Guild Wars 2

Chris,

I know you can’t give details, but I was wondering if you guys figured out a way to separate the LS from the PS? I remember several Dev comments mentioning that the PS was reducing what could be done in LS (example: Killing Jennah because she had to be alive in the PS.)

Andiela.3759:

Tyria has lot of unique and fun races. Are there any plans to add event where we can spend “1 day” as one of them? For example to be skritt and hunt for shinies, quaggan swim races or dredge searching for ores while you are almost blind etc. (doesnt matter if personal story, guild mission or anything else).

This is actually a pretty cool idea. Yes, it’s extremely unlikely that any of the minor races will ever be true playable classes (and that’s not really a bad thing). I would, however, definitely like to see mini hubs or quest chains that allow players to take the role of one of the minor races. I’m not sure what appropriate awards would be outside of maybe temp appearance change tonics, but it would make for fun experiences regardless.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

- Then I don’t really understand your ‘personal story’ or how it would be different from the living story.

It’s “personal” because it’s advanced by your character at your player’s pace. And you could put a decisions . . . hopefully ones with impact . . . rather than it just be simple quests. Though I don’t know how much I’d mind that if they were done well enough to allow some freedom in how to approach/solve it.

And it’s different from the Living Story because it wouldn’t be temporary and disappear when the window closed, it’d just be appended to the end of it until you felt like proceeding.

You missed “Seven Spires of Rata Sum”? You missed out on the Mini Inquest Ravager Golem? Oh, well the housing NPCs still have the material all ready for you if you go say hi to them. [/quote]

I get that part now. Problem might be that eventually it can become almost impossible for people to pick up.. If they ready add some decent stuff every time.

About the personal touch on decisions. You might think my vision of housing is to hard but I do consider those ‘decisions’ to hard.
Imagine that with every addition there are 2 options / decisions you can pick from meaning you are going in a different direction with your ‘personal story’. That means that the second update / branch they need to add 2 more branches for the 2 previous branches they added before (so 4) and then 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 265 well you get the point.

Thats the problem if you want to design something personal. The only way you can really do that if by giving more freedom. So for me in an MMO the real personal story is just me paying the game. The tings I see, the goals I set for myself and so on. Thats the freedom many MMO’s give you. We we taking about mine-craft before. There everybody’s design is his ‘personal story’ (his personal design). So I personally think that if you want to have people feel like they are having there own personal story you should give them more freedom. To make your ‘choices’ have more impact you need more real dynamic behavior. Not do diss the Dynamic events but they are also still scripted events not really dynamic. Want give people the option to make an impact? Make things really more dynamic.. Stuff really reacting to you in a AI way, not in a scripted way.

So in my vision, freedom gives you a personal story and more dynamic system give you more impact on the world. (Or on the dynamic systems at least)

Scripted choices can’t really give you that imho.

Eli Stormstrike.8637:

With this being said, I believe there should be other paths towards gaining the Ascended Gear…

You may find this thread of interest, particularly the last 15-20 pages .

Account-wide Agony Resistance
Considering how Fractal Level is now account-wide, it’s logical for Agony Resistance to become account-wide aswell, to allow our characters to consume content at the current account level they’re at.

Like most alt-friendly notions, I’m not adverse.

For example, Agony Infusions could be removed from gear and added to the character panel, so that infusing gear would add 5 Agony Resistance to the account.

The new +1 Agony Resistance Infusions that drop from Fractals could, once merged into a +5 minimum, then be used to add that much AR to the account.

I’m not entirely sure how this system would work for someone who already has several infusion at 6 or greater, particularly for across several characters?

• Ascended Salvaging
  Allow us to salvage Ascended items in return for Ascended materials, with the added chance of Globs of Dark Matter, perhaps Globs of Ectoplasm and +1 Agony Resistance Infusions.

Any Ascended salvaging has to be balanced against the fact the rings drop like candy and the added workload for Support when people start (genuinely) reporting “Oh dear, I accidentally salvaged some of my Ascended gear !” However I do like the idea of them turning into +1 infusions. That’s a nice way of keeping the reward penned up in the fractals and not overflowing into other aspects of the game.

(At five max-length posts of ideas and me being on flood control, it’ll take me a while to respond to your entire package, but I am looking at it .)

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Zaoda.1653:

@ColinJohanson,

In regards to new weapon skills/unlocks, I think the way it worked in GW1 in terms of obtaining both normal and elite skills using the Signet of Capture was so unique and amazing. It was something I had never seen done before in any other game I had played, whereby you go around the world looking for specific bosses that have the elite that you want, and that boss had a particular glow depending on what profession it was – gold/yellow for warrior, cyan for ritualist, green for necromancer etc. you slayed that boss, and captured its elite when standing near its corpse. I felt like I had truly earnt that skill, and that to me is what it’s all about – true progression.

So something like a Signet of Capture concept where you can purchase, or get via a reward, and go around and collect weapon skills from bosses would be ideal – and would make you feel as though you truly earnt it.

You could even swap in, say, 10-20 skill points for a capture skill (as many have been wanting more ways to use excess skill points, this could be another way to use them up?)

Edit: another idea could be bringing back elite tomes? Just a thought anyway.

Hi Zaoda,

Absolutely, this is a simple and excellent system. Very elegant, and rewarding with a great sense of discovery.

Chris

I think the initial hunt should reveal the skill on the skill panel, and then you unlock it with X number of skill points (where X is 15 or more).

As long as I can ALSO go to a vendor in the WvW citadel and pay 150-250 Badges of Honor to reveal the skill and then pay the same X number of skill points to unlock it, I think we’re golden. This has the added benefit of the WvW vendor serves as a checklist and preview for the skills accessible from inside the game instead of having to trawl the interweb to find out what all is out there. Then it’s a matter of Developer taste if the vendor skill entries also indicate what mob has to be mugged or if the presentation is “spoiler free” so explorative types can check in and know “Ok, this skill is out there, and I want it – now I’m going to go out and FIND IT!”

If I have that Tequatl event tonight that I want to use to test out a new skill, sometimes I just want to get on with it. Other skills I might pursue in a more leisurely fashion. Options serve both different kinds of players and different moods for the same player .

On Account wide agony
I think it may be possible to have the game check all your characters and then set the account wide agony to the same as that. Checking every time you log in and out to prevent any messing.
So you log in on your fractal character, you now have say 50 AR across the board, as long as that one character keeps the AR equiped. Lets say your second character then gets 55AR , that becomes the account wide (as long as the items remain equipped).

On WVW Skill unlocking
I don’t think WvW tokens can be used, The achievement chests flooded players with them, so any PvE player is just going to hop in to WvW and grab the unlock there. (I have bought a ton of stuff using WvW tokens and still have 2k of them).
To a PvE player, and most WvW players the tokens serve no real function at the moment so there’s quite a stockpile.

Perhaps instead tie the keeps and home borderlands into some form of system, on the borderlands especially the home area has plenty of unused space that could accommodate some form of test/challenge/whatever. Anything that would prevent an instant unlock which wouldn’t really be a journey.

on Ascended Salvaging
I’d be fine with some across the board ability to salvage them (I don’t think theres a need to differenciate rings, yes people have more of them , but they took quite a while to get even if you got them as drops.).
They could potentially drop any T7 finished mat , I say any as salvaging an ascended item should be quite a rare activity so should yield something worthwhile, it could additionally drop dark matter. (personally I’d like if it did’nt salvage to any dragonite/emperyml/bloodstone as that’s the activity gate)

One last note on that I’d raise the vendor value on all ascended items to be 1g in line with weapons, it’s not game-breaking and would stop people groaning when they get a non-infused ring drop.

@Devata , Not all choices are created equal though and preferences will emerge, in a similar manner to how you can objectively say Black, White ,Red in that order are the most popular colours by a longshot.

and I’d like to point out that time limited items also preform the function you describe but in reverse, and in a technically non linear manner (someone may miss march and get april, someone might miss 3 months and get the next 9, the order of months missed changes the rewards missed.)

I find that people flip it and go “oh I was punished for not playing” rather than go “oh that player was rewarded for playing at that time good on them”

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Zaoda.1653:

@ColinJohanson,

In regards to new weapon skills/unlocks, I think the way it worked in GW1 in terms of obtaining both normal and elite skills using the Signet of Capture was so unique and amazing. It was something I had never seen done before in any other game I had played, whereby you go around the world looking for specific bosses that have the elite that you want, and that boss had a particular glow depending on what profession it was – gold/yellow for warrior, cyan for ritualist, green for necromancer etc. you slayed that boss, and captured its elite when standing near its corpse. I felt like I had truly earnt that skill, and that to me is what it’s all about – true progression.

So something like a Signet of Capture concept where you can purchase, or get via a reward, and go around and collect weapon skills from bosses would be ideal – and would make you feel as though you truly earnt it.

