Guild Wars 2

MithranArkanere.8957:

Feyhen.7432:

[…]

Unlocking more skills is not vertical progression if the new skills are not stronger than the old ones, effectively replacing them in your skill bar.

In GW1 you leveled up to 20, and got by then a decent amount of skills that would allow you to do many things. You didn’t have to level up more, and once you got max gear getting more gear was not necessary, but you could get more skills to try new stuff until you got all 1319 of them in a single character.

Skills became part of the horizontal progression, as new skills allowed you to do new things and the same things in different ways, but they weren’t necessarily stronger than the ones you already had.

Yes i know, i accidently switch both terms. i really meant horizontal progression that Guild wars 2 lacks.

I played Guild Wars 1 as well and i loved the amount of skills there.

But Guild Wars 1 was more stat-based and and static. I would love to have just more weapon and slot skills in Guild Wars 2 that make use of the more action- oriented combat system.

More Rushes, charge attacks, evades, counters, bashed. The skills already in the game are really awesome, dont get me wrong.

But i would really like to be able to slot different skills then the player next to me to a point where i can fully self-express myself with every class.

Take the thief for example: In my opinion he does just not have enough action skills

I can not play the thief like i would love to play him. As an acrobat, as an high speed striker.
The Warrior in my opinion plays ways more fluid then the thief and that is just not right.

I have an quesiton actually.
Why Exotics are not guarantee loot from bosses inside dungeons ? Or by that extend why ascended items are not guarantee loot from world bosses ? They have so slim chance to drop, that over 800h of gameplay exotic from boss in dugeon droped for maybe once. Or twice…

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Lheimroo.2947:

Incidentally I think the idea of giving ascended gear stat-switching ability gives us a kind of metric for determining how difficult it ought to be to acquire.

Say, (for example), ascended can go with 12 stat combinations. Functionally the same thing can be achieved by multiple exotic sets, but that’d be far less convenient.

Add in a bit of a premium for that convenience and in principle ascended gear perhaps ought to be priced around 15-20 times the ‘effort’ required to get exotic gear.

I’m not talking about gold price on the TP; exotic gear value has taken a dive due to it being much less desirable now, and so freely available. I’m talking effort in terms of playtime to get the karma/dungeon/celestial/cultural sets.

I’m completely on the fence about making ascended sellable via TP. If the acquisition is tuned too high the prices will be astronomical and we grind gold while watching inflation push it continually out of our reach. If it’s too easy, ascended becomes a redundant brand of exotic. There is a certain convenience factor to that and it is seductive.. but darn it, I like the idea of gear attainable through gameplay only. And gameplay challenges more than through repetitive gameplay, but.. well, not everybody could beat Liadri even if you did put an ascended weapon on her.

Though if ascended remains a source of ‘vertical’ progression and not optional, all that goes out the window: it has to be easy.

I know that’d still devalue what people’ve already put into gearing up their characters, but I can’t think of a good solution that honors that effort while putting ascended in reach of the average 1-2 hour/day guy with multiple alts. That’s the reason why I think communication on the subject from Arenanet can’t come soon enough.

Yes, I know you’re communicating! I’m grateful. But getting a ‘game plan’ out to players is crucial, whatever ends up decided.

Many of you have mentioned this problem, so let’s discuss it some more. If the supply of ascended gear is made more accessible to the populous either through drop rates of items and mats, and/or sale ability of gear then is this something that is acceptable to early adopters?

Regarding:

‘Yes, I know you’re communicating! I’m grateful. But getting a ‘game plan’ out to players is crucial, whatever ends up decided’

There has been a clearly communicated game plan. Our focus is on Horizontal progression and I felt that Ascended was a necessary step. However as many have pointed out this gear was designed to sit between Exotic and Legendary and thus be a better bridge. Personally i feel like it could be made more accessible through playing different parts of the game. Once we have concluded the discussion on the tightening up of Vertical Progression we will move onto Horizontal discussion. Huzzah (-:

Thanks for your input and i hope that adds some more clarity.

Chris

Personally speaking, I wouldn’t mind if others got them elsewhere or that crafting them was made more accessible after I’d got mine as long it wasn’t being handed out (not that I’m saying that is being suggested). I doubt any rational player would object to widening how people obtained their gear as long as the effort/time in obtaining it was as equal and fair as possible from each source.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Reading it all i just wanna state that i’m absolutely opposed the idea of ascended gear stat change via gem store item. That would be massive unfairness ingame (make anotehr ascended weapon/armor set or use gems), not to mention how would you feel if you had to choose between awesome skin in gem store or not flashy but practical stat change? Like kicked in the nuts in my case!

I think it might be reasonable to assume that such a direct form of horizontal progression wouldn’t be confined to the gem store, unless you have to actually own both stat sets to merge them into one switchable item.

Estriella Faerie:

Verticallity as it was in fractals before (AR) was really good. It was something that was not absolutely needed: a very skilled player, who knew the fights, could manage by dodging, positionning. The skill-cap component to the fights was kinda high.
The main utility of AR was to be a “safety net” for those players, to enable them to recover if they made a mistake. For less skilled players, AR was a way to compensate for numerous mistakes, and to progress through fractals anyway. Their progression was at a lower pace than skilled players, because they needed more AR (making mistakes more often call for more AR to compensate).

As I said in a previous post, the change from Fractured patch changed that, and to progress now, the “skill component” required is now less than what it was, but the “stuff component” is way higher. Before, a skilled player could compensate low AR by playing really well. That is not the case anymore. If you don’t have enough AR, you can’t do it, even if you played perfectly. That’s especially true with the levels x0 instabilities. I really hate that change, which goes from the skill-gating it was before to a gear-gating.

I agree with Estriella Faerie on this one.

I’ve seen a few players say they’d be fine if verticallity was restricted to fractals, but from what I saw, it’s not like they think it would be good for fractals, but more like they want it out of their own gamemode (be it pve or wvw).

As a fractal player, I really don’t want a required verticallity, like the new patch introduced. An optionnal verticallity, like it was before, to help the “less skilled” also progress, can be good though.

TL;DR: Please don’t bring more verticallity to fractals, there’s already too much of it there.

Carighan.6758:

Morrigan.2809:

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

Eh, why can’t I simply be a Mesmer, the three advanced ideas all sound pretty lame

oh I agree- If you only want to be a Mesmer- then be a Mesmer.

Not everyone is interested in flavors or sub-classes that is why I suggested that the sub-classes only unlock after you already have your base build.

So say you are happy with a base Mesmer- you play as a Shatter Mesmer, Phantasm Mesmer or whatever. No problem

Say if like me you have two Mesmers- you like to keep one as a base but kind of like the idea of a Chronomancer

As I see it you could do a quest for the Durmand Priory that eventually unlocks the knowledge of this kind of Mesmer.
It unlocks a second trait/ skill panel that gives you the abilities of a Chronomancer.

