Guild Wars 2

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Note this is the formulation of a collaborative proposal for discussion. Once the proposal is finalized it will be discussed internally. However there will be no promise of associated actions or schedule.

hahahahhaha

I was reading that post thinking “these sound interesting maybe I will start playing again when they add this stuff” and then I read that none of this is actually planned to happen. It’s just planned on being “talked about” internally. Like wow, huge joke. I’m not getting on board the hype train if all you’ve got is “maybe we will think about this stuff”. Then we’ve got to see how it’s implemented and that’s already a stress point. Don’t know what they’ve been doing this past year except constant LS grind parties.

A dev mentioned the possibility of player housing. I’d like to say this addition would be amazing, if you do it correctly. This would add extra end-game activities and distractions while people aare in the leveling process.!!!!!!

ArenaNet, make it happen!!

Sirendor.1394:

zamalek.2154:

Sirendor.1394:

Subclasses are bound to fail if they don’t fix their unholy trinity of Dps, Control, Mitigate and add a bigger need for Support, Utility and Tank.

This arises because of the fact that you can “kill or be killed.” You don’t need Support, Utility and Tanks in the group if the group can rush in and kill the boss in 6 seconds – before the boss can put out any meaningful damage.

The original intent (as far as I have read) was to avoid damage in the first place; instead of soaking it up (Tank) or undoing it (Healer). I agree with ANet as far as this goes – Healer/Tank/DPS leads to braindead gameplay that is more like The Typing of the Dead than a challenging fight.

Unfortunately the current design leads to the braindead stacking behavior we see (as well as zerker) and this means that the design needs to be tweaked. Players will always find the path of least resistance.

So while I agree with you about the current problem; I also agree with ANet because they were trying to fix another problem. Here is an idea that is within the parameters of what ANet were originally trying to do by eliminating the [brain dead] trinity:

Drop a whole bunch of new boons, support conditions and statuses; that are very useful and are exclusive to the support/utility classes (when built in a support/utility way). E.g. Apply a shield to nearby allies – the can absorb Healing Power * 3 hit points and explodes for Toughness * 3 damage when destroyed.

Edit: Completely off topic: another thing you could do to encourage diverse builds is to introduce a panic mechanic – similar to enraged; but instead it activates if the boss loses HP too fast. A super-reflective shield for 1-2s (100% reflected back to the source, no cast time)? Another panic attack could be one that deals more damage the closer you are to the other players. Maybe have a pool of 15 or so that every boss has access to?

You are right of course, but judging from what we’ve seen so far from Anet, I doubt a complete overhaul of the combat and the PvE is going to happen. The trinity wasn’t perfect, but at least it held roles. This doesn’t hold any roles at the moment.

To me, what they should have done is made every class a distinct role and make it so each class has a set of abilities, instead of simple combat options. For example in a dungeon there’s a door you can’t seem to pass? Your engineer mate can create a bomb at his own cost (it shouldn’t be easy, but challenging) and the team mates have to gather the items he needs for the bomb throughout the dungeon.

The thing we need to get rid of first is the stacking. It should never be easy to complete a dungeon, but challenging. It shouldn’t require: stack in this corner and tap all your skills. I agree that combat has to be active, hence the active damage mitigation, but it should leave space for support classes. And support should be necessary in a dungeon in order to survive.

Right now the best defense is offense. It shouldn’t be like that.

That is a point, stacking I mean.
Body blocking is really odd in this game, and it seems to cause more problem then it solves. Namely that there is a sever lack of it.

And what’s really interesting is that it seems be something that can be turned on or off at a whim. Try this, go up to a natural mob and run through it a couple of times.
No body blocking for naturals or allies, but as soon as you attack it, boom body blocking is in full swing.

So the question I’d like to ask, is why isn’t it on all the time? (or only while in combat)
So that your body blocked by allies as well as enemies. Not only would this prevent stacking in dungeons, requiring people to actually fight for once, but in WvW it would help out immensely.

-
Half the problem with WvW is that you can have 20 million idiots standing right on top of each other, in zerkers gear no less, and just face roll the keyboard to victory.
No tactics, no strategy.

But if space was actually importent, maybe, just maybe mass combat would evolve to be something other then a mindless cluster-f!

— Role Diversification: ‘Grail Quest’ (Personal rights of passage) style adventures through the open world (testing the player in combat, discovery, and puzzle solving) which others can engage in once the activities are activated which could reward the Hero with New skills/traits, new weapons, access to inaccessible existing weapons, and infusions.

I want to point to the mentioned section. What kind of infusions are meant? Already existing ones or new ones? What steps could be taken to prevent a hidden vertical progression within the Grail Quest? What steps could be planned to prevent a hidden vertical progression by new skills and traits?

Would role diversification include WvW? Would this be a topic for an CDI in the WvW forum?

HP summary page 53 to 58 Part 1
Ok next summary update. Looks like the CDI’s winding up I’ll attempt to get the last few pages summarised but not sure if I’ll have then ready before topics locked. I would just like to Thank Chris, Colin, & Everyone for such an Amazing CDI. It has been an amazing journey. Now back on topic.

For anyone looking for up-to-date topic information and a complete index of all summaries over the Character Progression CDI The Lost Witch has created CDI – Character Progression – Summaries. Again if I’ve missed anything let me know.

• Merus has some tips for all posting. Using good argument and developing your own idea and showing how it solves problems in other ways is a great way to constructing a developing discussion you can all enjoy.
• To help understand CDI’s Chris Whiteside provide the below link;

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I am including a link that has more detail on the overarching goals of the CDI and how it works:

http://www.guildwars2hub.com/features/interviews/exclusive-video-interview-chris-whiteside-cdis

Chris

Now if you haven’t yet joined in the discussion jump in quick as this CDI winding up.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

So I am currently on page 47 and have read 53,54 and 55 (-:

I have blocked out time to get to get completely up to date by lunchtime tomorrow (Assuming nothing crazy goes on tomorrow morning).

I am hoping to have the proposal up tomorrow morning and would think that by the end of next we will have stickied this topic. This thread has been excellent in general and has already impacted us internally which is the core of what the CDI is.

Following the tabling of this thread we will move into CDI Process Evolution phase 2.

Chris

• Eli Stormstrike joins the discussion with a massive multi-post covering Ascended Tier, Account wide Agony Resistance, Account-wide crafting, GvG & AvA (Alliance), Factional Reputation & Warfare, sPvP, ‘Hall of Monuments, Achievements & Player Housing’, Lore Codex, Dailies, Monthlies & Weeklies’ and MORE. A long but great read recommended to all.
  Other poster begin to dissect Eli Stormstrike’s post; Nike, Conski Deshan & Zamalek
• Bezagron wonders if Nike’s painting vendor idea could have real life cross-over’s.
• Phoebe Ascension talks about HP looking at existing systems. Not liking the feeling of grind and ‘get it now, or never’ pressure.
• BlizzShark’s opinions on Sub-classes, Traits & Gear templates, Skin locker & Guild missions for HP.
• Shakkara creates a list of their likes in GW1 looking if any of these systems could be brought over to GW2.
• Septemptus worried about Server Population with any Global Dominance system.
• Faerun joins adding gardening and tying both HoM & home instance into one. Then looks to adding Nicholas the Traveller (From GW1) or someone similar to GW2. Zamalek & Faerun further expnad Nicholas the Traveller.