You could even swap in, say, 10-20 skill points for a capture skill (as many have been wanting more ways to use excess skill points, this could be another way to use them up?)

Edit: another idea could be bringing back elite tomes? Just a thought anyway.

Hi Zaoda,

Absolutely, this is a simple and excellent system. Very elegant, and rewarding with a great sense of discovery.

Chris

Well, I didn’t think the part where you had to have the Signet of Capture already taking up the slot of one of your skills on your skill bar in advance was what I would call “elegant,” but it was interesting aside from that.

Devata.6589:

About the personal touch on decisions. You might think my vision of housing is to hard but I do consider those ‘decisions’ to hard.

(Snip)

Imagine that with every addition there are 2 options / decisions you can pick from meaning you are going in a different direction with your ‘personal story’. That means that the second update / branch they need to add 2 more branches for the 2 previous branches they added before (so 4) and then 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 265 well you get the point.

It’s not necessarily hard, and it can be worked around in a way where it can still be impactful and still be relatively easy on the people keeping track of the flow. I know I laid into the trouble of “Living Story” allowing permanent changes if one server . . . say, repelled an attack on the Ascalon Settlement and the other let it burn. And increasingly diverging in states . . . such that it might take the teams needing more and more effort to keep track of whether or not a server has something in a state where it’s possible.

But it can be done with some awareness between teams. Here’s how:

Team A in LS #25 has an NPC, “George” which the servers are polled on whether he gets rescued or left alone. No achievement specifically points to “George” and says “go save him” so players aren’t exactly led to complete it. For every server who rescues him, plant him in Lion’s Arch somewhere discreet and they can go visit for a cheesy thank you and that seems to be it. Servers which don’t, he just vanishes apparently not to be seen again.

Team C in LS #32 wants to use “George”, but they see X servers don’t have him. They go to Team B doing LS #30 and say “we want to drop something into your story update”. They put together a quick side-event where servers who don’t have “George” get another chance to rescue him, but in a DE quietly slipped in where surviving antagonists from LS #25 are trying to do something from a camp in a zone. When the DE chain finishes, some prisoners are freed and one goes “My name is George, I’m glad to see you! Look me up when I get back to Lion’s Arch.”

So when LS #32 rolls around, “George” is there. That’s the most satisfying way to allow a difference to get bridged – letting the people who let it happen patch the story up.

I mean, if you want to bridge it. It could just as easily be unnecessary to bring “George” back and instead just come up with a new character entirely and let the difference dangle. But that’s a minor example, bigger ones can be trickier, but it can be bridged just by having teams aware of things and have plans known of how to fix it if they fail, let it come in down the line either by option or a story thread. “Yes, we know the destroyers overran the dredge of Molensk on Borlis Pass while Maguuma fought them back. Leave some NPCs to suggest they’re fighting back and eventually revert it.”

It should be noted that’s not the ideal solution, but hey, if you really need X to happen but Y is keeping you? Figure it out.

Want give people the option to make an impact? Make things really more dynamic.. Stuff really reacting to you in a AI way, not in a scripted way.

Better than that is what older, WAY older games did: story characters run by employees who were given them to run for an hour or two. Don’t even go in with a plan. Go in, adlib within an outline of a script, and log what happens to hand over to the lore “team”. (Usually the same guy.)

Don’t think that would work here, as I don’t think there’s enough framework in place.

Scripted choices can’t really give you that imho.

No, but if the script is made well enough, and you never get to see the DM’s notes, you never know you were had.

Signet of Forums.4397:

Well, I didn’t think the part where you had to have the Signet of Capture already taking up the slot of one of your skills on your skill bar in advance was what I would call “elegant,” but it was interesting aside from that.

It was worse at the start – you had to use it as the skill was being used which meant sometimes you couldn’t get it if the AI refused to use the skill. It got changed later.

Though it did allow for some curious PvE work with the potential for up to four Elites on your bar if you plotted it out

Signet of Forums.4397:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Zaoda.1653:

@ColinJohanson,

In regards to new weapon skills/unlocks, I think the way it worked in GW1 in terms of obtaining both normal and elite skills using the Signet of Capture was so unique and amazing. It was something I had never seen done before in any other game I had played, whereby you go around the world looking for specific bosses that have the elite that you want, and that boss had a particular glow depending on what profession it was – gold/yellow for warrior, cyan for ritualist, green for necromancer etc. you slayed that boss, and captured its elite when standing near its corpse. I felt like I had truly earnt that skill, and that to me is what it’s all about – true progression.

So something like a Signet of Capture concept where you can purchase, or get via a reward, and go around and collect weapon skills from bosses would be ideal – and would make you feel as though you truly earnt it.

You could even swap in, say, 10-20 skill points for a capture skill (as many have been wanting more ways to use excess skill points, this could be another way to use them up?)

Edit: another idea could be bringing back elite tomes? Just a thought anyway.

Hi Zaoda,

Absolutely, this is a simple and excellent system. Very elegant, and rewarding with a great sense of discovery.

Chris

Well, I didn’t think the part where you had to have the Signet of Capture already taking up the slot of one of your skills on your skill bar in advance was what I would call “elegant,” but it was interesting aside from that.

Well, unless it’s the ‘Elite’ skill slot. Really, who actually values their elite slot all that much? And it would take a little more skill if you can’t rely on it to cap the a skill.

This idea gets my vote. I am a GW1 vet, and I loved the signet of capture system with a passion. I would think that the enemies that you could go after in GW2 would be the new Elite level mobs, which I notice aren’t really being used outside of the Tower of Nightmare living story thus far, but it’s a start.

Toss em around the maps, give them some unique mechanics, and presto you’ve got something to go hunting for. I would certainly make the leveling from 40-80 a lot more interesting if your continuing to pick up skills along the way via this system.

I do hope however that these skills aren’t just utility/healing/elite skills, but also alternate weapon skills as well. The current system is great and easy to learn for newbies, but a little bit of wiggle room later on would be much appreciated.

Edit:
Having given this a tad more thought, I think the two skill types that would benefit the most from a system like this would be Elite skills and Weapon skills.
Healing maybe, but both healing and utility skills we already have an existing, perfectly functional system. You might as well just add another tier if your going to add more to it.

But Elites are something worth working for, and the initial ones you get are just entry level elites. So if you want more variety you need to go out an cap them.
Alternate Weapons skills people with fall over themselves in order to get.

The only question is how this would work for WvW.

*Extend the level cap to 999.

*Leveling should be extremely difficult from level 80.

*Tome of Knowledge and any item that grant level will not work above level 80.

*Each level grants the character 1+ all attributes/stats .

*Add the rankings for high level characters on the Leaderboards.

*Every time a character reaches a hundred levels they unlock a new weapon (maybe?).

*You don’t have to grind for this because you level up as you enjoy a particular activity in the game like WvW/sPvP/PvE.

*This is for elitists.

Exosferatu.2961:

*Extend the level cap to 999.

*Leveling should be extremely difficult from level 80.

*Tome of Knowledge and any item that grant level will not work above level 80.

*Each level grants the character 1+ all attributes/stats .

*Add the rankings for high level characters on the Leaderboards.

*Every time a character reaches a hundred levels they unlock a new weapon (maybe?).

*You don’t have to grind for this because you level up as you enjoy a particular activity in the game like WvW/sPvP/PvE.

*This is for elitists.

• Add a rank for every 50 levels and change the character’s portrait frame
  (like Eli Stormstrike.8637: said)

• The levels over 80 will only be seen in the Hero panel and won’t be seen by other players as numbers (portrait frames will be a visual hint tho)

• Increase the level amount of exp needed by 3 (just to give a number to your harder leveling after lvl 80 suggestion)

• Every 100 levels you will unlock a profession specific piece of gear:
  - helm at lvl 100
  - shoulders at lvl 200
  - chest at lvl 300
  - leggings at lvl 400
  - boots at lvl 500
  - gloves at lvl 600
  - back piece at lvl 700
  - main weapon set of choice = max two weapons at lvl 800
  - 2nd weapon set of choice = max two weapons at lvl 900
  - The Legend title and full underwater set (breather and weapons) at lvl 1000

All unlocks are account bound and will be placed as skins in the achievement panel and will only be used with characters of the same profession even if they are low level
The character who unlocks them personally will get an Actual gear with stats so to make it like the World Completion star

Note: This system can be considered an alternative path for obtaining a full Legendary gear set for those who don’t like farming mats or crafting. The amount of game time required to obtain this legendary set is similar to the current system for obtaining a legendary weapon.

• Experience guild banners or gem store exp buffs will still work.

Given the Elite Signet some even more though, namely in regards to WvW, I don’t think we should have the idea contorted to fit with WvW honestly broken model.

Here’s what I mean. The core of this idea is about going on a journey to gain new skills.
But in WvW there is no journey, for anything. It’s not designed for that, everything from one point to another is pretty much a straight line on fairly flat terrain, and no real mobs to speak of.

