Guild Wars 2

HP summary page 35 to 40 Part 1
Guhracie had some data issues so I’ll cover. As were falling behind I thought I might as well just post what I’ll finished. Looking to have 29-34 up tomorrow with 41-46 close behind. After this hoping to keep up with the topic.

Now on to the summary, this is my largest so far but there has been some large discussion around three ideas; Player Housing / Guild Halls, Sub-Classes & The Journey. Again if I’ve missed anything lets me know.

Top Three Tally Guhracie (Updated to pg 40)
(Guhracie first tally with descriptions also check out AlanaTheStrange’s Tally list)

1. Skills, traits and weapons (77)
2. Cosmetic customisation tools (76)
3. Quests, challenge missions and order progression (64)
4. Housing, guild halls and customisation of the home instance (57)
5. More new skins (27)
6. Build diversity (26)
7. Expansion of the personality system (22)
8. Zone progression (17)
9. More titles (13)
10. Hard mode (10)
11. More character customisation (9) and Lore as a reward (9)
12. Game world to actively respond to the choices we make (8) and Total guild system expansion or overhaul (8)
13. Expansion and secondary crafting skills (6)
14. Visible rewards for completing heroic feats (5), Expansion of the emote and verbal call-out system (5), Improvement or overhaul of the personal story (5) and Improvement to the interface for minis (5)
15. Skins that show progress via cosmetics (4)
16. Mounts and mounted combat (3) and Arena-style combat (3)
17. More activities (polymock in particular) (2)
18. Again a handful of other ideas with only one mention.

• Swagger looks at ways to expand player feedback and CDI’s particapation by adding a survey and CDI topic polling. TheDaiBish adds a centeralised release feedback thread.

Character Progression
Build content expansion
*Zamalek wonders if increasing the trait points form 70 to 80 would open up build diversity.

New skills

• Coltz adds a new method of skill collection with Secret tome’s.
• Marcus Greythorne looks at skillpoints, the eases of collecting them and the effect they have on adding new skills.

Cosmetics expansion

• Facepunch discusses armor distortion and/or clipping and the affect these distortions and/or clippings has on players desire to collect skins and the effects on a cosmetic HP.

Zone progression

• Shiren begins discussions on zone proegession but talks about the ‘Been there, done that’ mind set.
  Achievement Progression
• Yamiga touches on the topic of achievement progression and the existing achievement system/ Part 1, Part 2 & Part3.

Immanuel looks at HP expansion through Racial titles.

Idea not related to HP

• Kain Francois brings up Underflow servers
  (Author note: This feels more like a QOL feature)

Edit: Updated Top Three Tally to include 29-34 counts.

Ronah.2869:

Sinope.5630:

So, first we have to solve The Mystery of The Lazy People , and after that we should start to think new Dynamic Events, activities, titles, sub professions, traits, skills, skins and all other Horizontal progression.

+1 for this statement. The Mystery of The Lazy People

I think it is the problem not only with GW2 but with all MMOs

Why many people download the F2P or B2P games and quit after a few weeks?
- they feel to far away from what they need to get
- they don’t feel it is worth the effort (they have other better things to do)
- they get bored by it (game play, mechanic, graphics, repetitiveness etc)
- they feel they need to pay to be the best and grinding takes too long

If something is to far out of reach then it’s not fun to work towards it. Especially if the way to get it is not by real play elements but by grinding. Thats something else as being lazy. It’s a game people want to enjoy. They don’t want an endless grind.

Really everything you say there has nothing to do with ‘lazy’ people. It has to do with fun. Or was that your point?

HP summary page 35 to 40 Part 2
Again if I’ve missed anything lets me know.

Player housing, Guild Halls

• Lorea highlights Portable-door-Player-housing from a pervious thread in the suggestion forum.
• Palador looks at a new zone to base player housing in. Which starts of wild but can be deleveloped, this concept almost feels like how the Southsun Cove zone is opening up. Conski Deshan looks at Palador’s idea and wonders could this be applied to Orr. Revitalizing Orr and introducing the fist Pact city.
• Bezagron expands into Alliance halls & Alliance / Guild public shops looking at expanding guilds non combat options.
• Shakkara takes another look with Towns.
• BlackCabs looks out side the box with his housing idea including Housing + PVE + Factions + WvW elements

• Cliff and Sirendor start the discussion of instance housing & open world housing.
  Cliff Part 1 – Instance home city housing
  Sirendor Part 1 – Could not there be open world
  Cliff Part 2 – Is open world practical
  Sirendor Part 2 – References Everquest Landmark
  Ghotistyx Part 1 – References Friend Safari concept from Pokemon XY
  StriderShinryu Part 1 – Questions what’s possible with housing in GW2
  Sirendor Part 3 – Themepark, sandbox housing were do we go?

HP summary page 35 to 40 Part 3
Again if I’ve missed anything lets me know.

Sub-classes
On page 36 Chris Whiteside heats up the topic of sub-classes;

There has been a huge amount of discussion around sub classes.
..Snip..
In short I would like to see if the CDI group thinks it is a relevant part of Horizontal Progression at this stage of GW2’s life?

Chris

• Bezagron looks a sub-classes as supporting functionality and a way to introduce GW1 skill acquisition into GW2.
• Orpheal asks about player view’s on adding sub-classes and looks at class specialisation and visual specialisation.
• TheDaiBish’s sub-classes unlocking new weapons & sub-class cosmetics.
• Melliarc likes the idea of sub-classes and looks at expanding personal story with a sub-classes.
• Ghotistyx repost his sub-class idea with some explainantion and looks at how sub-classes expands options, not limiting them. Ghotistyx also questions the meaning of sub-class the word, what does the word sub-class mean to differnet players.
• Chrispy’s sub-class idea look at using the existing trait lines by unlocking sub-classes by investing 30 points into one line. Blaeys expands Chrispy’s idea with and expansion beyond Grandmaster 30 trait points but up to 40 trait points in a line but keeping the same 70 trait points we now have. Chrispy rolls with Blaeys’s idea but looks at locking the 4th major trait as sub-class only and that you can’t use the other major traits. Chrispy complete sub-class idea Part 1, Part 2.
• Ronah’s House Sub-classes.
• Lorelei looks at sub-classes tied to professions.
  Rhyse joins in saying Sub-classes could be exactly what HP needs.
• Fourth variety looks at what sub-classes could bring to the game with Subclass Placement Part 1 , Part 2.
• Diba’s list of reasons for sub-classes.

HP summary page 35 to 40 Part 4
Again if I’ve missed anything lets me know.

Sub-classes continue..

• DiogoSilva believes sub-classes to offer more flavor and visual distinction and then takes a totally new look at sub-classes with existing classes already part of this sub-class system and maybe dual-subclassing. And then keeping things simple.
• Yoh joins the discussion looking at what sub-classes can bring to the table other the new skills, weapons and traits.
• Haunter looks at sub-classes as adding more unquie characters.
• Gulesave looks at Archetypes as a type of sub-class system that changes the visual theme and primary mechanic of classes.
• Draxynnic sees more important in improving the existing systeming then sub-classes but if sub-classes added as vehicle for inspiration and/or As a vehicle for cosmetic differentiation.

The other side

• Astralporing brings up problems with explaining too much and questions sub-classes
• Marcus Greythorne compares sub-classes and racial skill questioning would sub-class skills be the same as racial skills, weaker then profession. then looks at expanding racial skill to all races by HP. Also Marcus believe sub-classes exist already in the existing trait system but visual representation for sub-classes is missing.
• TheDaiBish talk about limiting choice and how sub-classes could limit that choice even more, using weapons skills as an example.
• Conski Deshan questions sub-classes but adds prestige classes referring to the Royal Alchemists in Mabinogi.
• Shakkara prefers not to have sub-classes as they imply specialisation and exclusiveness.
• Timmyf write up a great point list questioning what sub-classes can do that can’t already be added to existing systems.

@Bezagron – Great work there, the links must have been incredibly finicky to get to work right. Taking time out to say great job with it! Someone remind me to tip him.

HP summary page 35 to 40 Part 5
Again if I’ve missed anything lets me know.

The Journey

• Chirs Whiteside mentions the journey as a important part of character progression.
  [quote=3455727;Chris Whiteside.6102:]Certainly in my mind I am imagining the journey being centered around existing core journey mechanics or evolved mechanics and systems like Marcus’s map progression idea or by many ‘journey’ ideas yourself and others have made.

With each of my suggestions I also imagine the theme of each type of character progression have a huge impact on the ‘flavor’ of the journey that pertains to each. Also note that in two of my examples they are not considered progression ‘end’ points. Instead they are bridges leading to more journeys.
[/quote]

• Nike looks at the journey involved in any HP or rewards.

• Colin Johanson joins the convesation.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Snip..

What sort of systems of horizontal progression unlocking would you like to see that’d accompany a system like extended class progression?

• Zone start off with Special DE’s. Part 1, Part 2. Conski Deshan lists some ways to communicate these DE’s
• VOLKON skill books and an epic personal story.
• Swagger believes the existing unlock system is fine needing no other.
• Romo brings up Ascension Arena, a small instance that presents tasks and challenges to acquire new skills. Romo then looks at Guild Challenges.
• Conski Deshan wants unlocking by chanllenges & achievements not buying skills with currency.
• Misterdevious looks at adding skill progression paths related to playstyle.
• Chidori unlocks skills by sub-story quests and adding skills as dungeon rewards.
• Darkace looks at VOLKON idea with the orders adds a task system.
• Zamalek idea takes inspiration for existing ideas including WvW ranks, Queens gauntlet, Nightmare tower and DE’s.
• Marcu Greythorne comes up with a interesting idea in Expeditions.
• Vol looks at an open-world scavenger hunt.
• TheLostWitch expands the nemesis idea with The doppleganger.
• Blaeys wonders if the existing hearts / karma system could be expanded to achieve this journey.
• DiogoSilva looks to FFXII hunt bulletin board for idea’s and ties it in with the orders.
• Harbard’s thinks about PvE, PvP & WvW. Were PvP,WvW journeys also need to be considered.
• Nike refers back to ‘The New Masters idea’.
• Sir Authur looks at the home instance or future housing areas as a information hub.