HP summary page 53 to 58 Part 2
Again if I’ve missed anything let me know.

Character Progression

• Devata investigates global dominance but wonders with a little tweaking could existing mechanics be expanded to fill this role.

Build Content

• Baels snowballs ideas, adding flavour to professions. Igor comes.. helping Tobias dissect ‘For science!’ Baels’s post.
  Sub-Classes
  For everyone involved in the role diversification / sub-classes / specialisation discuss Chris’s below quote is something to think about.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

As a point to add to this discussion. We have, and are still working on getting the support balance right in regard to the global role balance meta. And it is due to agreement with points made by yourself (and those of others) that we have been working on this.

Chris

• Manakel Angel looking for specialisation through expansion of traits.
• Dingle investigates sub-classes, a system that needs to do something which the other systems in game can’t or don’t do. Please note link directly to Dingle’s post in reddit for forum post click here.
• Swish’s not sure if sub-classes are needed but looks at how they could be introduced when levelling.
• FourthVariety interested in learning sub-classes through personal story arcs which could be delivered similar to the LS.
• Serphous reworks the trait system sorta into sub-classes or dual professions.
• Faerun’s crazy idea looks to armour for specialisation. Nadesh wonders Equipment Skills.
• Nike’s starting to think our gear IS our sub-class.
  *Orpheal replies to Shakkara arguing sub-classes are Not exclusive & locking

The Other Side

• Shadow Blade wonders are there any roles outside damage and should sub-classes be add.
• Shakkara see sub-classes as exclusive & locking not agreeing with sub-classes at all. A good post but the tone can get quite heated. Shakkara then creates a List of Fundamental Problems and looks at way to correct them.
• MRA worries sub-classes will further reduce build deversity.

HP summary page 53 to 58 Part 3
Again if I’ve missed anything let me know.

Player Housing

• Devata builds player housing & guild halls together in the open world.
• Donari’s not sure about home instances and something like customisable housing.
• The Great AI wonders how does housing ties into character HP. Tobias Trueflight believes housing could become the Starting Hub.
• Disneyrich is intrigued by an Outside Yard looking to FFXI for housing examples.

Tobias & Devata start a intriguing discussion about player housing & personal story and technical design (block by block, modular) follow through the links below.

• Tobias Part 1 – Tying housing and Living story
• Devata Part 1 – It’s in the detail, Part 2 – Too modular
• Tobias Part 2 – Minecraft, Terraia & Starbound Not GW2
• DevataPart 3 – What about a grid system
• Tobias Part 3 – What’s the learning curve for designing your our house
• Devata Part 4 – Choices & Freedom
• Tobias Part 4 – Expands Choices

DevilLordLaser and Conski Deshan start a discussion of player housing & guild halls, will one take from the other or can they build on each other.

• DevilLordLaser Part 1 – ‘Guild Halls, not Player Housing’.
• Conski Part 1 – Player housing & Guild halls Double yay
• Donari Part 1 – Player’s or Guild Leader’s Desinging
• Conski Part 2 – One houses per Account
• DevilLordLaser Part 2 – Wants communal Guild Halls
• Donari Part 2 – Looks at Horizons for examples
• Conski Part 3 – Conksi’s replies

Ideas not related to HP

• Timmyf’s intrigued with Suggested and Popular builds, could be a feature with build templates
• Yoh wonders could Tying stats to Control & Support help. Ben K believe the roles Damage, Control & Support are working just not in all areas of GW2 (sPvP, WvW & PvE). For those interested the conversation continues over the next few pages.

Fractal reset?

Chris: Romo regarding your last post I am going to spend some time thinking about how you feel and get back to you if that’s ok?

Fractal reset?

Chis: The Fractal progression reset conversation is something I am still thinking about so please bear with me.

Fractal reset?

Regarding my reminders from you about comments on some kind of reward for the Fractal reset, I am still thinking about feelings around it.

Chris

Fractal reset?

no answer anymore…..

Look I’d be perfectly fine if you say you are discussing or looking into the Topic of Fractal reset. But not having a final answer having a Thing unsolved that pretty much hurt your gameplay and your Feelings about a game you sticked around for nearly 8 years is really NOT COOL!

Stick to your promisses and give an answer as you said earlier in this thread before it gets closed down!

Even if you say you are discussing it and it is still here and internaly or whatever discussed…. otherwise it just feels like you going to ignore it and wait till everyone has forgotten about it.

It is just a said Thing if you start getting the Feeling the game is programmed for the masses and CAN WITHOUT A PROBLEM WIPE OUT PROGRESS as Long as it doesn’t harm the masses. Get’s even supported by the masses for doing it and KEEPS IGNORING THE MINORITY till the issue is forgotten.

HP summary page 53 to 58 Part 4
Again if I’ve missed anything let me know.

The Journey
Multiply discussions on the journey beginning throughout the next six pages.

• Brittitude’s journey for role diversification presents a epic journey throughout Tyria an expansion of the personal story. The Lost Witch is interested but looks to add combat challenges and freeflow exploration. Brittitude agrees with The Lost Witch.
• Lonami thinks about zone progression for the journey and presents Region Ranks. The idea is for a sense of progression and as an alternative gating method similar levels.
• Andiela wonders about Race for a day’ a journey activity were we can become one of them.
• Videoboy thoughts on Legendaries looking to turn them into an epic journey.
• DevilLordLaser looks for a journey through the Orders adding Order-skills similar to Racial but bring order and racial up to the same level as profession.
• Errannar looks at a journey of Gathering Lore adding a bookshelf to housing to hold all this lore.

• Marcus Greythorne wonders about the journey, events currently & quests and looks at phasing. Devata believes a combination of traditional quest & dynamic events are exactly what is needed. Marcus believes the answer lies with dynamic events looking to the Expedition idea & Order NPCs then brings the event to the player.
• Shanna looks to the Personal Story & the Orders to further expand the journey.

• Timmyf believes;

timmyf.1490:

This discussion brings up something I think should be a rule: your character decisions and build should not determine your ability to progress or the paths you choose through (non Personal Story) content.

Were Juno believes they should.
The discussion continues over the next few posts.

I believe quite an amazing discussion starts on the journey looking to tie in all area’s of the game (sPvP, WvW & PvE) looking at achievements & progressions having impact in encounters looking giving other option then combat.

• Nike wonders about if other achievements (WvW ranks, Crafting) could be included in event encounters tying different journeys across all areas of GW2 (sPvP, WvW & PvE).
• Tobias is liking the option to role player through the journey.
• Timmyf is of mixed feelings.
  Discussion continues through further posts below.
• Conski Deshan wonders why can’t there be more Irreversible choices. Tobias Trueflight likes partial irreversible choices(Character locked not account).

HP summary page 53 to 58 Part 5
Again if I’ve missed anything let me know.

The Journey Continue…
Chris joins in starting an interesting discussion about waypoints and travel.

• Chris Whiteside agrees with timmyf feeling waypoints can trivializes much of the exploration.
• VOLKON likes the convenience of waypoints wondering why replace a system that works.
• Nike looks at gating waypoints.
• Devata wonders if mounts can be the middle ground between too many WP and not enough.
• Romo worries about Waypoints & the Community.
• Timmyf talks about Wilderness Zones, combining instanced & zone progression. Developing the zone from an instance zone until in becomes just a normal open world map.
• VincentDW wonders is this why players feel the there are Empty Zones.
  The discussion continues over the next few posts.