Now if it was more like Edge of the Mists, which actually has decent terrain and effects, throw in a few PvE elements like roaming randomized elite/champion mobs, then this system should work just fine.
The Elite Signet idea shouldn’t be changed to fit in with a badly design game mode, but rather wait until WvW catches up. Until then, tough luck I say.

Exosferatu.2961:

*Extend the level cap to 999.
<snip>
*This is for elitists.

And for people who have to have pure vertical progression no matter how unimaginably grindy .

Yoh.8469:

Given the Elite Signet some even more though, namely in regards to WvW, I don’t think we should have the idea contorted to fit with WvW honestly broken model.

Here’s what I mean. The core of this idea is about going on a journey to gain new skills.
But in WvW there is no journey, for anything. It’s not designed for that, everything from one point to another is pretty much a straight line on fairly flat terrain, and no real mobs to speak of.

Now if it was more like Edge of the Mists, which actually has decent terrain and effects, throw in a few PvE elements like roaming randomized elite/champion mobs, then this system should work just fine.
The Elite Signet idea shouldn’t be changed to fit in with a badly design game mode, but rather wait until WvW catches up. Until then, tough luck I say.

Using a Signet of Capture in PvE or any game mode doesn’t exactly scream “Journey” to me if all the skills can be aquired in an afternoon. Temporary and Living World stuff should be able to be accomplished that quickly (and mostly, it is). Permanent content should be designed to take significantly longer. I’m not saying an epic 50+ hour investment for one measily skill, but doing a 2-3 hour long task sounds alot cooler than buying a signet of capture, then getting your skill ten minutes later.

Chrispy.5641:

Yoh.8469:

Given the Elite Signet some even more though, namely in regards to WvW, I don’t think we should have the idea contorted to fit with WvW honestly broken model.

Here’s what I mean. The core of this idea is about going on a journey to gain new skills.
But in WvW there is no journey, for anything. It’s not designed for that, everything from one point to another is pretty much a straight line on fairly flat terrain, and no real mobs to speak of.

Now if it was more like Edge of the Mists, which actually has decent terrain and effects, throw in a few PvE elements like roaming randomized elite/champion mobs, then this system should work just fine.
The Elite Signet idea shouldn’t be changed to fit in with a badly design game mode, but rather wait until WvW catches up. Until then, tough luck I say.

Using a Signet of Capture in PvE or any game mode doesn’t exactly scream “Journey” to me if all the skills can be aquired in an afternoon. Temporary and Living World stuff should be able to be accomplished that quickly (and mostly, it is). Permanent content should be designed to take significantly longer. I’m not saying an epic 50+ hour investment for one measily skill, but doing a 2-3 hour long task sounds alot cooler than buying a signet of capture, then getting your skill ten minutes later.

Mmmm, fair point.
Thou with any veteran player will likely not have much of a journey no matter what you do, since they know where everything more or less is. Well, it would make running an alt a little more tolerable.
You do have to look at it from a new player perspective however, and something like this definitely would make the journey better.

But it would depend on how and where the mobs where, weather they are just statically standing around, or maybe roaming like the Guild Bounties. Perhaps they could have some sort of triggering event that causes them to spawn in the area, at which point you have to go looking for them, but you only have so long until they despawn.

Mix some creative usages of events, and I could see a journey come out of that.

I have many things to tell and write but now i will just show some i have in mind. Some are already in the forum but i added some opinions and ways to get it done. Cheers

My opinion on Sub-class system is:

• The system works very well. Why? Can make professions a little more exclusive. Ex: Thief vs thief and both have different sub classes we can see 2 different play styles.

• We all know that we have guardians tank and guardians dps, Elementalists Support and dps… sub-classes could be the gate to pick a sub classes with more “power” or the one with more “utility”.

• Sub-Classes could also be the way to add new weapons. Some sub-classes have acess to exclusive weapons. EX: Thief “shadow arts” sub classe could use thrown weapons and Thief " Ninja art" sub classe could use fist weapons. I will talk about this ideias a little forward.

Things i would like to see ingame:

• Trait Templates – You could save a build to quick change if you are on wvw or pve and change if you are Out Of Combat.

• Gear Templates – Same from above but with the gear, could be combined with a Trait template in order to call is Build Locker or someting where we had the full build ready to change.

• Skins Locker : Its a must on this game Shriketalon.1937 showed a very good way to complish this.

All above could be a progression for many players… getting some builds to try on and keep them save to always use when need it. The skin locker is also a great progression because " got to catch them all".

Further on Guild Misions:

New GM:

• Build and Defend- Need to build a tower or a house or weapons ( like the tower that you need to use the cannon to get the vista or even siege weapons on Vigil Keep) and some wild and naughty npc want to murder you for helping the other faction.

• GM PvP – I would like to do pvp with my guild and could be a good way to get more people joining. This PvP could work in places like Vigil keep or order of whispers island….maybe.

• Vulcano Eruption – In Mount Mael a Eruption begins and the players would get support and protect skills like guardian shields and they must defend the citizens. (I would let the citizens die xD )

• Survival Rush – You would be in a biome hard to survive… liek underwater without the aquabreather or on land but on a toxic zone and your goal is to reach the safe area…

I will try to post something about Elite skills and Housing next day. Thank you for reading

Nike.2631:

Exosferatu.2961:

*Extend the level cap to 999.
<snip>
*This is for elitists.

And for people who have to have pure vertical progression no matter how unimaginably grindy .

Not necessarily “unimaginably grindy” because I got over 1000 levels (aka skill points) in GW1 with one character just trying to get 50/50 in HoM. I am sure my other characters are around 500-700

So I support this idea 100% even tho I am more then sure they will not implement it

Note: In GW1 you can only get skill point by leveling
Here is a screenshot to prove it

Ronah.2869:

Nike.2631:

Exosferatu.2961:

*Extend the level cap to 999.
<snip>
*This is for elitists.

And for people who have to have pure vertical progression no matter how unimaginably grindy .

Not necessarily “unimaginably grindy” because I got over 1000 levels (aka skill points) in GW1 with one character just trying to get 50/50 in HoM. I am sure my other characters are around 500-700

So I support this idea 100% even tho I am more then sure they will not implement it

Note: In GW1 you can only get skill point by leveling
Here is a screenshot to prove it

Not true, there’s the Star of Transference.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Star_of_Transference

I thought the idea was ridiculous at first…
But honestly it seems like an ok additional feature.
The stat increase maybe needs to be balanced or removed..
But all in all, a system to gain stuff from “leveling up” above the normal lvl 80 would be interesting.
Unlocking pieces of class specific gear could be interesting.
Titles.
Achievements.
But it should of course not be required for any other progress ingame.
And whatever you do in the game, except pvp, you level up.

But optional, extra bonuses. Not OP and not required. Maybe some gem and gold reward and perhaps laurels.

Mikuchan.7261:

Ronah.2869:

Nike.2631:

Exosferatu.2961:

*Extend the level cap to 999.
<snip>
*This is for elitists.

And for people who have to have pure vertical progression no matter how unimaginably grindy .

Not necessarily “unimaginably grindy” because I got over 1000 levels (aka skill points) in GW1 with one character just trying to get 50/50 in HoM. I am sure my other characters are around 500-700

So I support this idea 100% even tho I am more then sure they will not implement it

Note: In GW1 you can only get skill point by leveling
Here is a screenshot to prove it

Not true, there’s the Star of Transference.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Star_of_Transference

I thought the idea was ridiculous at first…
But honestly it seems like an ok additional feature.
The stat increase maybe needs to be balanced or removed..
But all in all, a system to gain stuff from “leveling up” above the normal lvl 80 would be interesting.
Unlocking pieces of class specific gear could be interesting.
Titles.
Achievements.
But it should of course not be required for any other progress ingame.
And whatever you do in the game, except pvp, you level up.

But optional, extra bonuses. Not OP and not required. Maybe some gem and gold reward and perhaps laurels.

I haven’t heard of it, but my 14.393.913 exp can prove that I have got the skill points by playing and not using any shortcut. Or are there exp potion too which I don’t know of?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Shakkara,

I just want to point out that this is not a particularly collaborative or useful post. Please however don’t take this personally.

The whole point of CDI is to discuss, brainstorm and then ‘reduce’ ideas as a group until they reach their pure essence.

Making assumptions about what ‘everyone’ wants just does not work in this kind of collaborative environment and not lead to progression within ideation.

Finally the purpose of the CDI is not for the developer to be told what ‘Everyone’ wants. It is to work together to evolve our design philosophies and experience in game leading toward synergy in problem solving and ideation.

I hope this makes sense.

Chris

P.S: Go Hawks!

Perhaps you should address the points I made with my post instead of the way I wrote it.

