fishing 2

Fishing could open a lot of recipes for cooking. But could also ve a mini-game/activity for fun.

Khunvyel.3972:

Swagger.1459:

Donari.5237:

Swagger, those are mechanics alterations. Whatever their merits, I think they more properly belong in Suggestions — this thread is for brainstorming ways to broaden our character experience through game play, as in, adding stuff that enriches game time but does not change power level.

Though I suppose asking for additional buttons to press might count. To that I’ll say I wouldn’t feel broadened, I’d feel cluttered. I love the simple but flexible design we have right now.

Thanks for replying!

My super awesome ideas are mostly about building a strong core foundation for the rest of these other future horizontal progression suggestions. You’ll be thanking me later for my tremendous contribution to this thread, so I’ll do the preemptive standard reply now… You’re welcome!

No. This is another one of these “I take parts from my favourite kind of game and put it elsewhere.”
We don’t need another whack-a-mole MMO. Guild Wars has always been about less buttons, and I thoroughly enjoy that. Trust me; I’ve been there in other games; 42buttons hotkeyed. It wasn’t fun.

Your suggestion also forces things into slots which only furthers the narrowing down of choice and selection. At times, I even think the dedicated healing button is too much enforcement, and more often than not I wished my elite slot could also house regular skills.

No. Really, no. This would be detrimental to the game.

We were encouraged earlier to mention aspects of other games that we liked. Also, if you consider coh a “whack-a-mole mmo” then I’m sorry, but that game had a carp ton of amazing features that this “aaa” game does not have. In addition, they had a far superior professions and combat system. Far superior my friend.

Sorry, but adding 8-10 more buttons to use and slot is not anywhere near overwhelming. Those slots create fuller weapon sets and add a few more skill options to the current extremely limited system of auto attack and long cool downs.

My top 3:

1. reputation system for the orders including quests and perks like special vendors

2. new weapons for the classes an new utility skills to broaden the possible builds. But avoid the trap of vertical progression which is always there when introducing new skills.

3. more variety to pimp up the gear in a cosmetic way

Ronah.2869:

…some disheartened bits…

Remember, the game is a constantly evolving organism, and as it evolves, some aspects of the first mission statement — the vision — may no longer be applicable. But the Devs, with everything they do, really want the playerbase to enjoy the content.

I view these CDI threads as simply focused suggestion threads with a higher probability of posted suggestions getting to the relevant ears at ANet. Try not to be too jaded that they are asking us to repeat some of our ideas. Part of how people learn best is through repetition, anyway, right? Anything we can do to help make the game better, no matter how small, is a victory.

Randulf.7614:

On a slightly side note, only a small proportion of the community are contributing to this discussion, as good and valuable as it is. If you as devs are as behind this as you say, it might be worth highlighting these initiatives a bit more to the wider community. Granted, if people don’t use the forum now, they probably wont, but may be a link on the news part of the login page is a good way to alert ppl to visit here.

Exactly. There should be a login post on this. What’s the point of running a CDI if you’re collecting opinions from just a bunch of forum goers? Aren’t we the loud minority? (or some crap like that).

What about that post-karka-lag-cataclysm survey? Why not run something like that as well?

Harbard.5738:

• Alts as followers

I like this idea a lot. That would be one of the most awesome things to ever hit mmos in decades and a great incentive for “alting” as horizontal progression.This is horizontal progression if you think player, not character. For every alt you level you unlock a new hero, the alt himself, and you could play with them. as a full group, in instanced areas, such as dungeons, like in GW1, but those heroes would be your own alts as npcs. I could even play those instances with little or no coin/item rewards (if that’s used as a measure against botted farming, for instance). But it would be still every bit as awesome.

This is a brilliant idea. While I’m not 100% personally sold on the idea of helpers/followers in GW2 in the first place, this would be an excellent way to do it if it was done. I would love to see my main joined by even just one of my alts while out adventuring.

Not sure if I am to late for the party but I would love to see new weapon sets added for each proffesion.