For these to be balanced and so that people who do not want to play a sub-class are not punished- these things would have to be largely cosmetic or fun.
Or alter the way the class plays in such a way as to still be distinctive but not out of line with the base class
You can even do further quests for your order to gain more experience in your chosen sub-class

(just used Chronomancer as an example since I would personally kill to play as a Timelord)

I think using sub-classes to add various new weapon to existing classes is also an option but I still have to think about that because it has to be in such a way that people who play the base class are not forced to have a specific sub- class just to have a weapon

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Here is a crazy brainstorm idea, not in anyway indicative of our direction.

What if there was vertical progression in the Fractals with gear that increased in stats but when outside of the fractals defaulted back to BiS numbers?

I am asking this because it is going to generate some left field conversation not because I think it is or isn’t a good idea.

Chris

This could be done by decreasing the normal damage and upping agony damage for most/all attacks. At low AR, damage would be similar to the way it is now but at higher AR it would make earlier fractals a lot easier.

Harbard.5738:

CONFINED VERTICAL PROGRESSION -> AWESOME

I’m with Cesmode here. The beauty of fracts is that it doesn’t gate you out of CONTENT like traditional MMOs raids do. So, if ascended only increase in stats inside fracts, people in exotics can still play the content from levels 1-10 but people that gear up like crazy still get better money, etc.

But out there in Tyria, especially WvW we’re all at exotics level, everybody is happy, the grind doesn’t have to be dealt with, the game won’t be alt unfriendly because of ascended, people won’t have issues with the tier, the game is still gonna rock and people can totally progress their stats vertically in fracts if they want, if they don’t, they can still play the content for fun, with little reward other than fun itself, at exotics level.

I think this is absolutely beautiful and simple solution for ascended as far as progression goes.

I’m really against vertical progression, even for fractals. We don’t need it, we’re not looking for gear-grinding, we’re looking for more challenging content. Gear progression has nothing to do with it.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Lheimroo.2947:

Incidentally I think the idea of giving ascended gear stat-switching ability gives us a kind of metric for determining how difficult it ought to be to acquire.

Say, (for example), ascended can go with 12 stat combinations. Functionally the same thing can be achieved by multiple exotic sets, but that’d be far less convenient.

Add in a bit of a premium for that convenience and in principle ascended gear perhaps ought to be priced around 15-20 times the ‘effort’ required to get exotic gear.

I’m not talking about gold price on the TP; exotic gear value has taken a dive due to it being much less desirable now, and so freely available. I’m talking effort in terms of playtime to get the karma/dungeon/celestial/cultural sets.

I’m completely on the fence about making ascended sellable via TP. If the acquisition is tuned too high the prices will be astronomical and we grind gold while watching inflation push it continually out of our reach. If it’s too easy, ascended becomes a redundant brand of exotic. There is a certain convenience factor to that and it is seductive.. but darn it, I like the idea of gear attainable through gameplay only. And gameplay challenges more than through repetitive gameplay, but.. well, not everybody could beat Liadri even if you did put an ascended weapon on her.

Though if ascended remains a source of ‘vertical’ progression and not optional, all that goes out the window: it has to be easy.

I know that’d still devalue what people’ve already put into gearing up their characters, but I can’t think of a good solution that honors that effort while putting ascended in reach of the average 1-2 hour/day guy with multiple alts. That’s the reason why I think communication on the subject from Arenanet can’t come soon enough.

Yes, I know you’re communicating! I’m grateful. But getting a ‘game plan’ out to players is crucial, whatever ends up decided.

Many of you have mentioned this problem, so let’s discuss it some more. If the supply of ascended gear is made more accessible to the populous either through drop rates of items and mats, and/or sale ability of gear then is this something that is acceptable to early adopters?

Regarding:

‘Yes, I know you’re communicating! I’m grateful. But getting a ‘game plan’ out to players is crucial, whatever ends up decided’

There has been a clearly communicated game plan. Our focus is on Horizontal progression and I felt that Ascended was a necessary step. However as many have pointed out this gear was designed to sit between Exotic and Legendary and thus be a better bridge. Personally i feel like it could be made more accessible through playing different parts of the game. Once we have concluded the discussion on the tightening up of Vertical Progression we will move onto Horizontal discussion. Huzzah (-:

Thanks for your input and i hope that adds some more clarity.

Chris

Sadly, no. I do not find it acceptable for early adapters. There has to be a new tier of gear available before the current best in slot can be made easier to aquire. And no I do not own a set of ascended armor yet or even a single piece. But if I would be one of the early adopters I would be angry if this happens.

Malediktus.9250:

Sadly, no. I do not find it acceptable for early adapters. There has to be a new tier of gear available before the current best in slot can be made easier to aquire. And no I do not own a set of ascended armor yet or even a single piece. But if I would be one of the early adopters I would be angry if this happens.

Sounds to me like you are explaining to us the status quo from other MMOs. If Ascended gear is the top tier of gear, as the majority seem to hope, then is it not right to tweak the currently lacking acquisition? ESPECIALLY since the idea of this game was meant to be playing what you want to play to unlock things.

RoyalPredator.9163:

Do not get up so high with tokens & points.
5000 Token? That’s a month of hard CoF Grind… really want that?
Don’t think so…

But it already takes a month of grind to craft ascended gear anyways. Giving it to Dungeons or other accountbound currencies just gives us another way to obtain it.

Chris,

I think part of your vertical stats proposal should answer the question “how will GW2’s vertical progression bring people together”

Right now, ascended gear separates players into haves and have-nots. 55AR fractals runners don’t want to play with people in only exotics. My friends without ascended stats feel bad “being carried”. When my friends come to WvW with me, they get frustrated when they die sooner than I do and blame it on the gear difference.

Just because the stat difference isn’t big doesn’t mean the socal effects aren’t larger.

How can vertical progression bring people together?

• working together on getting gear
• sharing stat bonuses among the party so the have-nots get the same boost as the haves
• ascended craters makes useful items for their friends who don’t have the gold to get 500 skill.
  Etc.

Wow stunk because it put fear barriers to me playing with my friends. Gw2 should make gear a reason we should play together instead of a reason we shouldn’t.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Harbard.5738:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Reesha.7901:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Reesha.7901:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Ok another brainstorm idea.

What if certain pieces of ascended gear could be crafted and sold on the TP such as gloves and boots?

Chris

Yes please, or even better:
All pieces could be crafted and sold on the TP.
All pieces could change stats.
All pieces could be obtained outside crafting without relying on RNG.

Personally and note this is not the opinion of Arena but I like the idea of uniquely skinned BiS items dropping in challenging content. My opinion as a player is that the current drop rates could be tweaked.

Chris

That will not remove the RNG factor…. Look at it this way:
Say you increased the drop rate on Tequatl. That means a higher change to get a weapon. But it is still RNG.
Some people will get several drops, others will get nothing, most will get items with the wrong stat combination. Please, please, please: No more RNG!

What if you could sell them? Thus complimentary to other forms of acquisition?

