Guild Wars 2

Anets’ creating room for new builds (via trait/skill balances and new skills) is in direct opposition to the grind of Ascended gear:

Once someone has Ascended gear, he/she is “locked in” to their build. No one wants to grind a second set. Exotics are out because they feel like a downgrade once you have Ascended. If a player is locked in to their build, what’s the point of releasing new skills? (And imagine the rage when someone’s build is nerfed!)

IMO the best way to go horizontal is to use Magic: the Gathering’s model of releasing new skill sets on a regular schedule while retiring older skills (Type II/Standard gameplay). This way, the game stays fresh while balancing is feasible.

ColinJohanson.2394:

A question to help direct the discussion a bit:

What are some of your favorite progression systems of all time in others? Be they horizontal, or vertical, just which ones really got you excited and were fun for you to continue to progress in?

For me, Final Fantasy Tactics is one I loved, where I was able to continue to unlock new jobs and advanced professions for my characters, as well as level up their abilities within those professions. It remains one of my all time favorite games, and one of my favorite systems of progression in any game. I’m also pretty darn fond of that Guild Wars game and skill collection.

What works in other games might be a complete disaster in this game.

• UFO: Aftershock:
  UFO Aftershock’s progression system with character advancement, researching new technologies to upgrade weapons and armour, but it has a distinct cap to it’s technology advancement where your gear can no longer progress past the highest technology level but your skills can still improve.

• The Elder Scrolls:
  The Elder Scrolls is the best character building system I have ever seen in a role playing game. Your character advances according to how you play it. You can branch out or specialise, you can wear whatever armour you like or wield any weapon you want but your skill will only improve if you continue to invest into them. Armour type is balanced and specific preferences are encouraged, the Plate and heavy armour provides the best protection but the stamina and magicka regeneration suffer, the Light is lesser in protection but better for stamina and the cloth and robes provide the least protection but the best magicka regeneration. There is a clear distinction between them and a clear choice that you must make to sacrifice protection for resource regeneration.

• Guild Wars:
  There is so much that I love about the original Guild Wars game that I really kick myself for not playing it from launch. If there was a game like Guild Wars out today, with Guild Wars 2’s active combat system, World vs World and expansive world to explore, but with the Original Guild Wars’s level cap, itemisation and skill system, I would be playing it instead of writing this post. I have always found it strange that Arena.net changed so much of what worked in the original game when they made the sequel.

The stand out positives from the Original Guild Wars:

• 20 Levels
• Build variety
• Cloaks
• Extremely well written/developed story
• Gear progression in the form of skins, not stats.

Stand out negatives from the Original Guild Wars:

• No Jumping.
• No Swimming
• Heavy instancing

There’s no going back from what has been done with Guild Wars 2, but we can look to the future and work towards a common goal of creating something we can all enjoy. I do not expect Arena.net to drastically change their path, I’ve seen other developers make that mistake before (Age of Conan/Star Wars Galaxies) and I would not want to see it happen here. However, I don’t think Arena.net give themselves enough credit for what they did right in the first game that truly should have carried over to the sequel.

However this turns out, please don’t resort to increasing the level cap
To me that would be the NGE of Guild Wars.

Character Progression

Gear visuals
- Limited Items

• These should not be more expensive than a legendary per definition.
  I understand how supply and demand work, but a legendary should be the most expensive item to get.
• Too unclear when something is limited or not.
• One time usage instead of unlocking it.

- Storage
There’s little to no proper way of storing anything related to visuals that you have. If you want to switch out visuals you are limited to your inventory.
You have to carry your miniature around. You have to carry armor around. You have to carry tonics around. This feels outdated and is very inconvenient.

• Gemstore Skins
  They should be account bound and not one time use only. Same way achievement skins work. Why can you only buy full armor sets?
• PvE Skins
  Add skins together on a single item (same way legendary stats work, pick & choose out of combat).
  More upgrades to certain weapons. I don’t see why you can’t add a glow to fractal weapons for instance.
  Aside from that right now almost all armor related skins are acquired with gold. There’s dungeon and karma armor.
  Since release nothing has been added that doesn’t require gold.
• PvP Skins
  Needs a quality of life overhaul, it takes too long switching visuals out and if you want to switch gear from 1 character to another is such a hassle.
  Better overview of how to acquire skins. It’s a complete mess if you’re new to the game.
  - Runes
  They’re currently being reworked. Although we have no clue what’s going on and what’s going to change.

- Features

• Free WP’s to main cities / Home instance. This needs to be earned through permanent living story achievements.

- Skills

• Useless skills need to be reworked. PvE / WvW / PvP need to be split off for more interesting skill options. Right now they’re all linked to eachother, which pretty much splits the usability up way too much. Because something is viable in sPvP it should not be changed, even though it could be absolute trash for PvE.
  This makes skill options way too limited right now.

- Weapon skills
I would love to see each weapon slot have 3 weapon skills to choose from. Often I’m stuck not using a weapon skill at all. Simply because it is ineffective for the gametype I’m playing.This is partly because, again, some skills are super useful in a certain game type. While they are trash elsewhere, but that leaves them in a bad situation.

- Karma
Simply need more options to spend karma on useful items.
Right now it’s only true usage is obsidian shards, gold and cooking materials… this should be broadened up a lot.

- Useless items

• Pointless merchants. Yes I’m late on bringing this up, but there’s just almost no interesting merchants in the game… at all.
• Bloodstone / Empyreal / Dragonite … I’ve lost count on how many I’ve thrown away. Trying to get people to play all of your content is nice, but don’t make it mandatory.
  This leaves people who have a certain part they enjoy with a bad after taste. If you love doing world events, you’re swamped with dragonite. If you’re doing a lot of fractals you’re being swamped with Empyreal shards.
  The whole reward scheme seems messed up for this. It’s too narrow.
  A fun way of going about this would be to spend for instance 5,000 of one type to get a harvesting node in your home instance (that gives like 10-15 each day).
  For example: I spent 5,000 bloodstone dust for a dragonite node. (Just spouting out numbers)

- Traits

• Add trait pages
• Switch between trait pages
• Split WvW / PvE trait pages

- Guild Progression

• Guild Hall
• More guild items (Not necessarily guild related, just more funny goofy items to spaw)

- Ascended

• Uncertainty with legendary armor/trinkets whether or not it’s going to be worth getting them if you need to replace them later on.
  Add additional stats to switch to for a cheaper price after the first armor has been crafted. It’s too expensive to get multiple ascended armors for a single character. Let alone multiple armors for multiple characters.

- Infusions

• Agony Infusions
  Currently it’s too much related to money rather than upgrading.
  If you make this mandatory for high level fractal than it should not be simply related to gold. There’s already enough gold related progression right now.
• Stats Fine infusions. We have no clue whether these will be useful later on. Big investment and a lot of uncertainty.

- Magic Find
Can introduce more ways to obtain luck. PvP salvaging feels super sub-par.

- Legendary

• Lacking visuals
• Acquisition
  This can still need fine tuning, mostly concerning the precursor.
  Currently being worked on already, but we’re not being asked our opinion on this.
• More legendaries

- Fractals

• Skins
  Combine all skins
• More skins for higher levels
• More instabilities
  Please fine tune the instabilities more. People should not be looking to skip levels while they are trying to level up. If that’s the case then it’s clear you’ve made the instability play too big of role.

- Item Acquisition

• Gold Grind
  Right now almost every new item means you have to either complete the meta or you can buy it with gold.I feel a lot of character progression is lost this way, as you can just buy your way into it.

• RNG
  It’s nice to get that one time epic loot drop. Or to think it might drop. But there is almost no epic loot item you can work towards. Again you need either luck or gold for those.

