Guild Wars 2

The game has been out for almost 2 years now, and all the tiny but good improvements aside (like achievement chests and skins), the big features we got were:

> More Story and some events with living story. These brought some new minigames that were extremely fun, but hardly something new that was “core”
>Ascended gear
>1 new healing skill per class

That´s basically it. If you reached level 80 with a character in the first month of release, all you did for 2 years to advance that character was get ascended gear, which takes about a month or two.

When are we getting actually new things for character progression, like a new class, new skills, new weapons, new skill slots or even a rework/expansion of our skill slot system to allow more freedom to make your builds that isn’t just fully locked to one class. Where is the horizontal progression you spoke of? Where is the hammer engineer people have been asking since day 1?

I heard NCSOFT pulled gw2 personal to work on wild star and you are short on people. Is this true? Should we expect nothing more than living story again for a whole year?

Can you at least tell us you are working on something exciting? All MMO companies do that, when they have something half-worked on and ready to launch in a few months they at least let people know some expansion or new thing is coming. Is something coming at all?

I speak as a person not fully happy with any of the classes in the game – something new weapons/skills could easily change, yet I have no idea if you will actually deliver them this year.

Post ITT if you also want to know when GW2 will start working like a traditional MMO giving character progression and customization to its players, be it horizontal or vertical.

I wouldn’t mind a paid expansion with new class/race or something with a few more zones but we all know it’s only fun for so long. I actually enjoy how Anet does these “seasonal” things along with their Living story.

So with no sub costs … I’m still enjoying the game. But if you’re looking for a job required to do ‘xyz’ just to progress your hero, well then this game isn’t for you.

If they ever add any further vertical progression I’ll leave instantly. More personal story would be cool with better rewards (new skills and weapon unlocks that you learn while doing them.) I honestly don’t care about a new class but wouldn’t be against it, and new race and zones would be cool ofc.

I don’t think we are going to get any of it tbh, maybe some zones with LS slowly over time and maybe a new skill every year or so (maybe.) I truly hope this isn’t the case because the game is about 2 very smalls steps away from being uninstalled for me. =/

Hopeless.5403:

But if you’re looking for a job required to do ‘xyz’ just to progress your hero

As my post clearly states I, and a lot of people, are looking for more character customization. That can be new weapons, new skills, talents to a lesser degree, more skill slots or anything else anet comes up with that gives us more options.

Vertical progression doesn’t need to mean better gear Paddy. I also don’t want a carrot on a stick game for stronger gear, stop at ascended and it´s fine.

But it can mean having new skill slots that would unlock for new characters somewhere along the lines, out-of-combat skills that you can gain (like a travel skill), and so on.

there is enough vertical progression (they added ascended)……….all other progression should be purely cosmetic (but non-gem store) and achievable through completing difficult tasks (there is enough grind/farming and rng is a terrible way to “progress” aesthetically).

I’d call that horizontal progression, vertical is a power creep. I wouldn’t call skills or skins vertical.

Totally agree that :

A: there’s not enough permanent story
B: LS wasn’t based off of the personal main storyline at all
C: Their rewards system is terrible, we’ve given them lots of examples for improvements
D: Vertical progression is a grind at best and when it’s done there’s nothing really to do.
E: We need lots of new skills and traits and improvements to combat so all builds will be equal in PVE.
F: We need more communication on plans on what’s to come.

What I’d really like to see is a player council formed of all of the player types in the game from RP to PVE open worlders so that we can get a real PTR in which that council will experience first hand and you can see their reactions before releasing the patch making changes before releasing, especially in the ui revamps and combat balance sections of this game, there are serious holes in the design. And I’d prefer these players be people who are not already crazed drooling fans that post every week how much they love everything you do no matter what it is, we need more scrutiny.

Finally, I’d just like to destroy people’s notions that somehow Ascended isn’t a power creep. It has increase stats the armor and weapons aren’t just for fractals so therefor it’s a creep, and don’t give me none of that % to kill mess either I’ve seen how much it improved my Engineer.