Chris

What’s the point of having an unique skin drop from a challenging encounter if you can just buy it on TP? Isn’t the point of the skin showing you beat the challenge? If a unique gear is gonna drop from a challenging encounter, it should be guaranteed and account bound, and the encounter really tough.

Yep your right sorry I should have given more detail in the brainstorm idea. In the idea I imagined Sunless not being trade able but other normal Ascended gear being trade able. Note this is just a brainstorm idea.

Chris

Non tradeable content-specif skin is great. Tradeable run-of-the-mill ascended sounds good in the beginning, but at these drop rates, they’re gonna be as expensive as precursors, and very prone to speculation, flipping etc… I think higher drop rates and keeping them account bound makes it more interesting. You could be able to pick in the box the type of gear and stat combo tho.

Bottom line: Find it while playing always beats the “farm, buy on tp” drudgery. But drop rates have to be decent.

Malediktus.9250:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Lheimroo.2947:

Incidentally I think the idea of giving ascended gear stat-switching ability gives us a kind of metric for determining how difficult it ought to be to acquire.

Say, (for example), ascended can go with 12 stat combinations. Functionally the same thing can be achieved by multiple exotic sets, but that’d be far less convenient.

Add in a bit of a premium for that convenience and in principle ascended gear perhaps ought to be priced around 15-20 times the ‘effort’ required to get exotic gear.

I’m not talking about gold price on the TP; exotic gear value has taken a dive due to it being much less desirable now, and so freely available. I’m talking effort in terms of playtime to get the karma/dungeon/celestial/cultural sets.

I’m completely on the fence about making ascended sellable via TP. If the acquisition is tuned too high the prices will be astronomical and we grind gold while watching inflation push it continually out of our reach. If it’s too easy, ascended becomes a redundant brand of exotic. There is a certain convenience factor to that and it is seductive.. but darn it, I like the idea of gear attainable through gameplay only. And gameplay challenges more than through repetitive gameplay, but.. well, not everybody could beat Liadri even if you did put an ascended weapon on her.

Though if ascended remains a source of ‘vertical’ progression and not optional, all that goes out the window: it has to be easy.

I know that’d still devalue what people’ve already put into gearing up their characters, but I can’t think of a good solution that honors that effort while putting ascended in reach of the average 1-2 hour/day guy with multiple alts. That’s the reason why I think communication on the subject from Arenanet can’t come soon enough.

Yes, I know you’re communicating! I’m grateful. But getting a ‘game plan’ out to players is crucial, whatever ends up decided.

Many of you have mentioned this problem, so let’s discuss it some more. If the supply of ascended gear is made more accessible to the populous either through drop rates of items and mats, and/or sale ability of gear then is this something that is acceptable to early adopters?

Regarding:

‘Yes, I know you’re communicating! I’m grateful. But getting a ‘game plan’ out to players is crucial, whatever ends up decided’

There has been a clearly communicated game plan. Our focus is on Horizontal progression and I felt that Ascended was a necessary step. However as many have pointed out this gear was designed to sit between Exotic and Legendary and thus be a better bridge. Personally i feel like it could be made more accessible through playing different parts of the game. Once we have concluded the discussion on the tightening up of Vertical Progression we will move onto Horizontal discussion. Huzzah (-:

Thanks for your input and i hope that adds some more clarity.

Chris

Sadly, no. I do not find it acceptable for early adapters. There has to be a new tier of gear available before the current best in slot can be made easier to aquire. And no I do not own a set of ascended armor yet or even a single piece. But if I would be one of the early adopters I would be angry if this happens.

I’m an early adopter in that I’m actually working on a piece of ascended armor, and I honestly would not mind if they made it easier in the future. The grind for ascended gear is not fun, and I really would not complain if they saved people the trouble of going through it.

Also, on the subject of grinding for ascended gear, it worries me that anet is avoiding the subject of time gating vertical progression. I know a lot of people have brought it up, but neither Chris nor Izzy have really touched on it. What was the reasoning behind it, especially when they knew how much people dislike it?

Speaking of line where both horizontal and vertical intertvine. Let’s forget gear for one post (mine), and get down and dirty with real ingame experience of dungeons. I have returned week or two ago after a break, and saw quite a few things gone south in regard of player experience (as in enjoyability, not the yellow bar on bottom of screen) with running dungeons.

If you wanna talk “gated content” here it is. “Lvl 80, experienced, zerk warrior, gear check, over 5k achi pts, AR over 9000” – anyone who does dungeons saw that more then once. Shmucks willl be shmucks but sometimes there is a point to at least “experienced” expectation.

So why not add dugeon titles let’s say you did ac path 1 ten times, from start to finish, you get a title. Then all those “pro speed runners” would shut up about level and achi pts, seeing you’ve been there and done that. Ofc not everyone, but it’s not that difficult to imagine person with low achivement points (break from gw2, or interested in one type of content only), who can be a reliable dungeon runner but gets the boot before he can say a word because he has no way to show his experience with given dungeon and path.

I want to post this here while Chris is active. At least that way my posts might be seen.

Thoughts on Vertical Progression
Levels
Geared Stats

Thoughts on Horizontal Progression
Cosmetics
Achievements

The Lost Witch.7601:

So our means to getting ascended items would be (the more the merrier):

• Crafting
• Badge of Honor vendor
• Dungeon vendor
• Fractals vendor
• Skill point vendor
• Guild vendor
• Laurel vendor
• Karma vendor (Crafting mats only)
• Cultural (money) vendor
• Faction? vendor
• One time living story event rewards
• Personal story completion revamp reward
• RNG on a number of chests (world events/dungeons/wvw rank up/whatnot)
• Mystic forge recipes
• RNG on specific instanced mobs with specific rewards (< my favourite, like GW1 greens)
• Certain achievements (world completion? fractal level 50?) un
• Epic quest chains
• PvP victories of some sort (Maybe)
• What did I miss?

Just my preferences

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Nike.2631:

Anyone here have a huge complaint against the idea of being able to buy Ascended Weapon/Armor Chests with some of our account-bound currencies?

Maybe~

Guild Commendations – 150 commendations, any stats
Badges of Honor – 800 badges, any stats
Dungeon Tokens – 1,000 w/ stat combinations matching the each dungeons’ existing flavors
Fractal Relics – 1,500 w/ stat combinations matching the current capacitors

((all quantities subject to change and offered only to inspire thought))

Good question. And morning/afternoon everyone. Just reading through all the new pages and great discussion. This is awesome.

Chris

Honestly, I’ve been hoping that this would be the case. We have the beginnings of different means of acquiring Ascended Gear, but they aren’t fully being utilized.

As Nike pointed out we currently have different forms of currency in place that cater to different play-styles that can be used to gain Ascended Gear, though he left out a few that can also be used.

