Guild Wars 2

Elthuzar.9478:

To add to the NPC faction idea. What if your achievements for slaying monsters granted abilities and bonuses when fighting those creatures, in a similar way to WvW ranks. For example:

• Kill 500 Centaurs to gain a rank in Centaur slayer

I don’t get it why people want more grind when they could have a system which isn’t about doing the same things over and over again.

GW2 is a game about exploration, the design is that you move on (enemies who have been alive a while give bonus xp). I’d do it more like this:

1 centaur-related event = +1 point
an other centaur-related event you haven’t done = +5 points
a third new one = +10 points
a fourth new one = +15 points

when you repeat one event, you get 0 points for it. Find a fifth one = +20 points. …

This way you will be encouraged to go out and find events you haven’t done before. Only players who find 90% of all the centaur-related events will get to the highest tier of reputation.

For the last tiers there could also be very hard player-started events which only trigger for top tier players. Like this: “the Seraph commanders think about a final attack from their highest rank elite soldiers into the heart of the centaur-fortress”.

Don’t know how much this would contribute to progression but I think that gathering should be a skill that levels up every time you gather materials.
Similar to Runescape where you chop trees to level up woodcutting and you need to level the skill in order to use higher level gathering tools to upgrade from a bronze axe to an iron axe then steel, mithril, rune. The progression system in that game felt extremely rewarding and addicting because of that.
So in this game they could make it work how it is in Runescape like you keep mining ore to level up mining and level up mining in order to upgrade to a higher mining tool and be able to mine higher resources. They could also introduce a new gathering skill like fishing.

I have trouble identifying what is exactly meant by horizontal progression but from what I read I should be on topic.

1) Armor skins

I think a huge issue for your artist right now is that they are somewhat forced to create 3 version of an armor set each time they want to create one (human/sylvari/norn, asura and charr versions). I feel like this is sometimes leading to forced odd results on some races as well as way harder/longer to create.

In the meantime you have the concept of cultural armor… see where this is going ? I strongly believe you should stop trying to make universal sets all the time (they’re still good if the set is well-suited to be universal) and maybe launch race-specific armors.

Maybe I’m wrong and your artists appreciate that but at least ask them how they feel about that ! Your armor skins were really really nice in GW1 and I can’t find as much diversity and as many armors I really want to wear so unless your whole artist team has changed I assume they’re having difficulties with multiple races.

2) Weapon skills.

Here comes an idea about opening build possibilities and strengthening trait importance.

Weapon skills are the biggest part of our skills since most utilities are specialized with sometimes long cooldown, elites are even worse in that regard (cf next point) and healing skills are just… well, healing^^. What if those weapon skills weren’t set in stones ?

Right now most weapon traits follow this pattern : “[weapon] skills recharge 20% faster and [effect] when wielding a [weapon]”. Sometimes the effect is interesting (mesmer focus for instance), sometimes it just feels meh (mesmer scepter ?). Besides, 20% recharge, while being effective, doesn’t feel that strong, it doesn’t feel like using this trait really enhances your abilities with a weapon.

Now here is the idea : I think traits allowing some new skills for a weapon would be great. Imagine this : one entire new set of skills for a weapon, without the trait you can only use “basic” skills but with the trait for each of the five skills you can choose an alternate skill (maybe several sets of skills with more trait ?). Those skills do not have to be stronger than the basic ones, they just need to offer another way to play the weapon. This also puts some pressure on traits : do you want weapon skills possibilities or recharge time ? do you want both ? how many trait points will it cost ?

3) Elite skills.

I won’t say too much here, I’ve seen others speak about it. In a nutshell : elite skills are mostly negligable in a build because of their long cooldown and short effects. Some examples of terrible elites and okay-ish elites so you can see how I see current elite skills :

-Guardian tomes : probably my least favorite elites right now. You lose your skills, can’t auto-attack, most of your skills are not that effective and everything feels slow. The only use I ever had for those were in HL fractals to restore everyone’s health and I hated to have to have that role, actually I used the fifth skill and then dropped the tome instantly.

-Mass invisibility : 5sec of stealth with long cast animation and 90sec cooldown. This can almost never be useful : if you need stealth, bring a thief, end of story. Thief has a utility with basically better everything but range, elites should be strong to justify a high cooldown and this one is just really weak.

-Polymorph moa : not sure about competitive modes but I have never seen this work on a boss and is not interesting on other monsters because they rarely live more than 10sec anyway and because 180sec cd is absurdly high.

Now some elites I like better :

-Renewed focus : the cooldown is high but at least the skill is clearly useful ! Whenever you can’t dodge a huge attack or can’t handle the pressure on you you can use this to retreat safely and recover your virtues.

-Basilisk venom : short cooldown ! The only elite skill that is likely to be used twice in a (non boss) fight ! The effect is interesting since it can disable a foe regardless of defiance stacks (unlekittenanged). And, last but not least, this skills can be severely enhanced through traits ! Probably the best designed elite skills in my opinion.

-Flesh golem : okay-ish cooldown that doesn’t matter too much because the golem can stay with you for a very long time. The golem is useful no matter what, doesn’t cost anything except an elite slot (I’d trade most of my elite slots for a golem :p) and its charge is fun ! Once again, can be enhanced through traits !

One can disagree on my opinion on those examples but I think everyone agrees we want elites to be included in our builds, not just a side skill to use sometime.

HiddenNick.7206:

Am I the only one a bit disappointed… All that this community could think off is generally: “more of the same”. Where are the crazy ideas of some new progression systems? Or suggestions about something that could be copied from other games?

Sorry …
I have tons to propose .. but it asks me a whole day to write the moitier of my first proposals easy …
The misfortune to be French and zero in english. And Google translate, to go faster, it’s … even worse!! >.< pouark.
Kulvar! help meee é.è

Time for some crazy ideas. Here’s the first one. It’s called head hunter challenges. Content for 1-2 players.

1.) You buy a signet of capture from a karma vendor
2.) You cast it on a champion in the open world.
3.) Now you return to a Norn fighting arena.
4.) The claimed champion is waiting in the arena to fight you. The arena is instanced but other players can spectate, just like Queens Gauntlet but without the dome. Just an invisible wall.
5.) You can bring along one player to help you.
6.) increased rewards: 5-8 dragonite ore and 3 champion lootbags and 1 skillpoint. Once a day you have +500% MF on that special skin the champ is dropping.

here’s where the horizontal progression comes in:

• there is an achievement for killing every champion in the game. You have a checklist (!!) (including location) where killed enemies got crossed out.
• once you’ve defeated all champions in a family, you unlock a mega-champion of that family as extra challenge.
• rewards would be minis for each killed family, a 22slot bag for each family.

So here horizontal progression is about progressing in difficult challenges, finishing a checklist and getting partial rewards for completing certain categories (killing each champ of a family (e.g. centaurs). This could accompany a reputation-system as well.

