Guild Wars 2

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

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.

You’ve got a point. What if barren group events could let you get your heroes out? If there’s no one out, you can call your heroes. So many dead zones and untouched group events out there that could use this…

Harbard.5738:

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).

Well I think this would be the place to discuss this. Horizontal progression should happen in gameplay to keep players playing because currently we do dynamic events but get not much out of it but generic rewards like xp, karma and coins.

If people would get unlocks from doing open world content, they’d probably do more of it.

In an earlier forum post one of the devs stated that they had added new events like the ones mentioned by Colin to (last years) Halloween event. He came to the conclusion that because of lack of player feedback this isn’t something players enjoy, so they scrapped the idea of adding new events and increasing the rotation timers of existing ones.

My guess is that instead of adding new events to existing zones permanently, Anet developed those new events we get through the living world releases. The thing is: we are far away from a 200% increase of number of events per zone like Colin mentioned. (His words were: in a zone which offers 100 events at release, a year from now you will see 300 events – something like that).

I see now that just more events wouldn’t have changed all too much, since players have no real drive to do these (other than fun) in the first place. It seems to me that progression through doing these events is missing. It could be any progression, really.

• once you’ve seen 80% of the events in a zone, you unlock the ability to start certain new events by triggering those through npcs.
• once you’ve done 15 unique events in a zone, you get access to new armor skins
• once you’ve pushed a number of chain events to the end point, you get…
  …

Get that purpose to do specific zones, specific enemies, specific things in the game and people would do it… then add more of it. Not before.

(A little reminder: once we had those theories, that certain specific bosses drop the very unique staff skin “Final Rest”, tons of people run these bosses whenever they could. Those guys had a purpose. They weren’t playing trading post to buy it with farmed gold, because it wasn’t even in the trading post. It may have felt grindy (bad, hush) but at least they had a goal to work towards to. Yeah, a Legendary might be the same thing… but a.) you can buy it with real money and b.) the goal is too long-term and the UI which shows progression towards it (the bank) is not really userfriendly at all. It’s quite difficult to see your progression towards a Legendary)

It’s horizontal because it adds things for characters to do without increasing power level. It’s progression of play overall, not just of combat.

edit: People post so fast, I should be quoting the one to which I’m responding ><

Chrispy.5641:

Skin Locker and Housing, although, no one’s been able to explain very well how that’s related to Horizontal Progression in any way.

It’s kind of like a record, if you will.

Skin Locker

If you only had one unlocked when you log in, then by the end of your play session you have 3, then you’ve progressed, so to speak.

Housing

You start with a plain house.

You go punch something / someone in the face, wreck it’s day, and you get an achievement for it. As well as the achievement, you get one of it’s teeth to put on display in your house. It’s basically a more visual form of titles.

Rather than an actual progression system, they’re tools and groundwork to help show progression made on the cosmetic side of things, and can easily be added to in the future.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Dominus,

I don’t think the idea is ‘Just’ a Wardrobe. I think it is supporting functionality to an existing system (Skin Collection) that I would like to see expanded upon (Personal Opinion).

I think a lot of play could also come out of Wardrobe functionality. However I wanted to keep my list to 3 macro ideas and I believe Wardrobe would potentially compliment/support them.

Chris

What about if the wardrobe also had another system built in, where you could store your favourite mix and match armour and weapon skins in, as well as their dye channels? Kind of like a template so you don’t have to individually withdraw skins to get your look?

For example:

Template 1 might have the Vigil Boots, Trousers and Helm, and the Orr Karma Shoulders, Chest and Gloves with Red and Black Dye.
Template 2 might have the CoF Boots, Trousers and Chest, and the Hellfire Gloves, Helm and Shoulders, with Black Dye.

videoboy.4162:

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. [/quote]

Or, if implemented into GW2, maybe some gems?

Personally, I don’t think any designs of the players should go into the gem-store, and if they were given straight into the player, it might spoil part of the fun of unlocking it.

Or, give the player an option: x amount of gems of an immediate set of armour.

Harbard.5738:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

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.

You’ve got a point. What if barren group events could let you get your heroes out? If there’s no one out, you can call your heroes. So many dead zones and untouched group events out there that could use this…

People would probably change servers to low populated ones, to play with their heroes. WAIT… this is actually not bad at all… O_o

I’m starting to like that idea. Let’s see. If a zone becomes more and more crowded, the heroes would leave you… run away. Even when the party isn’t full of Logans. Hmm. But would you be happy to see other players? These would drive my loyal Alts away.

I’m indecisive about that suggestion.

1. Add new weapons for each profession. This especially includes seeing old weapons used in new ways. (e.g. Melee staff, magical pistol/rifle, dancing dagger, etc.)
2. Rework attributes and traits. Encourage soft trinity and reduce interdependence. Work in attributes and/or bonuses for Control Duration, and some sort of control and/or condition resistance. Make Critical Damage useful without Precision. And so on.
3. Tengu.

videoboy.4162:

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:

Chrispy.5641:

Skin Locker and Housing, although, no one’s been able to explain very well how that’s related to Horizontal Progression in any way.

It’s kind of like a record, if you will.

Skin Locker

If you only had one unlocked when you log in, then by the end of your play session you have 3, then you’ve progressed, so to speak.

Housing

You start with a plain house.

You go punch something / someone in the face, wreck it’s day, and you get an achievement for it. As well as the achievement, you get one of it’s teeth to put on display in your house. It’s basically a more visual form of titles.

Rather than an actual progression system, they’re tools and groundwork to help show progression made on the cosmetic side of things, and can easily be added to in the future.

---

How is Vanity going to benefit/affect ALL the Players in the game when its released? half of the community wants housing, and the other half doesn’t care about it, and wants nothing to do with it.

Some suggestions that have things like order quests are things that all players can take part in, and progress in, and not only that, it leads to an actual reward that you can always show off at all times. Even if players decide to want nothing to do with Order quests because its optional, they will see other players actively taking part in it, and actively getting rewards that they can show off anywhere in the game they go.

You can’t show off your house except to people you know due to the instanced nature of the game, and less than 1% of 1% of 1% of the players in the game will ever set foot in your place. If you get a Title, or a cool new weapon skin, or new skill to show off as a result of Order or Faction stuff, many, many more players will see it. Every player you run in to in the world will see the effect of you getting new weapon skills, and will make the call for themselves whether its more effective and should bother to find them, or if they should just stick with what they got. You can’t do that with a house that only ever going to be Visual, and not only that, but like I said, almost no one will ever see it.

How do you get past that? Not a single person on this thread has been able to get past that issue.

TheDaiBish.9735:

Skin Locker

If you only had one unlocked when you log in, then by the end of your play session you have 3, then you’ve progressed, so to speak.

What I’d like to see when this happens: Milestones. It probably takes forever to complete a collection, so I’d give players certain rewards for completing milestones.

This way progression doesn’t feel endless (like it does now for Legendaries – at least to me personally).

TheDaiBish.9735:

What about if the wardrobe also had another system built in, where you could store your favourite mix and match armour and weapon skins in, as well as their dye channels? Kind of like a template so you don’t have to individually withdraw skins to get your look?

For example:

Template 1 might have the Vigil Boots, Trousers and Helm, and the Orr Karma Shoulders, Chest and Gloves with Red and Black Dye.

whoa nice one! I’d like this. They could even charge gems for each template slots, and allow 10+ templates to be purchaseable. I could see people buying all these and more, if possible.

Ronah.2869:

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

CDI is actually more productive. It’s consolidated into one thread, instead of having literally hundreds of pages of thread to sift through.

I’d like to see a profession that can use a staff in melee rather than having it exist only as a stick that shoots magic.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Skin Locker

If you only had one unlocked when you log in, then by the end of your play session you have 3, then you’ve progressed, so to speak.

What I’d like to see when this happens: Milestones. It probably takes forever to complete a collection, so I’d give players certain rewards for completing milestones.

This way progression doesn’t feel endless (like it does now for Legendaries – at least to me personally).

And the title for when you unlock everything would be ‘Got Nothing To Wear’. :P

Chrispy.5641:

How is Vanity going to benefit/affect ALL the Players in the game when its released? half of the community wants housing, and the other half doesn’t care about it, and wants nothing to do with it.

How do you get past that? Not a single person on this thread has been able to get past that issue.

Well, the question I was responding to was how do these systems relate to HP. That’s what my answers were based on. Not how they affect other people.

Housing, personally, I don’t care about.

A wardrobe system is incredibly beneficial to most players though.

