Guild Wars 2

Vertical Progression and level cap:
Ascended gear and crafting is good, and should stay as it is (though it is still kinda harsh on Alts), but what worries me is if the level cap is increased. If ascended gear is going to be as hard as it is, when the level cap increases (if ever), make sure that those who already have ascended gear can upgrade their armor/weapon to the new level cap in an easier fashion than remaking it. (However don’t just bump it up to the new level either, make people work for it just not as hard as remaking the armor or weapon…..or maybe even make the armor level as you do in some way…..) It would be a shame to see such hard work go into armor/weapons just to have it phased out by a new level cap. (The same kinda worry about a new tier of gear, which would be very bad for people and go against the gw2 ideals).

Horizontal Progression:
—I think luck was a good step forward to make lower tier drops meaningful, and maybe you should improve on that.
—To me it sounds like the best way to get more progress that doesn’t involve stats (well at least not as much) would be a new system altogether. I like the idea of player housing or mini pets fighting for you (or against other mini pets) or even sub classes. There are so many new crazy ways you could make progression, you just may have to be bold about it.

Ideas on progression:
—Minipets: Imagine if every time you opened champ loot, you got something like “+1 power mini pet food”, which you then used to increase the stats of your mini pet, and that each minipet had its own special skill so each mini pet is special in its own way beyond looks. That gives a lot of room to progress your mini pets giving people something to work for. (Or maybe each class gets their own type of AI assist that isn’t even a minipet that can be upgraded in a similar fashion. Though this may interfere with ranger pets….)

—Housing: Imagine if every time you scraped a blue or green, a house scrap dropped, and if you get enough of these scraps it could help you make your housing, or furniture for your house, or even upgrade your house. That gives people something to work for and to show off to the community. (If Housing happens, please don’t make it instance based where others can’t see your house.)

—Subclass: A lot of people already talked about this but it could be a good idea to make classes feel a bit more special and maybe even help progress your character in certain ways. Though this seems risky, and may even go against the original idea of gw2, it could work out in a positive way.

Conclusion:
Ascended gear good, level cap increase could be bad, but if handled well enough, could work.
Progression needs something new that isn’t stat related, something that doesn’t exist yet, that makes every loot that you get in this game feel worth it in one way or another.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Deified.7520:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Felbryn.5462:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

The two main areas for discussion will be Horizontal and Vertical progression, however please understand that the commentary and ideation we are really looking for regarding vertical is around its accessibility in game.

I’m not sure I understand this bit; could you clarify?

Basically:

• How easy it is to attain the Ascended gear?
• Is the balance of acquisition of Ascended out of whack between different game-modes (i.e. Easier in PvE than WvW, easier in the open world than it’s intended game mode [Fractals])?

Couldn’t have said it better myself DaiBish. Thanks.

Chris

In terms of collection in WvW and PvE I think its in a pretty good position. However, obtaining in different routes does take a bit longer I felt. I also understand why. This game is very easy in most parts of it. If you increased the drop rate the item would lose its significance because it would be too easy to get. So I feel like you need to increase the difficulty in more ascended gaining areas while also increasing the drop rate. I don’t want to have to do a really hard event 100 times to get one ascended piece.

Yep this is a good point.

Chris

Collection is not in a good position, its is far too hard to get the requisite amount of dragonite for ascended crafting through wvw. While I would agree that wvw doesn’t have to be the ideal place for dragonite material, it should at least be reasonable.

Capping over 100-175 keeps is unreasonable for a single weapon. I’m lucky to cap 20 keeps in a week. Often wvw players that want ascended gear are spending a very little amount of time hitting one of the temple events to get the dragonite they need. I feel they shouldn’t feel the need to do this if dragonite was available in wvw at a reasonable rate.

One thing about current progression that’s been bugging me are the new skills. Both the Antitoxin Spray and the new healing skills cost 25 points. This doesn’t make sense outside of draining skill points. All of the new skills aren’t especially powerful, yet they cost about as much as a the highest tier of Elite skills. I’m concerned all new skills are going to be similar where their costs far exceed the value they provide.

Is it possible to drain skill points in other ways? Like using them to alter traits or skills? As far as I know, the only other place to use skill points doesn’t tie into skills at all.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Conncept.7638:

DarkCloud 2, it was just amazing and fun.

That is the only game, ever, out of the thousands of games I have played over my life, in which I ENJOYED the crafting system. If you made gw2s crafting like that, or even took it as a base and improved upon it, you wouldn’t have to force me to craft by putting me at a severe stat disadvantage if I don’t, I would craft willingly and likely frequently.

Hi Conncept,

I haven’t had the chance to play this game, but I will definitely check with the team to see who has and look into the design of the system. Thanks for the pointing it out.

Chris

Conncept didn’t point this out, but it’s worth mentioning. Dark Cloud 2 has two specific systems that can be considered “crafting.” The first one available ingame is the Build Up mechanic which is a loss-less weapon upgrading system (ignoring materials). The second one is the Idea system. It’s the game’s proper crafting, and Conncept is likely referring to it.

Personally, I think any system from that game could inspire useful designs for gw2 or future games. It’s really different than many other rpgs out there.

(Also, if any of your team try the game, the third level is bugged. Be sure to save first and maybe leave the area and come back or the game may crash.)

neneza.6954:

Hi. I just want to say, that problem with this game is not “vertical” and “horizontal” progression, it’s not revard system it is gameplay.