Sykper.6583:

- Specific Horizontial progression paths (Dungeons for dungeon tokens for specific armor sets) are fine, but is there a possibility for doing group events in the same zone as the dungeon for minor payouts of the same tokens? For instance killing the dredge commisour in Dredgehaunt cliffs can grant just a few Sorrow’s Embrace tokens like its dungeon counterpart as a daily?

I like this idea, It doesnt have to be a large amount but it would give me more reason to go after dungeon armors.

There has been a lot of argument about sub-classes, and perhaps this suggestion could help please both parties:

What if, instead of adding full sub-classes, we instead had aesthetic or stylized changes (mostly visual) from your trait selection?

Allow me to give an EXAMPLE. I will use Mesmer since I know it best:

EX. 1: A Mesmer who has put 20 points into Domination has red particle effects instead of purple. This could also just unlock the choice to have either red or purple effects, toggled in the Hero menu.

EX. 2: A Mesmer who has traited Illusionary Persona has an ethereal glow effect around their character. (Could also possibly be toggled)

EX. 3: A Mesmer who has 30 points in Chaos has access to a special Chaos Finisher in WvW/PvP/etc.

I don’t think there should be any change in skills or balance related to this; the trait system already allows for major changes to play style based on point allocation, and sub-classes would hardly be able to do more than what this system already has in place.

This kind of change would serve many of the design philosophies already in place. You are able to see visual representations of what is happening IN the game rather than in the UI. You FEEL the benefits of your trait selection more simply by getting visual confirmation of them.

I think we have already been given much of the effect that sub-classes would have through simple build diversity and traits, and adding sub-classes would only lead to players asking for more sub-classes. Adding one or two of these aesthetic or style options to each trait line would fit this need without requiring entire sub-classes be made.

I really hope some of the artists come into this thread to comment on our ideas. =D

another crazy idea, I call it “guards and treasure maps”

First of all we know that there are a lot of veterans in the game, some of them in not very obvious locations. Killing one veteran would give you 1/5 piece of a random treasure-map from any random area in the game.

• it can take a while to get all 5 parts of a map since you could get the same piece again from another veteran.
• combine the 5 parts to a treasuremap which shows the location of 3 champions in a zone.
• only one of those guards a skin (one of the skins from the champion loot bags). Find the correct one and kill him to get the skin guaranteed. Kill the wrong and you’ll get the skin from one of the other 2.

Why this way?

1.) You can’t run around with a farm-train since everyone would have different 3 champions on his map. The skin only drops if you have the treasuremap in your inventory. The map becomes worthless once you get the skin.

2.) You’re rewarded for exploring the map since there are much more veterans in very different locations. A more longterm-project than directly waypointing to each champion and be done with the farming after a month. You’d get those map-pieces while playing the game… something you collect until you get the puzzles complete.

Example:

Player A kills veterans in WvW. After a month he accumulated 4/5 Queensdale map-pieces, 2/5 Wayfarer Foothills map-pieces, 3/5 Southsun Cove map-pieces,… etc. His friend player B killed the same veterans, also in WvW, and got totally different map-pieces. He completed Wayfarer Foothills just minutes ago. Now 3 champions appear on his WF-map. One of these guards a skin. He takes Player A along, but since only he has champion XY on a completed WF-map, only he can loot the skin.

It was a lot of work, but it’s not too random since he coud watch the progression via. the map-pieces. The more veterans he kills, the earlier he gets his next skin.

Important note: the map-pieces need to have an own UI, so that the bags won’t get full of these. Something like the wallet I suppose.

Crazy idea no3:

Dr. Heinemanns critter box: Dr. Heinemann is a NPC who sells critter boxes. Each critter box has 8 empty slots for 8 random critters (the small neutral mini-animals all around the world).

• find those 9 critters and put them into the box
• bring the full box to Dr. Heinemann and exchange it for either 2g or a random mini from Mini-Set 3 (which you can only get from this activity) (chance to get a rare mini).

You also get a bestiary from Dr. Heinemann once you’ve traded with him 3 times. From now on each found and traded critter will get an unlock in the bestiary. A full bestiary yields the title “Crittermaster” and a special Mini.

HiddenNick.7206:

Am I the only one a bit disappointed… All that this community could think off is generally: “more of the same”. Where are the crazy ideas of some new progression systems? Or suggestions about something that could be copied from other games?

I think it’s better to start within the realm of the familiar to see how present systems could be adapted, because I think those things have a greater likelihood of being implemented. Gotta crawl before you run.

That said, I’d love to hear your crazy ideas for new progression systems.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Time for some crazy ideas. Here’s the first one. It’s called head hunter challenges. Content for 1-2 players.

1.) You buy a signet of capture from a karma vendor
2.) You cast it on a champion in the open world.
3.) Now you return to a Norn fighting arena.
4.) The claimed champion is waiting in the arena to fight you. The arena is instanced but other players can spectate, just like Queens Gauntlet but without the dome. Just an invisible wall.
5.) You can bring along one player to help you.
6.) increased rewards: 5-8 dragonite ore and 3 champion lootbags and 1 skillpoint. Once a day you have +500% MF on that special skin the champ is dropping.

here’s where the horizontal progression comes in:

• there is an achievement for killing every champion in the game. You have a checklist (!!) (including location) where killed enemies got crossed out.
• once you’ve defeated all champions in a family, you unlock a mega-champion of that family as extra challenge.
• rewards would be minis for each killed family, a 22slot bag for each family.

So here horizontal progression is about progressing in difficult challenges, finishing a checklist and getting partial rewards for completing certain categories (killing each champ of a family (e.g. centaurs). This could accompany a reputation-system as well.

I really like this idea.

I was pondering on a version of this within dungeons on unused areas of the dungeon. With champions that would divide their loot over all players. (Very unGW-2, very GW1) So they could be worth solo-ing since it gave you a better chance on the rare loot. But your approach seems to fit GW2 better.

One question:

• What happens to a champion as you capture it? (The one that remains in the open world/or doesn’t remain?)

Skills

• We need more weapon skills. Increased weapon variety, increased weapon availability, or both.
• Every skill should have an underwater variant
• You should also consider adding utility skill categories for each profession

Armor

• For every armor added to the cash shop, there should be armor added to the game
• Medium armor and Male light armor needs MUCH more variety. Some games to consider for inspiration would be Skyrim, TERA, Guild Wars 1, Dragon Age, etc.
• There needs to be a skin management overhaul for PvE (I think that this is in the works)
• Ultimately, all armor skins should be usable in all parts of the game; however, there should be armor skins only earn-able. Linking armor acquisition to titles in PvP and WvW could do this.

Titles

• Many achievement categories do not lead to titles. They should.
• Armor/weapon skins should be linked to titles.
• Titles should be difficult to obtain, yet still attainable.