Hi All, just got back. Wow go away for a little bit and the discussion really starts to take off. I have a few pages to catch back up on so I’ll look at getting a summary up later tonight. Also thanks so much Chris, on holidays and still working.
Also

Bezagron.7352:

Bezagron.7352:

Hi All
Just dropping in to say working on a summary post which will be up tonight (morning at the moment). Having Christmas with the family. Loving all the ideas, keep then coming guys & girls.

ps. Sorry wife said should give you all a Merry Christmas

Hey, feel free to drop me a line if you want to split up the job of summarizing at all! I’d rather not be redundant, but I am planning to make another list of posts with ideas that stand out to me.

Happy holidays, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!!

@Guhracie splitting the summary work load would be great idea. Maybe each of us could do a summary alternating every 6 pages. I’ll also drop you a line as this could be lost in between all these post.

Epsilon.2054:

Not sure if I am to late for the party but I would love to see new weapon sets added for each proffesion.

This is going to happen. I remember watching a video on a Developer interview where Colin mentioned that’s the first thing they will work on Before adding new professions into the game. Since more variety of playstyles is what they are looking for.

StriderShinryu.6923:

Harbard.5738:

• Alts as followers

I like this idea a lot. That would be one of the most awesome things to ever hit mmos in decades and a great incentive for “alting” as horizontal progression.This is horizontal progression if you think player, not character. For every alt you level you unlock a new hero, the alt himself, and you could play with them. as a full group, in instanced areas, such as dungeons, like in GW1, but those heroes would be your own alts as npcs. I could even play those instances with little or no coin/item rewards (if that’s used as a measure against botted farming, for instance). But it would be still every bit as awesome.

This is a brilliant idea. While I’m not 100% personally sold on the idea of helpers/followers in GW2 in the first place, this would be an excellent way to do it if it was done. I would love to see my main joined by even just one of my alts while out adventuring.

They did this in GW1. Was kinda cool! Not sure they will implement the system here tho as it was basically the hero system GW1 was built round

I hope I am still on time for my top 3:

1. Upgradable items (weapons and armor); think fractalcapacitor 3 stage back item. Now think volcanus, stage 1; to make it ascended, stage 2; red linen cloth on handle, stage 3: get a shiny firy meteor on the swords hild.

The same 3 stages with for example the fractal gs (shiny effect at stage 3, the blue linen vandels at stage 2 and ascended at stage 1)

I could go all day with these ideas. As well as armor this would be a
really pretty and awesome addition.

2. Legendary dyes and being able to use a “brush” to really get your own Unique color scheme on armor and if possible on items as well..

3. Swithcing to a second, trait and armor set without using more inventory space.

Chris, I hope you could take a serious look at at least my number 1. It would be a really awesome implementation.

Hope you had a lovely few days off, almost off to the new year!

Kind regards,

Mesmatiks

Nike.2631:

Maybe a “CDI Contest”, where instead of limiting things to a first, second, and third place winner, every player who suggests a Rune that is adopted into the game would get a set of 6 or 12 of them as the prize. With players sometimes wondering what the benefits of contributing to a CDI are, maybe a little in-game loot would inspire them

TheDaiBish.9735:

Why stop at runes?

• Skills
• Traits
• Armour and Weapon Sets
• DE’s
• Fractals
• World Boss revamps

It’d certainly give me something to do on the quiet days in work :P

Its not really a question of where to stop, but where to start. Runes have a lot of advantages over those other game-aspects.

• They are tightly formatted (easy to lay out correctly)
• Their effects are mostly formulaic (easy to check for correctness)
• They reach across professions unless specifically designed to only key to certain tags.
• There is no presumption of symmetry – introducing new weapons or new skills there’s an expectation you’d do so in sets of 8, but with runes you can add them individually.
• They take the form of loot, making them easy to use as the reward for their own creation .

I’m sure all of the things you’ve listed will be CDI topics over time, but none of them are as simple to implement. Runes are very… compact.

My top 3 would be new skills, new weapon skills, and new armors not in the gemstore. New skills could lead to a power creep I suppose, but I feel the new healing skills we got recently were very nicely done.

1. More weapon skills—what we have now is far too low.
2. More non gemstore armor art as rewards for completing high level content.
3. Armor modularity: customizing certain parts such as gloves, shoulders, and helmets (and if possible, coats and pants) would really expand player options and allow for more unique aesthetics.