• Karma – Easily obtained through solo play & group play. Any player playing the game can gain access to this currency without much of an issue.
• Dungeon Tokens – Moderately easy to obtain through group play, though incredibly difficult to obtain through solo play. The one draw back to this style of play involves the act of communicating with other players while participating in the content. Some people can’t play well with others.
• Fractal Relics & Pristine Fractal Relics – Like with Dungeon Tokens, this is moderately easy to obtain, can actually scale based on the level of the Fractal run. However, like with dungeons group play isn’t for everyone, so it can be hard for certain players to obtain this currency. Additionally, Fractals are gated content which requires Ascended Gear in order to continue progression. Simply put, you need the gear that you want in order to get the gear you want. It’s complicated, but at lower levels is still possible if not more time consuming.
• Guild Commendations – This is for players that like larger scale Group Play that requires more than five players to complete. This isn’t always for smaller guilds, though they can get by with some minor difficulties. This also still alienates solo players, and could also alienate smaller groups of people as I just mentioned. It still has a place as larger groups of people can feel a sense of group pride for getting Ascended Gear this way.
• Badges of Honor – Obtaining badges of honor works as a combination of any of the above currencies. Players can obtain this currency through solo play via roaming and scouting, smaller groups can band together to get objectives completed without much issue, and larger scale groups can band together to take on larger project such as taking keeps. WvW is an interesting monster in that it caters to a much more larger range of play-styles while still rewarding the same currency.

What’s more is the fact that these different currencies can be obtained simultaneously. A guild can complete a few Missions earning their members Commendations, then split into smaller groups to tackle a few dungeons and Fractal runs for their respective rewards. When not many people are online, guild members can earn karma and Badges for themselves by PuGing in WvW. Additionally they can tackle dungeons and Fractals in a similar manor. Mixing and matching these different methods of obtaining Ascended gear can easily cut the time it would have taken to get the gear through a single method. Which is currently happening by making crafting the most accessible method of obtaining Ascended gear.

Maybe we could use the Mystic Forge to expand the number of stat combinations an ascended item can offer. A recipe for this procedure could look like:

• one ascended item
• one ascended inscription or or insignia
• one small Vision Crystall
• one (or more) mystic forge stone

We could also use the Forge for adding effects to items. For instance a boss drops an item that gives shoes footprints or gloves an visual effect. The recipe could use the dropped component along with a Vision Crystall the ascended item and 20 Philosopher’s Stones. You also throw 4 drops into the Mystic Forge to create new awesome effects.

Finnway.2183:

The Lost Witch.7601:

So our means to getting ascended items would be (the more the merrier):

• Crafting
• Badge of Honor vendor
• Dungeon vendor
• Fractals vendor
• Skill point vendor
• Guild vendor
• Laurel vendor
• Karma vendor (Crafting mats only)
• Cultural (money) vendor
• Faction? vendor
• One time living story event rewards
• Personal story completion revamp reward
• RNG on a number of chests (world events/dungeons/wvw rank up/whatnot)
• Mystic forge recipes
• RNG on specific instanced mobs with specific rewards (< my favourite, like GW1 greens)
• Certain achievements (world completion? fractal level 50?) un
• Epic quest chains
• PvP victories of some sort (Maybe)
• What did I miss?

Just my preferences

Would you rather not have them available? Or prefer to have the devs work on your favorite options first?

(I can see arguments being made for both cases, but they are quite different)

Harbard.5738:

Dev’s asked: What’s fun about Vertical Progression?

Answer: When it ends. It’s not supposed to be a joke (well, not only). VP only has a purpose and feels meaningful to me when it ENDS, when your each a peak and then it starts branching out horizontally. Initial VP IS fun, but it has to PEAK to be fun. If it doesn’t peak forever in the story of the game then it becomes just a never-ending pain in the kitten of having to accomplish something you already did over and over.

This is a very good post right here. With traditional VP, any sense of accomplishment is tainted within minutes once the realization that in 3 months, 6 months, a year, etc. all that hard work is going to be tossed in the trash because you’ll have to do it again. Unless there is a defined end point, VP is little more than a timesink treadmill that helps out the developers but screws over the players.

I still don’t understand this horizontal/vertical progression talk (I learn differently, ok?) – sounds like lingo that belongs to a rollercoaster ride or something, so instead, I’ll just say what I feel needs changing.

Ascended Weapons & Armor chests. Ok, so I have 500 tailor and 500 artificer. I only have 2 ascended weapons in total because getting to 500 artificer cost me over 200g, and a further 80g minimum to make the ascended weapons (atleast 40g each). It’s just getting ridiculous in the costs these days, in fact I was aiming on going for 500 armorsmith, but I realized, why bother? It’s a huge money sink on my end, and with limitations on what you can craft per day, with very little benefit, from now on I’m just going to wait for some chest drops and stick to my exotics.

Which leads me to my next point… Why are these ascended weapon and armor chests sooooooo hard to obtain? My elementalist has gone 441 WvW ranks without a single ascended weapon chest. Am I doing something wrong? Am I just extremely unlucky? In my opinion, if you’re like me and have gone that many ranks without an ascended chest, something is clearly wrong, and that ‘something’ needs to change.

What I propose is offering ascended weapon and armor chests for a hefty amount of badges of honor. Enough to make it so that it isn’t easily obtained, but hard enough to not warrant going for it via badges than crafting. I would say 2k badges would be pretty fair (and perhaps at least 1 crafting skill to 500, if there should be any extra requirements?). I’d also like to propose the idea of increasing your chances of getting ascended chests the higher your WvW rank – apparently the wiki says this is how it is right now, but obviously it isn’t because I’ve gone 441+ ranks without one, so I’m calling bull-kitten on that :-)

My next point brings me to Dragonite Ore in WvW. I WvW a lot, and by the time ascended armor came out, I had enough bloodstone dust to make over 58 bricks and enough empyreal fragments to make over 38 empyreal stars, but guess how many ascended banana bars I could make? (Dragonite ingots) 3. Yes you heard right, only three. That’s how hard it is to obtain dragonite ore in WvW. There needs to be some sort of way to obtain more of it, or at least give us the ability to exchange a large amount of bloodstone dust/empyreal fragments for dragonite ore. Perhaps 1k bloodstone dust or 1k empyreal fragments in the mystic forge for a stack of 250 dragonite ore? That sounds fair to me.

My final point brings me back to ascended weapons and armor. I believe, the amount of effort and gold put into those things, that they should have the stat-changing ability.

TL;DR version

—> Give ascended armor & weapons the stat changing ability
—> Offer ascended armor & weapon chests for 2k WvW badges each
—> Allow WvW players to obtain dragonite ore more easily, perhaps offering a method to exchange vast amounts of bloodstone dust and/or empyreal fragments for it
—> Increase the odds of obtaining ascended weapon & armor chests with higher WvW ranks

Having gotten a couple of pieces of Ascended I would feel a little peeved if instant Ascended armor was put in, in lets say in 3 months time.