Devata.6589:

Ronah.2869:

Sinope.5630:

So, first we have to solve The Mystery of The Lazy People , and after that we should start to think new Dynamic Events, activities, titles, sub professions, traits, skills, skins and all other Horizontal progression.

+1 for this statement. The Mystery of The Lazy People

I think it is the problem not only with GW2 but with all MMOs

Why many people download the F2P or B2P games and quit after a few weeks?
- they feel to far away from what they need to get
- they don’t feel it is worth the effort (they have other better things to do)
- they get bored by it (game play, mechanic, graphics, repetitiveness etc)
- they feel they need to pay to be the best and grinding takes too long

If something is to far out of reach then it’s not fun to work towards it. Especially if the way to get it is not by real play elements but by grinding. Thats something else as being lazy. It’s a game people want to enjoy. They don’t want an endless grind.

Really everything you say there has nothing to do with ‘lazy’ people. It has to do with fun. Or was that your point?

Yes, you have point in there. if something is fun to do people will do it for a while and later they will think about reward vs time and in here we can talk about the creeping “laziness”
People want it quick and with minimum to none effort or they will say it is not fun or it is too grindy or it is unfair

Thanks Tobias. Just trying to help and yes the links are a lot of fun.

Conski Deshan.2057:

I would consider skins to be harmless enough as a reward, this seems to be an issue exclusive to guildwars, a unique skin was always an acceptable reward for completing hard content.

In guildwars all those unique skins were tradeable though. So it wasn’t actually locked solely behind a skill gate. (Though certainly more easy to reach for skilled players.)

I did really like how it worked in GW1 though, where I would often do those challenges to get the item, even though I could farm the money to get it faster elsewhere. The wealth for the skilled wasn’t as problematic in that game as it seems to be in this one. Since we didn’t need much money for the basics: top stats, or other vital parts of the game didn’t require much wealth. (Unlike crafting is starting to do in this game for example)

Conski Deshan.2057:

Titles are good and all but, you are limited to one and they add no visual flavor, I often miss what title a person has unless I’m fighting a mesmer.

Someone mentioned colored titles, would this make a difference? For me, not so much, I do not care much for the titles of others. But many players care about status, so I guess it could be a good change?

Conski Deshan.2057:

Your points appear to be getting nearly as hyperbolic as mine (skill locking an entire continent?)

Yeah… I used that in jest. I guess I meant something more like: let’s say there is a massive living story event in which players are fighting on top of a dragon. Staying on top requires a lot of jumping skill aswell as fighting skill. The eventual demise of the dragon will take place in it’s heart chamber. Only the most skillful can make it down there and it is up to them to bring down the final blow. This is the type of awesome content that I wouldn’t want to see locked off like that.

Conski Deshan.2057:

We could do with some rare skins in the game, I mean genuinely rare not because you need a ticket from the black lion rare. I would like to see situations where I go “I’ve never seen anyone carry that before” , “Oh wow is that? it is! a holy moon staff only 100 people on our server have those so far, maybe if I work hard enough I might get it some day”

I guess there are quite a few items that I have never seen that cost an extraordinary amount of money and are made in the forge. But you are referring to skill-gated items I assume? Working hard enough would be: keep trying until you’ve managed to beat the challenge? Or would it be: keep going at the challenge until you have enough of some currency/got lucky? (It is not impossible to think up constructs that would allow for both systems to be in place. Where the challenge is layered in different reward pools, some leading up to getting tokens, while the best performance is instantly rewarded with the item.)

Conski Deshan.2057:

..all players can improve over time a skill gate in not forever in most cases.

But do all players have that amount of time? I am probably much better at this game now than I was 1000 hours ago. Not all players have 1000 hours to put in. (in fact, I often wish I hadn’t spend so much time on this game)

Conski Deshan.2057:

So one line sum up:
I vote for unique skins gated behind skill content, both group and solo.

I don’t disagree. But the method in which the gate is made is rather important. (And if it is a hard or a soft gate)

Which of the following would be best? Or is there a better way to do it? (probably):

• Fractal weapon skins. Highly RNG based, but higher chances on higher difficulty scales.

• Mini Liadri. You beat her once, you get it. No gain in repeats.

• Tequatl ascended skin. Highly RNG based, but only one difficulty scale.

• Dungeon skins. Token based. You need to repeat it several times. And it is not really a sign of prestige because you can buy runs.

• Tribulation skins. That are a different colour based on the difficulty of the challenge. Like Liadri, gained once upon completion.

• GW1’s golden cape border. Which you could only get by winning a tournament with your guild. In GW2 this could translate to winning in team arenas or something like that. The challenge in direct competition with others.

• GW1’s artwork contests that rewarded rare miniatures. (Skill based on an entirely different level) Could be sold, but at extreme prices, so sort of a soft-locked gate.

• GW1’s dungeon specific rares/boss specific greens. You could buy them, but the most efficient way of obtaining them yourself would be skill based RNG. (Doing it with as few allies as you could to get better chances) Very soft lock (you didn’t need that much money to bypass it). But to me a very entertaining and challenging way to get certain skins. Only works if chances are reasonable.

• GW1’s hard mode versions, where you would get double the chance on dungeon based loot at the end chest. So it isn’t a real gate, but a chance increase. This differs from the fractal skins in that it doesn’t take a lot of time to get them – leveling up to fractal level 50 takes quite a bit of time.

Other ideas that I don’t have examples for can include:

- Skins that need to be crafted with both skill based and other materials.

- Skins that can be gained either through skill or through a significant grind.

- Skins that you can either unlock through skills or by a timegated process. (Like pick one, once a month, or beat the challenge and get an extra pick. This would give everyone access, but some can have more things, or get them faster, no good for status though)

- And you can probably come up with even better ideas.

And yes Patrikan, I think that trophies to display would be nice.

Great work Bezagron, I’ll update my summary collection again!

The casual player might be helped by the company and retained as players if they would just acknowledge bugged slaying potions, as that would give the casual or inexperienced player the edge to succeed. Basic mechanics that are bugged make it harder for the casual audience to remain interested, especially when they find out what they are missing IE Mist bonuses in the first three months of play.

Quick note for all 29-35 should be the next one up.

I had been out of business more than a week and i lost track of the posts (thanks to Bezagron for his summary, helps a lot) , i’m sorry if someone already said something like this. I think that weapon variety and their skills are more a character determinant factor, subs are just going to be rated good or bad based on synergy with the builds and weapon traits are big deal when making one.

[Disclaimer, this entire post is pve wise]

I always wondered how much would be interesting to master weapons instead than classes for a hybrid horizontal/vertical/quality of life increase. Let’s say one could “master” #x skill trough a mix of quest and several reagents (new order mission reward and skill points?) to unlock it. Once unlocked the skill can be selected on the same slot #x of any weapon of the same kind (1h melee, 2h melee, weapon offhand, pure offhand etc…). Repeating this process could lead to a complete #1-5 custom selection. This would need some tweak regards animation but could be managed using some of the actual piece of existing skill and would also require some name altering.

The pros i can think about would be:
-From the simple time/material sink needed in the mastery competition to the ones spent in collecting more “skins” for weapon people previously didn’t use.
-Minor build tweaks without the need of a new weapon.
-More legendary becomes desirable, people could grab that legendary they always loved but used to sucks on his profession/build.
-It would ease the introduction on “new” weapons since the skill set won’t need to be strictly balanced as stand alone.
-At this point a single introduction like a new #1 chain could generate an entire new play stile (a condi guardian could be an expample)
-Close to complete controll over your character apparance and playing style.

On the other side there are some great problem. (for most could not find a viable solution)
-Meta-build: I would like to hear form some numbers guru the implication of a possible skill selection but i suspect it won’t, on average, be an excessive increase since most dps come from #1.
-Warrior F1: not sure… need help, pve wise they are a rare click.
-Ele and Engi: Heh, how about the poor dudes with no alternative (same kind) weapon? it would need new weapons in order to be viable, suspect would still be a mess with ele swap.
-No benefit to Staff, Scepter and pistol.
-Weapons like the ranger’s Axe pose a classification problem with related skill mixing results.
-Thief dual skill: it’s going to be hard balancing the #3 skill and it’s binding. This is a major problem as a main profession mechanic.
-Traits issue: are +% dmg, -% cooldown and special weapon effect traits going to work on the whole category or on the single original weapon skill set?

…Actually after putting together my toughs on “paper” it looks like a lot of work for a opinable addition. Still hope may be a spark for some better idea, maybe subclasses could obtain a exclusive 2nd skill set for some weapon?

Ronah.2869:

Devata.6589:

Ronah.2869:

Sinope.5630:

So, first we have to solve The Mystery of The Lazy People , and after that we should start to think new Dynamic Events, activities, titles, sub professions, traits, skills, skins and all other Horizontal progression.