Asc. gear is a power creep yes, but it’s a less necessary (compared to other games) one. I am ok with 1 extra tier of gear that is harder to get so people who enjoy that have something to work towards as long as it stops there.

More than anything this game needs a PTR.

PTR would be nice, at least we would get information on upcoming patches sooner

They need to get over their balance concerns and just give us new weapons and skills to acquire and experiment with. This is taking far too long. Balance will never be perfect, so holding everything back for the sake of it is not a worthwhile tradeoff.

The other major needed thing is new core content. One megadungeon (Fractals) and one small zone (Southsun) is not adequate after this much time. It’s time for more. I sure hope they’ve retooled the LS for season 2 to open up more core content.

At this point, I’d settle for just more existing weapons to be made viable in PvE, like warrior offhand Axe, and existing systems to be fixed, like mesmer sword #3 being still bugged and how warriors basically have no useful class mechanics whatsoever for PvE.

If you believe that NCSoft removed staff from Anet to work on Wildstar then you have no understanding of how publishing companies work.

Anet, NCSoft and whoever makes Wildstar are still separate companies and NCSoft as the publisher doesn’t have that kind of control over either of the other two. They can decide how much money they’re going to give either the company as a whole or specific projects but they probably don’t even get to decide what’s done with that money – how much each persons salary will be, how much goes on new equipment, how many people in the team etc.

They could reduce the budget for new GW2 content and as a result of that some staff could lose their jobs and then be hired to work on Wildstar, but they can’t directly move people between companies.

Also I can’t say I’m always checking but every time I have checked Anet has been looking to hire more staff, not reducing the number of employees.

If you are looking for MEANINGFUL progression, this game ain’t for you.

This is the type of game where you hit max lvl in a week or less and bam, you already in endgame gear. Exotic gear is more than enough to do every content this game has to offer (outside High lvl fractals)

The only progression from there on out is just PvP/WvW ranks, Gemstore skins and ascended/legendary farm. Also Achievement Point farm but thats ridiculous. Thats it. If you haven’t figured that out by now, you need to re-think life lol.

You could have quit 1 year ago and logged back in today and you would still find that you can do 100% of the content in this game. This is a casual players dream land. Nothing hardcore, grind it out , real progression wise will be added to the game (ascended is a joke, and half the player population is running around in sparkling legendaries so they aren’t that big of a deal. Some exotic skins are even better than legendaries)
Nothing skillful required to do the very easy PvE this game has to offer. Hop on a zerg and win. Or if you want, just buy w/e you want from the gemstore with cash and win.

You want progression, go play 07runescape, WildStar/ESO/WoW. You are not gonna find a TRUE MMO progression in this game.

SkiTz.4590:

If you are looking for MEANINGFUL progression, this game ain’t for you.

This is the type of game where you hit max lvl in a week or less and bam, you already in endgame gear. Exotic gear is more than enough to do every content this game has to offer (outside High lvl fractals)

The only progression from there on out is just PvP/WvW ranks, Gemstore skins and ascended/legendary farm. Also Achievement Point farm but thats ridiculous. Thats it. If you haven’t figured that out by now, you need to re-think life lol.

You could have quit 1 year ago and logged back in today and you would still find that you can do 100% of the content in this game. This is a casual players dream land. Nothing hardcore, grind it out , real progression wise will be added to the game (ascended is a joke, and half the player population is running around in sparkling legendaries so they aren’t that big of a deal. Some exotic skins are even better than legendaries)
Nothing skillful required to do the very easy PvE this game has to offer. Hop on a zerg and win. Or if you want, just buy w/e you want from the gemstore with cash and win.

You want progression, go play 07runescape, WildStar/ESO/WoW. You are not gonna find a TRUE MMO progression in this game.

I wouldn’t quite call running in circles in a never ending treadmill ‘true’ progression…..

Revler.2359:

More Story and some events with living story. These brought some new minigames that were extremely fun, but hardly something new that was “core”
Ascended gear
1 new healing skill per class

You forgot something:

The removed the character personality feature. For what little good it was, it was at least there. But hey, less is more!

What character personality feature?

I played since day one (not during beta), but not sure what you are referring to

Xae Isareth.1364:

SkiTz.4590:

If you are looking for MEANINGFUL progression, this game ain’t for you.

