Guild Wars 2

Conski Deshan.2057:

Valid points Tobias but I wasn’t talking about story. I meant more along the lines of choices like “You choose priory you gain access to priory armor and weapons, you will not ever be given access to Vigil or whispers equivalents” and the shortcut idea which don’t effect story. I’m not talking about branching choices , I mean simple clear Irreversible choices.

I don’t mind that so much when a game gives me more than one character so I could make an alt to experience the other paths if I really choose. I mean, we sort of currently have that – your biography determines what your starting story is going to be and some of them are vastly different in tone.

Want to see what I mean? Play a norn who got drunk at the last moot and blacked out. This is easily more lighthearted than the part my BWE norn had immediately preceding where Sons of Svanir were trying to warp spirits of the wild to serve Jormag.

These are meaningful in one aspect, less so in others . . . these choices don’t have impacts on anything other than personal story and I really really wish they did at least have some small tweaks or parts which turn up later.

“Personal opinions and theoretical example”

Interesting, and while I might (did, in another game) go for it, there’s the issue of telling players “we’re going to design this MMO and there will be parts you will gain and lose access to because of choices you make”. Nobody wants to have things taken away.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Gaebriel.3754:

Also as an example of another one of those nice touches which is actually in the game: I found an locked Norn (I believe) lodge somewhere on my Vigil oriented main character. When I interacted with the door, it said it was locked and had some scratches in the wood. I thought nothing of it and moved on. Much later, I stumbled into the same lodge with a character who is with the Order of Whispers. “Oh wait, it’s that locked one.” is what I thought. Though somehow I clicked on the door anyway. Great was my surprise, when the Whispers character actually identified the scratch marks as some sort of code and did something to open the door. Inside the lodge was (if I remember correctly) a torch that activated a hidden door, and some books or case logs. Nothing special, but it was Awesome to discover that!

How about all the Whispers agents you can identify with the codephrase? There’s more than you think.

Yes and no. A fair number of Whisper agents will respond favorably as long as you know the right dialogue response regardless of your actual Order choice.

One I’m not sure about but there’s a bit in southern Bloodtide where there’s a Risen Dynamic Event lead by a undead version of a character from your personal story. I’ve seen three versions of it (one for each Order). I’m suspect each version can only be triggered by players with the appropriate Story flags, but I’m not certain.

Nike.2631:

Yes and no. A fair number of Whisper agents will respond favorably as long as you know the right dialogue response regardless of your actual Order choice.

I’m a little more interested, because that makes sense if you think about it and don’t just discard it as “being lazy”. It’s just a code phrase and most of what they reveal isn’t exactly secret information.

Though a flag check for being Whispers and a reply with some form of “I don’t know what you’re talking about” would have been nice :P

One I’m not sure about but there’s a bit in southern Bloodtide where there’s a Risen Dynamic Event lead by a undead version of a character from your personal story. I’ve seen three versions of it (one for each Order). I’m suspect each version can only be triggered by players with the appropriate Story flags, but I’m not certain.

Nope, it won’t appear from what I’ve been told unless you visited Claw Island already and started handling Zhaitan’s push northward. And they’re not, from what I can tell, an undead version so much as a lookalike.

. . . now Nightmare Chambers? Those . . .

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I agree:

‘As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.’

Chris

Thanks Chris. I had posted an idea way earlier (available here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3416638) detailing a way around this. Here’s what I said:

timmyf.1490:

I’ve seen enough people talk about Vanquishing and Hard Mode etc here, I have a new idea that might offer some fun opportunities:

Wilderness Zones

Unlike regular zones in the game, wilderness zones are instanced areas without waypoints and without respawning mobs. These zones exist at the edge of the current map and would serve as an introduction to soon-to-be-released new zones.

In wilderness zones, you and your party venture through the zone in an attempt to hunt down and defeat some sort of boss. Because there are no checkpoints, a full wipe means you have to waypoint out of the instance and start over.

This could even tie in with Order Missions: perhaps there are 3-4 different bosses per zone and every week your Order enlists you to defeat one.

Some examples…

“Bandit Territory” through the existing portal in Brisban Wildlands. This heavily fortified bandit training facility/barracks is home to many top officials and commanders. You must infiltrate the barracks and assassinate one of these officials.

“Crystal Desert” takes you south from Ebonhawke. A patrol of Ebonguard has gone missing and you must rescue them.

“Active Fissure” sends you below the surface of Tyria to clear out a pack of Destroyers wreaking havoc on Kessex Hills.

Something like that?

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I’m a little more interested, because that makes sense if you think about it and don’t just discard it as “being lazy”. It’s just a code phrase and most of what they reveal isn’t exactly secret information.

I agree, its not laziness, just pointing out some of the flavorful options aren’t as tightly gated as they may appear.

Though a flag check for being Whispers and a reply with some form of “I don’t know what you’re talking about” would have been nice :P

You need to go visit the fisherman outside of the Whispers HQ .

Sheesh.. I think this CDI may have reached the end of its usefulness. Not really seeing ideas for horizontal progression being tossed about anymore… just seems to have drifted off. Looking forwards to seeing what Chris has narrowed the field down to soon!

Chris Whiteside.6102:

timmyf.1490:

I’ve felt this for awhile, though I still don’t quite know how to phrase it. Wondering if others might have an opinion.

As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.

I’ve suggested zones without waypoints as a way around this. Does anybody else feel the same way? Or am I romanticizing the runs from towns to far-flung locations in GW1?

Edit: should have said this originally, but all the credit to Sir Arthur for expressing my feelings better than I’ve been able to. This post was meant as a huge +1 to his.

Hi TimmyF,

I agree:

‘As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.’

Chris

What’s funny is that after playing for years in the original Guild Wars I disagree. I mean, you have to explore as it is to get to the waypoints, but the thought of tedious runs across zones to try and get somewhere you’ve already been… it seems like a step backwards, and if that were to happen in GW2 you’d find the very next hour people demanding mounts or some other means to get around faster. Map travel has always been a part of GW, even included in the lore of the game (there’s a quest you get from a kid who claims his mother invented map travel in Elona if I recall).

I don’t think any exploration is trivialized at all… you still need to walk to where you’ve never been. But the added convenience to get to where you’ve already been… I love that.

timmyf.1490:

Wilderness Zones

Unlike regular zones in the game, wilderness zones are instanced areas without waypoints and without respawning mobs. These zones exist at the edge of the current map and would serve as an introduction to soon-to-be-released new zones.