Mini Pets

• Add interact ability between related minis
• Add 1-click mini display ability
• Add mini battle mini game

I didn’t take the time to read through all the posts cause it would take a lot of time to do that,but i have have read through Orpheal’s summary of all that has been said.
With that I’d like to post some of my ideas and contribute to the cause.I hope I am not repeating anyone’s ideas but if I am ,excuse me.

The World Map
We have a huge map,but many areas provide no interest after reaching level 80.Much effort has been put into those maps and they are mostly desolated.
So lets see:
Hearts System
What if after reaching world completion (or reaching level 80,whatever feels like a better start point) we get a new level of Hearts,possibly harder to complete,that unlocks new Items at those vendors after completion.Lets call them Silver Hearts and maybe even add two levels of completion for them.
Events
Unless it’s champion farming,bosses or some living world event,a lot of the events going on never take place,especially the low to mid level ones.Event rewards and impact on world should be bigger,some event chains could offer items on sale or other sort of things.
Low to mid level materials
I doubt a lot of level 80’s go and roam to collect copper ore and if they start an alt,it’s more effective timewise to buy the copper ore off TP.What you did with ascended items was great,many mid level crafting materials rose in value.Now when i see platinum ore iron ore i can move out of my path and gather it.More of that please!

Character look
Enchanting
I’ve seen someone mention enchanting here,and i think it’s a great system.A long time ago i used to play WoW and i remember enchanting was amazing,because it made your casual looking weapons look awesome.It would be a great addition to the game,maybe add it as a new profession and some of the coolest looking auras would be only available through account-bound recipes received in dungeons or world-bosses.
Emotes
I didn’t see anyone mention that but i`m sure someone did for sure.More emotes would be so welcome!

Thank you ,feel free to expand on my ideas,as they are mostly rubbish.

Vorch.2985:

Skills

Mini Pets

• Add interact ability between related minis
• Add 1-click mini display ability
• Add mini battle mini game

A mini battle arena would be very loved!

Crafting

• Add craftable town cloths
• Add craftable costume brawl weapons
• Add craftable furnishings to home instance

Guilds

• Encourage guild crafting. Create crafting recipes using items purchased using merits and commendations.
• Guild Halls with functionality purchased with merits and maintained with influence on a weekly basis
• Increase Guild presence in PvP and WvW

The Lost Witch.7601:

One question:
What happens to a champion as you capture it? (The one that remains in the open world/or doesn’t remain?)

It remains, since you could call it griefing to “take away” champions from other players.

As to the emotes… personally I’m kinda meh on that… they’re fine and good, but that doesn’t exactly encourage players to “play.” Not sure about other worlds, but on Maguuma, I’d almost swear the majority of the world population chills in Lion’s Arch all day just spamming emotes. It’s gotten to the point where I have to turn off world and map chat options and leave only guild/party/whisper up when going into LA most times.

Not saying emotes don’t have their place, but additional emotes aren’t really progression in any sense.

Ardent Heretic.8216:

There has been a lot of argument about sub-classes, and perhaps this suggestion could help please both parties:

What if, instead of adding full sub-classes, we instead had aesthetic or stylized changes (mostly visual) from your trait selection?

Allow me to give an EXAMPLE. I will use Mesmer since I know it best:

EX. 1: A Mesmer who has put 20 points into Domination has red particle effects instead of purple. This could also just unlock the choice to have either red or purple effects, toggled in the Hero menu.

EX. 2: A Mesmer who has traited Illusionary Persona has an ethereal glow effect around their character. (Could also possibly be toggled)

EX. 3: A Mesmer who has 30 points in Chaos has access to a special Chaos Finisher in WvW/PvP/etc.

I am so inlove with this idea!Builds that influence the how your character looks or the way the skills look!
It might be nice to have 3 levels of effects ,at 10,20,and 30 points in the same traitline,so having a 10 point into something would also make a small change to how you look!

Currently we have a lot of hearts in the game, the heart vendors sell low level armor sets, spread among the hearts of that specific zone. How could you make this relevant for high level players?! I’m 80 almost since release, why should I care for green lv.35 gear?

Well, what if:

• there is a new armor-recipe for a cool new armorset (the recipe from the gem-store OR for 500.000 karma)
• it requires a piece of a low armor-set (e.g. a lv.35 green helmet from one of the heart vendors)
• 5 zone token (you get 1 from completing 4 unique events in a zone)
• and additional 100.000 karma

…instead of having this new armor in the gem-store for 800gems.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Elthuzar.9478:

To add to the NPC faction idea. What if your achievements for slaying monsters granted abilities and bonuses when fighting those creatures, in a similar way to WvW ranks. For example:

• Kill 500 Centaurs to gain a rank in Centaur slayer

I don’t get it why people want more grind when they could have a system which isn’t about doing the same things over and over again.

GW2 is a game about exploration, the design is that you move on (enemies who have been alive a while give bonus xp). I’d do it more like this:

1 centaur-related event = +1 point
an other centaur-related event you haven’t done = +5 points
a third new one = +10 points
a fourth new one = +15 points

when you repeat one event, you get 0 points for it. Find a fifth one = +20 points. …

This way you will be encouraged to go out and find events you haven’t done before. Only players who find 90% of all the centaur-related events will get to the highest tier of reputation.

For the last tiers there could also be very hard player-started events which only trigger for top tier players. Like this: “the Seraph commanders think about a final attack from their highest rank elite soldiers into the heart of the centaur-fortress”.

So killing Centaurs is more of a grind that participating in a Centaur event? Have you gone out of your way to grind out the Centaur Slayer Achievement already or have you already gotten the 10 achievement points without even noticing? My suggestion is grinding centaurs, your alternative grinds centaur related events. Both are grinding, both involve centaurs, and both appeal to different trains of thought.

I used a pre-existing achievement as an example (The Slayer Achievements) and suggested expanding on it by adding a layer of point and ability progression to it. It is only a grind if someone sets out to max out one particular line to the exclusion of everything else. How is grinding a Centaur related event any different from grinding individual Centaurs? I would say that your example is more of a grind because instead of occurring as you play, you now have to seek out particular events.

Every thing in this game is a grind to someone.

• How many trees do you need to chop down to make a bow?
• How many outlaws do you have to kill to get enough linen to make a new coat?
• How many Temples do you need to get enough dragonite to make an ascended weapon?
• How many events do you need to grind to get enough karma to buy a new armour-recipe for a cool new armour set (the recipe from the gem-store OR for 500.000 karma)
• How many dungeons do you need to get enough tokens to buy a coat?
• How many supply camps do you need to capture to buy enough obsidian shards to make your Gift of Mastery?
• How many herbs do you need to gather to get lucky enough to find enough Lemon Grass to make enough Lemon grass Poultry Soup to keep you going for a week?
• How many daily achievements do I need to complete in order to have enough Laurels to purchase a full set of Mathilde’s Ascended Armour?
• How many champions do I need to kill to get enough skill points to buy an Augur’s Stone?
• How many karka’s do I need to kill to get enough Karka Shells to make enough gold to buy enough gems to afford a make over kit?

