Guild Wars 2

Conski:

I suppose, but I’m simply programmed to always think in terms of what we lose in order to get what we’re gaining. What will we end up sacrificing, what will we not get, if ArenaNet gives us an extensive player housing system as has been proposed?

In this instance, I’m terribly afraid that extensive player housing means we won’t actually get guild halls at all. After all, it’d be so incredibly easy for ArenaNet, having spent months of effort, time, and resources on this big galumphing player housing update to say “Guild halls? No problem! We’re sure that someone in your guild could be convinced to make their housing instance into a guild hall for all of you to enjoy!”

…which defeats pretty much every single purpose of a guild hall in its entirety save for the verymost basic function of “Meet at (X)’s house so we can organize before we do (Y).” There’d be no investment in it, there’d be no sense of community, there’d be no “this is MY place just as much as HIS place.” It’d be even more of a terrible bass-ackwards bodge as using a one-man guild hall as a kludged-up personal house would be.

Instead, one player in a guild gets to give up their personal housing instance ‘For The Good Of The Guild(!!)’, and everyone else in the guild gets to mooch off that one player. There’s no sense of cameraderie or fellowship, there’s a sense of all’a’sudden you’ve got a troop of loud, messy Dwarves in your quiet little home in the Shire. they don’t particularly want to be there, you don’t really want them there, but there’s no real choice for either of you.

So that’s the real thing, I suppose: are you willing to give up guild halls entirely in exchange for personalized player housing? If you’re not – and I am most certainly not – I’d think really, really carefully before asking for something that’d so easily mean we never see guild halls seriously discussed again.

DevilLordLaser.8619:

Conski:

I suppose, but I’m simply programmed to always think in terms of what we lose in order to get what we’re gaining. What will we end up sacrificing, what will we not get, if ArenaNet gives us an extensive player housing system as has been proposed?

I’d like to think that an individual housing system gives them practice, experience and a body of working, proven code to use to make Guild Halls that much better (and stable) right out of the gate. Or the other way around – a Guild Hall system builds expertise towards releasing a Personal Housing system. Once the work has ben invested, I don’t see them not trying to leverage it to build further offerings. But given a choice between the two, I’d rather everyone have the opportunity to use it before guildmasters get a much more exclusive tool.

videoboy.4162:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

videoboy.4162:

Chris,

I know you can’t give details, but I was wondering if you guys figured out a way to separate the LS from the PS? I remember several Dev comments mentioning that the PS was reducing what could be done in LS (example: Killing Jennah because she had to be alive in the PS.)

This is definitely something we have been discussing.

I cannot give anymore details than that however.

Chris

Darn, I totally tried to phrase it in such a way that you could just say yes or no. LOL I’ll try harder next time. =D

My Dev-Speak parser reads that reply as~

“Progress is being made, but we’d rather show you the outcome in-game rather than tell you about it weeks/months beforehand… and incidentally educate our competition who might be able to capitalize on it before we’re ready to roll it out.”

Nike:

That makes sense, and it’s occurred to me as well, but I’ve certainly seen my share and a half of completely nonsensical garbage out of all manner of game developers, almost always justified by some variation of the excuse “We don’t have the time/resources to do that. Make do with what you have.” It’s made me…twitchy…over the years >_>

As for letting everyone use it before guildmasters get it…yeah, some guildmasters are going to be tyrants and use a guild hall system as their own personal housing instance regardless. I’d like to think, however, that any guild worth playing with is going to be a bit more inclusive than that. I know for an absolute fact that if guild halls became available prior to player housing (or even after player housing), GTFC’s leadership cadre would be posting polls and asking guildmates’ opinions throughout every step of the process of setting up the hall. After all, I’m on the leadership cadre for GTFC and I’d insist on it.

There are pros and cons to each side, and as Conski pointed out this is mostly a CDI about personal progression rather than communal. However, since the subject of player housing is certainly a Big Discussion in the thread at the moment, I feel as if extra discussions centered around the closely related concept of guild halls isn’t a complete waste of time. Especially considering the dangers inherent in choosing one over the other.

Heh…really, I suppose I just feel like trying to shoehorn player housing into this game is an awkward decision. if I want to make my own perfect house I’ll go play Minecraft. I get on GW2 to hang with my buddies therein, or to bring righteous slaughter to the enemies of civilization. I don’t really have any interest at all in working on my den upholstery when there’s zombies and dragons and really annoying cabbage people to deal with, hey!

Nike.2631:

videoboy.4162:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

videoboy.4162:

Chris,

I know you can’t give details, but I was wondering if you guys figured out a way to separate the LS from the PS? I remember several Dev comments mentioning that the PS was reducing what could be done in LS (example: Killing Jennah because she had to be alive in the PS.)

This is definitely something we have been discussing.

I cannot give anymore details than that however.

Chris

Darn, I totally tried to phrase it in such a way that you could just say yes or no. LOL I’ll try harder next time. =D

My Dev-Speak parser reads that reply as~

“Progress is being made, but we’d rather show you the outcome in-game rather than tell you about it weeks/months beforehand… and incidentally educate our competition who might be able to capitalize on it before we’re ready to roll it out.”

Hahaha yeah, I knew that, at most, he could only give me a yes or no. That’s why I tried to phrase it in such a way, that he wouldn’t feel the need to elaborate. Guess this is just one of those things I’ll have to be cautiously optimistic about. =D

Chris-

At one point, you had offered to produce an estimate of implementation time/resources for some of the systems, I think. Are you still planning on doing this so we can better prioritize some of these ideas? Or will you be building the proposal based on the discussion so far?

I think some of the ideas here might serve as “quick wins” and that a lot of the suggestions, like subclasses and housing, might fall out of favor when the folks here (who I assume are mostly not developers) see how much extra effort those systems require.

Oh, and thanks. I think this has been a very interesting CDI, even if I tend to disagree with a lot of the ideas.

I think that’s the proposal Chris meant, timmyf. At least, that’s the main thing I latched onto mentally as the promised Chris post I most want to see

Perhaps I’m a bit late to the party but just some finalized thoughts on a few of the subjects that seem to have the greatest focus as of late.