There does need to be other ways of getting them for sure, but if the whole idea was as an intermediate in time between exotic and legendary then quite simply they can’t be easy to get. Otherwise what’s the point of putting them in, in the first place

As I mentioned a while back, my solution would be a token system where you got a token that got you an ascended piece each time you completed all dungeon paths of every dungeon.

That’s a pretty epic quest, cant be done in twenty minutes and might encourage people to step outside of the usual money paths.

Instead of boosting stats, then make each ascended piece have dynamic stats. That’s a big incentive for people to go for them right there.

Hm horizontal discussion sounds a little like pillow talk

The Lost Witch.7601:

Finnway.2183:

The Lost Witch.7601:

So our means to getting ascended items would be (the more the merrier):

• Crafting
• Badge of Honor vendor
• Dungeon vendor
• Fractals vendor
• Skill point vendor
• Guild vendor
• Laurel vendor
• Karma vendor (Crafting mats only)
• Cultural (money) vendor
• Faction? vendor
• One time living story event rewards
• Personal story completion revamp reward
• RNG on a number of chests (world events/dungeons/wvw rank up/whatnot)
• Mystic forge recipes
• RNG on specific instanced mobs with specific rewards (< my favourite, like GW1 greens)
• Certain achievements (world completion? fractal level 50?)
• Epic quest chains
• PvP victories of some sort (Maybe)
• What did I miss?

Just my preferences

Would you rather not have them available? Or prefer to have the devs work on your favorite options first?

(I can see arguments being made for both cases, but they are quite different)

I’m saying you shouldn’t be able to obtain Ascended gear these ways. If Ascended gear is too common it’s not as awesome when you get it. In your list, you want to make it as common as Karma, lol.

Regarding the “what about the early adopters?” question about making ascended gear easier to obtain and from multiple sources. As an early adopter myself, yes, we would in a way be getting cheated out of resources we didn’t need to spend like time, materials, and money. But the fact is, it needs to change anyway, and fast. It never should have been implemented like this. You guys have said the intention was for it to be a “bridge” between exotic and legendary, but that doesn’t make sense. The resources we have to use for this overlap with the resources we have to use for a legendary weapon, meaning it just makes the time gap between exotics and legendaries even wider.

Ascended gear has been a huge mistake and every incarnation of its implementation has been more poorly thought out than the last. But that subject has been beaten to death, and there’s no way fix what’s already been done without a portion of the playerbase getting screwed over. If you can come up with some system of compensation for those of us who busted our butts with the current, excessively costly methods, great. But ascended gear acquisition needs a revamp regardless, because right now it discourages alts and different builds, which completely goes against the entire idea of the game.

Crafting Ascended Gear

• Drop the time-gating on ectoplasm refinement.
• Lower the material requirements.
• Drop the reliance on laurels for recipes. It should be karma only.

Obtaining Ascended Gear as Random Drops

• Increase the drop rate.
• Rather than a stat drop with weapon/armor selection, make them weapon/armor drops with stat selection. If you’re feeling generous, allow us to choose both. They’re account bound anyway, so why not?

New Sources of Ascended Gear Acquisition

• Badges of Honor for WvW
• Fractal Relics/Pristine Fractal Relics
• Laurels (I hesitate to put this, because the entire laurel system has the same issue as ectoplasm refinement in crafting. We need less time-gating, not more. Plus, I would prefer laurel rewards being unique to laurels such as the endless cat tonic and minipets.)

New Content as a Source of Ascended Gear

I thought about putting dungeons as a way to obtain ascended gear with just a higher token cost, but that’s just more of a grind than they already are. What we need is brand new, difficult content that rewards ascended gear. Basically, a new tier of dungeon.

That’s all I’ve got for now.

High level ideas for implementing Horizontal Progression to help populate existing maps.

• Completing certain dynamic event chains provides access to a reward
• Use existing game content as a gate to provide access to an instance that provides the reward (hearts, skill point challenges, vistas, PoI, jumping puzzles, dynamic events, etc.)
• Use instanced challenges to provide access to the reward
• Completing certain jumping puzzles provides access to a reward
• Mixin story/lore progression with horizontal progression rewards
• Implement some kind of callout similar to how Guild mission starting points behave to show players they are near horizontal rewards such as skill hunts. Avoid map indicators.

Some of the most important things in regard to populating the world and providing good pacing is to make horizontal rewards not grindy (so people will want to play alts an bring them through the content as well). I know that seems counter-intuitive at first, but if it’s grindy, players are more likely to just stick with their main. Whereas if it’s not grindy players are more likely to bring alts, which is potentially 5 or more times to revisit the same content and experience it in a different way.

Another important aspect of implementation is to disperse horizontal rewards throughout the world (self explanatory, the travel time helps slightly with the pacing too). It’s also going to be important to release A LOT of these at once, otherwise you’ll run into the problem of there being a few hot spots. Finally, and also very important, apply horizontal progression to content of varying difficulties (easy-hard skill hunting unlocks for example).

I mentioned this before, but it’s important enough to repeat. When making new skills accessible, avoid the recent approach taken with healing skills. 25 skill points is a lot to access a skill players should be using frequently. If there needs to be a skill sink find another way to implement it, because it’s not new player/new character friendly.

I agree with there being, at the bare minimum, other ways/methods of obtaining ascended weapon and armor chests as others have suggested, via vendors that require WvW badges, dungeon tokens, fractal relics/pristine fractal relics, etc. etc.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Speaking of line where both horizontal and vertical intertvine. Let’s forget gear for one post (mine), and get down and dirty with real ingame experience of dungeons. I have returned week or two ago after a break, and saw quite a few things gone south in regard of player experience (as in enjoyability, not the yellow bar on bottom of screen) with running dungeons.

If you wanna talk “gated content” here it is. “Lvl 80, experienced, zerk warrior, gear check, over 5k achi pts, AR over 9000” – anyone who does dungeons saw that more then once. Shmucks willl be shmucks but sometimes there is a point to at least “experienced” expectation.

So why not add dugeon titles let’s say you did ac path 1 ten times, from start to finish, you get a title. Then all those “pro speed runners” would shut up about level and achi pts, seeing you’ve been there and done that. Ofc not everyone, but it’s not that difficult to imagine person with low achivement points (break from gw2, or interested in one type of content only), who can be a reliable dungeon runner but gets the boot before he can say a word because he has no way to show his experience with given dungeon and path.

That, unfortunately, is entirely a player-side problem, and it’s something that is ALWAYS going to exist no matter what a developer does or what game they make.

Long story short; people as a rule can be kitten hats, and there’s little that can be done about it other than to ignore them.

Chris, do you feel that vertical progression (crafting top tier gear) in GW2 is accessible enough for casual players?

Ascended weapons need a lot of different mats, and it’s not that simple to get a feeling for how to obtain and combine those mats, without using outside ressources like GW2 wiki.

I feel like progression could feel a lot more smooth than it currently feels.