- Account Progression

• NPC Acces
  Bank / Guild Bank / Merchant / Trading Post
  These are currently only available to get via gold or RNG. These items are extremely user friendly and increase the quality of life tremendously. I don’t see why they aren’t opened up to a wider audience. These should also be shared across all of your characters through easy interface buttons.
• Unlimited harvesting tools should be shared across all your characters. Should be an account unlock, more than an item.

- Character Slots

• You should have the option to arrange your character order yourself.
• At least 8 characters should be visible from the character selection screen.
• Add a better interface for people with a lot of character slots.
• Add more interfaces to choose from.

- Bank Slots

• Can use a better and more appealing interface
• Hide bank tabs (same as hide bags in inventory)
• Change size (same as inventory)

- Bag Slots

• Better appealing icons. Go crazy here. Earn your goofy bag skins.
• Rename bags.

- Titles
There’s just too much left to explore here to do just in a small headline. It also feels pointless to discuss it because we have no idea of direction with them.

- Home Instance
Same as titles. Too many possibilities without any direction.

Conclusion
Based off the feedback I will get I can go into further details.
These do list my biggest concerns regarding the current character progression.
I can’t give my exact views on everything because it wouldn’t do it justice in a relatively small description.

Gear:
This:

[…] I like the idea of having ascended gear the way it is at the moment. It’s not too powerful compared to exotics, but I find it quite difficult to get into the crafting process. I regularly get a lot of mats for the weapons/armor but I have no real clue what to combine in which way. I would wish that there would be a kind of tech-tree UI. A place where I could see all the needed mats for the weapon; where I can directly put in the mats I’ve already gathered and get an idea what’s still missing.

And: Make the stats of ascended gear switchable like the legendary ones. It’s far too expensive to craft several weapons and armors to be able to play different builds. Most people concentrate on one build with few differences. They cannot change their traits and armor easily and that blocks the variety of builds. No one will try builds they know aren’t as effective as their current ones (although they could be more fun to play).
To fight this trend:
- Make ascended gear’s stats switchable (armor and weapons!)
- Remove the fee for changing traits
- Make the traits completely changeable once out of fight (for like 2mins) or in a city
This will still make the selected build important, because it’s not changeable in dungeons or (wvw wise) before the enemy breaks through the gates, but gives the players more choices and possibilities. And technically it should be “easy” to implement, as all the needed techniques are already ingame.

Skills:
What let GW1 (and other MMOs) made to improve the game experience was adding new skills. For GW2 I suggest another approach – Let us skill the weapons we use. Give us a choice for each weaponskill. There would be two approaches: You could give every weaponskill-place two skills to choose from or add weapon-skill-traits which could change the first 5 skills. Like two traits per skill (for example: hammerskill 1 – trait1: every attack in the attackchain will deal AOE damage, trait2: increase the attackspeed of the first hammerskill for 25%).

Drops:
One thing for progression are the drops. I feel like the loottable is just horrible in this game. Most “good” weapons you would use are just being crafted or have a 0,00001% drop chance. I play since the beta-weekends and there was nearly no item that dropped and was good enough to be used by my own characters. Normally they are not rare enough (stat-wise) or they have the wrong stats. It’s just not enjoyable to buy everything from the TP.
Another thing is: Why are the god kitten ed race and order armors not exotic? What the hell?

.: Aesthetic Progression :.

Guild Wars 2 undeniably has a large focus on the aesthetic progression of armour and weaponry and your characters overall appearance. While there is a wide range of weapon skins available for people to work towards, the majority of armour sets which are used as skins you can buy for no more than a few gold, and the only real challenging gear to get is dungeon armour sets and cultural armour (which is only a gold grind). I would personally love to see a wider range of armour sets available in game which people can work towards. I think level 500 crafters in armour professions should be able to create high level armour skins which they can apply to their armour.

Minis are also supposed to be an aesthetic feature which shows progression and wealth in the game, though as they stand they are almost unused. In Guild Wars 1 you would walk around major cities and see players with a wide range of different minis which they have collected over time. In Guild Wars 2, players tend to see them as a waste of bag space rather than a show of progression in the game, and for me personally they are always getting deposited whenever I deposit all the materials in my bag. For this, I think a tab should be added to the hero panel which allows players to place one of their minis on the ground and switch between them at will, without having to waste space in their bags or worry about accidentally depositing them into your banks all the time.

So what you guys need to do is add the armory thingy that’s in heart of the mists into the pve world. Add all the skins in the game in there, oh and make us able to use them as much as we want when we unlock them(like the achievement skins). Then you can start adding more non-gemshop skins to the game for us to collect.

I think Ascended was a good idea they are a good way to give People a Goal

only Thing i dont like is that ascended weapons have differnt “look” but ascended armor doesnt have that. would be nice if their would be differnt too, dont have to be a total make over, but a differnt ornaments one it would be nice since you have to pay for each stat combination. alt friendly would be to pay for each Piece and then you can discover the missing stats

what I really like was how tequatl got updated.

Would be really like if other Areas would get some upgrade. That dont have to be just make the world bosses more difficult.
It would be nice to see some meta Event chains in that difficulty, and with Special rewards like a mini of place where the Event was placed on like the mini of zyther sanctum.
that way you also create a greater variety to get on such things or also get differnt looking Versions, it would be really nice to see such a great variety on Looks for ascended as for exotic gear.

What i also like is that you add more and more minigames. maybe those also could get some vertical Progression like Keg brawl getting new maps, or you allow guilds to Play in a Team against each other

Many People also like to get title to Show visually what they achieved. i would like to see if we will see more in the Futur, but please dont make them as ridiculas as some of the WvW one (escorting 500 000 dolyaks doesnt look possible for me xD )

Character Progression… I’m glad you asked!

PART 1

First off I’d like to say I love this game. That said, this game (I feel) is in dire need of more character progression.

Character progression while leveling your character up is alright but I feel the lack of real diversity in gear models available to the player as they level up stunts the feeling of progression. That same lack has the same effect on crafting too sadly. The first time I leveled up a craft I was super excited. I kept thinking whats the next item going to look like? Until I realized they never really changed in appearance. Adding new gear models to the game, obtainable via karma vendors as well as drops from enemies, would help boost the feeling of character progression while leveling up. Giving craftable items more varying models would have the same effect. Giving craftable items unique models may even give crafted items more value.

Another area for improvement is combat. The combat in Guild Wars 2 makes combat in other games dull. BUT! I can’t help but feel it needs more variety. Changing the utility skills or adding new ones ins’t enough. I strongly feel that adding maybe 2 more sets of skills to each weapon that players can learn and swap with already existing skills would add a progression to combat that lasts all the way through level 80. The first set may become available at level 50 and the last at level 80. Maybe players have to hunt down the trainers somewhere in the world. Regardless, I think the game would benefit from this.

In a giant world like this I’m surprised by how few factions there are. I would expect to see more private groups in the world with their own values and agendas. And I’m talking about groups that the players can join or help. Currently there are 3, really. The Vigil, Priory and the Order of Whispers. I think giving the players more factions in the game that they can earn reputation or fame with would give the players more to achieve and add another element of progression to the game. Adding items and gear available at different fame levels with these factions would be the reward to aiding each faction. The factions ideally would have “missions” that players could do that would reward fame, karma, gold and experience.

On the topic of factions – Giving each profession it’s own “Guild” could also add a similar element of progression. The idea would be fairly the same. As players level up missions open up that players get from their “profession master.” Completing these reward the player with the usual karma, gold and experience with the addition of fame or reputation within their profession guild. At different tears of fame new gear and items become available for purchase. This gives the opportunity to add profession specific gear in the game. Both of these ideas offer new potential options to add to the daily and monthly achievement options as well.

PART 2

One thing I haven’t mentioned yet is the lack of a proper outlet for currency. Karma gives the player the freedom to pick their own “quest rewards” (so to speak) for completing hearts and dynamic events. Sadly after a player hits 80 there isn’t much karma vendors offer that interests the player (Unless they are a cook). The addition of these factions and their specific vendors offers several new outlets to spend karma and gold.