Even if a player doesn’t use it now because they have one look and they stick with that one look, in the future another set of armour / weapons may come out that they may like, and so they’ll want to keep them.

nexxe.7081:

Ronah.2869:

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

CDI is actually more productive. It’s consolidated into one thread, instead of having literally hundreds of pages of threads to sift through.

Not to mention the CDI’s are focused on one topic, as opposed to every area of the game.

Chrispy.5641:

videoboy.4162:

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:

Chrispy.5641:

Skin Locker and Housing, although, no one’s been able to explain very well how that’s related to Horizontal Progression in any way.

It’s kind of like a record, if you will.

Skin Locker

If you only had one unlocked when you log in, then by the end of your play session you have 3, then you’ve progressed, so to speak.

Housing

You start with a plain house.

You go punch something / someone in the face, wreck it’s day, and you get an achievement for it. As well as the achievement, you get one of it’s teeth to put on display in your house. It’s basically a more visual form of titles.

Rather than an actual progression system, they’re tools and groundwork to help show progression made on the cosmetic side of things, and can easily be added to in the future.

---

How is Vanity going to benefit/affect ALL the Players in the game when its released? half of the community wants housing, and the other half doesn’t care about it, and wants nothing to do with it.

Some suggestions that have things like order quests are things that all players can take part in, and progress in, and not only that, it leads to an actual reward that you can always show off at all times. Even if players decide to want nothing to do with Order quests because its optional, they will see other players actively taking part in it, and actively getting rewards that they can show off anywhere in the game they go.

You can’t show off your house except to people you know due to the instanced nature of the game, and less than 1% of 1% of 1% of the players in the game will ever set foot in your place. If you get a Title, or a cool new weapon skin, or new skill to show off as a result of Order or Faction stuff, many, many more players will see it. Every player you run in to in the world will see the effect of you getting new weapon skills, and will make the call for themselves whether its more effective and should bother to find them, or if they should just stick with what they got. You can’t do that with a house that only ever going to be Visual, and not only that, but like I said, almost no one will ever see it.

How do you get past that? Not a single person on this thread has been able to get past that issue.

I agree about the Vanity. Players that focus on vanity have a lot of stuff in the game already. Hopefully the other players get some stuff.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

In an earlier forum post one of the devs stated that they had added new events like the ones mentioned by Colin to (last years) Halloween event. He came to the conclusion that because of lack of player feedback this isn’t something players enjoy, so they scrapped the idea of adding new events and increasing the rotation timers of existing ones.

My guess is that instead of adding new events to existing zones permanently, Anet developed those new events we get through the living world releases. The thing is: we are far away from a 200% increase of number of events per zone like Colin mentioned. (His words were: in a zone which offers 100 events at release, a year from now you will see 300 events – something like that).

Sadness. Hope they review that decision.

Ok, so maybe we should discuss the open world here, then. I leveled 8 chars to 80 because I thought DEs were fun. I was too happy playing the game to give any feedback.

So I’m sure there is (or at least was) a lot of people who felt like me about the game at the time, possible some of them are still here or returned lately to check out the world actually changing again after 1.5 year. Now If this becomes a game about DEs, changing environments, stuff happening in the open world and horizontal progression tied to the open world, i’m pretty sure they’d come back.

I can’t possible fathom why the game DIDN’T go the route of adding more DEs, (that give karma) and add more horizontal rewards for karma and skill points from the get go, end of story. “Why, if it’s so simple it probably sucks, duh…” Who am i to know, right?

So speaking for myself: Give me new fun DEs and i don’t need a single new reward or “horizontal progression” to keep playing. But as far as horizontal progression is concerned, something that makes ascended less stupid, or at least tolerable (like swapping stats), weapons, skills, builds and cosmetics is what I care about.

Chrispy.5641:

You can’t do that with a house that only ever going to be Visual, and not only that, but like I said, almost no one will ever see it.

How do you get past that? Not a single person on this thread has been able to get past that issue.

I’m not in favour of housing because of the reason that I mostly play alone or with some strangers in WvW. If housing happens though, it would be nice to see these points adressed.

We know houses can’t work in the open world just because there are far too many players on each server to hinder certain trolls to build those houses in places where it really shouldn’t be. (hope this is still english).

So instances would probably be the right decision. LotRO had a district system: you had instances which had a lot of houses in it, a neighborhood if you like. In that system you could visit houses of a lot of other players. I like this system a lot.

Personally I find it boring to go to other players houses when nothing happens there. I think some of the new mmos have housing where you actually can set up activities for other players.

What if… you find a cave in the open world. You enter the cave and an instance loads. Now you’re in a player created cave-home instance where you find the house of a random player who chose to build a cave home. This player could build this cave and even hide a treasure wherever he wanted in that cave. Once you’ve entered this cave, the same cave will be loaded whenever you enter with that character. Other players could find a cave from an other player who decided to build a cave-home.

Players might build their homes in caves, clearings or even in city-homes. Certain spots in the open world would be open for the player to build a home. If you haven’t built a home yet, when loading one of these maps you’ll be asked if you like to build your home there or visit another players home.

TheDaiBish.9735:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Skin Locker

If you only had one unlocked when you log in, then by the end of your play session you have 3, then you’ve progressed, so to speak.

What I’d like to see when this happens: Milestones. It probably takes forever to complete a collection, so I’d give players certain rewards for completing milestones.

This way progression doesn’t feel endless (like it does now for Legendaries – at least to me personally).

And the title for when you unlock everything would be ‘Got Nothing To Wear’. :P

Chrispy.5641:

How is Vanity going to benefit/affect ALL the Players in the game when its released? half of the community wants housing, and the other half doesn’t care about it, and wants nothing to do with it.

How do you get past that? Not a single person on this thread has been able to get past that issue.

Well, the question I was responding to was how do these systems relate to HP. That’s what my answers were based on. Not how they affect other people.

Housing, personally, I don’t care about.

A wardrobe system is incredibly beneficial to most players though.

Even if a player doesn’t use it now because they have one look and they stick with that one look, in the future another set of armour / weapons may come out that they may like, and so they’ll want to keep them.

Then 1) why did you even try to explain how housing would work if you don’t want to discuss it?

and 2), If you mean all the Living World Skins, and the Gem Store Skins, so that way we don’t have to waste bank space, then I fully support it. If you mean some cheap, easily obtainable karma or crafted armor, I do not support.

I have 6 Armor sets for one of my characters (Berserker, Cleric, Magi, Rampager, Soldier, Rabid, + some Celestial and Apothecary), All have a different look. How is a Skin locker going to benefit me, if all my bank space is wasted anyways? Why should I be punished with zero bank space because I actually diversify my builds when every other player only wears Beserker’s armor and refuses to diversify? What actual benefit will any player see from being able to change their look on the fly, Other than Vanity? (These are questions that you need to answer beyond a reasonable doubt, otherwise, there will be plenty of nonbelievers. Not just me)

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/23#post3431798

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

Oh dear lord, please Anet, do whatever it takes and implement this feature.
Make it something, that is some kind of special feature that comes from forming a Party, so that players have an incentive to form a party…

This is by far oen of the best and most simple gameplay improvement ideas I#ve ever read so far, which is combat relevant, that would so significantly improve the whole combat feelign of the game and reward players for playing well togehter.

The basic idea remembers me actually of the game “Tales of Xillia”*, tham I’m actually also playing on PS3, which has basicalyl a very similar gameplay feature, where Characters share a synergy< with each other, that are linked with each other.

Linked Characters are also able to perform “Dual Combo Attacks”, if certain conditions are met first, that are especially devastating and look very epic in performance.

Maybe this could be something to combine with the basic idea of “Synergies”

Some more Synergy Ideas:

Thief synergizes with Mesmer

Thief gains : Shadow Clones
Whenever the Thief performs a dodge roll, he will create for very short time Shadow Clones, that will attack nearby foes, if they get killed, they will explode in smoke and blind foes.

Mesmer gains: Power Thievery
The Mesmer will confuse the target enemy and steal one of its skills.
That stolen skill will be set into cool down. The next time the Mesmer player presses the Auto Attack Button, the Mesmer will use the stolen Enemy Skill and gets 1 negative condition removed
——

Thief synergizes with Necromancer

Thief gains: Fearsome Blades
A synergy effect, that lets Thiefs deal Fear to foes, at a certain with internal cooldown chance when hittin critical

Necromancer gains: Gates to Death
The Necromancer receives for Death Shrowd a new 6th synergy related Skill. the Gates to Death. When using this, the Necromancer will create some Portals to the Underworld, letting some Shadows attack with Shadow Steps foes, that stand in their near. Those summoned Shadows will stay for only short time, as long the portals don’t get closed or the duration of the skill runs out first
—-

Thief synergizes with Guardian

Thief gains: Symbols of Dexterity
Thiefs will create at the ground Symbols of Dexterity if their health is over 50% every 10 seconds for a duration of 3 seconds. Symbols of Dexterity will increase critical hit chance and critical damage for allies by +5% each. It grants also for those 3 seconds stability.

