Guild Wars 2

On the topic of armor and weapon skins as a form of horizontal progress, the ability to modify skins of equipment needs to be improved. While the transmutation stones & crystals are a novel method to allow players to combine different stats with different skins, the method is often clunky and it often leads to undesirable or unnecessary item destruction.

There are a couple approaches that seem better for this. One example would be craftable or purchaseable skins that can then be directly applied to any gear. The behavior of these would be similar to how the Hall of Monuments skins or the Radiant/Zenith skins from achievement chests behave. Since the skins would not have any inherent stats, the cost to craft or purchase basic versions could be significantly cheaper than crafting regular armor pieces of the same type. Meanwhile, special skins would function much like those HoM/Radiant/Zenith skins and not have any comparable in-game armors or weapons – they would only exist as skins that can be applied to gear.

Another method would be to add a new slot to all gear specifically for the appearance, and then allow players to select options from something like the PvP locker.

Either of these methods would then allow transmutation crystals to be completely phased out of the game, and any left over in the game could possibly be traded into NPCs for some kind of alternate reward.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Note I ‘Look’ like a DPS war because i use a great sword (greatsaw) and a Longbow (Arthropoda). I like you believe that Horizontal Progression should be about role differentiation, however I feel like this system is already very core to the game but that we could do a better job of teaching how it works to a broader audience.

The problem here is that the Vertical Progression is ripping this very core straight out of the game. We all know how it works. To switch roles, you change traits, weapons, and armor/accessories. Everyone is clear about how role differentiation works and how stats and traits influence skills.

The problem is that it is way too expensive to switch roles.

I cannot afford to snap my fingers and get a new set of ascended armor, rings, amulet, trinkets, back piece, and weapons every single time I want to switch stats. It just ain’t happening. With the way the system is set up, I have to spend months assembling Best-In-Slot gear for one character running one build for one single role. If I want to start using a condition build instead of my current power setup, that’s fourteen to sixteen different items I have to make or purchase from scratch to fill armor, accessories, and weapons. Not to mention, every single time I work on achieving a new build, that’s resources I could spend gearing up an alt.

Making Vertical Progression expensive is fine. Moving from Exotic to Ascended should feel like a serious challenge. The core flaw, however, is that it is equally expensive to go from P/V/T to P/Pre/Crit with a single tier as it is to get your very first weapon of that tier. This system discourages diversity, chokes off the ability to switch roles, hinders gearing up alts, and is generally a royal pain in the posterior to manage anything besides one set, one build, one role play.

Horizontal Progression is being strangled. You don’t need to teach us how it works, you need to give us quality of life improvements to let us breathe freely once we’ve achieved a given tier.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Here is a crazy brainstorm idea, not in anyway indicative of our direction.

What if there was vertical progression in the Fractals with gear that increased in stats but when outside of the fractals defaulted back to BiS numbers?

I am asking this because it is going to generate some left field conversation not because I think it is or isn’t a good idea.

Chris

This could be a problem for kinda new people. It’s quite easy to get relics for few +5 ARs, but it would kinda made it hard to progress and again it would mean another set of gear in my bag pack (I have 148 slots now, but I don’t want to loose 8 of them just for fractals).

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Ok another brainstorm idea.

What if certain pieces of ascended gear could be crafted and sold on the TP such as gloves and boots?

Chris

Generally allowing any of high tier gear and mats for it acquirable by TP is bad idea.
People lost mountains of gold in Ascended crafting. You should move away from any TP ideas.

I also explained that is also th reason why people started threating legendaries like almost useless “only grind to get items” – yes, TP.

We need things that for acquire will require effort, not grind.
Any reputation systems, promoting playing doing various things, maybe redoing few and a lot of new, reasons to go back to dungeons, some tokens for redoing JP and all that could help.

All stuff in TP is kinda: “ok, 4 more hours in Frostgeorge train? Ok, I will do it..”

Not to mention that a lot of people have way to much gold due to TP playing and for them its like they own anything in the game without really playing it (leaving town).

That is really the issue you should work on to make vertical progression really promoting playing the game.

Just wanted to throw that here:

Horizontal or Vertical… It’s not a question you should have ask… Just make it fun! Don’t waste your time on focusing on anything else!

I heard peaople appealing for a branching class developement. Greatly discribed by the player Orpheos.

I am against this kind of direction, even though i love this concept in other games.

Guild Wars 2 in it`s core allready allows this multi class developement along the lines, thanks to it`s trait and skill limitations.
If i want to play another class direction, i just change how i set these up.

A branching tree which limits my choices does not make any sense with the current system in place.