Subclass System: I am all for new ways to fine tune my character (Mesmer) in ways that allow me to play exactly the way i want to play it. New skills Different traits being a large portion of this. On the off hand I personally do not feel that adding a large amount of “everyone can use these” skills, or a Secondary trait tree into the mix are where the answers are. This to me, seems like a lot of work and a high potential for Balancing issues with so many class mechanics compounding and potentially breaking singular skills out of a Mass pool. Say Necros can abuse 1 skill to have 25 stacks of permanent Torment placed by AOE, this skill now requires a nerf to balance it for Necro use and can thus render the skill useless for every other profession. That skill would then for all intents and purposes, become a necro skill that no other profession would want to bring to the table. A secondary Trait system and tree after 80 also seems like an addition to a problem to me. Its potentially off putting to new players who have just successfully hit 80 and now find that they have to progress even further down a new and confusing trait system just to catch up. In short its a cliff in a learning curve.

I would propose that, insted of forcing a web work of new systems into place, a slight alteration and addition to systems we already have.

Sub-Classes: I will use Mesmer as an example since it’s what i’m the most familiar with. Lets say you just created your first toon, and its a mesmer (god help you). You gracefully fumble around with your weapons till you find some you enjoy, and level as any normal player would. as you reach level .. let’s say 20. The same point that you unlock your final utility slot. You are now presented with the option to choose a “Sub class” Via your skill trainer. You’ve already managed to discover how your profession works at the core i would hope, and are present with a few options, lets say 3. One option slights you away from Clone reliance and presents you with replacement Weapon skills and Class Skills (F1 F2 F3 and F4) And locks away as well as opens up New Trait Options in your trees. One keeps the mesmer as it currently is. And the third option is for greater reliance on clones, presenting you, again, with new skills, traits, etc..

As a player you feel this is more of a natural progression and also a choice that means the game adapts and accommodates to your wants and needs. Personally this would feel more like the Game opening up and bending to you rather than some of the current trouble of “Trying to force the game to work the way you want it to” (as quoted from someone in LA).

This approach brings subtle diversity, In my opinion, and allows for smoother transitions for new and old players. This would also alleviate some of the work of attempting to fit 100 new traits into a secondary trait tree, by instead altering the traits available and keeping all of them Relevant to your specific “sub-class” generating some room for new traits.

Weapons would also allow for some diversity, where as Player X who chose Subclass Y uses a Sword as a Martial weapon, Player Y and Z who picked Subclass X can use a sword as a Defensive and evasive weapon to generate Clones. This may not allow for fully customizable weapon skill sets but does mean that we can remove some of the stagnation from the current.

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Part 2, I typed too much …. v.v;

Racial : Race currently means having a handful of special skills and your appearance in game. While I am greatly appreciative of not having to choose how to make a toon based on what race synergizes the best with a class. I do feel that Racial differences could be included in Horizontal Progression with some potential new skills or Negligible Passives (Asura have an racial bonus to Magic find perhaps [1 to 2%]) which could allow for some new mechanics to be added in as quality of life. This may be best linked to the possibility of Player Housing and its implementation.

==

New Weapons and Utilities: This is generated on the Above version of a Subclass System (scroll up bro). Basing weapon usage on sub class (to a limited extent). This does not mean that a Raging Warrior can only use a GS, Axe or Sword and nothing else, but rather this warrior would give up use of his shield and mace and gain the ability to use, just for funsies, lets say a dagger or if its in the cards, a new weapon like a Pike. Some utility skills could apply in a similar manner. Maybe the Raging Warrior focuses on burst damage and thus no longer has room (time, if you love Lore) for his Banners but gains more Stances. This would allow for greater ease of new skill Balance by limiting the amount of variables that they can interact with (rather than 500 traits or 1000 traits from a double trait tree, they only interact with 340 or such). Please note numbers for mentioned are not exact totals, and i haven’t done the math for current trait max numbers.

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Hope some of this was helpful and most of it was clear. Back to lurking in the shadows.
Best of luck Anet team!

So, how about that Fractured disaster that was supposed to being looked in to?

Maybe before any horizontal or vertical progression is made, going back and fixing all the problems that were caused with that big disappointment should be addressed.

But hey it wouldn’t be the first time things have been shrugged off in hopes of burying it in the past.

This thread is not a soapbox.

Donari.5237:

Conski said it very well. Guild halls tend to be customized by the guild leader, all well and good but guild members need places to hang their hats as well. I know my guild leader desperately wants an airship for a guild hall. That’ll be fun but my conman noble needs a mansion, my seamstress commoner needs an apartment over a shop, my street rat could use any old hovel or even an alleyway or barn. I have a sylvari who recently moved in with her first love, he has a tiny pod jammed with books and musical instruments. A one-size-fits-all guild hall simply won’t match up with all the individual tastes out there.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have guild halls, or perhaps allow a guild leader to build two properties and design one to fit the guild needs. Hmm. I mentioned all the different living styles of just a few of my alts. Are we going to be able to do character by character, or will KISS mean an account wide home to customize?

Ok so go back to open world housing for a moment. How about a guild can control land surrounding his guild-hall. Guild-members can then build there houses on guild-controlled land.

That adds a lot of stuff. Guild halls or rather castles. New type of PvP, Player-housing and all the stuff that comes with it (collecting blueprints and so on)

Of course there can then also be non-pvp housing maps for people who like to build a house but are not in a guild or don’t like PvP.

I do would like to see this added in expansions, not without because it has to be paid somehow and if the gem-store would get mixed up in it, it might become just a boring grind as we now see with mini’s, dyes, crafting and much other stuff.

It should be fun mechanics to get the stuff you need. Then it would indeed add great new elements to the game.

I’m guessing you propose the land around this guild hall also be instanced?

I do see merit in setting it up that way, but at the same time I wonder what becomes of the home instance in your starter city, and how to handle people in multiple guilds. That much real estate could be quite some work.

Principally I like the idea of guild hall-based housing because it allows a (potentially) large number of people to see what you’ve got without sprawling across the open world. The home instance doesn’t have that freedom, though it has a stronger connection with the individual character.