What happened wiht dynamic events?! Don’t tell me that this portals that spawns mobs are “dynamic” those events are really static. Mobs spawn and stay in one position waiting players to come and kill them. I don’t like that.

We need more comlex quests-dynamic events, mix between dynamic events and old school quests, with choices and consequences and different ends.

Not sure this would qualify for the current CDI though. I agree with you, that they should entice us to play in any zone, run any DE and be thoroughly rewarded for it and feel like we actually did something. Maybe the rewards from these DEs could contribute some how to char progression other than simple currency.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Deified.7520:

Part 3:
There’s a lot of other games that have really good horizontal progression. One of which is Skyrim. Some may not agree, however since the game scales to your level for the most part is is very much like horizontal progression. Look at the skill system. There is no just skill point you get each level. In order to unlock skills you actually have to find the in the world. Some require you to do special actions such as joining a faction or doing a quest.

Look a Guild Wars 1. To get a new skill not only did you have to be a certain point in the story, but also needed to know how to kill him. Most bosses had specific strategies.

Most popular RPGs in the world never had a skill system that was just level up and you get a point for a new skill. They usually had another gate.

Also if WvWers (all skills should be auto unlocked for spvpers) want, they can just buy skills with a combination of badges of honor and skill points.

Right now the endgame for horizontal progression of karma/gold/skillpoints/achievements is getting old fast. I’m seeing more people get burnt out faster. You either need to find drains for the karma/gold/skillpoints or split them up so its not so easily obtained to make them more meaningful.

Currently the game has more the enough horizontal progression dealing with crafting and collection. It has moderate to good horizontal progression for dungeon gear looks and WvW gear looks. Now its time to start introducing some new ways of horizontal progression.

Hi Deified.

The Tokens idea is interesting and I am sure you are noting that with our Mega Boss update Tequatl players can earn Ascended Weapons with Unique skins (Sunless) and that we will be moving forward with that paradigm. The idea of more challenging zone meta events was raised in the Living World CDI and a good idea. More to follow on that. I also agree that there is a huge amount of awesome progression to be found in guilds. ‘It has moderate to good horizontal progression for dungeon gear looks and WvW gear looks. Now it’s time to start introducing some new ways of horizontal progression.’ I agree.

Chris

I wouldn’t mind if you used my ideas or not. I would just love more progression in guilds, so quite frankly anything will make me happy. While I do love tequatl, I want to state a few problems that a lot of people I regualry play with talk about. The ascended weapon is RNG and some people have done this event a lot and not gotten anything. When something like that happens, they tell others. Others get discouraged and now you have not too many people interested in doing it. Also how many people you need. The biggest complain my guild has is how hard it is to get everyone from the same group into the same overflow. For an event that requires large scale organization, if we could some how control which overflows we join, my guild would have a lot better experience when trying to do a “guild” tequatl. I love the organization behind tequatl as most of my guild does, we just dont like how hard it is to try to play with our guild in it.

Thank you for replying to my comment/your hard work in this thread

EDIT: Also. The tequatl ascended weapons I think should have a more unique look. Many times they’re mistaken for crafted ones which annoy the people who get them sometimes.

I came about this post several months ago and what I really liked about it was the fact that it expanded on the current professions but added horizontal progression-without the idea of balancing classes nightmare
Please consider something like this:

I will just quote:
Warriors > Berserker —- Legionnaire —- Duellist
Guardians > Crusader —- Augmentor —- Patron
Necromancer > Occultist —- Visionary —- Witcher
Rangers > Hunter —- Strider —- Mystic
Thiefs > Rogue —- Infiltrator —- Saboteur
Engineers > Alchemist —- Artificer —- Pioneer
Mesmers > Chronomancer —- Fencer —- Bard
Elementalists > Runologist —- Sorcerer —- Arcanist
—-NEW CLASS – 3rd Soldier—-
Lancers > Dragoon —- Templar —- Partizan >
That way players can:
progress with their characters
individualize themself better and make them more unique
unlock alot of new skills, traits, weapons ect. just through progressing with their class specific Talents that define, into which direction you specialize your character

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Conncept.7638:

DarkCloud 2, it was just amazing and fun.

That is the only game, ever, out of the thousands of games I have played over my life, in which I ENJOYED the crafting system. If you made gw2s crafting like that, or even took it as a base and improved upon it, you wouldn’t have to force me to craft by putting me at a severe stat disadvantage if I don’t, I would craft willingly and likely frequently.

Hi Conncept,

I haven’t had the chance to play this game, but I will definitely check with the team to see who has and look into the design of the system. Thanks for the pointing it out.

Chris

On this topic, my favourite system for crafting was probably in Vagrant Story. Being able to name your crafted weapons was awesome, heh heh. I miss my Wyvernslayer polearm :’( We slew many a dragon together.

Naming and/or engraving weapons could be a fun crafting bonus maybe? Extra ways to personalise your equipment would be great for progression.

As was said before, and to clarify, putting ascended items as loot (like tequatl, …) is not a solution to make them more accessible. The drop rate is so low that you can’t expect to get your weapon that way (not even counting that you’re not choosing the stats you want, like with fractals chests).

