Guild Wars 2

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

draxynnic

Simply expanding the options within a profession, without restricting them to subclasses, allows players to come up with their own combinations without being hindered by unnecessary artificial restrictions.

Nicely said, I agree with your post.

In my opinion, if there were a subclass-system in GW2, I’d make it 100% cosmetics only, but even then it would be quite restricting.

In contrary, instead of restrictions I’d open the game even more. Give heavy armor professions the ability (I had a suggestion earlier how to do this, for example) to wear medium and light armor. This would vastly increase the possible armorsets one can wear considerably. Not to think of all the possible combinations.

To balance the lack of armor, you could give Warriors and Guardians a 5% speed-bonus when wearing light or medium armor. Elementalists on the other hand would get a bit more armor but lose 3% of their power and condition damage.

Or make it cosmetic only (I’d like that more, since it should be about horizontal progression) and make the armor-bonus characterbound, not armorbound, so that Elementalists would still have their low armor when wearing heavier stuff.

I too would like to see professions wearing different armour types. I have never understood why armour types are only different in armour value, nor have I understood why profession base health is different without any other compensation. How is it right that a warrior can have the best armour and health, while the Elementalist has the worst, yet they gain no bonuses elsewhere to compensate. This means that Anet have the dubious task of ensuring they are balanced through skills and traits, which I cannot believe is an easy task.

I would like to see the following:
Heavy Armour gives high armour value and nothing else. Medium Armour gives a slight boost to movement and endurance regen ( say +5% ) and Light Armour gives a bonus to movement, endurance regen ( +5% ) and attack speed ( +1-3% ). These are just ideas plucked from the air quickly, I’m sure with more thought better suggestions could be made, but the basis is there to get my point across. There should be more to armour besides how much they provide protection. The same could be true of the base health pool for each profession.

By providing base bonuses in this way for armour and health pools, it would leave Anet to balance skills and utilities based solely on skills and trails. As it is, they have to consider the advantages a warrior has with armour and health, and I am not convinced they will do this successfully. Surely this method would make Anet’s job a little easier?

This way, we could make our characters look the way we want and only be restricted by weapon choice. And before anyone says anything about being able to determine what their enemy is before they fight them, this change will not effect things too much. The weapon alone can help you determine your foe. A long bow will mean either a warrior or ranger, pistol will mean a thief, mesmer or engi, and so on.

This change would also allow even more build tweaking as you can decide whether you want more mobility or more armour. But whether this is a change we will ever see happen is another thing. It may require far too much investment for little reward. I guess it comes down to whether Anet feels this would help them in terms of balancing the game. But I for one would welcome this.

Rin.1046:

Every profession being able to wear all types of armor

Something to keep in mind:

If every player could wear any type of armor, that takes away a tool for identification.

It can be very helpful to look at a character and see that it is probably a warrior or guardian. Especially in PvP and WvW. (I got trolled so badly by a mesmer with a slickpack. I was convinced he was an engineer until his twin brother arrived.

As for health and armor compensation: it is in the game. Professions are being balanced around their performance. So if they perform well with light gear and a low health pool. Something apparently makes up for the health and armor loss in comparison to other classes. It may not be obvious where you can find this compensation, but it is there. (That said, they were a bit off on the warrior I guess)

Anyways, back to horizontal progression:

If we are thinking about how we acquire new things (ranks, items, skills etc.), what can we come up with?

These are the things I have currently found in the game

• A quest (Or an event, which grants you something after it is done, like the orrian temples events)
• Time spend/Grinding (Putting in time, be it through slaughtering monsters, or ‘farming’ gold)
• Skill (Unlocking something behind a skill requirement, say defeating Liadri, or a puzzle, or by winning a contest)
• Attendance (Being there are the right time, be it at a convention or a living story chapter)
• Time played (Unlike the grind, this is what you get for just being there long enough. Like the birthday gift)
• Luck (Often comes with grind, the more you grind, the more likely you get it)
• Spending money (The gemstore)
• By choice (Pick one order out of three, or one race)
• By being in the right company (Most notably: guilds that are large enough to unlock certain guild content)

And these are the ones that I have not found in GW2 yet (and maybe they shouldn’t be):

• Creation (By making it, be it an emblem design through a contest or a garden with a mini- in-game worldbuilder)
• By gift (Things you can only obtain because other people give them to you)

… and now I suddenly have to leave!

(But feel free to respond to this unfinished post!)

The Lost Witch.7601:

Rin.1046:

Every profession being able to wear all types of armor

Something to keep in mind:

If every player could wear any type of armor, that takes away a tool for identification.

I hear this a lot, but think of it…

• Asura are already too small to make out armor details, even from a few yards away (watch combat here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFLoModaqdo)
• new Skins like Grenths Hood already blur the lines (example: https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/125080/gw335.jpg , what’s his profession? His/Her?
• some armorsets are already designed to look like a different weight-class (example: http://argos-soft.net/GW2/ArmorGallery/index.php?color=10&sex=0&race=3&w=1&skinID=kodanli&lang=en) I love that set.

Most of the time I play WvW and before I can see which armor the enemy is wearing I see his skills and weapons – or none of it (Zerg).

draxynnic.3719:

…..Ultra Sacred Vertical/ Horizontal Combination Snip!!! (Diagonal Snip)…..

Your post also comes with the assumption that I didn’t try a different build other than the one with alot of Control skills in it. I’ve said in this Thread about how I have 6 full Exotic Armor sets (I’ve made it a point in alot more than one post here. Yes, some people have twice as much, and many people only had a single magic find set until a few months ago and nothing else). Its about as obvious as gravity that I play with different builds and try different builds, so, it should be just as obvious that I have tried other builds that don’t have much control. It should also be kind of obvious that since I use a Greatsword in that build example I gave to you, that I make heavy use of that 1 second evade that the auto attack gives us every 1.75 sec. There’s also the dodges, and the movement, etc. You’d have to be crazy to just stick to Control and use that as your only tool in a fight (or dps, or support, or healing, or kiting, etc). My disagreement with you is that I don’t think its as weak as you say, and the fact that I still play a build with alot of control skills should say something, regardless of the half of the player population that uses only Zerker Gear(formerly magic find gear) and refuses to even try anything else. Not refering to you specifically with that last sentence, but you really should stop refusing to accept that some people play the game differently, and just accept it already.

Orpheal.8263:

Mega Giga Tetra Snip!!!

(also, other people that’s been talking about the subclass and trait system stuff)

The only thing really wrong with the Trait system is that your stats are tied to specific sections, even when the traits in those sections aren’t actually related to those traits in any way (example : Ranger Trap traits in Skirmishing. Traps are all condition damage and conditions. Skirmishing is Precision and Critical damage)

I’m on holiday for New Year’s, but one thing I really wanted to bring up before I forget is the thrill of finding loot. I recently got my necromancer to 80 and when I decided to gear her up, do you know what I did? I opened the trading post, because I wanted the Phoenix Reborn axe.

Maybe this is on me, but does anybody else miss loot tables? The idea of going somewhere to get a specific item with a reasonable chance of getting that item is something that I miss. I realize that karma gear and dungeon gear are starter sets of gear and can be obtained by doing specific content, but it would be nice if there were some rhyme or reason to where and how things drop. (This is kind of a supporting structure to visual customization, in case you’re wondering why this is coming up in a discussion about horizontal progression.) I kept meaning to mention this and getting side-tracked by all the good ideas. I’ll be back to posting in the New Year! Be safe, everyone, and have a good one!

All professions All armor sets

Blah Blah Blah

You guys need to consider that visually, Medium armor doesn’t exactly mix very well with Light or Heavy armor (I blame the Trench Coats). All of them also sit differently on a character’s body to where they all overlap/underlap, and just plain look bad together. Way back before it was updated, you could preview any armor piece together with others, and it looked pretty bad in some cases.