In wilderness zones, you and your party venture through the zone in an attempt to hunt down and defeat some sort of boss. Because there are no checkpoints, a full wipe means you have to waypoint out of the instance and start over.

I would refine this by giving you the ability to add/unlock waypoints to the zone – just make the gating more demanding that “walk up to the site” we have now.

There comes a point where I’m not exploring anymore. The zone is old hat, and it should gain convenience over time if the game expects me to keep coming back after the initial shine has worn off. Maybe you have to find a full set of 5-6 Points of Interest to reveal a waypoint in that portion of the map (exploration reward). Maybe you need to succeed in a long string of DEs on par with a Temple Event to reveal a Waypoint (skill reward). Maybe you have to give/spend 100,000 karma at an NPC to reveal the waypoint for that village (karma sink). But eventually the map should be well known to your character rather than as frustrating as most of Orr .

Chris Whiteside.6102:

timmyf.1490:

I’ve felt this for awhile, though I still don’t quite know how to phrase it. Wondering if others might have an opinion.

As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.

I’ve suggested zones without waypoints as a way around this. Does anybody else feel the same way? Or am I romanticizing the runs from towns to far-flung locations in GW1?

Edit: should have said this originally, but all the credit to Sir Arthur for expressing my feelings better than I’ve been able to. This post was meant as a huge +1 to his.

Hi TimmyF,

I agree:

‘As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.’

Chris

I agree as well. Have had some discussions about this in the many mounts threads. Didn’t feel it fit into the horizontal progression discussion but from a journey viewpoint I guess it does.

There are many places I never see anymore because I way-point directly to where I need to be. The whole world gets so small because of it. Traveling all by foot on the other hand might take to long and becomes boring, thats why it came up in the mount threads. Combination of mounts and fly-points would increase the size of the world (the feeling), and add some more Immersion (no loading screen).

Talking about mounts. In a way you could also see that as a form of horizontal progression. Collecting them but you can even build fun crafts around mounts.

VOLKON.1290:

Sheesh.. I think this CDI may have reached the end of its usefulness. Not really seeing ideas for horizontal progression being tossed about anymore… just seems to have drifted off. Looking forwards to seeing what Chris has narrowed the field down to soon!

‘The Journey’ was made fair game . Hopefully it’ll get it’s own thread someday, as I’ve seen quite a few interesting takes on what we could be doing along the way to our horizontal goodies.

But I think there’s also gonna be some hard stares directed at this thread’s course when we hit the next Evolution thread. As the community awareness of CDIs grows, I believe the topics will have to get much, much tighter to counteract the sheer volume of text burying people who have less than 5 hours a day to devote to them .

VOLKON.1290:

Sheesh.. I think this CDI may have reached the end of its usefulness. Not really seeing ideas for horizontal progression being tossed about anymore… just seems to have drifted off. Looking forwards to seeing what Chris has narrowed the field down to soon!

I think it wound up drifting from purely about horizontal progression to working on some of the more popular ideas of “how to make a player feel like they’re progressing without increasing power, ie, how to not have vertical progression”.

Subclasses, housing, order-specific content, that sort of thing all kind of flows into the same basin of that idea.

I think “purely horizontal progression” is a trap as much as “purely vertical progression”. What’s more important in my estimation is players feeling they have options and aren’t just driven in a direction “or else” . . . which is why there’s such a clamor about the fact Berserker is so highly valued right now as a gear/build type.

Devata.6589:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

timmyf.1490:

I’ve felt this for awhile, though I still don’t quite know how to phrase it. Wondering if others might have an opinion.

As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.

I’ve suggested zones without waypoints as a way around this. Does anybody else feel the same way? Or am I romanticizing the runs from towns to far-flung locations in GW1?

Edit: should have said this originally, but all the credit to Sir Arthur for expressing my feelings better than I’ve been able to. This post was meant as a huge +1 to his.

Hi TimmyF,

I agree:

‘As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.’

Chris

I agree as well. Have had some discussions about this in the many mounts threads. Didn’t feel it fit into the horizontal progression discussion but from a journey viewpoint I guess it does.

There are many places I never see anymore because I way-point directly to where I need to be. The whole world gets so small because of it. Traveling all by foot on the other hand might take to long and becomes boring, thats why it came up in the mount threads. Combination of mounts and fly-points would increase the size of the world (the feeling), and add some more Immersion (no loading screen).

Talking about mounts. In a way you could also see that as a form of horizontal progression. Collecting them but you can even build fun crafts around mounts.

Ha! See? We haven’t even removed waypoints and people are already asking for mounts! Mounts and a lack of waypoints… really doesn’t fit in the GuildWars universe.

VOLKON.1290:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

timmyf.1490:

I’ve felt this for awhile, though I still don’t quite know how to phrase it. Wondering if others might have an opinion.

As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.

I’ve suggested zones without waypoints as a way around this. Does anybody else feel the same way? Or am I romanticizing the runs from towns to far-flung locations in GW1?

Edit: should have said this originally, but all the credit to Sir Arthur for expressing my feelings better than I’ve been able to. This post was meant as a huge +1 to his.

Hi TimmyF,

I agree:

‘As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.’

Chris

What’s funny is that after playing for years in the original Guild Wars I disagree. I mean, you have to explore as it is to get to the waypoints, but the thought of tedious runs across zones to try and get somewhere you’ve already been… it seems like a step backwards, and if that were to happen in GW2 you’d find the very next hour people demanding mounts or some other means to get around faster. Map travel has always been a part of GW, even included in the lore of the game (there’s a quest you get from a kid who claims his mother invented map travel in Elona if I recall).

I don’t think any exploration is trivialized at all… you still need to walk to where you’ve never been. But the added convenience to get to where you’ve already been… I love that.

In the current system it would indeed be a tedious runs across zones. Thats you then indeed need mounts and fast-travel options (and then I talk about a train or whatever). then it would not be a tedious runs anymore but you would still see the world making it not feel so small and giving more immersion then way-points.

I also am not sure how you feel they fit into the lore. We have the Asura with there gates that require you to enter one gate and then get out another gate. That it part of the lore. Also having some way-points that let you just teleport all over the place totally breaks down the lore around the Asura gates. The whole Asura gates do not make any sense anymore.

The problem is that you now only need to go there once. After that it becomes trivialized. Like I said, mounts an fast travel points will also help to get you fast to the location where you want to be but without braking the immersion and making the world feel smaller.

The Wilderness Zones idea, if you go back and read a bit more carefully, was meant to address the desire for Hard Mode and Vanquishing. Really, to set up a zone for a difficult, challenging journey.