So the only way to get ascended stuff at the moment is with crafting, which needs a ton of materials, not all available everywhere. That’s the accessibility of those materials which you should make easier, as it’s the only sure way to get your weapons. All the other chests possibilities are bonuses if you’re real lucky, not something you can count on.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Deified.7520:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Felbryn.5462:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

The two main areas for discussion will be Horizontal and Vertical progression, however please understand that the commentary and ideation we are really looking for regarding vertical is around its accessibility in game.

I’m not sure I understand this bit; could you clarify?

Basically:

• How easy it is to attain the Ascended gear?
• Is the balance of acquisition of Ascended out of whack between different game-modes (i.e. Easier in PvE than WvW, easier in the open world than it’s intended game mode [Fractals])?

Couldn’t have said it better myself DaiBish. Thanks.

Chris

In terms of collection in WvW and PvE I think its in a pretty good position. However, obtaining in different routes does take a bit longer I felt. I also understand why. This game is very easy in most parts of it. If you increased the drop rate the item would lose its significance because it would be too easy to get. So I feel like you need to increase the difficulty in more ascended gaining areas while also increasing the drop rate. I don’t want to have to do a really hard event 100 times to get one ascended piece.

Yep this is a good point.

Chris

I feel that having the TP being the go to method to obtain items is 10 fold worse than upping the drop rates in terms of significance. I would much rather have items more readily available via the actual game world than having everyone having to resort to buying them off the trading post from some random lucky player that got the drop but wasn’t intending to use it.

This is one of my major complaints about gw2. Setting out to obtain many items in the game world by playing it is simply not an option. To me it kinda defeats the entire ideology of this type of adventure game. If I wanted to buy my rewards from a market I would most like buy a market simulator game.

AndrewSX.3794:

-force players to spend money: introduce the “Ascension” of Exotic items trough game methods. I can be an expensive crafting recipe with turns your weapon from exotic to ascended. A MF recipe. A game quest. A reward for some activity. Whatever you can come up with. But gve players the option to turn exotics in ascended without Cash Shop. You can make it grindy, make the ascended acc-bound on creation, but at least there’s the option.

I agree but I would go with it kinda another way.
Allow us create skins from exotic items. Use mystic forge stones or something else.

Allow after crafting certain amount of ascended items (like 3-4 weapons and 6 armor pieces) to gain achievement like “ascended weapon/armor crafting master”. The achievement would allow you to craft whole armor set in cost of single item and 4 weapon boxes in cost of a single weapon.

This would make gearing alts really something and reduce painful very unrewarding and punishing grind to gear alts.

BeoErgon.9107:

• make ascended switch stats like legendary

This is kinda any other way to make ascended feel like worth it but that would undermine legendary usefulness.

Levian.7683:

Home instance

Why dont use this as character progression?
Atm home instance in only for personly story and nodes nothing else.
Give us option to unlock mystic forge, craft stations, bank, portals to ur faction (order of whisper, etc) special merchants (exchange skill points to lvl up alts), etc…
Build ur home! <3

Upgrade ur home instance something like guild upgrades (by using skill points or something else) where you can make some cool events.

The legend

Make panel where you can exchange skill points to unlock new skills, items, and other character options.
-Repair ur armor free once per day,
-Special emotes,
-Upgrade ur finisher bronze/silver/gold effects,
-Special auras for dance, etc…
-Upgrade mini pets to pick up items,
-If you have open Radiant achivment armor parts, unlock Hellfire too,
-Summon merchant once per day,
-Summon trade post,
-Guild Bank,
-More chanse to loot dye,
-Less cost of WP…

I think there is tones of options to add here.

Horisontal progression in Home instance would also be cool. At least for the beggining. After some time it will be kinda standard, but at least home instance would have some meaning.

I don’t understand why people feel the need to progress their characters with extra stats? If the game keeps increasing your damage by +1 over time, wouldn’t you eventually encounter a problem where NPC’s die in 1 hit? Won’t NPC health pools have to inflate in order to fix this?

What does this create other than inflated numbers popping up on the screen?

A big Problem in my opginon about Progression is the RNG!

While it can be pretty exciting to get a rare drop, there should be more fix Skins / signs of reward ( like in LS atm ) for hard/Special Content. I played well over 3.5k hours (all across Content) still I don’t have a legnedary. Main issue I didn’t drop/ can afford a precurser. I would like to see some System where you get some rewards for sure after doing a specific Encounter / hard Content for several times. Like completed 500 fractals you get + 10 Infusion for 1000 + 15 Infusion ect.. ( Btw I think infusions should drop higher than + 1 on higher Levels…:))

Anyway waiting for an answer on the reset , I really hope this CDI leads to some good changes.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Deified.

The Tokens idea is interesting and I am sure you are noting that with our Mega Boss update Tequatl players can earn Ascended Weapons with Unique skins (Sunless) and that we will be moving forward with that paradigm. The idea of more challenging zone meta events was raised in the Living World CDI and a good idea. More to follow on that. I also agree that there is a huge amount of awesome progression to be found in guilds. ‘It has moderate to good horizontal progression for dungeon gear looks and WvW gear looks. Now it’s time to start introducing some new ways of horizontal progression.’ I agree.

Chris

A note to this – please, if you will turn other living bosses to raid bosses too, please put them into separate instances and leave the kitten version in the open world. Tequatl is not pretty much not done at all, because casuals can’t just jump together and beat him and entire guilds are afraid that a) either the dragon will come while they’re still preparing b) they will have to wait for 3 hours c) some random will just jump on the bandwagon and ruin the fight.