I cannot think of one thing in this game that cannot be considered a grind to someone, somewhere.

Elthuzar.9478:

I cannot think of one thing in this game that cannot be considered a grind to someone, somewhere.

To me grind is doing the same thing over and over again. This is boring. Finding new events, experiencing new stories in the world, isn’t grind to me.

The achievement is kind of optional since you don’t get anything but AP from it imho. It happens while you play. I’d call it grind though, if there was a piece of armor attached as reward.

Its probably all been mentioned but a few thoughts i had on Horizontal Progression include:
1) Hard Mode Vanquishing to dungeons. You choose to enter hard mode when you enter the dungeon, and then the final boss of the path you choose doesnt spawn until you have defeated all other guys in the dungeon except in his “boss room” area. You could lock out parts of the dungeon potentially to make it slightly less time consuming. And obviously there would be no respawns. You could also include a Death Penalty system in line with GW2 just for these instances. And the rewards could include and ascended “champ chest”, which has a chance to drop good ascended materials, armour or weapons.
2) Mini-pets: These should be accessible form wherever you are i think, and not just at the bank. Too many times i have accidentally “deposited all” and my mini has just disappeared so now i dont even bother with them, which is a shame because they are kind of cool! Also on minis, there are some account bound minis which you can have multiples of which i think is a bit odd. You should only be able to have 1 risen balthazar priest, theres just no point in having more than 1 so they are a bit frustrating when you get them.
3) WvW “titles”. It might be a nice little feature if you could invest some gems, WvWXP, or Laurels into being able to “hide” your WvW title. I would attack somoene who i thought was not that experienced (they are just an invader), where i would run from someone whose title gave away their talent. If you could choose to hide your level from enemies that might be a neat little feature.
4) An obvious one: heart missions in Orr. Dont really need to explain that.
5) I feel like i dont spend any time in a lot of the shiverpeaks, and even less in ascalon. I would love to see a 4th dragon: an underwater dragon!
6) im not entirely sure how it would work but thinking back to GW1 again, if you could have a secondary profession that would just be awesome. This wouldnt need to be that significant, something like 1 slot skill could come from another profession, but not an elite. Or you can utilise the weapon skills of another profession for 1 weapon, and perhaps you have to spend some time and money to “unlock” the 2 3 4 and 5 skills, rather than just killing some guys to unlock them?
7) Guild halls / customisable home instances. This has been thrown around a lot im sure. But something superficial with which to display your prowess and achievements would be awesome.

8) I could go on but i will stop at this one: Scars. It has always bugged me that you can die a thousand times and come back exactly the same. It would be awesome if you could choose to display a scar on your character that people can see when you are not wearing armour. Maybe you can unlock them for doing very specific things – when jormags claw lands on you, if you take more than 100,000 falling damage, had 1000 deaths, when you spring 100 traps, if you get killed by the Fire Elemental in Metrica Province, etc, etc. There could be say 20 scars that you can earn, and earning them all gives you the “grizzled” title. There could be other options too… like unlocking a scar could give you one set scar (the Fire Ele gives you a burn looking scar perhaps), or it gives you a “scar point” which you could use to buy any of the small number of scars that you like. Perhaps you could choose exactly where you want the scar to appear too, rather than having it set in one place on your body for every character.
I think this would be a nice horizonal appearance touch that would get people out there trying to play the game in a different way, or at least get some different experiences.

Nike.2631:

Kain Francois.4328:

New Dailies: Zaishen Quests
I know most players will cringe when I say dailies… But Zaishen Quests from GW1 were an exception. Each day there would be a bounty to slay a particular boss, or clear a particular mission/dungeon, and we would be rewarded with Zaishen coins.

Zaishen Coins were great because they allowed us to purchase ultra-rare item skins, toys, and larger equipment bags.

Unlike GW2, we could repeat them on each character we had; a character time-gate as opposed to an account time-gate. Kinda like the way GW2 use to be.

I don’t see why such a system can’t work for Gw2 either, in order to get players back into more obscure zones.

One refinement I would offer would be to make them weekly.

One of the best things GW2 does in my opinion is it puts everyone sharing a server on the same side. The most obvious manifestation is shared harvesting nodes, but there are a lot of other flourishes supporting that concept.

Bosses are something of a finite resource. Putting players in direct competition to be there and get kill credit over a narrow window just creates animosity. Allowing a longer cycle wouldn’t stop flaring tempers for first-day completionists, but it would leave a lot more space for casual players to have a go after the initial rush at the start of each cycle.

What about some skill challenges in a level 80 version? (They just gain a new fight option for those that have already succeeded defeating it the first time. The stronger version is level 80 and perhaps gains a few extra moves)

They would be always accessible. (Though if they come daily, I bet the place will be crowded, making it not much of a challenge…)

It could be an idea as an open world progression thing though. Maybe with some achievements and rewards attached.

Also: patience Nick! I am sure my mind is not the only one working at top speed, still refining ideas until all the obvious flaws are gone. (Otherwise there is the risk of having a potentially good idea shot down before it can fulfill that potential)

Then again, if I throw them out there, others might flawfinding for me!

So here we go with a few very short descriptions on things I’m still trying to work out:

A garden. (With gatherable stuff, and perhaps some creatures that we have captured)

Guild based or personal?

(More coming later, but I try to keep my posts focused on one thing at a time, already crossing the line here…see what I did there?)

Custom game tools.

This is a rather crazy idea that still needs a LOT of work. (Please help me out here…)

The idea is to create a bunch of tools that players can use to create mini-games to play with their friends.

• Objects that you can drop in the world that disappear after a while. They can be picked up by anyone. (These can be used in a searching game, where you can hide stuff for your guildies, and if they return an item that you have hidden, you can give them a prize for it.) If there are a lot of crazy items, like a rusty weapon, a quaggan scarf, a moose skull etc… then we may even be able to make elaborate quests. And perhaps a few poles and that orb that we can get in one of the arah paths. That we can toss. To create a ball game.

• Writeable parchment. In-game materials that you can write as a player. (That also disappear after a while) These can be used as pointers, quest pieces, riddles or even short stories.

• Dice, or a RNG-mechanic. This could be used to create custom games that require some sort of randomizer.

• ??? As I said, this idea needs a lot of work still. More input would be great!

These tools could be obtained through a variety of means. And perhaps they would have their own bank tab that also functions as a collectors tab.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Elthuzar.9478:

I cannot think of one thing in this game that cannot be considered a grind to someone, somewhere.

To me grind is doing the same thing over and over again. This is boring. Finding new events, experiencing new stories in the world, isn’t grind to me.