+1 for this statement. The Mystery of The Lazy People

I think it is the problem not only with GW2 but with all MMOs

Why many people download the F2P or B2P games and quit after a few weeks?
- they feel to far away from what they need to get
- they don’t feel it is worth the effort (they have other better things to do)
- they get bored by it (game play, mechanic, graphics, repetitiveness etc)
- they feel they need to pay to be the best and grinding takes too long

If something is to far out of reach then it’s not fun to work towards it. Especially if the way to get it is not by real play elements but by grinding. Thats something else as being lazy. It’s a game people want to enjoy. They don’t want an endless grind.

Really everything you say there has nothing to do with ‘lazy’ people. It has to do with fun. Or was that your point?

Yes, you have point in there. if something is fun to do people will do it for a while and later they will think about reward vs time and in here we can talk about the creeping “laziness”
People want it quick and with minimum to none effort or they will say it is not fun or it is too grindy or it is unfair

They will say it is to grindy or maybe it is to grindy? Lets be fair, a lot of content is fairly grindy in GW2. While I can give many examples I usually use the mini example. Lets say I want a specific mini what is then now the way to get it? (true for most of them) Buy gems, convert to gold then buy it or grind for gold and then buy it. Why? Because most mini’s are ‘general’ drops, in this case from mini packs. Another way may be to grind the achievements from the current LS but if I miss one LS once again you need to buy it with money so I need to grind for money.

How should mini’s be implemented to make them a fun game-elemt? They should ALL or at lease 99% of them be in the open world in a farmable way, meaning I can set a mini as goal. Maybe that means killing a specific type of mobs in a specific area 1000 times so it drops, maybe it means defeating a boss (See Tequatl mini), maybe it means doing a dungeon or a quest. In that way every mini has it’s own mechanism that it requires and you can work for. That would not make it easier (what ‘lazy people’ may want) but it would make it more a game-elent en make it more fun.

Now it’s a grind for gold to buy it and yes of course, if you then can only get it by farming gold people will look for the easiest way to get the gold and then get bored very easy.

However when you make them acquirable (not easier) in a specific way (farmable) then you are playing the game to get it and using gold is not the most optimal way to get them anymore.

So I disagree people just say it’s to much of a grind, in many ways it is to much of a grind.. a grind for gold to then buy what you need because gold is so important in this game. That is the result of having many drops not in specific places but as general drops.

Big questions is if Anet is willing to change that. The reason it is like this is imho because if gold is worth so much buying gems is more interesting. For more about that I would suggest reading my thread here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/A-focus-on-micro-transactions/first#post3324571

The Lost Witch.7601:

Conski Deshan.2057:

So one line sum up:
I vote for unique skins gated behind skill content, both group and solo.

I don’t disagree. But the method in which the gate is made is rather important. (And if it is a hard or a soft gate)

Which of the following would be best? Or is there a better way to do it? (probably):

• Fractal weapon skins. Highly RNG based, but higher chances on higher difficulty scales.

• Mini Liadri. You beat her once, you get it. No gain in repeats.

• Tequatl ascended skin. Highly RNG based, but only one difficulty scale.

• Tribulation skins. That are a different colour based on the difficulty of the challenge. Like Liadri, gained once upon completion.

• GW1’s golden cape border. Which you could only get by winning a tournament with your guild. In GW2 this could translate to winning in team arenas or something like that. The challenge in direct competition with others.

• GW1’s artwork contests that rewarded rare miniatures. (Skill based on an entirely different level) Could be sold, but at extreme prices, so sort of a soft-locked gate.

Other ideas that I don’t have examples for can include:

- Skins that need to be crafted with both skill based and other materials.

- Skins that you can either unlock through skills or by a timegated process. (Like pick one, once a month, or beat the challenge and get an extra pick. This would give everyone access, but some can have more things, or get them faster, no good for status though)

I like the above options, a mix is always good.
As we’ve identified through numerous posts run buying is whats preventing some of the more desired routes, if we could work out a way to ensure that it’s not possible to do it, it would be best.
Some steps towards helping this would be,
1. Anet declaring run buying an offense,with the player being stripped of any gain from it if caught.
2. Adding mechanics that require all 5 players to be active participents, i.e 5 switches at the same time (not my ideal example), all have to do a mini jp each sort of thing.
3.Forcing each player to show individual skill in the path, this could be as I mentioned the party getting split up at some point in the dungeon for a while,with the others unable to run into anyone else s path(for reviving).

My favorite examples are Liadri and Tribulation mode,
Tribulation mode is prefect (in the reward scheme) you get to actively choose what reward you want and have reason to repeat it. There is no RNG and you get 3 steps of accomplishment as you work towards your end goal, (Yay I finally managed to get 2.1’s token etc.) Content wise I believe some people found it more an exercise in trial and error than player skill, although I did learn to dodge jump consistently from it.

I left the Art comp soft gate in as there is a strictly limited number of the item which is a rarity prestige which is a different form of prestige.
(Will be away for a couple of hours will answer any new questions then.)

Cliff.8679:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Depends on if the subclasses are “one only” or build like Secondary Professions were in GW1. Because Secondary Professions in that game were what made it crazy full of potential builds.

The discussion on subclasses has centered around them being special versions of existing classes, not the GW1 system of multiclassing. More like “advanced” professions that you would unlock for each class.

As for DarkWasp’s posts, you can just click his name and go to “See all messages” or whatever. Just scroll down a little bit and you’ll see it.

There’s been a few different options of what sub-classes are. Part of the problem is that we’ve all defined sub-classes to be something else (or, something unique to our explaination), whereas the opposition to “sub-classes” have each used a different (unique to their explaination) definition.

For example, my proposal for sub-classes really is just an expansion of the trait and skill system we have, but instead of saying “I’m a Meditation Guardian” or “A Glamor Mesmer”, you could say “I’m a Druid Ranger” or a “Thug Thief”. The “Druid” and “Thug” sub-classes would just be a collection of themed skills and traits. If you didn’t like one portion of the theme, you could swap it out for a different trait. Maybe Druid is too nature-y for you, so you could swap out some traits for say, Bow traits and be a nature-y marksman (i.e., your own creation of sub-class based on the tools you have). Hopefully something like this would be able to capture that Primary/Secondary Profession feel that GW1 had.

Now again, there’re other proposals for sub-classes that are more akin to say, Final Fantasy Tactics or others. You would choose a branching path from your main profession that greatly altered mechanics, or more fully filled a role that your main profession did not have. I don’t know if this is the best route, but this proposal along with mine (and some others) are all called sub-classes, despite they’re being fairly different ideas. We just need to specify what exactly we mean by sub-class when we refute ideas. The same goes for any idea.

(I’m not so much concerned with people liking my idea, but rather people specifying what they’re against in the discussions. “Sub-classes” is far too broad a term to say you’re against, unless you specify that really anything remotely related to a sub-class idea is abhorrent in your eyes. People in the CDI just need a good scope of what you oppose so they can make a proper counter argument. (arguments are debating/philosophical arguments, “you” refers to everyone in the CDI, not a specific person/group))

Foreword
Yes its long, Yes its in multiple posts, yes its against the brevity clause of the CDI, yes I’m sorry.

No intro, because I can’t be bothered to think of one

Role Diversification
Seems to me like a progression along the lines of combat roles, skills, abilities, etc. should involve a combination of personal story instances to help tell the story of your character’s progression, and then a “use requirement” in order to fully unlock a skill. I mentioned something similar earlier in this CDI, and I’ll stand by it. Using your current skills and abilities (or as best as can be done, if theres something completely new added) to learn a new skill gives me the best feel. In addition, running a personal story instance (more like a 10 level chain worth) would help give is the theme and setting of learning these new skills. Especially, if the skills are group together as “sub-class elements” (or more separated sub-classes, like a class progression), it could provide our characters a good journey to unlock new skills, learn them, and then develop our identity through themed unlocks (unlock through story, learn from “daily achievement style requirements”, and then creating more varied builds).

Housing/Wardrobe ideas
I feel these things would best gained through a combination of drops and crafting. Normally, you’d use materials to create more generic items (housing items and even skins). Sometimes, you could get rarer materials or recipes to create more varied items (like Fractal Capacitor, but instead of 1>2>3 progression, like a 1>1.1,1.2,1.3,1.4,1.5). In addition, you could get some rare items whole and ready to install straight from drops (like we currently get with named exotics, but extended to more armors and housing items). (Housing applies to personal, guild, etc)

The rest of Sociopolitical
For Factions, I think they could stand to be one of the grindy aspects of the game. I don’t really see gaining favor with a faction as being anything else but a grind. You’re just doing things that make that group happy, and naturally doing more of it makes them happier. As far as rewards for faction grinding, convenience items (crafting stations, vendors, etc) are somewhat standard. I don’t really know if Factions need anything special, because they fit a pretty decent niche in other games.

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cont

Zone Progression I’ll put here too. This feels like it could easily be an aspect of some of the other forms of progression, and could also be interesting in and of itself. I liked the idea behind GW1 Factions and the world map, and I agree, it didn’t go far enough. WvW takes a lot the pvp aspect, and its getting some improvements in the future. For PvE, something like Orr also has a decent aspect of it, but I don’t think that goes far enough in the right way either. I think there needs to be more chained events interlocking with each other, and that affect more of the maps. I also like the idea that we can use the Living Story to take control to whole new maps. I don’t have much else to add as I guess it seems self-explanatory.