I want to start by saying how much I love the cdi topics, it gives me such a good feeling.
For my top 3;

1. Stat selection on ascended gear. Since it’s time consuming and hard(er) to get it would be nice to be able to swap stats. I have one of each class at 80 and it’s a pain to get them all in full ascended, not even talking about multiple sets + multiple weapons.
I really think it would be a great step forward to be able to swap stats and builds on the fly.

2. More (weapon) skills. It would be awesome to have multiple skill choice per weapon and more utility skills would open up new builds. I know you’re already working on that (or that it is planned), just wanted it in my top 3 as it is important to me at least.

3. The return of the Dervish. Okay I know it’s not really about horizontal progression. But I mis this class so hard.:(
Real nr3. Factions, with their own questlines, skill rewards.

I hope the cdi topics stay, it’s a great way to share our ideas/suggestions and with direct feedback/reactions from devs it gives us the feeling we are truly being heard and have some influence on the game we love.

Nike.2631:

Nike.2631:

Maybe a “CDI Contest”, where instead of limiting things to a first, second, and third place winner, every player who suggests a Rune that is adopted into the game would get a set of 6 or 12 of them as the prize. With players sometimes wondering what the benefits of contributing to a CDI are, maybe a little in-game loot would inspire them

TheDaiBish.9735:

Why stop at runes?

• Skills
• Traits
• Armour and Weapon Sets
• DE’s
• Fractals
• World Boss revamps

It’d certainly give me something to do on the quiet days in work :P

Its not really a question of where to stop, but where to start. Runes have a lot of advantages over those other game-aspects.

• They are tightly formatted (easy to lay out correctly)
• Their effects are mostly formulaic (easy to check for correctness)
• They reach across professions unless specifically designed to only key to certain tags.
• There is no presumption of symmetry – introducing new weapons or new skills there’s an expectation you’d do so in sets of 8, but with runes you can add them individually.
• They take the form of loot, making them easy to use as the reward for their own creation .

I’m sure all of the things you’ve listed will be CDI topics over time, but none of them are as simple to implement. Runes are very… compact.

Touche. Touche indeed.

Dang, weapon skills are pulling ahead of everything else in this thread. I hope its relatively cheap(er than other features) to implement.

My Top 3:

1. more titles and achievements
something like the aether-path of Twilight Arbor or Meta achievements for single zones (getting you the title “Hero of ____”)

2. factions
thats a new CDI on its own

3. upgradable skins
like the fractal capacitor

1) New weapons for each class. Mesmer mainhand pistol, etc.

2) More skills, with interesting ways to unlock them.

3) More non-gemstore cosmetic progression.

Chrispy.5641:

Dang, weapon skills are pulling ahead of everything else in this thread. I hope its relatively cheap(er than other features) to implement.

this is one of my biggest fears, people want more of the same… Anet already works on new weapons/armors and skill… shouldn’t here be more discussion about new ideas? If Anet thinks that the lack of new skills, weapons and armors is our biggest flaw, then I’d see a boring GW2 future.

Imho the reason why people don’t go to zones needs to be adressed in the first place. What good are new skills if you find no interesting reason to go out there (except WvW) and use it?

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Chrispy.5641:

Dang, weapon skills are pulling ahead of everything else in this thread. I hope its relatively cheap(er than other features) to implement.

this is one of my biggest fears, people want more of the same… Anet already works on new weapons/armors and skill… shouldn’t here be more discussion about new ideas? If Anet thinks that the lack of new skills, weapons and armors is our biggest flaw, then I’d see a boring GW2 future.

Imho the reason why people don’t go to zones needs to be adressed in the first place. What good are new skills if you find no interesting reason to go out there (except WvW) and use it?