Ben K.6238:

I’m guessing you propose the land around this guild hall also be instanced?

I do see merit in setting it up that way, but at the same time I wonder what becomes of the home instance in your starter city, and how to handle people in multiple guilds. That much real estate could be quite some work.

Principally I like the idea of guild hall-based housing because it allows a (potentially) large number of people to see what you’ve got without sprawling across the open world. The home instance doesn’t have that freedom, though it has a stronger connection with the individual character.

I am more talking about some new maps being used (dedicated) for that. So you would then not have it sprawling across the hole world no. But it’s more then just a separate instance.

If you asked me, then personal story arcs for each process of learning a sub-class are certainly the most interesting option. Who says they need to go online all at once? Ship them like a permanent season two of the living story. The hunt for your secondary classes, with a crazy piece of content at the end in which you have to proof that you mastered them all.

New tricks for your character, new missions to test for those tricks. Content stays in the game and you next character will have more to do until content is depleted.

I don’t think the home instance can do what most people are looking for in housing. Human, maybe, a section could be made customizable. But the Asura one is a whole lot of nothing and the Norn one is a dormitory, not a steading. Plus for now hunks of the PS make you travel through the home instance, so it runs up against the consistency issues that’s hamstringing other changes. (Me, I can wrap my brain around alternate status of personal and world story, but I’ve been RPing since the 1970’s and have practice at compartmentalizing character knowledge).

So housing will have to be in a new place, or in sections of city currently inaccessible, much as the Dead End got added to the DR city wall. I remain adamant that open world will not work, not nohow, not ever. I know ANet could surprise me, they’ve come up with many other creative hindsight-obvious solutions, but there simply isn’t room to cram in space for every player of millions. Or even of thousands if we localize it by server.

A separate map is possible. DaoC did that, though it became a subdivision that took effort to travel to and still had the warfare-level competition to get convenient locations with guild members nearby. LotRO did multiple subdivisions, spawning more as the old ones filled. Nice, but limited people per instance so if your guild was larger you’d have issues. Also it too required traveling to the subdivision entrance (less of an issue in a game with so many waypoints, we can just put one at the door in).

The movable doorway someone proposed long ago has some elegance to it. Slap it up anywhere in the world and it’s the way in to your custom place. Now the whole world is available to live in. (Doesn’t help if your alts have distinct lives, but as discussed above the odds of working it out to individual alts are low).

As to guild housing, I’m hopeful it will be quirky, with lots of details and good architecture in a choice of styles. Accessing it will likely be done the same way as individual housing. I wouldn’t want to tie personal housing to guild housing, interesting as that could be, because what happens to your home if you leave the guild?

DevilLordLaser.8619:

That makes sense, and it’s occurred to me as well, but I’ve certainly seen my share and a half of completely nonsensical garbage out of all manner of game developers, almost always justified by some variation of the excuse “We don’t have the time/resources to do that. Make do with what you have.” It’s made me…twitchy…over the years >_>

I’m a game developer but not from ANet, so perhaps I can try and clarify. Exactly why does “we don ’t have the resources” make you “twitch”?

Is it that you don’t believe the developers? Is it because you, a non-developer, think these things are easy?

Do you think they should hire more staff? Can they, given the economic model of the game?

A company exists both to pay its employees and make a profit. A great idea may simply not be economically or logistically possible, no matter how much it may make you “twitch”.

Here’s another angle — just how much do you expect to pay, in real dollars, for guild and player housing? Will adding such items improve player recruitment and retention, and if so, to what extent?

For example, I would pay $25 (2000 gems) for player housing that is meaningful and flexible and useful. Would enough players pay that much to justify development by ANet?

ANet must allocate resources effectively to stay in business and grow the game.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Shakkara.2641:

WE DONT WANT SUBCLASSES!

I just want to point out that this is not a particularly collaborative or useful post. Please however don’t take this personally.

While I agree with your position that no one should argue like she is speaking for everybody else, I’d like to encourage you to not discard the problematic points addressed by Shakkara so lightly. I, for one, am also not thrilled at the thought of a subclass specialization system for GW2.

There are very valid arguments in Shakkara’s post:

• A subclass makes you follow the template provided by a game designer, instead of helping the player to invent original builds for her character.
• Subclass exclusive content in very inefficient to build since, say, 23 out of 3*8=24 players would not benefit from that content. You should recognize this argument, since this was the exact same reason Anet stated for dropping the idea of profession exclusive skill challenges.
• The “tasks of acquisition” do bear the risk of being fun for the first or second time, but might end up becoming a chore or grind, eventually.

I still haven’t seen a single proposal of a subclass specialization system that actually helps to improve build diversity. From what I have seen it might be far more likely that such a system rather fences you in and forces you to take particular roles. (“hey, bro, if you’re a ranger/druid then you have to make a toughness/healing power build, everything else is just plain stupid!!!1!”)

I still think that the “no trinity” approach of GW2 is one of the greatest improvements that the game has brought to the genre. And we are still not completely there: Way over a year after launch some specs still gravely outperform other specs of the same class, thereby already kind of forcing a fixed role on a particular class. And you should know how hard the balance team is working to solve this problem. My fear is that subclassing would just further escalate the situation: Would it really be possible to balance for viable damage, support, and control builds for each and every class/subclass combination? In my opinion, subclassing fits more to a classical trinity based game system, and not to GW2.

Hence, I would rather like to see a form of horizontal progression that helps to generate more viable spec combinations for all classes, instead of a system that might lock you into a fixed and/or preconceived role.

~MRA

I’m not a game developer, but I have experience in coding and IT project management, and what Sytherek is saying is important. I certainly would not pay $25 for housing, and I’d bet the $10-20/month I spend on gems is at the high end already. (I have ten character slots, all bag and bank slots, a custom arena, a Royal pass, gemstone armor, a Jade weapon, etc.) I buy lots of stuff from the gemstore, all with real-world dollars.