Guardians gain: Dagger of Grace
Guardians will automatically summon every 60 seconds for a duration of 20 seconds a spiritual Dagger of Grace that will aid them in combat,once their health goes under 90%. Dagger of Grace can’t be commanded like the other spiritual Weapons, it can#t also be destroyed, it just wil lautomaticalyl use its special attack att the moment its duration expires. its special skill is “Zealot’s Blood”
Zealot’s Blood will exchange the Thiefs Daggers with the Spiritual Daggers of Grace for 20 seconds. in that time, attacks of the thief will heal the Guardian and the thief will gain the guardians passive virtues.
—-

Thief synergizes with Ranger

Thief gains: Stealth Trapper
Whenever the Thief stealths, he will automatically lay one of his traps randomly andas long the stealth is active, he can lay his utility traps without the traps having cooldowns.

Ranger gains: Eagle Eyes
A passive boost to the critical damage and critical hit chance with Short Bow & Long Bow as also a little boost in the maximum range.
Critical Attacks will also pierce now through targets, hitting all foes in a line.

Thief synergizes with Warrior

Thief gains: Furious Rushes/Shots
At full Initiative, the thief is now able to perform with his equipped weapon for the cost of all of his initiative some devastating quickly multiple hit attacks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2RBDj_vdiM similar like this
Very quick rushes through the enemy slicing them into pieces.

Warrior gains: Quick Reflexes
The Warrior receives better flexes, that enables him to parry at a certain chance now attacks automatically to perform deadly counterattacks that will knock enemies down also.

Stuff like this, have not the tiem now for the missing synergy examples, but stuff liek that I#d love so much for GW2

to build up on that idea of instanced home instances in the world

• homes (like caves) can also be built as mini-dungeons, as mini jumping puzzles or mini-puzzles or even races (like the guild-sprint).
• while players progress in that housing system they unlock new enemies. New platforms to jump on or new animals you can play as in race-like activities.

Example:
Player X has unlocked a troll champion, he can put it into the instance. Each champion goes with a big chest, but these instances can only be visited by a 5man group max.

Player Y chose the path of the jumping puzzle. He hasn’t unlocked an champion of any enemy-type, but he has unlocked a few traps and platforms for a small jumping puzzle.

Player Z has unlocked both, veterans and platforms. He can create a really challenging jumping puzzle with enemies alongside it. Enemies can only be set in a limited number and on certain places, so that the puzzle can’t be too hard. Player Z has also decided to build his home at the end of the JP. Of course he knows a shortcut to this location.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

to build up on that idea of instanced home instances in the world

• homes (like caves) can also be built as mini-dungeons, as mini jumping puzzles or mini-puzzles or even races (like the guild-sprint).
• while players progress in that housing system they unlock new enemies. New platforms to jump on or new animals you can play as in race-like activities.

Example:
Player X has unlocked a troll champion, he can put it into the instance. Each champion goes with a big chest, but these instances can only be visited by a 5man group max.

Player Y chose the path of the jumping puzzle. He hasn’t unlocked an champion of any enemy-type, but he has unlocked a few traps and platforms for a small jumping puzzle.

Player Z has unlocked both, veterans and platforms. He can create a really challenging jumping puzzle with enemies alongside it. Enemies can only be set in a limited number and on certain places, so that the puzzle can’t be too hard. Player Z has also decided to build his home at the end of the JP. Of course he knows a shortcut to this location.

At that point it kind of becomes less house, more Littlebigplanet (still cool, but still…..).

1. solo content with solo rewards to show off how good you are at the game. So showing off with skill rather than a time sink. (obviously untradable)
Battles that do not rely on one trick to win but dealing with hazards in which the player can decide what to do. Don’t make a single thing unforgiving so that there is room for decision making by the player instead of forcing them how to play. This is all about letting the player show off what he or she can do and how good they are. It is OK to make them ridiculously difficult, just not in 1 way or force the player into being able to master 1 thing.

examples; keep in mind the items have to show off skill, not that “you were there” like with temporary content:
-Queens gauntlet but tons harder.
-Queens gauntlet in a wave format.
-The adventure box tribulation mode. (Do NOT combine the two)
-Surviving in an area with monsters with nothing but you ability to avoid. increasing difficulty with waves.
- The same as above while having to accomplish an objective that does not require jumping

What not to do:
The 2nd achievement for Liadri the Concealing Dark because is too much about being able to survive with statistics and too little about skillful timing.
- add torment or confusion.

Examples of how to make that fight harder:
- make the time limit more limiting
- Give her retaliation based on the damage you deal, not the amount of hits. (nuking her will nuke you, no matter your method of doing so)
- add a ring on the outside of the arena where you’ll also die so you can’t recklessly dodge.
- make this ring grow bigger the more time goes by.

2. more discontinued items that are tradable to create exclusive items to show you are one of the few who were able to obtain them (think Halloween 2012 skins)
Current players will be rewarded for playing more and more because they acquired the skins first. New players will want to skins to look cool so they pay more, this increases the status of old players without having to do anything for it. In the end people will feel it is better to play NOW rather than later, making them want to play the game NOW. If that feeling is there all the time it binds players to the game.

3. No weapon skills animations that look different. We have to memorize a lot of skills already for PvP. Now we’d have to know all the versions of the same skill as well. If you make different versions of those skills it’s even harder to see what is going on. GW2 has a surplus of effects already. If people can turn the special animations off people won’t value the animations anymore making them worthless. I think it’s a great idea not to make them to begin with.

Chrispy.5641:

At that point it kind of becomes less house, more Littlebigplanet (still cool, but still…..).

I know,…

think of it like that:
You have a few lines where you can progress:
1.) House line (unlock new furniture, create a home)
2.) Battle line (unlock new monsters, create a mini dungeon)
3.) Jumping puzzle line (unlock platforms, traps, create a JP)
…

It’s up to you how your instance looks like and you can combine everything you’ve unlocked. Other players never know what they’ll find in that cave, clearing,… Once they opened it, it will stay permanently if you like.

Chrispy.5641:

Then 1) why did you even try to explain how housing would work if you don’t want to discuss it?

You asked how is housing related to HP. I gave an example how it could be. I don’t need to have a vested interest in housing to give an example, do I?

2), If you mean all the Living World Skins, and the Gem Store Skins, so that way we don’t have to waste bank space, then I fully support it. If you mean some cheap, easily obtainable karma or crafted armor, I do not support.

Chrispy.5641:

I have 6 Armor sets for one of my characters (Berserker, Cleric, Magi, Rampager, Soldier, Rabid, + some Celestial and Apothecary), All have a different look. How is a Skin locker going to benefit me, if all my bank space is wasted anyways? Why should I be punished with zero bank space because I actually diversify my builds when every other player only wears Beserker’s armor and refuses to diversify? What actual benefit will any player see from being able to change their look on the fly, Other than Vanity? (These are questions that you need to answer beyond a reasonable doubt, otherwise, there will be plenty of nonbelievers. Not just me)

Well, firstly, since there isn’t a definite way yet as to how the wardrobe system would work, how can anyone answer beyond reasonable doubt.

Likewise, because there isn’t a concrete system, you can’t say that it wouldn’t be useful to you, or it would punish you, or whatever, when in fact the system that gets implemented may very well benefit you.

Say for example, a wardrobe template system and a build template system were merged together? The wardrobe templates would actually be able to store gear and not simply skins, and you’d be able to tie a build (traits and skills) to that set of gear.

HP summary page 13 to 17 part 1
Ok next summary up. Been of on holidays hope everyones having a great Christmas and holiday season. Guhracie and I are looking to share the work load of summarying so look out for the next summary from Guhracie.

Again if I’ve missed anything lets me know.

To start with Annikki help from Brainstorming has some great points to help all with posting ideas.

• Yorgie B writes a great take on his thoughts of the discussion so far.
• Palador mutli post;
  Progression, World investment & World Evolution
  Achievements and Challenge & Character Customization
  Flash and Dazzle

The Lost Witch’s idea about temporary progression in dungeons relating to the temporary morale boost in GW1. The Lost Witch also talks about how this content could try in with character progression.