Moving forward, player housing would be a welcomed addition to the game. It would provide another outlet to spend gold as well as progress in the game. Giving players the ability to buy a house in their home instance, upgrade it, add displays for armor and weapons, earn trophies from achievements and living story content to display and show off to invited guests would not only give players something extra to aspire towards, achieve and boost their ego, but it would also give Anet a new type of item to sell in the trading post. For example, picture frames with concept art that can be hung on the players walls, upgrade construction licence, armor displays (for displaying armor the player has earned, doesn’t wear, but wants to show off or display) weapon racks or displays (same purpose), or even a servant that gathers for you while you’re doing your own thing!

Lastly I’d like to note that any gear in the game that is purchased from a faction, this includes the current cultural gear, should have unique models and should not share models with an item that can be found from a random drop off any random monster. Also special care should be taken when modeling gear so that it can be worn separate from it’s set and still be viable. The light head armor from Arah tokens (hood open in the back) and the heavy leg armor from CoF (shows a happy trail triangle) are examples of gear that looks horribly awkward without the rest of the set.

I appreciate any time you took to read through my suggestions and I hope you found an idea you liked among them. I would love to discuss this topic more but this is already a long post.
Thank you for reading, sincerely,
Jason

Morrigan.2809:

The point is it was never allowed for horizontal progression.
the game shipped without the magic ingredient of horizontal progression

Where are the new skills you can hunt in the world to make your character cool?

where are new armor skins in game?

where are new weapons to unlock for your character?

where are new sub-classes for existing professions.

Where is player housing and guild housing?

So before you tell us this game needs vertical progression- actually add some horizontal progression first.

I would really love to see these implemented as horizontal progression sometime in the future.

If henchmen/companions like those in GW1 can be unlocked I’ll be pretty happy too.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi,

To clarify I am looking forward to hearing the communities thoughts on speed of acquisition such as how long crafting time takes? or drop rates in fractals and other areas of the game etc.

I hope this adds some clarity.

Chris

Regarding acquisition of Ascended Gear:

I’m a crafter, and while I feel a sense of dread when confronted by the massive amounts of materials needed to craft the gear, I feel like it is a fairly well-measured amount for a long-term goal. It’s going to take me a while to gear up my primary characters to my satisfaction, and I’m okay with that. I like having long-term goals that I can work toward. Also, I was pleased to see that some of the materials requirements for armor pieces were reduced from what we saw with Ascended Weapons. I think the team hit the right balance with those numbers. The amounts are significant enough that it counts as a long-term goal, but the ability to complete the set in pieces gives me a sense of progress and periodically rewards me for my efforts. Overall I am satisfied — if not pleased — with the crafting aspect of Ascended acquisition.

However, when you get away from the crafting aspect, there are some serious problems with acquisition in general.

The first problem is that players are forced to craft the gear if they want to have any chance at completing a set, with desired stats, in something resembling a reasonable time-frame. Making Ascended gear account-bound means that players either have to invest in crafting, or cross their fingers and hope they get lucky.

Really, really lucky.

I haven’t done the math on it, but what are the odds of a non-crafting player getting 6 Ascended Armor Chests of desirable stats? What are the odds of getting 6 matching stat Chests? A mechanic that allows players to select stat combinations and slot is badly needed.

I don’t know anything about the drop rate, but I’ve heard in-game and on the forums that the drop rate is comparable to precursor drop rate. Which, for most players, = not even worth hoping for.

Add to that the fact that Ascended Armor Chest drops are locked behind certain specific content means that many players have to play outside of their “Enjoyment Zone” in order to even have a chance to get a drop.

The bottom line is that players are faced with this choice:

Craft your own Ascended gear whether you like it or not, or give up any hopes of assembling a set of Ascended gear.

My personal feeling is that Ascended gear should not be account bound. Certain specific items, weapons, and what-not… sure. But an entire tier of gear? Absolutely not.

But if it is going to be account bound, then it needs to drop from literally everywhere so that players don’t feel pressure to leave their “Joy Zone” to acquire it. Wasn’t that the philosophy behind precursor drop distribution?

Elthuzar.9478:

The stand out positives from the Original Guild Wars:

• 20 Levels
• Build variety
• Cloaks
• Extremely well written/developed story
• Gear progression in the form of skins, not stats.

Stand out negatives from the Original Guild Wars:

• No Jumping.
• No Swimming
• Heavy instancing

The above sums up my own feelings on GW1. I love GW1 so much, I still play it at least once a week.

I realize we can’t switch from, say, 80 levels to only 20 in GW2 — that would be stupid. GW2 has lots of great features — but it shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

GW1 was very good prior to the excesses (OP skills) of GW:EotN. Consider what the first game did right when designing for GW2.

I would like to see diagonal progression. I see this as an increase in character power vs different avenues that complement rather than replace the existing ones.

I think power progression is an important part of MMOs. In the classic hero story, the hero starts out weak, but gains in strength until he can defeat the adversary. This idea of “progression” is a key element in the hero myth and I personally find it is necessary for a truly satisfying fantasy mmo.

However power progression needs to avoid these 2 pitfalls:

• Loss of player equity. This happens when a new tier replaces the old one. It negates the players efforts to acquire the old gear, and makes them feel like they have lost something. There would be a big loss of player equity if ascended gear was replaced in the next 2 – 3 years. To avoid a loss of player equity, what I would like to see are new systems of increasing character power. Ones that supplement, rather than replace the existing ones. I also think it is the loss of player equity that makes progession seem like a treadmill (expending a lot of effort to remain in essentially the same place), rather than a journey.

• Content gating. This happens when you need to do content to get the power increase, but you can’t realistically do the content without the power increase. This is what happened with wow raiding, where you needed raid gear to raid. Therefore all power increases need to be accessible, ie. free of content gates. This includes skill requirements beyond the ability of the average player. High skill should be rewarded, but it should be rewarded via horizontal progression eg cosmetic items and titles (bragging rights effectively).

For this reason I think Anet’s current approach is correct: you can get the gear through play-modes that are accessible to every player. I would have preferred a system that did not require crafting however. The expense of levelling up crafting (200g) is something of a content gate, which requires new players to do a bunch of gold-farm grinding. The legendary system is cool, why not grant players “gifts” from certain activity related tokens that they can combine in the forge?

A prime example of the kind of diagonal progression I would like to see is LOTRO’s virtue system: http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Virtues. This grants the players stat buffs for completing certain achievements, and comes in ranks. For example it could give you a +5 damage bonus with daggers for each “dagger slaying” achievement tier, or +5 vs grawl for each grawl slaying rank. The cool thing about this is the fact that it makes your character intrinsically more powerful, rather than just your gear. It also makes sense from a rpg/immersion perspective, as doing an activity makes you better at that activity. It is also accessible and encourages players to play a wide variety of content.

LOTRO had a lot of different virtues you could increase, but you could only slot 5 at a time. So this added another element of build diversity.

What I loved so much about the original Guild Wars (and its expansions) was exactly that. The Guild Wars. It had something World of Warcraft didn’t, a passion for guilds vs guilds. I remember the servers being flared up over a single match. It wasn’t unhealthy competition either, the Guild Wars community has always been great and it can handle heated competition without resulting to underhanded remarks and harassment.

I miss this guild progression. My own opinion (flame it if you wish) is that the Guild Wars should be sparked back into the fray. The current system has no real rewards or promotes any desire to band as a guild and smash other guilds into oblivion.