Well, ANet has said many times that they have different things, for different teams to work on. So, if more weapons were added to the classes, it probably wouldn’t take away from another team working on Zones and such.

yeah, I just wonder why people have certain things like these in their top3, that’s all. But to each his own

LOL I agree. It’s definitely not in my top 3, but if it’ll make other people happy, I’m cool with it.

yup,also the Order missions and reputation needs to be new content,nothing game changing or out of what it already exists in game but if i have to repeat DE or kill the already existing bosses its a grind,it can be implemented with new dialogue,new things to do,actual mission and order related stuff

Drakenvold.9761:

yup,also the Order missions and reputation needs to be new content,nothing game changing or out of what it already exists in game but if i have to repeat DE or kill the already existing bosses its a grind,it can be implemented with new dialogue,new things to do,actual mission and order related stuff

I think this is one of the biggest challenges, to create meaningful content in the existing zones which doesn’t involve / doesn’t feel grind(y).

I also think that Anet misses a lot of opportunities for content. The new healing skills… you simply unlock them for a few skillpoints. My main has more than 100 skillpoints. Why not just create 8 new npcs with small dialogues and (non grindy) tasks to unlock the ability to buy the new skill with skillpoints?

All the UI unlocks are missed opportunities imho, when not earned through interesting gameplay with a lore explanation. What if we get new weapons unlocked for our professions without any task, any explanation, any challenge? I’d be disappointed for sure.

Chrispy.5641:

Dang, weapon skills are pulling ahead of everything else in this thread. I hope its relatively cheap(er than other features) to implement.

videoboy.4162:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

this is one of my biggest fears, people want more of the same… Anet already works on new weapons/armors and skill… shouldn’t here be more discussion about new ideas? If Anet thinks that the lack of new skills, weapons and armors is our biggest flaw, then I’d see a boring GW2 future.

Imho the reason why people don’t go to zones needs to be adressed in the first place. What good are new skills if you find no interesting reason to go out there (except WvW) and use it?

Well, ANet has said many times that they have different things, for different teams to work on. So, if more weapons were added to the classes, it probably wouldn’t take away from another team working on Zones and such.

Well, first thing you need to realize is that through this entire Thread, I have never talked about New Weapons, only New Weapon Skills for Existing Weapons. I’ve been using the same five skills on my shortbow for over a year. Having the ability to switch out Quick Shot for a similar attack with a different effect (like Stealth Shot) would inject alot of life into the current system (which is very quickly becoming more stale by the day). That is just as big of a problem as the lack of players in some areas of the game.

Many players have already fleshed out some nice systems for how we can expand skills on our weapons. (If you want to read my Idea, here it is :: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3413290)

That idea not only expands the skills for existing weapons, but also gets players back out into existing zones to find new skill trainers, entirely new skill challenges (possibly do new event chains), and buying new skills in a slightly more meaningful way than just outright buying them with (1-3-5-25-50-100+) skillpoints, which is the current system of unlocking our skills.

I’m not sure how you could say that’s “More of the Same” (Please, Enlighten me)

Drakenvold.9761:

yup,also the Order missions and reputation needs to be new content,nothing game changing or out of what it already exists in game but if i have to repeat DE or kill the already existing bosses its a grind,it can be implemented with new dialogue,new things to do,actual mission and order related stuff

Order/Faction Missions is currently #2 on AlanaTheStrange’s list. (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3431340)

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I think this is one of the biggest challenges, to create meaningful content in the existing zones which doesn’t involve / doesn’t feel grind(y).

I also think that Anet misses a lot of opportunities for content. The new healing skills… you simply unlock them for a few skillpoints. My main has more than 100 skillpoints. Why not just create 8 new npcs with small dialogues and (non grindy) tasks to unlock the ability to buy the new skill with skillpoints?

All the UI unlocks are missed opportunities imho, when not earned through interesting gameplay with a lore explanation. What if we get new weapons unlocked for our professions without any task, any explanation, any challenge? I’d be disappointed for sure.

I think GW1 had a few good missions in Factions to unlock some skills, for example, having to survive 2 minutes while using them skills.

Maybe there’s a skill that exploits a certain aspect (for example, Knockdown), and in order to learn the skill, they have to use it X amount of times.

Harbard.5738:

• Alts as followers

I like this idea a lot. That would be one of the most awesome things to ever hit mmos in decades and a great incentive for “alting” as horizontal progression.This is horizontal progression if you think player, not character. For every alt you level you unlock a new hero, the alt himself, and you could play with them. as a full group, in instanced areas, such as dungeons, like in GW1, but those heroes would be your own alts as npcs. I could even play those instances with little or no coin/item rewards (if that’s used as a measure against botted farming, for instance). But it would be still every bit as awesome.