Background
When I used to play GW1, I spent the large majority of my time leveling all characters to 20, and a little bit beyond. Once I got a bit tired of a certain profession, I’d delete the character and go back through one of the various stories and whatever else I felt like with the character, and then either park it, or re-roll again. Even my Main was redone ~5 times. I played almost no PvP, but I did do some CM and AB. I have nostalgic draws to Pre-Searing, Magumma Jungle, and some certain outposts. These are some things I can’t really do in GW2. I’m too invested in my 80 of each prof to re-roll. I don’t feel like there’s enough variety in zone. Even in GW1 I started feeling like it cheapened the experience to buy tomes, or even Drok’s runs. I guess I also just don’t feel enough GW1 in my GW2. They feel too separate, and it bugs me to see places that are completely changed and unrecognizable. Fractals seems like it could be decent to try and make some of those ties, but there aren’t enough, and even with the ones we have, I’m so lost as to what they mean. (Now, I haven’t tried to dig up lore on the following examples, so this is based on what I know from just playing the game) What are the meaning of the Colossus fractal, or Underwater, or Grawl, or dredge fractals? What story are injecting us in and why should I care? The Molten and Aetherblade fractals I know because I experienced those stories earlier. The UnCATagorized fractal I basically understand as a potential future or something. The Ascalon Fractal I guess is about the fall of Ascalon, but it doesn’t really feel pivotal to me as there’s no Foefire. I don’t really know why I’m doing a lot of these things.

A bit of a rant, but I guess what I’m trying to say is there’s Horizontal Progression in the form of options. Options to differentiate yourself, define your role and playstyle, etc. There’s also Progression in the form of immersion. Learning more about the world you’re in, connecting the dots, and I guess answering the “Why”. For whatever Anet decides to add in future releases, please explain why it exists. I don’t mind the Scarlet Arc at all (though it seems just slightly disjointed. There’s not enough tying things together yet). Scarlet, even if she comes off as a bit mary-sueish, is comprehensible. I can see her cause and effect in the story. I can see enough that I can predict possibilities in the next 4 releases. I don’t really see that with the rest of the world, or just the time I spend inside. By that I mean, I log in to do my daily, or to do a dungeon, or some other thing. I don’t log in because I “want to be in Tyria”. If I had traits and skills to unlock and learn, I’d log in for the discovery and the story missions. I’d log in for the chance to learn how exactly a Ranger could Control (already) if I had a new control skill to unlock. If I had personal and guild housing, I’d log in to gather and craft some new items, and to help my guild out. I’d also want a reason to go back to the Iron Marches, or discover more about the Magumma Wastes. I don’t want to just complete things and be done with them (like most mid level zones, or forms of unlocking skills and such), but I want a reason to play through those again. Even something like a Story Mode for Personal Story, with accompanied Explorable Modes.

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cont

I’d be perfectly happy if for one or two straight LS releases, the patchnotes just said (besides QoL and profession balances) “Added a bunch of new events. (And by a bunch we mean like, a lot in every zone)” and that was it. No specific numbers, no crazy story, just more events. Specifically, events that tied ideas together. An example (for a hypothetical zone, sorry): This zone is dominated by a dam. When things are going well, you’ve got a working dam, a large lake area at the upper elevation, and a dry flatland with a stream below. The main meta event is dealing with the wholeness of this dam. If things go horribly wrong (the map equivelant of not owning a single temple in Orr), the lake magically moves from the upper elevation to the lower. Maybe there were people living in the lower part of the map. Maybe they had things that used to be buried. Maybe deadly things used to live at the top, and since its dry they can come back. With each event you complete in your favor, you can start to move the lake back to where you want it. The big key, is the World Boss that appears when there’s a balance of power. This boss is akin to a temple boss (mostly meaning theres a significant chance to fail after awhile. Unlike Shadow Behemoth, or Maw, or any other world boss I’ve never seen failed since Beta). So basically we have a dam we’re fighting over. There’re small event chains that help bring whatever extreme back towards the center, with larger ones the closer you get. There’re also events that help promote different mechanics. Like one event could have mobs that jump (or teleport, w/e) onto small platforms and become infulverable (to damage). In order to kill them, you’ll need to knock them off somehow (currently you can’t knock mobs off of things, which sucks). In another, maybe you need to charge a battery that runs on Healing (odd little battery), or perhaps theres a delivery dolyak that you need to use group cleanses on to get rid of those pesky conditions that’ll otherwise kill it (maybe a team of Trap Rangers mined the road(GW1 Trap Rangers could farm almost anything)). We’d also need a bit of a rework on how certain mechanics behave in order to achieve a greater role diversity (things like making mobs controllable off ledges, revamping how conditions work in comparison to direct damage, etc), but this Zone as a concept, is a start.

TL;DR (aka Wishlist)

*Combining at least two (better yet 3 minimum) ways to accomplish something. (You might have to do all 3, but its 3 different parts of the game instead of “farm these mobs till X amount of Y”).
*Maybe, we could use something that’s blatantly a grind.
*There needs to be a more cohesive “why” to doing things in the game.
*We need more answers, and more background in our Lore. There’re too many things that just “appear”. I’m not even just talking about fractals or stuff, but Personal Story, and even events themselves just seem to “be there”. Especially events with Champions, probably should have at least one, maybe two events leading up to it that tell the story of why they’re a Champion and why you should kill it (or defend it if its a good guy. Not enough good guy champs).
*We need more things that affect the world. Mostly events, but even some other portions like NPC dialogues changing based on certain conditions, or more actual options based on your personality (Charm/Ferocity/Dignity(?) the heart, crown and punching thing). Not only personality based options, but maybe they’d change how a certain story went, or present different options beyond dialogue (or at least, more of those kinds of choices).

The End

Conski Deshan.2057:

I like the above options, a mix is always good.
As we’ve identified through numerous posts run buying is whats preventing some of the more desired routes, if we could work out a way to ensure that it’s not possible to do it, it would be best.

Preventing? I’ve never said it was preventing things, only that it being possible can taint it in the eyes of the hardcore. And if they’re the only ones who matter why do we have this discussion at all about how more than 10% of the population can have access to things?

I mean, that’s one of the big issues right now. Legendaries which are neat or deemed “really cool looking” have precursors which are prohibitively expensive to buy.

And even if run buying is prevented, you still get the specter of “maybe they didn’t actually earn it” in hardcore player mindsets if they don’t meet the proper behavior of those who “should be elite enough”. I present “eBay or n00b” discussions from various other games about how someone could have X but still not know what Y was.

But you know what? I’ll say it outright – The hardcore needs to get over this whole ’we’re the only ones who matter’. The game content shouldn’t be accessible because you pass a skills test or you never get to experience it. There shouldn’t be any sort of progression locked behind skill gates the average player won’t be able to do and can’t get help to complete.

That’s a step in the wrong direction to turn away players perhaps even worse than the inclusion of Ascended.

Some steps towards helping this would be,
1. Anet declaring run buying an offense,with the player being stripped of any gain from it if caught.
2. Adding mechanics that require all 5 players to be active participents, i.e 5 switches at the same time (not my ideal example), all have to do a mini jp each sort of thing.
3.Forcing each player to show individual skill in the path, this could be as I mentioned the party getting split up at some point in the dungeon for a while,with the others unable to run into anyone else s path(for reviving).

Item #1 is incredibly terrible for a solution and would cause people to set fire to Lion’s Arch in hours after it went live.

My favorite examples are Liadri and Tribulation mode,
Tribulation mode is prefect (in the reward scheme) you get to actively choose what reward you want and have reason to repeat it. There is no RNG and you get 3 steps of accomplishment as you work towards your end goal, (Yay I finally managed to get 2.1’s token etc.) Content wise I believe some people found it more an exercise in trial and error than player skill, although I did learn to dodge jump consistently from it.

Tribulation Mode was rote memorization of the path and what you needed to do at certain points. Much like the inspiration game “IWTBTG” is all about knowing which obstacles are coming and how your twitch reflex matches what needs to happen. Also dying. A lot. A lot a lot.

Please leave it where it is and don’t bring that difficulty into the game where unique stuff people want is there. Palette shifted models? Sure, okay, grudgingly that’ll be fine. Whole new skins? Treading a thin line. Any kind of progression?

Rata Sum burns the next day.

Bezagron.7352:

….snip…..

• Chrispy’s sub-class idea look at using the existing trait lines by unlocking sub-classes by investing 30 points into one line. Blaeys expands Chrispy’s idea with and expansion beyond Grandmaster 30 trait points but up to 40 trait points in a line but keeping the same 70 trait points we now have. Chrispy rolls with Blaeys’s idea but looks at locking the 4th major trait as sub-class only and that you can’t use the other major traits. Chrispy complete sub-class idea Part 1, Part 2.

….snip….

you are performing miracles spending all your time writing all these summaries. Keep up the good work.

also, That subclass idea has a tiny hint of vertical progression in it, and I thought it was too easy to just invest some trait points and unlock a subclass automatically. So I completely redid the idea to make it seem more like an epic multi-afternoon journey instead of a simple unlock. So, if you’re just jumping into the thread now, make sure to read that one too ::: Part 1,Part 2, and Part 3

Ghotistyx.6942:

There’s been a few different options of what sub-classes are. Part of the problem is that we’ve all defined sub-classes to be something else (or, something unique to our explaination), whereas the opposition to “sub-classes” have each used a different (unique to their explaination) definition.