Character Progression
Build content expansion

• Naetell dicusses the impact of build variety and stats on HP.
• Caveth talks about a traits system remake
  Author’s note: A lot of these talks with the traits and stat conversations is all about making it easier to change builds. This has a great effect on HP as more content can be added that can require different builds to complete.
  Profession Artifacts
• Chrispy talks about HP with Rangers and their Pets and way to expanse this concept to other professions.
• Lucifers Heaven expanses on Chrispy’s idea of profession artifacts.
  
  New skills
• Caveth’s Unlocking New Skills
  Sigils
• HiddenNick brings up the idea of sigils using something like the Materia’s system from Final Fantasy 7. Ps.
  Author note: Materia’s in FF7 was one of my favourite system ever and add something like this system in GW2 would be amazing. How and if this system could be added I’m not sure.

Cosmetics expansion
Skins locker / wardrobe – PvE

• Caveth’s idea regarding a skins locker.
  Auther’s note: For me making the gem store skins account bound unlocks which you can reapply would be very welcome. In PvP if you unlock the gem store skin you can apply it as many times as you like but in PvE you can only apply them to one item.
  Player Home instance / Housing
• Septemptus combines HoM and player housing.

HP summary page 13 to 17 part 2
Again if I’ve missed anything lets me know.

New content
Hard Mode: There’s more talk of some type of hard mode. If interested check out CDI-CPH page 15 starting off with Fish of doom’s post. This discussion continues across the next few pages.

Links to ideas in the discussion;
Chrsipy’s character bound hard mode
Marcus Greythorne’s Spirit Dancer Mode
Kulvar’s level adjustment customization
Nike’s Perilous Lands
Margareeta’s Ascension

The other side and ideas.
Shoutout to chemiclord who post thoughout the discussion looking at the other side to all these ideas helping the discussion along. The Lost Witch, Orpheal, Ghotistyx and DiogoSilva talk about issues with implementing hard mode in a open persistent world.

Marcus Greythorne for Hard mode as a form of HP Part 1, Part2 also check Chrispy’s post just below Marcus’s part 1.

Ronah for Margareeta’s idea

Septemptus discussions on hard mode.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Dominus compairs hard mode from GW1

Zone Exploration / Progression

• Marcus Greythorne adds more ideas to Zone progression with at way to use and expanse the existing medals rewarded for events. He also looks at ideas for city progression.
• Caveth encouraging exploration with Data Collection.
• Louveepine’s Lore codex adds a way to collect game lore.
• Sirendor explores the idea of Open World Player Building
• Nike’s idea to put ‘Golden’ to shame Patrons of the City. Timmyf rolls with the idea adding POI ownership. Khunvyel looks at another way using Eve’s Council of Stellar Management as an example.
• Kain Francois brings back the idea of morale boost from GW1 but with a GW2 take.

Dungeons

• Adubb looks at adding Dungeon Meta Acjievements/Rewards

TheDaiBish.9735:

Well, firstly, since there isn’t a definite way yet as to how the wardrobe system would work, how can anyone answer beyond reasonable doubt.

Then I’m not convinced, I don’t see how a Skin locker will positively affect me in any way.

That was a nice, slightly more heated discussion than normal. We should do that more often instead of just saying what we want with one word and not ever explaining the how or why.

My top 3:

1- I want more build variety in Traits. Some traits need to be incentivized, others need to be moved, and in general, lines need to be worked on. There needs to be more flavor in traits.

2- I have been waiting for more weapon skills. We need more variety. I totally understand that it will make it hard to balance. Listen, I am willing to overlook not having subclasses if you give me some more skill variety so that I can use my mind to make a build that I enjoy.

3- Acquiring new skills should be tied to the map somehow with skillpoint challenges. Bring me back to the world, and keep it unique by keeping skill challenges tied to skills. Perhaps phase them for different classes, and have the skill challenge enemy use the skill on you that you are trying to acquire.

In general; I want more build customization! I know it will be harder to balance with more skills and traits. I would prefer faster corrections (quantity adjustments, nerf/buff) to hone in on the best power of the skill more quickly.

My top 3:

Housing, done right with the ability to place anything anywhere. The hook system is just to constricting. The ability to craft furniture through tinkering also gets my vote here.

Wardrobe is a given for my second choice, I have so many back pieces now that I will never use on my main it is just a pain to keep them. Being a pack rat though means if I make an alt I will kick myself if I throw it away.

For my last choice I would have to say new utilities and elites has to get my vote here. With the ability to earn them from critters that use them against you (similar to the drinking contest) would rock.

I will add that I would love to see fishing added, but as most games that have added it have done a terribad job. I only want to see it added if it becomes more than just a point and click fest requiring some skill with afkers needing not apply.

Chrispy.5641:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Well, firstly, since there isn’t a definite way yet as to how the wardrobe system would work, how can anyone answer beyond reasonable doubt.

Then I’m not convinced, I don’t see how a Skin locker will positively affect me in any way.

That was a nice, slightly more heated discussion than normal. We should do that more often instead of just saying what we want with one word and not ever explaining the how or why.

It’s actually been explained numerous times in this very thread (not to mention some of the other CDIs). If you don’t like it, you don’t like it, but there’s really no reason to knock on the wants of others or pretend you don’t understand how it fits into this thread.

Chrispy.5641:

draxynnic.3719:

….snippety snip….

Uh….what?

Dude, you need to seperate what I mean when I say Locked down. That’s a completely different thing from ‘Stunlock’

Ranger can have 6 Stuns/Dazes/Fears in one build, and 3 immobilizes, plus they can still keep a DPS heavy build while doing it. Are you telling me that poor ol’ me can’t keep a champion locked down and not dealing damage to me with all that while I kill it? I got news for ya, I’ve done it, dozens, maybe hundreds of times.

(Greatsword #5, Shortbow #5, Hyena x2, Wolf Knockdown attack, Wolf F2.)
(Mudy Terrain, Earth Spirit, Entangle)

If a champion doesn’t have charge skills or a difficult-to-dodge ranged attack, it can be soloed without a single Defiant-affected skill. Your one or two CC skills in your entire lineup that are getting through Unshakeable is not doing much after immobilisations, kiting, snares, dodges, and well-timed pet switches (I’d mention stealth, since I generally use longbow for soloing champions on the ranger, but you’re using a different build). You’d probably kill it more efficiently if you didn’t have a build based so heavily on something it has the next best thing to immunity to.

I’ve soloed champions with every profession, and apart from the first hit before the Defiant stacks go up, i just don’t bother using Defiant-blocked skills unless the skill gives me something else that makes it actually worth activating, and in those situations any stuns/dazes/etc I DO get are simply an added bonus. For most champion soloers, your proposal would not do anything to slow them down – all it would do is take the leg of the “soft trinity” that is usually accepted as being by far the weakest and nerf it even further into the ground.

Abit late and mite be cheating but I have two top 3 list;
List 1 – Top 3 thing to help with adding HP content

1. Stat swapping
2. Skins locker
3. Build template

List 2 – Top 3 additional HP content

1. Sub-classes: new skills, new weapon skills & weapons, traits and for me the reason to add sun-classes is explained in my own post.
2. Vanquishing (Hard mode) like in GW1 – I can see this working for instance content (eg. Dungeons, Factals of the Mist, Personal story) but were I would love it to see it would be the open world. (The only way I can see this is with open world vanquishing events were you need to complete all these events).
3. For my third I couldn’t decide between Nike’s Patrons of the City and Louveepine’s Lore codex

videoboy.4162:

Chrispy.5641:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Well, firstly, since there isn’t a definite way yet as to how the wardrobe system would work, how can anyone answer beyond reasonable doubt.

Then I’m not convinced, I don’t see how a Skin locker will positively affect me in any way.

That was a nice, slightly more heated discussion than normal. We should do that more often instead of just saying what we want with one word and not ever explaining the how or why.

It’s actually been explained numerous times in this very thread (not to mention some of the other CDIs). If you don’t like it, you don’t like it, but there’s really no reason to knock on the wants of others or pretend you don’t understand how it fits into this thread.

Numerous times, a Skin Locker has been discussed, and every time it has involved convenience. In fact, the very first post in the thread that talks about a skin locker (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3406159) asks for it for convenience.

…Why not ask for it for these reasons?
(1) – Collecting Skins is no different than collecting minipets, which already offer a form of Horizontal Progression in the form of a Title for collecting every minipet in a given set. (Some people got close to saying this and only this,and then kind of went in the oppoiste direction.)