The achievement is kind of optional since you don’t get anything but AP from it imho. It happens while you play. I’d call it grind though, if there was a piece of armor attached as reward.

To you it is a grind. To me, personal story is grind, living world achievements are grind, farming dungeons for tokens is grind, doing fractals every day for ascended rings is grind any form of daily check off list is a grind.

Your own suggestion about having vanity armour sets from the gem store purchasable for 100k-500k karma? how is farming 500k karma not a grind? maybe it’s not to you, maybe you have several million karma already, but what about the people that don’t have any karma because they spent it all on obsidian shards? Maybe you could change it to skill points, what about the people that don’t have 600 skill points saved up on their characters because they spent them all on superior siege or augur’s stones? They now have to grind something somewhere to get something they want that they can’t get. Again, it doesn’t matter what you come up with, it will always be a grind to someone, the trick with the design is how well you can cover up the grind.

HiddenNick.7206:

Am I the only one a bit disappointed… All that this community could think off is generally: “more of the same”. Where are the crazy ideas of some new progression systems? Or suggestions about something that could be copied from other games?

Crazy ideas are good! But for my own part, when I think of things to suggest I want to stay in the realm of things the developers could run with easily. That usually means improvements to current systems and ways to branch off from those. It’s hard for me personally to get as excited about wild new stuff as I do potential quality of life changes to things we currently have (such as the cosmetic system), because something that is just now percolating as a concept might be a very long time in the making and is likely to change a great deal between conception and implementation.

I’d rather Vanquishing not be relegated to dungeons. Vanquishing would be something I might want to do on my own sometimes or a group sometimes.

The cutscene collector

(again, needs some work)

An item that opens up a tab that allows you to re-watch the more epic cutscenes that you have unlocked. It would also help you in linking them together by giving a short summary of what happened before the cutscene. (Or between the ones that have collected)

Cutscene’s should be copyable, and can be send through the mail. So you can gain cutscenes by asking other people for them.

Elthuzar.9478:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Elthuzar.9478:

I cannot think of one thing in this game that cannot be considered a grind to someone, somewhere.

To me grind is doing the same thing over and over again. This is boring. Finding new events, experiencing new stories in the world, isn’t grind to me.

The achievement is kind of optional since you don’t get anything but AP from it imho. It happens while you play. I’d call it grind though, if there was a piece of armor attached as reward.

To you it is a grind. To me, personal story is grind, living world achievements are grind, farming dungeons for tokens is grind, doing fractals every day for ascended rings is grind any form of daily check off list is a grind.

Your own suggestion about having vanity armour sets from the gem store purchasable for 100k-500k karma? how is farming 500k karma not a grind? maybe it’s not to you, maybe you have several million karma already, but what about the people that don’t have any karma because they spent it all on obsidian shards? Maybe you could change it to skill points, what about the people that don’t have 600 skill points saved up on their characters because they spent them all on superior siege or augur’s stones? They now have to grind something somewhere to get something they want that they can’t get. Again, it doesn’t matter what you come up with, it will always be a grind to someone, the trick with the design is how well you can cover up the grind.

Anything in a Video Game that does not require skill, only time, is By its Very Definition a Grind.

FalconDance.1637:

A REAL cartography achievement, not this go to X point then bounce to Y point, etc. GW1’s cartography demanded you visit maps and corners of maps that otherwise were ignored because there wasn’t really anything (quests) in them. A player had to become very familiar with the entire region, and it took a bit of time. Trust me, some of those spots are every bit as gorgeous as anything in GW2, and it was a joy to discover and explore. It enabled a player to even connect a few lore dots with the discovery of statues or other ‘oddities’ in outlying areas previously populated perhaps but abandoned, similar to how some of the POIs work now. The current POI and Vista system cheats the player, in my opinion, of having this sort of experience.

(Connected to that is the incessant spawn which makes simple enjoyment of an area possible. I understand this is now a persistent world rather than the instanced one of the original game, but still. I shouldn’t have to kill foe every 10 seconds just to have a good look at a particular piece of map!)

I enjoy the current version of cartographer better than the GW1 version. It was down right insanity having to scrape every little edge of the map and hope you didn’t miss something. There were even hacks to make it easier to complete just because it was a pain.

I will agree that the spawn rate in most zones is way too fast. Its especially bad in tunnels where you gets spawns popping up behind you before you even get the path cleared out.

And now… it’s time for my pet project: Engineers

You’re probably asking yourself, “But Guhracie, isn’t class-based discussion more in line with the vertical progression thread?”

• In part, yes. I think it’s shoddy to touch vertical progression without doing some much-needed maintenance on the professions first. And I believe that Engineers in particular have some severe disadvantages when it comes to vertical progression, but those disadvantages also extend to things like build diversity and cosmetic progression.

Build Diversity:

• Engineers can use pistols, rifles and shields. Not only do we lack a weapon swap, we lack interesting choices of weaponry to begin with.
• Our version of a weapon swap is kits. There are 5 attack kits in game (there’s also a med kit as a heal skill), and in order to have a weapon swap, we give up one of our three utility slots, at a minimum.
• To compensate, we do get a skill on our tool belt (F-keys) based on the kit that’s equipped.
• This kills diversity in the utility selection, because the tool belt skill is set. Any engineer using a particular kit will always have the same tool belt skill as any other engineer using that same kit.
• Our only diversity is relegated to four slots, at most- including heal and elite skills, neither of which are known for being exceptionally diverse (when compared to the amount of utilities available for 7, 8 and 9)
• This leaves us with cookie cutter engineers, and that’s not fun.

Also not fun? Not being able to play the aesthetics game.

Visual Diversity

• By taking a weapon swap, not only does build diversity diminish, but the whole look of the engineer is determined by the kit.
  The kit removes:
• Weapon(s).
• Back piece.
• Any sort of color palette/unity.

So not only do we not have much build diversity if we choose to have a weapon swap, but we also don’t have diversity of appearance. There’s no point to a legendary when a kit will cover it up. Oh, and if we just take the disadvantage of having no weapon swap, those three weapon choices also make for cookie-cutter engineers.

The class is broken and I’m to the point where the awesome idea of an engineer is eclipsed by the terrible implementation.

Mystic chemistry

A new craft: Alchemy, closely related to artificer, but not quite the same.

Most of the recipes that are used by an alchemist are temporary (some can only be used x times, some only work on tuesdays, some only work on the 12th day of the month). They are influenced by all sorts of things, the weather, your luck, the day of the week, the previously discovered recipe… it is a very delicate affair.

Fortunately there is some sort of logic behind it. But it involves a lot of trial and error, and even then, with much practice, there are some seemingly random things going on.