For example, my proposal for sub-classes really is just an expansion of the trait and skill system we have, but instead of saying “I’m a Meditation Guardian” or “A Glamor Mesmer”, you could say “I’m a Druid Ranger” or a “Thug Thief”. The “Druid” and “Thug” sub-classes would just be a collection of themed skills and traits. If you didn’t like one portion of the theme, you could swap it out for a different trait. Maybe Druid is too nature-y for you, so you could swap out some traits for say, Bow traits and be a nature-y marksman (i.e., your own creation of sub-class based on the tools you have). Hopefully something like this would be able to capture that Primary/Secondary Profession feel that GW1 had.

Now again, there’re other proposals for sub-classes that are more akin to say, Final Fantasy Tactics or others. You would choose a branching path from your main profession that greatly altered mechanics, or more fully filled a role that your main profession did not have. I don’t know if this is the best route, but this proposal along with mine (and some others) are all called sub-classes, despite they’re being fairly different ideas. We just need to specify what exactly we mean by sub-class when we refute ideas. The same goes for any idea.

(I’m not so much concerned with people liking my idea, but rather people specifying what they’re against in the discussions. “Sub-classes” is far too broad a term to say you’re against, unless you specify that really anything remotely related to a sub-class idea is abhorrent in your eyes. People in the CDI just need a good scope of what you oppose so they can make a proper counter argument. (arguments are debating/philosophical arguments, “you” refers to everyone in the CDI, not a specific person/group))

Some people have been very specific saying that they don’t want to be forced into any builds because of new skills or subclasses….and really thats the sum of all the arguments against it that I’ve heard so far.

Since that, many ideas have come out that fully removed that aspect and are just suggesting to add several themed skills in one complete package and call it a subclass based on the flavor of the skills and traits (not word for word, but your idea is an example of that), so even that concern is no longer relevant. I’m not seeing any new resistance or concerns to the ideas so far…

….Well, except that, adding any new skills of any sort to the game of any kind to even slightly try to increase build diversity, will naturally make some professions better at killing plains wurms faster than others. So I guess that no matter what, Nike’s concern is a very real one.

Well hard Content doesn’t Need to exclude casual Players … if there are gambits / instabilities ect for dungeons. Casual Players see the same Content as hardcore Players do.

What would be the Problem to reward Special tokkens if you complete the dungeon while gambits active. Allow Players to Change those tokkens for ascended armor weapons and stuff. I mean i feel like I am forced to farm and grind things because I have a Feeling that fractals will Need certain ar I can’t get with just showing my skills at playing fractals. So for me it be a nice solution to get ascended armor while testing my skills in existing dungeons with gambits / instabilities.

I know People will still complain that it is unfair that he can get that armor ect ect but in the end everyone can see the Content ( Play the dungeon) and everyone can get ascended armor.

I think it would be a really nice solution to create some hard Content in a relatively short ammount of time without designing new Areas ect…

Would you think this would lead to elitism as well or would you be fine with such a Content?

All I can say is if any of this being discussed here ever gets implemented on the game (and the developers support on this thread might indicate so), this game could become even better than it currently is! Which is a LOT, in my opinion.

Spoiler Alert for New players!
I did go back through as much of the thread as I could so forgive me if I am repeating anything.
I didn’t see anything about forced gameplay and I think it should be discussed. I am referring to things like the required dungeon at the end of the personal story, The required WvW for Map Completion, The “Finish the Personal Story” Daily Achievement I get about 3 to 4 times a week…… That stuff.
I understand the desire to insure that players get an opportunity to see all that the game offers. Isn’t there a better way to do this than by Forcing it?
Yes, I know we are not forced to do anything, but when common goals shared by the vast majority of players require gameplay in a new/different area, requiring different skills, gear, abilities, etc… It becomes an expected activity and it then feels like it was forced.
Clearly the game has been designed to encourage exploration into all aspects of the game as it should. If however, I decide that I don’t want to do a dungeon to complete the Personal Story, does the game have to keep telling me which direction to go to finish it? Does it need to “remind me” every day in the upper right corner of the screen?
Does it need to offer it consistently in daily achievements?
I agree that the map status we see on the map page is helpful and wouldn’t want to change it. There doesn’t seem to be as strong of a “requirement” for map completion, and we can pass on map completion and Legendary weapons if we choose but why must we choose?

I’d sure like to see “Oh, I haven’t tried that yet. Other players have said they enjoy it”
rather than “Yeah, I have to go do WvW to get a Legendary” or “How am I supposed to get a pug for Arah as a Ranger to finish my Personal Story?”
Isn’t it possible to allow people to enjoy the parts of the game they like without the constant push into other areas?

Chrispy.5641:

….snip…..

I don’t know. I still see a few new posts about “I don’t want sub-classes” and that’s basically it. I don’t know what they don’t like, what they do like, concerns or alternate proposals. In addition, I see this in a few posts about other ideas that aren’t so sub-class oriented.

Also, class balance as a whole affects each individual’s ability to kill Plains Wurms. Not affecting change because we’re afraid of allowing someone to kill their Plains Wurm faster would be to completely stop any form of balance and leave the game as it stands. So, yes, while many of these changes will affect the actual power of different builds, I don’t know if the game will ever get to a point where we can just say “Balance is finished”. At least with more options, there can be more depth and discovery instead of stagnation. (leaning towards the hyperbolic in this argument).

Patrikan Habaton.2548:

Well hard Content doesn’t Need to exclude casual Players … if there are gambits / instabilities ect for dungeons. Casual Players see the same Content as hardcore Players do.

What would be the Problem to reward Special tokkens if you complete the dungeon while gambits active. Allow Players to Change those tokkens for ascended armor weapons and stuff. I mean i feel like I am forced to farm and grind things because I have a Feeling that fractals will Need certain ar I can’t get with just showing my skills at playing fractals. So for me it be a nice solution to get ascended armor while testing my skills in existing dungeons with gambits / instabilities.

I know People will still complain that it is unfair that he can get that armor ect ect but in the end everyone can see the Content ( Play the dungeon) and everyone can get ascended armor.

I think it would be a really nice solution to create some hard Content in a relatively short ammount of time without designing new Areas ect…

Would you think this would lead to elitism as well or would you be fine with such a Content?

My idea for Hard Mode was built around basically this idea. You could get gambits or instabilities that only affect you (you dealing less damage doesn’t affect just you, but you taking more damage does). These gambits could then appropriately affect potential rewards, which might be tokens in dungeons, or pseudo-magic find in open world, or the like.

I also like the idea that you can run “normal explorable” for exotic gear, and “hard explorable” for ascended. This would allow almost a new set of dungeons for people who choose to have gambits (maybe they’re preset based on run, or maybe you need to add a minimum amount of your choosing to qualify for certain tables) while allowing them to continue to group with players who don’t want to add gambits. All of this, while not trivializing their hard mode experience. Something like a constant burning would require a player to have some form of healing to offset the damage over time. He could get this from himself or from his normal mode party members while still having to complete the path with a constant source of damage.

The key to this would be to find the appropriate gambits so that they can only affect the difficulty of the player they apply too, and don’t allow normal mode players to trivialize the difficulty increase compared to the loot increase. I’ll also mention, like in the current game, zergs trivialize a quite a few things, so there’s not much you can do about that, but there would be a greater chance that hard mode players would get downed.

Devs wont like this but ranger are still at a bad spot.
We’ve gathered some suggestions related to weapons.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/The-Weapon-Suggestion-Thread/

The thread is rather small now, I hope it will grow and I hope it will help pushing the ranger into the right direction.

Chrispy.5641:

you are performing miracles spending all your time writing all these summaries. Keep up the good work.

Indeed, at the very least I think that the [promised] NPC that explains previous living stories should be named Bezagron .

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

snips

I’ve deleted and rewritten my reply to this about a dozen times now but I’m going to just post some parts.

I’m going to preface this with: We appear to have very different opinions so are likely never going to agree.

Lets get some basics that seem to be getting mixed into my proposal out of the way:
Elitism; where people are being excluded* and bullied by other players for say not having 5k AP or not being a staff ele etc, is an awful thing and I am completely opposed to it in every form. (*exclusion for say trying to join level 50 fractals with no AR is valid as a functional requirement).

“Casuals”; I don’t like the terms hardcores and casuals, but by my definition we will call casuals players with a low amount of playtime, this is unrelated to their skill and abilities.

“Hardcores”; Again we will call these people with high amounts of playtime.

This is a game and a virtual world, in a single player game everyone can be a hero, you can change the difficulty to suit you.
Everyone can’t be the hero in an MMO, everyone can’t have everything and difficulty cannot and should not be tailored to each person. A game is about displaying skills, mastery, understanding, and frankly about beating the other players.

A person should be rewarded for being more skilled than another player, it’s a much better system than just he who grinds the most wins. It’s the basis for every MMO out there and unlike grind and vertical progression is a good aspect.

Why should a good Pve’r look the same as a bad Pve’r? why should A Pvp’er look the same as a Pve’r? Visual differences are good! you want a specific item? go earn it can’t complete whatever it is successfully? That’s unfortunate move on.

This is not a sandbox game, as such it has goals and objectives that you accomplish to get the nicest stuff, by all means feel free to never group with anyone, to refuse to do a jp or your personal story, I have no problem with you just doing DE’s all day if that’s what you’re into. But do not expect to get the same rewards as the person who worked hard did every dungeon, the fractal runner who has gotten to 80 or the PvPer who’s on a 10 win streak.

I’ll leave my response on your opinion on legendaries as, If everyone could get one it wouldn’t be very legendary would it?

Conski Deshan.2057:

I’ve deleted and rewritten my reply to this about a dozen times now but I’m going to just post some parts.

I’m going to preface this with: We appear to have very different opinions so are likely never going to agree.

Not completely, no, I don’t expect we will. That doesn’t mean we can’t kick around ideas off each other.