Unlocking & Skill Challenges

• Nike investigates the skill hunting in PvE and ways to learn skills in WvW. Yoh believes the two skill types best suited for skill capturing are weapon skills and elites thinking the Edge of the Mist could be a place in WvW to capture.
• Merus looks at skill capturing. Could there be problems like ‘players complaining that others finished the skill capture event?’ and wonders could Skill Crafting be a possibility.
• Exosferatu extends the level cap, Ronah expands the idea and Mikuchan removes the stat increases looking how this could become HP. StriderShinryu agrees remove the stat increase and although grindy it ties in great to the existing experience progression system.

Thats all.

One way to do secondary professions is to create a skillset of 4-6 skills that are representative of each profession, but weaker in power than the primary profession like racial skills, and then let any character unlock them by completing a themed challenge.

When the queen’s jubilee returns, introduce a skillset that work in a similar fashion to some of the skills used by the bosses in the gaunlet, and to unlock all the skills in this skillset the player must beat certain bosses that use a particular skill.

Develop Modus Sceleris (remember those guys!), make them solo challenges that a player must pay skillpoints to challenge, repeated attempts cost more skillpoints, beating all the fights reward a player with an unique, flavorful profession skill(s) e.g. glue turret for engineers, rat swarm for necros.

There should be a variety of ways to get the skills, with different stories associated with them, just spending skillpoints or a signet of capture or a faction grind like GW1 are not that interesting.

Yoh.8469:

Try this, go up to a natural mob and run through it a couple of times.
No body blocking for naturals or allies, but as soon as you attack it, boom body blocking is in full swing.

That’s Melee Attack Assist. You can turn it off.

Gulesave.5073:

Yoh.8469:

Try this, go up to a natural mob and run through it a couple of times.
No body blocking for naturals or allies, but as soon as you attack it, boom body blocking is in full swing.

That’s Melee Attack Assist. You can turn it off.

Ok, I feel stupid. I could have sworn that it was body blocking when I tested it…. I could have been mistake, I’ll have to look into it again.

Thou in either case, my point stands. The game would benefit quite a great deal from having body blocking exist, provided there aren’t any major technical hurdles.
Which I imagine there are.

Role Diversification and Hero Recognition? I am in! thanks Chris, sounds extremely interesting.

Role Diversification : it would be epic if this “path” would allow classes to to do something they weren’t meant to be in the beginning (i.e: AoE nuking thief, AoE healing mesmer ecc), leaving room to eventual future Prestige Classes for further specializations. I think this would be the final kick to the old trinity system….
I also hope that the “path” will always be randomized, so it will be extremely fun to bring there all the alts without the process being repetitive.
Although I consider this kind of implementation of critical importance for the future of the game and the health of the community, I completely agree about the need to first focus on balancing what we currently have (especially 1vs1…) and then moving forward

Hero Recognition : it would be very fun to see the world of tyria reacting in different ways to a character in realation to what he did (or didn’t…) in the past.
It would apply depth to the game, and would have people feeling more involved; I can imagine how cool would it be to have NPC traveling maps to just find me and ask for help, or show gratitude (skins, consumables, mats, gear or whatever), or Champions invading cities with their gangs (or armies…) hurting everyone to just exact revenge on me (this would also have me thinking twice about what I do in the world of tyria, and would certainly add a significant amount of doubts and choices, which imho are an important part of the hero life….).
You guys at A.Net would save a lot of work, because you would not need anymore to create new villains or heroes, but just pull some strings here and there while watching how Tyria reacts to us players.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing (Customizable from rewards gained in the open world), Guild Halls (Customizable from mass play rewards) and Map Wide Meta events unlocked through Faction progression (Leading to both individual and group rewards such as titles and skins)

I’m of two minds regarding the meta events in that list. On on hand, I want it there to make sure it doesn’t fall by the wayside. I think this point is more important than any other on the list.

On the other hand, I don’t think it belongs in this CDI at all. Discussing it as an aspect of personal, or character progression is the wrong perspective in my opinion. This feature is about World Progression (which there was a rather nice discussion developing about a few pages ago).

As such, a CDI on World Progression, where map meta events are discussed alongside scope and persistance of DEs, meta event chains, and interaction with the Living Story, would be a more suitable place for discussion of this, and frame the topic in a different, and in my opinion, better direction. I’d hope you have this topic on your list for future CDIs already.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

-A reworked (cleaner) version of Signet of Capture would work very well for Role Diversification.

Just thinking.. With a signet of capture, would it work for just utility abillities?
I personally think Guild Wars 2 still need swap able Weapon skills, so each weapon would be possible to use for different roles. Have this been thought of or..?

Grandmaster.2683:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

-A reworked (cleaner) version of Signet of Capture would work very well for Role Diversification.

Just thinking.. With a signet of capture, would it work for just utility abillities?
I personally think Guild Wars 2 still need swap able Weapon skills, so each weapon would be possible to use for different roles. Have this been thought of or..?

Ugh… that has the tainted smell of specialization to it. If you allow specialization, people will begin to require specialization. That’s definitely not a good thing for this game.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Excellent post Nike.

Your question here:

‘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.’

We don’t teach it well enough and therefore it is obfuscated to the point that players have already invested heavily in a particular role making experimentation in diversification less appealing (for a multitude of reasons).

Recently however we have been working kitten balance and situational role parity and bit by bit in game you can see player’s experimenting much more. This is a very good sign and will afford us a stronger foundation to build our content on moving forward.

Thus the timing around this topic is actually excellent.

Chris

I like the “Train with the militia” renown heart at Township of Claypool (Queensdale).

There they teach you how to use the rifle, the shield and the sword against a shield. Would be nice if were other training camps but for the different professions. They could teach to use different skills and encourage players to test different game styles.

They could also add a master that teach you a new skill if you beat it in a fight similar to the Belcher’s Bluff’s challenges but with attack, block, evade, etc.

VOLKON.1290:

Grandmaster.2683:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

-A reworked (cleaner) version of Signet of Capture would work very well for Role Diversification.

Just thinking.. With a signet of capture, would it work for just utility abillities?
I personally think Guild Wars 2 still need swap able Weapon skills, so each weapon would be possible to use for different roles. Have this been thought of or..?

Ugh… that has the tainted smell of specialization to it. If you allow specialization, people will begin to require specialization. That’s definitely not a good thing for this game.

Specialization is not the problem, there is already plenty of specialization in the game, the problem comes when only one specific setup is viable for a certain dungeon or w/e. You cannot really avoid specialization.. Adding more options for each weapon would only increase versatility of each weapon.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Eli,

I will be meeting with Izzy to discuss this proposal in detail. He will respond once we have had a chance to do so.

Chris

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the response, I await your reply.

Also, thanks for the feedback from other posters, I haven’t had a chance to respond, but keep up the discussion!

The Lost Witch.7601:

Orpheal.8263:

New Crafting Jobs that GW2 should receive are:

• Writer
• Tinkerer
• Peasant
• Artisan
• Enchanter
• Musician

Just a few I can think about, that would be fitting.

I would add the alchemist to that list. With temporary recipes that are on a mysterious rotation. The crafting process is filled with riddles and guesswork.

I wrote about it earlier here.

What do you think that these crafting jobs should produce btw?