(2) – Anet could even make a unique Armor Skin / Weapon Skin that we can get rewarded with after Collecting a certain number of Skins in the game (Except Living World Skins), encouraging players to actually use this new feature if it gets put in the game. Especially since there is probably well over a thousand unique pieces in the game, thats alot of collecting. There could be rewards for collecting every skin in the game.

(3) – (not Horizontal) – People Like Collecting unique stuff, even in games, and collecting armor skins takes up ALOT of bank/Inventory space (To collect them all would eat up well in excess of a thousand slots). Having a seperate collectible tab for Skins would free up alot of space.

(4) – (Negative) – Transmutation stuff would be obsolete. People would only ever need 1 skin, so the prices of every single item in the game would drop, even very rare skins (even craftable skins) like the Wings of Dwayna. The game’s Economy would grind to a halt, and the effect would be far worse than anything the Ascended updates have done to the economy.

(5) – (Negative) – Because of #4, everyone will only buy equipment for the stats, which means that the only thing in the economy that doesn’t change would be those items. All items used to craft very rare and exclusive items would drop.

(6) – (Negative) – People would be allowed to craft only one very rare item under this system (Such as infinite Light), then just deposit it in the skin locker, then pull out 2, BAM, he just created 2 Infinite lights for the price of one, making his life automatically easier than the thousands of players before him that had to spend the time and money to craft 2. Just like #4, people would only ever need 1 instead of the number they actually should of bought in the current game.

No one could give a write up on it like that? Why? I’m not trying to Troll you guys, I am asking if you actually put any thought into the negatives of putting a sytem like that in the game? That sounded a bit like it was lacking respect so I asked how it would fit into Horizontal Progression and the best answer I got was (Collecting something is Progression,….right?)

…..right….no other reason?

Don’t get mad either because I disagree with you. People already in this thread disagreed with me on my weapon skills and hardmode idea, and I explained every single complaint to them as well as I could, so, you are welcome to do the same (Still explaining to one person over an idea I had for hard mode). There’s three very legit complaints right here, what’s the solution?

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 is what I and everyone else here wanted to see, for very good reason. You and the other devs know what can work and what can be made to work by collating ideas and formulating ones of your own, so that solutions like the ones we’ve put forward can exist within the parameters of the game’s capabilities.

I just hope we get to see a LOT of these ideas put into action.

draxynnic.3719:

Chrispy.5641:

draxynnic.3719:

….snippety snip….

Uh….what?

Dude, you need to seperate what I mean when I say Locked down. That’s a completely different thing from ‘Stunlock’

Ranger can have 6 Stuns/Dazes/Fears in one build, and 3 immobilizes, plus they can still keep a DPS heavy build while doing it. Are you telling me that poor ol’ me can’t keep a champion locked down and not dealing damage to me with all that while I kill it? I got news for ya, I’ve done it, dozens, maybe hundreds of times.

(Greatsword #5, Shortbow #5, Hyena x2, Wolf Knockdown attack, Wolf F2.)
(Mudy Terrain, Earth Spirit, Entangle)

If a champion doesn’t have charge skills or a difficult-to-dodge ranged attack, it can be soloed without a single Defiant-affected skill. Your one or two CC skills in your entire lineup that are getting through Unshakeable is not doing much after immobilisations, kiting, snares, dodges, and well-timed pet switches (I’d mention stealth, since I generally use longbow for soloing champions on the ranger, but you’re using a different build). You’d probably kill it more efficiently if you didn’t have a build based so heavily on something it has the next best thing to immunity to.

I’ve soloed champions with every profession, and apart from the first hit before the Defiant stacks go up, i just don’t bother using Defiant-blocked skills unless the skill gives me something else that makes it actually worth activating, and in those situations any stuns/dazes/etc I DO get are simply an added bonus. For most champion soloers, your proposal would not do anything to slow them down – all it would do is take the leg of the “soft trinity” that is usually accepted as being by far the weakest and nerf it even further into the ground.

Yeah, lets re-examine what I said….(Add Stack of Extreme Defiance to Veterans Not for Hard Mode, but a Harder Mode than Hard Mode)….So, uh, if you have solo’d everything and the defiance didn’t even come into play because you were able to play just fine without every having to interrupt the Champion….what’s your complaint again?

My complaint is that you’re making a mechanic that is already close to pointless even more pointless. Trash mobs generally aren’t worth controlling, and most things that would otherwise be worth disabling has so much resistance to get through that it goes back to being not worth it again – the only times I can think of where control has ever really been useful is against veterans, or area control against large groups of particularly scary white mobs. Your suggestion would mean that in your proposed hardmode, only that last would actually apply, making every control ability that doesn’t cover a wider area pretty much pointless.

(Note, for the purpose of this discussion, when I say “control”, I mean things that are affected by Defiant – I’m just tired of pointing that out every time – although to be honest snares and immobilises are often of limited utility too).

In the year and a third I’ve been playing GW2 (including beta weekends), though, it’s increasingly reached the point where unless I’m going for the 15 interrupts daily, having stuns/dazes/etc in any of my builds isn’t even an afterthought - if one happens to be in my skillbar, it’s purely because it’s tied to something else that I actually want.

Instead, I’m relying on evasion, both through the dodge mechanic and through skills that grant teleports and other rapid movement. I’m relying on projectile blocking and/or reflecting walls. I’m relying on blocking and invulnerability skills. i’m relying on the use of stealth or decoys to stop the enemy attacking me in the first place. All of these fundamentally fulfill the same role as dazes, stuns, fears and the like – preventing the enemy from landing blows – but none of them involve having to chip through stacks of ablative protection with long-recharge skills just to get one of them that actually works.

To put this in context, in GW1 I was fairly control-happy – I used to comment that even when I wasn’t playing a mesmer, I thought like a mesmer. So if I’ve come to just stop bothering to bring most forms of control, what do you think the people who have always advocated that the best control is killing the target ASAP are doing?

Nerfing player access to control in PvE, even in an optional hard mode, isn’t just beating a dead horse, it’s continuing to thrash away when the flesh has been flayed from its bones and the bones ground to powder. We need to be looking at ways to make control actually worth taking again (without making it too easy to stunlock bosses), not introduce a mode that’s telling players “if somehow you were still crazy enough to think disables are still worth taking, this will beat it out of you, and if and when you go back to normal mode, you’ll take your experience of surviving without control with you.”

Nike.2631:

Sidebar:

A possible improvement to Unshakeable and Defiance

Each control ability, successful or not removes one stack and at 0 stacks you are allowed a single unimpeded control before the NPCs refills their Defiance – this remains unchanged. The change is rather than having stacks of Defiance completely negate Control Effects and rendering the entire role nearly meaningless in crucial PvE encounters, each stack of Defiance provides minus-15% control effect duration reduction. This would mean characters with extremely developed control abilities would begin being able to momentarily stun/interrupt the NPC at 13 stacks (195% duration reduction). Normal stuns would start to have some impact at 6 stacks (90% duration reduction) and that impact would increase over the next few CC abilities until the NPC is reduced to 0 stacks of defiance, is struck one more time for the full effect and then returns to its most resistant state.

The gradual decline in resistance (rather than the current binary state) not only makes control more meaningful in general, it also specifically acknowledges the focus and opportunity costs paid to deliver higher duration CC effects. “Control builds” become tangibly better because they can make their effects work several stacks earlier than less focused characters for whom Control is a more tertiary ability. Retaining the count-down aspect allows all characters with control effects to contribute to ‘chipping away’ the target’s defenses.

End Sidebar.

This is a bit more like it.

Personally, I think Defiant stacks should decay as well – say, at a rate of one every 5-10 seconds. This means that if you have a lot of control effects it’s definitely worthwhile chipping away, but if you only have one or two, rationing them out means that you still get to use them at full effect… while the boss is still protected from being stunlocked.

(Possibly, as another consideration, make it so that instead of each stack removing a certain % from the stun duration, it removes a flat amount of time? So a quick, cheap Head Shot from a thief is primarily only suitable to chipping away at the Defiant stacks, while a fully-charged mace burst skill might be able to achieve a short shutdown even through a large number of stacks.)

Conski Deshan.2057:

Mystic forge exotics and Legendaries and boss drops, Here we have a problem, I know people who have worked hard to get 2 incinerators or 2 whisper blades, that shows twice the effort.

This is something that I think definitely has merit.