Baels.3469:

Palador.2170:

StriderShinryu.6923:

Harbard.5738:

• Alts as followers

I like this idea a lot. That would be one of the most awesome things to ever hit mmos in decades and a great incentive for “alting” as horizontal progression.This is horizontal progression if you think player, not character. For every alt you level you unlock a new hero, the alt himself, and you could play with them. as a full group, in instanced areas, such as dungeons, like in GW1, but those heroes would be your own alts as npcs. I could even play those instances with little or no coin/item rewards (if that’s used as a measure against botted farming, for instance). But it would be still every bit as awesome.

This is a brilliant idea. While I’m not 100% personally sold on the idea of helpers/followers in GW2 in the first place, this would be an excellent way to do it if it was done. I would love to see my main joined by even just one of my alts while out adventuring.

I too like this idea. It’s … disturbingly great, actually.

Never seen a game do that, ever. So new, so amaze.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Mercenary

A Mercenary Hero is a special type of hero that players can create after purchasing a Mercenary Hero Slot at the NCsoft store. They behave exactly like any other hero, but are copies of your own characters.

It was pretty good in the original game, but given they’d probably do similarly and charge you in the gem store to do so, mehhhhhhhhh. Also remember them stating that henchmen/heroes didn’t for GW2 in the early development days.

I never played GW1, and until this thread never knew they did something like that.

And as long as the gem store price is reasonable (and I realize that “reasonable” varies from person to person), then I would have no problem with grabbing a gem card or two in order to pay for it.

A minor digression from general commentary into something specific that could be done very quickly afaik (though maybe something odd would make it harder):

Titles mentioned in game that we don’t get should be added. What springs to mind is Champion of Orr, promised in a cutscene at the end of the PS. Why not give a title for completing the PS? Or for other lore achievements? Titles seem darn easy to add, they just need to check that the account has met the checklist of requirements and add it to the drop down menu. Characters are awarded ranks in their Order, why don’t we have some memorialization of that?

I hinted at the multiple armor idea in my post back on page 18, but since it is at topic right now, let me expound on my idea.

I agree all 3 classifications of armor on all professions is far too overboard. Taking the class identity away is not a good idea. Casters should look like casters, Tanks look like tanks. But I would like to see variance within the armor and how your play-style would have to adapt…e.g.

Heavy = Plate / Scale – etc..
Medium = Leather / Chain – etc…
Light = Cloth / Padded – etc…

And each of those types can give stat mods, and you can have a warrior that could wear everything plate down to leather, and a Necro that can go cloth up to leather. But not only would this offer greater build diversification, but also from a vanity standpoint would have lots of new looks and potential skins. I think its fine as well that you have to level up “armor abilities” just to have a greater variance option.

The ONLY thing I ask, is to not allow stats /skins to go transmute to different armor types, because it is stupid to have leather armor with heavy stats (in my opinion) have to keep some sort of “use it or lose it” consequence or the value becomes worthless on the pieces of armor.

Palador.2170:

I never played GW1, and until this thread never knew they did something like that.

And as long as the gem store price is reasonable (and I realize that “reasonable” varies from person to person), then I would have no problem with grabbing a gem card or two in order to pay for it.

You missed a great game. Not sure if I’m a fan or not of having followers/heroes/henchmen, but if they do add that, then using alts for that would be fantastic. In that case, I, too, would be willing to pay a reasonable amount for that.

The Lost Witch.7601:

Rin.1046:

Every profession being able to wear all types of armor

Something to keep in mind:

If every player could wear any type of armor, that takes away a tool for identification.

It can be very helpful to look at a character and see that it is probably a warrior or guardian. Especially in PvP and WvW. (I got trolled so badly by a mesmer with a slickpack. I was convinced he was an engineer until his twin brother arrived.

I hear you, but you can identify players by their weapons just as easily. If you see a greatsword heavy armour wearer, you won’t know if it’s a warrior or guardian unless you see their attacks or check their buffs. So I do not think mixed armour would cause a big problem here.

However, Chrispy does make a point in regards to clipping and fitting issues between armour types. Though I’m not completely convinced this would be as big an issue as some think it will be. There have already been fitting issues within the same armour types that were resolved, so I’m sure mixed types could be fixed also.

Anyway, I’ll stop derailing things now, as this isn’t really adding to the thread much. But if it was implemented it would increase the options for horizontal cosmetic gathering.

Chrispy.5641:

All professions All armor sets

Blah Blah Blah

You guys need to consider that visually, Medium armor doesn’t exactly mix very well with Light or Heavy armor (I blame the Trench Coats). All of them also sit differently on a character’s body to where they all overlap/underlap, and just plain look bad together. Way back before it was updated, you could preview any armor piece together with others, and it looked pretty bad in some cases.

In the vertical progression thread, Isaiah said something about how the mesh was actually so different that it would be impossible. That’s why mix and match of armor types shouldn’t be possible. Here’s my suggestion regarding armor types from earlier in the thread, linked to *adubb*’s idea from the vertical thread.

I’m not sure how I feel about mix and match, other than wanting it to be equal, none of this “heavy gets it all” stuff.

However, given the mesh issues, a solution would be to design skins that look like other weights but are designated for specific ones. We’ve seen that can be done with dragon bash helms, grenth hoods, and so on. The Aether light chest on men looks like a heavy vest.

That fits right in with all our requests for more and more and more skins.

Guhracie.3419:

Chrispy.5641:

All professions All armor sets

Blah Blah Blah

You guys need to consider that visually, Medium armor doesn’t exactly mix very well with Light or Heavy armor (I blame the Trench Coats). All of them also sit differently on a character’s body to where they all overlap/underlap, and just plain look bad together. Way back before it was updated, you could preview any armor piece together with others, and it looked pretty bad in some cases.

In the vertical progression thread, Isaiah said something about how the mesh was actually so different that it would be impossible. That’s why mix and match of armor types shouldn’t be possible. Here’s my suggestion regarding armor types from earlier in the thread, linked to *adubb*’s idea from the vertical thread.

I like that idea. I’m thinking spvp would remain status quo. To clarify, are you saying, for example, that heavy armor would reduce movement speed for all classes or just for those who are not native heavy armor users?

@ Shriketalon:

Traits currently are only good as mechanism for changing passive character effects and specificskill effects, Traits don’t work as an unlock mechanism and they shouldn’t do this also. All I say is, that Sub Classes would be exactly that key mechanism, that could be easily used as the needed unlock mechanism, with that a player could slowly progress with their characters horizontally as like also vertically.

if a Class needs more Weapons, give them more Weapons, but surely not via the Trait System. The Trait System isn and was never to be designed for that to unlock for a Character new equipable and useable weapon types.

The Trait System currently changes, how effects of skills change. But they don#t decide over it, if a Warrior for example is able to use now Halberds or not.
A TALENT on the other hand could decide over this. A character that hasn’t learned the talent to wield Halberds, and has 0 experience with wieldign this kind of weapon, should not be able to use them at all. But once your Warrior would have learned how to handle Halberds, then they get unlocked via the talent and that enables ypour Warrior from the moment on to wield Halberds, without that 1 single Trait has to be changed for that, because Traits simply aren’t made for beign an Unlock Mechanism.
The Trait System is purely made for working as a Skill Customization System only.

You are also totally wrong with it that Sub Classes add nothing unique to the table.
Sub Classes per se are perfectly made to add new unique mechanics and features to the 8(9) basic class concepts to change their gameplay concepts significantly.

While for example a Berserker-SubClass would just only expand the current Adrenaline System to a new Level of adding Berserk Mode to the Adrenaline Bar, a Legionnaire on the other hand would completely change the basic mechanic of the Adrenaline System out for a total different new unique Minion System based on “Legions” which could be on emotions based summoned creatures, that the Legionnaire would comtetely differently command, than for example a Necromancer does with his undeads

Some people might think that I underestimate the potential behind the Trait System, but I really start to believe more and more, that alot of people seem to overestimate rather the Trait System and believe about it, that the system could do also alot of things, wherefor the Trait System was never to be designed for on the first hand.
As if it simply could take over everything, as if it would be no problem to just change a customization system into a hybrid of customization and unlocking system. This smply doesn’t and will never work this way.

