Guild Wars 2

DarkWasp.7291:

1. What would you do to help players along to getting visitors to their houses?

In all seriousness:

Starting on a basic level:
Daily achievement always in cycle like Gatherer; “Daily Visitor: Visit 5 houses”.
Social achievment “Houseguest: Visit W/X/Y/Z Houses; Title: Couch Surfer / Neighborhood / Honored Guest / Toast of the Town”

Secondary level:
A guest book, which tracks who came visiting. Interacting with the guest book gives some sort of reward small enough to not be a problem but not a pittance nobody cares about. And not another currency if we can help it. Push comes to shove, make it Essence of Luck or a MF boost for an hour.
A gift system where you can spend 1 copper, 1 silver, or 1 gold to leave a “Gift Box” of varying levels for the house owner.

Finally, with more work done:
Interacting with NPCs in the house or neighborhood of a friend (you know, the friends list?) lets you purchase copies of stuff in their model locker. Like you can see your charr buddy’s weaponsmith for a Steam Weapon (I chose this because it IS a lootable skin, not a definite locked version.)

2. Do you feel that open world or solo content needs a “Hard Mode” of some sort?

Needs? No, not really. Hard Mode in GW1 was oftentimes “let’s boost the level of the enemies” and little else.

Do I think it could benefit the game? Sorta . . . ? I mean, I don’t see what it would solve other than getting people some content they’ll burn through quickly or just write off as recycled old stuff with bigger numbers.

I came up with Eminence and Visitation because I liked what I saw in LOTRO with the neighborhoods, but found that without a designated RPer get together I found myself the only one in the area. I want the neighborhoods, I want people to check out all of the work I’ve put into my house but I don’t necessarily want to RP.

I actually had the idea that visitation would be mostly automated to draw the methods of acquisition away from begging (much like the trading post alleviates most trade spam). I’m not too attached to it, as long as there’s a system in place that motivates players to visit different houses.

Still would get beggars anyway, or people just going “Come check out my house”. I don’t see problem with the second ones and the first group would very quickly get ignored or left to beg with nobody helping them until they behave better. The population is actually really good about self-correcting stuff like that.

The boast system I just wanted to toss out an idea that other ideas could spur from. I’m tired of PuGs, but I also want to PvE on my own time so organized groups aren’t generally an option. I just want stuff I can do solo.

I would rather the stuff which are group-oriented be tuned down possibly so when we have dead maps (Timberline Falls, Brisban Wildlands, any zone in Orr) it can be handled.

When it comes to the relationship system, I threw that in there because day one my guild had like 6-7 real life married couples. I threw in self-account-relationships because it always bothered me that there is nothing more distant in an MMO than your own characters. The one exception for me being EVE where I had two accounts and my two capsuleers complimented each other, one combat and one industry.

I’m not opposed to it. I just don’t have a reason to get excited about it.

Chuggs.1682:

Tobias – I actually agree with you that it is good to be able to make some judgments about the opposition at a glance, but a certain amount of uncertainty is also good. In the case of GW2, you can’t really tell class until they start using skills, but then you can see their weapons and know at least their 1-5, and maybe make educated guesses about the other half of their skills in heal/utility/elite based upon your knowledge of popular skills/builds.

Under the New Masters system Nike initially raised and which I sort of riffed on in the post linked in the quote above, those things would still be in place.

The way I envision Mastery working is that you open up access to a new weapon(s) for your class, and then a handful of new skills that are themed with the area of Mastery. You still have access to all your initial weapons and skills. So you have unlocked the Gladiator mastery for your Warrior, but you are still fundamentally a Warrior with a slightly expanded weapon/skillset.

So you would still be able to tell class/weapon set by looking at someone and their attacks, and the degree of uncertainty over whether they were using any Master utilities/elites/heals is only slightly more uncertainty than you already face. It just adds a handful of potential skills into the mix rather than changing how you evaluate the encounter.

Honestly, I don’t have a personal dislike of the system, it’s just trying to think of it past “yeah that’d be cool” and go “so what would this change after” which we should be considering as much as “here’s this cool idea”.

On paper, Guild Missions were also a cool idea. Implementation and aftereffect? Not so much. There wasn’t too much impact to them after the initial rush, was there?

The Lost Witch.7601:

This shouldn’t mean that skill-based rewards should only be available for solo-instances. But it does mean that those are the only real skill-checks in PvE at the moment.

Through new content like challenge missions ,groups may suffer more from having ‘weak’ links, requiring everyone to give it all they’ve got. And skins could be based on the score. (Maybe a color variety like the SAB rewards, or other tweaks to a design)

Challenge missions were actually really fun for me to do H/h and see if I could beat my top score. The Nightfall ones I actually enjoyed about as much as I did anything else in GW1. The EOTN one, not so much

Personally I’m most fond of a system in which skilled players can obtain items that are similar to items that non-skilled players can obtain. Just a different color/texture/particle effect unique to their skill-level.

About all the differentiation I’d like, I think.

I agree with most of what you said, but I don’t think that the best rewards should necessarily be gained through skill. I just think that there should be some rewards unique to skill.

+1.

What I believe that skilled players desire most in rewards, is a way to show off what they have accomplished. And this does not need to be done through having more awesome clothes than someone else, just by having something that is unique to the challenge that they have beaten. (From a mini-liadri to a yellow pointy hat)

Or that /zrank emote from GW1?

Cliff.8679:

2. Honestly, no, I don’t think open-world content needs some kind of “Hard Mode.” I think I mentioned before, I think any difficult content in the open world should come from the areas themselves. Right now, the most “difficult” areas would be Orr and Southsun, but neither of those really fit the bill. Future areas that are actually difficult open world areas would need to be populated with enemies that simply couldn’t be solo’d, or at least solo’d efficiently. They would also have to be designed in such a way that it would be difficult to make it through the areas by just popping swiftness on and running past everything. Of course, this risks making the areas unenjoyable, especially if they’re not populated. So, I think a really great option would be more minidungeons out in the open world, such as the Flame Legion one in Diessa (I think?), or the dark caverns in Dredgehaunt. Make more of those, make them legitimately difficult, and it’s a great middle ground.

Whether they are limited patches in existing zones or entire zones designed for that purpose the issue is less in setting up Perilous Areas and more in making sure you can display your demonstrated prowess beating them in a way that others can both see and not second guess. There are a million challenges in the game where you can tell yourself “I did that, and I know it, and it was cool!” There’s very few that let you communicate that to others with the game itself backing up the veracity of your cool story.

The best thing about the Liadri encounter isn’t the precise level of difficulty it offered… Its that there is no known hack or cheat that taints the accomplishment. You see one of those minis, you know what was achieved to get it.

Chuggs.1682:

Tobias – I actually agree with you that it is good to be able to make some judgments about the opposition at a glance, but a certain amount of uncertainty is also good. In the case of GW2, you can’t really tell class until they start using skills, but then you can see their weapons and know at least their 1-5, and maybe make educated guesses about the other half of their skills in heal/utility/elite based upon your knowledge of popular skills/builds.