However, there are still systems that could enhance the gameplay experience and character progression if we look at the distinction these systems usually bring with them:

unique looks
Right now players class choice locks them into one of three armor categories. A Mesmer can look like an elementalist and vice versa.
If you go light armor, you have three classes that can look exactly like you, making every class not unique.
The only visual representation are their skills (not changeable) and maybe a piece of starting gear.
This is where things could change. Basicly introduce class specific armor, that represent visually your characters choice.
Have three sets, representing these branching “roles” your character can take with their abilities:
- give a mesmer a rouge looking armor if he goes swordfighting, a gypsy design for when he goes illusionary etc…

Class specific “quests”
Your class has no influence on the world.
Games who allow you to unlock further spezialisation usually combine it with a journey. This is something Guild Wars 2 can certainly benefit from.
Allow us to delve deeper into our character to learn how he works, or the lore behind them.
Again with a mesmer analogy, let us find a magic rouge, who uses mesmer magic to trick the guards and you get in contact with him. learn some fighting etc.

You could combine that with an alternate way to aquire skills.
Maybe it could be used as a way to give skills an alternate look.

Visual representation
Another specialisation in other games comes aside from a different armor usually with another design of iconic skills.
If we look at Diabolo 3, a change in the applied rune changes the design and effect of an skill drasticly.
Now i do no want skills to work differently, since it will be a hell to balance, however you could give us an option to change the design certain skills display by choosing certain traits, or unlook “cosmetic” changes by finding and finishing these class specific quests.

Basicly instead of focusing on a different stat direction with a split class system, an visual representative is a better way in my opinion, to cut down on balancing issues while still allowing for a destinction in choices.

Even if it will cause certain items to be unobtainable for other classes, i think a certain unique direction on a class level in addition to the races is something this game is in need.

Right no i do not see a great need to split the classes further, if it allready possible with the system in place.
There are other ways to bring this distinctive effects of progression into the game, without creating a balancing nightmare.

It just does not make sense, if you are able to switch back and forth anyway, because it is no different from the current system.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Nike.2631:

Anyone here have a huge complaint against the idea of being able to buy Ascended Weapon/Armor Chests with some of our account-bound currencies?

Maybe~

Guild Commendations – 150 commendations, any stats
Badges of Honor – 800 badges, any stats
Dungeon Tokens – 1,000 w/ stat combinations matching the each dungeons’ existing flavors
Fractal Relics – 1,500 w/ stat combinations matching the current capacitors

((all quantities subject to change and offered only to inspire thought))

Good question. And morning/afternoon everyone. Just reading through all the new pages and great discussion. This is awesome.

Chris

At a time I hopped to see new ascended items for laurels, but this could work.
Of course people who spend their last copper for crafting will need a punching bag.

Yes, this could kinda work, but this still won’t anser the biggest of my issues – how to make ascended for my alts without me spending 2+ years or farming champions for a year.

Please, take it seriously. There are more people who likes to have alts in the game and if they go for ascended they don’t want to gear for years of everyday playing.

What about ascended gear being taken down from the amount of sets we have, to a smaller amount of sets that have selectable stats?

For example, Berserker, Rampager, and Knight’s gear would be put into a single item set, and you can choose between those three stat sets similar to legendary weapon stat selection.

Giving each set only three different archetypes would still have people crafting different pieces, if their build called for a stat set that wasn’t available on their current set of three, but it would greatly reduce the acquisition period, as you would have alternatives available at any given time. It would also set apart ascended from legendary, as ascended would not have all stat types available at any time, but only 3.

How about Ascneded gear becomes part of the account? Once you obtain it any of your characters can select the stats?

Gnat.9405:

What about ascended gear being taken down from the amount of sets we have, to a smaller amount of sets that have selectable stats?

For example, Berserker, Rampager, and Knight’s gear would be put into a single item set, and you can choose between those three stat sets similar to legendary weapon stat selection.

Part of the problem is refunding people who have multiple recipes within that set, or more troublesome, multiple pieces of gear already (It WILL happen before anything being discussed here is implemented).

Folding together “selectable stats”, either in clusters or all of them is gonna become more and more of a mess every day. Maybe it’ll be worth it, but I think there are other less intrusive solutions.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Dark FQ.1038:

I came up with this long ago but never made a post about it.

What about a diffrent part of Fractals of the mists that’s sort of a boss. Everytime when a party defeats a boss, they will fight against a harder boss. When the party is wiped, the party will get tp’ed back to the instance and have to start over. This will be hard content. I bet Arenanet and the community could think of bosses/ enemies from the past/present. Everytime you defeat a boss you will get better loot. (and mayble punish the players by letting them do it once a week.)

This is just my idea for progression (hard content).

Interesting Dark.

Chris

I had an idea similar to this but what if you split fractals into two routes.. the regular fractal route and a fractal raid route. People can do fractals they still love but the other route would be full blown raids based on GW lore. As you trug though the raid there could be a title track to let you know how far you have made it though there could be 3 to 5 titles per raid. for instance if you did an abbadon raid the first title could be “minion of abbodon” and the last one could be “master of abbadon”. Once you got the last title it would also come with a mini, for a abbadon raid it could be a chained and broken abbadon. Have other ideas but rushed for time.