The points that make subclassing a bad system are as follows:

• You offer us a choice between pre-fab packets of skills/traits/specialstuff exclusive to a subclass. So the only choice we have is which subclass to pick. That’s not really much freedom in customizing our character.
• You need to produce and balance a lot of content that is exclusive to each subclass, so basically, a load of work goes to waste as a player locks himself out of 99% of the options when he chooses a subclass. A superior approach is putting out a lot of non-exclusive content from which players can choose, so they can mix and match and effectively make their own subclass.
• You unlock the subclass for ONE chunk. Instead of having parts (skills/traits/etc) scattered around the world and unlocking them bit by bit and really having a journey of unlocking and personalizing your character in little tiny pieces. Of course you can have a bunch of subclass exclusive content that gives you a few more little skills/traits/etc for your particular subclass, but that brings us back to point 2 of 99% of the work going to waste as it is unavailable to a particular character due to subclass choice, thus you’ll never be able to provide a very good experience as you simply don’t have the manpower to make lots and lots of personal stories and quest things for each and every subclass.

GW1 already had a superb character diversification system with dual classing. Why not take a good look at that system? It also allows you to re-use a lot of existing content and mechanics. You just need to make all classes able to use all weapons, and weaponskills to fit all the classes. And then players can choose between the weaponskills from their primary and secondary profession. Maybe even have some skills that you can only choose if you specifically have both professions. Even though I see some issues with it, I think it’d be totally awesome if the whole class mechanics are also available to the secondary profession. So everyone could pick ranger as secondary and run around with a pet, for example. But that’d be something for a later stage, as there will be issues with it.

Anyway, back to your complaint, you can say that ‘we’ don’t want X or Y, but I can see plenty of that in the metrics in this thread. Just like I saw plenty of people vocal about the fact that they didn’t want ascended items, and there are still massive problems in the game due to their introduction, (Jewelcrafting broken, many hard-to-get items that have fabulous skins no longer having best in slot stats, crafting for XP being very uneconomic now due to 500 crafting levels, economy problems, many aspects of the game rendered useless as they don’t lead to BiS gear, lack of 425 and 475 recipies leaving ‘hell levels’ in the crafting progression, to name a few) but the dev team is completely unrepentant about it and just tells us in their face they still support their decision. Maybe two or three points of the whole list will receive a band-aid fix in the future… But nothing is learned from the mistake.

Now we’ve got a similar case and I just see history repeat itself. I fear you’ve already made your decision that we’re going to get subclasses and no matter what we say, you’re going to ram it down our throats anyway. You fail to see the fundamental problems and their implications with your design. Just like ascended.

I think subclasses is a perverted variant of the things we asked for in this thread. Let’s make an analogy. It’s like people asking for a means of transport that allows them to visit friends and familiy and go out with their kids and stuff. And you come back to them and say “Hey look, I designed a train!”. People look at it and point out the bad sides: They have to go to a station which is far away and the train only takes them to specific places. It doesn’t give them the freedom to choose where they want to go. Clever people narrow the wishes down further and it becomes clear that what they actually want is a car. But you already have this train idea worked out so far in your head that you ignore them completely.

And just a reminder, Guild Wars 2 was advertised as having “everything you like about GW1”.

So let’s sum up everything I liked in GW1…
1) Getting max level in a few hours
2) Getting best in slot equipment in a few hours
3) 100s of skills to freely choose from
4) Dual-classing
5) Party-based content with heroes and henchmen
6) Being able to customize heroes with gear and skills
7) Title-based progression
8) Almost all monsters playing the game in an identical way the player would, using skills available to players and having similar HP pool as players
9) Much instance-based content so I can choose who I want to play with (or alone)
10) Repeatable storyline missions with secondary objectives
11) Awesome believable villains (eg Shiro being corrupted over time)
12) Hardcore story (Rurik gets banished by his father and almost everyone dies!)
13) Player-owned towns (factions) – could use improvement but idea is nice
14) Guild Halls
15) Hardcore skill-based PVP with deep tactics due to 3 and 4
16) Being able to burn through the gates and unlock everything very quickly, due to 1 – I finished Nightfall and EOTN in less than 2 days each, upon release, and was then free to access all the content in the regions to capture skills and farm and play dungeons and purchase armor etc. I hate content gates, levels and gearchecks in particular!

And how much of that list does GW2 ultimately have? None with the exception of 2, as promised by Colin, which was then burned down as well with the introduction of ascended.

Which is a shame, as you only need to look at GW1 to see a lot of very clever mechanics that actually can be integrated into GW2 to make the game infinitely more fun. In particular, points 3, 4, 10, 13, 14 and 15.

How about weapons/armors that change colors/appearance according to your character’s personality? :/

Mikuchan.7261:

Ronah.2869:

Nike.2631:

Exosferatu.2961:

*Extend the level cap to 999.
<snip>
*This is for elitists.

And for people who have to have pure vertical progression no matter how unimaginably grindy .

Not necessarily “unimaginably grindy” because I got over 1000 levels (aka skill points) in GW1 with one character just trying to get 50/50 in HoM. I am sure my other characters are around 500-700

So I support this idea 100% even tho I am more then sure they will not implement it

Note: In GW1 you can only get skill point by leveling
Here is a screenshot to prove it

Not true, there’s the Star of Transference.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Star_of_Transference

I thought the idea was ridiculous at first…
But honestly it seems like an ok additional feature.
The stat increase maybe needs to be balanced or removed..
But all in all, a system to gain stuff from “leveling up” above the normal lvl 80 would be interesting.
Unlocking pieces of class specific gear could be interesting.
Titles.
Achievements.
But it should of course not be required for any other progress ingame.
And whatever you do in the game, except pvp, you level up.

But optional, extra bonuses. Not OP and not required. Maybe some gem and gold reward and perhaps laurels.

I agree that isn’t a bad idea at all. Remove the stat increase per level, and make the rewards basically cosmetic (special gear skins, titles, portrait frames, etc.) and I would totally support it.

Could it be grindy? Absolutely, but that’s pretty much unavoidable in an MMO, and it’s a grind that is actually something that could be achieved long term by everyone as XP is given out for doing pretty much anything in game. It would provide a simple and clear long term goal, much like the higher tiers of achievement point rewards.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Zaoda.1653:

@ColinJohanson,

In regards to new weapon skills/unlocks, I think the way it worked in GW1 in terms of obtaining both normal and elite skills using the Signet of Capture was so unique and amazing. It was something I had never seen done before in any other game I had played, whereby you go around the world looking for specific bosses that have the elite that you want, and that boss had a particular glow depending on what profession it was – gold/yellow for warrior, cyan for ritualist, green for necromancer etc. you slayed that boss, and captured its elite when standing near its corpse. I felt like I had truly earnt that skill, and that to me is what it’s all about – true progression.

So something like a Signet of Capture concept where you can purchase, or get via a reward, and go around and collect weapon skills from bosses would be ideal – and would make you feel as though you truly earnt it.

Hi Zaoda,

Absolutely, this is a simple and excellent system. Very elegant, and rewarding with a great sense of discovery.

Chris

It’s also a poor fit for Guild Wars 2, if brought across straight. (It’s also not unique; the Final Fantasy series usually has Blue Mages who learn enemy skills.)

GW1 was, essentially, a single-player game with a lobby. Players had access to every boss at all times, and most skills were available to every character. Skills were the core of character customisation, and players were able to build semi-viable characters without being able to capture, so this wasn’t too bad.

GW2 is an MMO; it’s a different genre. Character customisation is in gear and traits as well as skills. In addition, it’s an MMO built around the idea that players should share in everyone’s success and they shouldn’t resent the presence of others. Having players capture skills conflicts with the rest of the design: do we want players complaining that others finished the skill capture event? Do we want different professions to have to split up to go skill capturing? Traits used to be acquired like this, during development; having content only relevant to one profession divided players, so they were repurposed into skill challenges.

Instead, let’s drill down into what’s fun about skill capture and see if we can’t create a system that fits with GW2 and still scratches that itch. Part of the fun, in both GW2 and FF games, is hunting an opponent who has what you need. You get to see the skill in combat as it’s used on you. You have to hobble yourself a little to ensure you capture the skill (in GW1, you fight with the signet, thus one fewer slot; in FF games, the blue mage often has to be hit by the skill, or use a specific ability while the target is as close as possible to 0 HP).