I do not think such a thing is possible in the open world zones. Creating new, instanced zones seemed like a better solution.

The explanation from lore is that the areas are too dangerous for the Asura to maintain waypoints. (You could bring up Orr, for example, but the Pact is there to help.)

My idea also assumes that, eventually, these will become regular zones with waypoints. So the Crystal Desert becomes open first as a super-challenging adventure, but after a few months, the zone gets waypoints and regular mobs and is no longer instanced. This is a slow, months-long rollout of a zone. Like Southsun, but on a much, much longer time horizon.

Edit: actually, thinking about it, it could be cool as an open-world zone as well, though that wouldn’t allow the vanquishing option.

timmyf.1490:

My idea also assumes that, eventually, these will become regular zones with waypoints. So the Crystal Desert becomes open first as a super-challenging adventure, but after a few months, the zone gets waypoints and regular mobs and is no longer instanced. This is a slow, months-long rollout of a zone. Like Southsun, but on a much, much longer time horizon.

I support this idea. One of the joys of not failing technically and taking part in Lost Shores was the assault on Southsun Cove where the Lionguard had events steadily pushing through and laying down roads and bridges amidst fighting off that supremely annoying wildlife.

VOLKON.1290:

Devata.6589:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

timmyf.1490:

I’ve felt this for awhile, though I still don’t quite know how to phrase it. Wondering if others might have an opinion.

As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.

I’ve suggested zones without waypoints as a way around this. Does anybody else feel the same way? Or am I romanticizing the runs from towns to far-flung locations in GW1?

Edit: should have said this originally, but all the credit to Sir Arthur for expressing my feelings better than I’ve been able to. This post was meant as a huge +1 to his.

Hi TimmyF,

I agree:

‘As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.’

Chris

I agree as well. Have had some discussions about this in the many mounts threads. Didn’t feel it fit into the horizontal progression discussion but from a journey viewpoint I guess it does.

There are many places I never see anymore because I way-point directly to where I need to be. The whole world gets so small because of it. Traveling all by foot on the other hand might take to long and becomes boring, thats why it came up in the mount threads. Combination of mounts and fly-points would increase the size of the world (the feeling), and add some more Immersion (no loading screen).

Talking about mounts. In a way you could also see that as a form of horizontal progression. Collecting them but you can even build fun crafts around mounts.

Ha! See? We haven’t even removed waypoints and people are already asking for mounts! Mounts and a lack of waypoints… really doesn’t fit in the GuildWars universe.

Ha! See? Discussions about mounts and taking away way-points are going on on the forums for months.

You act as if you have a point here because you did say people would say that and then they do. Yes people will say that and have been saying that because it’s something many people like. And because of that it might be a very good idea.

Fact that you ‘predicted’ that people would say that does not any any way proof your point, sorry. It’s something people tent to use a lot in discussions as if it would then reduce the value of that idea.

Yeah you do need a different system when taking away way-points and mounts are a way to do that.

Besides, you talked about lore before. They totally fit into the lore. We have cars in the game, airships, horse carriages, use animals to carry supply but we don’t have mounts we ride on / in. That just does not fit with the lore.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi TimmyF,

I agree:

‘As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.’

Chris

I don’t know about this Chris. Waypoints are part of Guild Wars 2; part of it’s very core. Without them, the whole community would practically fall apart. For example if your friend wants you to help him out with a certain map or a champion he cannot kill himself, or even come with you map exploring. It would involve a whole lot of running and time to get to that friend just to see him log off 15 minutes later.
GW1 was a different breed. With so many towns and outposts you could go between them with ease and just meet at certain areas with your friends. In Guild Wars 2 we have 6 Towns. Six. And none of them are located nowhere near Orr. If you’d want to consider Fort Trinity as a Town, it’s still a pain to get down to Cursed Shores.
On that topic though, I like the idea of exploration. I spend hours upon hours getting map completion on many of my characters because I simply like going around exploring different areas. But I also like the ability to be anywhere at any time without missing out on anything that’s happening.
Maps without waypoints would be a nifty idea, but they would definitely become deserted within days. I mean let’s take Soutsun Cove for example here. Having six Waypoints in which 3-4 of them are contested 90% of the time make the whole area deserted to everyone except for farmers and Karka Queen Slaying Zerg once in a while. Why? Well, the waypoints are one thing since if you die, you really don’t feel like running all the way back to where you died. Especially if you were few more seconds away from the next reachable waypoint. But the main thing is that the area is very unforgiving. You can’t really take your time and walk around gazing at the marvelous-ness of the design because everything is trying to kill you. And when they hit, they hit hard. Making the whole “exploration” part of it very annoying if you’re by yourself.
And I’m sure that if you ever release a new map, you won’t make it another Queensdale, but another unforgiving grounds. Without waypoints in said map many of us will only go there once.
The idea fast traveling being taken away would break the game for me personally in many ways. It would limit the time I spend exploring to minimum. And it would practically force me to “park” my toons all over the place so I wouldn’t miss out on events.
Not to mention that taking out Waypoints would completely destroy the idea of guild missions making them close to impossible within allocated time frame.

Devata.6589:

In the current system it would indeed be a tedious runs across zones. Thats you then indeed need mounts and fast-travel options (and then I talk about a train or whatever). then it would not be a tedious runs anymore but you would still see the world making it not feel so small and giving more immersion then way-points.

I also am not sure how you feel they fit into the lore. We have the Asura with there gates that require you to enter one gate and then get out another gate. That it part of the lore. Also having some way-points that let you just teleport all over the place totally breaks down the lore around the Asura gates. The whole Asura gates do not make any sense anymore.

The problem is that you now only need to go there once. After that it becomes trivialized. Like I said, mounts an fast travel points will also help to get you fast to the location where you want to be but without braking the immersion and making the world feel smaller.

If you played the original GuildWars you’d be familiar with the concept of map travel. Basically, open your map and travel to any city you wish, whenever you want. Now, a few hundred years later, the Asura have expanded on the whole idea not only with their gates but with the waypoint system.

One huge problem with mounts and fast travel systems, whatever they be (we already have waypoints after all) is that all you’re doing is replacing something that works and works well with something… else. Not just something else, but something from outside the GuildWars universe and in doing so taking away one of the unique feeling features of the game and lore and replacing it with something more ‘been there, done that in the archaic MMOs’.