1. Guild Halls
2. Easy ways to create guild teams for arenas
– Team Names
– Team Colours
– Team Domains
– Guild Halls
– Guild Banners
– More visible guild emblems (the cape was cool, something like that)
– Something better than I could ever think of :)

Progression
– Items for guild progression (chests for winning)
– Ranked scores for guilds / teams
– Better guild halls
– Fancier Banners
– Legendary status and items (for true guild wars warriors)

TLDR I miss the Guild Wars in Guild Wars.

Edit: Deleted stuff by accident. o.O

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi,

To clarify I am looking forward to hearing the communities thoughts on speed of acquisition such as how long crafting time takes? or drop rates in fractals and other areas of the game etc.

I hope this adds some clarity.

Chris

PART 1
Ok, here is a bunch of my thoughts about progression.

Leveling is OK as a first part of the game play.
Then we hit the level 80.
From then we kinda worked to make us look as we want (everyone has some taste in it).
Then I felt I’m ready to take on every challenge or story you provide.

I looked on WvW progression and it made me really happy (I hate how WvW works so I play only a little of it, but progression in there is really amazing). It’s like you specialize in one thing after another in any aspect of the WvW, despite build stats and all that and it just rewards you. You feel your character is evolving, becoming stronger and better in what you can do. That’s just great.
Going BTA on WvW ranks is amazing. I finally got reason to play my other characters in there. It really made me enjoy the change.

While you made ascended items that were obtainable by laurels it was not bad. I read all your reasons, but I felt like they were a smoke screen. I kinda said to myself: “Ok if I have to grind dailies I guess I will have to do it, but most people will so we all will kinda hop to the same space”.
I never felt it was important. I never felt better cause I got all my trinkets ascended, even back piece. It was kinda useless but I did it so I could be kinda on the same level as others. It really didn’t felt good thou.

When you made grindy time-consuming crafting I said to me self: “NEVER!”
Although I leveled crafting for achievement I never did a singe item. I kinda sticked to GW2 because I was assured there won’t be useless gear grind. I left last game because of that. I strongly oppose that and with exotic gear basically everywhere you was happy. Some farmed legendaries or other skins for looks and it was all basically great.

PART 2

Vertical progression kills fun from playing for me. I don’t want to feel forced to get another stronger item. I respected you when I played GW1 and in there for 7 years was no gear progression.
In GW1 players were in there always on equal level and what mattered were skills and looks. I loved that. I looked in that in GW2 and now I’m disappointed. So I will really strongly consider leaving the game with another vertical progression. It won’t matter for me if it will be in 2 or 7 years.

I know that nobody forces me to have the best stats, but let’s face it, it’s in players nature that stats needs to be the best. That is why i feel really bad about the way you betrayed my trust. I really trusted you there will be no vertical progression.

I oppose vertical/ascended progression for this reasons:

• When I geared my 8 characters I used a lot of money on transmutations stones so I can look good. Spending another 50 or so transmutation crystals is kinda silly. Especially when I asked on the forum about a way to do recrafting an item to save the looks.
• When I want to go on to my other characters I want to feel they are the same level and I have problem with that with ascended trinkets not to mention the rest. Basically you made me feel bad that I love to switch and play alts. I’m very disappointed especially when I see where you went in WvW. (I also made a thread about making mastery in crafting ascended to reduce cost of crafting each to around 10% after making like 5 weapons and 10 armors so people with many alts could gear them fairly chap. That would prevent them from feeling like me. Yet I still feel lousy about the new gear and it makes ma loose fun from playing. Just the fact that there is a stat boost that could matter in fractals/WvW or challenges that will come. It really sucks… For me it should be about skills and experience.
• You kinda gave ascended items the worst look ever so I feel like you want to milk my money. I don’t have problems when I buy skins for gems but I have major problem when you make it so it feels like you want to make me spend cash just because. I will never knew why didn’t you use GW1 armor for ascended items (even thou old GW1 players would be really happy about it).

For me character progression should go fully horizontal and more account wide like you did with WvW. I would really love to play whatever character I want and progress on whatever is in there – again look on WvW. You even made it possible to buy levels and farm skill points that is possible account wide so making progression after level 80 kinda bound to the account really is a good way. You kinda learn character in those 80 levels, uncover the map (but it would be great if next/new maps would be kinda account oriented in exploring) and get ready. Then it should be about time you spend playing across whole game.

I would love to see the same system you use in WvW (yet there are another ways).
For example, lines like:
- more dmg to veterans then elites, champions and legendaries similar to (guards/lords)
- more def from veterans then elites, champions and legendaries similar to (guards/lords)
- swiftness after gathering (like picking up supplies)
- boost in dungeons (dmg/def?)
- boost to earned karma (1%-10%)
- boost to certain enemy types like vermins, ghosts etc? (dmg/def?)
- boost in event (after 5 ranks also boost to events rewards and maybe some extra after finishing an event with success)
- boost hearts progression?
- maybe additional boost to mf?

You could do few things to gather points for these in PvE.
A little % form general xp or levels earned, more from events, event more form group events, up to 5 the same grade points from dailies, Nice boost for making monthly. Maybe some extra for each title and finished achievement?

There can be many many traits it would make you progress and became stronger and it would be cool as far as I’m concerned

One thing is sure for me: NO MORE VERTICAL PROGRESSION, I really, really please…

Horizontal progression

I would like to see more armor skins available through other ways than buying them with gems or gold. They should mean more than a simple “look what I bought”. The skins could be crafted once you reach level 500, or acquired after some sort of difficult scavenger hunt. Every time I have purchased a skin from the gem store, I have just as easily replaced it with something else. I know that this is a way to make people buy gems, but in the end none of those skins feel special enough, no matter how pretty they may look.

Please give us armor with icy-look

I would also like to see more weapons with particle effects and with different color schemes.

Vertical progression

I support the ascended weapons, armors etc and think that they are needed. We need smaller pojects like this, that are not as overwhelming as creating a new legendary. The problem is that they can also drop anywhere and with complete random stats. If I have decided to get ascended armor for my guardian and warrior, I do not want an ascended RAMPAGERS box to drop for me in fractals. I want my main characters to have the stats that I need, it feels pointless that my first character with ascended armor would be a retired necro.

A solution would be that the ascended chests have selectable stats. If you get an ascended weapon with the wrong stats, you can still use it as underwater weapon and it would not matter. But if your amor is knight’s, you do not want a box with magi’s or rabid’s etc.

Another option is to have an NPC that trades in unwanted ascended boxes to stats of your own choosing.

Another system I really liked in LOTRO was its legendary weapon system http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Legendary_Items.

You basically levelled up your weapon the same way you did your character. You could also slot it with different items, some of which gave buffs to specific abilities (eg. fear lasts 10% longer). It made you feel attached to your main weapon. The system gave very significant power increases though, so it might be quite difficult to do within the GW2 system. You would also need to extend the system to ascended items at least, and maybe even exotics. Still it was a cool system within the LOTRO game design.

I find there are many flaws with the current implementation of ascended weapons and armors.

1) It is a gold sink. I do not see any other point in raising the cap on crafting to 500.

2) It is boring. Come on, how interesting is it really to chop trees?

3) There is RNG involved.

4) The RNG drops are like a double troll. Hey, you really lucky and got a weapon, but fool on you, it is the wrong stats.

5) They are account bound; meaning anyone getting lucky with an RNG drop cannot even sell it if they do not need/want it.

6) There are too few ways to obtain these items.

7) It lacks direction. Why did we implement ascended gear again?
What exactly is it needed for?
In other games, lets take Warcraft, you knew you needed this gear in order to be prepared for the release of the next instance. You needed the gear to progress in PvE.
In Gw2 the purpose is hidden. Looking at the current content, I would think the greatest gain would be to craft for WvW. I am however not going to do so.
I am swimming in materials, but why would I?
If I craft gear for WvW and you introduce a purpose for this gear in PvE, then I have put myself at a disadvantage. I would have to craft an entire new set again. No thank you.