Traits will always decide over such minor things, like if you create with a dodge roll a clone, or not as a Mesmer, thats the stuff, that the trait system is designed for.

You will never see something unfittign in this game, like a trait deciding over the fact, if your character can use a specific armor set or not and by this look different, than an other character, which doesn’t use at the same mome the same traits as like your character. That are mechanisms meant for an own unlocking system, that works seperatively aside from the Trait System.

Thats why i want from ANet, that they should split up the Trait System, to make the whole character customization and progression more flexible with unlocking systems, that will help in character progresssion seperatively aside from the Traits, because they are it only, which can make up for clear permanent decisions, if a character can do something or not, without forcing the player to put either some points into specific traits for that feature that you want to have for your character.

With Talents its easy, once learned, your character has learned something and will never forget it anymore, It stays permanent for your character. You will feel, like your character has progressed.

Traits will always give you only the feature, of customizing your character to your likings, but not in regard of permanent progression, because traits aren’t permanent, they are exchangeable and unly useable, if you put trait points into a specific traitline first.

Some final questions to you:
Why do you seem to think, that there can’t be a compromise with BOTH systems, letting them coexist alongside each other?
At least I get that impression from you. and..

Have you never played MMO’s, like Ragnarok Online that have a straight forward Sub Class System, where you get the feeling, as if your character raises in his/her career?

Donari.5237:

I’m not sure how I feel about mix and match, other than wanting it to be equal, none of this “heavy gets it all” stuff.

However, given the mesh issues, a solution would be to design skins that look like other weights but are designated for specific ones. We’ve seen that can be done with dragon bash helms, grenth hoods, and so on. The Aether light chest on men looks like a heavy vest.

That fits right in with all our requests for more and more and more skins.

That would be an easy way to address to at least partly address this. If some of the new skins were universal, like the dragon bash helms you mentioned. The game is invested in the three armor classes. The question is: did the developers make that investment just for the armor’s defense rating or for that as well as aesthetics?

Earendil Starsailor.4675:

Donari.5237:

I’m not sure how I feel about mix and match, other than wanting it to be equal, none of this “heavy gets it all” stuff.

However, given the mesh issues, a solution would be to design skins that look like other weights but are designated for specific ones. We’ve seen that can be done with dragon bash helms, grenth hoods, and so on. The Aether light chest on men looks like a heavy vest.

That fits right in with all our requests for more and more and more skins.

That would be an easy way to address to at least partly address this. If some of the new skins were universal, like the dragon bash helms you mentioned. The game is invested in the three armor classes. The question is: did the developers make that investment just for the armor’s defense rating or for that as well as aesthetics?

Isaiah actually replied to my original post about mixing and matching armor sets and giving you a choice between types of armor for all classes. First of all, without a major rework of how armor is rendered, you quite literally can’t mix and match armor types. It simply doesn’t work. Secondly, he mentioned that giving all classes the ability to switch between all armor types runs the risk of diluting the purpose of having separate classes altogether.

Compromise
What if the choice was purely aesthetic? No stat buffs whatsoever, you could just wear whatever the heck you wanted to, as long as all your armor pieces were the same type.

Or Perhaps….
What if the bonuses were kept to a minimum? Or perhaps the pros/cons of each armor set were specific to each class. For example, a Guardian wearing heavy armor gets the best boost to armor, wearing Medium armor gives a 5% boost to movement speed but 5% less armor, and wearing Light armor increases healing power by 5% and movement speed by 5% but has 10% less armor then Heavy. And it could be different for every class. Instead of specific stats it could be certain class specific boosts. This would still keep each class distinct, but also opening up even more build flexibility and aesthetic choice.

adubb.2453:

Earendil Starsailor.4675:

Donari.5237:

I’m not sure how I feel about mix and match, other than wanting it to be equal, none of this “heavy gets it all” stuff.

However, given the mesh issues, a solution would be to design skins that look like other weights but are designated for specific ones. We’ve seen that can be done with dragon bash helms, grenth hoods, and so on. The Aether light chest on men looks like a heavy vest.

That fits right in with all our requests for more and more and more skins.

That would be an easy way to address to at least partly address this. If some of the new skins were universal, like the dragon bash helms you mentioned. The game is invested in the three armor classes. The question is: did the developers make that investment just for the armor’s defense rating or for that as well as aesthetics?

Isaiah actually replied to my original post about mixing and matching armor sets and giving you a choice between types of armor for all classes. First of all, without a major rework of how armor is rendered, you quite literally can’t mix and match armor types. It simply doesn’t work. Secondly, he mentioned that giving all classes the ability to switch between all armor types runs the risk of diluting the purpose of having separate classes altogether.

Compromise
What if the choice was purely aesthetic? No stat buffs whatsoever, you could just wear whatever the heck you wanted to, as long as all your armor pieces were the same type.

Or Perhaps….
What if the bonuses were kept to a minimum? Or perhaps the pros/cons of each armor set were specific to each class. For example, a Guardian wearing heavy armor gets the best boost to armor, wearing Medium armor gives a 5% boost to movement speed but 5% less armor, and wearing Light armor increases healing power by 5% and movement speed by 5% but has 10% less armor then Heavy. And it could be different for every class. Instead of specific stats it could be certain class specific boosts. This would still keep each class distinct, but also opening up even more build flexibility and aesthetic choice.

It would have to be different for every class, because its not just the armor that keeps every class different. Every class has different Hp values as well, which I am guessing were balanced against (probably the warrior) and all the possible abilities, healing, and damage that each class has access to. Pretty much everything about a given class has to be kept in mind when giving them different armor types so it would stay balanced, and not for example, make a Necromancer in Heavy Armor freaking near impossible to kill and keep all his damage amount the same.

Personally, I don’t see the point in forcing different classes to wear different armor types. It seems like more of a vestigial remaint of earlier MMO’s (and further back into early RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons) where every class had a specific Archtype that related to defense, dps, or healing. Since any class can fill any role in this game, different armor types are pointless.

There are some things that would have to be addressed though. For one thing, everyone’s possible armor sets just got tripled, which is good, but it can be bad. In Dungeons for example, you would have a dungeon group requiring Rangers to wear Heavy Armor so they can last longer in melee and make their support skills more useful. But, every Ranger has a set of Medium armor, why should they be required to buy two whole new sets of armor just to please a bunch of Dungeon runners?

adubb.2453:

Isaiah actually replied to my original post about mixing and matching armor sets and giving you a choice between types of armor for all classes. First of all, without a major rework of how armor is rendered, you quite literally can’t mix and match armor types. It simply doesn’t work. Secondly, he mentioned that giving all classes the ability to switch between all armor types runs the risk of diluting the purpose of having separate classes altogether.

Compromise
What if the choice was purely aesthetic? No stat buffs whatsoever, you could just wear whatever the heck you wanted to, as long as all your armor pieces were the same type.

Or Perhaps….
What if the bonuses were kept to a minimum? Or perhaps the pros/cons of each armor set were specific to each class. For example, a Guardian wearing heavy armor gets the best boost to armor, wearing Medium armor gives a 5% boost to movement speed but 5% less armor, and wearing Light armor increases healing power by 5% and movement speed by 5% but has 10% less armor then Heavy. And it could be different for every class. Instead of specific stats it could be certain class specific boosts. This would still keep each class distinct, but also opening up even more build flexibility and aesthetic choice.

Yeah, I’m not a proponent of mixing armor. Really, being able to use the other armor skins from the different classes is not a big thing for me; however, I realize that this game is played by many different player types, and the more the game can cater to these different types (without watering down core content), the better it is for everyone. I do like your “perhaps.” If we can do it and still maintain or even increase the distinction between classes, that would be great.