While I did read what you wrote about the ascended gear I still don’t understand why its acquisition is so limited. What about people that like to dungeon? What about people that like to WvW? What about people that do just the dynamic events? Why do we have to craft the ascended gear? Why can’t there be more options asking you to engage in more difficult tasks that could help you get ascended? Why does it have to be a drop or crafted, while other tiers can be bought with gold, karma, tickets, WvW tokens, etc?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Lets keep coming up with some awesome Horizontal Progression systemic ideas and also reward ideas?

Well, since Evee already brought up the skill customization most adeptly, I’ll throw Home Instance Improvement into the mix.

You have the code for "if X condition is met, item Y appears in the home instance* as demonstrated by the quartz node. This is a gold mine for rewarding achievements and activities in a more vibrant manner. Use several buildings or locations within each home instance as designated spots to transform based on the player’s completed objectives.

For instance, a hunting lodge area might reflect the Slayer achievements. If I gain Drake Slayer, a mounted broodmother’s head is added to the wall as a trophy. The community achievements could by the tavern growing and improving with new furnishings and new products. When you implement the skin wardrobe, an Armory might contain copies of all the weapons and armor the player owns, thus allowing a collector to view they massive armament ensemble stretching from wall to wall.

It can also serve as an economic incentive. You might construct a garden to let players plant different harvesting nodes, but the amount of space each one takes up is directly related to their rarity. Thus, I could add lots of Herbal Seedlings or Gummo Saplings, but only one Ghost Pepper or Mithril Node for a block of space.

And finally, it could be an excellent way to sell convenience in a simple format. With a “Return to my Home Instance” and “Leave my Home Instance” button that functions just like the Heart of the Mists trigger, you could allow players to use their home as a hub for their activities without losing their current adventuring location. Meanwhile, you add Merchant, Repair, Trade Post, and Grocer (sells all unlocked karma food bundles) to the gem store, giving people a permanent service access for a nice price. Oh, and sell an Unlimited Total Makeover Contract in the store there as well, because if you’re willing to give people an unlimited contract selling for the price of a legendary via holiday-only RNG, you might as well use the same tech to pay rent.

It’s nice to see devs posting some of their ideas behind design philosophy. :-)

My opinions on horizontal vs. vertical progression:

Horizontal progression:
- I like it, but it no longer feels meaningful past a certain point.
- The emphasis on character appearance combined with the acquisition methods of “cosmetic upgrades” encourages people to focus on grinding gold rather than getting better at playing the game.
- A great part of RPGs is fighting progressively more hard-hitting enemies. Horizontal progression doesn’t lend itself well to this.
- There is currently no way to wear a weapon/armor skin that shows how skilled you are, so people go after scarce items instead. It would be nice to see some kind of “skill-based horizontal progression”.
- As people master their class and number-crunch the best setups, even brand new content can feel trivial in difficulty once you get a vague idea of the mechanics when all bosses, old or new, are tuned to the same player gear level.
- It can become monotonous always having the same gear, stats and build, doing the same bosses for the same reward.

Vertical progression:
- In my opinion, it works very well when there is new content to go along with it (for example, the continuous introduction of new PvE instances in other games), since it then becomes a reward for doing the new content.
- It allows the bosses to be progressively more hard-hitting and have higher stat requirements, which is a very simple way to make the game feel more epic (if antagonists aren’t scary, fighting them isn’t as fun).
- Getting more powerful and looking cooler by beating challenging bosses with your friends/guild feels more meaningful than getting new stats by doing simple and easy activities.
- Vertical progression has no place in PvP.
- Most people like becoming more powerful in games, myself included. It can be a very rewarding, exciting and epic feeling progression system if done correctly.

My favorite stat progression system (in response to Colin’s post):
- Final Fantasy games in general, as you can focus on increasing the particular stats you want through gameplay. I particularly liked Final Fantasy X, maxing my party’s stats by fighting bosses in the arena and replacing spheres on my grid before going to fight the optional mega-bosses on the international version.

GW2’s implementation of vertical progression:
- It doesn’t feel meaningful as it’s not tied to any real accomplishment.
- The stat increase seems too small for the amount of time/currency/materials required.
- There really should be some new, more difficult content to go alongside a new gear tier, otherwise it simply makes earlier content easier when most people weren’t struggling with it anyway.

Thanks again devs for posting, I’m looking forward to seeing where this discussion leads!

Blaeys.3102:

3. Use achievement points to gate acquisition. Simply require people to buy something with a token they get in their 20/40/60K/etc achievement point box before they can create one of this new class of legendary weapons.

This would only work if achievements would really mean anything.
That can only be done by plugging the leak of daily and monthly achievements by giving them a max cap.

For now it works like this:
I wont go for hard achievements, I will grind few dailies and have more points by doing nothing but logging in.
That undermines the every essence of achievement system and leaderbord for it only shows who has no live and does all possible dailies that can be done.
That really is a poor implementation.

Also maybe multiply normal achievement points by 5 or 10 (the non daily/monthly ones.)

xarallei.4279:

I think I would quit the game if they raised the level cap. It’s so not necessary.

If they raise level cup in year or two (not now, not after ascended…) it wont be bad ONLY IF they make ascended gear always max level and way easier to acquire – look on my previous post.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

DiogoSilva.7089:

HORIZONTAL PROGRESSION
The flaws with its execution in GW2

Skill/ Build Progression
What is skill/ build progression? It’s about getting new tools to improve or customize our builds.