I would like to see a crafting job that make environmental weapons.

Yoh.8469:

Sirendor.1394:

zamalek.2154:

Sirendor.1394:

Subclasses are bound to fail if they don’t fix their unholy trinity of Dps, Control, Mitigate and add a bigger need for Support, Utility and Tank.

This arises because of the fact that you can “kill or be killed.” You don’t need Support, Utility and Tanks in the group if the group can rush in and kill the boss in 6 seconds – before the boss can put out any meaningful damage.

The original intent (as far as I have read) was to avoid damage in the first place; instead of soaking it up (Tank) or undoing it (Healer). I agree with ANet as far as this goes – Healer/Tank/DPS leads to braindead gameplay that is more like The Typing of the Dead than a challenging fight.

Unfortunately the current design leads to the braindead stacking behavior we see (as well as zerker) and this means that the design needs to be tweaked. Players will always find the path of least resistance.

So while I agree with you about the current problem; I also agree with ANet because they were trying to fix another problem. Here is an idea that is within the parameters of what ANet were originally trying to do by eliminating the [brain dead] trinity:

Drop a whole bunch of new boons, support conditions and statuses; that are very useful and are exclusive to the support/utility classes (when built in a support/utility way). E.g. Apply a shield to nearby allies – the can absorb Healing Power * 3 hit points and explodes for Toughness * 3 damage when destroyed.

Edit: Completely off topic: another thing you could do to encourage diverse builds is to introduce a panic mechanic – similar to enraged; but instead it activates if the boss loses HP too fast. A super-reflective shield for 1-2s (100% reflected back to the source, no cast time)? Another panic attack could be one that deals more damage the closer you are to the other players. Maybe have a pool of 15 or so that every boss has access to?

You are right of course, but judging from what we’ve seen so far from Anet, I doubt a complete overhaul of the combat and the PvE is going to happen. The trinity wasn’t perfect, but at least it held roles. This doesn’t hold any roles at the moment.

To me, what they should have done is made every class a distinct role and make it so each class has a set of abilities, instead of simple combat options. For example in a dungeon there’s a door you can’t seem to pass? Your engineer mate can create a bomb at his own cost (it shouldn’t be easy, but challenging) and the team mates have to gather the items he needs for the bomb throughout the dungeon.

The thing we need to get rid of first is the stacking. It should never be easy to complete a dungeon, but challenging. It shouldn’t require: stack in this corner and tap all your skills. I agree that combat has to be active, hence the active damage mitigation, but it should leave space for support classes. And support should be necessary in a dungeon in order to survive.

Right now the best defense is offense. It shouldn’t be like that.

That is a point, stacking I mean.
Body blocking is really odd in this game, and it seems to cause more problem then it solves. Namely that there is a sever lack of it.

And what’s really interesting is that it seems be something that can be turned on or off at a whim. Try this, go up to a natural mob and run through it a couple of times.
No body blocking for naturals or allies, but as soon as you attack it, boom body blocking is in full swing.

So the question I’d like to ask, is why isn’t it on all the time? (or only while in combat)
So that your body blocked by allies as well as enemies. Not only would this prevent stacking in dungeons, requiring people to actually fight for once, but in WvW it would help out immensely.

-
Half the problem with WvW is that you can have 20 million idiots standing right on top of each other, in zerkers gear no less, and just face roll the keyboard to victory.
No tactics, no strategy.

But if space was actually importent, maybe, just maybe mass combat would evolve to be something other then a mindless cluster-f!

Body blocking does indeed exist, but it’s an option at the moment (toggled on or off in general settings menu). It should be on always, not only for enemies but also body-blocking allies, so you can’t do 30v1. It’s a shame that what you describe is possible at the moment. I’m not sure how AoE, ground targetting and ranged projectiles would work in that case though. It would require a complete overhaul of the current system, most probably something that Anet will not or can not do.

The proposal as stated sounds great and I would be very excited if at least some of it would eventually make it into the game. Besides that this has been a really interesting process to follow and I am looking forward to the next one.

I wanted to add some input into the proposal, mostly concerning your player housing idea. I would first advise looking at how other games handle player housing. The main games that player housing enthusiasts enjoy are Everquest 2 and Rift, so I would suggest examining how they implemented theirs. I would also like to emphasize that you should make true player housing, where you can place, resize and move items. Another essential thing is the ability to add permissions for certain players, allowing them the ability to move and add items in your house.

Secondly, I think that gaining items through the open world is an excellent idea but it is also a golden opportunity to add housing items to existing trade-skills, for example, armorsmiths could create decorative suits of armor, tailors could create cushions, beds, etc. These items could then be a way for these trade-skills to make a profit. In addition to this, consider allowing people to add crafting stations to their houses, which would add utility.

I would also suggest that housing items should be tied into other parts of the game. For example, adding achievements to kill certain world bosses could give a trophy, as well as completing slayer achievements. Zone completion should also unlock vendors with unique items from the zone.

Another area which would benefit from this is the living world and personal story – whether through drops, meta and achievement rewards or through a Zenith Weapon style locker. This would enrich the feeling of actually gaining meaningful items. When you implement the ‘grail quest’ idea, housing items could be rewards, ’cause it would be awesome to have trophies and mementos.

Finally, I think an important thing is to realise that some people like building from scratch, while others will just want to decorate. Add housing in cities first, then add housing in the open world. I would also like to suggest tying housing into the gem store in some way. Just don’t make all the cool stuff gems only.

coffen.5471:

A dev mentioned the possibility of player housing. I’d like to say this addition would be amazing, if you do it correctly. This would add extra end-game activities and distractions while people aare in the leveling process.!!!!!!

ArenaNet, make it happen!!

I hope if housing is implemented it is been done in a fun way, where we can craft our furniture and get items from quests that can be put in our house .. and not that its just something like in Runes of Magic where they only sold us housing items via Cash-Shop.

I would really encourage the devs to take a look at the housing in Everquest 2 .. something like that is what i really dream of

Grandmaster.2683:

VOLKON.1290:

Grandmaster.2683:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

-A reworked (cleaner) version of Signet of Capture would work very well for Role Diversification.

Just thinking.. With a signet of capture, would it work for just utility abillities?
I personally think Guild Wars 2 still need swap able Weapon skills, so each weapon would be possible to use for different roles. Have this been thought of or..?

Ugh… that has the tainted smell of specialization to it. If you allow specialization, people will begin to require specialization. That’s definitely not a good thing for this game.

Specialization is not the problem, there is already plenty of specialization in the game, the problem comes when only one specific setup is viable for a certain dungeon or w/e. You cannot really avoid specialization.. Adding more options for each weapon would only increase versatility of each weapon.

Well… that depends on the options added. If you could equip heal-type skills in every slot you’d have people doing that, thinking they’re a healer and scoffing at anyone else that is actually using the full extent of their abilities.

Besides, I don’t think new skills on existing weapons is the answer when we have all these weapon types already existing that professions can’t use yet. I’d much rather see what my mesmer can do with a hammer or dual-wielding pistols than I would like to switch out a skill on the great sword. All those weapons we can’t use yet means a whole lot of potential new skills.

Peppit.9057:

I wanted to add some input into the proposal, mostly concerning your player housing idea. I would first advise looking at how other games handle player housing. The main games that player housing enthusiasts enjoy are Everquest 2 and Rift, so I would suggest examining how they implemented theirs. I would also like to emphasize that you should make true player housing, where you can place, resize and move items. Another essential thing is the ability to add permissions for certain players, allowing them the ability to move and add items in your house.