I disagree that waypoints make the world too small. Little sucks the fun out of a game more than having to work excessively in order to get somewhere to have fun. Back in WoW, if the guild was someplace doing something it really sucked having to ask them to wait 15 minutes while I hop on a gryphon and get to the closest point only to have to hop on a mount and try and ride the rest of the way there… more often than not you don’t bother. It isn’t worth making everyone else wait on you, no matter how much fun it would have been for you to be there. Then there’s the issues with people kittening over their mounts, people using mounts to block access to NPCs and other assorted methods of mount-trolling that plague games like WoW that depend on them. Yuck, no thanks. Troll-free waypoints, easy access to where I’ve been and the run on foot to finish the travel… that’s plenty fine by me, and well within the lore and immersion of the GuildWars universe.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I agree:

‘As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.’

Chris

Agreed. Many of my best gaming memories are not about achieving expected goals at the end of a journey, but about the unexpected things that happen on the way. With so many waypoints, there is very little room for unexpected encounters with other players/events because after going there just once, you can teleport to almost any destination with near pinpoint accuracy.

Despite having plenty of people playing the game, I would guess this is at least part of the reason I keep hearing people say that so many zones feel “empty.” Even if there are a hundred other players in there with you, chances are you won’t see any of them because they teleport to their exact destination, do their business, and then teleport out again, leaving 95% of the map untouched by human feet except for the slow trickle of people attempting map completion.

I love the wilderness zone suggestion. I would also suggest the following as a method of horizontal progression to reward additional exploratory visits to zones (forgive me if it has been suggested before): event discovery/completion tracking. Just because you’ve visited a place once doesn’t mean you’ve seen everything there is to see there, especially since so many events are timed or trigger conditionally. Show players how many of the different events that occur in each zone they’ve participated in, and reward them for discovering and completing them all.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

timmyf.1490:

I’ve felt this for awhile, though I still don’t quite know how to phrase it. Wondering if others might have an opinion.

As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.

I’ve suggested zones without waypoints as a way around this. Does anybody else feel the same way? Or am I romanticizing the runs from towns to far-flung locations in GW1?

Edit: should have said this originally, but all the credit to Sir Arthur for expressing my feelings better than I’ve been able to. This post was meant as a huge +1 to his.

Hi TimmyF,

I agree:

‘As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.’

Chris

Remember Prophecies? There was only a rez shrine right next to the zone to the town. By Nightfall the developers had realized that it wasn’t enough and put several rez shrines in an area. I hope to God they don’t forget that lesson.

Do you love it when you open a map of Orr and 3/4 of the WPs are contested? Do you think, “Oh yes, finally, I get to run around on this map!” Or do you groan to yourself?

Devata.6589:

You act as if you have a point here because you did say people would say that and then they do. Yes people will say that and have been saying that because it’s something many people like. And because of that it might be a very good idea.

It’s a circular thing though. See, the solution mounts would bring doesn’t solve anything other than a problem created with another solution which isn’t even necessary to impose.

It’s felt Waypoints trivialize exploration, so maybe get rid of Waypoints. But now the world is so big we need a way to get around quickly since we got rid of the Waypoints so let’s add mounts . . . which now trivialize exploration and travel time . . .

I have no problem if you set the lvlcap at 100, but the rest of the character-progression should then only continued over the traitsystem.

Romo- just so you know, nobody here is suggesting that we REMOVE waypoints. (I’m not, anyway.) Rather, it’s thinking about how waypoints may change the way the content is played.

Devata.6589:

Besides, you talked about lore before. They totally fit into the lore. We have cars in the game, airships, horse carriages, use animals to carry supply but we don’t have mounts we ride on / in. That just does not fit with the lore.

Of course it does. When you don’t need to train creatures to be mounts then you don’t train creatures to be mounts… it probably never occurred to them to go that route. Pack animals move slowly, so walking along side them only makes sense (they can’t use a waypoint), and fast travel always is an option for when you don’t feel like walking.

Map travel is a part of GuildWars lore, mounts aren’t.

4 achievements with tiers included into Explorer category

- distance traveled on foot
- distance traveled riding on a ground mount
- distance traveled riding on an underwater mount
- distance traveled riding on a flying mount

I’m sorry, but how could waypoints “trivialize exploration” when you can only open waypoints in places you’ve already explored? If you haven’t explored somewhere, you can’t waypoint there.

Romo.3709:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi TimmyF,

I agree:

‘As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.’

Chris

I don’t know about this Chris. Waypoints are part of Guild Wars 2; part of it’s very core. Without them, the whole community would practically fall apart. For example if your friend wants you to help him out with a certain map or a champion he cannot kill himself, or even come with you map exploring. It would involve a whole lot of running and time to get to that friend just to see him log off 15 minutes later.
GW1 was a different breed. With so many towns and outposts you could go between them with ease and just meet at certain areas with your friends. In Guild Wars 2 we have 6 Towns. Six. And none of them are located nowhere near Orr. If you’d want to consider Fort Trinity as a Town, it’s still a pain to get down to Cursed Shores.
On that topic though, I like the idea of exploration. I spend hours upon hours getting map completion on many of my characters because I simply like going around exploring different areas. But I also like the ability to be anywhere at any time without missing out on anything that’s happening.
Maps without waypoints would be a nifty idea, but they would definitely become deserted within days. I mean let’s take Soutsun Cove for example here. Having six Waypoints in which 3-4 of them are contested 90% of the time make the whole area deserted to everyone except for farmers and Karka Queen Slaying Zerg once in a while. Why? Well, the waypoints are one thing since if you die, you really don’t feel like running all the way back to where you died. Especially if you were few more seconds away from the next reachable waypoint. But the main thing is that the area is very unforgiving. You can’t really take your time and walk around gazing at the marvelous-ness of the design because everything is trying to kill you. And when they hit, they hit hard. Making the whole “exploration” part of it very annoying if you’re by yourself.
And I’m sure that if you ever release a new map, you won’t make it another Queensdale, but another unforgiving grounds. Without waypoints in said map many of us will only go there once.
The idea fast traveling being taken away would break the game for me personally in many ways. It would limit the time I spend exploring to minimum. And it would practically force me to “park” my toons all over the place so I wouldn’t miss out on events.
Not to mention that taking out Waypoints would completely destroy the idea of guild missions making them close to impossible within allocated time frame.

Yeah you could indeed not just take away way-points in GW2 and be done with it. you are 100% correct with that. you do then have to come up with an different system.

Mounts and other fast-travel options would then come to mind. Fast travel points to a few towns in a map (we have those big airships in GW2’s lore that would do just fine for that) and then on the ground you use mounds for the last part.

Then you still have the feel of exploration but are also still able to get to your friends pretty fast.

Black Teagan.9215:

I have no problem if you set the lvlcap at 100, but the rest of the character-progression should then only continued over the traitsystem.