Under the New Masters system Nike initially raised and which I sort of riffed on in the post linked in the quote above, those things would still be in place.

The way I envision Mastery working is that you open up access to a new weapon(s) for your class, and then a handful of new skills that are themed with the area of Mastery. You still have access to all your initial weapons and skills. So you have unlocked the Gladiator mastery for your Warrior, but you are still fundamentally a Warrior with a slightly expanded weapon/skillset.

So you would still be able to tell class/weapon set by looking at someone and their attacks, and the degree of uncertainty over whether they were using any Master utilities/elites/heals is only slightly more uncertainty than you already face. It just adds a handful of potential skills into the mix rather than changing how you evaluate the encounter.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Honestly, I don’t have a personal dislike of the system, it’s just trying to think of it past “yeah that’d be cool” and go “so what would this change after” which we should be considering as much as “here’s this cool idea”.

Indeed, and I welcome that sort of thoughtful/insightful analysis. Ideas that are tested and survive are stronger for it.

Its just in this case I feel the emergent result is a feature, not a bug .

(Specifically, I’m not against flattening the curve between new and veteran PvP players, taking away some of the advantages conferred by experience in being able to ‘read’ an opponent’s build from visual cues. A deep understanding of the meta-environment will still let you predict opponents’ capability/behavior just from their class icon with depressing regularity… But I’m rooting for the oddballs, not the Flavor of the Month cookie-cutters )

Nike.2631:

Whether they are limited patches in existing zones or entire zones designed for that purpose the issue is less in setting up Perilous Areas and more in making sure you can display your demonstrated prowess beating them in a way that others can both see and not second guess. There are a million challenges in the game where you can tell yourself “I did that, and I know it, and it was cool!” There’s very few that let you communicate that to others with the game itself backing up the veracity of your cool story.

The best thing about the Liadri encounter isn’t the precise level of difficulty it offered… Its that there is no known hack or cheat that taints the accomplishment. You see one of those minis, you know what was achieved to get it.

Well, the way the open world currently works with all the zerging and such, they would need to come up with something totally different that granted a reward you could actually be proud of. Even the “Sunbringer” title isn’t all that impressive, and that’s the most challenging open world content in the game at the moment. Liadri I honestly don’t consider open-world content even though she technically was, just because it’s a one-on-one fight, but you do bring up a good point about how there isn’t really a known exploit for her fight, which means the reward for beating her isn’t diminished. That’s probably the biggest thing ArenaNet needs to be careful of when putting out challenging content that comes with rewards that are actually prestigious due to the difficulty: lots and lots of testing to make sure you can’t cheese it.

DarkWasp.7291:

1. What would you do to help players along to getting visitors to their houses?

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Starting on a basic level:
Daily achievement always in cycle like Gatherer; “Daily Visitor: Visit 5 houses”.
Social achievment “Houseguest: Visit W/X/Y/Z Houses; Title: Couch Surfer / Neighborhood / Honored Guest / Toast of the Town”

Secondary level:
A guest book, which tracks who came visiting. Interacting with the guest book gives some sort of reward small enough to not be a problem but not a pittance nobody cares about. And not another currency if we can help it. Push comes to shove, make it Essence of Luck or a MF boost for an hour.
A gift system where you can spend 1 copper, 1 silver, or 1 gold to leave a “Gift Box” of varying levels for the house owner.

Finally, with more work done:
Interacting with NPCs in the house or neighborhood of a friend (you know, the friends list?) lets you purchase copies of stuff in their model locker. Like you can see your charr buddy’s weaponsmith for a Steam Weapon (I chose this because it IS a lootable skin, not a definite locked version.)

The last one makes me nervous – I’d have to think it over a bit more.

But the first two brought a smile to my face instantly .

(You might set up a “sign guestbook, then spend at least 1 minute in the house” requirement to encourage a bit of browsing/sightseeing rather than running down a street ringing doorbells-and-bolting to the next for the goodies.)

Nike.2631:

The last one makes me nervous – I’d have to think it over a bit more.

Trust me, it can be tweaked. But it would allow you to get uncommon skins (the stuff on Fine or Masterwork loot in the five regions) without having to jump through hoops or farm areas until it drops.

I don’t anticipate it being allowed for rare/prestige skins like Zenith.

But the first two brought a smile to my face instantly .

(You might set up a “sign guestbook, then spend at least 1 minute in the house” requirement to encourage a bit of browsing/sightseeing rather than running down a street ringing doorbells-and-bolting to the next for the goodies.)

I don’t know how well that could be coded as a trigger for it, though.

Nike.2631:

The last one makes me nervous – I’d have to think it over a bit more.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Trust me, it can be tweaked.

A vote of ‘nervous’ from me generally indicates “There is something potentially good in here, if we can just avoid the landmines visible or otherwise…”

But it would allow you to get uncommon skins (the stuff on Fine or Masterwork loot in the five regions) without having to jump through hoops or farm areas until it drops.

I don’t anticipate it being allowed for rare/prestige skins like Zenith.

And with clarity the idea grows stronger .

But the first two brought a smile to my face instantly .

(You might set up a “sign guestbook, then spend at least 1 minute in the house” requirement to encourage a bit of browsing/sightseeing rather than running down a street ringing doorbells-and-bolting to the next for the goodies.)

I don’t know how well that could be coded as a trigger for it, though.

Signing the guestbook starts a 60 second count-down timer. Leaving the area (instance, tether radius, whatever) before the timer runs out voids the visit. Yes you could AFK it, but if you’re sitting at your keyboard and you can’t leave the house, might as well look around, right?

Srsly, the past 10 pages (or so) have been conversations between 3 guys, can someone sum this up? I don’t want to read 10 pages.

Regarding housing, there was a big thread with a lotof suggestions about it in the german forums, so if someone wants to sum this up, go ahead:
https://forum-de.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Vorschlag-Housing-merged/

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Srsly, the past 10 pages (or so) have been conversations between 3 guys, can someone sum this up? I don’t want to read 10 pages.

I am a moron and have zero idea what I am talking about, so you can safely skip any and all posts with my name in them.

There.

:)

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Srsly, the past 10 pages (or so) have been conversations between 3 guys, can someone sum this up? I don’t want to read 10 pages.

I am a moron and have zero idea what I am talking about, so you can safely skip any and all posts with my name in them.

There.

:)

Oh thanks, good to know

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Srsly, the past 10 pages (or so) have been conversations between 3 guys, can someone sum this up? I don’t want to read 10 pages.

I am a moron and have zero idea what I am talking about, so you can safely skip any and all posts with my name in them.

There.

:)

Oh thanks, good to know

In all seriousness, there is someone summing stuff up, but from me:

- Skill gates are okay if it’s not set so only 10% of the population can get something OR if there’s simply a prestige thing apparent without completely altering the cosmetic effect.

- Player housing should be a revamp of the Home Instance but if we kick that out to the curb then it should be functionally useful and appealing to “buy into” with effort/Gold to make it look good.