Here’s one possibility: skill crafting. At level 80, trainers offer skill recipes for new skills. Each skill is made up of special skill components that can only be acquired using Signets of Capture. For instance, AED, the engineer healing skill which greatly heals the engineer if they’re downed, might have a engineer component (i.e. Blueprint), a healing component (i.e. Dwayna’s Blessing), a down component (i.e. Grenth’s Blessing), and a time component (i.e. Orrian Signet). Signets of Capture are inventory items bought for skill points, and can be used on champion enemies or higher, as well as opponents in PvP, to cause them to drop a component when killed. Players would choose which component they wanted to receive, but they need to find a boss that uses the right kind of skills – condition components come from condition bosses. Easier opponents and low rank or hotjoin players may drop only profession components, but more challenging targets may drop rarer types (maybe ranked matches?). When they use the signet, opponents becomes more challenging – either it becomes more challenging for everyone, where they get a buff or extra attacks (and when they die everyone gets more/better loot or bonus points), or the player who used the signet is disadvantaged in some way, perhaps they have to fight with a custom weapon related to whichever component they want. There are advantages and disadvantages to each approach; I like the idea of giving expert players a way to kick it up a notch for extra loot, but I also like the idea of having to use a specific weapon set. I dislike that the group approach makes it difficult for the extra wrinkle to fit thematically with the skill component; I dislike that the individual approach gimps one player at the expense of their teammates, which was the problem with MF on gear.

This is only one suggestion, but I think it hits the main requirements: track down a specific enemy. Fight it in a different way that fits the skill. Let everyone share in the success. It’ll also work in PvP, giving a reason for experienced players to get into hotjoin.

Shakkara.2641:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Shakkara,

I just want to point out that this is not a particularly collaborative or useful post. Please however don’t take this personally.

The whole point of CDI is to discuss, brainstorm and then ‘reduce’ ideas as a group until they reach their pure essence.

Making assumptions about what ‘everyone’ wants just does not work in this kind of collaborative environment and not lead to progression within ideation.

Finally the purpose of the CDI is not for the developer to be told what ‘Everyone’ wants. It is to work together to evolve our design philosophies and experience in game leading toward synergy in problem solving and ideation.

I hope this makes sense.

Chris

P.S: Go Hawks!

Perhaps you should address the points I made with my post instead of the way I wrote it.

You’re still not really reading that feedback, are you. This is not a forum for telling other people how wrong they are for disagreeing with your vision of the game, and it’s not a forum for addressing the developers specifically. You had the germ of a good argument in the previous post – that having a set of shared skills that every profession has access to is better than having lots of different subclasses – and instead of railing against other people’s ideas, you should have developed your own and shown how it solves problems that other approaches have.

i really don’t get why people are talking about sub classes when ROLES outside of damage aren’t even properly supported

want control? defiance says good luck with that

support? good luck passing the Damage threshold for loot

more items like the toxic krait tonic that let players not interested in gear treadmills dump their ascended materials is required, that or make them tradeable/ vendorable

Merus.9475:

You’re still not really reading that feedback, are you. This is not a forum for telling other people how wrong they are for disagreeing with your vision of the game, and it’s not a forum for addressing the developers specifically. You had the germ of a good argument in the previous post – that having a set of shared skills that every profession has access to is better than having lots of different subclasses – and instead of railing against other people’s ideas, you should have developed your own and shown how it solves problems that other approaches have.

Well the thing is, that in my opinion, this game has become a stack of fundamental design mistakes and it is very hard to fix all of these or even put good new mechanics on top of these systems because the foundation is rotten at the core. So whenever I see new mechanics that continue to worsen the problem, I just cringe. That’s why I hope the developers just ‘give up on’ character-based progression and provide entirely new systems: Houses, Guild Halls, Factions, etc.

The fundamental problems I see with the current mechanics are a very long list but here are a few:

• Levels – the problem with levels is that characters cannot explore the whole world from the start, each zone has a level check. Unlike GW1, Leveling takes a very long time and there is almost no level 80 content. In GW1 Factions and later, only the starter island was low level, the rest was max level content.
• Character Stats – Totally uninteresting way of developing a character. Currently, stats > skill (both player skill and the kind of skill you use). Fundamental problems with stats and stat scaling include the dominance of Power as most important stat and the fact that hybrid characters and skills that have both direct damage and condition damage are inherently kitten, as you need two different stats to use them.
• Skills being cooldown-based instead of resource based (I play Thief as they’re the only exception). This is going to be a very big problem, as it severely reduces tactical and build choices when they’re going to add more skills. And ensures that almost all the skills they are ever going to add are those with ridiculously long cooldowns.
• Lack of synergy between skills. Skill categories not being used much. No clever skills like Keystone Signet or “On your knees!” that interact with a skill category to make an interesting build with. This is also a problem with the lack of interesting elite skills.

So if I must come up with a solution as you suggest, I’d do the following:

• Remove character levels completely.
• Remove stats completely, replace item properties with situational bonuses that tie into skills.
• Allow players to have 2 professions (only use armor and the unique mechanic such as pet or stealing or virtues etc for primary profession).
• Add an universal energy mechanic as resource, reduce almost all skill recharge times to 10 sec and below
• Group skills into traitlines and allow players to spend points in traits of primary and secondary profession to buff all related skills
• Add hundreds of new skills, unlock them through completing hearts/skillthingies already on map, purchase them with dungeon tokens, get them as an occasional ‘drop’ from specific world bosses and champions. Players that like PVP may also purchase them with Honor badges and Glory. Alts can purchase skills that you previously unlocked on the account with Karma.

That’s how I’d fix the game. But I suppose it is rather extreme and would upset a lot of players. But I think it is a lot more true to the original manifesto than what we currently have.

Shadow Blade.1324:

i really don’t get why people are talking about sub classes when ROLES outside of damage aren’t even properly supported

want control? defiance says good luck with that

support? good luck passing the Damage threshold for loot

more items like the toxic krait tonic that let players not interested in gear treadmills dump their ascended materials is required, that or make them tradeable/ vendorable

Hear, hear…

If they add subclasses now, everyone just picks the one that gives the most DPS.

Right now it’s Zerker or GTFO almost everywhere in PVE land, for good reason. The game mechanics are just too limited to allow for any variation in strategy.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Zaoda.1653:

@ColinJohanson,

In regards to new weapon skills/unlocks, I think the way it worked in GW1 in terms of obtaining both normal and elite skills using the Signet of Capture was so unique and amazing. It was something I had never seen done before in any other game I had played, whereby you go around the world looking for specific bosses that have the elite that you want, and that boss had a particular glow depending on what profession it was – gold/yellow for warrior, cyan for ritualist, green for necromancer etc. you slayed that boss, and captured its elite when standing near its corpse. I felt like I had truly earnt that skill, and that to me is what it’s all about – true progression.

So something like a Signet of Capture concept where you can purchase, or get via a reward, and go around and collect weapon skills from bosses would be ideal – and would make you feel as though you truly earnt it.

You could even swap in, say, 10-20 skill points for a capture skill (as many have been wanting more ways to use excess skill points, this could be another way to use them up?)

Edit: another idea could be bringing back elite tomes? Just a thought anyway.

Hi Zaoda,

Absolutely, this is a simple and excellent system. Very elegant, and rewarding with a great sense of discovery.

Chris

I was kinda thinking the old capture system would be back in gw2, i wasnt dissappointed at first, but, as they say, you dont know what you want till its gone. So i agree, bring back skill capture.

And i would say, to have it that you wouldnt know what champs had the skills, but all had that aura. But, of course with the internet (dulfy for example), that whole ‘locate, explore, and find the right champ’ wouldnt matter quickly.

Shakkara.2641:

Merus.9475:

You’re still not really reading that feedback, are you. This is not a forum for telling other people how wrong they are for disagreeing with your vision of the game, and it’s not a forum for addressing the developers specifically. You had the germ of a good argument in the previous post – that having a set of shared skills that every profession has access to is better than having lots of different subclasses – and instead of railing against other people’s ideas, you should have developed your own and shown how it solves problems that other approaches have.

Well the thing is, that in my opinion, this game has become a stack of fundamental design mistakes and it is very hard to fix all of these or even put good new mechanics on top of these systems because the foundation is rotten at the core. So whenever I see new mechanics that continue to worsen the problem, I just cringe. That’s why I hope the developers just ‘give up on’ character-based progression and provide entirely new systems: Houses, Guild Halls, Factions, etc.

The fundamental problems I see with the current mechanics are a very long list but here are a few:

• Levels – the problem with levels is that characters cannot explore the whole world from the start, each zone has a level check. Unlike GW1, Leveling takes a very long time and there is almost no level 80 content. In GW1 Factions and later, only the starter island was low level, the rest was max level content.
• Character Stats – Totally uninteresting way of developing a character. Currently, stats > skill (both player skill and the kind of skill you use). Fundamental problems with stats and stat scaling include the dominance of Power as most important stat and the fact that hybrid characters and skills that have both direct damage and condition damage are inherently kitten, as you need two different stats to use them.
• Skills being cooldown-based instead of resource based (I play Thief as they’re the only exception). This is going to be a very big problem, as it severely reduces tactical and build choices when they’re going to add more skills. And ensures that almost all the skills they are ever going to add are those with ridiculously long cooldowns.
• Lack of synergy between skills. Skill categories not being used much. No clever skills like Keystone Signet or “On your knees!” that interact with a skill category to make an interesting build with. This is also a problem with the lack of interesting elite skills.