This is the type of game where you hit max lvl in a week or less and bam, you already in endgame gear. Exotic gear is more than enough to do every content this game has to offer (outside High lvl fractals)

The only progression from there on out is just PvP/WvW ranks, Gemstore skins and ascended/legendary farm. Also Achievement Point farm but thats ridiculous. Thats it. If you haven’t figured that out by now, you need to re-think life lol.

You could have quit 1 year ago and logged back in today and you would still find that you can do 100% of the content in this game. This is a casual players dream land. Nothing hardcore, grind it out , real progression wise will be added to the game (ascended is a joke, and half the player population is running around in sparkling legendaries so they aren’t that big of a deal. Some exotic skins are even better than legendaries)
Nothing skillful required to do the very easy PvE this game has to offer. Hop on a zerg and win. Or if you want, just buy w/e you want from the gemstore with cash and win.

You want progression, go play 07runescape, WildStar/ESO/WoW. You are not gonna find a TRUE MMO progression in this game.

I wouldn’t quite call running in circles in a never ending treadmill ‘true’ progression…..

Aye I wouldn’t either, but its progress nonetheless.
You hit 80 here and you can pretty much accomplish anything you want to do outside high lvl fracs or super dedicated WvW roaming groups/ tpvp teams. Those are the only things in this game that require you to actually think and work hard as group.

You can’t do endgame things just because you hit the max lvl in those other MMOs.
Here you can hop a zerg in wvw anytime and win, farm a champ train and win, do any dungs, etc etc

Revler.2359:

What character personality feature?

I played since day one (not during beta), but not sure what you are referring to

The Charm/Dignity/Ferocity thing.

You are right, you can still use charm/ferocity/dignity in conversations, but it doesn’t show in your character anymore

Honestly, that wasn’t a really great system anyway, it was kinda limiting player dialogue and wasn’t used for anything else.

SkiTz.4590:

Xae Isareth.1364:

SkiTz.4590:

If you are looking for MEANINGFUL progression, this game ain’t for you.

This is the type of game where you hit max lvl in a week or less and bam, you already in endgame gear. Exotic gear is more than enough to do every content this game has to offer (outside High lvl fractals)

The only progression from there on out is just PvP/WvW ranks, Gemstore skins and ascended/legendary farm. Also Achievement Point farm but thats ridiculous. Thats it. If you haven’t figured that out by now, you need to re-think life lol.

You could have quit 1 year ago and logged back in today and you would still find that you can do 100% of the content in this game. This is a casual players dream land. Nothing hardcore, grind it out , real progression wise will be added to the game (ascended is a joke, and half the player population is running around in sparkling legendaries so they aren’t that big of a deal. Some exotic skins are even better than legendaries)
Nothing skillful required to do the very easy PvE this game has to offer. Hop on a zerg and win. Or if you want, just buy w/e you want from the gemstore with cash and win.

You want progression, go play 07runescape, WildStar/ESO/WoW. You are not gonna find a TRUE MMO progression in this game.

I wouldn’t quite call running in circles in a never ending treadmill ‘true’ progression…..

Aye I wouldn’t either, but its progress nonetheless.
You hit 80 here and you can pretty much accomplish anything you want to do outside high lvl fracs or super dedicated WvW roaming groups/ tpvp teams. Those are the only things in this game that require you to actually think and work hard as group.

You can’t do endgame things just because you hit the max lvl in those other MMOs.
Here you can hop a zerg in wvw anytime and win, farm a champ train and win, do any dungs, etc etc

Well, you see, when Anet tries to make open world ‘hard’, it turns out we can;t do it cos the average player has the organisational capabilities of a bag of peanuts.

@OP: It’s 2 healing skills (you forgot Antitoxin Spray), and you forgot the 5 new traits too.

Keep in mind that the Ascended gear was released slowly over time. With hastened rates. And we got new stat combinations as well (Apothecary’s, Sentinel’s, Settler’s, Celestial’s, Zealot’s, etc.). So while when you look at things in generals such as “Ascended gear” then it’ll look smaller than the progression has actually done, making it look like a single update rather than the 5 updates Ascended gear alone was.