Chrispy.5641:

adubb.2453:

Earendil Starsailor.4675:

Donari.5237:

I’m not sure how I feel about mix and match, other than wanting it to be equal, none of this “heavy gets it all” stuff.

However, given the mesh issues, a solution would be to design skins that look like other weights but are designated for specific ones. We’ve seen that can be done with dragon bash helms, grenth hoods, and so on. The Aether light chest on men looks like a heavy vest.

That fits right in with all our requests for more and more and more skins.

That would be an easy way to address to at least partly address this. If some of the new skins were universal, like the dragon bash helms you mentioned. The game is invested in the three armor classes. The question is: did the developers make that investment just for the armor’s defense rating or for that as well as aesthetics?

Isaiah actually replied to my original post about mixing and matching armor sets and giving you a choice between types of armor for all classes. First of all, without a major rework of how armor is rendered, you quite literally can’t mix and match armor types. It simply doesn’t work. Secondly, he mentioned that giving all classes the ability to switch between all armor types runs the risk of diluting the purpose of having separate classes altogether.

Compromise
What if the choice was purely aesthetic? No stat buffs whatsoever, you could just wear whatever the heck you wanted to, as long as all your armor pieces were the same type.

Or Perhaps….
What if the bonuses were kept to a minimum? Or perhaps the pros/cons of each armor set were specific to each class. For example, a Guardian wearing heavy armor gets the best boost to armor, wearing Medium armor gives a 5% boost to movement speed but 5% less armor, and wearing Light armor increases healing power by 5% and movement speed by 5% but has 10% less armor then Heavy. And it could be different for every class. Instead of specific stats it could be certain class specific boosts. This would still keep each class distinct, but also opening up even more build flexibility and aesthetic choice.

It would have to be different for every class, because its not just the armor that keeps every class different. Every class has different Hp values as well, which I am guessing were balanced against (probably the warrior) and all the possible abilities, healing, and damage that each class has access to. Pretty much everything about a given class has to be kept in mind when giving them different armor types so it would stay balanced, and not for example, make a Necromancer in Heavy Armor freaking near impossible to kill and keep all his damage amount the same.

Personally, I don’t see the point in forcing different classes to wear different armor types. It seems like more of a vestigial remaint of earlier MMO’s (and further back into early RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons) where every class had a specific Archtype that related to defense, dps, or healing. Since any class can fill any role in this game, different armor types are pointless.

There are some things that would have to be addressed though. For one thing, everyone’s possible armor sets just got tripled, which is good, but it can be bad. In Dungeons for example, you would have a dungeon group requiring Rangers to wear Heavy Armor so they can last longer in melee and make their support skills more useful. But, every Ranger has a set of Medium armor, why should they be required to buy two whole new sets of armor just to please a bunch of Dungeon runners?

If we enabled the ability to wear different armor types (heavy, medium, light), I think it would either have to be just the skin (e.g. heavy armor would still behave like light armor for a mesmer while looking like heavy armor) or just the skin with as in my example but with some minor buffs/debuffs (e.g. a warrior wearing medium armor gets a slight increase in running speed but has the medium armor’s lower defense rating). I don’t think it would be a good idea to increase defense ratings.

I dont like this armor idea. it’s hard to balance amonst classes and hard to counter some builds there.

ArtemusHunter.9521:

Quizotic.2815:

can we please get some word on ascended, as of right now I don’t want to grind for gear but sadly since ive been dropped from groups for not having any, it looks like im going to have to or quit playing

The stat difference is not much from exotic.. I don’t see why even elitists would want to drop someone because of non-ascended.. :/

artemus, you’d be surprised as to how many games if you don’t have best in slot people wont take you for stuff. that being said I was really looking forward to not having to grind gear, to be able to take a brake and come back in a few months and know all I missed was dailies, lore, and skins. if I wanted a gear treadmill I would have kept raiding in wow, and now i’m behind in 2 game.

And for the record it was a dungeon group for all 4 arah paths, apparently that 20 power, 10 precision, and 6% crit means a lot to some people.

The lost witch above brings up a very good point in his earlier post.
Player creation needs to play a larger role in the game. For the long term health of the game, sandbox elements need to be incoorporated into as much of the game as possible.

“1.Top 3 supporting functionality ideas (Skins locker, stat swapping, build template..)
2.Top 3 HP content ideas (New weapons skills, skills & traits, Order / Factin expansion, New maps to explore / Zone progression, Louveepine’s Lore codex, Nike’s Patrons of the City..)”
These all look good but in a year we’ll be in the same position we’re at now after this content is fully devoured by the gamers. Therefore sandbox elements need to be incoorperated (especially in light of the upcoming MMOs coming out) and the sandbox skills could be acquired by horizontal progression.

For example-
New maps… Release a relatively undeveloped peice of land to each server. Through PvE quests, battles or NPC interaction a player could develop a skill for this area (Arborist-plant trees, Builder- Build buildings, Gardener- plant plants, philosopher- influence NPC speech, preist- Start temples)
New weapons… The player would interact w NPCs to develop subskills (woodworking, metalsmithing., etc…) You combine these subskills to influence what weapon you make. Also which NPC you got the subskill from would influence the type of woodworking you got. You would combine them (like discovering in crafting) to create new types of weapons.
New skills- See my earlier post on this.

Use the horizontal progression to increase player creativity for sandbox elements and you will extend the life of the game. Other content will be quickly devoured by the player base.

Orpheal.8263:

Traits currently are only good as mechanism for changing passive character effects and specificskill effects, Traits don’t work as an unlock mechanism and they shouldn’t do this also.
…
The Trait System currently changes, how effects of skills change. But they don#t decide over it, if a Warrior for example is able to use now Halberds or not.
A TALENT on the other hand could decide over this. A character that hasn’t learned the talent to wield Halberds, and has 0 experience with wieldign this kind of weapon, should not be able to use them at all.

Let me start by addressing this.

No. This is unnecessary and counterproductive. A Profession can either wield a weapon or not. You do not need to “earn” the right to wield a profession’s weapon set. All Anet has to do in order to add the Halberd into the game is create the weapon and skills, do an extremely lengthy balance process, then release it in an update that says “Halberds have been added to the game. Warriors, Guardians, and Necromancers can use them. Have fun.” It won’t provide much immersion, but no one will care, they’ll be too busy hitting monsters with halberds. Creating a talent system to unlock the right to use your class mechanics would be a complete waste of developer time and a mindless grind for the player.

Likewise, consider your class mechanic example. Some mechanics do need more flexibility, to be sure. But at the end of the day, that can be accomplished in one of two ways: by broadening a class mechanic that’s too narrow, or adding abilities that add onto them via utilities. The former could be done by giving a class like the Necromancer or Mesmer the ability to choose what Death Shroud or Metamagic skills they equip instead of forcing them to a default. For an example of the latter, a warrior could use Battle Rage as an elite or utility in order to enter a berserk state that consumes adrenaline and only ends if it reaches zero. Likewise, he could gain the ability to summon soldiers to his command to form a legion. None of those require a brand new system, because they can find a way to flourish as part of the utility bar. It doesn’t need a brand new system.

And that’s the core problem with subclasses. We don’t need them.

I fully understand and appreciate that you enjoy the notion of progressing through a profession, climbing up the ladder to distinguish yourself in a field. And yes, I’ve enjoyed many games with such a method, be it the Final Fantasy games with the different jobs to collect and upgrade, and the different party combinations they create. But those games are designed around vertical progression. You get better at your subclass, you get +5 to your poison strike attack or you gain the Catch ability so your beastmaster can nab desertpedes and send them after rajiformes.

That’s just not how this game works. Most of us are leveled up. We’ve been there, done that, got the cake. We have reached the point where we assume we have our class abilities, and the notion of “earning” the right to use a weapon is downright absurd for someone who’s killed an elder dragon. Trying to add in more vertical progression into something as basic as class mechanics or weapon skills is going to be greeted with major annoyance because people expect to be done with the whole “leveling” thing.