Lets get some basics that seem to be getting mixed into my proposal out of the way:
Elitism; where people are being excluded* and bullied by other players for say not having 5k AP or not being a staff ele etc, is an awful thing and I am completely opposed to it in every form. (*exclusion for say trying to join level 50 fractals with no AR is valid as a functional requirement).

It’s not the exclusion in an active sense which concerns me, it’s “you must have this much skill to proceed” locking off potential content. As is evidenced by other discussions on the forums – people don’t like it. They didn’t like it when Ascended was only available in Fractals, they didn’t like Guild Missions requiring a huge investment to unlock, and they didn’t like it when we got Ascended armor only available through crafting.

This is a game and a virtual world, in a single player game everyone can be a hero, you can change the difficulty to suit you.

Everyone can’t be the hero in an MMO, everyone can’t have everything and difficulty cannot and should not be tailored to each person. A game is about displaying skills, mastery, understanding, and frankly about beating the other players.

A person should be rewarded for being more skilled than another player, it’s a much better system than just he who grinds the most wins. It’s the basis for every MMO out there and unlike grind and vertical progression is a good aspect.

I would tentatively agree, the trouble is I don’t like to play games where I will never finish it because I just am unable to get through a part. I can only imagine what it would be like if I was forced to do all of GW1 henchmen only. (As a note, I managed all but one NM mission that way and three HM missions. Eternal Grove can go die in a fire.)

I do not want my progression in the game locked behind a skill wall.

Why should a good Pve’r look the same as a bad Pve’r? why should A Pvp’er look the same as a Pve’r? Visual differences are good! you want a specific item? go earn it can’t complete whatever it is successfully? That’s unfortunate move on.

Flip the question around: Why should a good PvE player look better than a bad PvE player? Why should a player not be allowed significant cosmetic options just because they can’t beat Liadri? Or they don’t want to proceed on the next part of the Living Story because Scarlet is involved?

I just want to be clear. If moving forward the endgame is about looks and you make the acquisition for certain “nice looking gear” prohibitively difficult to obtain, you’ll get backlash similar to seeing something require Huntsman (500) to craft out of ultra-rare 0.001% drops.

This is not a sandbox game, as such it has goals and objectives that you accomplish to get the nicest stuff, by all means feel free to never group with anyone, to refuse to do a jp or your personal story, I have no problem with you just doing DE’s all day if that’s what you’re into. But do not expect to get the same rewards as the person who worked hard did every dungeon, the fractal runner who has gotten to 80 or the PvPer who’s on a 10 win streak.

I, personally, don’t want the same rewards. Mostly because they don’t hold any significance to me. However, if there is something I seriously want or feel I need and it’s . . . say, only available on a perfect run of Mad King’s Clock Tower under a time limit? If I had to kill twenty opponents in WvW without being downed? If I had to solo the Risen Priest of Grenth? If I had to combo an entire set of the Bell Choir songs without one wrong note?

I definitely would feel the same way people feel about Ascended armor requiring the crafting work to reach the skill level.

I’ll leave my response on your opinion on legendaries as, If everyone could get one it wouldn’t be very legendary would it?

My opinion on Legendary weapons is they should have called it something else before they launched. And everyone should have the potential to get one by going through 60% of the game’s total available content as far as variety goes. Similar to how I can do a Daily Achievement completion by picking and choosing what’s available and ignoring things like “Take Stonemist Castle”.

Is there any timeline to the changes we are discussing? The only other suggestion I have seen that the devs said they would implement was a precursor scavenger hunt. It’s been 14 months and we haven’t even heard a discussion on its final form.

If these changes are 14+ months off then they really aren’t worth it in my opinion as the people making them won’t be here by then in all likelihood.

@Tobias

The question to why People should look diffrent according to they’re skills and achievment is easy. People want a Goal in an mmo. In gw2 Skins is the only endgame Goal so if you make everything available for all guys than it’s just no Goal because everyone has it you can’t feel Special or feel some Kind of reward for your work because if all have it it’s no reward.

I agree that people might not should miss out huge Content because of skillgate
but why can’t you leave me some challenge in the game? I mean some progressive challenge ? The Content that was delivered so far wasn’t near anything for skilled Players besides liadri light up the dark achievment. Whats your Problem if sombody else can aquire a Skin that is created for people who do for example SAB Tribunal mode?

At the Moment you can have everything with just Money. what would be the Problem if I was awarded for certain challenges with an ascended armor? everyone could get it as well.. but I get it for sure without RNG for beeing skillfull.

draxynnic.3719:

On order skills:

I’d really prefer not to see skills locked behind orders – or at least, not permanently.

I still firmly believe that if Orders are to be used as part of progression at all, then there need to be restrictions. Otherwise, what’s the point of using them at all. That said, I don’t see anything particularly wrong with opening up a players choice later on. An easy way to do this would be to have advancement in an Order be measured as a tiered progress bar with certain rewards/quests/etc. become available as different tiers are reached. Naturally, choosing an Order and playing through the storyline representing that Order would basically earn you enough progress to end up at, say, tier 5 of 10. Players who had not chosen that Order would be able to perform tasks for that Order as well, but would have to start from 0. This could also open up the possibility of eventually achieving 10/10 status in all 3 Orders.

Basically, when choosing your Order early in the game you would get a leg up for later in the game, but it wouldn’t be the be all and end all for progression. Not only would you be able to progress in an Order you hadn’t initially chosen but you’d also still have a lot of work to do to fully max out the Order you had initially picked.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Is there any timeline to the changes we are discussing? The only other suggestion I have seen that the devs said they would implement was a precursor scavenger hunt. It’s been 14 months and we haven’t even heard a discussion on its final form.

If these changes are 14+ months off then they really aren’t worth it in my opinion as the people making them won’t be here by then in all likelihood.

Anet won’t discuss release dates or if they’re working on something or not because they want the freedom to stop if they feel like they need to.

There absolutely should be more rewards for skill. There’s not a single armor or weapon reward in the entire game that can legitimately be considered “prestigious.” That’s a problem. If we’re still talking about unlocking new skills and such, yeah, okay. That shouldn’t necessarily be something locked behind extremely difficult content, as those are things everyone should be able to gain access to because it makes up a core part of the gameplay itself.

But if we’re talking about cosmetics, titles, stuff like that? Absolutely. Will people complain about difficult content preventing them from getting an attractive set of armor or something? Sure, but no one should really have any sympathy for that kind of attitude. If content is difficult (and as long as it’s fair, and not just poorly designed), then you practice. You learn the content. You get better until you can beat it. The best rewards should always be attained through skill. Not RNG drops, not from a merchant, not from crafting, not from the gem store.

@Zudet it was mentioned in the video Chris linked that they don’t give out timelines.

@Tobias, I’m all for kicking ideas back and forth.
Between the guilds chat and myself we think the best reply to your reversed question is an analogy. We consider gaming a competitive (indirectly and directly)environment, so similar to sports you occasionally go to competitions (challenges here) there are several levels and the Trophy/medal (skin /whatever reward) is the prize for being successfully and only obtainable from that competition, the harder the competition the more prestige the medal/prize holds.

We’d like varying levels of challenges with skins for each of them,not all Liandri difficulty (fun fact none of us managed to successfully do that challenge).
like current dungeons could be equated to say a local competition, where as Liandri could be the Olympics? with different challenges filling the difficulty spectrum in between. For each area of the game.
(I hope that came out clearly)

Ghotistyx.6942:

Patrikan Habaton.2548:

Well hard Content doesn’t Need to exclude casual Players … if there are gambits / instabilities ect for dungeons. Casual Players see the same Content as hardcore Players do.

What would be the Problem to reward Special tokkens if you complete the dungeon while gambits active. Allow Players to Change those tokkens for ascended armor weapons and stuff. I mean i feel like I am forced to farm and grind things because I have a Feeling that fractals will Need certain ar I can’t get with just showing my skills at playing fractals. So for me it be a nice solution to get ascended armor while testing my skills in existing dungeons with gambits / instabilities.

I know People will still complain that it is unfair that he can get that armor ect ect but in the end everyone can see the Content ( Play the dungeon) and everyone can get ascended armor.

I think it would be a really nice solution to create some hard Content in a relatively short ammount of time without designing new Areas ect…

Would you think this would lead to elitism as well or would you be fine with such a Content?

My idea for Hard Mode was built around basically this idea. You could get gambits or instabilities that only affect you (you dealing less damage doesn’t affect just you, but you taking more damage does). These gambits could then appropriately affect potential rewards, which might be tokens in dungeons, or pseudo-magic find in open world, or the like.

I also like the idea that you can run “normal explorable” for exotic gear, and “hard explorable” for ascended. This would allow almost a new set of dungeons for people who choose to have gambits (maybe they’re preset based on run, or maybe you need to add a minimum amount of your choosing to qualify for certain tables) while allowing them to continue to group with players who don’t want to add gambits. All of this, while not trivializing their hard mode experience. Something like a constant burning would require a player to have some form of healing to offset the damage over time. He could get this from himself or from his normal mode party members while still having to complete the path with a constant source of damage.

The key to this would be to find the appropriate gambits so that they can only affect the difficulty of the player they apply too, and don’t allow normal mode players to trivialize the difficulty increase compared to the loot increase. I’ll also mention, like in the current game, zergs trivialize a quite a few things, so there’s not much you can do about that, but there would be a greater chance that hard mode players would get downed.