On the other hand, if I could buy a bonus mission pack in which I travel into the Maguuma to learn the fate of the White Mantle or into the Charr Homelands or north in the Shiverpeaks to fight Jormag, I’d gladly drop $25. As would, I suspect, many more players.

If ArenaNet can give us that for free, then awesome. But passing up on building meaningful content in favor of housing? That’s a scary thought.

MRA.4758:

I still haven’t seen a single proposal of a subclass specialization system that actually helps to improve build diversity. From what I have seen it might be far more likely that such a system rather fences you in and forces you to take particular roles. (“hey, bro, if you’re a ranger/druid then you have to make a toughness/healing power build, everything else is just plain stupid!!!1!”)

. . . my little fragments on the topic didn’t do any such thing. It just proposed figuring out build archetypes through the five trait lines, and wouldn’t hem you in but allow you to use it as an option.

Hence, I would rather like to see a form of horizontal progression that helps to generate more viable spec combinations for all classes, instead of a system that might lock you into a fixed and/or preconceived role.
~MRA

I’d love to see it too, but I’d like to somewhat avoid the glut of skills GW1 had were you could literally have 500 skills and no idea what to do with them, or any idea where to start short of trying everything and getting catcalled as you do.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I’d love to see it too, but I’d like to somewhat avoid the glut of skills GW1 had were you could literally have 500 skills and no idea what to do with them, or any idea where to start short of trying everything and getting catcalled as you do.

This is a good point! When ArenaNet gets around to adding build templates – something I’d say we all want/need – one very useful feature would be Suggested and Popular builds. This would be a great way to help guide players toward useful builds without forcing them into a subclass structure.

timmyf.1490:

I’m not a game developer, but I have experience in coding and IT project management, and what Sytherek is saying is important. I certainly would not pay $25 for housing, and I’d bet the $10-20/month I spend on gems is at the high end already. (I have ten character slots, all bag and bank slots, a custom arena, a Royal pass, gemstone armor, a Jade weapon, etc.) I buy lots of stuff from the gemstore, all with real-world dollars.

On the other hand, if I could buy a bonus mission pack in which I travel into the Maguuma to learn the fate of the White Mantle or into the Charr Homelands or north in the Shiverpeaks to fight Jormag, I’d gladly drop $25. As would, I suspect, many more players.

If ArenaNet can give us that for free, then awesome. But passing up on building meaningful content in favor of housing? That’s a scary thought.

Somehow I get the conclusion from listening to them it’s not “passed up on” so much as “not having been done yet” through their current framework.

As for “meaningful content or housing” . . . I’d like both. It’s not hard to pace if you release it in the shadow of a LS part that’s continuing past the two week window (like Tower of Nightmares did, so Fractured snuck in while it was still going on).

Also, while we’re collecting thoughts for LS story based content – I want a LS where humans take back Ascalon. Or destroyers flatten Rata Sum. Or charr set fire to the Pale Tree with ghostfire.

Never will happen but I’d have fun.

timmyf.1490:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I’d love to see it too, but I’d like to somewhat avoid the glut of skills GW1 had were you could literally have 500 skills and no idea what to do with them, or any idea where to start short of trying everything and getting catcalled as you do.

This is a good point! When ArenaNet gets around to adding build templates – something I’d say we all want/need – one very useful feature would be Suggested and Popular builds. This would be a great way to help guide players toward useful builds without forcing them into a subclass structure.

It’s something I say often about GW1. The huge pool of skills you have access to offers a lot of freedom to work on what’s good for synergy or unexpected emergent build possibilities. But to “the uninitiated”, it’s an almost paralyzing breadth of choice which sometimes can lead to them putting skills which don’t work for them and thus frustration.

I’ve seen it happen, and it’s not good.

If we want horizontal progression, it can’t just be “here’s a box of basic LEGO bricks” without an idea of what can be done. I’d prefer it like modern kits I pick up, where there are sometimes two alternate sets of directions (or more) which use the parts in the box to make two entirely different things.

timmyf.1490:

I’m not a game developer, but I have experience in coding and IT project management, and what Sytherek is saying is important. I certainly would not pay $25 for housing, and I’d bet the $10-20/month I spend on gems is at the high end already. (I have ten character slots, all bag and bank slots, a custom arena, a Royal pass, gemstone armor, a Jade weapon, etc.) I buy lots of stuff from the gemstore, all with real-world dollars.

On the other hand, if I could buy a bonus mission pack in which I travel into the Maguuma to learn the fate of the White Mantle or into the Charr Homelands or north in the Shiverpeaks to fight Jormag, I’d gladly drop $25. As would, I suspect, many more players.

If ArenaNet can give us that for free, then awesome. But passing up on building meaningful content in favor of housing? That’s a scary thought.

I’d much rather get story and more places to explore than I would player or guild housing. And I’d pay for it too…

MRA.4758:

I still think that the “no trinity” approach of GW2 is one of the greatest improvements that the game has brought to the genre. And we are still not completely there: Way over a year after launch some specs still gravely outperform other specs of the same class, thereby already kind of forcing a fixed role on a particular class. And you should know how hard the balance team is working to solve this problem. My fear is that subclassing would just further escalate the situation: Would it really be possible to balance for viable damage, support, and control builds for each and every class/subclass combination? In my opinion, subclassing fits more to a classical trinity based game system, and not to GW2.

Right, so the DPS only system they have now is just so wonderful, and is chock full of build diversity. Oh wait….
And I think you missed the point, what Arenanet were trying to do wasn’t so much to get rid of the Trinity, but replace it with their own version of one that was more diverse and less crippling then the original holy trinity. DPS-Control-Support.

They however failed to do this, and created a system where you effectively are only a DPS, and everything else is a side dish. In fact in most modes of play, it’s Zerkers or go home.

While you can play with different builds, the game punishes you for it pretty much. You always going to be less effective then your pure DPS counterparts.
Not to mention it’s a very isolating and solo experience by design, which clashes head on with their more collaborative multiplayer events and scaling.

-
I do give them credit for doing well with just one type of play, but you can’t ignore the great whopping problems that come along with it.
Not to say that a sub-class system would fix that, thou I wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand based on assumptions. But it possible to begin addressing some of the issues, depending on how it is executed.