So if I must come up with a solution as you suggest, I’d do the following:

• Remove character levels completely.
• Remove stats completely, replace item properties with situational bonuses that tie into skills.
• Allow players to have 2 professions (only use armor and the unique mechanic such as pet or stealing or virtues etc for primary profession).
• Add an universal energy mechanic as resource, reduce almost all skill recharge times to 10 sec and below
• Group skills into traitlines and allow players to spend points in traits of primary and secondary profession to buff all related skills
• Add hundreds of new skills, unlock them through completing hearts/skillthingies already on map, purchase them with dungeon tokens, get them as an occasional ‘drop’ from specific world bosses and champions. Players that like PVP may also purchase them with Honor badges and Glory. Alts can purchase skills that you previously unlocked on the account with Karma.

That’s how I’d fix the game. But I suppose it is rather extreme and would upset a lot of players. But I think it is a lot more true to the original manifesto than what we currently have.

On your GW1 memories:
- In Prophecies it took quite some time to level.
- Stats were in guildwars 1, they were very simplified but there.
-Gw1 skills had cool-downs too , sometimes quite long , meteor shower for instance.
-Gw1 professions were roughly designed to be Rock paper sissors, i.e a mesmer beats elementalist, elementalist beats paragon, paragon beats ranger, ranger beats elementalist, ele beats monk. and so on. They were also trinity based.

On your suggested changes:
-levels serve a purpose to get a person to learn the ropes before jumping into fighting dragons, to teach mechanics etc and not overwhelm a player, I know you or I can jump right in , but for a person whos playing an MMO for the first time it is alot to learn.
-The limited amount of skills on offer was meant to make balancing easier for the team.
-synergies do exist and are currently used to do some of the most effective combinations. Burst heals, might stacking , Lifestealing aoe’s
-an energy mechanic is another form of cooldown

And lastly that is how you would “change” the game, not “fix” your ideas are how you would alter the game to match your ideals, they are not everyones ideals.

Conski Deshan.2057:

On your GW1 memories:
- In Prophecies it took quite some time to level.

GW1 wasn’t perfect at release and still needed a lot of tweaking. I quit GW1 a few days after release. I came back at Factions and played it pretty much non stop after that. In fact I finished the Nightfall campaign before I finished the Prophecies one.

Conski Deshan.2057:

- Stats were in guildwars 1, they were very simplified but there.

No, they had an attribute system. Which is very similar to the overhaul of the trait system I propose now.

Also, stats were not on gear, with the exception of the “20% chance to get +1 to attribute x” mod on certain items.

Conski Deshan.2057:

-Gw1 skills had cool-downs too , sometimes quite long , meteor shower for instance.

Yes, and I said “MOST” not “ALL”. It also had plenty of skills that had no cooldown, like adrenal skills. Or most of the assassin skills that effectively had no recharge that you’d notice, UNLESS some other skill interfered with them. Most skills had ways to recharge them instantly (Keystone Signet, Dragon Slash, “On your Knees!” or bypass the cooldown (Echo, etc).

Conski Deshan.2057:

-Gw1 professions were roughly designed to be Rock paper sissors, i.e a mesmer beats elementalist, elementalist beats paragon, paragon beats ranger, ranger beats elementalist, ele beats monk. and so on. They were also trinity based.

Disagreed, sorry. My warrior was once challenged by a guildie Necro. I won three times in a row, each time with a completely different skillbar and different secondary class. The last time I had a Warrior/Ranger skillbar that did almost no damage, but would almost permanently daze him and he eventually just died from bleeding. Had Broadhead Arrow as elite too. There is no rock/paper/scissors, its all about how smart you are and what creative builds you can come up with. If you only use other people’s builds, yes, those are rock-paper-scissors…

Conski Deshan.2057:

On your suggested changes:
-levels serve a purpose to get a person to learn the ropes before jumping into fighting dragons, to teach mechanics etc and not overwhelm a player, I know you or I can jump right in , but for a person whos playing an MMO for the first time it is alot to learn.

You got a point here. So maybe the 20 levels like in GW1, that you can play through in a few hours as a big tutorial, wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

Conski Deshan.2057:

-The limited amount of skills on offer was meant to make balancing easier for the team.

That’s not an excuse, that only makes them either lazy or unqualified to work on an MMO.

Conski Deshan.2057:

-synergies do exist and are currently used to do some of the most effective combinations. Burst heals, might stacking , Lifestealing aoe’s

I don’t deny that, but I feel they’re very limited.

Conski Deshan.2057:

-an energy mechanic is another form of cooldown

No, not at all. Lol.

Cooldown only means you cannot use particular skill X for Y time.

Energy mechanic means that you must choose to use skill X OR skill Y OR skill Z as you only have the energy to use one. Or that you can spam skill X Y times in a row but then have to wait Z time until you have enough energy to use any skills at all.

Conski Deshan.2057:

And lastly that is how you would “change” the game, not “fix” your ideas are how you would alter the game to match your ideals, they are not everyones ideals.

Well that doesn’t mean that this game doesn’t have very fundamental problems.

Can either fix these problems, or drop work on them completely and focus on other parts of the game.

But building on top of broken systems is not a good idea. See the post above. Subclasses right now would only result in DPS optimization, nothing more.

Exosferatu.2961:

*Extend the level cap to 999.
<snip>
*This is for elitists.

Nike.2631:

And for people who have to have pure vertical progression no matter how unimaginably grindy .

Ronah.2869:

Not necessarily “unimaginably grindy” because I got over 1000 levels (aka skill points) in GW1 with one character just trying to get 50/50 in HoM. I am sure my other characters are around 500-700.

I have 18 character slots. It proposes that for each one of them I need to get another 919 levels to be complete or I’ll be 919 point behind on every stat.

If I obsessed over one main it would still be months of chasing after undifferentiated XP. But add alts to the picture and “unimaginably grindy” is a rather kind description. I think “Kitten this, I’m out.” is probably a lot more likely response for me or any anyone else that would like to have terminal stats and get on with playing WvW on a even mechanical footing.

I don’t make a big fuss over the manifesto, but getting to a point where characters have terminal stat/gear in a tolerable amount of time is something the game does now that appeals to me very much. Especially for alts who, prior to the introduction of the Ascended tier, actually geared up considerably faster than your first/main character did.

This just popped into my head as I was posting in a topic about Legendaries.

I think it would be cool if the Precursors were somewhat easier to obtain. Once you get the Precursor, you can start working towards transforming it into its Legendary Version. As you collect the materials for the upgrade, the Precursor could start to change appearance, until it fully transformed.

I think that would give the Precursors a purpose, other than being the last item you need to throw into the Mystic Forge.

BlizzShark.5410:

My opinion on Sub-class system is:

• The system works very well. Why? Can make professions a little more exclusive. Ex: Thief vs thief and both have different sub classes we can see 2 different play styles.

It makes me wonder where the game has gone wrong that people don’t realize WE ALREADY HAVE THIS. My Super Unicorn in all Settlers gear is an effective WvW Thief spec that doesn’t even go into stealth. A mantra healing Mesmer is completely unlike a Shatter-duelist spec.

• Sub-Classes could also be the way to add new weapons.

Or we could, just, you know… add them to the game and allow players to mix and match as their tastes and imagination prefer.

• Trait Templates – You could save a build to quick change if you are on wvw or pve and change if you are Out Of Combat.

So now I can set up my ‘groups of trash mobs smashing build’ and my ‘boss-killing build’, and sweep through dungeons even faster than before toggling the two because now I don’t have to make any strategic decisions at all… It doesn’t get much more vertical than that.

Horizontal progression design is hard, because you have to add cool to the game without appealing to the lust for naked POWER. Its hard, but its also worth it.

Nike,

That’s exactly why I think that Sub-Classes should be mostly cosmetic. Perhaps give each sub-class a boost to one or two stats, with an equal deduction to their opposite stats.

videoboy.4162:

Nike,

That’s exactly why I think that Sub-Classes should be mostly cosmetic. Perhaps give each sub-class a boost to one or two stats, with an equal deduction to their opposite stats.

Cool, which subclass gives me more power at the expense of healing power?

The one you express through gear. Oh yeah, and the 300 points of power/healing power you get from traits might also have an impact.

I know I’m late to the party and my ideas don’t mean anything anymore, but dagnabbit this particular CDI is near and dear to my heart and I’ve been meaning to try and get something done in it from the start. So I figured I’d open up a Libre doc and ramble until I worked out what I wanted to say. In the end, boiled down to two points I really wanted to raise.

First: Order-Related Skills to go with Order-Related Gear
This idea emerged out of a lot of thinking I did on subclasses and how players seem to be approaching unlocking them. I do NOT want your Order to control which of your character’s subclasses you get to be – on top of being a kittenwhale move to players who picked their Order, and thus their choice of subclass, before subclasses existed, it’s also one of those things I hate more than anything in video games – forcing players to make an irreversible decision in the early levels that has major ramifications for their character’s development and progression which nobody tells them about. A level 30 player who’s never been through GW2 before has no idea that he’d be locking his Ranger into Subclass B, rather than Subclass A which is the one he really likes, by going Priory instead of Vigil.