I see changing the level cap as a nightmare waiting to rear it’s ugly head and spread darkness and despair throughout the entire system.

Or at the least, a major PITA, especially for those who are spending months creating ascended gear for their level 80 characters. If you decide to upgrade existing ascended armor to level 100 with such a change then the whole thing seems like the same generic ‘adding more points to give the illusion of vertical progression’ from other MMOs without the gear treadmill, and if you don’t increase ascended (and exotics, legendaries that people have and love) as well to level 100 then you’ve really gone a few steps too far towards that dreaded treadmill and also completely sent the current batch of level 80 into obscurity, never to be created again.

There’s no real value to be had in increasing the level cap. More numbers are meaningless when it’s offset by mobs with the same numbers added on, and it will complicate even more the down-scaling system for higher than 80 gear. Really not worth the effort.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Players feel the system is broken because they want to have a choice to broaden their options instead of limiting them. Someone (and I’m not sure who right now) related it to “playing the class as the developers want it played” versus playing the class as they want.

I hear you, but I’ve also been reading this conversation and I don’t quite agree with having sub-class paths, which will end up with having players playing “as developers want it with more choices”.

I don’t think naming these sub-classes are important either, but that is not what I meant. I meant that if the sub-classes are too specific, such as Thief sub-spec that can’t stealth, they will end up being named by the community anyway.

What I meant is that having the weapons specialised like we have today is good when you need to have some room for doing what you haven’t planned when you spent your Talent points. So you’re a Mesmer specialised in phantasms, but if you’re in a boss fight where you phantasms simply can’t stay alive, you can at least be useful.

tl;dr I think ANet is on the right path, I would just like to see them doing more of what they are doing instead creating a whole new system involving weapons and talents, just so we could be more “specialised”. Keep the system the way it is, and give us some more “deeper” options within weapons and talents.

Devata.6589:

Mounts and other fast-travel options would then come to mind. Fast travel points to a few towns in a map (we have those big airships in GW2’s lore that would do just fine for that) and then on the ground you use mounds for the last part.

Then you still have the feel of exploration but are also still able to get to your friends pretty fast.

No you wouldn’t. You’d have the feeling of “kitten , this is taking too long to join my guildies for guld missions” or you’d have a case where something that wasn’t broken was replaced for something less convenient and totally unnecessary. There’s no sense of exploration when you’re passing through familiar territory to meet up with someone. Exploration is going somewhere new or unfamiliar, and we do that now quite nicely on foot. Mounts would actually remove some of that sense of exploration because we’d be covering new ground much faster, and even worse, we’d be missing the little things in our rush to see it all. Little hidden caves, holes in the ground that start events, they’d all be raced past in a hurry during “exploration” when you’d be more likely to find things on foot, as we do now.

If a new, waypoint-free zone opened up and people had fast mounts they’d be back in no time saying they explored the entire zone, yet odds are they wouldn’t have seen a thing while doing so. Mounts ruin exploration by hurrying you through places you hadn’t been before.

Eli Stormstrike.8637:

LORE CODEX
One thing certain other games have, such as SWTOR and Diablo III, which would be very useful in GW2, is a Codex where the lore and story of the game world is stored.

We already have a similar log for our personal stories, except this expanded log might give us background information on the zones we visit, as a reward for map completion and exploration, could expand the achievement system with a new category, as a guideline on where to find these tidbits of lore.

The end goal is to provide an in-game library of lore, story and continuity that would allow both new and old players to find information on, for example, the time between GW1 and GW2 and compile the history of Guild Wars, which might also get more people interested in the zones and quests which they are doing.

Getting players immersed in the gameworld and interested in the content they’re consuming can only be a positive, and it would allow the Living World Story, which many find confusing, to be compiled in a simple, in-game log, for people to follow and read through, and could be another reward for completing the LW meta-achievement.

If we combine this with the housing idea, we can have the house contain a bookshelf or study, which can be the physical representation of this codex. Possibly let it start out empty and then fill it with books when a player completes more of their codex.

The codex can be filled in several ways:

• Players can compile a bestiary by slaying different kinds of creatures in Tyria.
• Players get a book containing lore of a zone by completing it, as mentioned by Eli.
• Players are given hints that will lead them to lore books. These will be hidden in places somehow related to the lore they cover. The books can be hidden in chests, dropped by (related) mobs, hidden behind a puzzle, obtained or put together through a quest or even just found out somewhere hidden in the environment.

Some examples on gathering these books:

• You find the ship of a famous pirate and collect their diary or logbook.
• You follow a series of clues and gather pages that form a book, like the Mad Memoires quest.
• You slap a (Risen) Priestess of Dwayna to obtain a book about the goddess.

It will give players the chance to explore the world and perform several tasks while showing them more of the lore.

One more thing I would like to see added to possible house decorations, is a buyable, or maybe craftable, portrait of your Order mentor(s).

Chris Whiteside.6102:

timmyf.1490:

I’ve felt this for awhile, though I still don’t quite know how to phrase it. Wondering if others might have an opinion.

As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.

I’ve suggested zones without waypoints as a way around this. Does anybody else feel the same way? Or am I romanticizing the runs from towns to far-flung locations in GW1?

Edit: should have said this originally, but all the credit to Sir Arthur for expressing my feelings better than I’ve been able to. This post was meant as a huge +1 to his.

Hi TimmyF,

I agree:

‘As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.’

Chris

Exploring how, though? Waypoints aren’t unlocked automatically, so you do have to explore to get those the first time. The second time you go to them when they are unlocked, you aren’t really exploring since you’ve been there before. Unless you mean uncovering new Dynamic Events and such, which then I think this has some valid points. However, the current number of DE in some zones makes me feel like you could go to an area 10 times and never find an event. To explore, there must be things to be found.

I like the idea of wandering instead of waypointing, but I want to come across something pretty much everytime. One of the areas I think does this well is southern dredgehaunt. There are almost always events going on there (well maybe that’s because I don’t see many people there – dredge!, but regardless), if every zone was like that I think some people might be more inclined to accept no waypoints (or fewer).

As for zones without WPs, just go to Orr. Most of them are contested anyway so it’s about the same thing. I joke…sorta

you could raise the level to 90 and open up a “super grand master tier” in the traits with only one trait to pick when you get there (of course it’s really not “picking” then is it). You could skip the 5pt minor when getting the 40 pts in for the super grand master trait. This opens up more build combinations (maybe).