Which is the main problem with your argument, you just declare ‘sub-classes’ won’t work, without defining this incredibly loose term that means different things to different people.

You might want to define your terms.

Colin asked us about the journey if I remember correctly. How do we introduce horizontal progression so that it is interesting and doesn’t feel like a grind?

• events currently don’t feel like a journey to me. They are closed szenarios. It’s certainly a good thing to have those side stories. I LOVE some of the more interesting event-chains which tell a story (the boy in the Norn starter-area who summons bears) and aren’t generic defend/attack loops – much more of those please! But it doesn’t feel like a journey to me.
• quests would tell stories – huge world-wide stories – but they don’t fit in Anets design-idea. Classic quests aren’t repeatable, so when you’ve done one, the zone gets emptier for you. If you’ve done all quests, you’re out of content and find nothing more to do in the zones. They are also static and the wold feels not alive in any way. This is bad as well.

It’s quite hard to think of a system which takes the best of both, because things contradict each other.

Then Anet stated that they want to go away from instanced content (came up with the Queens Gauntlet update). I agree with this, since it takes people out of the world.

quite a nut to crack

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Many have mentioned giving info on the relative weight of each idea that is put forward, we should do this after this phase but to be honest (having given it a lot of thought) I wouldn’t want to see this weighting get in the way of great ideas.

So this comment from awhile back stuck out to me. I think we’ve got plenty of ideas here, with Housing, Subclasses, Order Missions, new weapons/traits/skills/races, and more all having a lot of discussion.

The weighting, therefore, probably isn’t going to cause much trouble at this point. What it might do is allow us to consider some tradeoffs…

Suppose a reasonable housing system requires 120 man-weeks of work. (In reality, I’d expect it to be far greater, but bear with me.) That might make housing seem less attractive if we find out we can get Order Missions for 60 man-weeks and a new weapon for each class with another 60.

I am aware that estimating development efforts to that level of detail requires a pretty thorough proposal ahead of time, but even a semi-realistic ballpark could provide for some useful discussion.

As always, this is both your game and your initiative, but for my part, I think it would be a worthwhile next step.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Note I am currently waiting for Teq to spawn with my guild and therefore will probably disappear soon (-:

Chris

Remember your training.

. . . trip the charr running away next to you so you can get away.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Yoh.8469:

MRA.4758:

I still think that the “no trinity” approach of GW2 is one of the greatest improvements that the game has brought to the genre. And we are still not completely there: Way over a year after launch some specs still gravely outperform other specs of the same class, thereby already kind of forcing a fixed role on a particular class. And you should know how hard the balance team is working to solve this problem. My fear is that subclassing would just further escalate the situation: Would it really be possible to balance for viable damage, support, and control builds for each and every class/subclass combination? In my opinion, subclassing fits more to a classical trinity based game system, and not to GW2.

Right, so the DPS only system they have now is just so wonderful, and is chock full of build diversity. Oh wait….
And I think you missed the point, what Arenanet were trying to do wasn’t so much to get rid of the Trinity, but replace it with their own version of one that was more diverse and less crippling then the original holy trinity. DPS-Control-Support.

They however failed to do this, and created a system where you effectively are only a DPS, and everything else is a side dish. In fact in most modes of play, it’s Zerkers or go home.

While you can play with different builds, the game punishes you for it pretty much. You always going to be less effective then your pure DPS counterparts.
Not to mention it’s a very isolating and solo experience by design, which clashes head on with their more collaborative multiplayer events and scaling.

-
I do give them credit for doing well with just one type of play, but you can’t ignore the great whopping problems that come along with it.
Not to say that a sub-class system would fix that, thou I wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand based on assumptions. But it possible to begin addressing some of the issues, depending on how it is executed.

Which is the main problem with your argument, you just declare ‘sub-classes’ won’t work, without defining this incredibly loose term that means different things to different people.

You might want to define your terms.

As a point to add to this discussion. We have, and are still working on getting the support balance right in regard to the global role balance meta. And it is due to agreement with points made by yourself (and those of others) that we have been working on this.

Chris

Cool beans.
Yeah, I’m aware that it’s being worked on, and I realize that this problem is just going to take time to fix.
It’s a great big honking problem, and you don’t want to cause a bunch more problems for yourself by rushing into it.

I just wanted to point out that while the system you’ve got is very inventive, and works well in a lot of places, it’s not all sunshine and kittens.

I know phasing is not an option, because you might experience content which your friends can’t participate, but what if we take a look at npc-phasing.

Imagine:
There’s a standard event. Everyone can participate. When you’ve gained a certain rank at your Order you will see 2-3 new npcs at this event who don’t participate but give you context why this event is important for “your journey”. They would give you a reward for completing it / the chain, follow you through the chain, tell you interesting lore and the reason why you are doing this, etc. They might even give you new tasks like participate in killing 3 of the veterans (commanders which need to be taken out by a member of the order) which might make the event a bit more challenging to you personally. Still your friend will experience the event just as well, so he won’t see you hitting thin air.
Edit:
When I think of it… the npcs don’t even have to be phased out. They are always there but only a high enough rank member can interact with them.

What do you think? Would this work to drive a narrative or am I missing something crucial?

On topic:

I think housing’s ETA of when it might get done depends on how detailed a process it is for the player to get involved. If it’s a simple “movie set” which is just all prefabricated and all you do is get access? Easier and sooner, but most will be unhappy with the implementation.

The modular design, or a sort where it’s somewhat streamlined so it can have effort into making it more uniquely yours instead of House 334? More time to develop and test out the various ways it could break or be broken, but you’d get more people happy.

Something like a construction kit where you can access assets and shape the house by hand in a unique fashion? Probably simple to open up but incredible amounts of time to test it and potentially support players who send in “my house is bugged and I don’t know why!” reports, in continuance. Plus side? Total freedom to work on your house for yourself!

(And it might give rise to a culture of players who master the building toolkit and give tips, acting as authorities on “how to work on your house”. Kind of like how every circle of Minecraft players inevitably has “The Redstone Guy”.)