Finnway.2183:

The Lost Witch.7601:

Finnway.2183:

The Lost Witch.7601:

So our means to getting ascended items would be (the more the merrier):

• Crafting
• Badge of Honor vendor
• Dungeon vendor
• Fractals vendor
• Skill point vendor
• Guild vendor
• Laurel vendor
• Karma vendor (Crafting mats only)
• Cultural (money) vendor
• Faction? vendor
• One time living story event rewards
• Personal story completion revamp reward
• RNG on a number of chests (world events/dungeons/wvw rank up/whatnot)
• Mystic forge recipes
• RNG on specific instanced mobs with specific rewards (< my favourite, like GW1 greens)
• Certain achievements (world completion? fractal level 50?)
• Epic quest chains
• PvP victories of some sort (Maybe)
• What did I miss?

Just my preferences

Would you rather not have them available? Or prefer to have the devs work on your favorite options first?

(I can see arguments being made for both cases, but they are quite different)

I’m saying I don’t want to obtain Ascended gear these ways (the ways I crossed out). I if Ascended gear is too common it’s not as significant when you get it. In your list, you want to make it as common as Karma, lol.

Haha, fair point, but let’s look at it from another perspective:

If a quest is super epic, like I don’t know… killing an Elder dragon, should it be fitting that you get merely an exotic weapon which skin you will probably not even transmute? On the other hand, it could offer an ascended weapon which at the very least, will be valuable for it’s stats. (Even if the skin is something terrible – which, being subjective – is likely to be the case for many players)

I wouldn’t add them to just about every quest and every mob. But yeah, with exotic gear being devalued… I can certainly see those methods of acquisition adding something of value to this game.

Well if they start coming in from daily bouncy chests… I’ll remember your ‘common as karma’ and shake my head.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Mun,

Just wanted to let you know that I have read your posts and that I do stay on top of the thread. I read it as often as I am able. The reason there is no reply to the Vertical post you made is that I feel i have discussed those points in other responses. In regard to Horizontal I am focusing on Vertical currently so we can cap that conversation and move on.

Hope that makes sense?

Chris

Thanks for the response Chris.
Are you SURE you’ve addressed my VP thoughts though? They’re a little wild and radical compared to many of the other ideas in this thread.
Did you understand my point about weapon requirements for Engineers at the bottom of the pile and Warriors at the top?
I think that in particular highlights a very important flaw in GW2’s current system. Limiting build flexibility constrains balance feedback to that based on a very few stat builds. With a high percentage of feedback being based on few builds, the developers responsible for balance will naturally balance the game around those builds.

Egads, how many times can I say “balance” in one paragraph?!

The Lost Witch.7601:

I’m saying I don’t want to obtain Ascended gear these ways (the ways I crossed out). I if Ascended gear is too common it’s not as significant when you get it. In your list, you want to make it as common as Karma, lol.

Haha, fair point, but let’s look at it from another perspective:

If a quest is super epic, like I don’t know… killing an Elder dragon, should it be fitting that you get merely an exotic weapon which skin you will probably not even transmute? On the other hand, it could offer an ascended weapon which at the very least, will be valuable for it’s stats. (Even if the skin is something terrible – which, being subjective – is likely to be the case for many players)

The thing is …quests like that don’t exist in GW2. The ones that do are called “meta events” and people run them on a daily basis. You can’t have people earning ascended weapons on a daily basis.

Well if they start coming in from daily bouncy chests… I’ll remember your ‘common as karma’ and shake my head.

Lol :P

The one thing from your list I’m still unsure about is Mystic Forge skins. Now that Ascended weapons are out do you think weapon skins crafted in the Mystic Forge should be Ascended? A lot of them cost 150+ gold to craft.

Why would I be interested in exotic, ascended or legendary gear or any other character progression because the only fun I have in this game is when I am doing the Champ Train in Queensdale? it’s easy, relaxing, not much thinking required and you can take breaks whenever you like. Also, you are not alone like in allother parts of the open world, people chat and have fun playing together. Some take it too seriously, others are there for various reasons, but all in all is the most fun activity this game offers for me
I am not a PvPer or a dungeon runner nor a crafter so for me you can add infinite tiers to gears and infinite number of dungeons/fractals because I couldn’t care less

Finnway.2183:

The thing is …quests like that don’t exist in GW2 yet. The ones that do are called “meta events” and people run them on a daily basis. You can’t have people earning ascended weapons on a daily basis.

Yeah… they should work on that.

I agree that people shouldn’t earn ascended weapons on a daily basis. But ‘epic’ quests could come and go like the living story. Or they could only award their fitting ‘epic’ reward once per character, something like that?

Finnway.2183:

Nike.2631:

Anyone here have a huge complaint against the idea of being able to buy Ascended Weapon/Armor Chests with some of our account-bound currencies?

Maybe~

Guild Commendations – 150 commendations, any stats
Badges of Honor – 800 badges, any stats
Dungeon Tokens – 1,000 w/ stat combinations matching the each dungeons’ existing flavors
Fractal Relics – 1,500 w/ stat combinations matching the current capacitors

((all quantities subject to change and offered only to inspire thought))

Nike,

This is a great suggestion! But what do you think would be an appropriate number of dungeon tokens (we’ll use that as an example) to buy Ascended armor? Right now it costs 1380 tokens to buy a dungeon armor set. Should you be able to buy Ascended armor with tokens from just one dungeon or should it require tokens from all dungeons to purchase Ascended armor? i.e. 690 token from each dungeon (5520 total), or something. This would be a great step away from the “need gold to buy anything” mentality.

EDIT: Another thought, they could add new Ascended armor skins for each way you could unlock it. This would add prestige to Ascended armor not just because you have it, but because of the way you unlocked it (i.e. you excel at dungeons, WvW, farming gold, etc.)

~Finn

As long as you are able to buy the piece without requiring each of the currencies…
For example, if I could buy a piece of ascended with 800 honor badges, or 1000 dungeon tokens or 150 commendations..not 800 and 1000 and 150.

I don’t do guild missions, so, for example this would still exclude someone like me. Or, some people don’t run dungeons, or some people do not play WvW…

cesmode.4257:

Finnway.2183:

Nike.2631:

Anyone here have a huge complaint against the idea of being able to buy Ascended Weapon/Armor Chests with some of our account-bound currencies?

Maybe~

Guild Commendations – 150 commendations, any stats
Badges of Honor – 800 badges, any stats
Dungeon Tokens – 1,000 w/ stat combinations matching the each dungeons’ existing flavors
Fractal Relics – 1,500 w/ stat combinations matching the current capacitors

((all quantities subject to change and offered only to inspire thought))

Nike,

This is a great suggestion! But what do you think would be an appropriate number of dungeon tokens (we’ll use that as an example) to buy Ascended armor? Right now it costs 1380 tokens to buy a dungeon armor set. Should you be able to buy Ascended armor with tokens from just one dungeon or should it require tokens from all dungeons to purchase Ascended armor? i.e. 690 token from each dungeon (5520 total), or something. This would be a great step away from the “need gold to buy anything” mentality.