You want subclasses, so you are attempting to create a reason why subclasses must exist. Unfortunately, there is none. We have active abilities in the form of weapons, utilities, and class mechanics. We have passive boosts in the form of traits. These perfectly cover everything a profession is meant to do in theory, and when one falters in practice it should be addressed by upgrading it directly. If a class doesn’t have weapons, that profession should get more weapons without any strings attached. If a class mechanic is too narrow, it should be broadened in a balanced and fun manner to preserve previous styles wall allowing for new forms of playstyle expression. And if a particular style has the skills to match it but falls flat on the numbers, that’s a job for the trait system to handle. These are all the mechanics we need for an elegant character system in the game.

Less is more. The designers can accomplish more with an elegant system which is easier to balance, simpler to fine tune, and more streamlined for adding content. Subclasses bring nothing to the table, only another way to overbalance the system when piled atop what we already possess.

I’m going to have to agree with Shriketalon – I want extra weapon sets and skills in the game, but there’s no need to add additional mechanics, especially grindy gating mechanics, in order to unlock them.

For everybody asking for subclasses, I see where you’re coming from, but that seems like a HUGE change in game mechanics to bring something that I’m not even sure I want. The development effort would be incredible.

I’d rather focus on simpler, shorter-term changes which we could see this year that fit with the existing mechanics and systems of the game.

As to altering stats on armor if using something outside one’s profession: Isn’t that vertical? Or at least fiendishly hard to make sure no min-maxer can get a definite boost or advantage from it? This CDI is about expanding experience without changing power levels.

I’m all for more ways to dress up. I’m not so much into having to wonder if I’ve just crippled myself by putting on the wrong thing.

I don’t know if I missed the top 3 (was out of town a few days)

My top three would be:
1. armor and weapon skin wardrobe
2. personal housing and guild hall
3. new recipes for current crafting professions to craft appearance armor, weapons, house and guild hall items

adubb.2453:

Isaiah actually replied to my original post about mixing and matching armor sets and giving you a choice between types of armor for all classes. First of all, without a major rework of how armor is rendered, you quite literally can’t mix and match armor types. It simply doesn’t work. Secondly, he mentioned that giving all classes the ability to switch between all armor types runs the risk of diluting the purpose of having separate classes altogether.

Compromise
What if the choice was purely aesthetic? No stat buffs whatsoever, you could just wear whatever the heck you wanted to, as long as all your armor pieces were the same type.

I’m all for your compromise, you don’t have to be able to mix different armor types, it would just be awesome to wear sets from other professions to expand the sense of being a unique snowflake. Imagine a warrior with dual swords wearing leather armor or a guardian wearing a light robe being more of a battle-cleric.

Guhracie.3419:

I’m on holiday for New Year’s, but one thing I really wanted to bring up before I forget is the thrill of finding loot. I recently got my necromancer to 80 and when I decided to gear her up, do you know what I did? I opened the trading post, because I wanted the Phoenix Reborn axe.

Maybe this is on me, but does anybody else miss loot tables? The idea of going somewhere to get a specific item with a reasonable chance of getting that item is something that I miss. I realize that karma gear and dungeon gear are starter sets of gear and can be obtained by doing specific content, but it would be nice if there were some rhyme or reason to where and how things drop. (This is kind of a supporting structure to visual customization, in case you’re wondering why this is coming up in a discussion about horizontal progression.) I kept meaning to mention this and getting side-tracked by all the good ideas. I’ll be back to posting in the New Year! Be safe, everyone, and have a good one!

I agree. While we have loot tables (e.g. Final Rest drops from the Shadow Behemoth) the % is just far too low to give skin-hunting a real chance of being fun.

BUT it makes sense in that kontext since the Shadow Behemoth is one of the auto-afk bosses which aren’t on the same level as Tequatl yet. The risk-reward ratio is quite fine here. Harder content should have much higher droprates though. I’d love to see such higher droprates in the open world, but it’s difficult because most content can be zerged down quite easily.

I like how low level hearts of specific zones have specific parts of armorsets and in order to get a full set, you might have to unlock various hearts of that zone. This is far superior to buying armor on the TP imho. Orr’s karma vendors also have sets with stats spread over the temples, so this is fine for me also. What I get from that is that getting new loot via karma is well executed in GW2, but when it comes to the TP it gets worse in the sense of progression and exitement.

What an awesome game GW2 would be without the Mystic Forge and the TP,… I wonder?! Blizzard realized this with Diablo3 and gets rid of the Auction House with the next Addon.

I had another thought about stat switching on ascended armor. Since the ability to switch stats is one of the things that sets legendaries apart, to make up for giving this ability to ascended gear you could give legendary gear (when it comes out) an immunity to damage and breakage on the defeat of the player. So a player in full legendary gear wouldn’t have to worry about repairing their armor.

Would this be a part of Horizontal Progression? :

Various GW1 styled maps(like JQ, FA and Codex) being revamped for GW2.

For JQ you could make the juggernauts and turtles have champ level health or between champ and vet, and the camps and mines could just be how they were in gw1, but with gw2 npc’s(hopefully with aggressive AI).

And then FQ could be the same in a sense, with the main guy at the end of it having champ level health. You could even make the npc’s ghosts or have it sort of fractal related(by that I mean having the area for JQ broken and floating in ..space?.. like the maw fractal).

As for codex, Idk, never played too much but I know some people liked it a lot. threw it in there for those people.

LoneBaron.1284:

So a player in full legendary gear wouldn’t have to worry about repairing their armor.

With the amount of money full legendary would require, I doubt it’d be an issue anyway – but sure, that sounds like a fair deal.

I’m a little concerned about that tale of getting kicked out of a group for not having ascended, though – hopefully it doesn’t catch on, because I’m pretty sure < 1% of players can actually afford to field that sort of equipment.

The only thing I’m going to talk about (because I’m pretty sure every topic has been beaten to death, but I want to talk about this one in particular) is armor and crafting.

I thought the crafting in this game will focus a lot on cosmetics. But it doesn’t. It has unique armor skins and you can find the recipes for the first 2 tiers of karma armor.
But why not add the other tiers ?
Why not make a rare recipe for every set in this game, just to craft the skin (no stats attached). Dungeon armor recipe could be found in dungeons as a rare/exotic drop. Other recipes could be acquired from regular monsters.

And the actual recipe for crafting are rather boring. It’s always the same thing and visually it doesn’t make any sort of sense. In GW1 if you armor required fur, you would actually see it in on your armor. But in GW2 there’s no real logic. There’s also no skins to be discovered.

And then comes the actual armor skins. There’s been countless debates on skimpy armor vs non skimpy. And GW2 tried to please everyone with a weird compromise and with a lot of light armor, a huge behind.
I’m not expecting an armor texture rework to make the fabric look better and your character’s behind less disproportionate to the rest of her body (but it’d be great). But a lot of my complaints will disappear if we can show/hide certain armor parts, like all those sort of skirts male scholar pants seems to come with and make Charr look even more ridiculous.

And the clipping…between armor sets I can sort of live with it. But with my own character ? It doesn’t make any sense, especially regarding gem store armor.

And on a lesser note, it’d be nice if jewelery actually showed on your character (even if it clipped with other armor). So far it’s pretty dumb to buy most dungeon rings/amulets because you can get the same stats for cheaper with standard jewelcrafting.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Happy New Year All!

Chris

Happy new year ^^

Chrispy.5641:

Your post also comes with the assumption that I didn’t try a different build other than the one with alot of Control skills in it. I’ve said in this Thread about how I have 6 full Exotic Armor sets (I’ve made it a point in alot more than one post here. Yes, some people have twice as much, and many people only had a single magic find set until a few months ago and nothing else). Its about as obvious as gravity that I play with different builds and try different builds, so, it should be just as obvious that I have tried other builds that don’t have much control. It should also be kind of obvious that since I use a Greatsword in that build example I gave to you, that I make heavy use of that 1 second evade that the auto attack gives us every 1.75 sec. There’s also the dodges, and the movement, etc. You’d have to be crazy to just stick to Control and use that as your only tool in a fight (or dps, or support, or healing, or kiting, etc). My disagreement with you is that I don’t think its as weak as you say, and the fact that I still play a build with alot of control skills should say something, regardless of the half of the player population that uses only Zerker Gear(formerly magic find gear) and refuses to even try anything else. Not refering to you specifically with that last sentence, but you really should stop refusing to accept that some people play the game differently, and just accept it already.