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Sytherek.7689:

DevilLordLaser.8619:

That makes sense, and it’s occurred to me as well, but I’ve certainly seen my share and a half of completely nonsensical garbage out of all manner of game developers, almost always justified by some variation of the excuse “We don’t have the time/resources to do that. Make do with what you have.” It’s made me…twitchy…over the years >_>

I’m a game developer but not from ANet, so perhaps I can try and clarify. Exactly why does “we don ’t have the resources” make you “twitch”?

Is it that you don’t believe the developers? Is it because you, a non-developer, think these things are easy?

Do you think they should hire more staff? Can they, given the economic model of the game?

A company exists both to pay its employees and make a profit. A great idea may simply not be economically or logistically possible, no matter how much it may make you “twitch”.

Here’s another angle — just how much do you expect to pay, in real dollars, for guild and player housing? Will adding such items improve player recruitment and retention, and if so, to what extent?

For example, I would pay $25 (2000 gems) for player housing that is meaningful and flexible and useful. Would enough players pay that much to justify development by ANet?

ANet must allocate resources effectively to stay in business and grow the game.

A well made point Sytherek.

Chris

This is why I can’t leave this sort of thread alone for a second Q_Q

That is actually exactly my point, Chris/Sytherek. I know very well that game developers have limited resources, oftentimes very limited resources, and that those resources can only stretch so far. it’s why, whenever I make a suggestion in a game forum for any game anywhere, I try my best to incorporate it into the game’s existing systems as much as possible, provide as many notions for how to anchor it into work that’s already been done as I can.

By “twitchy”, I don’t mean I get bothered by/don’t believe developers claiming they don’t have the resources. I can see where the wording of my previous post could suggest that, but it’s honestly not what I meant. By “twitchy”, I mean that I know full well that ninety to ninety-seven percent of things that people will want to do in games like this will Never Get Done, and thus we need to be very, very careful about what we actually decide we want to try and lobby ArenaNet for. I twitch when I see people just casually demand things they have no idea how to implement, or which would be prohibitively resource-intensive to do (Minecraft-level modularity within ArenaNet’s existing art style and engine, as some have suggested? NOT. HAPPENING).

I’ll be completely honest with you: I think player housing is a terrible idea. Making it, as you said, ‘meaningful, flexible and useful’ would eat a lot of resources, which would then be resources unable to be allocated to anything else. We would certainly lose out on many/most other forms of horizontal progression given that the housing system would require the same level of effort as entire new zones, as well as brand new coding and engine work in order to add the modularity and customization options people want. We’d also stand a very good chance of never seeing guild housing, a’la guild halls, because a system for doing such (albeit VERY poorly) would already technically be in place and ArenaNet wouldn’t really be able to justify allocating additional resources to guild halls when those resources could be doing something New and Different instead.

Player housing is an extremely resource-hungry project I cannot see being worth the benefits it brings. That’s my concern, and why I was hoping to raise the subject of guild halls as an alternative instead. No, I wouldn’t pay twenty-five bucks for a meaningful, flexible and useful player house (provided it could actually be all three, which I honestly have my doubts over), but ye know? I freely admit to being a F2P whale, and I would probably not lose much sleep over plunking fifty down on picking up whatever gem shop license lets my guild set up their own hall.

Argument to Finance isn’t really a good way to solve this, though. We could keep seeing and raising like this was a poker game, but really…all I want is for people to realize that pushing player housing is going to cost us a LOT of other things, and to think really, really hard about what we’ll lose before they decide to shoot for this as their preferred proposal.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

‘and you don’t want to cause a bunch more problems for yourself by rushing into it.’

Exactly.

Chris

Thou I think that support shouldn’t be too bad overall, because at least you have something to work with. It could do with another stat for Boons, because their kinda broken right now since a full DPS can get just as much out of them as a full Support, which makes you wonder why should you go support in the first place.

No, you real problem lies with Control. It doesn’t even have any stats to it’s name, beside maybe Condition Duration. (blind, weakness, cripple, etc)
It’s not even well defined to mean anything as far as I know.
What does Arenanet even define it to be?

I don’t see how control can be it’s own thing until it gets 2-3 stats of it’s own.
If it did, and support got one as well, then you could probably have 2 completely new trait lines for every profession, which would be pretty cool and avoid power creep.

Currently every control build is essentually a DPS that has more of a focus on interrupts/disabling/or conditions, but it’s still at it’s core a DPS, and there is no way around that currently.

MRA.4758:

While I agree with your position that no one should argue like she is speaking for everybody else, I’d like to encourage you to not discard the problematic points addressed by Shakkara so lightly. I, for one, am also not thrilled at the thought of a subclass specialization system for GW2.

There are very valid arguments in Shakkara’s post:

• A subclass makes you follow the template provided by a game designer, instead of helping the player to invent original builds for her character.

That depends on the aquisition of said subclass, and whether ot not it forces you to play that percieved template. There have been several proposals out there that reduces subclasses to nothing more than a title that you get for completing all the content and gaining all the new skills/weapons related to a subclass.

MRA.4758:

• Subclass exclusive content in very inefficient to build since, say, 23 out of 3*8=24 players would not benefit from that content. You should recognize this argument, since this was the exact same reason Anet stated for dropping the idea of profession exclusive skill challenges.

Again, this argument has already been addressed multiple times. You can have 80 Skill Challenges that every profession can take on for loot and skill points, but any single profession will only learn a new skill out of 10 of those. No one would be locked out of something like that.

MRA.4758:

The “tasks of acquisition” do bear the risk of being fun for the first or second time, but might end up becoming a chore or grind, eventually.

Unless Anet reworks and reupdates everything every 6 months, everything you do is going to get stale after the 3rd or 4th time through. There is no stopping that in a videogame without investing a massive amount of resources in keeping it fresh.

MRA.4758:

I still haven’t seen a single proposal of a subclass specialization system that actually helps to improve build diversity. From what I have seen it might be far more likely that such a system rather fences you in and forces you to take particular roles. (“hey, bro, if you’re a ranger/druid then you have to make a toughness/healing power build, everything else is just plain stupid!!!1!”)