The temporary nature of these recipes (for a large part the fact that they’ll be gone the next hour) is the reason why the web will have trouble to keep up. Every now and then you’ll be prompted with one of those text windows like at the top of the toxic tower at the end. With a riddle, to help you figure out what to combine. (Eventually wiki/dulfy will get very far, but only in general directions, not in guaranteed outcomes)

The strangest things (including accountbound quest items) can be used… at certain times by an alchemist… you never know! (Though you might guess!)

This is not a hobby for those who expect to get rich. But an enjoyable puzzling progression for those who are stubborn, clever and willing to invest. (I think this would be a great place to use and gain some lodestones aswell)

The more recipes discovered (and forgotten), the higher your level, the more you can combine. (And the more difficult it becomes to remember what did what and what you have already tried… and may now work!)

Just an example of a recipe and it’s prerequisites: (which means that not everyone will be able to do this)

Ingredients

- 2 Molten Lodestone
- 7 Spools of gossamer
- More than 20 Bananas
- 10 Broken Lockpicks

Prerequisites:

- Previously discovered a liquid
- It is tuesday
- It is night
- High level of luck (over 100%)

Result: Either a bolt of damask or a gift of bananas. (Which can be used to craft something awesome)

Now of course, this is just something silly I came up with a 3 AM. I am quite sure that arenanet can do better.

But I’d like some puzzling potential with progression attached.

The Lost Witch.7601:

Mystic chemistry

Result: Either a bolt of damask or a gift of bananas. (Which can be used to craft something awesome)

Now of course, this is just something silly I came up with a 3 AM. I am quite sure that arenanet can do better.

But I’d like some puzzling potential with progression attached.

Shut up and take my money! I want a Gift of Bananas in game right now and for it to be used to craft something awesome. Chris, make it so.

As may have been mentioned earlier:

Versatility in weapon skills. Even the ability to have a second option on skills for a particular weapon could bring tremendous versatility and diversity to classes, especially those with fewer weapon sets.

A secondary armor set page that can only be swapped when out of combat. Manually swapping between my Knight’s and Rabid gear on my Necro in a dungeon can get pretty tedious, and it soaks up a lot of inventory space.

Guild Halls. Also Guild Halls. Seriously, I’d be willing to bet at least half the population is clamoring for that.

Edit: Bug and targeting fixes on existing skills would be nice too. For example, Elementalist Trident in Air/Earth Attunements has such a small hitbox on the Skill #1 attacks that I have been able to sit in front of an underwater monster at point-blank range and watch my little projectiles breeze on by without hitting. This is with auto-targeting on or off. Increasing the size of the hitbox on the attack by 20 or 30 "range" would probably fix this. This is just one example of targeting and collision errors that really mess up the flow of gameplay, in my opinion.

Covering an old topic again, just in more detail.
Which is DPS – Control – Support, and how ineffective the latter two are, and how they could be improved.
Arenanet said they wanted to do this, but they haven’t, at least not well.

Instead of having a three way split, we have every profession and build is a DPS build, with support, control, healing or tanking as side aspects.
While you can deal massive DPS 100% of the time, you cannot Support or Control 100% of the time, and what you can do is very limited.

I think that whatever additions or changes to skills/traits we get, should focus on bringing these two up to scratch to be on par with DPS, as something that you can do full time.

-

And so I have some suggestion for both.

Support, in short this is Healing and Boons, but also other effects such as Wards and Reflection.

• Healing Power (the most underused stat) should have increased potency for outgoing heals, allowing you to heal allies for more then what you can yourself. ie 1.5x

• In addition, Healing Power should directly effect the effectiveness of certain boons, both new and existing. Such as Protection, say it reduces 20% base damage + (Healing Power / 25). So having say 1250 healing power would allow you to put out Protection reduce 70% of direct damage. (very rough example)

• Add new boons such as: Barrier, absorb damage up to a set amount, stacking in intensity up to 5 stacks. 20 + (6 x lvl) + Healing x 2.6) Example: 1250 HP would absorb 3750 per stack, up to a grand total of 18750 damage.

• Another boon, Blessing: Downed or Defeated allies (yes, works on defeated allies) revive faster and are revived with more health. Again, modified by Healing Power.

• Other effects such as Ward and Reflection should become much more common, and if heavily traited for can be maintained 100% of the time, making positioning more important.

• Add new skills that directly effect your allies position, such as Portals. For example: Throw a chain, if a player grabs the other end they gain Protection and a pulled to your location.

• Split Stability into two boons, one for physical CC, and one for mental CC. Stability protects against Launch, Pull, Sink, Float, Knockdown. And Fortitude, protects against Fear, Stun, Daze. And thus make them each more common relative to increases in Control.

• Add Defiant as a player usable boon or effect, stacks up to 3 times.

-

Control is a little harder to define, but it’s basically anything that curves your opponents behavior. CC, but also Confusion, Torment, Retaliation, and boon removal.

• Make Confusion, Torment and Retaliation more common place, about as common as Poison. Actually, Chill could stand to be more common as well.

• Retaliation could stand to have damage modifiers base not only on Power, but Healing Power as well.

• Increase CC in direct proportion to Support, so that they balance each other out. But other make it possible for someone who is full control/CC, to shut a player down from doing much of anything if they don’t have support. (think GW1 Mesmer)

• Add new conditions control behavior. Example: Spite, using skills deals damage to nearby allies, stacks in intensity. (range, 260-380) So either you stop attack, or do so away from your allies.

• Effects such as Wards and Reflection technically straddle the line between Control and Support, so increasing the viability of these types of skills will help control as well.

• More ground targeting skills that dictate positioning, like Traps and Marks. Such as a Mark that pulses Immobilize. More skills like Throw Mine, or anything else that makes a player take a moment before walking into a given area, and punish bad positioning.

• Increase boon removal or manipulation in direct proportion to any increase of boons.

• Add skills that reduce visibility besides just Stealth. Such as a black cloud that produces an effect much like a Dark Room, and requires a Torch or light source to see in it. Or a blur that makes it difficult to gauge distance.

-

While in both SPvP and WvW, so long as things are within the realm of balanced, the meta should work itself out. PvE on the other hand would probably need a little extra something to make Support and Control viable, since enemies only can be killed, ie DPS.

So most enemies should have other loss conditions. Such as Pacify, if you heal or case AOE boons in the area of an enemy, it loses stacks of Aggression.
Once it hits zero it becomes passive and stop attacking you, and leaving the area (despawning) and gives exp and loot.

CC could work a bit like Defiant, removing stacks each time you use CC, or other certain abilities.

So in battle you have three options, deal damage killing it, help it to turn it to your side, or put the fear of god into it and make it retreat. Each should be just as viable as the next.

This may be more of a Quality of Life issue than actual horizontal progress, but is there any way you could reduce the range of emotes? They seem to cover half a zone. I almost feel like they should have Line of Sight limiters- if I couldn’t hit a thing with a spell from where I’m standing, I probably shouldn’t be able to hear somebody’s conversation.