I’d restrict it to the mystic forge exotics and legendaries, though (which, to be honest, I really think in the current system should really be upgraded to Ascended, or at least the really expensive ones). Any skin that you can craft yourself without needing particularly expensive materials, though, should be one that you can easily apply to new equipment.

MatthijsB.4731:

Remove the current inbalance between Exotic gear and the boring & harder to acquire Ascended gear.

This can be done two ways.

Give the ascended gear the same stats as exotic gear, this option is not really cool for the people who crafted ascended gear.

The other option is to make some kind of Mystic Forge recipe that gives exotic gear the same stats without the infusion slots.

Why take half measures? Have a recipe that takes ascended materials and such which, if thrown into the Mystic Forge with an exotic item, spits out a fully ascended version of that item?

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

In an earlier forum post one of the devs stated that they had added new events like the ones mentioned by Colin to (last years) Halloween event. He came to the conclusion that because of lack of player feedback this isn’t something players enjoy, so they scrapped the idea of adding new events and increasing the rotation timers of existing ones.

Yeah, I really think Colin came to the wrong conclusion here. Back in November 2012, a lot of players were still in that “first exploration” phase – see a new event, and you wouldn’t be sure whether it was actually new or just one they hadn’t seen before.

Now, a year later? If new events started popping up around the place and adding to the rotation, people are going to notice when they see something they haven’t seen the last 2342 times they’ve rampaged across the map. Might put a crimp in some of those champion farming zergs, too.

Chrispy.5641:

(4) – (Negative) – Transmutation stuff would be obsolete. People would only ever need 1 skin, so the prices of every single item in the game would drop, even very rare skins (even craftable skins) like the Wings of Dwayna. The game’s Economy would grind to a halt, and the effect would be far worse than anything the Ascended updates have done to the economy.

(5) – (Negative) – Because of #4, everyone will only buy equipment for the stats, which means that the only thing in the economy that doesn’t change would be those items. All items used to craft very rare and exclusive items would drop.

(6) – (Negative) – People would be allowed to craft only one very rare item under this system (Such as infinite Light), then just deposit it in the skin locker, then pull out 2, BAM, he just created 2 Infinite lights for the price of one, making his life automatically easier than the thousands of players before him that had to spend the time and money to craft 2. Just like #4, people would only ever need 1 instead of the number they actually should of bought in the current game.

Super Easy Fix: Just change every item so that we can remove the stats and transform it in a skin (add the option in the rightclick menu with a pop up to confirm the command).
Skins will works like tokens.
The locker will work like a storage tab for skins.
You can have max 250 skins of the same type in each tab.
Once you apply a skin to an object it will become account bound.
Removing the skin will unbound the item.

Now stats and looks are splitted and everybody is happy.

Add in milestones to mark your progress in collecting every skin in the game.
Add titles for each milestone.

About Transmutation consumables becoming obsolete: the end-game is cosmetic for the most part (now we have ascended, and Legendary weapons being able to switch stats became the new BiS item so it’s not 100% cosmetic).
Putting stats on weapons and armors+ transmutation consumables= bad design + goldsink/moneysink.
Imho linking stats and look is a terrible idea. Making the customer pay to go around that in a game as GW2 is worse.
Giving the customer the option to pay for that with ingame gold doesn’t change that, it just promotes farming.

draxynnic.3719:

To put this in context, in GW1 I was fairly control-happy – I used to comment that even when I wasn’t playing a mesmer, I thought like a mesmer. So if I’ve come to just stop bothering to bring most forms of control, what do you think the people who have always advocated that the best control is killing the target ASAP are doing?

I want to bring you to this paragraph. Its a very interesting paragraph, and tells us everything that is wrong with Guild Wars 2 right now, or atleast the combat design. Currently, the entire game is built around dealing as much DPS as is possible in the game.

Well…There’s your problem (and the problem for most players)…..You rely too much on DPS. I bet that if Anet starts introducing bosses where you are Required to remove stacks of defiant in order to damage it (for 30 sec the defiant comes back or whatever), we’ll hear no end to the complaining because everyone just wants to deal brainless damage, assuming the game is no deeper than DPS and dodging. Thank you for proving another point I’ve been wanting to make for months now.

Yuri.5810:

Chrispy.5641:

…negatives…

Super Easy Fix: Just change every item so that we can remove the stats and transform it in a skin (add the option in the rightclick menu with a pop up to confirm the command).
Skins will works like tokens.
The locker will work like a storage tab for skins.
You can have max 250 skins of the same type in each tab.
Once you apply a skin to an object it will become account bound.
Removing the skin will unbound the item.

Now stats and looks are splitted and everybody is happy.

Add in milestones to mark your progress in collecting every skin in the game.
Add titles for each milestone.

About Transmutation consumables becoming obsolete: the end-game is cosmetic for the most part (now we have ascended, and Legendary weapons being able to switch stats became the new BiS item so it’s not 100% cosmetic).
Putting stats on weapons and armors+ transmutation consumables= bad design + goldsink/moneysink.
Imho linking stats and look is a terrible idea. Making the customer pay to go around that in a game as GW2 is worse.
Giving the customer the option to pay for that with ingame gold doesn’t change that, it just promotes farming.

Its not that easy of a fix though. There are tens of thousands of items in the game, and there is no “Change all to X” Switch, where you can magically make it to where you right click on an item with stats, and choose “Convert to Skin”. The amount of programming it would require would fill several living world updates I bet.

The other thing I want to address is these things::
(1) Why is Farming a bad thing? People already do it for months at a time in order to get materials necessary for Legendaries, gold necessary for certain items. Its basically the endgame right now as well. There is not enough other activities for someone to play the game without farming in some way in the game’s current form.
(2) Why are Transmutation Crystals a bad thing? If your answer is that you don’t feel like spending gold to change your character’s look, its a bad answer, because, what the heck else are you going to spend gold on, if not to change your look at in the endgame?
(3) Why are Gold/Moneysinks a bad thing? It keeps ingame inflation down, and has kept the prices of items relatively stable for well over a year now. If you suddenly remove one of the larger goldsinks in the game, inflation goes up, which will devalue most items, anyways.
(4) Referring to the above two, why are Microtransactions a bad thing? Its kind of one of the ways Anet makes money right now.
(5) Currently Legendaries being able to Switch stats is what makes them so rare and exclusive items. It is currently beyond Endgame. It is the the end of the endgame. Are you really trying to suggest that we stomp all over Legendaries and allow anyone to do that from the start (and no, I don’t own a legendary)

Chrispy.5641:

(5) Currently Legendaries being able to Switch stats is what makes them so rare and exclusive items. It is currently beyond Endgame. It is the the end of the endgame. Are you really trying to suggest that we stomp all over Legendaries and allow anyone to do that from the start (and no, I don’t own a legendary)

no. swapping stats is never exclusive for legendary weapons in the first place. legendary weapons have ugly skins, that’s it. nothing more.

do you realize not everyone wants to use the legendary weapon skins? but everyone wants the stats swapping feature. it will be made available to the public.

my contribution for this topic:

all gear (weapons & armor & back item) can swap skins
all trinkets (amulet rings accessories) can swap icons
all gear (weapons armor trinkets) can swap stats runes sigils infusions

max level 80, please keep it that way, do not increase.
highest tier ascended, please keep it that way, do not increase.

allow skins to be swapped, just like stats, once unlocked one by one.
each armor piece is able to swap skins, once unlocked.
each weapon is able to swap skins, once unlocked.
we can swap skins of any weapons and armor that we have unlocked

allow basic stats to be swapped, once unlocked one by one.
each armor piece is able to swap stats, once unlocked.
each weapon is able to swap stats, once unlocked.
we can swap stats of all gear weapons armor trinkets that we have unlocked

allow runes to be swapped, once unlocked one by one.
each armor piece is able to swap runes, once unlocked.
we can swap the armor runes that we have unlocked

allow sigils to be swapped, once unlocked one by one.
each weapon is able to swap sigils, once unlocked.
we can swap the weapon sigils that we have unlocked

allow infusions to be swapped, once unlocked one by one.
can swap between defensive, offensive, utility infusions.
can swap between various infusions once unlocked.

this is the ultimate horizontal progression that everyone has been asking for.
there will always be new skins. (no limit!)
there will always be new stats combinations. (certain limit?)
there will always be new infusions. (certain limit?)
there will always be new runes / sigils (certain limit?)

please quote and re post if you support.
thanks!

@ Chrispy It wouldn’t let me quote and answer you too, due to length

It actually has been written up that way several times, in multiple threads. As for for negatives, they’re all assumptions on your part.