I’m going to have to call you out on this one, because like I said after the first quote I gave you, there have been a number of porposals that address the issue of Shoehorning, Pigeonholing, and just plain forcing someone into a new build and getting rid of it.

….Then again, the same thing happens every 4 months when a new balance patch gets put out or the rare skill gets put into the game. Therefore, your argument seems more for never changing anything than trying to inroduce more build diversity.

Hence, I would rather like to see a form of horizontal progression that helps to generate more viable spec combinations for all classes, instead of a system that might lock you into a fixed and/or preconceived role.

And like I said above, the very act of introducing a balance patch or introducing one new skill (while it is going to generate more viable spec combinations), it will also force alot of players into new roles and builds they are not comfortable with. In a game, you can’t escape that unless nothing ever gets updated from the start (such as Call of Duty). So how is introducing several skills of the same theme at once going to be any different from a balance patch (other than (Well, kitten! thats not what I thought a Druid was!!!)?

I also have to echo the sentiment (in my opinion, also as a software developer) that player housing doesn’t really seem ‘worth it’ to build and also, doesn’t really expand the horizontal progression ‘journey’ in and of itself. It’s been made fairly clear by a big chunk of the community that many (most) of the current playerbase is very willing and able to spend $40 bucks for expansion content (new zones please), so I don’t know if something like player housing can be justifiable to build unless much of the content is from the gem store, which is not going to make many players happy. At the end of the day, the problem is that housing only appeals to a small percentage of the GW2 population, whereas things like new skills, new zones, and new items would appeal to practically everyone and are probably all cheaper to develop.

Chris, if I may ask – is there a team devoted to ‘CDI-influenced content’? Or if an amazing idea comes out of a CDI, can entire teams be shuffled in order to devote more resources to a specific idea that may be easier/better than whatever that team was already working on?

The Great Al.2546:

I also have to echo the sentiment (in my opinion, also as a software developer) that player housing doesn’t really seem ‘worth it’ to build and also, doesn’t really expand the horizontal progression ‘journey’ in and of itself.

Not at first, but it can be the starting “hub” so to speak and expanded on from there. Which honestly is how I’d work with it if I were coming up with an inclusive model for how to handle it.

Good thing I’m not.

It’s been made fairly clear by a big chunk of the community that many (most) of the current playerbase is very willing and able to spend $40 bucks for expansion content (new zones please), so I don’t know if something like player housing can be justifiable to build unless much of the content is from the gem store, which is not going to make many players happy.

I am willing, but I am unable and have trepidation going down that road again. The game already costs about as much as your average console title, the more getting added on to the “price of admission”, the more daunting it becomes to people just starting.

If given a choice between new zone content and the housing/horizontal progression? I’d probably want the new zones but accept the latter . . . because I don’t want another six months, another year, whatever listening to people bang that drum from soapboxes and how ANet is just in it for the gear treadmill.

And no matter what happens, I will still unfortunately see still more complaining about how the devs don’t listen to the players and are ruining the game. So, meh.

At the end of the day, the problem is that housing only appeals to a small percentage of the GW2 population, whereas things like new skills, new zones, and new items would appeal to practically everyone and are probably all cheaper to develop.

I’d almost stake money that’s not the case, considering the first two would take a lot of assets and time. And depending on how the housing is approached, it could be incredibly cheaper or only marginally more expensive in time and resources.

Yoh.8469:

Thou I think that support shouldn’t be too bad overall, because at least you have something to work with. It could do with another stat for Boons, because their kinda broken right now since a full DPS can get just as much out of them as a full Support, which makes you wonder why should you go support in the first place.

No, you real problem lies with Control. It doesn’t even have any stats to it’s name, beside maybe Condition Duration. (blind, weakness, cripple, etc)
It’s not even well defined to mean anything as far as I know.
What does Arenanet even define it to be?

I don’t see how control can be it’s own thing until it gets 2-3 stats of it’s own.
If it did, and support got one as well, then you could probably have 2 completely new trait lines for every profession, which would be pretty cool and avoid power creep.

Currently every control build is essentually a DPS that has more of a focus on interrupts/disabling/or conditions, but it’s still at it’s core a DPS, and there is no way around that currently.

From my point of view, the control side of this new trinity is fairly effective in PvP combat, although against a WvW zerg many of the skills have diminished utility due to AoE caps. It’s PvE where it’s really not that useful.

Control skills were actually useful in GW1, but GW2 made three changes that nearly took it out of the picture.
- Almost all dungeon mobs are veterans or above, so they have high HP pools – one well-placed control skill will make a difference for 1% of the fight at best, instead of making a substantial contribution.
- Cooldowns are so long you can’t disable a single enemy permanently, or even most of the time.
- Enemy groups are usually small or built around a single major threat. When they’re all a threat, choosing which one to lock down (or which two to put heavy pressure on) is a thoughtful inclusion to gameplay, but in GW2 you could just keep the big one unable to use its major skills and the encounter would be a cakewalk.

I’d like to see all of the above changed in future dungeons but I have to admit that’s outside the scope of this thread.

Now, with regards to sub-classes:

I personally don’t want them either. But I think some of the ideas for introducing them could be used for other means of progression that the game already supports – namely, new skills, traits, and perhaps weapons. I think the role of traits could be expanded a little, and the variety of skills (weapon, utility and elite together) increased somewhat.

I think that introducing new archetypes, comprised of new traits and utility skills only, using the story/gameplay methods discussed for subclasses in this thread, might be a viable way to improve horizontal progression without pigeonholing people into certain subclass roles.

The main issue is that we already have some traits and utility skills that are outclassed by others, if not already useless. However, there’s already a balancing team looking carefully at those, and so I don’t think adding new skills to provide options previously unavailable to a class has to result in people always selecting the same few skills and traits. It’s actually the synergy between skills and traits that dictates what you’d take and why.

I never run Mantra of Pain on my mesmer, for example, because outside of a mantra build it really doesn’t offer much utility, and I don’t run a mantra build.
And I never run Signet of Illusions because the active effect is a bit overkill for most shatter builds, the passive effect is a bit overkill for most phantasm builds, and either the active or passive effect doesn’t contribute anything useful to one of the two. So there’s always another utility skill that could offer something I otherwise wouldn’t have.