Also, it’s been 1.5 years, not 2 years. Yes, it matters.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

@OP: It’s 2 healing skills (you forgot Antitoxin Spray), and you forgot the 5 new traits too.

Keep in mind that the Ascended gear was released slowly over time. With hastened rates. And we got new stat combinations as well (Apothecary’s, Sentinel’s, Settler’s, Celestial’s, Zealot’s, etc.). So while when you look at things in generals such as “Ascended gear” then it’ll look smaller than the progression has actually done, making it look like a single update rather than the 5 updates Ascended gear alone was.

Also, it’s been 1.5 years, not 2 years. Yes, it matters.

Heya, Konig.
It released on August 28, 2012. So technically it has been 1.75 years (a few days shy of 1 year and 9 months).
Not being a troll, just pointing it out.

Honestly, 1 year without serious new character progression or at least new classes is a lot for an MMO.

I really liked leveling up on this game, because that was all about unlocking skills, learning your character and testing him against enemies solo while you cleared areas or in dungeons. Leveling up in GW2 is a 10/10 to all classes I raised to 80, after that even if we had new dungeons and new whatevers to do all the time it simply wouldn’t be as fun because character customization halts by the time you reach 80.

I’m doing my best to keep enjoying this game, raising a Necromancer now, but I really hope anet can give us an ‘expansion-like’ content that was just as original and creative as the vanilla game and that got us hooked

Revler.2359:

Honestly, 1 year without serious new character progression or at least new classes is a lot for an MMO.

I really liked leveling up on this game, because that was all about unlocking skills, learning your character and testing him against enemies solo while you cleared areas or in dungeons. Leveling up in GW2 is a 10/10 to all classes I raised to 80, after that even if we had new dungeons and new whatevers to do all the time it simply wouldn’t be as fun because character customization halts by the time you reach 80.

I’m doing my best to keep enjoying this game, raising a Necromancer now, but I really hope anet can give us an ‘expansion-like’ content that was just as original and creative as the vanilla game and that got us hooked

I agree with this completely. Where is Elona? Where is Cantha? Why should i care about the Zephyrites? Where are the Dervishes and the Paragons? The Ritualists and the Assasins? Why should i care about any of these new things?
_

My greatest problem right now is that the player gets no recognition for what you’ve done. For example: In the current Living Story event i was sitting and eagerly awaiting to be presented for the Master of Peace as all the others who helped kill Scarlet were introduced but i never got anything. Only Anet’s precious NPCs got any recognition… There was none for The Slayer of Zhaitan, none for the Sunbringer, none for the Hero of Kryta. Where is my recognition for what i’ve done?

Angangseh.3754:

Revler.2359:

Honestly, 1 year without serious new character progression or at least new classes is a lot for an MMO.

I really liked leveling up on this game, because that was all about unlocking skills, learning your character and testing him against enemies solo while you cleared areas or in dungeons. Leveling up in GW2 is a 10/10 to all classes I raised to 80, after that even if we had new dungeons and new whatevers to do all the time it simply wouldn’t be as fun because character customization halts by the time you reach 80.

I’m doing my best to keep enjoying this game, raising a Necromancer now, but I really hope anet can give us an ‘expansion-like’ content that was just as original and creative as the vanilla game and that got us hooked

I agree with this completely. Where is Elona? Where is Cantha? Why should i care about the Zephyrites? Where are the Dervishes and the Paragons? The Ritualists and the Assasins? Why should i care about any of these new things?
_

My greatest problem right now is that the player gets no recognition for what you’ve done. For example: In the current Living Story event i was sitting and eagerly awaiting to be presented for the Master of Peace as all the others who helped kill Scarlet were introduced but i never got anything. Only Anet’s precious NPCs got any recognition… There was none for The Slayer of Zhaitan, none for the Sunbringer, none for the Hero of Kryta. Where is my recognition for what i’ve done?

I thought this is where we were mentioned:

Captain Ellen Kiel: “Along with their leader, these brave people have been the city’s staunchest and most effective volunteer defenders.”