Sure, but here’s what I don’t understand:

Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that you are right and that the 99% of the experienced playerbase is wrong, and that Defiant-affected control is an untapped resource that is actually still valuable despite the things that you’d normally most want to control simply laughing at 75% or (usually) more of the control effects that get thrown at them. You still concede, however, that the majority of players are not using such control effects, and are doing just fine without them.

How, exactly, is making a mechanic that most people have already abandoned worse actually going to result in more challenge? All you’d be doing is making things more difficult for yourself and the slim minority who are still making significant use of Defiant-affected control effects. The majority of players are just going to “ho-hum, there’s even less use to bringing control” and continue waltzing on through with builds that rely on the alternatives to Defiant-affected control effects instead.

Regardless of whether the consensus is right or wrong, the effect of your proposed expansion of Defiant, if not part of a package that gives players good reason to want to strip those Defiant stacks rather than just not bother bringing affected skills and ignoring them, will only be to reinforce that consensus.

Hello,

Here’s my “Top 3” for Horizontal Progression:

1) Transforming the ‘home instance’ into a legit, customizable form of player housing. That would mean taking the player’s earned mining nodes and hooking them up into a personalized player house location that’s an instanced offset of their home city (of choice, maybe?). So, like for the Asura it wouldn’t be Snaff’s lab but instead a separate gated zone that could get visual things showing player achievements/skins earned/Living Story completions.

2) Wardrobe. Wardrobe. Wardrobe. To be more specific…you know how the Achievement Skins are unlocked by account with as many copies as you want too? Okay, now consider flinging that out there for the $10-15 skins that are purchased. Even having them as unlocked by having them 1-per-account active, so for example if your Warlock has Grenth’s mask, you cannot put it on your Elementalist unless it’s unequipped off your Warlock.

3) Um….I don’t know. Honestly with those 2 things above it’s enough for me.

I really agree with the points suggested regarding minipets. I think a lot of people would like to see more done with them.

At the moment, they serve absolutely no purpose besides being an almost tragic money sink (both in-game gold, and gems), especially since now you only get a title for completing collection 1, nothing for collection 2, and with the exception of the Reef Rider, Tequatl and the Risen Hylek, you can only source them from either LS or the Black Lion.

I think having Teq and the Hylek drop from an event was a fantastic step in the right direction for making minis more accessible.

• 1: Minipet arena: This was something that we saw in preview but it didn’t end up in the finished game. I think it would be safe to assume that it might end up in the game in the future in that case, though if sooner rather than later, Anet might find people more willing to drop gems on the mini packs and the value of pets to increase on the BLTC, further incentivising players to buy the random sets, especially if there are progressive rewards for playing the activity.

• 2: Progressive Minipet Rewards 1 Could even be as simple as better achievement rewards for meeting goals regarding number of pets, number of pets summoned, number of wins in the arena. We currently only have one pet-related reward, and that’s a title for completing Set 1. At the moment we have absolutely no incentive to complete set 2. Considering the expense involved with gathering the minipets, it is a bit of a lacklustre reward. A better reward might be a title and a pet specific to the achievement.

• 3: Progressive Minipet Rewards 2: Let’s assume we’ve got the minipet arena up and running. It would be an interesting addition if minipets used in the arena could ‘earn’ — whether by meeting objectives or being levelled — boons that they could apply while in use. Obviously to have a minipet arena game, the minipets themselves would need to be categorised into types, much like with ranger pets. So, for instance, if you have a moa mini that has won enough times in the arena, it could apply a swiftness boon while summoned. If balancing became an issue, it could be done much like with ranger Spirits: while summoned the mini moa might have, say, a 40% chance to apply 5 seconds of swiftness every 10 seconds. Higher level minipets might apply longer boons or higher stacks thereof. Rare pets, like acheivement, LS and rare drop pets (think Reef Drake, Toxic Krait, Clockwork Horror, Tequatl, etc) might have their own type category altogether and apply better boons, or have higher apply chance (80% instead of 50%, for instance).

• 4: Discoverable Minipets: Some people have already mentioned incentives for people to go back into lower level zones once world completion is done and L80 is reached. What about pets that can only be acquired by finding them in the open world? There are a lot of random items scattered around the maps that really don’t serve a purpose beyond being picked up and thrown at something. In the case of eggs, what if every so often one of those eggs was a mini instead? Let’s say we have a mini for each of the griffon species in the game. One might be won in a minigame, one might be in a mini set on the BLTC, one might drop from a mob (say hawkeye griffin mini dropping from hawkeye griffin). But perhaps the Mini Owl Griffin can only be acquired if you’re lucky enough to find it in an Owl Griffin nest? Reef Drake minis might reenter the game by being lootable from the Reef Drake Broodmother’s cave. What if I could get a Mini Branded Lieutenant from killing the adds during the fight with the Shatterer? Maybe there is a mini I can only get from some spot in WvW, in a place where I might have to fight other players to have a chance at looting it (like the WvW JPs) These kinds of things would not only add a bit of variety and interest to collecting the minis, but would also serve to bring players back into abandoned, desolate maps.

• 5: Craftable Minipets: Having mentioned all the random bits and pieces all over the map, what if some of these things, like the feathers, bones, ice shards, metal things or scales could be collected to craft into new minis?

• 6: Minipet UI Options: One of the single best ideas I saw suggested was adding an option to the UI (Hero panel) for one or two minis to be ‘equipped’, with a check box to toggle automatic summoning. That was brilliant. I love it. And I also agree: folks would get attached to their favourites. I would love love love to see this.

I also love the idea of earnable particle effects for our armour — something like dyes, but for floaty, glowy things would be amazing. Further, I would really like to second the folks who said that dyes really need to be account bound instead of soulbound. If nothing else, at least make Rare or Event (F&F/TA) dyes account bound. It takes a heck of a lot of the fun out of customising your characters, especially on alts, when you have to re-purchase your expensive dyes. It also takes the fun out of identifying a duplicate rare dye if you have to think about whether you need/want it for an alt instead of selling it on.

Regarding meta-achieve skins and items, like the Shatterer/Tequatl wings and the Fervid Censer: it would be great if these were like the Achieve Chest skins in that we could withdraw multiples of them. At the moment it kind of sucks that I have to transmute my backpieces just to keep my wings (having to buy the L80 TM stones no less to do so), and I can’t just go an buy another skin on the TP for gear swapping/alts. Tbh I really don’t understand why we can have as many Zenith/Hellfire/Radiant achieve skins as we want but we can’t get another of a meta-achieve skin. As long as they remain Account Bound and unsalvageable, I don’t really see how this could be abused.

• Ranger Pets: There’s really not a lot of variety in the pets Rangers have at their disposal at the moment, in terms of types and skins (I mostly mean skins and species, but other Rangers are probably more concerned about getting a little variety in mechanics). The addition of the Reef Drake was wonderful, but that was a year ago now. It would be good to see Raptors and Griffons finally added.

• Ranger Pets – Rare Pets: An incentive to get people to more widely explore the world could be to add rare pets for Rangers. These don’t necessarily have to be more powerful (though that would only add to the incentive if one would consider them to be, for example, ‘exotic’ pets), but rather to be one-every-now-and-then spawns of pets already in the pool but with rare skins. Say, for instance, a rare Drake might spawn somewhere in Snowden Drifts with the exact same stats and skills as an existing Drake, but with a fascinating new skin (imagine a Frost Drake with a glowing or crystal-y fin, etc). If this Drake spawned only once every few hours in a different place within a certain area, and only one spawned at a time, it would make the pet more desirable. Perhaps a pet that could only be found at the end of a difficult JP, or pets that can only be found during the in-game day/night.