Hi Chris and everyone,
I am also late to this party but wanted to add some ideas to the housing idea, and forgive me if it was mentioned before, it’s hard to keep up with the thread at times.

There have been some very good ideas across the board. I will try not to go into a lot of details but will give some ideas from my only other extended experience with a mmo. Hopefully some of those ideas could be expanded upon for GW2

Chris I am not sure if you were familiar with FFXI and how it handled its “housing” which was really a room. You entered it from each of the cities, you basically walked to the zone to enter the ‘neighborhood’ and then went to your instanced room. This could work outside of our PS instance and having a different area in the racial cities where we can enter our ‘neighborhood’. ( I am one to believe instancing a home/housing instance is probably the safer way, so I write from that frame of mind). Now since FFXI was just a room, I think it was small for what we could do now. I think a more enjoyable place could be something that has a outside ‘yard’ and of course the inside ‘house’

Now, your room was basically a grid pattern(minus the carpet in the middle) where you could place items, and was also a supplemental place to store your stuff.(basically our bank) Items that you placed in your room(furniture, plants ,tables, decorations, etc..) had a few perks to them, so to speak. Each item had a elemental affinity, which gave a slight +/- to those elements. They also had a storage capacity. If you put a table in your room, it might have +3 storage. So you used up one space in your bank, but then you opened up 3 more in another tab.( don’t think that will really work for GW2 but wanted to explain that part of their system).

I will try to briefly put out some ideas for what could work for a nice home instance. Different aspects of crafting could be introduced for obvious things like furniture, or manequins( for certain armors, dungeon, racial to show off. Kind of how our HOM was ) pots for a possible gardening(maybe to be able to plant and grow say certain gathering mats?)

Now I think that for completing certain achievements, or say Personal story lines,(future story lines ) you can get a painting, or banner to put on a wall. I believe others have suggested ideas like this also. It’s a good way to show off and to remind yourself of the adventures you had.

FFXI also would use Holiday Rewards that would go into your room. Example, for the Wintersday Meta, you could get a pick of , say, a holiday tree based on one of the races and that could go into your house.

Also it would be a good place to have Gem Shop furniture/décor There was a piano that you could only get if you bought a certain music cd. When you were in your room, the piano would play the musical them from time to time.

The part of the housing that ffxi had , that would have to be carefully considered, is if any or some of the items you place would give bonuses/perks for certain aspects of the game. It could easily throw things out of whack. We already get our +1s from the achievement rewards and WvW. I know in PvE we all work together, but others can see it as unfair, or even dare I say Mandatory that someone has 5% damage to say Icebrood from certain items in their house. I think we would have to decide what, if any perks we get from say different quality items in our house.

This is a bit longer then I thought it would be, I know I could ramble a lot about each idea, but wanted to just put some ideas out there, and support the idea of a personal home as being something that is “MINE” and unique, with also having a way to show what we have done in game. I also think guild halls for larger group get together’s are also good for the game and hope /think that Halls and personal housing can work hand in hand.

So Chris, if are familiar with FFXI’s housing you will know the systems they had. I hope some of what I said made sense, I was watching Family Guy as I typed it off the top of my head. I wanted to contribute , even if it was just a little bit. Thanks for taking your time to read through the CDI threads. It’s a great way to know that we are engaging in a conversation.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

My goal with this post is to help educate the poster and others on the core philosophy of all CDI’s .

Each thread has a Micro and a Macro goal. The Micro goal is to discuss and get the very best out of each topic to make GW2 the very best game it can be. The Macro goal with each thread is for us as Collaborators to be able to mature and advance our design acumen and methods of communication in each thread which in turn with multiply the positive value of each micro goal.

Therefore please don’t assume that because I am offering advice on the macro level that I am not engaging on the micro level.

I am including a link that has more detail on the overarching goals of the CDI and how it works:

How about we just respond to his points? I think he makes some good ones & as far as i can see that’s very useful.

Ben K.6238:

From my point of view, the control side of this new trinity is fairly effective in PvP combat, although against a WvW zerg many of the skills have diminished utility due to AoE caps. It’s PvE where it’s really not that useful.

Control skills were actually useful in GW1, but GW2 made three changes that nearly took it out of the picture.
- Almost all dungeon mobs are veterans or above, so they have high HP pools – one well-placed control skill will make a difference for 1% of the fight at best, instead of making a substantial contribution.
- Cooldowns are so long you can’t disable a single enemy permanently, or even most of the time.
- Enemy groups are usually small or built around a single major threat. When they’re all a threat, choosing which one to lock down (or which two to put heavy pressure on) is a thoughtful inclusion to gameplay, but in GW2 you could just keep the big one unable to use its major skills and the encounter would be a cakewalk.

Well, the problem your describing is partly due to your very narrow definition of what Control is, and again is part of the problem with control is, no one knows what the hell it is.

If your talking about just CC, then yeah it’s really ineffective outside of PvP, and even then it’s just an extension of DPS, your still a DPS at heart.

But your right about GW1, it did have a lot more options when it came to control, largely because of Energy. Energy denial and manipulation was a huge part of control in that game, heck it even was a part of support by being an energy battery.
While not having resources is good from a DPS gameplay perspective, all other forms of play seem to suffer considerably.

I really don’t know if it was the best course of action in hindsight. And it’s probably too late to add an energy system in now?

-

And for something completely different. Guild/Player Housing.
I really don’t know what to make of it. I can’t say I’ve played too many MMO’s that had it, where I actually used it, or got to a point where I would want to.

I guess my reasoning is that however it could work, it would have to have some sort of exterior additional purpose beyond just ascetics, or just a place to sleep it. There’s got to be a reason you want to get stuff in it, that actually helps you in some way.

Like giving you stat buffs depending on the furniture. As you spend time in your house, you get a stacking stat buff, the amount and type of stats you get depend on the type and quality of furniture you have in the house.

Something like that I guess.