EDIT: Another thought, they could add new Ascended armor skins for each way you could unlock it. This would add prestige to Ascended armor not just because you have it, but because of the way you unlocked it (i.e. you excel at dungeons, WvW, farming gold, etc.)

~Finn

As long as you are able to buy the piece without requiring each of the currencies…
For example, if I could buy a piece of ascended with 800 honor badges, or 1000 dungeon tokens or 150 commendations..not 800 and 1000 and 150.

I don’t do guild missions, so, for example this would still exclude someone like me. Or, some people don’t run dungeons, or some people do not play WvW…

To add onto this, I think it would be an awesome opportunity (should Anet allow us to obtain ascended weapons and armor via other currencies/methods) to add GW1 weapon and armor skins that have been requested so often.

Imagine purchasing an ascended chest for example, choosing a shield, and then deciding to upgrade its looks by purchasing, say, a ‘tormented’ skin for 800 WvW badges or something, and thus turning it into an EPIC looking ascended shield? :-P see attachment below :-P

I do like the idea of being able to upgrade armour to a higher tier by doing a variety of in game activities . However, these activities can’t be too quick or too easy otherwise we’re back to the ‘we got exotic too quick’ scenarios.

Anet do some to under-estimate the ability of the players to get stuff done. Witness how they thought it’d take us weeks to solve new teq. So striking the balance between grind and ease is going to be tricky.

Hmm how about being able to throw 3 pieces of ascended armor into the mystic forge and get a random chance of a piece of the new legendary armor

<hides>

With legendary weapon/(armor! future???) as an exception, The rest of the weapon/armor (rare/exotic/ascended) should be obtainable by running dungeons/WvW/PvE and whatever the game offers in a reasonable amount of time…

…and not by crafting + gold.

Vertical Progression Problem
The Advancement rate of vertical progression is fine, but the moment you have to repeat it for any alt’s it becomes miserable (Particularly when the gear has a laurel cost). We need to view GW2 progress on an account basis and repeatedly grinding the same gear on multiple characters isn’t fun.

Vertical Progression Solution
I would like to see Ascended gear essentially “unlock” for an account when it is achieved. Once a piece of gear is “unlocked” either for the account the player should be able to switch between any stat sets they have “unlocked”. This is similar to the way legendaries can change their stat sets out of combat, but ascended can only change between stat sets that have been unlocked (where as legendarily have access to all stat sets.)

So when a player crafts or finds a piece of ascended beserker medium gloves. When they equip it, they can now have any of their level 80 characters that use medium armor switch their gloves to the stat combo of beserker ascended. If they then acquire cleric gloves, they can switch between cleric and beserker for any of their medium armor glove sets. _Players will still have to unlock each stat set for each weapon type, armor piece and class. BUT it gives them a measurable horizontal progression. _ You can additionally apply this to Exotic & Rare gear, so players can pick between the best stat combo and vertical progression they have unlocked.

_Runes/Sigils should also unlock in this way. _This would make for example +10% damage against undead extremely useful, because if you know your going to encounter undead you can swap to the correct Sigil. _This would encourage players to collect all the runes & sigils. _

Armor & Weapon skins could also unlock in this manner.

As an added bonus, Instead of purchasing Laurel Gear for each character (which is particularly miserable if you have alts) you only need to purchase each piece of gear once.

TL:DR Acquiring Armor, Weapons, Runes, Sigils “Unlocks” the ability to swap between them out of combat similar to legendaries, but players only have access to stat combo’s they have unlocked.

Horizontal Progression Problem
I feel the problem we have with horizontal progression in GW2 is there isn’t an opportunity to utilize any of the horizontal progression you make. For example there is little to no point in me building a healing set when I’m a tank, because it requires me to go back to town and respec to get the maximum use out of it. The same thing goes for skills as your essentially locked into your build/role until you rebuild it.

Solution to Horizontal Progression Problems Problems
The solution to this problem being the ability to dual/multi-spec, so players can explore and use multiple roles with the horizontal progression they achieve in both gear and skills.

Ideally this multispec should hold traits, skills, armor/weapon stat combos, armor cosmetic model, and dye pattern.

Arenanet could sell Additional spec slots that can be swapped at a gem cost, I’d probably pay 800-2000 gems to have that ability.

TL:DR Arenanet needs to add dual/multispec in order to make horizontal progression desirable.

As a 33 year old GW1 and WOW alumni, with a job and a life, I am pretty happy with GW2 progression as it now stands. In particular I feel that vertical progression should be limited to fractals and guild progression. I mean this is GUILD WARS! I think there is a TON of room for guild progression out there and that way you wouldn’t hurt all the casuals who came to this game to be casuals not treadmill gamerholics (speaking as a person who has been both). The horizontal progression has been in my opinion moderately successful so far. The Aetharblade dungeons and the Molten Alliance dungeon were awesome. I had a great time with the Four Winds Bazaar as well. Let’s do more of that. I can’t wait for the Shatterer and the Jormag lieutenant to get updated like Teqautl. Keep that coming imo.

As far as fractals I think you created a wonderful engine through which you can keep hardcore gamers engaged and it’s being a bit underutilized as such. More “Fractured” type updates at least once maybe twice a year. More shinies that ONLY drop in high end fractals. If I could look at someones gear and see their fractal tier based on exclusive drops I think you would have a very good treadmill in a game that doesn’t kitten casuals. To many people including myself, a person fully decked in fractal weapons is obviously gaming at a certain skill level. That can be built on as you bring fractal levels up and release new gear and difficult content. The best part about it is you managed to create a treadmill without seriously impacting the rest of the game.

Let me throw out some wild ideas here so back to guild progression. With Tequatl you proved you can give us real raid content in the living world. Allow a guild a way to gain raid encounters. Allow guilds a way to access exclusive territories in the Edge of the Mist, sounds like a good place to put guild halls? Allow them to place defeated bosses around their halls to defend them. The Edge of the Mist could become a place of actual Guild Wars.I really think that by striking a balance between horizontal character progression, guild vertical progression, and fractal vertical progression using agony, difficulty, and exclusive cosmetics we can have the best game ever here. I am perfectly happy with ascended gear as a tier and the difficulty of attaining it. Same goes for agony resist.

A few fixes I would like to see. Where is our underwater head gear!?!?! Let jewelcrafting hit 500 and gain the ability to restat all these rings and any other ascended gear to the stats we want. Throw in crafting jewel breathing systems for our underwater headgear and we’re good.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Personally i feel like it could be made more accessible through playing different parts of the game. Once we have concluded the discussion on the tightening up of Vertical Progression we will move onto Horizontal discussion. Huzzah (-:

I’m only talking WvW here since it’s the area that I’m interested in most.