Your #3 is horizontal because it adds another layer to gameplay (a collection system), without increasing the stats of the characters.

#4/#5 could still require transmutation stones to withdraw skins and place them on their character. All these items were dirt cheap before Essences of Luck were released, driving up their prices. It’s questionable to say that a Skin Locker would kill the Economy.

And #6 is totally made up situations. You don’t know how the Locker would function and stats haven’t really even been suggested as included in the skin locker. Seeing as how not everyone in this game of millions of players crafts, there would still be a demand for people to craft more than one thing.

I’m not mad that you disagree, I’m disappointed that you pretended not to understand the idea and began knocking on it, just because someone else pointed out very obvious technical flaws in one of your ideas. There isn’t a point in doing that and several people have enjoyed your other ideas.

Chrispy.5641:

Its not that easy of a fix though. There are tens of thousands of items in the game, and there is no “Change all to X” Switch, where you can magically make it to where you right click on an item with stats, and choose “Convert to Skin”. The amount of programming it would require would fill several living world updates I bet.

The other thing I want to address is these things::
(1) Why is Farming a bad thing? People already do it for months at a time in order to get materials necessary for Legendaries, gold necessary for certain items. Its basically the endgame right now as well. There is not enough other activities for someone to play the game without farming in some way in the game’s current form.
(2) Why are Transmutation Crystals a bad thing? If your answer is that you don’t feel like spending gold to change your character’s look, its a bad answer, because, what the heck else are you going to spend gold on, if not to change your look at in the endgame?
(3) Why are Gold/Moneysinks a bad thing? It keeps ingame inflation down, and has kept the prices of items relatively stable for well over a year now. If you suddenly remove one of the larger goldsinks in the game, inflation goes up, which will devalue most items, anyways.
(4) Referring to the above two, why are Microtransactions a bad thing? Its kind of one of the ways Anet makes money right now.
(5) Currently Legendaries being able to Switch stats is what makes them so rare and exclusive items. It is currently beyond Endgame. It is the the end of the endgame. Are you really trying to suggest that we stomp all over Legendaries and allow anyone to do that from the start (and no, I don’t own a legendary)

I’m not qualified to tell you if it’s easy or not, and honestly it’s not the point of the discussion. You’ve pointed out some concerns, i’ve adressed them in the way i think they should be adressed.
To your other questions/statements:
1) Because AN said that they don’t want us to farm and are actively trying to prevent us from farming. There are all the activities that you want and no endless repetition (aka farming) is needed. Do each dungeon every day, fractals, DEs, WvsW or sPvP. Plenty of things to do in this game, the point is if you enjoy playing the game without getting a shiny back.

2)Because they are something required if i want to pair some stat with a specific look. In a game where cosmetics are a good part of the endgame imho are a bad thing. Just my opinion, i’m not forcing it on anybody. To me they are like an item i have to buy to unlock the final stage of a game.

3)They are not. This particular moneysink for me is a bad thing (see point 2 above)

4)Again, they are not a bad thing themselves. They become a bad thing when in 16 months we had quite a few new armor sets and none of them can be obtained playing. The only new complete set that we can obtain playing is the ascended one.
The Ascended Armors to me are quite flat, while the one in the gem shops have little particle effects in some details. As far as i know, quite a few people agree with me about that.
The most negative people think that it’s a way to make you spend a lot to craft them and then spend some more to transmute them.

5)No, that is not the reason they are rare and exclusive. The massive farm behind them to get the T6 and the precursor (or the money to buy those items) is the thing that make them “rare and exclusive”. They were designed to be a long term skin goal in the first place, then they should have been “on par with the BiS item”, now they are the BiS item. There is not a single weapon that is on par with them, because they are each and every Ascended weapon of that kind stat-wise.
Back when exotics were the BiS, Legendaries were what they were meant to be and people still tried to get them first. Now they are not.

TheDaiBish.9735:

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.

Hmm. Different variants of weapon skills unlocked by training quests with certain race NPCs.
Actually, I like that thought quite a lot. Some quests – like those – don’t have the problem of not changing anything about the world, because they’re innately supposed to affect one character (or party).
So… bring back (some types of) quests?

timidobserver.7925:

I’d like to see a profession that can use a staff in melee rather than having it exist only as a stick that shoots magic.

I could see a ranger doing that.

Chrispy.5641:

draxynnic.3719:

To put this in context, in GW1 I was fairly control-happy – I used to comment that even when I wasn’t playing a mesmer, I thought like a mesmer. So if I’ve come to just stop bothering to bring most forms of control, what do you think the people who have always advocated that the best control is killing the target ASAP are doing?

I want to bring you to this paragraph. Its a very interesting paragraph, and tells us everything that is wrong with Guild Wars 2 right now, or atleast the combat design. Currently, the entire game is built around dealing as much DPS as is possible in the game.

This is my entire point. You seem to like stating arguments that imply that your opponent is somehow deficient, such as “you rely too much on DPS” – it’s not that I or anyone else relies too much on DPS. We rely on DPS exactly as much as is optimal for the game as it currently stands – which is “all of it”, since the other legs of the “soft trinity”, by and large, aren’t viable to use. (The “support” side has some good skills, but only in some professions, and control… well, we’re having that discussion…)

And that’s something that I’d like to see changed, not further exacerbated, as your proposal of expanding Defiant to more creatures would have done.

Now, something similar to Defiant that needs to be stripped on order to damage the target… that has potential. It would certainly be preferential to the silly “their only weakness is their own weapons” mechanic we got given so many times during the Northern Hemisphere summer.. It’d probably need to be calibrated for professions that have relatively few control options – but as long as necromancers are still able to generate Life Force, than it’s probably reasonable to expect any profession to be at least able to get one off every thirty seconds or so.

Mind you, this is kinda working around the problem rather than directly addressing it – such a mechanic doesn’t actually promote control as a full leg of the soft trinity, it just makes such skills a prerequisite for performing DPS. It’d be an interesting mechanic for specific bosses, but I don’t think it’d be good to have it everywhere – we need reason to bring control for control, not because we can’t DPS until we’ve jumped through a set of hoops.

Hi all, I’m a bit late to the discussion but thought I’d add my top 3 horizontal progression ideas I’d like to see:

1. More weapons, skills & traits for each profession – This will most likely happen anyway, but it is something I would like to see done better. The new healing skills for example were great, but I would like to see a more interesting ways (in terms of progression) of acquiring them. I guess part of the problem is that a lot of players just want to get the skills as soon as possible. But really, so long as each new skill doesn’t take too long to acquire, it would be more fun to have to progress through some quest chain or hunt down a certain champion and learn the skill from them, etc.

As for new weapons for each profession, maybe you should have to learn how to use them from a master trainer NPC first, who asks you to perform a series of tasks in order to learn their use. I remember Anet talking about having special challenges that players could complete to unlock certain traits, that were unique to your profession. For example, a warrior would have to win a drinking game or bar brawl, an Elementalist would have to find and read a secret tome of knowledge. This system was unfortunately not added, but it could be implemented for new weapons.

2. Special channeled ally only skills – These special utility skills would be unlocked through some kind of event completion progression, so could be unlocked for PvE and WvW players in equal measure. Due to being channeled you would not be able to use other skills while casting it and they would also not offer any benefit to your character, but they would help your allies out a lot. For example, a guardian skill that has a long (5-10 seconds) channel time that provides protection to all allies in range while it is channeling. Or a smoke screen that the engineer can generate (channel) to keep only his allies stealthed (would be an awesome skill to trick enemies into an ambush). You could even have PvE and WvW specific ally skills, such as a skill that doubles supply efficiency for a very short period.

3. Roleplaying or interactive town clothes skills – These would be usable only in town clothes and would provide you extra options for roleplaying as well as unique emotes. I’m not a big role player myself, but it is fun once in a while to act in character and it would be good to have more options available, especially interactive emotes. Emotes that would allow other players to join in on the actions would add a lot of fun to the game. And much like normal skills, these could be tied to some kind of leveling progression. Maybe you could start with one skill and every time a player interacts with you, you gain role play experience points. The weapon skills you gain could be based on your character’s personality and background choices (making these choices have more impact) as well as extra utility skills you could learn from npc’s or unlock with role play points. Also, so as not to effect costume brawl, adding items that provide costume brawl skills would override your roleplay skills.

There are a lot of great ideas already in this thread and I would include more than the 3 if I could, such as more skins and upgradeable gear. But I feel the 3 above would ultimately provide more options to players and add more fun into the game.