• It is crippled by some of the systems set in place for vertical progression, like stats being tied to gear, which in turn is tied to huge money and time sinks.
• It is further restricted by how trait allocation works, and the lack of build templates.
• Non-profession skills are very underwhelming. Although this is done on purpose for the sake of balance, when they aren’t worth using, they do not serve their purpose to enhance world immersion, as they are left unused, nor do they add any form of horizontal progression, because no build will be created around them.
• Skill hunting is generic and lacks the charm GW1’s elite skill hunting had.
• The skill system is generally very restrictive, with few weapons per profession, very few utility slots tied to high cooldowns, and an elite skill system that isn’t acchieving the epic feel it was meant to acchieve.

Solutions

• Separate the concept of (ascended) gear crafting from the concept of equipment stat customisation. Make it easy or easier to change stats, or at the very least, to craft new copies of the same gear with different stats.
• Add an universal build template system, and allows us to change traits on the fly (while not in battle, dungeons, etc). Creating and saving builds should be free. Loading/ changing them could still require a small money sink, if Anet feels it needs to be there.
• Revise how non-profession skills should be balanced. Instead of making them bad on purpose, make them decent but only fill a certain niche/ tied heavily to a specific area or situation. In theory, the new spray skill does that, but it’s a poor skill even for its intended purpose.
• It’s probably too late for a better skill hunting system, but perhaps that can still exist for something other than skill collection. More on that later.
• Anet is already adding new skills to professions, so this area is already covered.

I’ll talk about skins next.

There are some good ideas here which I would like to see us discussing as a group.

What do you all think about these ideas?

Chris

This……
,,Separate the concept of (ascended) gear crafting from the concept of equipment stat customisation. Make it easy or easier to change stats, or at the very least, to craft new copies of the same gear with different stats."……
is great idea. Something like that would be nice to have in game becouse with ascended gear i feel locked to specific gear and build. Equipping 3 characters is hard enough. Equipping their different builds is mission impossible :-D

ColinJohanson.2394:

[…]

I definitely agree with final fantasy. My favorite Final Fantasies are the ones in which a each single character could learn everything, like Final Fantasy V.
Same with games like Fire Emblem, or Final Fantay Tactics. It was a kind of progression I loved, because learning a new profession didn’t mean losing an old one, you could always go back.

In GW2, it’ll be really cool if you could get things like "Level 80 guardian + Level 80 elementalist → Thaumaturge profession unlocked, which has an unique profession mechanic and two unique sets of utilities, and shares 2 sets of utilities from guardian, 2 sets of utilities with guardian, a mix of their weapons skills, and all new elite skills.

But as cool as that could be, I don’t think it’ll fit GW2, at least not in a character basis.
Maybe making access to professions something account-wide. But not per character, as being a character that can switch between armor types would mean having to carry at least 1 set of each type to wear, along every weapon type, and that’ll be kind of a hassle. It’s enough having to carry weapons for all combinations of your profession, and any alternate armor set, plus all the armor sets with skins you don’t want to lose.

Another system I really like a lot is the one found in the Ultima VII games, or The Elder Scrolls, in which you start practically naked and with varely any starting stats, get increased stats and build your character over time based on your actions, and talking with trainers.
But again, that would not fit GW2, balancing that would be impossible. With the limitations of professions.
Still, from that we could bring back actual trainers.
The current trainers are just glorified merchants. They can sell you bucks and reset your traits, but that’s it. There’s no point on having one of each profession, as they won’t even sell the starting gear of your profession or new skills or anything like that.
Profession trainers should be reworked into… well, actual trainers. They would provide a set of tutorials to teach new players their unique profession mechanics and how they can use their skills to do typical combat techniques like CC, snares, burst, pressure, bunking, etc. The reward for completing each training challenge would be the key skill you are given temporarily during the challenge without a skill cost.
Then, additional profession trainers could be added all over the world, with training challenges for any new skills added. They would send you to an existing event, and if you complete it, they’ll give you a skill if you don’t have it yet, or its cost in skill points if you already had it. It’ll be enough if each map had one skill trainer per profession. Some all together like in starting areas, some spread all over the map.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Estriella Faerie.4029:

As was said before, and to clarify, putting ascended items as loot (like tequatl, …) is not a solution to make them more accessible. The drop rate is so low that you can’t expect to get your weapon that way (not even counting that you’re not choosing the stats you want, like with fractals chests).

So the only way to get ascended stuff at the moment is with crafting, which needs a ton of materials, not all available everywhere. That’s the accessibility of those materials which you should make easier, as it’s the only sure way to get your weapons. All the other chests possibilities are bonuses if you’re real lucky, not something you can count on.

Hi Estriella,

Please do try to keep up to date with the thread. I have mentioned a number of times that we are currently looking at drop rate balancing.

Thanks,

Chris

Don’t “balance the drop rate”, make unique rewards something we can earn consistently.

Like, for Tequatl, add an infinite achievement track which progresses one point for each bonus chest opened (no weighting, the first chest is the hardest to reach anyways). Every [n] points, it gives the player an achievement chest giving them a choice of a Sunless weapon or one of the minis.

There. Players can see how much effort it’ll take them to get the drops they want. They won’t simply give up on content because of RNG. Loot that’s unique to specific events should always have a non-RNG option – nobody really considers the acquisition method for Molten Jetpacks or Monocles fair either.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I am sure you are noting that with our Mega Boss update Tequatl players can earn Ascended Weapons with Unique skins (Sunless) and that we will be moving forward with that paradigm.