DiogoSilva.7089:

• It could learn a bit from FFVII’s Materia System
  Where you could equip both active and passive effects within the same UI, and even better, where there was a third type of effect, where you could combine to active skills to enhance them further. Kind of like how the trait system was originally envisioned before launch. If 20 points in water unlock Mist Form, the 25 point-slot could be used for an effect that would directly enhance Mist Form’s functionality. And so could the minors for 35, and 45, and 55, because it would be much easier for Anet to expand the trait trees vertically this way, by simply slightly enhancing existing skills.

While in principle I’m all for the idea of having base skills that can be improved or modified through further investment (such as traits or D3’s rune system), from memory traits that were overly specific to a given skill started getting phased out when they decided against free trait respeccing. The reason for this should be obvious – when you’re asking players to pay to change their traits, the traits should be broadly focused enough that swapping out a single skill isn’t likely to leave them with a dead trait, with no good options to replace it with.

Even now, there are spots in the system where this is a problem. My guardian, for instance, runs 10 Virtues for Master of Consecrations… but I generally don’t have much use for the other adept Virtues traits in my builds, so if I’ve traded out my consecration skills, I’m left choosing the best of a bad lot. Similarly, my mesmer that typically carries Warden’s Focus is often left trying to find the least bad option when not using a focus.

Basically, the more specific traits get, the more important it is that traits can be reset cheaply and conveniently, so that small build changes don’t result in rendering large parts of a character’s trait allotment redundant. Like I said, I’m not opposed to the idea, but I think we do need to consider

Now, for something I am philosophically opposed to:

Can you tell me just what these subclasses of yours offer that trait setups do not?

Your battlemage, for instance, could be achieved with traits in conjures and defensive traits, and perhaps the opening up of another weapon or two.. Apart from that, you’re just offering a vehicle to get heavy armour on an elementalist… when I think there are good reasons why armour has been done the way it is (mechanically, you can offer better protection through traits, and aesthetically, there are light armour sets and combinations that, dyed accordingly, do create a nice semi-armoured ‘battlemage’ look, kind of like the Diablo 3 Wizard… although more options along those lines would certainly be good!)

Meanwhile, there is one line that is ringing major alarm bells:

“Not scepter. If an elementalist would wish to go for scepter + persisting flames, they would have to choose another subtype that would have both available.”

Why? What purpose does this restriction serve but to apply an artificial constraint? Why can’t this be simply resolved through the standard principles of opportunity cost, that to pick up traits that benefit the scepter, you have to give up something somewhere else?

This is something that I have to say, I do feel strongly about. The tipping point that made me abandon D&D 4E was when I realised that in that games subclass system, there was often little room to create anything out of the predefined boxes provided by the subclass system. Either the designers gave your character concept to you on a silver platter, or it just wasn’t viable to do.

Subclasses, to me, are something that, unless you have a truly obscene number of them, carries very strong correlations of creating systems where everybody is largely the same, fitting as they do into the nice prepackaged boxes generated by the subclass system. You’re going to need to make much stronger arguments for the benefits before I would even consider supporting such a system when the trait system, while it could certainly stand to be improved, provides a suitable framework to do anything a subclass system could do, while still allowing players to come up with their own combinations rather than being poured into neatly labelled moulds.

You’re clearly highly invested in the idea yourself, but I think it would be better in a game that was built from the ground up to use the concept and marketed to people who want it, rather than something added over a year into a game with an established fanbase that aren’t all going to want it, and for some of whom it may even be a full-on dealbreaker.

I can see some value to saying “here is an archetype, and here are some suggested ways you can go about making a character of that archetype”, but that’s as far as I could support.

Nike.2631:

Lastly, I wanted to mention some classes have fairly exacting meta-rules in how their weapon skills work and all variant modes would have to conform to those rules. For example Mesmers always have one clone and one phantasm in each possible #1 to #5 skill array. Exactly one. Introducing new variants to Mesmer weapons would have to always deliver a clone ability in an existing clone ability slot, and likewise with phantasms.

It’s a nitpick, but this isn’t entirely true – a sword offhand can give you a second clone generator, and a scepter gives you clones on the autoattack chain as well as through skill #2. These are probably exceptions to the rule, though, particularly since neither of the blocking skills can be used to reliably generate a clone on demand

ZeftheWicked.3076:

As for distributing between professions, the clear top dog must be necro – he’s got hardest time with knockdowns. I believe rangers should have a few meaningful options for it too.

Thieves, warriors and guardians shouldn’t get much of it, if at all. They all have very viable defense options (stun breaks, thieves tons of evades in skills, guards + wars stability)

Engis, Mesmers, Eles i don’t know so i leave no recommendation here.

In my experience, after necromancers and rangers, engineers get the hardest time with interrupts. They’ve got a few stunbreaks, but the only source of stability they have is Toss Elixir B, which doesn’t serve as a stunbreak itself and thus can’t be used reactively.

Mesmers are midline – they have a mantra that serves as a source of reactive if short-term stability, and a decent supply of stun-breaks and teleports. Elementalists are probably up with guardians and warriors when it comes to protecting themselves against control.

I have some thoughts regarding Fralo’s comments on underwater combat, but for now I’m going to take a break from foruming and actually play the game for a bit. :P

dear devs,

here is your new source of inspiration and guidance.

http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,4812.0.html?PHPSESSID=35da8uef3jegk31dbrr2mgtfn6

you all can thank me later and name a really super cool npc after my mighty ranger. perhaps, it could be a main horizontal progression trainer in la that all players must visit regularly so everyone can be reminded of my great ideas and contributions to this game.

you’re welcome!

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.

Id like to see a few new things…

1. Crossbows for engineers.
2. a way for classes to lock in on one weapon set, i hate this switching stuff.
3. guild halls.
4. Guild Wars 1 content, like killing bosses for elites and unidentified items.
5. More balance, right now warriors seem to be way above everyone still.
6. A rework on confusion, the mesmer class doesnt seem to have its GW1 touch.
7. Gear stats that make more sense, they should actually show the armor resistance.
8. Armor resist for control abilities.
9. Guild Wars 1 achievements system, i want to show off my achievements.
10. More lore in general
11. underworld
12. maybe class armor sets

How about some Class armor?? not armor type armor

4 great lulz…

Hobo-Sacks
Because they ARE relevant to Horizontal Progression!

I cannot progress my back horizontally on my engineer. PLEEEEAAAAASE REMOVE THEM!

FalconDance.1637:

I’ve been thinking about this ‘sub-class’ system (and I apologize for my mis-classifying it in a former post). An example was given as Guardian with sub-class Templar. While there wouldn’t necessarily need to be tons of new skills involved with the sub-class, it would introduce a very nice customization feel to the character that is currently lacking, I believe.