Secondly, I think that gaining items through the open world is an excellent idea but it is also a golden opportunity to add housing items to existing trade-skills, for example, armorsmiths could create decorative suits of armor, tailors could create cushions, beds, etc. These items could then be a way for these trade-skills to make a profit. In addition to this, consider allowing people to add crafting stations to their houses, which would add utility.

I would also suggest that housing items should be tied into other parts of the game. For example, adding achievements to kill certain world bosses could give a trophy, as well as completing slayer achievements. Zone completion should also unlock vendors with unique items from the zone.

Another area which would benefit from this is the living world and personal story – whether through drops, meta and achievement rewards or through a Zenith Weapon style locker. This would enrich the feeling of actually gaining meaningful items. When you implement the ‘grail quest’ idea, housing items could be rewards, ’cause it would be awesome to have trophies and mementos.

Finally, I think an important thing is to realise that some people like building from scratch, while others will just want to decorate. Add housing in cities first, then add housing in the open world. I would also like to suggest tying housing into the gem store in some way. Just don’t make all the cool stuff gems only.

this

the one thing that sort of scratches in the back of my mind about the proposal is that the home instance is getting confused with what most people mean when they say player housing.

It would be one thing to add a player house that we can customize to the home instance (not ideal but ok) and quite another to try and pass the home instance off as actual player housing because it is not.

I still think for player housing we should consider that the Consortium has a lot of real estate for sale in Southsun… just saying. The karka could be pushed back from the north, the area developed and there you go. Of course… there’s always the risk that the karka try and reclaim their lost lands in the future… could be event-full.

VOLKON.1290:

I still think for player housing we should consider that the Consortium has a lot of real estate for sale in Southsun… just saying. The karka could be pushed back from the north, the area developed and there you go. Of course… there’s always the risk that the karka try and reclaim their lost lands in the future… could be event-full.

Open world housing like that would indeed be fun in your case with a PvE element where the karka can attack. However, the place you are referring to would be to small.

I don’t know how much space would need but I think it’s a least 3 maps fully dedicated to it. Plus I would then also give the option for PvP maps for housing so guild can fight over land and members can build there house on that land. That adds something for the people who like PvP.

talking about improvements and activties, i think that would be a great thing having something like ascension quest in gw 1, and with that player’s can achieve epic traits and utilities, or something like mods for weapon abilities! the quest would bring character in new Areas and open the haunt for monster skills with sigils or other stuff like that!

Would just like to add, the node pack you added to the gem-store would have been a perfect item to have obtainable through a housing related quest/event/craft. ( I assume it was already in development before this thread was created and not rushed in when it was discovered people like nodes in their house from this thread.)

On an economic note, you may want to consider looking at the gem store pricing, I suspect the total amount of money generated by that node collection would actually go up if you had say priced it at 200gems , most items seem to go for quite high prices which kind of eliminates impulse purchases.

Here’s my suggestion .

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Our Horizontal Progression Proposal
[…]
Chris

I would sign this one, if the focus would be on more skills/sub-classes/weapons. Everything that gives me more choices how to change my skillbar!
(Signet of Capture was a really cool way to get new skills and would be great for some new ones! )

I don’t feel like housing should be on the top 3 priority list at all…

Devata.6589:

VOLKON.1290:

I still think for player housing we should consider that the Consortium has a lot of real estate for sale in Southsun… just saying. The karka could be pushed back from the north, the area developed and there you go. Of course… there’s always the risk that the karka try and reclaim their lost lands in the future… could be event-full.

Open world housing like that would indeed be fun in your case with a PvE element where the karka can attack. However, the place you are referring to would be to small.

I don’t know how much space would need but I think it’s a least 3 maps fully dedicated to it. Plus I would then also give the option for PvP maps for housing so guild can fight over land and members can build there house on that land. That adds something for the people who like PvP.

Unless there was a full town type of structure there with a variety of homes to select from and once you “owned” one the interior was more of a personal instance. May the artists forgive me, but say there were 20 different styles of houses there for sale, you’d buy one and get the key to access it. They could even steal a little Timelord technology and make them bigger on the inside.

VOLKON.1290:

Grandmaster.2683:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

-A reworked (cleaner) version of Signet of Capture would work very well for Role Diversification.

Just thinking.. With a signet of capture, would it work for just utility abillities?
I personally think Guild Wars 2 still need swap able Weapon skills, so each weapon would be possible to use for different roles. Have this been thought of or..?

Ugh… that has the tainted smell of specialization to it. If you allow specialization, people will begin to require specialization. That’s definitely not a good thing for this game.

People are already specialized. 99% of the players in this game (hyperbole) are specialized in outputting as much damage as possible.

Peppit.9057:

Secondly, I think that gaining items through the open world is an excellent idea but it is also a golden opportunity to add housing items to existing trade-skills, for example, armorsmiths could create decorative suits of armor, tailors could create cushions, beds, etc. These items could then be a way for these trade-skills to make a profit. In addition to this, consider allowing people to add crafting stations to their houses, which would add utility.

I’d personally rather have a full-fledged furniture-crafting craft utilizing wood, metal, leather, and cloth to make furniture of all types and qualities (tiers) than to see existing crafts try to fill our home-furnishing needs. Such a craft could also make bags in the same vein as the armor-making crafts (a “soulbound items go here” or “consumable items go here” bag would be most welcome).

darkace.8925:

VOLKON.1290:

Grandmaster.2683:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

-A reworked (cleaner) version of Signet of Capture would work very well for Role Diversification.

Just thinking.. With a signet of capture, would it work for just utility abillities?
I personally think Guild Wars 2 still need swap able Weapon skills, so each weapon would be possible to use for different roles. Have this been thought of or..?

Ugh… that has the tainted smell of specialization to it. If you allow specialization, people will begin to require specialization. That’s definitely not a good thing for this game.

People are already specialized. 99% of the players in this game (hyperbole) are specialized in outputting as much damage as possible.

Not in WvW (on my server at least) I can assure you that. But even if that’s true, why make it worse?

As promised/threatened/foreshadowed…

Chris Whiteside.6102:

— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing (Customizable from rewards gained in the open world), Guild Halls (Customizable from mass play rewards) and Map Wide Meta events unlocked through Faction progression (Leading to both individual and group rewards such as titles and skins)

<snip>

- Players should be able to have multiple methods of achieving ‘Grail Quests’, rather than a section of the journey being based on Jumping Puzzles and that alone for example.

I feel the general rule of multiple pathways should be applied to the Housing/Halls as much as to Role Diversification. For example~

Furnishing your House and Hall should draw upon many existing activities… and their currencies. Inn addition to unique, thematic drops or Event Rewards found out in the world we could also look forward to a variety of crafted items, with versions of each item spread across the material tiers – so Huntman might create chairs, ranging from simple lashed together greenwood stick chairs all the way up to… OMG, is that a couch made of Spiritwood and upholstered in Damask because if so I WANTSES ONE!

And to reward existing modes of play I would like to see housing decorations that can be bought with gold coin, bought with karma, and some items that can be bought with either currency. In the MMO economic game of faucets and sinks, this is a rare opportunity to introduce some new sinks without players feeling directly persecuted. In the process we also refresh the interest in these currencies and their gathering.