• Ranger Pets – Support Pets: I know this has been mentioned before, but it would be good to see a new class of pet that focuses more specifically on support/buffs than offence.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Synergies gave me the following idea:

You can unlock Elite-Skills called Synergy-xy (where xy stands for a profession). Instead of using a standard elite skill you can start the synergy, but only if the chosen synergy-elite profession is in close proximity to you. If not, the skill is greyed out.

Example: A guardian has chosen the elite: “Elementalist Synergy”. He now has access to skill xy / passive xy, but only if an Elementalist is in 600 yards range.

This… is interesting.

I would probably rename them “Partner” or “Partnership” Elites to emphasize that they involve teamwork with another character (rather than some sort of internal synergy).

While graying out would work, you might have them create a combo field that only the other profession can complete. That would create more active gameplay than just becoming available when the other profession is around. A big class logo on the ground hinting ‘Hey, stand here!’

You might also simplify the design workload and increase the utility by having each class get 3 of them keyed to the Soldiers/Adventurers/Scholars categories rather than the 8 individual professions.

So building off your example, a Guardian could select “Scholar Partnership” and it drops a field that your buddy the Elementalist steps into and he can either cause a combo finisher somehow or you could even have a passive benefit while in the field. Coming from a guardian getting Aegis applied every 2 second for 10 seconds while standing in the field seems thematic. And it would make squishy characters BEG their buddy the guardian to carry this skill .

It raises the question of how much to you want to encourage/enforce party diversity. If a profession can’t lead-in for their own profession, mono-profession parties will just have to stick to the elite choices they already have.

Interesting indeed .

ArtemusHunter.9521:

Would this be a part of Horizontal Progression? :

Various GW1 styled maps(like JQ, FA and Codex) being revamped for GW2.

If there new zones/instances were made available to all they would generally be promoted as “new content”. To make them horizontal progression they would (likely) be released along with an in-game activity as the means of unlocking them, so that your progression was how many new zones you had access to.

If you check back on page one you’ll see my Horizontal Progression test. This passes with flying colors .

So, yes it could be a very desirable reward, depending on presentation.

Nike.2631:

ArtemusHunter.9521:

Would this be a part of Horizontal Progression? :

Various GW1 styled maps(like JQ, FA and Codex) being revamped for GW2.

If there new zones/instances were made available to all they would generally be promoted as “new content”. To make them horizontal progression they would (likely) be released along with an in-game activity as the means of unlocking them, so that your progression was how many new zones you had access to.

If you check back on page one you’ll see my Horizontal Progression test. This passes with flying colors .

So, yes it could be a very desirable reward, depending on presentation.

Ooooh! I actually like that. The idea of unlocking those maps would be sweeeeeeet!!!

I really miss JQ. my necro in gw1 has like 2k deaths and legendary survivor title. 95% of those deaths were from Necro-bombing obviously lol. I played a looooooooot of JQ, so even if I had to unlock the content through w.e means they want me to, I’d end up doing that.

I just saw a post saying Traits couldn’t/shouldn’t unlock new weapons… and I think that allowing them to do so is a fabulous idea.

In the Engineer class we already see the trade-off of give up a utility (or even elite!) skill slot for a new tray of 1-5 buttons. It’s not a big leap to allowing you to access a new left-hand tray with a Trait. And while you could do it as whole new weapon choices with something like an Elementalist’s adept-tier “Battlemage” trait that allows them to use 1h swords in either their main hand, off-hand, or both… it also could open the door to a whole slew of ‘Technique’ traits that substitute new skills for old on existing weapons. Imagine a “Dragonfly Dagger Technique” trait Thieves could take that would replace their Dagger buttons 1 and 2 and give them new skills in those slots that throw their dagger.

While opening up new weapon choices is something I might prefer to see as an unlock or the reward for a task-chain, the idea of managing the “I’d like new skills for existing weapons” that has been brought up might be handled very tidily by the addition of some new ‘technique traits’. And because they pay a trait as a cost, those new buttons could be pretty juicy in what they deliver .

Nike.2631:

I just saw a post saying Traits couldn’t/shouldn’t unlock new weapons… and I think that allowing them to do so is a fabulous idea.

In the Engineer class we already see the trade-off of give up a utility (or even elite!) skill slot for a new tray of 1-5 buttons. It’s not a big leap to allowing you to access a new left-hand tray with a Trait. And while you could do it as whole new weapon choices with something like an Elementalist’s adept-tier “Battlemage” trait that allows them to use 1h swords in either their main hand, off-hand, or both… it also could open the door to a whole slew of ‘Technique’ traits that substitute new skills for old on existing weapons. Imagine a “Dragonfly Dagger Technique” trait Thieves could take that would replace their Dagger buttons 1 and 2 and give them new skills in those slots that throw their dagger.

While opening up new weapon choices is something I might prefer to see as an unlock or the reward for a task-chain, the idea of managing the “I’d like new skills for existing weapons” that has been brought up might be handled very tidily by the addition of some new ‘technique traits’. And because they pay a trait as a cost, those new buttons could be pretty juicy in what they deliver .

I love that idea. Instead of creating grind in order to progress in a type of subclass, which would be horrible for alt-lovers since they’d have to spend huge amount of time on getting all their characters to subclasses, you create a new trait which opens up a subclass.

(a different idea with this in mind: allow everyone who uses the trait “Battlemage” to use heavy OR light armor skins – not in combination because of clipping though).

SUBCLASS AND TRAIT SYSTEMS REVISED

When I made the suggestion to fuse traits and skills in this thread, I generally meant utility/ elite skills, but having traits unlock new weapon choices is a wonderful idea too.

Basically, I think the trait tree system is mechanically the most interesting character customisation system in this game (because of the choices you must make of, because of the tiers, the majors/ minors, etc), but the traits themselves are some of the most boring effects found in this game (exceptions are not the rule), and generally far less exciting than unlocking new skills. And the opposite also happens: skills are generally more exciting, but unlocking or equipping them is not so.

Let’s make a comparison:

Skill System
+ Interesting, active effects;
- Unexciting unlock & equip system;

Trait System
- Unexciting passive effects, with some very creative and interesting exceptions.
+ Thought-provoking customisation rules;

Idealized Skill+Trait fused system
+ Best of both?

On the matter of subclasses, I think the best way to implement subclasses in this game, with the least amount of system revamping and with the highest community consensus, is under the following concept:
One trait tree = One subclass type

And no, that’s not exactly how it works currently. The five trait trees that exist for each profession at the moment are under very strict rules, especially when it comes to stats offered. We know the first trait tree will always give more power, the second more precision, and then toughness, vitality and the profession mechanic at last. That makes them not only too restricting, which makes it impossible for some flavored traits to ever fit perfectly, but it also makes them too broad in flavor, so the point that the act of investing in a pwoer trait tree to get a generic +10% damage trait is flavorless to what a subclass system would otherwise offer.

What I’m brainstorming is a less restricting system where the number of trait trees can be expanded with ease, and each trait tree would be more specialized to a specific flavor.

Let’s take a look at how that would change the elementalist, as an example:

Current elementalist’s trait trees:

• Fire Magic
• Air Magic
• Earth Magic
• Water Magic
• Arcana

Here’s what a new subclass-themed system could offer:

• Pyromancer (fire magic)
• Aeromancer (air magic)
• Geomancer (earth magic)
• Aquamancer (water magic – specialized at healing)
• Frostmancer (water magic – ice-flavored, with chills, torment, vulnerability, etc)
• Elemental Dancer (arcana magic – specialized at attunement swapping effects)
• Arcanist (specialized at arcane skills)
• Battlemage (specialized at melee without conjures)
• Conjurer (specialized at magical weaponry – conjures)
• Auramancer
• Etc.