Instead…let’s think about the racial skill system already in the game. Yeah, racial skills currently run the gamut from almost completely worthless to Rocky Horror Picture Show levels of hilariously bad…but they’re still a fantastic idea. And we can always bother ArenaNet to go over them again and touch them up a bit, CAN’T WE CHRIS O_O? Anyways. Why not add a similar system for Order-specific skills?

Whispers characters should always have options for being sneakier and more underhanded than other folks, Vigil characters could have extra attacks or frontline support skills that help them stand tall against the enemy, and Priory characters could (potentially) put their extensive knowledge of enemy weaknesses to work with big-debuff skills that open up their foes’ defenses. Why not let a player’s choice of Order influence their tactics and strategies? Learning some of your Order’s fundamental/signature skills would help with immersion and give you a much stronger connection to your choice of Order without necessarily impeding far more important progression-centric choices such as subclass.

As for how to unlock them…why not leverage the same sort of systems behind guild events? Have a trainer/taskmaster in each Order’s headquarters which assigns the player Stuff to do for that Order. The Stuff in question works off the same sort of markings/interactibles as guild missions, allowing players to kick off the Order mission in the open world after priming it back with the trainer NPC. These missions could tell the story of everyday life in the player’s chosen order, as opposed to the story of the Dragons and such in the Personal Story. Do enough missions, and you start picking up your Order’s particular tricks (i.e. the progress/rank bars from Nightfall and Eye of the North, or the achievable tiers system in this game.). Knowing those skills could, in turn, lead to a wider array of Order-specific missions designed such that those skills would be a big help therein. Maybe achieving a high enough mission rank within your Order gives you a discount at the Order gear vendors, or even allows you access to your Order’s specific HMSW gear! …erm, I mean, exotic versions of your Order’s armor and weapons, with some extra bells and whistles to denote that you’ve Gotten Somewhere within your Order.

Perhaps even have the whole mess be tied in to the dailies system, wherein one of the random dailies could be “complete one of your Order’s special assignments”, or make it one of the extra paths towards Ascended-level gear. Really, there’s no reason you couldn’t do any of this stuff. The systems already in game are robust enough to handle it and open-ended enough that you could make it do whatever you want.

Anyways.

(Continued in next post because message limits. Sorry!)

(Continuation of first post because forum message limits. Again, sorry!)

Second: GUILD Halls, not Player Halls
I’m honestly really depressed to see how much steam player housing has picked up in my skimmings over this thread. I get that a lot of players see their in-game housing as an extension of their in-game avatar and feel kinda like GW2 isn’t complete without their own Sims-style bungalow to decorate as they see fit…but in my eyes (note the conditional there. Don’t eat me o_o…), specific player housing doesn’t really add any opportunity for new gameplay, new exploration, or new experiences that we don’t already have. Any convenience service, such as armor lockers or such, that you could add into a player house you could just as easily add into the home instance that player already has.

For those of you shaking your head right now going “No no no, not the home instance! The home instance is useless!”…EXACTLY. Every player I’ve ever met in this game already ignores their home instance almost completely. The only time I see anyone bothering with it is for world completion, or for mining their nodes/fusing their quartz. Nobody spends time in it, nobody bothers with it, nobody cares about it. Adding Minecraft-style architectural minigames to GW2 wouldn’t really change that, on top of being disgustingly resource-intensive insofar as trying to find a way to include that kind of modularity in the game without completely breaking its art style and visual direction. Being able to adjust the colors of your curtains, or pick from a drop-down list of which trophy kill’s head to display above your mantle wouldn’t really help, either.

Instead, I propose that we solve an actual deficiency in the game and work towards bringing back guild halls from the original game, rather than include a second level of player housing for players to ignore. Right now, guilds have nowhere to meet and organize, or to simply hang out and chillax, beyond whatever impromptu nonsense they can come up with in the game world. GTFC likes to hang out on top of the lion fountain in LA, but that’s hardly our guild hall. We don’t have a guild hall, and why not? They were amazing places back in the original game, and now that they’re not the focus of a competitive PvP mode, they don’t have to be balanced combat maps anymore and could be even more awesome places for one’s guild to hang out!

Players could help their guild earn Royal Terrace-style conveniences in the guild hall a’la the older game, perhaps even via guild event chains in which players convince a merchant to come and set up shop in their hall, then escort him and his caravan of wares back through the wilds of Tyria to Home Sweet Home. Or something like that. They could bring in architects to build Gates to specific areas, complete with a team of asura actually building an under-construction gate in the guild hall while the guild itself works to complete that project. There’s no reason it has to be as simple and uninteresting as “Spend 10,000 influence in a UI to make Merchant B magically appear in his predetermined spot.”

After all, who’s to say that some of the Sims-style decorator minigames people want for player housing couldn’t be incorporated into guild halls? Pick for yourself where to put your Merchant’s Row in the Hall! Somebody mentioned using siege blueprint-style placement for furniture or other fixtures – well there you go. Use that to set up merchant stands if you want, or to place your asura gates. And if that doesn’t work because the Hall needs certain things in certain places, well, figure out something else! Make the Guild Hall an ongoing guild project that everybody gets to contribute to, and thus everybody gets to enjoy.

Probably just me, but that seems like a much better use of instance-creation resources than a player house only one guy ever gets to enjoy.

Shakkara.2641:

Conski Deshan.2057:

- Stats were in guildwars 1, they were very simplified but there.

No, they had an attribute system. Which is very similar to the overhaul of the trait system I propose now.

Also, stats were not on gear, with the exception of the “20% chance to get +1 to attribute x” mod on certain items.

Sure there were; what exactly do you view as “stats”? There were the +Armor mods you could get, +Damage, +Enchantment Duration, +Energy, +Health, -Recharge time . . .

It’s just that most of them were fairly small in effect, except for +Health or +Energy. There was a reason Runes of Vigor and Radiant Insignia were desired.

Yes, and I said “MOST” not “ALL”. It also had plenty of skills that had no cooldown, like adrenal skills. Or most of the assassin skills that effectively had no recharge that you’d notice, UNLESS some other skill interfered with them. Most skills had ways to recharge them instantly (Keystone Signet, Dragon Slash, “On your Knees!” or bypass the cooldown (Echo, etc).

If I recall, thieves don’t have CD on their skills now, instead requiring Initiative to use them. Also, my ranger almost never had to worry about cooldowns or energy on a couple builds Expertise could be so much fun.

There is no rock/paper/scissors, its all about how smart you are and what creative builds you can come up with. If you only use other people’s builds, yes, those are rock-paper-scissors…

There is one, and there is a “trinity role” of sorts involved in GW1’s design. Monks and Ritualists healed or ressed. Paragons could in a pinch, but they weren’t good at it. Classes alone generally didn’t have great healing for themselves, and sort of relied on someone else helping. The game was designed for a group effort of 4-12 people/characters, with a very limited option to “run solo” unless you outclassed the content considerably (Level 20 through Plains of Jarin alone.)

You got a point here. So maybe the 20 levels like in GW1, that you can play through in a few hours as a big tutorial, wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

We did discuss this. Factions could be pushed through in a few hours, Nightfall could not, and Prophecies required shenanigans to do it early. (Read: “Legendary Defender of Ascalon”).

The most important things levels were good for there were metering out how many Attribute Points you got and how strong your weapons could be. (You could not, for instance, use a Req 9 weapon/offhand by level 10 without some sacrifices in potential.)

That’s not an excuse, that only makes them either lazy or unqualified to work on an MMO.

I just have to ask as a rebuttal – if they allowed things like the 55 Monk, the Perma-SF Sin, and Spirit Tower to run rampant in WvW or sPvP now, how would we not be calling them similarly unqualified to work on an MMO to let these unbalanced options go live? I seem to recall comments similar to “they’re not qualified to be running this” every balance patch in GW1 too.

No, not at all. Lol.

Cooldown only means you cannot use particular skill X for Y time.

Energy mechanic means that you must choose to use skill X OR skill Y OR skill Z as you only have the energy to use one. Or that you can spam skill X Y times in a row but then have to wait Z time until you have enough energy to use any skills at all.

Unless you broke Energy in some ways. An Expertise ranger built just right would use certain attacks for “free” (use 2 energy, regenerate it swiftly) and could alternate them until target was dead if left alone. I may still have the build sitting around somewhere, it was a neat theory but really only worked in Normal Mode reliably against enemies.

And of course, the other side of breaking Energy was to run a denial build which would burn it off on the opponent. Spirit Shackles and other Mesmer skills were almost singularly devoted to messing with an opponent’s Energy pool.