8) I hate it. I really cannot say it any nicer. I hate crafting, I hate how I would have to level not 1 or 2 but all 3 weapon professions to get my weapon set. I hate the entire idea of crafting ascended.

9) It feels like an attempt to add “hardcore” content into the game. It is a way to let people have that feeling of being a “hardcore” player, even though all they really did was chopping wood. Fact just is: There is nothing hardcore about ascended, nor should there be.
However, why a power creep was implemented in the first place is beyond me.
It is not hardcore, but sadly, the immensely boring element is tied inseparably to the ascended concept.

10) There is the constant changes of the game, changes to weapon sets, changes to traits, changes to class balance. Odds are, even if craft something, a change will just be implemented that means, oh yeh: You have to craft more now. Lucky me.

11) It is not alt friendly.

A possible solution is in my opinion very easy:

• Have them not be account bound. The people that enjoy crafting can craft to their hearts content and the rest of us will have an option to earn gold elsewhere and buying them of the trading post.

• Add more ways to obtain them. As an example: let your world bosses drop ascended tokens that you can use to buy gear if you collect enough of them. (This is not my suggestion, I saw it elsewhere and thought it was excellent.)

• Let the RNG drops have a choice of stats.

• Make ascended weapons/armors available through laurels etc. like the accessories and visa versa.

• Make your vision of these items clear. I want to know where this is heading. I do not see why I should embrace the concept before I do.

• Make stat swap available on all ascended items.

It’s 3:10 in my city and let me give you some thought to chew on.
-With recent vertical progression now need more horizontal progression or some more ways to show it.
First, we should get a way to push people into playing together, to use the world. Every Living Story should leave something to be accessible via sort of currency like karma or special event tokens. Maybe some fancy weapon skins + unlocking some town cloth or something. Gem Store could sell full special Living Story themed sets.
Second, there are no guilds in these wars. Only farmers and bankers. We need to get them guilds get back together in some sort of competition. Or buying guild halls GW1 style with event tokens. Howgh.
3rd, why can’t we just upgrade buyable skins? Whyyy?
4th, maybe Living Story pernament skills or skills reworks?
5th, using skill points to buy some skills changes/upgrades. Sounds cool, eh?

How about adding different WEAPON SKILLS, you could make them use skill points to unlock even, let us pick and choose which abilities to load to our weapons, that way you could add more customization, as a result the damage/condition damage, support and control roles expand (Also please get rid of defiance in 5 player dungeons, defiance is needed vs. open world content, but not in 5 person content, makes control meaningless).

*PART 3 *

1. I would love to get as a horizontal progression a way to use cultural armor (please people put the knives down…)

It would work like you would have to do many quests or redo hearts and such (maybe with limitations – those 10 hearts can be redone for today, random like dailies) and those would give you points for your reputation for each culture.
*Example: *
I made 3 hearts for humans and 2 or asuras and I will get 3 human reputation points and 2 asuran.
If I get to 1000 I will be able to buy cultural T1 for any of my races, maybe 2500 for T2 and 5000 for T3.

2. Almost forgot upgrading cloths.
You can make cultural armors and maybe other items upgradable with some glow or elemental particles like fractal back piece.
I hate it but some people love to look like Christmas three so they will go for it.

3. Also unlocking some new skins – similar to HoM or achievement system would be nice, but I would have to say in here we want cool skins. New ones and GW1 skins. All reusable like zenith/radiant/hellfire.

4. All that has to come also with more skills and adding weapons to classes and new weapons – like you said you will do it.

Character progression topics!?! YAAAY!

My suggestion!

RUNES and SIGILS! Make runes and sigil the PvE/WvW horizontal progression. Just click on runes/sigils to unlock them and you can use them at any time. To make runes/sigils be on more demand, make it like Dyes, soul-bounded.

PvE combat will be revolutionized. I will no longer have to stress over more gear so that my runes can be in. I don’t have to worry about bankspace to store my armor and runes. I won’t have to be in the forums to find out the best cookiecutter builds.

Instead, If I am bored. I can easily change the playstyle of my warrior to a beastmaster with runes of the ogre, shouthealer, zerk, play as a Death Knight(Lich runes). No more being stuck into one build. This won’t be alt-friendly, but it will give healthy progression to those that don’t like playing with alts.

Look at Diablo 2.

I like the current acquisition of ascended gear, but it doesn’t allow for build switching. I would like to see a method for changing the stats on ascended gear; such as a mystic forge recipe that takes a piece of ascended gear, a skill point item, and 2 other items acting as a gold/item sink and returns a piece of ascended gear with one-time selectable stats.

Mal.1670:

Turtle Dragon.9241:

-snip-

This doesn’t make any sense. Skills are an integral part of the character that can never be “reset” in this manner; comparing that to equipment upgrading is just silly lmao. Dude, think about it. If you didn’t have to “replace” all that hard-earned exotic gear you have, it would make progression way too easy. Everyone would be laughing at how simple progression would be if you could salvage an exotic and get all the materials you spent making it back, as an example. That’s horrible game design and you would realize how flawed a game like that would be if such a system existed.

To those who think this dilemma about having to “replace” your hard-earned progression is bad, just think about the most popular MMO: World of Warcraft. That’s EXACTLY what all those millions of players do every time there’s a new freaking patch! So to say that having resets of your progression is bad game design is nothing short of laughably silly. Think about it. Every time there’s a new freaking patch in World of Warcraft, everyone has to replace ALL their gear from a new raid. And that game design has worked JUST FINE for Blizzard. I rest my case.

-snip-

Having your skills replaced permanently was a sarcastic remark to stress how ridiculous “discarding” could get, not a suggestion. I guess everyone else who read my post understood that much…

The current system forces you to make a new item from scratch every time a new tier of gear comes out

There are efficient systems out there that do not require discarding.
Example1: it currently takes 1 Vision Crystal, 1 Ascended Inscription, 1 Spiritwood Focus Casing and 1 Spiritwood Focus Core to craft an Ascended Focus. Then I have to salvage my Exotic “hard-earned” Focus and replace it with the Ascended Focus.

There could easily be a system that simply upgrades my Exotic Focus instead. Take your Exotic Focus with its current skin, apply 1 Vision Crystal, 8 Spiritwood Planks and 3 Deldrimor Ingots to it and it becomes Ascended(with the same skin).
It uses the same mats, so the amount of time is the same, and it does not make the progression “too easy” as you claim. Its just that this time, my Exotic Focus became more powerful instead of it being salvaged and replaced by an Ascended Focus.

The point of this is that if you currently have say T4 Gear, you would not need to start from scratch everytime there is a new tier of gear that comes out. You could simply upgrade your T4 gear into T5, then T6. It is basically a dual system. On one side you can use “less mats” on your T5 Weapon to make it T6, on the other hand you can craft a T6 Weapon directly from scratch.
So those who have made the effort to get T5 gear previously can simply upgrade for a little cheaper, those who never got T5 gear can just aim directly at T6 gear. This is just a much more flexible system. It rewards the players who have gotten your last tier of gear by charging them less mats, while giving a chance to new players to catch up directly to the current gear-tier(Skip T5). I would not mind if you introduced T7+ gear, as long as each time a new tier comes out, I can upgrade my current instead of it becoming obsolete.

As to your point on WoW, that’s exactly why people left WoW and came to GW2! We do not like that system, we were just forced to do it to move further while paying a subscription fee, and GW2 promised NOT to have such a stupid system like that where every 6 months a new tier of gear comes out and everyone re-starts from scratch.

Example2: The fact that I have to discard/replace my previous +10AR infusion in my Ring, have to make 2 more +10AR infusions(for a +11AR infusion) just to upgrade by +1AR is already a bad system.