It’s a good thought but in an open world game, Hard mode could never exist on an individual level. If you are in a zerg of 15+ people, putting a handicap on yourself isn’t going to make it any more difficult, nor would you deserve greater rewards than anyone else.

I agree that rewards should somehow be tailored to skill. This is why I suggested the implentation of an ‘effectiveness meter’ for use in large scale encounters and dungeons.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/46#post3469157

@Cliff
@Tobias Trueflight
@zamalek

Thank you all for going through the trouble of reading my suggestion, I know it was quite long.

It’s gotten to the point where I’ve seen people agreeing/disagreeing with different things. This is good because I wanted to diversify the scale of the ideas to touch most types of players. Even someone who thinks exactly like I do would not love the entire update.

I do agree that both the boast and visitation systems are too dangerous to add exactly how I suggested them. However, I want to put these two questions out there:

1. What would you do to help players along to getting visitors to their houses?

2. Do you feel that open world or solo content needs a “Hard Mode” of some sort?

I came up with Eminence and Visitation because I liked what I saw in LOTRO with the neighborhoods, but found that without a designated RPer get together I found myself the only one in the area. I want the neighborhoods, I want people to check out all of the work I’ve put into my house but I don’t necessarily want to RP.

I actually had the idea that visitation would be mostly automated to draw the methods of acquisition away from begging (much like the trading post alleviates most trade spam). I’m not too attached to it, as long as there’s a system in place that motivates players to visit different houses.

The boast system I just wanted to toss out an idea that other ideas could spur from. I’m tired of PuGs, but I also want to PvE on my own time so organized groups aren’t generally an option. I just want stuff I can do solo.

The inspection system I allowed because there was the underlying idea that I was pushing for a more “exotics for everyone!” type of system where drop rates and prices were better. The game itself hates players entering dungeons in green gear more than their party does. I stated that the inspection system would not show stats or builds so that players could experiment and not get kicked. Sub-par gear isn’t as much the players’ fault as it is the game and economy’s fault. Thus the inspection system as I proposed it would require the drop-rate change added first or at the same time.

When it comes to the relationship system, I threw that in there because day one my guild had like 6-7 real life married couples. I threw in self-account-relationships because it always bothered me that there is nothing more distant in an MMO than your own characters. The one exception for me being EVE where I had two accounts and my two capsuleers complimented each other, one combat and one industry.

My contribution…
(Sorry my bad english!)

WORLD MISSIONS (WM)

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I’d also mention this post by Chuggs as having both an excellent summary of the concept and some intriguing ideas for expanding on the framework – both in terms of stages of progress and added value after the core mechanical goodies are unlocked.
———————-
This is where my concern lies.

Part of the . . . shall we say, cerebral bit of any Player-vs-Player encounter (WvW or sPvP) is seeing “Oh that person is a thief and is holding daggers, so that means they can use these particular skills” or “I need to watch out for that hammer warrior’s knockdowns or launches”. It’s in a glance knowing what your opponent has with him and how he can use it. It’s knowing that despite what you can see you know there’s an alternate weapon set they might be using from what’s available.

The New Masters’ options would mean you have no idea if that Engineer has the expanded mastery unlocked and you aren’t facing a standard set of options. It means having absolutely no idea what that thief can do with the dagger until the Extra Skill is dropped on you.

It could give build diversity, but at the cost of this very quick, at-a-glance awareness in PvP situations.

Tobias – I actually agree with you that it is good to be able to make some judgments about the opposition at a glance, but a certain amount of uncertainty is also good. In the case of GW2, you can’t really tell class until they start using skills, but then you can see their weapons and know at least their 1-5, and maybe make educated guesses about the other half of their skills in heal/utility/elite based upon your knowledge of popular skills/builds.

Under the New Masters system Nike initially raised and which I sort of riffed on in the post linked in the quote above, those things would still be in place.

The way I envision Mastery working is that you open up access to a new weapon(s) for your class, and then a handful of new skills that are themed with the area of Mastery. You still have access to all your initial weapons and skills. So you have unlocked the Gladiator mastery for your Warrior, but you are still fundamentally a Warrior with a slightly expanded weapon/skillset.

So you would still be able to tell class/weapon set by looking at someone and their attacks, and the degree of uncertainty over whether they were using any Master utilities/elites/heals is only slightly more uncertainty than you already face. It just adds a handful of potential skills into the mix rather than changing how you evaluate the encounter.

ColinJohanson.2394:

“The event idea is an interesting one, but it doesn’t feel like a “grand journey” so to speak. Do you feel like if we asked you to do 90 different events in a month, and that allowed your ranger to say become a Druid, you’d feel like that was a cool system?"

If these were all fairly unique and were thematically tied to what I was earning (becoming a druid), then I believe this would be fun. Like others, I created my own version of this system in my “Ideas” post, the trait/weapon idea could use some balance/revision, but the progression system to acquire the traits/skills/masteries is a pretty solid idea.

My Progression Idea
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/48

DarkWasp.7291:

1. What would you do to help players along to getting visitors to their houses?

2. Do you feel that open world or solo content needs a “Hard Mode” of some sort?

I came up with Eminence and Visitation because I liked what I saw in LOTRO with the neighborhoods, but found that without a designated RPer get together I found myself the only one in the area. I want the neighborhoods, I want people to check out all of the work I’ve put into my house but I don’t necessarily want to RP.

I actually had the idea that visitation would be mostly automated to draw the methods of acquisition away from begging (much like the trading post alleviates most trade spam). I’m not too attached to it, as long as there’s a system in place that motivates players to visit different houses.

The boast system I just wanted to toss out an idea that other ideas could spur from. I’m tired of PuGs, but I also want to PvE on my own time so organized groups aren’t generally an option. I just want stuff I can do solo.

The inspection system I allowed because there was the underlying idea that I was pushing for a more “exotics for everyone!” type of system where drop rates and prices were better. The game itself hates players entering dungeons in green gear more than their party does. I stated that the inspection system would not show stats or builds so that players could experiment and not get kicked. Sub-par gear isn’t as much the players’ fault as it is the game and economy’s fault. Thus the inspection system as I proposed it would require the drop-rate change added first or at the same time.

When it comes to the relationship system, I threw that in there because day one my guild had like 6-7 real life married couples. I threw in self-account-relationships because it always bothered me that there is nothing more distant in an MMO than your own characters. The one exception for me being EVE where I had two accounts and my two capsuleers complimented each other, one combat and one industry.

1. I’m not really sure we necessarily need an entire system designed to force people to go visit other players’ houses. I think first and foremost, a housing system would be something you get personal satisfaction from (on top of the actual rewards). That being said, people would obviously love showing their houses off to their friends, and seeing their friends’ houses. You certainly don’t need a system for that. But if you’re really set on having reasons to guide people to visit stranger’s houses, maybe it could be tied in with the living story somehow. Or perhaps even a “Daily Visitor” achievement added to the daily rotation where you have to visit someone’s house. I wouldn’t want anything particularly intrusive, though.

2. Honestly, no, I don’t think open-world content needs some kind of “Hard Mode.” I think I mentioned before, I think any difficult content in the open world should come from the areas themselves. Right now, the most “difficult” areas would be Orr and Southsun, but neither of those really fit the bill. Future areas that are actually difficult open world areas would need to be populated with enemies that simply couldn’t be solo’d, or at least solo’d efficiently. They would also have to be designed in such a way that it would be difficult to make it through the areas by just popping swiftness on and running past everything. Of course, this risks making the areas unenjoyable, especially if they’re not populated. So, I think a really great option would be more minidungeons out in the open world, such as the Flame Legion one in Diessa (I think?), or the dark caverns in Dredgehaunt. Make more of those, make them legitimately difficult, and it’s a great middle ground.

Conski Deshan.2057:

As we’ve identified through numerous posts run buying is whats preventing some of the more desired routes, if we could work out a way to ensure that it’s not possible to do it, it would be best.
Some steps towards helping this would be,
1. Anet declaring run buying an offense,with the player being stripped of any gain from it if caught.
2. Adding mechanics that require all 5 players to be active participents, i.e 5 switches at the same time (not my ideal example), all have to do a mini jp each sort of thing.
3.Forcing each player to show individual skill in the path, this could be as I mentioned the party getting split up at some point in the dungeon for a while,with the others unable to run into anyone else s path(for reviving).

I think that run buying is fair enough. It would be way too complicated to make every person in the group conquer the same challenge. One of the awesome things about group instances is that stronger players can help out weaker players to pass difficult content. (It gives me a great feeling to help someone, and I bet there are more players like me)

This shouldn’t mean that skill-based rewards should only be available for solo-instances. But it does mean that those are the only real skill-checks in PvE at the moment.

Through new content like challenge missions ,groups may suffer more from having ‘weak’ links, requiring everyone to give it all they’ve got. And skins could be based on the score. (Maybe a color variety like the SAB rewards, or other tweaks to a design)

Personally I’m most fond of a system in which skilled players can obtain items that are similar to items that non-skilled players can obtain. Just a different color/texture/particle effect unique to their skill-level.

Patrikan Habaton.2548:

At the Moment you can have everything with just Money. what would be the Problem if I was awarded for certain challenges with an ascended armor? everyone could get it as well.. but I get it for sure without RNG for beeing skillfull.

If you can get ascended armor through skill without RNG, you wouldn’t need to spend your money on crafting ascended armor. You would stack up way more gold than the players that do need to craft their ascended armor. You would have more money to say… buy some stacks of food & sharpening stones. Other players wouldn’t be able to afford these quite as easily, since they need all their money for ascended armor. Thus what may seem like a reasonable price for food & stones for you, may require a significant amount of champtrain-time for others.