- Subclasses are a good idea if they are extensions of a known archetype, and don’t lock you out of others after you choose. That is to say, if it was set up to enhance trait lines/effects along a major/minor/minor/none/none distribution of the five trait lines, and added flexibility and not restriction.

@Chris Whiteside

Welcome back, and I truly hope the concept of bringing back the Signet of Capture is taken on board – on page 47 it was well received by players :-P

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

I got back into the office this week and have been SUPER busy. So i sincerely apologies for not contributing over the past few days. I need to catch up from page 44 )-:

Chris! Even you can help fixing rangers! Starting off with the weapons.
Here is a thread I’ve started to gather all suggestions.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/The-Weapon-Suggestion-Thread/

Anyways, if you don’t disagree with the opinion that rangers could need some love, a sticky would help to focus all suggestions into one thread.

Also, sorry for my sensational introduction.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

I got back into the office this week and have been SUPER busy. So i sincerely apologies for not contributing over the past few days. I need to catch up from page 44 )-:

I intend to put a proposal together on behalf of us all this weekend. Feel free to carry on chatting and brainstorming in the interim. I am looking forward to getting back into thread and seeing it come to its conclusion.

Chris

Why don’t you put in post breaks just like Anet did in the beta forum.

I think it’s important you read every post not just the summaries however thats so much, it’s almost impossible. By putting in post breaks you could make it more manageable.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Devata.6589:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

I got back into the office this week and have been SUPER busy. So i sincerely apologies for not contributing over the past few days. I need to catch up from page 44 )-:

I intend to put a proposal together on behalf of us all this weekend. Feel free to carry on chatting and brainstorming in the interim. I am looking forward to getting back into thread and seeing it come to its conclusion.

Chris

Why don’t you put in post breaks just like Anet did in the beta forum.

I think it’s important you read every post not just the summaries however thats so much, it’s almost impossible. By putting in post breaks you could make it more manageable.

I will be reading every post. I am aware where I left of and will be continuing from there. Not sure why you think I just read summaries.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Chris

Because I don’t see how you could ever manage to get catch up. But thats maybe because I’m a slow reader myself.

Good to know that you do read every post.

About the suggestion, it worked very well during the beta forums I think.

Devata.6589:

Because I don’t see how you could ever manage to get catch up. But thats maybe because I’m a slow reader myself.

The difference between you and him is that he actually gets paid to read all this stuff.

Regarding house visitation: If we go with LotRO style instanced neighborhoods, and they get as popular as in LotRO, it would be very hit or miss that any particular person would see your particular house. When I was garnering interior decorating ideas I just randomly jumped into neighborhoods (there were hundreds of them) and went looking for houses with entry permissions that let me in. My friends, of course, could come to our known guild instance (we snagged most of the lots) and come to my house. But random people would have more issues stumbling on it. Plus, well, I wouldn’t have permissions for people to just wander in unless it’s easily toggled or even has an automatic “only friends may enter while I’m inside or on the grounds.” Because in RP if you are having a clandestine meeting to plot against some noble, it’s rather jarring for a large norn in red boxing gloves to jump into your living room and start dancing.

You know it would happen.

Anyway, I don’t feel a need to coerce people to come see it, or to get game rewards for visitors. Minigame activities in a neighborhood might work to get people gathered and having fun, then they can spot the cool architecture I’ve put up. Perhaps neighborhoods could sponsor parties that have interesting things happening, and the drop down list of available places could list “this one is having a (this theme) party?” I don’t mean RP sandbox parties, those will certainly happen — and perhaps someone with a house in that neighborhood could flag “RP Event” so people know to come look — I mean actual game mechanic things. A shooting range, a birthday party, a formal ball, whatever!

Nike.2631:

Ghotistyx.6942:

I don’t know. I still see a few new posts about “I don’t want sub-classes” and that’s basically it. I don’t know what they don’t like, what they do like, concerns or alternate proposals. In addition, I see this in a few posts about other ideas that aren’t so sub-class oriented.

More than likely because most proposals for sub-classes either lack the detail that is where the problems arise, or its so obvious that they cause power creep or mass extinction of build diversity that we don’t want to sit here pointing it out like broken records when we’re mostly confident the point has been made .

Also, class balance as a whole affects each individual’s ability to kill Plains Wurms. Not affecting change because we’re afraid of allowing someone to kill their Plains Wurm faster would be to completely stop any form of balance and leave the game as it stands.

That is what you come away with from reading the Wurm test?

Its a simple example of an overall constraint – there are ways of measuring your performance. If you want to avoid power creep you have to be aware of the boundaries you want the system to operate in and not breach them. In a relatively simple one-axis test like how much DPS can you dish out against a non-threatening opponent, yes, of course the classes will have variations between them because the other aspects of their performance aren’t being strained in that test, but you can still measure them meaningfully against themselves to see if something new has pushed behavior out of bounds.

So, yes, while many of these changes will affect the actual power of different builds, I don’t know if the game will ever get to a point where we can just say “Balance is finished”. At least with more options, there can be more depth and discovery instead of stagnation. (leaning towards the hyperbolic in this argument).

Do I really strike you as a proponent of stagnation ?

There is still such a vast range of new and interesting things that can be done in this game without falling back on the crutch of power creep to incentivize the journey.

Its a little hyperbolic, but yeah, that’s the sentiment. What I was getting at, as that with any form of balance changes (reworking current skills, adding new ones, removing/adding classes etc etc) there will always be a shift in power. Every class has some way that they suffer in comparison to others. Sub-classes could be added to alleviate this, or maybe we’d just have a rework of existing traits and skills, but in the end these changes all affect how fast that Plains Wurm dies.

Now for me, the Plains Wurm analogy(?) is a placeholder for a given characters effectiveness at X. Sub-classes should be effectively (not literally, but effectively) the same as generic balance changes. Even if its a tiered sub-class system like many have voiced their opinions against, it should still effectively stand as an agent for balance as a whole. What I’m trying to say is that we shouldn’t be afraid to have sub-classes if we aren’t afraid of (and are encouraging) profession balance, as they ideally go hand-in-hand. Such balancing would need to focus on areas that aren’t direct damage per se (actually killing a plains wurm), but would still lead to certain builds becoming more powerful at whatever they do well, purely because a trait or skill happened to be buffed (like a healing/support build killing (represented by healing) the plains wurm (represented by not having health).

I work better using other people’s responses to explain myself, so its kind of hard trying to write down everything that I’m thinking of. Hopefully you (all) can see what I’m trying to get at).

Nike.2631:

Nike.2631:

The last one makes me nervous – I’d have to think it over a bit more.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Trust me, it can be tweaked.

A vote of ‘nervous’ from me generally indicates “There is something potentially good in here, if we can just avoid the landmines visible or otherwise…”

But it would allow you to get uncommon skins (the stuff on Fine or Masterwork loot in the five regions) without having to jump through hoops or farm areas until it drops.

I don’t anticipate it being allowed for rare/prestige skins like Zenith.

And with clarity the idea grows stronger .