I would hope to see (at least) 3 new house items per dungeon, their themes informed by the dungeon’s motif. One item for your house bought with Dungeon tokens, one item exclusively for Guild Halls bought with a mix of Dungeon Tokens and Guild Commendations (visible both at the Dungeon vendor and grouped all on a single page at the Guild Rewards vendor so people can see it from both sides of the equation) and a house item that requires an excruciatingly rare new recipe dropped only in the matching dungeon – a continuation of the rare jewelry recipes that exist on the loot table now. With 8 dungeons and 8 crafting profession it shouldn’t be too hard to distribute these fairly. Imagine a “cornucopia feasting table” recipe made by Cooks and found in the Twilight Arbor, while a unique Iron-cast Char statue recipe for Metalsmiths drops only in the Citadel of Flame.

Oh, and a couple gem store exclusive furnishings/decorations too .

And lastly in regards to Guildhalls, it needs to be mentioned there has to be a sane and civil system for players to volunteer/contribute to the greater glory of the shared space, while being confident that anything they kick-in directly will be returned to them in the event of intolerable drama. For example no one but the creator/owner of an item can destroy it. If it is removed from display in the guild space it either goes into a guild closet where its still available for future use, or it is mailed directly back to its owner. Likewise if a person pulls out or is thrown out of the guild, their distinct contribution must be disentangled as gracefully as possible. You are just so much better off baking this into the system instead of turning it into a whole new class of headaches for Support to resolve. Guilds can handle internal agreements to tithe towards the purchase of goods, but if someone finds/builds a uber-rare decoration and turns it over for shared use, flagging it for return in case of misadventure can save on a lot of hard feelings. Make ownership of furnishing not something subject to dispute.

Morrigan.2809:

Devata.6589:

Morrigan.2809:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

timmyf.1490:

~

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

Mmm I love exploring but I also have limited time- so when I am in the mood, sure I ignore way points and explore- that happens more than you would think.

I do sometimes want to maximize my time and make use of the way points I have unlocked to hit events in far flung locations though.

What I Absulotely do not want to do, is to spend my 1 hour play time running to where I want to be- I want to get there and play.

thing is I have a choice now you see?

It’s not so much a choice because walking is not a viable option. It just takes way to long. Now with mounts it would indeed be more of an option. Just reducing the number of way-points and adding mounts would also be an option. Then there really are options.

First of all it is an option because if you think it takes too long -take a way point.

I don’t understand how you can complain about taking too long and then in the same breath in another post say, that we do not have time to check the scenery- or that there are no interesting places to explore.

I have been poking my head in holes, caves and falling down cliffs for over a year and I got to all those places on foot because I wanted to see what is there.

but let us take a look at mounts-
first- the terrain in GW2 is the best I have ever seen- it is also not very conducive to mounts since the terrain apart from being uneven, are often a mechanic in the game. Jumping puzzles are just the most obvious example

Second?- Have you ever considered that there are no mounts in the world?
No one uses them- and there is no mention of them anywhere that I have seen.

Take a look at the races for example- the Norn, Charr and Asura.
Both the Norn and the Charr would see it as an insult to ride a mount because it implies they are to weak to use their legs, the Asura would see it as an insult to their intelligence because they made gates after all.

I just cannot imagine a Sylvari riding anything tbh.

The only race who would make remotely sense is humans- but nowhere in thier lore is there such a thing.

So I get that you like mounts- but to imply the system is broken is not only untrue but taking something away to add some other questionable thing (mounts) is not a good idea.

“First of all it is an option because if you think it takes too long -take a way point.
I don’t understand how you can complain about taking too long and then in the same breath in another post say, that we do not have time to check the scenery- or that there are no interesting places to explore.“

It was all based on the idea of removing way-points or having maps without way-points. In that case walking would take to long. I think you missed the beginning of that discussion, that might be why you are confused about this.

Not that I want to go into the mount discussion again but I will answer your comment.
Like I commented on VOLKON here https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3490392

I still don’t see the terrain as any problem. Yeah you would not do a JP on a mount no. We have many animals that already walk like mounts do… or run like mounts do.

Yes there are many mounts in the game. We have cars, bikes (and actively building them), we have airships, air balloons (now above you in LA), normal ships, helicopters, transport vehicles (Dredge), horse carriages (Being used to get supply to Kessex Hills for toxic LS), on this image you see people riding horses https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/january-2013/ , we have dolyaks used to carry supply and brooms we can already mount on. The whole game is full of mounds. So from that lore view it does not even make sense we don’t have them. Not sure how you can see they are.

“Take a look at the races for example- the Norn, Charr and Asura.
Both the Norn and the Charr would see it as an insult to ride a mount because it implies they are to weak to use their legs, the Asura would see it as an insult to their intelligence because they made gates after all.“ Really? Just say you don’t like mounts thats fine. Charr have an active factory building mounts and I have seen Charr and Norn on airships I have have seen them all on brooms.

About the humans. Nowhere in there lore with the exception of all the horse carriages all over Tyria?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

Here is the proposal I believe we are making, please discuss and let me know if anything should be added or removed. Note many of us have read the thread internally and thus there has already been valuable impact.

Our Horizontal Progression Proposal

The Reward and Associated Journey

— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing (Customizable from rewards gained in the open world), Guild Halls (Customizable from mass play rewards) and Map Wide Meta events unlocked through Faction progression (Leading to both individual and group rewards such as titles and skins)

— Role Diversification: ‘Grail Quest’ (Personal rights of passage) style adventures through the open world (testing the player in combat, discovery, and puzzle solving) which others can engage in once the activities are activated which could reward the Hero with New skills/traits, new weapons, access to inaccessible existing weapons, and infusions.

— Hero Recognition (Reward) is a by product of the above two types of Horizontal Progression leading to Unique Skins, Titles, Rewards, followers and NPC reactions/opportunities based on the players individual feats in the world of Tyria regardless of how he/she chooses to play the game.

Global Rule Proposal governing the above:

- Where possible use the above design paradigm to reinforce and evolve the existing world.
- Players should be able to have multiple methods of achieving ‘Grail Quests’, rather than a section of the journey being based on Jumping Puzzles and that alone for example.
-A reworked (cleaner) version of Signet of Capture would work very well for Role Diversification.
- Sub-classes will be discussed again in a CDI once Arena finishes its current balance work in regard to roles.
- QOL features such as a wardrobe should support this global design.

Once we have discussed the proposal and the thread reaches conclusion we will sticky it and move onto CDI Process Evolution Phase 2.

Note this is the formulation of a collaborative proposal for discussion. Once the proposal is finalized it will be discussed internally. However there will be no promise of associated actions or schedule.

Thank you all so much for your hard work and your passion toward making GW2 awesome. This has been a really good CDI and I want to thank you on behalf of Arena for caring so much about the world we love.

Chris

Bump. The following reminder added:

Note this is the formulation of a collaborative proposal for discussion. Once the proposal is finalized it will be discussed internally. However there will be no promise of associated actions or schedule.

Chris

I did react on it but you might have missed it because you Bump?

Anyway, here it is again.

Add the more RP elements. As being discussed also on this moment.

Make collecting mini’s more of a play element (so put them really in the game behind bosses, dungeons, drops from group of people) add in other items in a similar way (fun items, recipe’s even dyes and if we ever get them mounts).