Now for more in-depth examples:
30 points into Battlemage
+ Power
+ Vitality
Other traits = Stone Splinters (+10% damage while in melee), greatsword-unlocking, Windborne Dagger (moves faster while using daggers), etc.

And 30 points put into Pyromancer
+ Power
+ Condition Damage
Traits: Unlock fire-themed skills and traits (signet of fire, cleansing fire, etc), persisting flames (fire fields last longer and give fury on blast finishers), etc.

If 60 points in traits out of 70 were invested in those two, what would happen?

• You would get +600 power out of it, something that currently isn’t possible with traits.
• You would be able to fuse the battlemage’s greater melee power and defenses with the pyromancer’s fire fields and fury, which is technically already possible in the current system, albeit not as flavorful, and perhaps not as effective. The battlemage’s minor 15th and 25th traits could offer great melee defenses. Meanwhile, in the current systems, the 15th and 25th minor traits of, say, earth magic, inflict cripple or add a damage boost to non-dodging long-range spellcasters, while water’s current 25th adds more damage per boons. As you can see, those effects are way too broad. What if a battlemage doesn’t relies on (many) boons? What if a battlemage needs to dodge constantly? Why would a battle mage want a cripple to escape if they’re meant to be there at the front? Unless it is to kite them, but that cripple is melee-ranged, and chances are, kiting enemies are already far away by the time you need it. So as you can see, even though the current system already allows you to “imagine your own subclass” in theory, it is both way too broad and way too restricting to do it in practice.
• You would be restricted to fire-themed condition cleansing, due to the lack of points in water traits, and due to the lack of points in geomancer for rock solid stability trait to be used with ether renewal’s heal (although the heal skill would still be available regardless), which in turn would estabilish more defined strong and weak points to your build than the current system does.

ArtemusHunter.9521:

Would this be a part of Horizontal Progression? :

Various GW1 styled maps(like JQ, FA and Codex) being revamped for GW2.

For JQ you could make the juggernauts and turtles have champ level health or between champ and vet, and the camps and mines could just be how they were in gw1, but with gw2 npc’s(hopefully with aggressive AI).

And then FQ could be the same in a sense, with the main guy at the end of it having champ level health. You could even make the npc’s ghosts or have it sort of fractal related(by that I mean having the area for JQ broken and floating in ..space?.. like the maw fractal).

As for codex, Idk, never played too much but I know some people liked it a lot. threw it in there for those people.

Great idea! I would love to see JQ and FA; for that matter, I’d love to see AB. Was kind of hoping to see them released with Cantha maps (I know, hope springs eternal).

qol

i want buff food slot in characterwindow where can put in a stack buff food and it use it when buff runs out on me – thx

DiogoSilva.7089:

snups.

You almost had what I’ve been thinking of in regards to sub-classes, but took a different route.

I don’t really feel sub-classes a la FFT would be a best fit in the game, but rather, if our sub-classes had their own traits and skills that you had the option of using. Currently, the Mesmer has a bit of the sub-class idea that I’ve had in them, in the form of shatter specs and phantasm specs. These illusion builds aren’t set in stone. There’s a lot of variety to them, whether you’re power based, condi, Prismatic Understanding stealth, ect. Mantra and Signet builds are Mantra and Signet builds because they have mantras or signets, but shatter, phantasm, or clone builds have a much broader scope. Theres defensive phantasm, offensive phantasm, shatter spike, PU condi clones, power clones, etc. All of these builds utilize the Mesmer’s profession mechanic, illusions, but to a very different degree. Lets extend that flexibility to the rest of the classes via the addition of traits and skills (weapon and utility) that directly address different styles of possible play.

Ghotistyx.6942:

I thought many of the original ideas for GW2, back when it was first being talked about, were great. Somethings I could live without, like dual-professions, but I think the Living Story could introduce many of the interesting, more plausible, items that were talked about.
Skills and Traits:
I loved the idea that you would travel the land, searching far and wide for polymock skills and traits to unlock by completing what turned into the skill challenges. What we could do with this, is for new skills (weapon and utility) and traits, you would complete some new content (hidden?) throughout Tyria. Once completed, you unlock the ability to purchase the new skills, traits, w/e with skillpoints. What I’d love to see, is options to replace skills within weapons with your new unlocks, or to drastically augment current utility skills etc. In this way, people can more completely customize their desired role, while also providing some uncertainty when facing players in WvW or PvP. No two Hammer Guardians will be guaranteed to have the same loadout.

Further description of idea: Link

Romek.4201:

qol

i want buff food slot in characterwindow where can put in a stack buff food and it use it when buff runs out on me – thx

I’m against more screen clutter, instead a reward could be a little gadged, where people could put in up to 4 stacks of buff-food and the gadget automatically uses the food inside once the current one runs out.

I’d have nothing against such slots in the hero-window either, just not in the game UI.
-) a slot for minis in the hero ui
-) a slot for that buff-food gadget in the hero ui
-) an additional armor slot for each piece for cosmetics in the hero ui

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I hear this a lot, but think of it…

• Asura are already too small to make out armor details, even from a few yards away (watch combat here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFLoModaqdo)
• new Skins like Grenths Hood already blur the lines (example: https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/125080/gw335.jpg , what’s his profession? His/Her?
• some armorsets are already designed to look like a different weight-class (example: http://argos-soft.net/GW2/ArmorGallery/index.php?color=10&sex=0&race=3&w=1&skinID=kodanli&lang=en) I love that set.

Most of the time I play WvW and before I can see which armor the enemy is wearing I see his skills and weapons – or none of it (Zerg).

Fair points.

And:

Rin.1046:

I hear you, but you can identify players by their weapons just as easily. If you see a greatsword heavy armour wearer, you won’t know if it’s a warrior or guardian unless you see their attacks or check their buffs. So I do not think mixed armour would cause a big problem here.

However, Chrispy does make a point in regards to clipping and fitting issues between armour types. Though I’m not completely convinced this would be as big an issue as some think it will be. There have already been fitting issues within the same armour types that were resolved, so I’m sure mixed types could be fixed also.

Anyway, I’ll stop derailing things now, as this isn’t really adding to the thread much. But if it was implemented it would increase the options for horizontal cosmetic gathering.

Also fair points. (And I don’t think we’re derailing the thread here, just refining ideas?)

It is just weird to have that Norn with the spiky platemail pop three clones with some butterfly effects.

The game lays down some basic plans for races and professions. It sort of tells us: warriors and guardians are those who carry heavy gear and look like soldiers. While this limits the options for players, it also makes the game coherent. They help us to make sense of the GW2 world and it’s inhabitants. (If that makes sense?)

Like a policewoman wearing a uniform and a dancer wearing a dress.

While we can have dancers wearing uniforms and a policewoman wearing a dress… it is weird. And while weird isn’t necessarily bad, I would have some trouble with everyone wearing anything. Which mainly comes from a desire to have some order. (And then some joy comes from things that break that order… occasionally)

Costume parties can be fun, but I’d rather not have them all-year round.

Then again, I don’t like that people are using dragon wing backpacks because they break my immersion. Yet the popularity of the wings suggests that others don’t agree with me on that. So perhaps my opinion is that of a minority.

The Lost Witch.7601:

Then again, I don’t like that people are using dragon wing backpacks because they break my immersion. Yet the popularity of the wings suggests that others don’t agree with me on that. So perhaps my opinion is that of a minority.

Haha, I’m with you on this. I really would love the option to disable any specific piece of gear from my view, but I guess such an option is unrealistic. At least you can’t wear townclothes in battle which guarantees that I won’t see things like boxing gloves in WvW.

I think you have a point, well I’d love to have more sets which blur the line – some of them are my favourites. People are already sick of trenchcoats for medium armor classes, why not give them two or three sets which look totally different?

I think Anet’s armor-designers also should take inspiration from many different fantasy-genre sources. Why not start a CDI where people could post their favourite suggestions (images) and discuss these with the designers themselves.