But the first two brought a smile to my face instantly .

(You might set up a “sign guestbook, then spend at least 1 minute in the house” requirement to encourage a bit of browsing/sightseeing rather than running down a street ringing doorbells-and-bolting to the next for the goodies.)

I don’t know how well that could be coded as a trigger for it, though.

Signing the guestbook starts a 60 second count-down timer. Leaving the area (instance, tether radius, whatever) before the timer runs out voids the visit. Yes you could AFK it, but if you’re sitting at your keyboard and you can’t leave the house, might as well look around, right?

Instead of having a timer"forcing people to waste time in other people’s houses for an amount of time" (which I expect would be a common complaint, even if it is only 60s), maybe each person’s house has something that we actually would want to visit other’s houses for? I mentioned something like this when I likened GW2 possibly housing to Pokemon XY friend safaris. You actually wanted to visit safaris, because people had pokemon with rare and otherwise unobtainable abilities. Incentives for visiting their safari while they were also online. For GW2, perhaps there might be a certain variety of crafting mat that each house area contained (like nodes of platinum, or something like that), or perhaps the draw is something else (maybe their house will contain a DE that you can get loot from, like clearing their yard from an imp invasion). Bonus points for running the event with the owner, or perhaps there are plain nodes while they’re offline, but they become rich nodes while the owner is there with you. This way, people feel less forced to visit different houses, and more inclined to because of something nifty they could get (on top of basking in the glory that is your house, which is obviously the more important thing neh?)

Patrikan Habaton.2548:

snipping

It’s a good thought but in an open world game, Hard mode could never exist on an individual level. If you are in a zerg of 15+ people, putting a handicap on yourself isn’t going to make it any more difficult, nor would you deserve greater rewards than anyone else.

I agree that rewards should somehow be tailored to skill. This is why I suggested the implentation of an ‘effectiveness meter’ for use in large scale encounters and dungeons.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/46#post3469157

I think this is the reason why the hardmode has to be for the whole Party so all suffer from the Gambit and not the one with gambits just die while 4 others complete the dungeon without gambits and carry him. I think this will still challenge all playerskills since if a Player Fails all time he will just get replaced so everyone has to carry more or less his weight.[/quote]

What exactly becomes a gambit in open world would definitely need some deep thought, but honestly, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work well enough. Honestly, zergs will trivialize almost any content.

The Giant in Nageling is fairly hard to solo, is bearable with more people, but if you have 40 people poking his face, individually it doesn’t feel like much of a challenge. Certain gambits like “take more damage” would be significant (like, take double damage), or would completely alter your survivability (if you can barely kite something to death normally, you’ll probably die if you have an incurable source of burning on you the whole fight).

So sure, zergs will trivialize a lot of content, but if the whole zerg happens to take double damage, and maybe is constantly burning, some of those attacks to lay waste to large swaths of the buggers (which isn’t too much different than fighting normal mobs 9+ levels above yours, which I’ve done (you don’t get xp, which was sad)). It would definitely be something we’d need real world testing on (as in, send out just the difficulty increase live, then adjust rewards afterwards), but I think an open world Hard Mode could definitely have its place in GW2.

(I’ll note, that I’m not a huge fan of Hard Mode myself, but I do like to try to give every idea a fair shot at becoming the best it can be).

HP summary page 29 to 34 Part 1
Next summary up, should be back in order after this. For Updated Top Three Tally refer to HP summary page 35 to 40 Part 1. Also for anyone looking for up-to-date topic information and a complete index of all summaries over the Character Progression CDI The Lost Witch has created CDI – Character Progression – Summaries. Again if I’ve missed anything let me know.

First off Chris rejoins the discussion now looking for everyone to list their Top One Idea.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Snip. .

What I would like us to do is pick ONE idea that you would hold above all others as it relates to the community as a whole.

. .Snip. .

And my top one is:

— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing, Guild Halls, and Faction Alliances leading to new game play opportunities, rewards and content. Snip..

Chris

Top One Tally (update to pg 34)

1. Sociopolitical Diversification (26)
2. Role Diversification (23)
3. Zone & Order progression (12)
4. Hero Recognition (10)
5. Skin Locker / Wardrobe (2)
6. New Permanent Zones (1)

Please note I’ve separated Sociopolitical & Zone / Order progression as I feel Zone & Order can incorporate large elements of role diversification and hero recognition as well.

Character Progression

• Chuggs talks about Rewards vs Content, Shallow Vs Deep HP and brings up vanquishing in the open world. Marcus wonders about respawning mobs affecting vanquishing and looks at vanquishing in GW1. Adding further to vanquishing here
• One idea in LanfearShadowflame’s list takes the HoM from GW1, looking to rebuild the visual display for achievements and rewards in GW2. Also lists various other HP ideas.
• Cesmode brings up Global Dominance and Nike links the topic. An interesting idea for PvE which could be compared to Faction Alliance battle in GW1 and WvW in GW2.
• Marcus Greythorne wonders about all those out of the way veterans in game. Could they be used for something skill hunting no, could it be card game, arena fights, map hunting.
• Obscure One looks at options for the gem store in HP.

Edit: Added The Lost Witch summary index link to top.

HP summary page 29 to 34 Part 2
Again if I’ve missed anything let me know.

Build Content

• Orpheal lists ideas of role diversification.
• Bezagron looks at role diversification in two posts, Combat roles & Playstyles and Non Combat roles & Playstyles
• Ilmatar expands racial progression with Specific Race Titles. Nike expanding racial titles into a new Racial Achievement Category.

New Skills

• Shongaqu brings the idea of GW1’s PvE only skills into GW2 via the orders.
• TheDaiBish hides some great idea and reasons for new skills behind show spoilers.
• Mysticjedi takes character progression and ties in world development, looking as Orr becomes more habitable new skills could be unlocked from secrets of the past.
• Chrispy looks at weapons skills and what they could bring to HP. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

Sub-Classes

• Orpheal begins discussion on sub-classes. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
• Chuggs presents Subclasses/Hero Classes/Jobs.
• Nike presents Sub-classes through traits.

The other side

• Timmyf asks ‘What, specifically, about subclasses can the game not support with its existing mechanics and concepts that subclasses bring?’ and could differentiating visual cues be tied into the existing traits. Marcus joins timmyf in exploring trait tied visual cues.Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
• Shoungaqu wonders could a Deck system fulfil the role of sub-classes and intriguing idea. TheDaiBish looks to The Secret World for a Deck system example.
• Marcus Greythorne and timmyf worry about sub-class unlocking and player alts.
  *Draxynnic’s not is favour of sub-classes but see the recognition for having specialised.

HP summary page 29 to 34 Part 3
Again if I’ve missed anything let me know.

Player Housing
The topics of open vs instance housing, horizontal or vertical and also single dwellings or apartments were discussed.