As already mentioned about AR infusions, make a bar on the Ascended Rings(exactly like the current Magic Find bar) and we just keep applying more +1AR infusions to the rings to increase that bar. When the bar fills, we get +1AR on that Ring. In a way, this system would be similar to the materia system from FF7 if you want another reference.

Another example of bad system:
Let’s say Level 100 is the New Maximum Cap. Those who are already level 80 should only have 20 levels more to go. Not have their levels reset to 1, then level all the way to 100. Getting resetted back to level 1 wipes all the current work i did to get to 80.
This is not progression, this just feels like you making me start the game all over again.

Progression is meant to move forward only!

Progression systems..

Can I point to SWTOR’s legacy system?

That had some awesome kitten. Basically you can earn account unlocks by completing things on all your alts. Bring a sith sorcerer up to max level and complete the personal story? Boom. All your alts gain a special ‘force choke’ attack you could use on a long cool down. Bring an alt of a particular race to max? That race can now be any class when you create your next alt – not so applicable to GW2, but you get the idea. The ability to purchase iconic-looking leveling gear, have a mail droid on your ships, etc, etc.

Anyway. A ton of very neat stuff, and you gained ‘legacy xp’ by just playing the game normally.

ColinJohanson.2394:

A question to help direct the discussion a bit:

What are some of your favorite progression systems of all time in others? Be they horizontal, or vertical, just which ones really got you excited and were fun for you to continue to progress in?

For me, Final Fantasy Tactics is one I loved, where I was able to continue to unlock new jobs and advanced professions for my characters, as well as level up their abilities within those professions. It remains one of my all time favorite games, and one of my favorite systems of progression in any game. I’m also pretty darn fond of that Guild Wars game and skill collection.

As for horizontal customization in “other titles”, I really like the approach that Final Fantasy X took with the “skill maps”. Path of Exile is doing something similar right now with their “Passive Skill Tree” mechanic. That approach is very open-ended, and allows for astonishing degrees of customization. It puts everything on the table. All the toys in the same sandbox. Players still have to make decisions, and commit to certain mechanics and play-styles, but they have the freedom to mix it up however they like.

What would happen if you stripped each profession down to it’s core mechanics, and put everything else into one big sandbox that all professions can access?

That’s probably impractical at this stage of GW2, but maybe the next stage of horizontal progression is not to add more options for each profession, but to add a new pool of resources that every profession can access equally.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Ascended creation time

We had a lot of discussion pre-releasing ascended armor to make sure the time to make ascended doesn’t blow out, We pull a lot of data and are watching how long it takes players and like we do with everything we will keep and eye on it but with anything with progression there are always a lot of tradeoffs when you make changes but we’re always looking at it.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Izzy. I just wanted to highlight that last part about ascended creation time. There is absolutely no excuse that it should take 23 days to make a full set of armor if you have all the materials aside from the timegated ones. It’s ridiculous. This isn’t even factoring in not having enough laurels for the recipes. And that’s just for a single stat combination for a single character. We have alts, we have multiple builds, our builds get buffed and nerfed over time and one day we could have an effective build that we enjoy, and then one patch later, it’s useless. The way ascended has been implemented up until now cannot continue in its current form. It strangles our ability to enjoy multiple facets of the game. I’m sure the intention was “it’ll keep people playing longer” and “it gives people long term goals.” All it does is make us angry.

ColinJohanson.2394:

A question to help direct the discussion a bit:

What are some of your favorite progression systems of all time in others? Be they horizontal, or vertical, just which ones really got you excited and were fun for you to continue to progress in?

For me, Final Fantasy Tactics is one I loved, where I was able to continue to unlock new jobs and advanced professions for my characters, as well as level up their abilities within those professions. It remains one of my all time favorite games, and one of my favorite systems of progression in any game. I’m also pretty darn fond of that Guild Wars game and skill collection.

The Secret World
———————————

I do like – That appearance is independent of gear attributes
I do like – The wealth of many passive skills and active skills that one could combine in numerous ways
I do like – The fact that anyone could use any combination of weapons in their own way
I do like – That they have a gear/build manager (though it’s buggy)
I do like – That they continue to expand player skill progression with Auxillery Weapons, Augments and in the future Aegis System

Guild Wars 1
————————-
What everybody else already said

*Fractal Resets

Glad I didn’t bother lvl’ing up to be reset because I’d be super kitten ed at you, Anet, for knocking me back down.

*Ascended Gear

That kittened time gating means I will never get ascended gear (except for what I can buy with laurels.

*Horizontal Progression
*Vertical Progression

Y’all are going to do what y’all need to regardless of what the player base says because y’all have a business to keep going.

*Grind

Grind is fine as long as it is not time gating

*Art Progression

Sure, why not.

*Alts

It was obvious with the alt-nerfing patch to dungeons that alts aren’t looked upon kindly in this game. You nerfed the one reason I played my alts more than any other. Now the Ranger (was my main) pet is just so bad I decided that my Gaurdian needed to be my main as the class mechanic actually works on them.

*Gates

HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE time gating. It is the most silly thing ever. No, saying I hate it doesn’t do it justice… I think the word loathing actually fits here.

*Map progression

Need more. A lot more.

*Ascended creation time

That time gate requirement is extremely annoying. So much so I will never make ascended gear because I refuse to have anything to do with it.

What I would like to see:

SKIN LOCKER

This had been talked about already, but I think that this is necessary. I am someone that prefers changing my characters look: I tend to do this daily. However, with the current way I am severely restricted in this.

For example: my character has T3 Armor in PVT gear. However, I want to change some part of her look to a part of my Celestial armor set. Doing this will erase both a skin and a stat unless I spend even more making another armor part. It’s less hassle to just leave it, but then I am unhappy about my character’s appearance. Cosmetics is part of Guild Wars 2 endgame and what I find most enjoyable.

A suggestion for this is similar to how we have our AP Rewards system. Have a locker of both stats AND skins that we can select and join together whenever we want. We would have to unlock every skin before we could use it, and due to the sheer number of skins available in the game, this would be a great way to add another title that would add more horizontal progression to the game.

This would get rid of transmutation stones. In exchange for this however, a ‘stat locker’ and a ‘cosmetic locker’ could be unlocked through gems/gold/achievements etc, and each subsequent skin/armor piece added could cost something like 10s each. This would create another gold sink if required, and would be something that completionists and people that enjoy making their characters look good could use.

This is my main wish for Guild Wars 2. It would then make me willingly run dungeons, do fractals etc for my desired armor pieces that I then would be able to make use of. It would also give me more incentive to buy gem store armor sets, as I know once unlocked, I’ll have it locked to my account forever.

ACHIEVEMENTS- TITLES

I would like to see titles that actually mean something. I still use my title that transferred over from Guild Wars 1, because to me it means more to me than any other title I have unlocked in Guild Wars 2. I actually enjoyed the titles in Guild Wars 1, and would like to see something similar in Guild Wars 2.

What I dislike:
Time-gating. This is a pointless method to make someone log in each day, unless they have hoards of gold. This in fact puts me off making ascended armor and weapons.

Vertical progression is fine with me. Ascended gear became a great disappointment because of how it was obtained. From now on I will discuss ascended weapons.

First you need laurels, a time-gated currency gathered by completing tasks with little innovation.

Second you need mats that can only be obtained in uninteresting ways, like mining, in low level areas. Prime example of this is soft wood logs.

I don’t mind the vision crystal requirements, though I would comment that it’s a shame that massive zergs trivialize Temple events.

Finally the ascended weapon boxes in fractals with fixed prefixes instead of fixed weapon types, which makes the chance of getting a usable ascended weapon astronomically low for PvE.

The fact that a level 10 toon chopping down a tree for 4 soft wood logs gains more progress towards an ascended weapon than the 60 dungeon tokens you get for completing a dungeon or the Pristine/Regular fractal relics you get at the end of jade maw made me kind of sad. I wish these end-game currencies had more value for BiS gear.