Make collecting ranger pets more a play element by making it more dynamic, puting also rare pets in the game.

Fun crafts.. see the man suggestions on the last 2 pages. Where you also really have to go into the world to get your stuff (not from a gold or other currency grind). Fun crafts should also be fun from level 1 to max if they even work with levels.

Lastly, make exploring the world a journey / a quest where you also meed and learn NPC’s. Not a list of locations to cross of your list.

I think that are some important RP-elements for horizontal progression that also many casual players will love.

Devata.6589:

“First of all it is an option because if you think it takes too long -take a way point.
I don’t understand how you can complain about taking too long and then in the same breath in another post say, that we do not have time to check the scenery- or that there are no interesting places to explore.“

It was all based on the idea of removing way-points or having maps without way-points. In that case walking would take to long. I think you missed the beginning of that discussion, that might be why you are confused about this.

Not that I want to go into the mount discussion again but I will answer your comment.
Like I commented on VOLKON here https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3490392

I still don’t see the terrain as any problem. Yeah you would not do a JP on a mount no. We have many animals that already walk like mounts do… or run like mounts do.

Yes there are many mounts in the game. We have cars, bikes (and actively building them), we have airships, air balloons (now above you in LA), normal ships, helicopters, transport vehicles (Dredge), horse carriages (Being used to get supply to Kessex Hills for toxic LS), on this image you see people riding horses https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/january-2013/ , we have dolyaks used to carry supply and brooms we can already mount on. The whole game is full of mounds. So from that lore view it does not even make sense we don’t have them. Not sure how you can see they are.

“Take a look at the races for example- the Norn, Charr and Asura.
Both the Norn and the Charr would see it as an insult to ride a mount because it implies they are to weak to use their legs, the Asura would see it as an insult to their intelligence because they made gates after all.“ Really? Just say you don’t like mounts thats fine. Charr have an active factory building mounts and I have seen Charr and Norn on airships I have have seen them all on brooms.

About the humans. Nowhere in there lore with the exception of all the horse carriages all over Tyria?

I find it humorous that you’re using as an example a piece of art that shows a horse, yet there’s no one riding any mounts in the artwork, just beasts of burden.

Mounts don’t fit in GW2. They don’t fit with the fast travel system, they don’t fit with the lore no matter how you try and twist things around. You don’t see the NPCs riding all over the place on mounts. You see two things… war machines and beasts of burden. Well, three if you include ships, however ships are not personal mounts. Mass transport systems are also not mounts, i.e. balloons, etc.

You keep mentioning these “horse carriages” all over Tyria, but for the life of me I can’t recall seeing a single one yet.

Yoh.8469:

Thou in either case, my point stands. The game would benefit quite a great deal from having body blocking exist, provided there aren’t any major technical hurdles.
Which I imagine there are.

The biggest problem with body blocking is how easy it is for players bent on inconveniencing others to exploit it. A team of ten or so could stand on the stairs leading up to the battlements of Stonemist Castle, for instance, and make it very, very difficult for anyone else to get up. I’m not sure how games that do have body blocking solve this issue, but there’s more than one way to skin a kitten. For instance, one of my favourite boss attacks from WoW hit everyone in an area, putting a stacking debuff on them that made the attack do more damage, and then hit everyone nearby, applying the same debuff. If you clustered together, it would do enough damage to kill you, but if you spread out, it was negligible. There may be technical reasons why this can’t be done in the GW2 engine, but there are several abilities that spawn AoE fields that spawn other AoE fields. Alternatively, it might go the simpler route of taking the damage dealt, multiplying it by how many friendly targets are nearby, and doing that much damage, which would not get around the ten target limit but would make ten people extremely unhappy.

I think any kind of Grail Quest system would need a quest log – this would, essentially, be a UI element which shows their progress through the Grail Quest, with reminders of what has happened and probably a reminder of where to go. I like the idea of having one page per chain, instead of the standard solution where you have a list of current quests and no context around them about what you’ve done.

I’d love to see the proposed Grail Quest system get repurposed for legendaries – instead of the existing ‘combine everything in the mystic forge’, have a quest where you put those same resources into trying to find and acquire the legendary weapon. Level 80 players could acquire a quest log for the legendary they want to acquire, which would list the resources needed (and in what order) and where they’re up to on the trail. For instance, the Flameseeker Prophecies might task you with following in the footsteps of the legendary human hero, from their beginnings in Ascalon, across the mountains to the Henge of Denravi, to ascension (but because you can’t get to the Crystal Desert, you’d have to head into Fractals to find some mist essence) and finally defeat an echo of the undead lich the human hero defeated long ago. Each step would require you to provide some of the components of the current recipe – maybe to begin, you’d need to run Ascalonian Catacombs to know that you need to follow the trail over the Shiverpeaks to where the Prince died, where you’d need some Icy Runestones and a Gift of Magic to head to the Ascalon Settlement, where a Gift of Ascalon and a Bloodstone Shard would be needed to lead you to the Henge of Denravi, and so on. In between, you’d have little events or challenges – maybe you have to run from the Black Citadel to where the Prince died without using waypoints in only a few minutes, or you need to talk to ghosts at the Ascalon Settlement in the right order.

The big advantage is that it’d give the legendaries a place in the world, would fit in well with the other grail quests that provide customisation options, and would break up the monotony of building a legendary a little bit by giving new things to do after each goal. You would absolutely need to provide players with a list of what to get ahead of time, and it’d need to be structured so that the more time-consuming elements come later, so players don’t try and grind up the one thing they need to advance, then start grinding the next thing. Otherwise, it’d make the legendary grind even more tedious.

I also want to get this down: if we’re going to have some kind of personalised quests, I definitely think one type should be ‘here is a picture of a location, go there’. GW2 has so many gorgeous locations, and a system that presents, essentially, screenshots and challenges players to find where a picture was taken from would highlight the great work already done. I was initially thinking this would be like a treasure hunt – you’d find treasure maps as a rare drop, and they’d ask you to find a specific view and dig for buried treasure there – but it works for basically any task that asks one player to head to a specific point.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

DarksunG.9537:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

They were variable and new, in they aren’t always up and in the same place.

If that’s what we call variable then we’re in worse shape than I thought. When I say variable I mean: There are 4 different outcomes to a fight with one of these guys: 2 win 2 lose. branching various outcomes where you chase the defeated foe, fight back-up, take him to a cell while attacked etc etc.. I shouldn’t know how it will end when I win or lose.

Well it is variable, just not the same way you meant it. Should have tacked “outcome” after it, and I’d have known what you meant.

Variable outcome events are an interesting proposal, and it might work to freshen things up. I’d also like the ending outcome to check whether players were even present for the event so something different happens if nobody contested it at all versus just not managing to beat it.

But i’ll save this whole conversation for if they do a CDI on events. I think it’ll be better received there and I’ll get a chance to get my wits and notes together. (Because, frankly, my mind isn’t on the events right now, but on the rewards/progression associated with them. Something which also needs brushing up but . . . as AB says, “That’s another show”)

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I loved Lost Shores. It was a lot of fun. Half my guild liked it too when we tried it. We were the lucky ones. For every person who enjoyed it and participated, I’d say four more got stuck in “Overflow City” where events were out of sync, where lag was atrocious, and disconnections were common.

yeah but equating how they should design game fun & progression based on tech is… ehhh… i dunno..