I’d have to disagree on the lack of content on principle. I’d call it more a failure in implementation.

If you pile up all the rolling seasonal stuff and the living story, it amounts to a fairly substantial amount of new content. Every two weeks to a month there’s been something new. The key issue as to why people don’t see it that way is because it’s been so fleeting. You do it once and it’s gone, so it’s hard to grasp the actual volume of it. I’d guess it was an attempt to keep people coming back to the game every month or so rather than sitting out for long spells. But once it’s over…there’s nothing to go back to.

Though characters have taken a back seat lately. I have to assume this was to make things easier for content generation, but with every character being the same generic hero it’s hard to actually buy into the story. I find some of it too forced to take seriously, honestly. Maybe that’s MMO’s for you, but it still seems to me like the characters themselves are stuck where the personal story ended.

Why’s pretty complicated, I think. Gear grind and levels are a pretty fleeting thing. Stacking up more numbers doesn’t really change any of the gameplay. Gaining levels was never really an important part of the game. Neither was getting super gear. After a couple months virtually any character could have a set of exotics. Ascended and legendaries were the only gear anyone ever had to grind for long-term, and they offered only a marginal bonus. Something to work for, sure. But again, not actually a foundation of the game. Fractals are the only part of the game where you actually need the gear grind for progression.

I’d wager there haven’t been new classes or massive wholesale additions to skills because of balancing. If there isn’t an obvious role for a new class, then adding one with useful benefits makes an existing one obsolete and accomplishes essentially nothing. Similarly with skills and traits, adding things in for the sake of adding new stuff doesn’t help either. You need to find holes where new traits can do new things without supplanting old ones and screwing up class balance.

Adding skills is mechanically very easy compared to creating content. So are level caps and gear with more numbers. Constantly getting more levels and numbers is no less a treadmill than what we have now. It in fact, forces people to keep replacing stuff they’ve worked for to keep up rather than just doing whatever they want. Where does that sort of thing take you?

So I’d challenge what your definition of progression is. I think progression is measurable achievements and personality. If it came down to what I personally wanted for the future, it’d be new maps. Exploration and blundering into events for the first time were the best parts of this game. The only gear I really want to see is more variety in skins and customization. Meaningful progression for me is being able to do content that’s harder. There’s a lot of ways you can go about that.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Angangseh.3754:

Revler.2359:

Honestly, 1 year without serious new character progression or at least new classes is a lot for an MMO.

I really liked leveling up on this game, because that was all about unlocking skills, learning your character and testing him against enemies solo while you cleared areas or in dungeons. Leveling up in GW2 is a 10/10 to all classes I raised to 80, after that even if we had new dungeons and new whatevers to do all the time it simply wouldn’t be as fun because character customization halts by the time you reach 80.

I’m doing my best to keep enjoying this game, raising a Necromancer now, but I really hope anet can give us an ‘expansion-like’ content that was just as original and creative as the vanilla game and that got us hooked

I agree with this completely. Where is Elona? Where is Cantha? Why should i care about the Zephyrites? Where are the Dervishes and the Paragons? The Ritualists and the Assasins? Why should i care about any of these new things?
_

My greatest problem right now is that the player gets no recognition for what you’ve done. For example: In the current Living Story event i was sitting and eagerly awaiting to be presented for the Master of Peace as all the others who helped kill Scarlet were introduced but i never got anything. Only Anet’s precious NPCs got any recognition… There was none for The Slayer of Zhaitan, none for the Sunbringer, none for the Hero of Kryta. Where is my recognition for what i’ve done?

I thought this is where we were mentioned:

Captain Ellen Kiel: “Along with their leader, these brave people have been the city’s staunchest and most effective volunteer defenders.”

Hmm… I’ll have to check again

horizontal progression = new skins and wardrobe

Horizontal progression with a more diversified playstyle will be a good start. That may be in terms of more skills, more traits, combining power or even playstyle between classes, more zones, more professions, etc..

Most of the time, when I am running with a zerg or a pug, I can count all variable builds for each class in two hands. I may be wrong, but I still think diversity is a way forward.