Halt/Eliminate:

• Stat Progression
• Level cap progression

Reallocate toward:

• Character capability expansion
• Account capability expansion
• Player skill expansion

1. Character capability expansion in the form of new skills, abilities, and traits. This is the epitome of horizontal progression – expanding your character’s capabilities without increasing their stat power or level cap.

ANet has created one of the best, most fun, and interesting combat and talent build systems in the industry. Double down on that. Give us more of it. Stat progression is boring by comparison. I know the balancing may be more difficult, so just add these things gradually, like the healing skills. One new addition every ~3 or ~4 months would be fine.

Also, ideally, make them rewards for accomplishing something in the game – Living Story Meta achievements, a certain Fractal/PvP/WvW rank, quest series, etc. – rather than just for skill points or gold. That’s a richer and more rewarding experience.

2. Character meta expansion. Another good example of horizontal character progression would be achieving more convenience and flexibility. Expanding bank & bag tabs, deepening slot caps from 250 to 1000, etc.

Another thing that could be done is, make Ascended gear as or more difficult to obtain than it currently is, but give it the ability to swap stats like Legendaries. Legendaries get aesthetics and stat swapping, Ascended only gets stat swapping. As is, the mere idea of gearing up my 4 80s with multiple sets of Ascended is so exhausting I can barely even contemplate it, but if each only took one set whose stats could be swapped at will out of combat, that increased convenience would be more than worth working for. Of course, you’d have to figure out what to do Rune/Sigil/etc slots in such a system but I’m sure you could figure that out.

3. Player Skill Development. Simply, less frequent but more challenging content updates. Reduce frequency to one per month, and make them difficult, like Tequatl, the Molten dungeon, or Aetherpath dungeon. Some of the LS updates have added great new challenges, others have been just an unchallenging achievement grind.

Also add a “Solo” category to the achievement system for people who do things like Solo Lupi, Mossman, Archidiviner, or open world champions like Champion Risen Abomination, Khol Skullcrusher, etc. Other than insanely fast speed kills/speed runs that’s some of the most interesting and challenging stuff in the game, and people do it for exactly that reason – they don’t even get a title or gear reward or Achievement for it. If you must provide a reward, provide titles only as the reward, no need for any kind of item there.

4. Skill Gating, not Gear Gating. FotM has the right idea – same dungeon with multiple levels of increasing difficulty and challenge, however not the right implementation. Agony is a form a gear gating, but what we really want is skill gating. For example, the Uncategorized harpies start off simple and gain knockback at level 10. That is proto-brilliant dungeon design, and would have been straight brilliant had all of FotM had been implemented like that – no increasing Agony levels, but instead increasingly difficult dungeon mechanics. That’s more work for the dev team than adding mere Agony damage, but the result is a much more interesting experience based on skill gating rather than gear gating.

The key idea is expansion, not progression of game assets, but achieves player progression as a nice side effect. Expansion of capability and convenience, at the character level, account level, and even player level both requires and confers player skill progression. This achieves the same level of player investment in the game (via their built-up account), but without the burnout associated with endless gear stat treadmill grinds. Every addition to your character/account/personal skill/accomplishment repertoire is energizing – it refreshes and reinvigorates the game – rather than draining and burnout-inducing.

Isaiah, I’m going to have to think a bit about how to respond to your points..

In essence, I don’t think ascended gear ‘teaches’ anything. It doesn’t broaden tactics or options; a player will find their way to world bosses and dungeons without it and may well be a veteran at that stuff before he hits 80. Exotics kinda already served that particular purpose; particularly the dungeon and karma skins. If there were a world boss exotic skin, that’d be all the ‘teaching’ any player needs.

Yes, it gives you a very concrete goal – but it’s not so concrete that a person doesn’t still have to look at a guide to figure out all the stuff he has to collect.

About adding a ‘step’ in progression between exotics and legendaries, the argument’s always been faintly confusing to me. Is the intermediary between easy-necessary and optional-extremely-hard really “necessary-very-hard”? It feels like the flavor is all off.

Regarding it being non-tradeable.. it’s not. Portions of it are, indeed, but the operative cost is the commodities involved in it – so we get all the pain of having to self craft and having to buy on the market, or just farm. The dungeon gear is far more ‘non-tradeable’.

Art progression is very difficult. There’s simply no objective standards to apply; one person might be happy with level 20 gear for their alt because it fits the right mood, and the other might want all the particle effects he can cram in while bleeding glittery dust from the fiery pits in his shoulder-forges. It might even be both extremes for the same player on different alts. I think all we can realistically aim for in this area is greater variety available.

But the argument about it being too expensive? Falls flat when we remember that you’re making new dungeons every two weeks only to throw them away after they’re ‘used’. Sorry. It’s very plainly a matter of priority here, and you’re not giving artistic/aesthetic progression as much priority as other things. Just say that.

In the end regarding grind, I think my principle objection to it is has to be done. I said it before and I’ll say it again; I’d feel far better if a) I knew it would be the last gear tier/reset/whatever, which I don’t now, and b) if it were less a ‘thou must’, and more a reward.

To say it another way.. I’d prefer if the progression didn’t go from easy-necessary to necessary-very-hard to optional-extremely hard. I’d prefer if it went from easy-necessary to optional-attractive-hard to optional-awesome-extremely-hard.

Can we get some insight into the process you use to choose the numbers here? I mean, in the cost for these items. Is it purely a gut-check, or is there some kind of formula? There’s something about a lot of numbers that have been coming out of the game lately that feel very unfun – I hate to bring it up, but 15,000 candy corn for a 20 slot bag. Those kinds of numbers feel unreachable as a casual player, and somehow I don’t think you’re giving a player like me a proper chance.

Even the players who can reach ascended gear in a realistic time frame are saying it isn’t a fun thing. I think the way you guys are picking your numbers isn’t taking ‘fun factor’ into proper account.

ColinJohanson.2394:

A question to help direct the discussion a bit:

What are some of your favorite progression systems of all time in others? Be they horizontal, or vertical, just which ones really got you excited and were fun for you to continue to progress in?

Here are my favorite progression systems in this game:
Vertical:
Levelling
Levelling is actually great! If you suddenly raised the cap to 85, I wouldn’t complain.
Why:

• Everything makes me level! I guess there are faster ways, but I can do anything I feel like and make what feels like good progress towards levelling
• Anything I do with friends helps. I make progress towards levelling whenever I play with friends, not just when I do a specific activity with friends.
• After I level, I have more build choices, not fewer! Ascended gear feels like I’m locking myself down to a build.
• It doesn’t compete with anything else. If I want to go for any other goal, I can just go for it and level in the process.

Horizontal:
PvP Rank Finishers
Admittedly, there are some problems with the acquisition of these, as evidenced by the farming debacle, and maybe the progression is too slow. But, they’re super cool, and upgrading your bunny finisher is within reach without farming.

Dungeon Master Title
Hard to get, but not particularly tedious, and is worth a lot of respect, in my book.

ColinJohanson.2394:

What are some of your favorite progression systems of all time in other games? Be they horizontal, or vertical, just which ones really got you excited and were fun for you to continue to progress in?

Loot is my favorite progression system in RPG’s. I really like games like Diablo 3 and Monster Hunter 3 that are extremely loot focused. Customizing your character with loot is fun because unlocking a new item makes you want to try new a build.

Another cool progression system is “support” from Fire Emblem, where two characters have a relationship that grants them fighting bonuses. In GW2, each class could get a buff when a specific other class is present in your party.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

To clarify I am looking forward to hearing the communities thoughts on speed of acquisition such as how long crafting time takes? or drop rates in fractals and other areas of the game etc.

In PvE, You can get full exotic gear and cool cosmetics in one month, and after that there is only except mystic-forge skins, legendary weapons, and ascended gear. These all take over a month to get just one item. I want something “in-between” in terms of the time it takes to get.