• Ronah likes sociopolitical diversification and takes a look at Guild Halls & Housing.
• Erendil Starsailor’s housing checklist wants multiple ways to check things off.
• Marcus Greythorne takes a look at neighbourhoods.
• Conski Deshan considerations and ideas for housing. Gold could buy the house but not the customisable Home. Part 1, Part 2
• Shauncoates’s purpose for housing, Creativity, Expression, Ownership & Collecting.
• Mikuchan looks at open world housing and its advantages. Part 1, Part 2.
• Donari believes any housing ideas should not include real estate competition.
• Deified looks at how housing could be used as a new reward system for players.

Guild Expansion & Guild Halls

• Yalora Istairiea joins in with The Guild District a mixture of open and instanced.
• Baels looks at expanding guild play options through HP.

Zone / Order Progression

• Timmyf looks at a Game Changer adding and removing 100+ DE’s every 3-6 months, also could there be DE’s that span multiple zones and impact other events.
  *Wasbunny expands the Home instance into a hub to unlock new quest & challenges.
• LoneBaron investigates a variety of unique reward which could be available through zone progression.
• Nike presents Order and Chaos a look at order progression and continuing the story against the Elder Dragons.
  *AikunFelcis brings the vision of zone influences Part 1, Part 2 into zone progression.
• Marcus Greythorne adds some more interesting ideas to zone progression and Sirendor looks at adding harder mobs. (Authors note: This discussion leads into Rin’s Nemesis idea).

HP summary page 29 to 34 Part 4
Again if I’ve missed anything let me know.

Crafting

• Jaken takes a looks at crafting and what crafting could be.
• Marcus Greythorne brings up an intriguing of expanding karma into high level mats.

Other ideas

• KratosAngel HP in FotM looks at rewards and RNG.
• JTGuevara discusses playable NPC’s like henchmen & heroes for instanced content (Eg. dungeons & fractals). Marcus looks at a scaling mechanic other then henchman & heroes. TheLostWitch likes Henchmen & Heroes linking pervious ideas.
• Rin refers to Champions Online and brings the Nemesis System to GW2. Marcus looks at adding Nemesis Progression. Cesmode wonders could there be a Companion System.

Okay taking a break but looking to have 41-46 before tomorrow and could even look at getting up-to-date to 47-51+, as a large part is taken up by the summarises. Thanks all its a pleasure watching all the discussions and reading all the ideas, keep then coming.

Bezagron.7352:

Okay taking a break but looking to have 41-46 before tomorrow and could even look at getting up-to-date to 47-51+, as a large part is taken up by the summarises. Thanks all its a pleasure watching all the discussions and reading all the ideas, keep then coming.

Man, You are doing the Gods’ work in place of their unexplained absence. Keep up the good work!

DarkWasp.7291:

1. What would you do to help players along to getting visitors to their houses?

Provide bonuses for visiting? E.g. Craftable foods that can only be used in housing that provide pretty decent bonuses (“Gold Tea: Visitor: 10% Gold Find for 8 Hours, Host: 5% Gold Find for 2 Hours” – that way the host has incentive to visit as well). You can’t consume it unless you are visiting someone or have a visitor.

Edit: Another idea, the mere act of interacting with a house will give you one of:

- Entertained (visited someone else) – +10% magic find for 2 hours
- Proud (hosted someone else) – +10% gold find for 2 hours
- Rested (spent 6 hours offline in your house) – +5% XP per character on your account for 1 hours

Additionally it could also be possible (gem store “Disco-Tron Party Contract”?) to host parties at your house (in some ways similar to the communal bonfire).

DarkWasp.7291:

2. Do you feel that open world or solo content needs a “Hard Mode” of some sort?

I really enjoyed tribulation mode, so you can probably guess my opinion there. Players who do not do the Hard Mode should still have access to the same stuff that the players who do can get (except marginally lower drop rates or whatever). E.g. Hard mode dungeons could yield 20% more gold at the end and could have a 20% MF boost (while in the dungeon). Although I think hard mode is somewhat off-topic here?

DarkWasp.7291:

I’m tired of PuGs, but I also want to PvE on my own time so organized groups aren’t generally an option. I just want stuff I can do solo.

Keep in mind GW2 was designed to be social. You may not get too much traction with ideas that exclude social interactions. In my opinion: at same time a lot of PUGs behave in an antisocial manner; so a small amount of soloable and challenging content might be nice for when you want to take a break from them.

I don’t think we really need to incentivise visiting, people are nosy and will look around a house if they are able (I know I would.)

If you think we need to however:
1. Pokemon Dreamworld method, Add in a Trading stand(swap shelf) where players can place goods up for sale (you can let normal Tp taxes apply but the person has to find the deal, so say a generous person could list an item 20% below the current buy orders and the first person to get there gets it) People would always be on the look out for a bargain.
A second thing would be the exp (instead of exp it could be a social token) limited to 10 visits a day (worth exp/token) you can trade it in for certain social items.

2.Buffs, Have a stacking buff for each house you visit, say 5% exp for each house up to 10 stacks? (The exp buff is completely worthless as it only applies to kills if I recall correctly so large numbers are ok)

3. Parties, have the abilities to host parties, you can place food items on tables and it will give the buff to anyone who interacts with it, Add the ability to host raffles, Add an RNG machine and you’ll have players hosting bingo leagues. Mabinogi example is the weekly banquet, completely social event held once a week for an hour, gives exp each minute you’re there and the first 100 people in the banquet hall get a raffle ticket for a chance at rare items and novelty items (such as an equipable fork/knife/spoon)

4. Incentivise the neighborhood not the home, have traveling events and Merchants that you have to go to different neighborhoods to get, you could add a “move to merchants neighborhood” to ease any possible frustration.

@Darkwasp
I do believe we need more challenges/hardmode but I don’t think they could make something that would work for the open world(short of say making a second copy of the maps where everyone in it is in hardmode).

Conski Deshan.2057:

(short of say making a second copy of the maps where everyone in it is in hardmode)

I actually think this is a good idea – it was one of the ideas I came up with for giving PUGs a chance against Tequatl (have an NPC that will drop you into an overflow with harder and more rewarding XYZ).

zamalek.2154:

Conski Deshan.2057:

(short of say making a second copy of the maps where everyone in it is in hardmode)

I actually think this is a good idea – it was one of the ideas I came up with for giving PUGs a chance against Tequatl (have an NPC that will drop you into an overflow with harder and more rewarding XYZ).

It’s not a good idea because it would split the playerbase. Instead of fuller maps, maps get much much more empty.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

zamalek.2154:

Conski Deshan.2057:

(short of say making a second copy of the maps where everyone in it is in hardmode)

I actually think this is a good idea – it was one of the ideas I came up with for giving PUGs a chance against Tequatl (have an NPC that will drop you into an overflow with harder and more rewarding XYZ).

It’s not a good idea because it would split the playerbase. Instead of fuller maps, maps get much much more empty.

This nails the issue right here.

zamalek.2154:

DarkWasp.7291:

I’m tired of PuGs, but I also want to PvE on my own time so organized groups aren’t generally an option. I just want stuff I can do solo.