However with the current gear grind, ANet has boxed themselves into the level 80 cap pretty solidly. I don’t see more levels ever — maybe with an expansion to combine a lot of sweets with the sour of new gear. As far as we know that’s not on the roadmap.

I’m comfortable with no new levels though as it introduces a lot of risk into a game close to coming out of its growing pains.

VOLKON.1290:

Devata.6589:

In the current system it would indeed be a tedious runs across zones. Thats you then indeed need mounts and fast-travel options (and then I talk about a train or whatever). then it would not be a tedious runs anymore but you would still see the world making it not feel so small and giving more immersion then way-points.

I also am not sure how you feel they fit into the lore. We have the Asura with there gates that require you to enter one gate and then get out another gate. That it part of the lore. Also having some way-points that let you just teleport all over the place totally breaks down the lore around the Asura gates. The whole Asura gates do not make any sense anymore.

The problem is that you now only need to go there once. After that it becomes trivialized. Like I said, mounts an fast travel points will also help to get you fast to the location where you want to be but without braking the immersion and making the world feel smaller.

If you played the original GuildWars you’d be familiar with the concept of map travel. Basically, open your map and travel to any city you wish, whenever you want. Now, a few hundred years later, the Asura have expanded on the whole idea not only with their gates but with the waypoint system.

One huge problem with mounts and fast travel systems, whatever they be (we already have waypoints after all) is that all you’re doing is replacing something that works and works well with something… else. Not just something else, but something from outside the GuildWars universe and in doing so taking away one of the unique feeling features of the game and lore and replacing it with something more ‘been there, done that in the archaic MMOs’.

I disagree that waypoints make the world too small. Little sucks the fun out of a game more than having to work excessively in order to get somewhere to have fun. Back in WoW, if the guild was someplace doing something it really sucked having to ask them to wait 15 minutes while I hop on a gryphon and get to the closest point only to have to hop on a mount and try and ride the rest of the way there… more often than not you don’t bother. It isn’t worth making everyone else wait on you, no matter how much fun it would have been for you to be there. Then there’s the issues with people kittening over their mounts, people using mounts to block access to NPCs and other assorted methods of mount-trolling that plague games like WoW that depend on them. Yuck, no thanks. Troll-free waypoints, easy access to where I’ve been and the run on foot to finish the travel… that’s plenty fine by me, and well within the lore and immersion of the GuildWars universe.

The whole idea as in GW1 or at least how I experienced it was that you pretty much told your character to to to that town and he would do that.. walk there basically but you just skipped that part. Much like what is the idea behind the fast travel in Skyrim.

I have not see any lore that says Asura made waypoints, I really haven’t seen any lore about Waypoint at all. According to you there is some person talking about it. That might be but fact stays that it’s not in line with the Asura gate lore that is very much away. Why are they still building Asura gates if you can travel to some location by clicking on a map? I mean, they are visual objects, not like the town fast travel.

Fast-travel would be for example using air-ships or a train or something like that to travel to a far location. And you might feel it works fine but as you see there are also people who disagree on that.

Besides it does not in anyway come from outside the Guild Wats 2 universe. It’s very much part of the Guild Wars 2 universe. We do already have airships, helicopters, cars, Dolyaks and horse carriages! Only for some strange reason only NPC’s seem to be using them.
And been there done that .. well way-points are now also part of the been there done that. If there is a more fun mechanism why not.

Oow the WoW example again. It’s boils down to.. It’s bad, why? Because WoW.

Norn can block access as well, you don;t need a mount for that. And you can simply implement a fast travel option for guilds. As soon as x guild-members are in a location other guild-members can fast-travel there. How about that. Thats not a “been there done that”. Dear to think outside of the box if you see a problem but don’t feel force to do thinks different for the sake of doing it different.

And it might be fine for your the statement of lore and immersion just don’t seem to fit the facts. How is clicking on a map and then seeing a loading screen in any way more immersion then needing to really travel there inside of the game. About the lore I also said enough. It simply does not fit the lore that we do not have mounts.

VincentDW.9376:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I agree:

‘As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.’

Chris

Agreed. Many of my best gaming memories are not about achieving expected goals at the end of a journey, but about the unexpected things that happen on the way. With so many waypoints, there is very little room for unexpected encounters with other players/events because after going there just once, you can teleport to almost any destination with near pinpoint accuracy.

Despite having plenty of people playing the game, I would guess this is at least part of the reason I keep hearing people say that so many zones feel “empty.” Even if there are a hundred other players in there with you, chances are you won’t see any of them because they teleport to their exact destination, do their business, and then teleport out again, leaving 95% of the map untouched by human feet except for the slow trickle of people attempting map completion.

I love the wilderness zone suggestion. I would also suggest the following as a method of horizontal progression to reward additional exploratory visits to zones (forgive me if it has been suggested before): event discovery/completion tracking. Just because you’ve visited a place once doesn’t mean you’ve seen everything there is to see there, especially since so many events are timed or trigger conditionally. Show players how many of the different events that occur in each zone they’ve participated in, and reward them for discovering and completing them all.

And there might also be less need to in a way ‘force’ people to explore. You know that when you are completing a map by running to all the vista’s, POI, hearts and so on. They could remove many of those letting exploration feel much more as something you keep doing while you go instead of it being a list that you have to cross of as you level up to then never visit it again.

It also means that you are even less likely to really explore the area. You just run from one point to another when crossing of the list.

VOLKON.1290:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

timmyf.1490:

I’ve felt this for awhile, though I still don’t quite know how to phrase it. Wondering if others might have an opinion.

As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.

I’ve suggested zones without waypoints as a way around this. Does anybody else feel the same way? Or am I romanticizing the runs from towns to far-flung locations in GW1?

Edit: should have said this originally, but all the credit to Sir Arthur for expressing my feelings better than I’ve been able to. This post was meant as a huge +1 to his.

Hi TimmyF,

I agree:

‘As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.’

Chris

What’s funny is that after playing for years in the original Guild Wars I disagree. I mean, you have to explore as it is to get to the waypoints, but the thought of tedious runs across zones to try and get somewhere you’ve already been… it seems like a step backwards, and if that were to happen in GW2 you’d find the very next hour people demanding mounts or some other means to get around faster. Map travel has always been a part of GW, even included in the lore of the game (there’s a quest you get from a kid who claims his mother invented map travel in Elona if I recall).

I don’t think any exploration is trivialized at all… you still need to walk to where you’ve never been. But the added convenience to get to where you’ve already been… I love that.