TheDaiBish.9735:

3. Depth in builds and choices (the ‘progression’ part of character development) is pointless if the content doesn’t utilize that depth either through lack of mechanics, mechanics being able to be brute-forced through sheer damage, or having to use a specific set of skills.

This summarizes an important point for me. Vertical progression is arbitrary if your “build” doesn’t matter to begin with. Currently, I can beat most PvE content in a bad build.

Cosmetics

I would love to see more new armor skins obtained ingame as rewards for completing hard tasks. One of the most frustrating things about GW2 for me is that whenever you guys release something that takes effort, there is hardly anything to show for it. Liadri is a great early example. Now fractals. I won’t deny that I have been seeing many more pink weapons and now a few armors dropping in 49 dailies since patch, but its still so random. Now for some reasons we are getting non infused rings at 49? That just feels like a joke left in.

You guys have released some great armor skins through the gemstore, I love tricksters, the medium aetherblade and brahms set but why can you not release some good items to be obtained from playing only? Sure I could continue to farm gold to pay for the sets but it is no where near as rewarding.
I hope, that when you increase fractal levels again you find a better way to reward to players who are actually looking for a challange.

I also love the idea of allowing stat swaps on ascended items after achieveing something. Maybe buying a item for 500 or so relics from the npc in fotm, then ‘charging’ it at the end of certain tiers, like we did with that asura’s item during the aetherblade attacks. Then, once charged so many times, we can use it on an ascended item and choose a new stat combo for it to gain.

Time Gating
I like this game, I want to play it, but at the moment when I have all the cloth needed for my armors but can’t make them because I need to log on every day its just making me want to do other things after I have done my daily stuff.

My Favorite Is larger parties, I would be happy if just 1 8-10 man instance, Also Having more dungeons, EVEN if they are temp, I still loved the Aetherblade and Molten dungeons, it be awesome for more of those, and SAVE the old dungeons, have them like you do with activities, rotate them time to time.

More activities be amazing too, what about that Perpetual bar brawl? You only talked about that A lot before release, with achievements and Earnable town clothes and titles. This game needs more to do during the players “down time”.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Art Progression
Art progression! It’s horizontal why not do it more!!! Well we do this a lot all ready and a lot of it’s constraints comes down to costs.

You already make a ton of Art progression… but you pour all that effort into cheap and easy stuff that doesn’t bring a lot of pleasure to me.

It’s obviously cheap for you to make a backpack, but everyone knows that now, so backpacks are pretty dull.

It’s easy for me to earn the backpack-of-the-month, but everyone knows that too, so no one oohs and ahhs over my shiny backpack because everyone has it already anyway.

So you’re spending a lot of artist time on this stuff, for relatively little player-happiness payout (from me, anyway). Try reassigning the artists to pour their time into something more substantial (like armor sets), and put it behind a more impressive achievement than “mess around in the LS for two weeks”.

I’d get more satisfaction from that, even if these more substantial art rewards couldn’t come every two weeks and replaced some backpacks-of-the-month.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Ascended Gear
So then why did we add ascended gear, well the reason is we wanted sometime between the transition and what we shipped with was very little time turns out global trading post has a lot more effect on this then we had original thought which made us need a non-tradable gear step. We still have some progression to smooth out around the rare -> exotic area as mostly you just jump from leveling greens to exotics and rare is really only used for salvaging into ecto. We have been spacing out adding each slot of ascended gear to make sure we don’t make our original mistake again and I’m sure we’ll need to continue to evaluate the time to gain this gear like we do all things.

I was really excited about the ascended armor… got all my supplies… all pumped up to craft them….
The moment I saw 2 points stats boost in celestial gears, all of that died instantly… there is no legendary armor in the game & ascended armors are expensive…. I think it deserves a boost at least in double digits. Please dont just pack old items with couple bells & price tag over 5 times.

I dont mind paying 5 times the price but I want the item to be worth of the cost!

My goal for ascended armor is to flat-out ignore that it exists and to hope that enough other people do as well that it doesn’t shift any balancing.

Seriously, my big hope is that they’re so bad that no one else bothers either.

It’s very disappointing to play a game where I have to hope that everyone completely avoids the big new content addition.

For the weapons, I grudgingly leveled a skill to 450 SOLELY to clean out my bank space from the absolutely obscene number of bloodstone being thrown at us, which I refuse to delete on the off chance the system becomes less insane at some point in the future. I ended up finishing off to 500 and making 1 weapon for my main out of curiousity.

On just my Ele main, I change builds enough that there’s zero chance I’ll invest any effort into building out a set of ascended gear, not to mention how terribly they disincentivize playing alts

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

…our goals here are really about how we make things feel a little less grinding for some actions and we’ve been making a lot of steps with that… adding tradable level up books

Excuse me, which “tradable level up books” are you referring to?

MizuTsuki.5867:

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Ascended Gear
So then why did we add ascended gear, well the reason is we wanted sometime between the transition and what we shipped with was very little time turns out global trading post has a lot more effect on this then we had original thought which made us need a non-tradable gear step. We still have some progression to smooth out around the rare -> exotic area as mostly you just jump from leveling greens to exotics and rare is really only used for salvaging into ecto. We have been spacing out adding each slot of ascended gear to make sure we don’t make our original mistake again and I’m sure we’ll need to continue to evaluate the time to gain this gear like we do all things.

I was really excited about the ascended armor… got all my supplies… all pumped up to craft them….
The moment I saw 2 points stats boost in celestial gears, all of that died instantly… there is no legendary armor in the game & ascended armors are expensive…. I think it deserves a boost at least in double digits. Please dont just pack old items with couple bells & price tag over 5 times.

I dont mind paying 5 times the price but I want the item to be worth of the cost!

Ascended gear is a mess; it’s expensive in time and materials to make, and gives little benefit over exotics — yet it has a very tiny stat increase. So players get very little return for their time/money investment, but it’s enough benefit to be a perceived problem in WvW.

In other words, ANet created a compromise that didn’t satisfy those wanting stat progression and upset those who don’t.

So im not repeating everyone else.
I would like to see a puzzle game approach to skills. With the addition of new skills, weapon skills in particular, id like enemies to nerf strategies making players have to work around the immunities.

Also i saw something about dungeon tokens being farmed in a monotonous way to get the armor. Since each dungeon has different stories involved, why not have a piece assigned to each story so that one has to complete each story to get a full set?

In short id like to see Prestige progress not a number progression.

PS in defense of the nerf strategies; while it might make it harder for some classes to earn certain loot skins, it would also make it more prestigious for those that do earn them.

It may be not very social and probably won’t even be considered in Guild Wars 2, but I found the hero system in Guild Wars a lot of fun. Acquiring skills and weapons, and optionally cooler looking armor for your heroes was very rewarding. I remember building different teams for different character (my paragon, for example, used all paragon heroes and an orders necro, while my assassin used Miku as assassin hero with dual casting elementalists). I first encountered this team building in Baldur’s Gate, where you could gather different npc’s with different classes and alignments to join your party and then level them up and chose their skills.

Although I understand it’s not very social, you could limit use of heroes to the regular dungeon instances (the ones you need for Dungeon Master). You could use the personal story and your character’s “alignment” (that noble-aggressive… thing that you can have your character evolve in) be a factor in unlocking certain npc’s to join you. These can be put in your home instance and also give you certain daily quests you can help with, when player homes or home instances get an upgrade.

I dunno, I’m an avid pugger; patient and never one to curse out others, but I really enjoy gathering npc’s and setting them up to my inefficient-yet-gets-the-job-done liking.

This could contribute to vertical growth as you get more companions as you go through your personal story. As well as horizontal, as you set out on quests to gather their different armor/weapon sets and/or skills after completing the story.

Just my 2 cents.