Keep in mind GW2 was designed to be social. You may not get too much traction with ideas that exclude social interactions. In my opinion: at same time a lot of PUGs behave in an antisocial manner; so a small amount of soloable and challenging content might be nice for when you want to take a break from them.

I’m in the same boat as DarkWasp. I don’t enjoy groups, but in GW2 you don’t need to be grouped to have a lot of fun. You can interact with other people at any time, this is what makes the game so special. You are right: it’s designed to be social, but this doesn’t mean that everything has to be designed for organized groups only.

I love roaming around with other people. It’s just the freedom to go wherever I like without being kicked from any specific party if someone decides to do this, that I love.

Having said this, I definitely want GW2 being designed to be a game for everyone, even for people who love the freedom to go their own paths occasionally. For this the game should use the scaling mechanic to support this. It’s not fun to fight a champion for more than 20 minutes, although I’m good enough to dodge all of his attacks.

Well, we have a new kind of mobs now, elites – something between champions and veterans. I like this a lot, it shows me that Anet hasn’t forgotten about us lone wolfs. The difficulty is a bit low though imho, not much stronger than veterans and quite rare in the world (I can’t remember where I have seen the last one).

You might say that I should play singleplayer games, but it’s not other people I don’t like, but rather the artificial grouping and the dependencies from certain people and the rigid structure. Finding other people in a battle vs. a champion and having to group them first in order to be able to interact with them is bad. Good thing GW2 is better than this.

VOLKON.1290:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

zamalek.2154:

Conski Deshan.2057:

(short of say making a second copy of the maps where everyone in it is in hardmode)

I actually think this is a good idea – it was one of the ideas I came up with for giving PUGs a chance against Tequatl (have an NPC that will drop you into an overflow with harder and more rewarding XYZ).

It’s not a good idea because it would split the playerbase. Instead of fuller maps, maps get much much more empty.

This nails the issue right here.

Colin (at Pax) talked about ‘hard mode’ stating that it wasn’t something they were looking at doing because it would break up the player base too much. I do agree with that. The more instances we have, the more broken up and less cohesive we are. The less likely we are going to find people to do the content we’re trying to do, which results in the hours of standing around shouting ‘lfg.’

Don’t get me wrong, I am all for challenging content; however, I don’t think most people are. They try to give us challenging content (Tequatl, new TA path, etc) and then people don’t bother doing it. It’s not that they want ‘challenging content’ its more they simply want more shinies. True, people do desire having a shiny that other’s can’t get, so they can preen, but they don’t want to have to work for it either. This isn’t true of all people, but sadly it is true of the majority.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Colin (at Pax) talked about ‘hard mode’ stating that it wasn’t something they were looking at doing because it would break up the player base too much. I do agree with that. The more instances we have, the more broken up and less cohesive we are. The less likely we are going to find people to do the content we’re trying to do, which results in the hours of standing around shouting ‘lfg.’

Don’t get me wrong, I am all for challenging content; however, I don’t think most people are. They try to give us challenging content (Tequatl, new TA path, etc) and then people don’t bother doing it. It’s not that they want ‘challenging content’ its more they simply want more shinies. True, people do desire having a shiny that other’s can’t get, so they can preen, but they don’t want to have to work for it either. This isn’t true of all people, but sadly it is true of the majority.

What I think: people want a hard challenge with a reward which shows that they have mastered the challenge. SAB did this really well, different colors for different difficulties… awesome.

It’s all about risk-reward ratio. Why should I fight that champion if I would have nothing which reminds me of my victory? I want to look at my character/my achievements/my … and see what I’ve accomplished and am proud of.

Just look at the ones who now run with a mini-Liadri. This IS definitely something to be proud of, the battle was really challenging as well for most of us. This was perfect.

@Hardmode: Personally I think the scaling system is awesome for introducing a hardmode without hurting other players. You could be scaled back to -2 levels below the zone level, not being able to use waypoints, etc… Why would this be acceptable? Because you meet real low level players in the world constantly. No one cares, if he dies he won’t contribute to the upscaling of a mob anyway. If he survives, he can support and ress others just like a high level character, as well as CC on the enemies equally as effective.

Anet could also experiment with the possibility that "hardmode"players give surrounding normal players a damage-buff / scale surrounding players +1 level above normal.

But how could you implement hardmode with staying true to lore? How would it be believeable to be weaker when lv.80+? Well there are a lot of possibilities:

• A npc (Master trainer) want’s to see if you would be worthy of a new skill. You have to accept the challenge, do specific tasks while wearing a trainee-armor (white armor + weapons which scale you to -2 of zone-level). The tasks would be things that will be tracked like your daily on the top right of your screen (like: kill 25 centaurs and 2 veteran centaurs, dodge 20 enemy attacks, help 3 npc xy (dynamic events) in the area xy,…)

• A npc would give you a certain poison which makes you weaker. Stand the trials with that poison on you to grow even further.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

VOLKON.1290:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

zamalek.2154:

Conski Deshan.2057:

(short of say making a second copy of the maps where everyone in it is in hardmode)

I actually think this is a good idea – it was one of the ideas I came up with for giving PUGs a chance against Tequatl (have an NPC that will drop you into an overflow with harder and more rewarding XYZ).

It’s not a good idea because it would split the playerbase. Instead of fuller maps, maps get much much more empty.

This nails the issue right here.

Colin (at Pax) talked about ‘hard mode’ stating that it wasn’t something they were looking at doing because it would break up the player base too much. I do agree with that. The more instances we have, the more broken up and less cohesive we are. The less likely we are going to find people to do the content we’re trying to do, which results in the hours of standing around shouting ‘lfg.’

Don’t get me wrong, I am all for challenging content; however, I don’t think most people are. They try to give us challenging content (Tequatl, new TA path, etc) and then people don’t bother doing it. It’s not that they want ‘challenging content’ its more they simply want more shinies. True, people do desire having a shiny that other’s can’t get, so they can preen, but they don’t want to have to work for it either. This isn’t true of all people, but sadly it is true of the majority.

There were other issues with both of those releases, and people do still do them.
With Tequatl the fights alright, it’s effectively guild content and that’s good, it just requires a lot of players and coordination which is hard to pull off, additionally rewards are RNG based which people dislike, not that I can see a better way to keep people coming back again and again that doesn’t involve more tokens.

With the Aether path, it takes much longer that the other two paths, especially with a Pug if they can’t coordinate or a player doesn’t understand the mechanics. For all that extra effort the only additional reward is 1g more, The rare items are RNG again and really really rare (check the tp they sell for the same as precursors) which makes them not a reliable reward output.
Credit where credits due, the extra achievements for this section are a nice bonus I like mini’s and will passively collect them, a lot of players however don’t as high-end rewards(I think I saw 2-3 separate topics this week on people being sick of mini’s). (still have to kill that pesky foreman without disengaging :P)

Also when I said short of creating a second instance, it was in brackets as a thing they shouldn’t do.