My thoughts mirror this as well.
What happens if you are doing the exploring that you want, and a friend wants/needs help doing something. First they’ll have wait till you run there. Then after you finish helping the friend, you’ll need to: 1)remember where you were (granted that already kinda happens even with the waypoints) and 2) run all the way back there. All that time running could mean much more exploring you could get done.

The wilderness zone idea is interesting, but what happens if an actual zone is released that takes up the space next to where those portals into the wilderness zones “lead” to? Are those zones temporary? or do they continue on in that next map released (thus kind always ‘leading’ out to unexplorable portions of the world map?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Draxynnic,

In my opinion this is an excellent focus/paradigm for the creation of sub-classes:

‘Treat it as a key, not a lock.’

Based on the way the professions were built for GW2 I don’t think we would treat sub classes any other way. However your reasoning and points are well made and serve as an excellent guide or talking point should we decide to explore Subclasses in the future.

Thanks,

Chris

My only concerns with sub-classes would be adding specialization and removing versatility. If there’s specializations then people will as a result begin to require specializations. If a subclass of an elementalist is better at healing then elementalists of that subclass will be required, fair or not. It’s simply how people are.

Aye.8392:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

timmyf.1490:

I’ve felt this for awhile, though I still don’t quite know how to phrase it. Wondering if others might have an opinion.

As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.

I’ve suggested zones without waypoints as a way around this. Does anybody else feel the same way? Or am I romanticizing the runs from towns to far-flung locations in GW1?

Edit: should have said this originally, but all the credit to Sir Arthur for expressing my feelings better than I’ve been able to. This post was meant as a huge +1 to his.

Hi TimmyF,

I agree:

‘As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.’

Chris

Remember Prophecies? There was only a rez shrine right next to the zone to the town. By Nightfall the developers had realized that it wasn’t enough and put several rez shrines in an area. I hope to God they don’t forget that lesson.

Do you love it when you open a map of Orr and 3/4 of the WPs are contested? Do you think, “Oh yes, finally, I get to run around on this map!” Or do you groan to yourself?

No because the current system is build for waypoints. That is what I have been saying the whole time. Taking them out just like that would not work. You had to replace it woth another system like having mounts. Then it would not be a groan anymore.

I never had a problem with traveling somewhere in other MMO’s and I still don’t. But indeed if in GW2 all the way-points are contested it’s very frustrating because on foot it takes you a long way. And of course Orr also has the problem then you are contently getting slowed down by mobs making it even worse.

timmyf.1490:

I’ve felt this for awhile, though I still don’t quite know how to phrase it. Wondering if others might have an opinion.

As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.

I’ve suggested zones without waypoints as a way around this. Does anybody else feel the same way? Or am I romanticizing the runs from towns to far-flung locations in GW1?

Edit: should have said this originally, but all the credit to Sir Arthur for expressing my feelings better than I’ve been able to. This post was meant as a huge +1 to his.

How does it trivialize exploration? They don’t magically become available to you(except some of the ones next to zone entrances). You still have to get there yourself at least once.

Are you saying you NEVER used fast travel in GW1?

If/when Cantha is added to the game are you going to swim through the Unending Ocean every time you want to go there?

I remember a run up Snake Dance to Dreadnought’s Drifts to capture Feast of Corruption. Realized I forgot to bring a Signet of Capture. Huge waste of time. Not a big fan of wasting time. Went and unlocked the skill in PvP and bought a tome in Kamadan instead.

Yes my questions are a bit on the silly side but the point is that it might be nice some of the time it is not great all the time. With waypoints there is a choice. You can use them or not use them. Without waypoints there is no choice. I can’t will a waypoint into existence. If it’s a “I can’t stop myself from clicking on the WP” then maybe there needs to be an option to turn them off like you can for vendors/PoI/etc.

How much exploring have you done in Orr? How about Southsun Cove? Sure there are waypoints but most of the time they are all contested anyway so it’s like they aren’t even there.

Devata.6589:

And there might also be less need to in a way ‘force’ people to explore. You know that when you are completing a map by running to all the vista’s, POI, hearts and so on. They could remove many of those letting exploration feel much more as something you keep doing while you go instead of it being a list that you have to cross of as you level up to then never visit it again.

It also means that you are even less likely to really explore the area. You just run from one point to another when crossing of the list.

Very true. To extend the conversation, Orr has unique mechanics: there are no Hearts, there are Temples, and there are huge DE chains which must be done to open certain areas.

When we start to venture out into new areas, should the mechanics be the same as Orr? Or should they be different?

I’m no fan of Hearts, so I’d prefer leaving them out. As far as the DE chains, what we’ve seen is that players tend to ignore them. Or worse, they try to exploit the events by not completing them or letting them fail. What other options are available?

Having zones with events that are more like traditional quests could be one interesting option. Let me stick with my idea of waypoint-less instanced “wilderness zones.”

When you enter the zone, there could be a few NPCs. Each has a different objective: rescue somebody who is lost, kill a champion, escort a group, etc. You can talk to them and fire off an event. These events would probably have special rewards beyond normal events – perhaps like you get with world bosses.

You could stay in the zone and keep completing these events as long as your party remains alive. Because there are no waypoints, a wipe means you have to leave the zone and start over.

Because each of the events starts from the entrance, there’s no need to “run” to the events. You don’t need mounts. It’s just a launchpad for other content.

I only played GW1 for a couple years, but this is a bit like the Underworld content, if I remember correctly.

Chris, are you considering having some sort of quests in the future? I mean we basically had quests with the first Halloween release, and personally I think it was awesome. It wasn’t like classic quests but more like quests with a gw2 twist, like someone mentioned above.

If you’re working on a UI element which tracks such things, this makes me confused since in earlier interviews a dev stated why we will never see quests in GW2.

Devata.6589:

And it might be fine for your the statement of lore and immersion just don’t seem to fit the facts. How is clicking on a map and then seeing a loading screen in any way more immersion then needing to really travel there inside of the game. About the lore I also said enough. It simply does not fit the lore that we do not have mounts.

Well that’s blatantly false. The lore is map travel, as demonstrated in the link you seem to have willingly ignored. Mounts aren’t in the lore at all. They’re not in the original Guild Wars nor are they in GW2.

You’re also rather dishonestly ignoring the fact that mounts actually detract from exploration by allowing you to quickly go through unexplored areas, which results in you missing the things that you’d find on foot. You speed through on a mount, think you’ve explored it all and ultimately you haven’t actually seen a thing. I’ve come across so many things walking about in new territory that would have easily been missed had I been racing by.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Devata.6589:

You act as if you have a point here because you did say people would say that and then they do. Yes people will say that and have been saying that because it’s something many people like. And because of that it might be a very good idea.