Ben K.7329:

Hmm. Different variants of weapon skills unlocked by training quests with certain race NPCs.

Actually, I like that thought quite a lot. Some quests – like those – don’t have the problem of not changing anything about the world, because they’re innately supposed to affect one character (or party).

So… bring back (some types of) quests?

I mentioned in a previous post, there’s nothing inherently wrong with the traditional type of ‘quest’. When it’s used for personal progression, that’s great. Immersion-wise, it makes sense that that person would give that task to everyone who proves worthy ect. It’s just when they’re used for the ‘kill x threat that are just roaming around’ is when DE’s become the better tool.

It doesn’t even need to be quests all of the time (although I like the connotation of a quest to get Elite skills). It could be something like some of the skill point challenges. They could be tailored to the theme of that profession (Warrior fights, Guardian protects, Necro does a ritual to summon some fel beast ect).

Not only that, I think locking the skills behind a task that is engaging and gives the basics on how to use that skill adds more to the longevity of the game than simply UI > Unlock.

Here’s how I would have structured GW2.

The aim is to have variety, goals, and horizontal progression in PvE and WvW, whilst PvP gets its own seperate balance in a meaningful way, with well-tested skills/traits.

PvE & WvW is the testing ground for new skills & traits

• Seperate skills & traits into PvE/WvW and PvP versions.

• Allow for more flexibility in skill choice. If we don’t want free-choice weapon skills, then at least create some alternate weapon versions with different skills. (eg. Rapier has a different skill #4 and #5 than Longsword, etc.)

• Make lots of PvE/WvW skills & traits. Lots of them. Make them different, make them niche, make them minor variations of each other with the same graphics. Just throw a bunch of kitten at a wall and see what sticks.

• In PvE/WvW, you have a GW1/Magic the Gathering style hunt for more skills/traits. There can be a variety of quest mechanics, like capturing Elite skills from bosses, quests like defeating a fire elemental to get a token that can purchase from a list of fire skills, or completing an achievement using a particular skill to get a different version of that skill.

• Rather than nerfs and buffs, ANet should have a fixed plan to add X new skills/traits regularly and retire X skills/traits regularly. They can use this process to remove OP skills or replace UP skills with better variations.

Alongside all of this, PvP gets a carefully controlled selection of skills from PvE/WvW

• PvP is divided into seasons. Each season has its set of allowed skills & traits.

• Using the testing data from PvE & WvW, ANet can carefully choose which skills and traits to allow in PvP, and if any adjustments are required for PvP versions.

• ANet can also take input into which skills players want available in the next season, which makes it easier since players can experiment with builds in PvE/WvW.

- -

I guess all of the above can apply to pretty much everything in the game – runes, sigils, armor stats, weapons, etc. Have a great amount of variety and horizontal progression in PvE & WvW, and then use that to allow PvP to have a controlled, well tested and balanced set of abilities/items.

1 – New skills for each profession, that you have to capture or unlock by doing missions / quests / combats

2 – Some alternate Weapons Skills, to promote diversity in build and surprises in PvP.

3 – More combo stuff. Great idea, under-used concept.
Similar to the Materia suggestion, one could change an infusion or something to change the combo initiator / finisher on a weapon, for example.

What good are more skill options, if the game is unable to punish choice?

Right now, we are in a situation in which any given class has plenty of options how to configure runes, armor bonuses and traits. Problem is, there aren’t any situations where this choice really really matters in PvE. Technically, a player is able to compensate even the worst build with movement skills and his main weapon. Worst case is you dragging the team down.

The skills which matter, i.e. weapon skills and utilities, can always be changed on the fly. This changing of the weapon needs to be leveraged more. To the point where any class can hotswap to any weapon in the middle of combat. Then we have choice in the middle of the action and we can have enemies demanding from us to make choices. That’s what makes a good game, it asks you do make interesting decisions.

Simply adding more of everything (skills, runes, traits) to such a system, without changing the terms on which choices are enforced in combat, is not a reasonable improvement. More out of combat tinkering and equally irrelevant choices, not good. Ultimately, not just the players have to change, the monsters have to change. They need to gain the ability to punish players for making bad weapon choices. With players then being again able to switch on the fly, there will be a moment of player empowerment rewarding player choice.

If you look top down on the battle, then each skill has an area it controls and affects. Some weapons are highly compressed in which area they affect, some weapons have skills which seem to reach any spot or area. Those are the things bosses and mobs must ask the player to do. Be knowledgeable about the area you control, how you control it and how to punish an enemy for stepping into it. With enemies reacting to that and being able to prevent the blind unloading of skills we have now.

This reasoning should not just apply to offensive skills, but also to defensive skills, which currently suffer from high recharge times, forcing the game way too much in the “navigate circles on the ground” direction, because that is the only pressure the game can constantly throw at the player, because the game knows movement is the only permanently available resource to the player. If a boss does one of his big communicated attacks, we always dodge. We need more aggressive ways to block + counterattack. GW2 already shifted much of its focus to more action based combat. I needs to pick up more tropes of that genre. Because ultimately, that is how horizontal progression works in action games; combat intricacy. DMC anyone?

Rieselle.5079:

Snip

This man (or woman) is onto something, folks. Horizontal progression is about flare. How awesome can I make my character be? Whether that’s through armor/weapon skins or through variations of current skills that simply look different, we gamers are vain creatures. Most of us casual players don’t need some form of 1500 ore grind to progress our characters. Simply giving us more visuals to play with and more skills to choose from would make a lot of us content.

Also, I know this isn’t exactly related to horizontal progression, but I would love to see some changes to bosses. A lot are simply zerg fests. Tequatl was a step in the right direction, but I’ve yet to see anything else. Give us interesting mechanics! And while you’re at it, buff the control and support aspect of your PvE trinity, ANet. I want to support but Healing Power scales so terribly that I might as well be dead weight in dungeon groups where DPSing as fast as possible is the most viable way to succeed.

1) Guild System/Activities Improvement: Guild Halls, GvG, Alliances and everything new about guilds.
2) Hard Mode/Elite Missions
3) Legendary Skins

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

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.

Fair point, some ideas that could work around some of these problems:

Idea I: An elite skill that summons a hero that lasts 15 seconds.

The skill would have a long recharge and summon one of your characters or another helper that you have unlocked elsewhere in the game. (Maybe Detha from doing her path in Ascalonian Catacombs etc.)

The hero would do skills based on the profession. (I am sure that the current AI system cannot handle a full build, and it could be really hard to balance content around the endless possibilities) Or based on it’s character. (Perhaps Detha is a mesmer but uses different skills than the basic mesmer hero)

A seperate UI window needs to be made to be able to pick what hero the skill should summon. (This is picked before entering combat, so you don’t have to select one in the heat of battle)

The hero would take the place of other summons that you can already bring with elite skills, so the lag issues shouldn’t be that bad.

Idea II: An aid-caller NPC.

In future content, perhaps there could be an asuran NPC that can call for aid. Summoning a helpful character in hologram form that you have unlocked. The hologram would stay until defeated or until it’s time runs out. The more options you have the better you can adjust to the situation. But you can only have one hologram up at a time. And it can only function within the limits of the area in which it was summoned. (Since it will time out after a while)

Idea III: Instances designed around assets.

In GW1 I recall having a mission in Factions called Raisu Palace. In this mission we would start out in an area with 6 NPC’s that we had helped earlier on in the campaign. We could choose two of them and they would each perform an action within the mission to help out the team. (Open a bridge/distract some foes/etc.) But they would also fight along while they were with you.

We could have something similar in GW2 dungeon settings. Although it would be more interesting for horizontal progression if these new dungeons were uniquely designed to support dungeon assets. Such as Challenge Missions or perhaps a new elite explorable instance more like the Underworld/FoW. Where you can use these assets to make up for weak links in your teams line-up. (Lack of healing for example)

Idea IV: Summoning Stones

In GW1 we had items that could summon an ally for 30 minutes. But after we used one, we couldn’t use another for 10 minutes. And we could only have one active at a time. They would typically die in combat before the 30 minutes were over. I guess they are a lot like Fire Elemental Powder. But less spammable.

Not quite the GW1 hero system, but I believe that there could be a way to make this work with great potential for horizontal progression.

As for the whole GW2 combat discussion, perhaps we can take that elsewhere? Perhaps make a new thread, or continue on my thread over here. It is very important (I’ve spend a lot of time writing about it in that thread), but I believe this is not the place for it.