2014: Why aren’t people reading about games before they buy them?

DusK.3849:

2014: Why aren’t people reading about games before they buy them?

I think most of them did anyway.

The problem is that, I believe, enjoyment and excitment have the tendency to subside after a while. For example I did enjoy the game when I first played it in beta; and I am still enjoying it although not to the same degree. I nonetheless would not mind a little reinvigoration that would bring new enjoyment and excitment to this game.

Character progession is one key things that is likely to achieve that; and even bring new players in. It also shows the devs are still committed to the game.

There are normally two ways of doing it: a) new contents but with the same old characters playing it; or b) new charaters – i.e. new powers, new professions, new power combos etc. – but with the same old contents. There are of course c) all of the above but that is rarely seen. ANet is not doing so bad with a) new contents. But very disappointing in b) new characters.

If ANet can keep up with a) but start to work on b), that would really improve the game.

The key is simply: Diversity.

By the way, I once read something about having subclasses within a class. What happened to it?

Those are really good and reasonable questions, OP. Unfortunately, they do everything differently and most things they do wrong (not before release, but after…).

It’s literally almost nothing we could do with our characters since release. The game is extremely stale and boring and I won’t play anymore until some substantive content is released (no, not quality of life stuff, this is just expected and no Living (Gem Store) Story with shallow zerg content. I want a new campaign with vast new regions, a new race, new skills, new weapons etc etc. The stuff you’d expect from a soonish 2 year old MMO…

^ this guy is right,Order related quests,racial quests,actual side missions for the Pact,or even the good ol´ sidequest with npc´s..anything storywise is better than this..granted we got a huge amount of content in this year and a half on LS..but most of it went away…

Dark Catalyst.1028:

Character progression is in the gemstore. Have you purchased all it has to offer?

That’s mean… but it’s the bitter truth. Lol.

DusK.3849:

2014: Why aren’t people reading about games before they buy them?

Did anet say they had no plans to introduce new skills, new weapons and new classes ever when they released Guild Wars 2?

Character progression is there, and it’s extremely slow. I have a character of every profession aside from necro and none of them are nearly even finished in terms of gear.

I guess if you play the game constantly and run one toon you might have nothing left to do. Roll another toon. We dont need more upper progression, making the game miserable for everyone who doesn’t focus everything into a single character. Being outgeared by other players in every scenario isn’t fun.

We got new gm traits

Living Story killed this game. They wasted all those resources on temporary content and gem store items, when they could’ve used it for permanent updates and full armor sets, which could’ve been obtainable in game. Instead we got one-piece glove, back, and helm skins. Such a waste.

nexxe.7081:

Living Story killed this game. They wasted all those resources on temporary content and gem store items, when they could’ve used it for permanent updates and full armor sets, which could’ve been obtainable in game.

I agree partially. Temporary content is bad yes, but the LS system itself is not necessarily bad, although I don’t think is particular good either. Let´s see what they do with LS2, maybe they can make that players – and most importantly guilds – actually influence things now, that would make it more interesting.

But what killed this game for me is no new exciting things related to character progression (not in the sense of gear looks) and gameplay changes/improvements other than balance

Anet needs to give us the tools to create our own fun now… that’s where SANDBOXES are so much better than themeparks. RIP GW2

This game really needs more skills. They don’t need to create a whole spell book full of them but I would love two weapon skills per button for each weapon. It would make character builds more fun and unique. Limiting skills for balance is not good. It creates stagnant and very repetitive gameplay.

Anet just throw your balancing concerns out the window. Its only going to make this game boring and stale.

Sherpder.1834:

This game really needs more skills. They don’t need to create a whole spell book full of them but I would love two weapon skills per button for each weapon. It would make character builds more fun and unique. Limiting skills for balance is not good. It creates stagnant and very repetitive gameplay.

Anet just throw your balancing concerns out the window. Its only going to make this game boring and stale.

They have dreams of being an e-sport, so they’re somewhat paranoid about balance.

Their job is to give us more character customization AND balance at the same time.

We don’t have to settle for them having a hard time balancing over 2 years and therefore not giving us new customization.