Oh yes, I’ve always supported this, whenever this idea got posted somewehre.
I absolutely want this.
When in regard of the mechanics “Heroes” should ever find their way back into GW2, in the similar style how they worked for GW1, then I want definetely have THIS time real personal heroes.
Heroes, that I self have created and whats best for that, than usign your own characters as heroes.

Every say 20 Levels should the player unlock a new “Hero Slot” that enables the Player to draw one of the accounts characters into there as a “Companion”.

The Companion will be exactly 1:1 that, what the character is on your account, so when you use it, the A.I. controls that character weith exactly your equipment, your equippen weapon(s) and traits ect.

The Companion would offer the feature of “Character Switch”, so a player, who brought into a Companion into his party for example , could switch at any given moment whenver that player wants to swich the controls between his current played character and his companion. with his current played character turning into the companion at the moment, where you switch the controls to the Companion Character.

That would allow a player basically then to play 5 characters AT ONCE
Would be so awesome to run aroudn with your own little personal Hero Group.
Your own little personal “Destiny’s Edge”

Especially when a feature like that would exactly get integrated with that story in background for example.
Because what for example would happen with the game#s story, if we would ever think about it, that somethign terrible could happen, that Logan, Rytlock ect. might die for example ???

Whats then? I think an epic story has to have also its very tragic moments. And what would fit better to such a very tragic thing, like you and your heroic companions taking over the legacy of Destiny’s Edge by becoming self the heroic guild, that leads the battles of the pact forces against the elder dragons???

So far in the personal story have died only total meaningless npcs, that had only for very short moments a brief spotlight and then a few moments later they die from some weak minions of Zhaitan ..

Nothign tragic, nothing emotional…. the Dead of Tybalt/Forgal/Sieran instead was emotional, because the npcs were personal.

We reformed Destinies Edge, by bringing their former members back together.
Wouldn’t it be nice to see them in any futurous personal story event seinding you a letter, where they send you an invitation to become officially one of their guild members of equal level?? (naturally before all the tragic happens xD)

I think it would be a very epic and emotional moment after the tragic day, to stand one day at the graves of the old members to take on, what they have started.

But I’ve another idea..

What would be, if Anet would introduce with Destinies Edge one “Server based Mega-Guild”, into which basically every single player gets automatically as a member.
However, would mean that if ever soemthign tragic happens, the new leader of DE, would have to become some kind of NPC (Trahearne? lol xD)

Just wild brainstorming here, but I really want my own characters of my accoutn as switchable Companions.

That would so massively enrich the playing experience of this game, it would be unique that never has been in any game before GW2 that would make GW2 more special. Simply said, outstanding compared to all of the other competitive games out there. GW2 needs unique innovative features like this.

@Chrispy
Your idea is a very good one. I like it very much, it just isn’t in my personal Top 3.

@ Marcus
You know what I’d really like? A while back, I saw another poster (in an entirely different thread) mention that he’d played MMOs that let their players download kits. The kits allowed the players to design their own armor and weapons, then submit then to the Game Devs. Apparently, this worked out very well, because it allowed the players to become more invested in the game, while saving the game itself money on designs.
Also, before I bought Augur Stones earlier today, my main had 500 SP.

videoboy.4162:

@ Marcus

You know what I’d really like? A while back, I saw another poster (in an entirely different thread) mention that he’d played MMOs that let their players download kits. The kits allowed the players to design their own armor and weapons, then submit then to the Game Devs. Apparently, this worked out very well, because it allowed the players to become more invested in the game, while saving the game itself money on designs.
Also, before I bought Augur Stones earlier today, my main had 500 SP.

I think if they can sort out the legal stuff that comes with it (ownership and copyrighting, for example) this would be a great idea. Even better if the modelling could be done by the player.

A couple of other positives I could see coming out of this are:

• Quality – Since players aren’t under the same constraints as the devs, they can make an armour set fit specifically for the races (eg, Charr clipping issues)
• Variety

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Chrispy.5641:

Dang, weapon skills are pulling ahead of everything else in this thread. I hope its relatively cheap(er than other features) to implement.

this is one of my biggest fears, people want more of the same… Anet already works on new weapons/armors and skill… shouldn’t here be more discussion about new ideas? If Anet thinks that the lack of new skills, weapons and armors is our biggest flaw, then I’d see a boring GW2 future.