Well that doesn’t mean that this game doesn’t have very fundamental problems. Can either fix these problems, or drop work on them completely and focus on other parts of the game.

But building on top of broken systems is not a good idea. See the post above. Subclasses right now would only result in DPS optimization, nothing more.

Your point is valid but I don’t think moving backwards to systems in GW1 is an answer. It was an entirely different style of game than this one, by intent.

DevilLordLaser.8619:

Sniptastic

I won’t eat you, but I will outline my counterpoints

Well firstly the home instance was not used by players because there was literally nothing in it. The player couldn’t interact with it at all and there was nothing to do in it.

Secondly I want guildhalls, and the player housing suggestion is grouped with the guildhalls suggestion. The functionality added in player housing can then be expanded and used with guild halls. They are not exclusive of one an other.

Third, The player housing proposed functions exacally as you’re describing a guild halls (A place for players to hang out and chill) but without limiting it to your guildmates or people in a guild in general.
One of the core ideas in the Player housing idea is that you can invite a large number of players to hang out, other editions of the idea propose whole communities.

Fourthly, A guild hall is a communal structure, I don’t own it , it is not mine letting me throw a few decorations won’t change that. I would suspect I’m not alone in wanting a space I control completely and that is customized to my tastes ( Starting a one man guild and getting your own guildhall that way is not a valid solution.)

Fifthly, The players have been adding more and more functionality suggestions to the idea to both make players want to spend time there and have a reason to go there.

Sixthly, The current vision of player housing suggested doubles as the persons new hall of monuments, which was a major hit in guild-wars 1.

Tl/DR: Player housing and Guildhalls double yay.

Conski said it very well. Guild halls tend to be customized by the guild leader, all well and good but guild members need places to hang their hats as well. I know my guild leader desperately wants an airship for a guild hall. That’ll be fun but my conman noble needs a mansion, my seamstress commoner needs an apartment over a shop, my street rat could use any old hovel or even an alleyway or barn. I have a sylvari who recently moved in with her first love, he has a tiny pod jammed with books and musical instruments. A one-size-fits-all guild hall simply won’t match up with all the individual tastes out there.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have guild halls, or perhaps allow a guild leader to build two properties and design one to fit the guild needs. Hmm. I mentioned all the different living styles of just a few of my alts. Are we going to be able to do character by character, or will KISS mean an account wide home to customize?

Donari.5237:

Conski said it very well. Guild halls tend to be customized by the guild leader, all well and good but guild members need places to hang their hats as well. I know my guild leader desperately wants an airship for a guild hall. That’ll be fun but my conman noble needs a mansion, my seamstress commoner needs an apartment over a shop, my street rat could use any old hovel or even an alleyway or barn. I have a sylvari who recently moved in with her first love, he has a tiny pod jammed with books and musical instruments. A one-size-fits-all guild hall simply won’t match up with all the individual tastes out there.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have guild halls, or perhaps allow a guild leader to build two properties and design one to fit the guild needs. Hmm. I mentioned all the different living styles of just a few of my alts. Are we going to be able to do character by character, or will KISS mean an account wide home to customize?

I believe we’re realistically looking at one house per account (can you imagine the resources a person with 40 alts and 40 housing instances would take.) So that progression is also account bound, Nothing stopping you having different rooms in your house themed after each of your characters personas however?

On a side note, I love Airships and would kill to have functional guild airships in game it was going to be my top suggestion but after looking at the way airships function in-game currently a player controllable one is probobly not viable.

Nike.2631:

Exosferatu.2961:

*Extend the level cap to 999.
<snip>
*This is for elitists.

Nike.2631:

And for people who have to have pure vertical progression no matter how unimaginably grindy .

Ronah.2869:

Not necessarily “unimaginably grindy” because I got over 1000 levels (aka skill points) in GW1 with one character just trying to get 50/50 in HoM. I am sure my other characters are around 500-700.

I have 18 character slots. It proposes that for each one of them I need to get another 919 levels to be complete or I’ll be 919 point behind on every stat.

If I obsessed over one main it would still be months of chasing after undifferentiated XP. But add alts to the picture and “unimaginably grindy” is a rather kind description. I think “Kitten this, I’m out.” is probably a lot more likely response for me or any anyone else that would like to have terminal stats and get on with playing WvW on a even mechanical footing.

I don’t make a big fuss over the manifesto, but getting to a point where characters have terminal stat/gear in a tolerable amount of time is something the game does now that appeals to me very much. Especially for alts who, prior to the introduction of the Ascended tier, actually geared up considerably faster than your first/main character did.

You should not worry. The amount of grind you will need to do to craft a full legendary armor set will be similar to this if not longer. I bet you will not be able to craft legendary armors for all your alts either.

This just gives a long term achievable legendary armor for all non-crafters.
Not every one enjoys this mini game even if they can just spend all their cash buying gems to turn into mats.

Also, you need to have the gift of exploration for crafting some type legendary weapon so, you need to have the map completion star on various characters if they all want one legendary weapon. I don’t see any difference compared to the 1000 level system
Why worry about stats. it is just one set of gear for 1000 levels.

We have now exotic armors for karma , dungeon tokens and gold. So there are 3 ways of obtaining the exotic stats. No one is forcing other to play dungeons if they only like open world. No one is forcing them to do events if they know how to make money and buy it directly from the shop

This 1000 level system offers a chance for getting a legendary armor for actually playing the game any way you like. You can level by crafting, doing WvW or just doing events in the Open World. I am sure a lot of people level up in the Living Story too

Conski, Donari:

Very valid points. But I wish to make a counterpoint myself to one of them.

Yes, your personal housing is yours and you control it completely. Why, then, do I care about it? A big part of the reasoning behind my desire for guild halls over player houses is that very point you argued against it – a guild hall is a communal structure jointly owned by many players. It’s an area I helped build with my friends and allies in GTFC, it belongs to all of us, and thus all of us get to enjoy it freely. It helps build up and consolidate the sense of community and fellowship amongst guild members and gives the guild entire something cool to work towards that everyone can share in and enjoy.

A single player’s personal house, even if he could invite the entire population of his world into that instance at one time, is still just his house. If you happen to be my buddy then I’ll check out your house because I check out things my buddies do in-game, but it’s not really a meeting point for players. You don’t say to someone “Hey, let’s meet at my house instance and set ourselves up before we head off to do (X)”; most of the time you just say to the guy, “Hey, meet at (Y), we’re gonna do (X)” bexause (Y) is where you start (X). Your personal Hall of Monuments doesn’t really add to the game for anyone but you.

There’s nothing even remotely wrong with that, of course – personal achievements and recognition for such are the foundation of any video game pretty much ever - but the question I pose to you is this: did you spend more time in your Hall of Monuments back in GW1, or in your guild hall?

Players want both, and both is a fantastic goal to shoot for. My argument is simply that guild halls and guild hall functionality add more to the game than single-player individual housing does, fills a hole the game has suffered since launch, and generally strikes me as something worth investigation prior to stuffing MineSims in a personal instance for individual players.

Sadly I think you are right about one per account. But that doesn’t mean it has to be just themed rooms. Why not a home-instance sized plot to do up how one likes, with buildings and gardens all over?

I know I keep mentioning Horizons, I do so because it had a robust if clumsy system. You got hold of a plot of land. They came in various sizes, and when you went into architecture mode you saw a grid overlay. You could select various buildings and tiles and greeneries and set them down in whatever layout you liked so long as they fit together and didn’t overlap. Once selected, they became a build spot. You, or anyone else, could come along and apply crafting mats to the spot to grow it into the finished item. There were half-built versions to indicate progress.

The buildings couldn’t be customized so much (I think maybe there were some furniture hooks inside) and were of fascistic dimension. Still, there was a lot of room for creativity. I ran a contest for the prettiest plot; people came up with amazing designs using the simplistic objects available.

I think ANet’s art is so far beyond what we had in Horizons that people will be able to make Caudecus Manors of their own. At least, I hope so.

@ Devil,
I’d make the counterpoint that this is the Horizontal progression thread which is about you and your characters progression mainly, while the guild is part of that I think individual takes precedence here.

@Donari, I’m not framiliar with the game but looking at the screenshots it has quite the level of customization. In my head I picture a hybrid between the Runescape system for placing rooms and the Sims system for placing items.

Your idea sounds fun if we get the size to do it, but we would have to wait for Chris to give us a rough estimate of what size would be viable without overtaxing the server.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

videoboy.4162:

Chris,

I know you can’t give details, but I was wondering if you guys figured out a way to separate the LS from the PS? I remember several Dev comments mentioning that the PS was reducing what could be done in LS (example: Killing Jennah because she had to be alive in the PS.)

This is definitely something we have been discussing.

I cannot give anymore details than that however.

Chris

Darn, I totally tried to phrase it in such a way that you could just say yes or no. LOL I’ll try harder next time. =D