I think it’s very simple. If people can’t play in an event or something because of technical issues, it is not fun. Bluntly, Lost Shores wound up being a stress test of live servers and they probably got a lot of good information on what those systems could handle that weekend.

I would kind of like to see what it would have been if it had been designed as a Living Story chapter in scope (that is, over two weeks and with the big events as instanced things you could enter) as opposed to “one time only event open to everyone who can cram into Lion’s Arch”.

Probably would have gone over better.

Also, and to a lesser extent, if the tech/software isn’t able to produce progression as desired, it needs to be known why and if it can be fixed. If it can’t be fixed then one or the other needs to get changed so it works. That is an engineering decision only the people who are actually looking at the whole of the data can make, not us the end users.

In any case, I agree mostly with your point. Much similar, I’d like to see more DEs, and I’d like to see more diversity in them, and while I’m at it I’d like to see a catapult which fires asura. (I’ll settle for two out of three here.)

(Disclaimer: The last may not be an opinion you hold, or dare say publicly but don’t worry about it.)

Yes and no. Doing it in an instance would feel not as world changing as it did with the open world event. But they should indeed make a better system. The idea was great but the fact that it did only happen at once specific time was a problem.

We already have an overflow system. Maybe work with server before and after the change and have an event running every hour for 24 hours. When you log in and you did not have the event yet you will be put in a overflow that will soon start with the event.

In addition I would record the first event per server. Literally record it. Then put that in some log-file you can see back. The people that where there might even see them-self. That would really give the feeling of being part of it.

Then after such a event leave behind content.

I would love that.. You have a living world indeed where you see things change but no temporary achievements or rewards. That stuff is all added after the change.

In a way Karka invasion and then going to the island is how imho the LS should have been. Of course there where some technical difficulties that have to been solved.

Nike.2631:

Morrigan.2809:

Both the Norn and the Charr would see it as an insult to ride a mount because it implies they are to weak to use their legs…

Norn have a mount already. It takes up their elite skill slot and its called ‘Become Snow Leopard’.

Which actually suggest a workable trade-off for mounts that doesn’t completely short-change people who are already built for sustained speed buffs. Go look up the Superior Rune of the Traveler on the Trading Post – people are willing to pay big gold and a hefty opportunity cost for what “mounts” would typically provide…

If mounts were Elite skills that worked like signets that gave an out-of-combat-ONLY passive speed buff (likely no greater than the +33% we know the system can handle now…), you might be able to build a reasonable argument for their inclusion being horizontal. Trade-off is if you get into a fight with a mount slotted, you’re not running an Elite for the duration of that fracas. You could collect/earn mounts and then slot them when you want to use them.

It would take away the game element of collecting them in the world. So while it would be nice next to it I would not use it as the only system. BTW like that Asura have the Golem mount.

I see so many animals in the game that I would like to charm into a ranger pet yet the game only allows me a small portion of them.

Ranger pets need expanding to include all the working animals in the game.

I would like a Stag pet, for example.

(and i miss the zoo island from gw)

Devata.6589:

Yes and no. Doing it in an instance would feel not as world changing as it did with the open world event. But they should indeed make a better system. The idea was great but the fact that it did only happen at once specific time was a problem.

We already have an overflow system. Maybe work with server before and after the change and have an event running every hour for 24 hours. When you log in and you did not have the event yet you will be put in a overflow that will soon start with the event.

In addition I would record the first event per server. Literally record it. Then put that in some log-file you can see back. The people that where there might even see them-self. That would really give the feeling of being part of it.

Then after such a event leave behind content.

I would love that.. You have a living world indeed where you see things change but no temporary achievements or rewards. That stuff is all added after the change.

In a way Karka invasion and then going to the island is how imho the LS should have been. Of course there where some technical difficulties that have to been solved.

You might find this solution interesting if you hadn’t seen it before .

VOLKON.1290:

Devata.6589:

VOLKON.1290:

I still think for player housing we should consider that the Consortium has a lot of real estate for sale in Southsun… just saying. The karka could be pushed back from the north, the area developed and there you go. Of course… there’s always the risk that the karka try and reclaim their lost lands in the future… could be event-full.

Open world housing like that would indeed be fun in your case with a PvE element where the karka can attack. However, the place you are referring to would be to small.

I don’t know how much space would need but I think it’s a least 3 maps fully dedicated to it. Plus I would then also give the option for PvP maps for housing so guild can fight over land and members can build there house on that land. That adds something for the people who like PvP.

Unless there was a full town type of structure there with a variety of homes to select from and once you “owned” one the interior was more of a personal instance. May the artists forgive me, but say there were 20 different styles of houses there for sale, you’d buy one and get the key to access it. They could even steal a little Timelord technology and make them bigger on the inside.

Could work but would also take something away from the feeling of your personal house. You now see 20 people entering ‘your’ house.

darkace.8925:

Peppit.9057:

Secondly, I think that gaining items through the open world is an excellent idea but it is also a golden opportunity to add housing items to existing trade-skills, for example, armorsmiths could create decorative suits of armor, tailors could create cushions, beds, etc. These items could then be a way for these trade-skills to make a profit. In addition to this, consider allowing people to add crafting stations to their houses, which would add utility.

I’d personally rather have a full-fledged furniture-crafting craft utilizing wood, metal, leather, and cloth to make furniture of all types and qualities (tiers) than to see existing crafts try to fill our home-furnishing needs. Such a craft could also make bags in the same vein as the armor-making crafts (a “soulbound items go here” or “consumable items go here” bag would be most welcome).

When housing would come in yeah then this would also be a gread addition as a ‘fun craft’.

Devata.6589:

It would take away the game element of collecting them in the world. So while it would be nice next to it I would not use it as the only system.

Having a ‘mount’ fill your Elite slot is only about how to balance the benefits – the journey towards revealing them on the skills page or even unlocking them directly could be anything. Rescue a mount from monsters. Buy it at the Bazaar of Four Winds. Receive it as a gift from your Centurion. Build it in your lab.

Let the journey inspire you!

…just don’t let the advantages obsolete the tools and choices we can make now.

BTW like that Asura have the Golem mount.

I’ve always had this vision of an Asura on a Moa… and the player having little to no control over which way the Moa runs…

Devata.6589:

VOLKON.1290:

Devata.6589:

VOLKON.1290:

I still think for player housing we should consider that the Consortium has a lot of real estate for sale in Southsun… just saying. The karka could be pushed back from the north, the area developed and there you go. Of course… there’s always the risk that the karka try and reclaim their lost lands in the future… could be event-full.

Open world housing like that would indeed be fun in your case with a PvE element where the karka can attack. However, the place you are referring to would be to small.

I don’t know how much space would need but I think it’s a least 3 maps fully dedicated to it. Plus I would then also give the option for PvP maps for housing so guild can fight over land and members can build there house on that land. That adds something for the people who like PvP.

Unless there was a full town type of structure there with a variety of homes to select from and once you “owned” one the interior was more of a personal instance. May the artists forgive me, but say there were 20 different styles of houses there for sale, you’d buy one and get the key to access it. They could even steal a little Timelord technology and make them bigger on the inside.

Could work but would also take something away from the feeling of your personal house. You now see 20 people entering ‘your’ house.

True. Just one possible idea to toss around that fits in with the story of the game.