For example, my rangers (in every game I play which has rangers!) tend to be ranged/bow nearly exclusively and not beast-master types. Yes, they have those abilities and do use such on occasion, but the basic character builds include neither. This would obviously lean towards a hunter type sub-class which could then include a few more specialized skills such as tracking or trapping (brainstorming, and I know that traps are already in-game). A beast-master sub-class would have a subset of skills to include specifically beast-related options.

I could definitely envision this in all classes – and would not be all that difficult to enable since such was already done so in GW1 and other games. Armor skins/sets could reflect the idea, as well.

All in all, such an idea would/could add an incredible amount of horizontal progression and realization for a character.

If you’re referring to one of my posts, the way I envisioned was pretty similar, but I’ll explain further for anyone else.

Basically, as a Guardian, you run across “Important NPC” who can train you in the Templar sub-class. He’ll perhaps start an event, or maybe give you a more traditional feeling quest, or maybe you’ll just have to fight him in combat. Once you complete his task, perhaps he’ll unlock a new functionality for one of your current skills, like Flashing Blade (Sword #2). Since Templars are all about Cleaving and Smiting, Flashing Blade now does a lot of damage and becomes a leap finisher at the cost of causing blindness. Or maybe he’ll offer you a choice of Templar skill/trait changes. Maybe you like symbols, and so one Templar option you could choose would be to add a completely new trait that turns all Symbols into Fire fields.

Now, you could if you want, go and find/equip every Templar skill and trait in the game and become Uber Templar. However, you wouldn’t necessarily be locked into everything Templar. Maybe you want to focus on symbols, and so you go through all the subclasses and individually select all the new skills and traits that effect symbols. Now, you’re a terror of symbolic justice: burning, smiting, chilling, and stacking Might in your longer lasting Symbols on Scepter. Each of these possibilities would individually applied from current skills and traits, and those gained from sub-classes. In this way, you’re never pigeon holed into a mere specialization, but you get all that tasty flavor. Also, if skill effects and traits are “replaced” with sub-class versions, you can gid rid of effects you don’t need, and gain the ones you do. Now, Warrior Hammer could focus more on CC, or more on damage, and picking and choosing replacements. Two Shatter mesmers could play much differently, or P/P Thieves could be highly desired for their team support. It would all depend on what new ideas could be implemented for skills and traits, either new or augmentations.

Someone mentioned a cutscene replayer and I am strongly in agreement with that. Although, it should only be the epic cutscenes like the intro, the order intro, and the walk into Fort Trinity after the story is complete. I don’t think the dialogue cutscenes have much replay value.

Also, are we going to have a dungeon and class discussion thread? I am sure a lot of us have things to say about those topics and there is great potential.

draxynnic.3719:

It’s a nitpick, but this isn’t entirely true – a sword offhand can give you a second clone generator, and a scepter gives you clones on the autoattack chain as well as through skill #2. These are probably exceptions to the rule, though, particularly since neither of the blocking skills can be used to reliably generate a clone on demand

Fair point. 1 phantasm / 1-2 clones – and clearly the meta-rules have to be looked at very closely to be maintained .

Kain Francois.4328:

4 great lulz…

Hobo-Sacks
Because they ARE relevant to Horizontal Progression!

I cannot progress my back horizontally on my engineer. PLEEEEAAAAASE REMOVE THEM!

Quote for great justice, because it is kinda frustrating.

I’ll have to wander back into this thread in a little bit, but one quick comment I wanted to make;

DiogoSilva.7089:

But let me ask a third question: World immersion aside, how fun would it be to all players in GW2, if suddenly they had 24 (!!) new skills to try out, and 30 new skills (by including the racials they already had) buffed to become stronger?

Guhracie.3419:

And now… it’s time for my pet project: Engineers

You’re probably asking yourself, “But Guhracie, isn’t class-based discussion more in line with the vertical progression thread?”

• In part, yes. I think it’s shoddy to touch vertical progression without doing some much-needed maintenance on the professions first. And I believe that Engineers in particular have some severe disadvantages when it comes to vertical progression, but those disadvantages also extend to things like build diversity and cosmetic progression.

You two should get together and mix some of that delicious racial chocolate into the incredible engineer peanut butter. Remember that Engineers get a Tool Belt skill for racial abilities, so by removing the restriction on racial skills, Engineers would automatically gain access to 11 new Tool Belt options (12 if they’re Norn since they only have two racial utility skills.) Take a look at ’em here: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tool_belt

That’s one heck of a Reese’s Cup you’d have there.

Nike.2631:

Kain Francois.4328:

4 great lulz…

Hobo-Sacks
Because they ARE relevant to Horizontal Progression!

I cannot progress my back horizontally on my engineer. PLEEEEAAAAASE REMOVE THEM!

Quote for great justice, because it is kinda frustrating.

I am BEGGING ANET to PLEASE REMOVE THE STUPID HOBOSACK!

Nobody likes them! NOBODY! NOBODY!

It’s been more than a YEAR, and engineers STILL cant use backpacks? The same item type with skins being given out EVERY living story?

It’s not fair to lock us out of an entire part of the game. IT’S NOT FAIR! :’(

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

another crazy idea, I call it “guards and treasure maps”

First of all we know that there are a lot of veterans in the game, some of them in not very obvious locations. Killing one veteran would give you 1/5 piece of a random treasure-map from any random area in the game.

• it can take a while to get all 5 parts of a map since you could get the same piece again from another veteran.
• combine the 5 parts to a treasuremap which shows the location of 3 champions in a zone.
• only one of those guards a skin (one of the skins from the champion loot bags). Find the correct one and kill him to get the skin guaranteed. Kill the wrong and you’ll get the skin from one of the other 2.

Why this way?

1.) You can’t run around with a farm-train since everyone would have different 3 champions on his map. The skin only drops if you have the treasuremap in your inventory. The map becomes worthless once you get the skin.

2.) You’re rewarded for exploring the map since there are much more veterans in very different locations. A more longterm-project than directly waypointing to each champion and be done with the farming after a month. You’d get those map-pieces while playing the game… something you collect until you get the puzzles complete.

Example:

Player A kills veterans in WvW. After a month he accumulated 4/5 Queensdale map-pieces, 2/5 Wayfarer Foothills map-pieces, 3/5 Southsun Cove map-pieces,… etc. His friend player B killed the same veterans, also in WvW, and got totally different map-pieces. He completed Wayfarer Foothills just minutes ago. Now 3 champions appear on his WF-map. One of these guards a skin. He takes Player A along, but since only he has champion XY on a completed WF-map, only he can loot the skin.

It was a lot of work, but it’s not too random since he coud watch the progression via. the map-pieces. The more veterans he kills, the earlier he gets his next skin.

Important note: the map-pieces need to have an own UI, so that the bags won’t get full of these. Something like the wallet I suppose.

Thats a nice idea and sounds very fun, but i dont see what kind of progression you could have from that is more like not boring grinding which is very good still