It’s a circular thing though. See, the solution mounts would bring doesn’t solve anything other than a problem created with another solution which isn’t even necessary to impose.

It’s felt Waypoints trivialize exploration, so maybe get rid of Waypoints. But now the world is so big we need a way to get around quickly since we got rid of the Waypoints so let’s add mounts . . . which now trivialize exploration and travel time . . .

Big difference is that with a mount you are still exploring and moving around the world and you don’t have a loading screen. Same for a few fast-travel location with for example air-ships.

So where a way-point is pretty much no exploration and not seeing any land (after the first time) with mounts you simply do it faster but are still having the feeling of traveling and exploring keeping the world big.

Not to mention it adds a whole new gaming element. So yeah, you are replacing one with the other. Question is, witch one is better. In my option, traveling on mounts makes more sens, fits better in the lore, is more immersing and so is better because of that.

Part 1: @ Shakkara

Snip rant vs. Sub Classes

You forget, that ANet has to go sure, that the Game stays at all times easy to balance and clear. Something that you most likely never will be able to guarantee with gameplay mechanisms that you want so badly – a 100 percent super perfect free character diversification, that simply allows everything.

You will never find something like this in MMO’s and you know that! And why do you know this? Because you know as good as me, that a game, that simply allows everything is totally unbalanceable!!.

Sub Classes allow it the Devs to add more and more Builds to their Classes to increase.
Builds – exactly that what players give the wildest and craziest names to express with them, what their characters fulfill for a role, what they are, what they should be and for what they are good in the game.
Sub Classes takes all those Builds and just gives them with fix names and added game mechanics, new skills, new traits, new weapons ect. pp just a FACE.

Your problem with Sub Classes is only – you seem to believe, that turning builds into viable Sub Classes with special unique skills, traits, and other class specific features, limits you in your choices in how you could build your Character, when in fact right the opposite is the case.
Adding Sub CLasses just expands the Classes and everything around them based upon what is already there.
Sub Classes use all basic mechanics of the Main Professions and just exapand/change something of theim into many different ways, so that all players with their different tastes can just out of these choices, what they like the most.

With Sub Classes there is no need to implement any othe new seperate Main Professions, because ANet has already with their 8 to maximum 9 Main Professions if there should ever get a 3rd Soldier implemented more than enough options to expand and change those Main Professions into many various Sub Classes. And I’m 100% sure, among whatever Anet will come up with, will be surely something, that will fit also to your personal taste.
There can be also far more options to customize your Character, even after ypou’ve chosen a Sub Class to specialize your Character based upon your choice based opon Skill Skins, Finishers, Armor Sets, Movement Styles ect. even such stuff like Dances…and different looking Emote Animations…

You absolutely overestimate the work behind Sub Classes. Adding Sub Classes to existing Main Classes is much much easier, than to implement a complete new seperate profession. And a SunClass System is definetely alot easlier to balance, than such crap like the GW1 Dual CLass System that was the most horrible balancing chaos I’ve ever seen in a MMO, because every tiny change on any skill resulted always in tons of chain reactions – so freaking many, that no testers in the world with their short times to test out things would be able at any given to to expect absolutely every single bad chain reaction from the skill changes with the hundreds of thousands of possible combination options with the thousands of possible to combine skills of skill bars, where all skills were freely exchangeable.

VOLKON.1290:

Devata.6589:

Mounts and other fast-travel options would then come to mind. Fast travel points to a few towns in a map (we have those big airships in GW2’s lore that would do just fine for that) and then on the ground you use mounds for the last part.

Then you still have the feel of exploration but are also still able to get to your friends pretty fast.

No you wouldn’t. You’d have the feeling of “kitten , this is taking too long to join my guildies for guild missions” or you’d have a case where something that wasn’t broken was replaced for something less convenient and totally unnecessary. There’s no sense of exploration when you’re passing through familiar territory to meet up with someone. Exploration is going somewhere new or unfamiliar, and we do that now quite nicely on foot. Mounts would actually remove some of that sense of exploration because we’d be covering new ground much faster, and even worse, we’d be missing the little things in our rush to see it all. Little hidden caves, holes in the ground that start events, they’d all be raced past in a hurry during “exploration” when you’d be more likely to find things on foot, as we do now.

If a new, waypoint-free zone opened up and people had fast mounts they’d be back in no time saying they explored the entire zone, yet odds are they wouldn’t have seen a thing while doing so. Mounts ruin exploration by hurrying you through places you hadn’t been before.

I couldn’t agree more. Exploration is a choice. Some of us make that choice by actually exploring the areas to their fullest. Some of us complain that Waypoints somehow take away will of exploration. Some of us see it as an excuse to get mounts. There’s an old saying that’s been around for years.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”

And I can’t stress that enough. Just like Aye.8392 stated:

Aye.8392:

Do you love it when you open a map of Orr and 3/4 of the WPs are contested? Do you think, “Oh yes, finally, I get to run around on this map!” Or do you groan to yourself?

To introduce mounts while taking Waypoints away would make this game into another WoW. It’s basically saying: “How can I make this more inconvenient for you?”.
Mounts that would speed up travel would completely diminish what you’d state as “Exploration”. We wouldn’t see a map as an area we can go around and explore, it would be more of a highway of mounts, where the map would be considered as a “travel distance” rather than a place to explore.
So again, exploration is a choice. If you really want to explore the maps, do so. Don’t use it as another reason to bring up mounts.

Khisanth.2948:

How does it trivialize exploration? They don’t magically become available to you(except some of the ones next to zone entrances). You still have to get there yourself at least once.

Are you saying you NEVER used fast travel in GW1?

If/when Cantha is added to the game are you going to swim through the Unending Ocean every time you want to go there?

…

How much exploring have you done in Orr? How about Southsun Cove? Sure there are waypoints but most of the time they are all contested anyway so it’s like they aren’t even there.

Just to reiterate, because I feel like nobody is understanding me:

1) I’m not saying waypoints should be removed from the existing content.
2) I do not think mounts should be added.
3) I certainly used fast travel in GW1.
4) I do not think you should have to swim across the ocean every time you want to go to Cantha.
5) I don’t explore Orr much because everything there has CC and it drives me crazy.
6) I don’t explore Southsun much because Veteran Karka = owwwww.
7) My suggestion is for INSTANCED GROUP CONTENT as a TEMPORARY way to introduce new zones and provide a sense of exploration
8) After a period of months, those zones would have Asuran waypoints and become more like the zones we have now.

Edit: and here’s the link again: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3416638