Imho the reason why people don’t go to zones needs to be adressed in the first place. What good are new skills if you find no interesting reason to go out there (except WvW) and use it?

Well this is a horizontal progression CDI. They’re asking specifically about progression and not all other ways of keep people playing PvE. But it’s obvious that if nothing is done in the open world and if they don’t give us a real reason to run events with everyone on all zones other than grind for pink crap, then it’s all for nothing. No matter how many weapons and skills, and skins and wardrobes they dump in the game. That’s the core PvE game and it needs love.

I wonder what happened to that talk about rotating DEs across the zones and make things more interesting. I remember Colin saying it was relatively cheap to make them and that they could add more of them across the zones and rotate them. What happened to that?

If they could tie the whole faction thing with more dynamic and rotating events and a reason to play in the open world, coupled with living story and WITH those horizontal rewards/progression, that would make PvE it come alive again. But that needs its own CDI (asap, imo).

I’m not sure how heroes could possibly be implemented to GW2 in the right way…

GW1 was an instanced game for 8 players max. if I remember correctly. Whenever you visited an outpost (more than 8 players) the heroes were put aside – you were on your own again.

Think of it:
-) PvE open world. Massive lag when a group of players runs around because each of them has 5 npcs following. We already see this problem in WvW.
-) WvW. I kill one of my enemies characters and he still has 4 others? Not to mention the even bigger lag issues
-) Dungeons. This would only work if bosses were meatsacks. Well, some are, but the newer dungeon bosses need the players to act intelligently – something an AI can’t do currently.

The personal story instances are the only place I can see this happening. I don’t think it’s worth the development time for that limited gameplay content aspect.

videoboy.4162:

@Chrispy
Your idea is a very good one. I like it very much, it just isn’t in my personal Top 3.

Skin Locker and Housing, although, no one’s been able to explain very well how that’s related to Horizontal Progression in any way. Once someone makes a post that explains it then I’ll be a believer, but until then, its Weapon skills and Order/Faction Missions/Reputation. (This comment isn’t directed at you specifically, I just don’t see the point yet in either a skin locker or housing)

Orpheal.8263:

The Companion will be exactly 1:1 that, what the character is on your account, so when you use it, the A.I. controls that character weith exactly your equipment, your equippen weapon(s) and traits ect.

That’s really expensive to do, I’m betting. I’d be totally happy with companions that just look like my alts and have their names but fight with a default AI package. I don’t care, it would still be pure awesome. AND it would sell char slots!

Chrispy.5641:

videoboy.4162:

@Chrispy
Your idea is a very good one. I like it very much, it just isn’t in my personal Top 3.

Skin Locker and Housing, although, no one’s been able to explain very well how that’s related to Horizontal Progression in any way. Once someone makes a post that explains it then I’ll be a believer, but until then, its Weapon skills and Order/Faction Missions/Reputation. (This comment isn’t directed at you specifically, I just don’t see the point yet in either a skin locker or housing)

What, specifically, confuses you about it? Maybe I can help clear things up.

TheDaiBish.9735:

videoboy.4162:

@ Marcus

You know what I’d really like? A while back, I saw another poster (in an entirely different thread) mention that he’d played MMOs that let their players download kits. The kits allowed the players to design their own armor and weapons, then submit then to the Game Devs. Apparently, this worked out very well, because it allowed the players to become more invested in the game, while saving the game itself money on designs.
Also, before I bought Augur Stones earlier today, my main had 500 SP.

I think if they can sort out the legal stuff that comes with it (ownership and copyrighting, for example) this would be a great idea. Even better if the modelling could be done by the player.

A couple of other positives I could see coming out of this are:

• Quality – Since players aren’t under the same constraints as the devs, they can make an armour set fit specifically for the races (eg, Charr clipping issues)
• Variety

I’m not entirely sure about this, but I think that if a player’s design was chosen, they were given a free copy of said design.