“Can earn” no, that is a flawed description in my opinion.
I have killed him more than 100 times and I have not earned anything.
It is a “Can have RNG luck”.

Those are two completely different things. I cannot earn the skin or the stats by killing Tequatl repeatedly. I do not get closer to my goal by killing him again tonight.

It would be nice, if you could in fact work towards ascended by killing Tequatl. However, in its current state, that is not an option. It is (again) RNG.
I do not hope you move forward with that paradigm, if working the same way as the Tequatl RNG.

There need to be added relaible ways to obtain ascended weapon/armor outside crafting. I do not wish for more RNG.

Chris-

Vertical Progression, as you said, is a good way for players to slowly learn how to play. Start simple, add complexity and power as you go. This is fine.

The vertical progression most of us are concerned with is additional, required vertical progression added after launch. The reason we dislike it is because we feel a sense of completion by max-leveling our characters and getting the proper gear.

When you add new levels or new gear tiers, it destroys that sense of completion. It starts to feel like work, not progression. And for players like me with 8 toons (only 5 that I’ve even managed to get to 80… none with Ascended weapons… only 2 or 3 with their Ascended accessories), that becomes a huge, demoralizing setback.

So vertical progression at launch is fine. Post-launch vertical progression is terrible.

About RNG as a form of gear acquisition:

I know people in this game have been burned with RNG in the past, myself included to a degree. Keep in mind that in many games including the almighty World of Warcraft, RNG is the primary source of gear acquisition, at least BiS gear. You get it through raid drops, dungeon drops etc.

I would much prefer to go toward that method of acquisition rather than a mass accumulation of materials, then forcing us to craft up to 500 even if we dont want to just to have BiS gear.

However, and as Chris alluded to slightly, the drop rate needs to be adjusted. It can’t be a ~1 % or ~5% drop rate for items. Needs to be quite a bit higher for people to still feel encouraged to do things and feel rewarded.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Morrigan.2809:

I came about this post of a several month s ago and what I really liked about it was the fact that it expanded on the current professions but added horizontal progression-without the idea of balancing classes nightmare please consider something like this:

I will just quote:
Warriors > Berserker —- Legionnaire —- Duellist
Guardians > Crusader —- Augmentor —- Patron
Necromancer > Occultist —- Visionary —- Witcher
Rangers > Hunter —- Strider —- Mystic
Thiefs > Rogue —- Infiltrator —- Saboteur
Engineers > Alchemist —- Artificer —- Pioneer
Mesmers > Chronomancer —- Fencer —- Bard
Elementalists > Runologist —- Sorcerer —- Arcanist
—-NEW CLASS – 3rd Soldier—-
Lancers > Dragoon —- Templar —- Partizan >
That way players can:
progress with their characters
individualize themself better and make them more unique
unlock alot of new skills, traits, weapons ect. just through progressing with their class specific Talents that define, into which direction you specialize your character

Yep we chat about this a lot (-: It get’s me excited as a player to.

Chris

Advanced Profession subtypes would be incredibly exciting for me as a player, and it would also be easier to expand it than adding completely new professions. And if done right, it could also make the game easier to balance, because it would further categorize build options.

However, it needs to have something “special” behind each subtype to make them worth it. Or else, those subtypes would just be an excuse to restrict builds.

What could that “special” thing be?

• Break some equipment rules

For example, the elementalist could have a Battlemage subtype that would use heavy armor! Mesmer could have a Duelist subtype that would use adventurer armor! Guardian with a Cleric subtype for scholar armor.

• New mechanics

A Ranger “Beastmaster” could have a deeper pet system, while a Ranger “Hunter” would have a more shallow pet system but some new mechanics that would rely on long-range bursting. Finally, a Ranger “Druid” would have nature spells on their core mechanics, and be able to enchant themselves and their own pets.

A Mesmer “Bard” would have a different Shatter System, where shattering would give benefits to allies (untraited), and phantasms would affect allies instead of enemies. They could also get some songs out of their core mechanic. Meanwhile, a Mesmer “Illusionist” would have less shatters available, but get an F skill to swap with a random clone, and their illusions and shatters would mostly revolve around control.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

[…]

Controversial: Vertical Progression acquisition can be a pain but what if any elements do you like about Vertical Progression?

[…]

Not much, really. Vertical progression has a really annoying side-effect: It trivializes lower-level stuff, so the more you add, the more stuff at the end you have to add, and the emptier lower level stuff becomes. GW2 solves that with downleveling, but doesn’t make vertical progression any more fun, just prevents lower level stuff from becoming trivial.
In GW2 you gain levels, and get more trait points, but it’s more like a chore. The fun starts when you have everything unlocked. Players that expect the fun to be in leveling up will always be disappointed on GW2, as opposed to those that find fun in doing all the thing that become available as the character gains level, and being able to go back to the previous stuff their missed at lower levels.

Vertical progression becomes a one-time fun thing.
Once you’ve leveled to 80 with a profession and a race, doing the same thing with the same combination is not as fun, unless you make a new character after a lot of time for nostalgia’s sake.
Many players would welcome being able to make a level 80 directly for a profession-race combination they have already leveled up before.
Got a norn guardian to level 80 before? The next norn guardian you make will have a little checkbox on character creation to let you start at level 80 directly (well, key farms would have to be addressed, as that would make them way faster and easier)!