It has probably been brought up many times before but just add GW1 type merchants. You give them X gold, Karma, Badges of Honour, Laurel and in return you get Y piece of armour/weapon. Of course the price needs to be mangeable, nothing like we have right now.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Nike.2631:

Anyone here have a huge complaint against the idea of being able to buy Ascended Weapon/Armor Chests with some of our account-bound currencies?

Maybe~

Guild Commendations – 150 commendations, any stats
Badges of Honor – 800 badges, any stats
Dungeon Tokens – 1,000 w/ stat combinations matching the each dungeons’ existing flavors
Fractal Relics – 1,500 w/ stat combinations matching the current capacitors

((all quantities subject to change and offered only to inspire thought))

Good question. And morning/afternoon everyone. Just reading through all the new pages and great discussion. This is awesome.

Chris

I have a huge complaint against numbers that do not make much sense. I know you said they are just to inspire thought but these sort of problems also exist in the game already(the Halloween stuff for example).

150 guild commendations equals 25 weeks minimum assuming you do guild bounty, challenge, rush and puzzle every week and that assuming you are in a guild with all of those unlocked.

1000 dungeon tokens would take about a week or less.

1500 fractal relics is harder due to variance from fractal scale. Assuming 3x scale 6-10 runs per day it takes about a month.

Even if you ignore the actual numbers the less accessible thing should not take 25 times as long.

However, it is a good thing to bring up. Too many things in the game seems to ignore the math and just throws in randomly big numbers. Like kill 1million dolyaks.

I also think adding more things to Guild Commendations is a terrible idea. It already has too much contention as a currency for buying ascended gear. Adding more pressure does not seem right.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Savoy.6824:

In addition to including the orders we joined in the regular game, I would like to see the choices we make represented in game through titles and npc interactions. About 30% of the time weve been given choices in how to proceed with a task and no where have I witnessed an outcome of my choice other than in the immediate path that follows the choice. I think the choices are fist, crown and heart. I dont think we need a system as involved as mass effect or skyrim (though that would be cool) but it would be nice to see your character progress slowly towards the dark side if you will. Please can someone tell me if Im missing something. Do your choices ever show up in the game anywhere?

I think it would be a nice form of horizontal progression.

How would you like to see this system extended Savoy?

What would the activities be and what would the rewards look like? I assume you are thinking it would work with the Karma system?

Chris

I think this is a great starting point for something very powerful. Karma could be expanded to have 2-3 different types that align with your character’s personality.

Personality types can be found at http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Personality

For example: A militant character can gain 3 different kinds of this new special karma. One kind for good, another for evil, and another for neutral.

The effect of this could be, just as one example, when that character crafts his legendary armor. He has to use a certain amount of that new karma. This would provide a special aura that only good militant characters have access to. It would essentially create 30 separate additional effects for the armor that are purely based on the character that is wearing it. If a player wishes to have the armor without the aura they would use the neutral karma.

The players that use the neutral would gain a different effect that would be equally desirable but not quite as flashy as the two auras would be. Something that is as significant and visually sets them apart as the auras would, but something that caters to the minimalists of the community as well.

The new karma could provide access to certain skins. Crafters can get recipes that create skins only, but that skin changes depending on the character’s personality. So a character can craft this skin using some of that new karma and get a different outcome depending on what kind they used.

I think this feature would be even more powerful on weapons. Imagine a barbaric warrior, diplomatic guardian and charming mesmer all with the same greatsword. That greatsword could be in three different “evolved” states based on their personalities. One additional step to this would be three honorable rangers. Each with the same longbow but that long bow in three “evolved” states. One for good, evil, and neutral. It would add some great customization while adding some fun twists to existing skins.

I think a lot of players would like a way to take their t3 cultural armor one step beyond where it is now. This new karma could provide an avenue for that. An unpredictable evil character could combine the karma with other materials to enhance the armor. What I’m thinking is something along the lines of human t3 light -> flamekissed. That’s the type of jump each t3 skin would receive.

One last point is that the new karma could have special ways to gain it. Not only would players get it from just playing the game normally. I.e. events, personal story quests, living world, etc. But also new guild missions specifically for personality advancement and attaining larger quantities of the new personality karma.

The ways to obtain it could be expanded but I think it would provide a powerful way for players to have more ownership over how their character looks. As well as giving the personalities more significance.

Khisanth.2948:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Nike.2631:

Anyone here have a huge complaint against the idea of being able to buy Ascended Weapon/Armor Chests with some of our account-bound currencies?

Maybe~

Guild Commendations – 150 commendations, any stats
Badges of Honor – 800 badges, any stats
Dungeon Tokens – 1,000 w/ stat combinations matching the each dungeons’ existing flavors
Fractal Relics – 1,500 w/ stat combinations matching the current capacitors

((all quantities subject to change and offered only to inspire thought))

Good question. And morning/afternoon everyone. Just reading through all the new pages and great discussion. This is awesome.

Chris

I have a huge complaint against numbers that do not make much sense. I know you said they are just to inspire thought but these sort of problems also exist in the game already(the Halloween stuff for example).

150 guild commendations equals 25 weeks minimum assuming you do guild bounty, challenge, rush and puzzle every week and that assuming you are in a guild with all of those unlocked.

1000 dungeon tokens would take about a week or less.

1500 fractal relics is harder due to variance from fractal scale. Assuming 3x scale 6-10 runs per day it takes about a month.

Even if you ignore the actual numbers the less accessible thing should not take 25 times as long.

However, it is a good thing to bring up. Too many things in the game seems to ignore the math and just throws in randomly big numbers. Like kill 1million dolyaks.

I also think adding more things to Guild Commendations is a terrible idea. It already has too much contention as a currency for buying ascended gear. Adding more pressure does not seem right.

I like the overall concept though…utilizing existing currencies individually. I have nearly 3,000 honor badges going to waste. I do not want to have to accumulate commendations, tokens, karma, and badges. Id like to play the one or two areas that I may be interested in (for example dungeons and WvW) and work on my progression that way.

Or, and Ive been saying this since the dawn of time…just use karma! Its the universal currency and is literally rewarded with everything you do in game.

I have not read through this thread, just wanted to give my point of view.

We have had enough of progression. An increase of the levelcap would only, and I say only, be okay if the current gear/weapons got an increase aswell so that you could keep them. And then, honestly, what is the point? Only one I can think of is to give us more trait-points.

As for gear, I have a lvl 80 char of every class and getting ascended gear is just tedious to me. It would have been slightly better if it wasnt timegated, I`m stuck due to laurels btw, but what I enjoy is this game`s diversity in builds and classes. Getting gear for all my alts and builds would take years, even if playing the game non-stop. Adding a cheap and easy way to give asceded gear the ability to change stats like legendary weapons would be the only progression I will endorse. It will take us back to where we started off with exotic gear, only with more bagspace and easier PvE-content.

Edit: And yea, a way of buying ascended gear with WvW-badges, dungeon-tokens or karma would be very appreciated. In my opinion, stuff like laurels should be an added bonus for regular players, not the chokepoint ogf progression.