You may end up with nothing to strive for, while others are still busy getting their ascended gear together. The devs now have a problem, do they give everyone more to strive for (making completion seem hopeless for the less skilled), or do they let the slower people catch up at the risk of losing the veterans?

Cliff.8679:

The best rewards should always be attained through skill. Not RNG drops, not from a merchant, not from crafting, not from the gem store.

I agree with most of what you said, but I don’t think that the best rewards should necessarily be gained through skill. I just think that there should be some rewards unique to skill.

The game supports a wide variety of players. Not all of them will be able to reach a certain level of skill. And for the top layer of players, very few things so far have caused them any trouble. As veterans keep playing and new players keep joining, this variety in skill level may only increase.

Locking the most awesome looks behind skill gates could be a big turn-off for players that really want to look kitten. (Which is, as far as I can tell, a common goal for players, skilled and unskilled alike)

What I believe that skilled players desire most in rewards, is a way to show off what they have accomplished. And this does not need to be done through having more awesome clothes than someone else, just by having something that is unique to the challenge that they have beaten. (From a mini-liadri to a yellow pointy hat)

The Great Al.2546:

Ghotistyx.6942:

Patrikan Habaton.2548:

Well hard Content doesn’t Need to exclude casual Players … if there are gambits / instabilities ect for dungeons. Casual Players see the same Content as hardcore Players do.

What would be the Problem to reward Special tokkens if you complete the dungeon while gambits active. Allow Players to Change those tokkens for ascended armor weapons and stuff. I mean i feel like I am forced to farm and grind things because I have a Feeling that fractals will Need certain ar I can’t get with just showing my skills at playing fractals. So for me it be a nice solution to get ascended armor while testing my skills in existing dungeons with gambits / instabilities.

I know People will still complain that it is unfair that he can get that armor ect ect but in the end everyone can see the Content ( Play the dungeon) and everyone can get ascended armor.

I think it would be a really nice solution to create some hard Content in a relatively short ammount of time without designing new Areas ect…

Would you think this would lead to elitism as well or would you be fine with such a Content?

My idea for Hard Mode was built around basically this idea. You could get gambits or instabilities that only affect you (you dealing less damage doesn’t affect just you, but you taking more damage does). These gambits could then appropriately affect potential rewards, which might be tokens in dungeons, or pseudo-magic find in open world, or the like.

I also like the idea that you can run “normal explorable” for exotic gear, and “hard explorable” for ascended. This would allow almost a new set of dungeons for people who choose to have gambits (maybe they’re preset based on run, or maybe you need to add a minimum amount of your choosing to qualify for certain tables) while allowing them to continue to group with players who don’t want to add gambits. All of this, while not trivializing their hard mode experience. Something like a constant burning would require a player to have some form of healing to offset the damage over time. He could get this from himself or from his normal mode party members while still having to complete the path with a constant source of damage.

The key to this would be to find the appropriate gambits so that they can only affect the difficulty of the player they apply too, and don’t allow normal mode players to trivialize the difficulty increase compared to the loot increase. I’ll also mention, like in the current game, zergs trivialize a quite a few things, so there’s not much you can do about that, but there would be a greater chance that hard mode players would get downed.

It’s a good thought but in an open world game, Hard mode could never exist on an individual level. If you are in a zerg of 15+ people, putting a handicap on yourself isn’t going to make it any more difficult, nor would you deserve greater rewards than anyone else.

I agree that rewards should somehow be tailored to skill. This is why I suggested the implentation of an ‘effectiveness meter’ for use in large scale encounters and dungeons.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/46#post3469157

I think this is the reason why the hardmode has to be for the whole Party so all suffer from the Gambit and not the one with gambits just die while 4 others complete the dungeon without gambits and carry him. I think this will still challenge all playerskills since if a Player Fails all time he will just get replaced so everyone has to carry more or less his weight.

@ lost wich: I know this would be the case if you could farm those ascended armor my idea would be more of a achievment like one time fix reward / maybe once per character that completes it. On top of that you may not realize but people that Plays hard Content miss out often on reasonable rewards and Gold because they challenge themselves. When I decided to go for fractals highest Levels right when fractals came out. I invested a huge ammount of Money and time because I wanted to test my skill. I bought several armors rez orbs and repair canisters in the end I made 0 Money out of running all those hours of fractals. Basicaly I got punished by not getting any Money or gear because I was looking for skillfull hard Play the fractal rewards got buffed twice or even three times since when I played it. Even after those buffs it creates way more Money running dungeons, so you Need to realize atm the skilled Players are getting hurt and aren’t getting any Gold at all compared to the casuals so it would just be fair to at least Play our Content without having to grind for AR and stuff to advance in fractals:)

The Lost Witch.7601:

Cliff.8679:

The best rewards should always be attained through skill. Not RNG drops, not from a merchant, not from crafting, not from the gem store.

I agree with most of what you said, but I don’t think that the best rewards should necessarily be gained through skill. I just think that there should be some rewards unique to skill.

The game supports a wide variety of players. Not all of them will be able to reach a certain level of skill. And for the top layer of players, very few things so far have caused them any trouble. As veterans keep playing and new players keep joining, this variety in skill level may only increase.

Locking the most awesome looks behind skill gates could be a big turn-off for players that really want to look kitten. (Which is, as far as I can tell, a common goal for players, skilled and unskilled alike)

What I believe that skilled players desire most in rewards, is a way to show off what they have accomplished. And this does not need to be done through having more awesome clothes than someone else, just by having something that is unique to the challenge that they have beaten. (From a mini-liadri to a yellow pointy hat)

Maybe I was being a bit dramatic, and I probably should have phrased that last part better, because it did come straight off of talking about cosmetics. When it comes to cosmetics, I don’t really believe there is a “best” reward, because it’s all subjective anyway. For example, if someone dropped a legendary in my lap, (the current “best” reward in the game), I’d transmute it to something else faster than you could blink an eye. I think just about every single one of them are overdesigned and obnoxious, and I can’t stand the footstep effects.

But there is a serious lack of rewards for skill currently, and it’s something the game desperately needs. ArenaNet had originally intended for the dungeon armor and weapon sets to fill this role, but we all know how that turned out. I mean, come on…Light Up the Darkness, the single most prestigious PvE achievement in the game, doesn’t even have a title attached to it. What’s up with that?

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Is there any timeline to the changes we are discussing?

Did you read the very first post in the thread?

Conski Deshan.2057:

Between the guilds chat and myself we think the best reply to your reversed question is an analogy. We consider gaming a competitive (indirectly and directly)environment, so similar to sports you occasionally go to competitions (challenges here) there are several levels and the Trophy/medal (skin /whatever reward) is the prize for being successfully and only obtainable from that competition, the harder the competition the more prestige the medal/prize holds.

We’d like varying levels of challenges with skins for each of them,not all Liandri difficulty (fun fact none of us managed to successfully do that challenge).
like current dungeons could be equated to say a local competition, where as Liandri could be the Olympics? with different challenges filling the difficulty spectrum in between. For each area of the game.
(I hope that came out clearly)

It comes out, and I hope you don’t misunderstand me when I say there is a place for that. We have the WvW seasons (hopefully we’ll get a second one and so on), and we could in theory get sPvP tournaments. Getting overblown upset over failing to snag Gold League #1 and thus they get cool stuff? I think that’s hyperbolic exaggeration of “as a player I’m entitled to content”.

The varying levels of Mission Reward in old GW1? I was totally, completely fine with that. Even with doing it over again in Hard Mode! (Except in Eternal Grove, that can go kiss Dhumm. And not on the lips either.)

I guess I should say anything where skill isn’t solely reflex-based, one-shot-to-die-or-start-over . . . is acceptable.

I just want it to be kept as a concern of “How skilled do we expect people to be to attain this?” not being kept so high we average skilled players can just dream of getting them since it must be done alone and without assistance.

. . . and for the record, I never saw Liadri. I barely touched the Gauntlet matches because at the time I had more interesting things to go get done.

Ghotistyx.6942:

I don’t know. I still see a few new posts about “I don’t want sub-classes” and that’s basically it. I don’t know what they don’t like, what they do like, concerns or alternate proposals. In addition, I see this in a few posts about other ideas that aren’t so sub-class oriented.

More than likely because most proposals for sub-classes either lack the detail that is where the problems arise, or its so obvious that they cause power creep or mass extinction of build diversity that we don’t want to sit here pointing it out like broken records when we’re mostly confident the point has been made .

Also, class balance as a whole affects each individual’s ability to kill Plains Wurms. Not affecting change because we’re afraid of allowing someone to kill their Plains Wurm faster would be to completely stop any form of balance and leave the game as it stands.

That is what you come away with from reading the Wurm test?

Its a simple example of an overall constraint – there are ways of measuring your performance. If you want to avoid power creep you have to be aware of the boundaries you want the system to operate in and not breach them. In a relatively simple one-axis test like how much DPS can you dish out against a non-threatening opponent, yes, of course the classes will have variations between them because the other aspects of their performance aren’t being strained in that test, but you can still measure them meaningfully against themselves to see if something new has pushed behavior out of bounds.

So, yes, while many of these changes will affect the actual power of different builds, I don’t know if the game will ever get to a point where we can just say “Balance is finished”. At least with more options, there can be more depth and discovery instead of stagnation. (leaning towards the hyperbolic in this argument).

Do I really strike you as a proponent of stagnation ?

There is still such a vast range of new and interesting things that can be done in this game without falling back on the crutch of power creep to incentivize the journey.