So, the best thing I think you could do for vertical progression right now would be the 3rd soldier and well.. you know… tengu, or at least making the game more alt-friendly, so people have more reasons to try new things.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Agreed. Let’s spend a little more time discussing and brainstorming the following questions:

Controversial: Vertical Progression acquisition can be a pain but what if any elements do you like about Vertical Progression?

Lets keep coming up with some awesome Horizontal Progression systemic ideas and also reward ideas?

Try to tie these ideas into the core foundation of GW2’s systems and mechanics please.

Chris

Sure, all is in this 3 posts. I hope you will look into it:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression/page/7#post3370576
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression/page/7#post3370577
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression/page/7#post3370619

cesmode.4257:

About RNG as a form of gear acquisition:

I know people in this game have been burned with RNG in the past, myself included to a degree. Keep in mind that in many games including the almighty World of Warcraft, RNG is the primary source of gear acquisition, at least BiS gear. You get it through raid drops, dungeon drops etc.

I do not want the Warcraft system here, but in Warcraft it was perfectly doable to gear up a guild by clearing raid content.

The items could be distributed between raid members; when they dropped, they were not bound to one person only. That made it possible for guilds to distribute the gear evenly between its members. Either through DKP or a loot council.

In my opinion, RNG worked better in Warcraft.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Solutions

• Separate the concept of (ascended) gear crafting from the concept of equipment stat customisation. Make it easy or easier to change stats, or at the very least, to craft new copies of the same gear with different stats.
• Add an universal build template system, and allows us to change traits on the fly (while not in battle, dungeons, etc). Creating and saving builds should be free. Loading/ changing them could still require a small money sink, if Anet feels it needs to be there.
• Revise how non-profession skills should be balanced. Instead of making them bad on purpose, make them decent but only fill a certain niche/ tied heavily to a specific area or situation. In theory, the new spray skill does that, but it’s a poor skill even for its intended purpose.

There are some good ideas here which I would like to see us discussing as a group.

What do you all think about these ideas?

Chris

I think the above ideas are fantastic, the first one in particular would go some way to easing the issues many players have with ascended items, the second is along the lines others have suggested and is also something that should be seriously looked at. To them I would add a skins wardrobe to change skins on the fly without having to change armor.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Deified.7520:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Felbryn.5462:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

The two main areas for discussion will be Horizontal and Vertical progression, however please understand that the commentary and ideation we are really looking for regarding vertical is around its accessibility in game.

I’m not sure I understand this bit; could you clarify?

Basically:

• How easy it is to attain the Ascended gear?
• Is the balance of acquisition of Ascended out of whack between different game-modes (i.e. Easier in PvE than WvW, easier in the open world than it’s intended game mode [Fractals])?

Couldn’t have said it better myself DaiBish. Thanks.

Chris

In terms of collection in WvW and PvE I think its in a pretty good position. However, obtaining in different routes does take a bit longer I felt. I also understand why. This game is very easy in most parts of it. If you increased the drop rate the item would lose its significance because it would be too easy to get. So I feel like you need to increase the difficulty in more ascended gaining areas while also increasing the drop rate. I don’t want to have to do a really hard event 100 times to get one ascended piece.

Yep this is a good point.
Chris

I would also be happy with an implementation along these lines but please don’t regard the increased drop rate on tequatl as a template for what it should be because it is still too low.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Agreed. Let’s spend a little more time discussing and brainstorming the following questions:

Controversial: Vertical Progression acquisition can be a pain but what if any elements do you like about Vertical Progression?

Lets keep coming up with some awesome Horizontal Progression systemic ideas and also reward ideas?

Try to tie these ideas into the core foundation of GW2’s systems and mechanics please.

Chris

I like Evee’s ideas there. To elaborate on that and some other things for horizontal progression, how about the following:

1.) Special dye unlocks(account wide unique dyes) for certain content or Achievement based dye unlocks. Example, 15k AP gets you a special unique dye that can only be gotten for that achievement level. You could retroactively add dyes to previous tiers too. The dye is then available in the dye panel for the account.

2.) Fill out the armor sets for the achievement panel.

For vertical progression( i abhor vertical progression, but I will oblige the question) :
Adding weapon and utility skill splits that you earn. Go find the 5 different aspects that can be added to various skills. They are located around the game world. After you find 2 of them you can combine the effect for a different version of the weapon or utility skill that enhances said skill.

Add different skills to weapons. Make weapons more like utility skills but we have to go do stuff to get them. That way we could have a choice of maybe 3 different skills per 1-5 attack. I realize this would be a monumental undertaking because of animations and balance, but you asked :P

Reesha.7901:

cesmode.4257:

About RNG as a form of gear acquisition:

I know people in this game have been burned with RNG in the past, myself included to a degree. Keep in mind that in many games including the almighty World of Warcraft, RNG is the primary source of gear acquisition, at least BiS gear. You get it through raid drops, dungeon drops etc.

I do not want the Warcraft system here, but in Warcraft it was perfectly doable to gear up a guild by clearing raid content.

The items could be distributed between raid members; when they dropped, they were not bound to one person only. That made it possible for guilds to distribute the gear evenly between its members. Either through DKP or a loot council.

In my opinion, RNG worked better in Warcraft.