Ghotistyx.6942:

So sure, zergs will trivialize a lot of content, but if the whole zerg happens to take double damage, and maybe is constantly burning, some of those attacks to lay waste to large swaths of the buggers (which isn’t too much different than fighting normal mobs 9+ levels above yours, which I’ve done (you don’t get xp, which was sad)). It would definitely be something we’d need real world testing on (as in, send out just the difficulty increase live, then adjust rewards afterwards), but I think an open world Hard Mode could definitely have its place in GW2.

(I’ll note, that I’m not a huge fan of Hard Mode myself, but I do like to try to give every idea a fair shot at becoming the best it can be).

I guess you missed my Point here. I am only speaking about dungeons not world Content. I think dungeons and Fractals should be the world where hard Content Needs to be found. It’s just a fact that it is way to hard to Balance Content in open world reasons for this are:
- People going afk while dead scaling the Event up
- Trolls
- Many ways to exploit bug things ect
- Way more issues that can appear

While it might be intresting to test it I think the real Content with Special dungeon tokkens should be around dungeons only. Where you can make your fix Group and make sure nobody is desturbing it triggering another Event by mistake.

Short Version: I think you didn’t get I was only speaking about dungeons:)

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

What I think: people want a hard challenge with a reward which shows that they have mastered the challenge. SAB did this really well, different colors for different difficulties… awesome.

It’s all about risk-reward ratio. Why should I fight that champion if I would have nothing which reminds me of my victory? I want to look at my character/my achievements/my … and see what I’ve accomplished and am proud of.

Just look at the ones who now run with a mini-Liadri. This IS definitely something to be proud of, the battle was really challenging as well for most of us. This was perfect.

@Hardmode: Personally I think the scaling system is awesome for introducing a hardmode without hurting other players. You could be scaled back to -2 levels below the zone level, not being able to use waypoints, etc… Why would this be acceptable? Because you meet real low level players in the world constantly. No one cares, if he dies he won’t contribute to the upscaling of a mob anyway. If he survives, he can support and ress others just like a high level character, as well as CC on the enemies equally as effective.

Anet could also experiment with the possibility that "hardmode"players give surrounding normal players a damage-buff / scale surrounding players +1 level above normal.

But how could you implement hardmode with staying true to lore? How would it be believeable to be weaker when lv.80+? Well there are a lot of possibilities:

• A npc (Master trainer) want’s to see if you would be worthy of a new skill. You have to accept the challenge, do specific tasks while wearing a trainee-armor (white armor + weapons which scale you to -2 of zone-level). The tasks would be things that will be tracked like your daily on the top right of your screen (like: kill 25 centaurs and 2 veteran centaurs, dodge 20 enemy attacks, help 3 npc xy (dynamic events) in the area xy,…)

• A npc would give you a certain poison which makes you weaker. Stand the trials with that poison on you to grow even further.

Yes, risk vs reward is important and has to be balanced. Not arguing that. And yes, people want to be able to ‘show off’ that they did something. SAB and Liadri are good examples. However the people that desire those and do them happily seem to be the exception, not the rule. (Remember the screaming about how hard tribulation mode was?) That’s all I was getting at.

If they could implement ‘hard mode’ without locking it into instances (which is what people seem to be asking for, more instancing), that could be interesting. Of course, some ‘elite’ zones might be sufficient too. However, my concern there is that it will simply turn into the next SCUW or ManlyFoW where if you aren’t ‘x’ ‘y’ or ‘z’ you may was well just get the kitten out.

StriderShinryu.6923:

draxynnic.3719:

On order skills:

I’d really prefer not to see skills locked behind orders – or at least, not permanently.

I still firmly believe that if Orders are to be used as part of progression at all, then there need to be restrictions. Otherwise, what’s the point of using them at all. That said, I don’t see anything particularly wrong with opening up a players choice later on. An easy way to do this would be to have advancement in an Order be measured as a tiered progress bar with certain rewards/quests/etc. become available as different tiers are reached. Naturally, choosing an Order and playing through the storyline representing that Order would basically earn you enough progress to end up at, say, tier 5 of 10. Players who had not chosen that Order would be able to perform tasks for that Order as well, but would have to start from 0. This could also open up the possibility of eventually achieving 10/10 status in all 3 Orders.

Basically, when choosing your Order early in the game you would get a leg up for later in the game, but it wouldn’t be the be all and end all for progression. Not only would you be able to progress in an Order you hadn’t initially chosen but you’d also still have a lot of work to do to fully max out the Order you had initially picked.

Sure, that works.

I have no objection to your initial order choice meaning that you can get some things faster or easier than others… as long as the choice doesn’t mean you end up with something permanently locked behind a wall that you can never cross short of rerolling entirely (particularly when for many people the decision would have been made well before those consequences were known). Hence the “at least, not permanently” qualifier – it’s entirely reasonable for choosing, say, the Priory in your Personal Story meaning that Priory-associated skills are considerably easier to get than Whispers- or Vigil-associated skills, as long as you can get the skills associated with the other orders eventually.

A good example of this sort of thinking, in fact, might be some of the optional heroes in Nightfall. There were points where you had to choose between Jin and Souseke, Margrid or the Master of Whispers, and Norgu or Goren. The hero you choose is the one you get to have through the Nightfall story, but once you’ve completed it, you get the opportunity to pick up the ones you initially rejected. The decision has consequences, but you’re not permanently locked out of the ones you didn’t choose. (In fact, if anything, that’s a particularly soft example – I’d be happy with getting order-based skills from other orders requiring considerably more effort than just getting access to everything once you’ve reached a particular point. The key is that you can still get them, with sufficient investment.)

Conski Deshan.2057:

There were other issues with both of those releases, and people do still do them.
With Tequatl the fights alright, it’s effectively guild content and that’s good, it just requires a lot of players and coordination which is hard to pull off, additionally rewards are RNG based which people dislike, not that I can see a better way to keep people coming back again and again that doesn’t involve more tokens.

With the Aether path, it takes much longer that the other two paths, especially with a Pug if they can’t coordinate or a player doesn’t understand the mechanics. For all that extra effort the only additional reward is 1g more, The rare items are RNG again and really really rare (check the tp they sell for the same as precursors) which makes them not a reliable reward output.

There will always be some that do them just to do them. Just as there were always some that did The Deep in GW1.

But essentially, what you’re saying is these are like UW before the chest, and that until people figure out the ‘SC’ and get the ‘guaranteed ecto from the end chest’ it’s just not going to be good enough for people. Sort of supports my original point… those of us that enjoy the challenge for the challenge are the exception, not the rule. For the majority it’s all about getting to the shiny as fast as possible with the least amount of effort.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Yes, risk vs reward is important and has to be balanced. Not arguing that. And yes, people want to be able to ‘show off’ that they did something. SAB and Liadri are good examples. However the people that desire those and do them happily seem to be the exception, not the rule. (Remember the screaming about how hard tribulation mode was?) That’s all I was getting at.

If they could implement ‘hard mode’ without locking it into instances (which is what people seem to be asking for, more instancing), that could be interesting. Of course, some ‘elite’ zones might be sufficient too. However, my concern there is that it will simply turn into the next SCUW or ManlyFoW where if you aren’t ‘x’ ‘y’ or ‘z’ you may was well just get the kitten out.