I agree with you. Im not sure I necessarily want it in Gw2, but it is far better than what we have now to get BiS gear.

I think the game needs more statistical character progression. More item tiers, higher level cap, more traits. Ascended is not very useful. 5% extra stats is not worth the effort, I suggest making it 20%.

Also more cosmetical progression. Too much progression via the gem shop only in this area. Legendary armors would be a good start.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Agreed. Let’s spend a little more time discussing and brainstorming the following questions:

Controversial: Vertical Progression acquisition can be a pain but what if any elements do you like about Vertical Progression?

Lets keep coming up with some awesome Horizontal Progression systemic ideas and also reward ideas?

Try to tie these ideas into the core foundation of GW2’s systems and mechanics please.

Chris

Positive things about vertical progression: Well, it needs to be done correctly. VP is OK so long as it is reachable by a majority of the playerbase. If you put up barriers via time, and massive materials gathering. I would much rather run a dungeon and receive it as a drop rather than current ascended gear crafting. **Note, the drop rate needs to be realistic.

However, positives about VP… it keeps the player reaching, it keeps the player engaged. It gives the player a sense of accomplishment. If you replace a masterwork with an exotic you should feel a lot stronger. You should see bigger numbers when DPSing.

However, again this needs to be done properly.

Right now, I do not believe it is and I very much dislike how it is done in GW2.

Suggestion: I know you can’t turn back time, but ascended gear should be only available from fractals, and only usable in fractals since they are the only gear pieces with infusion slots.

Otherwise, if your intent is/was to allow them to be used in open world, just allow people to ascend their exotics and/or create infusion slots on the exotics.

As a game that was trying to rely on cosmetic horizontal progression, I feel character customization is one of GW2’s weak points. Its cosmetic system is far too restrictive and more often than not, this ends up frustrating the player. Here are some successful features from other games coupled with my suggestions. –

= Your character.

1. Character creation.

Whilst we do not need to go to the extremes Aion, I lost count of the number of times I saw people with the same face; the body types are simply too few and do not vary enough. The new additions to the store seem to indicate you’re trying to address this issue – and personally, I was thrilled about it – but it runs deeper than adding a few hairstyles and faces, as the system itself is far too restrictive. Why are scars, freckles, tattoos, make-up – often part of the face type setup, for example? Right now, if I want to make a scarred female human, there’s only one option available. If the scars had their own, separate tab – we would have 21! –

2. Access to the makeover tab all the time.

The only way to preview the changes is purchasing a kit. If said preview was available for anyone to mess with, as it was in GW – people sitting on the fence could toy with it, save templates! – eventually buy a kit or create a new character/buy a character slot.

= A wardrobe for your skins.

Ideally, players would buy transmutation crystals to change their looks all the time. This doesn’t happen, as they’re too expensive – and the only way to retain the old skin is to buy yet another gem store item. Most people buy enough crystals for a set and then they’re done.
Revamp the transmutation system! Give us the option to unlock permanent skins instead, and a wardrobe to store them. Similarly to the vault, the first 30 or so slots could be free – sell the upgrades in the gem store.

Malediktus.9250:

I think the game needs more statistical character progression. More item tiers, higher level cap, more traits. Ascended is not very useful. 5% extra stats is not worth the effort, I suggest making it 20%.

Arbitrary number increases are just an illusion.

If you’re fighting a Level 80 Icebrood Wolf with 100,000 HP and your Ascended Greatsword that deals 1000 damage per hit, then one year later fighting a Level 120 Icebrood Wolf Lord with 1,000,000 HP with an Epic Greatsword that deals 10,000 damage per hit……absolutely nothing has changed. The only difference is the amonut of time it takes to get to that Epic Greatsword to “earn” the right to access the content.

If they add Level 90, nothing will change. We’ll advance to level 90, break previous builds and make new ones, fight Level 90 monsters that use the same AI and mechanics, and grind for new gear. Then someone will get bored and ask for them to spice things up by increasing the cap to 100. Rinse, repeat.

Dingle.2743:

Ascended crafting is far too expensive for what it is. I’d be willing to pay that kind of price for a skin, and there are a lot of ascended skins I like, but the stats and infusion part should be cheaper. Biggest offender price-wise is the crafting requirements of Damask. Within 2 hours of farming humanoid enemies in Fields of Ruin with a level 35 character (essentially the closest thing to a dedicated cloth farm), I was unable to earn either enough wool or cotton scraps for a single day’s crafting – never mind that this got me no linen or silk. Silk is needed in absurd amounts as well. Unlike the requirements of Wood and Metal, a single player cannot reasonably expect to earn the materials needed daily for cloth (or leather, but leather’s not needed daily as the use of it is restricted by Damask anyways) through gameplay alone – they must resort to the trading post to keep up.

This is spot on and indeed is something that has been raised as a possible issue for months, ever since it became clear that ascended armor was coming. The silk requirements for light armor is over 10,000 silk scraps, that IMHO is absurd. You may have done this due to the stockpiles of silk but I don;t see how its fair to players who haven’t stockpiled silk. Heck I started stockpiling and I still didn’t have anywhere near the silk required for even 1 set of light armor. You should not be balancing around the top end of players if thats what you’ve done.

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?

To reiterate what others have said, GW1 was fantastic and the SWTOR legacy system was interesting but an idea that needs more refinement. I haven’t played Path of Exile but its system looks interesting.