Again here I don’t get the Problem of all guys complaining:

- They were able to Play and see the Levels in Infantile Mode
- They were able to Play and see the Levels in normal mode if infantile was too easy
- They were able to Play and see the Level on Tribunal mode if they think normal was too easy

I remember back than loads of achievment hunters were complaining because it was to hard, and they can’t get the achievment(same with liadri light up btw).

But all those guys actually saw the Content. You can Play all fractals on scale 1. If they would add instabilities/gambits to dungeons (and maybe rewards Special tokkens to get ascended armor) Than all guys can still see the dungeon? They don’t get locked out from Content. It’s the same Content those are the same fractals , same dungeons.

I think this is a Argument brought up way to often. I don’t think Content should be defined by:
- Hey it’s the same dungeons the same Task but These other guys can have a burning debuff at kholer I will never experience this.

- Hey this Mario Level Looks really great but I will never see the Content where there are some traps coming out before the last checkpoint because I can’t even pass the first

- Wow These fractals are really cool but for real after 30 it gets way to hard and I Will never ever see A Dredge clowncare with all Mobs on Level 84 this is just excluding me from Content.

I think those are just invalid arguments to say you are excluded from Content. It’s the same Content. And if Achievment hunters can’t get all Achievments they might start to realize what the word achievment should mean… it shoulnd’t be a daily grind:)
I anyway think leaderboards should either be about very hard achievments done or at least you can split it up to Overall achievment leaderboards + leaderboards that only Show permanent achievments ( so maybe light up the dark and other harder achievments will matter again…)

Anyway I still have hopes high sometime some hard Content like this will be comming and People will realize that they don’t miss out on any Content just because I do the same Content while burned:)

Patrikan Habaton.2548:

I guess you missed my Point here. I am only speaking about dungeons not world Content. I think dungeons and Fractals should be the world where hard Content Needs to be found. It’s just a fact that it is way to hard to Balance Content in open world reasons for this are:
- People going afk while dead scaling the Event up
- Trolls
- Many ways to exploit bug things ect
- Way more issues that can appear

While it might be intresting to test it I think the real Content with Special dungeon tokkens should be around dungeons only. Where you can make your fix Group and make sure nobody is desturbing it triggering another Event by mistake.

Short Version: I think you didn’t get I was only speaking about dungeons:)

I disagree. I think where GW2 is really strong is the open world, it’s dynamic events. It’s the main content of the game and all people should find interesting enough content for them to do at the main content. Sure, dungeons should be hard. Explorable mode was supposed to be rock-hard, don’t know what happened there. The newest iteration (Twilight Arbor Path) looks like they found a good balance.

Open world hard mode could definitely work with downscaling imho. Dead people / afk people cannot scale an event up, that’s not how it works. You have to be doing enough damage to make an event scaling up. If you’re dead because you are bad, the event (should) scale back again (I haven’t tested this) since you aren’t contributing.

As you see, you can’t troll via downscaling. You are just the same as a lowie player, and you don’t scare lowies away, do you?

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I disagree. I think where GW2 is really strong is the open world, it’s dynamic events. It’s the main content of the game and all people should find interesting enough content for them to do at the main content. Sure, dungeons should be hard. Explorable mode was supposed to be rock-hard, don’t know what happened there. The newest iteration (Twilight Arbor Path) looks like they found a good balance.

Open world hard mode could definitely work with downscaling imho. Dead people / afk people cannot scale an event up, that’s not how it works. You have to be doing enough damage to make an event scaling up. If you’re dead because you are bad, the event (should) scale back again (I haven’t tested this) since you aren’t contributing.

As you see, you can’t troll via downscaling. You are just the same as a lowie player, and you don’t scare lowies away, do you?

Are you Aware that I speak this whole time about HARDMODE in DUNGEONS?

Open World is cool but your Impact in a 100 man Group is to low to call it a test of skills:)

Patrikan Habaton.2548:

Open World is cool but your Impact in a 100 man Group is to low to call it a test of skills:)

I wasn’t talking about doing Meta Events as a task of hardmode Furthermore, being 2 levels below the zone level gives you a lot of mob-aggro. Anet could also say: if you’re being downed, you have to restart the challenge (going back to the npc because your trainee-armor is broken now).

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

In all seriousness:

Starting on a basic level:
Daily achievement always in cycle like Gatherer; “Daily Visitor: Visit 5 houses”.
Social achievment “Houseguest: Visit W/X/Y/Z Houses; Title: Couch Surfer / Neighborhood / Honored Guest / Toast of the Town”

Personally not feeling any of these. I already am under the strong impression that probably 90% of players will spend less than 1% of their time in these ‘houses’. Forcing it with a daily or achievements isn’t going to make it a more attractive option.

The Great Al.2546:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

In all seriousness:

Starting on a basic level:
Daily achievement always in cycle like Gatherer; “Daily Visitor: Visit 5 houses”.
Social achievment “Houseguest: Visit W/X/Y/Z Houses; Title: Couch Surfer / Neighborhood / Honored Guest / Toast of the Town”

Personally not feeling any of these. I already am under the strong impression that probably 90% of players will spend less than 1% of their time in these ‘houses’. Forcing it with a daily or achievements isn’t going to make it a more attractive option.

That’s not forcing it. That’s doing the same amount of “forcing” as they do to people to go do the Daily Activity Participation, or to go to WvW for “Mists Land Claimer”. It’s making it a quick, simple option for people to get credit and it might lead to them actually caring about it.

And I do agree, it’s very likely most of the players won’t really use the content. I’d say the same about a lot of things in the game – it’s very likely a lot of players will do Timberline Falls for world completion and then never go back there. It’s very likely most of the players will never touch sPvP/WvW/Fractals/World Bosses no matter how the rewards are revamped.

But it’s something they can put in which could be interesting and has been requested since before launch.

Ghotistyx.6942:

What exactly becomes a gambit in open world would definitely need some deep thought, but honestly, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work well enough. Honestly, zergs will trivialize almost any content.

The Giant in Nageling is fairly hard to solo, is bearable with more people, but if you have 40 people poking his face, individually it doesn’t feel like much of a challenge. Certain gambits like “take more damage” would be significant (like, take double damage), or would completely alter your survivability (if you can barely kite something to death normally, you’ll probably die if you have an incurable source of burning on you the whole fight).

See, rather than simply making the content harder by raising damage and such, I feel that each ‘big boss’ fight (I.E. Jormag, Shatterer) should have their own scaling formula’s tied to their mechanics.

For example, look at the Shatterer and his healing crystals. Whether you have 10 or 100, the amount of crystals that spawn remain the same, thus the large majority of players can ignore that mechanic.

However, if the amount of crystals that spawned changed depending on how many people were there (say, and extra 1 for every 5 people), and these crystals spawned in random places outside a certain distance from each other, them all players involved would have to work towards this mechanic.