Making the gear available account wide via ach panel method doesn’t really solve the alt problem – you’d still have to craft every piece of gear that you’d want your alts to use. If you craft a berserker heavy set and your alt is a condition necro, it’s no use

I wonder how feasible it would be to take a little trip back to GW1 and look at inscriptions again. Inscriptions could serve as the “containers” for your armor/ weapon stats, could be crafted (and found via other means) and could be removed from armor or weapons through some means… either simply when out of combat or perhaps a new crafting profession could be introduced. Then when you have a piece of ascended gear you could remove and replace the inscriptions to get the stat combinations you like.

Nice thing with this is that it also ties into the old lore of the game, to a degree.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Dark FQ.1038:

I came up with this long ago but never made a post about it.

What about a diffrent part of Fractals of the mists that’s sort of a boss. Everytime when a party defeats a boss, they will fight against a harder boss. When the party is wiped, the party will get tp’ed back to the instance and have to start over. This will be hard content. I bet Arenanet and the community could think of bosses/ enemies from the past/present. Everytime you defeat a boss you will get better loot. (and mayble punish the players by letting them do it once a week.)

This is just my idea for progression (hard content).

Interesting Dark.

Chris

This proposal is very interesting and i love games that implement this. I want to expand on how this could also be implemented in gw2 that might be interesting for a vast majority of players. Now i understand the Queen’s Jubilee-Queen’s Gauntlet activity sort of tried at this but I also want to add a few ideas from other games that might be fun/more difficult and make it a permanent feature that all persons would enjoy.

• Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. It has an area when speaking to the lightning dragon that you are able to one by one fight against all the bosses you have already faced in the game but only with the resources and weaponry that you should have had at that point in the game when you originally faced the boss. The higher you get the more money/collectibles you get. if you get much further you can get a shield (in gw2 maybe this could be a skin?) and other rewards. One of the side effects to this is that the only constant in this fight that you can bring is your sword and shield. Also if you take damage then you cannot heal for the next fight making this an amazing challenge in this game if you are to complete the full series of all bosses (i was never able to complete it)

• Now i hate to reference this game but they do have a system that works for this. Runescape (ow that hurt to type) has a place called the Dominion Tower. It’s all the boss fights in the game but every time you fight another boss you get a different negative effect placed on you. These negative effects add up and are not removed for the next boss fight. This could be anything from lower healing, to no consumables allowed, to being unable to use 2-handed weapons etc. This style of implementation works alongside the new fractal instabilities already, only it would stack them every boss fight to make it truly a challenge and more diverse than the fights you see these bosses elsewhere.

Some rewards could be:

• A progressive title that advances based on the most amount of bosses your team slayed in one run. Maybe the first tier of the title was idk… “Recruit Boss Slayer” and then tier 2 could be “Veteran Boss Slayer” etc etc. i know im bad at coming up with these names.
• A weekly bonus. I agree with Dark in that a weekly bonus would be more suitable as many groups could not group up on a daily basis and i would like this to be more of a challenge. If it were daily then it would have to be significantly easier. For what the reward was maybe if your team kills 5 bosses in a row you get 50s+xxx karma and if you kill 10 bosses in a row you get 2gold+xxxx karma and if you make it to 15 bosses you get 5gold+xxxx karma.
• Achievements Points (kind of goes with the titles)
• Skins for really high levels.
• Guild influence. This event/instance could easily become a guild event and could promote some awesome teamwork within guilds. Maybe make the instance scale with number of people and allow guilds to make parties larger than 5. This could be interesting.

This implementation would also add to the game similar to how fractals has. Fractals seems to have taken a history roll with the recent update as it now has the past living story content in it. I love this because as the game ages the fractals would grow in depth and have a history to it. This boss fight instance could do the same. Have it contain bosses of new and old. Could be interesting.

Now im not sure how hard this would be to implement but i cant imagine it to be too bad since the boss fights would come from within gw2 already. Although i thought that maybe some boss fights from gw1 could be added too like the lich or shiro or the lich+shiro fight, abbadon, etc etc. This would add something for players to reminisce about but it would also add lore to the game for players who haven’t played gw1.

Chris,

From our point of view, creating a full ascended armor takes hundreds of gold, thousands of mats. I’m happy since I have to build the heavy armor, I can farm the ori/mithril needed. But the light-armored have much trouble finding the right mats.

Why did you decide that it would require that much components to get the ascended armor for, regarding stats, 60 armor, 14 major, 11 minor (or 1% if crit dmg). Ok, we get the infusion slots, but that’s only really useful for the fractals.

Also, at the moment, on my main I have 4 sets of armor (1 for pve, 1 for wvw, 2 I use based on situation in both wvw and pve). Do you really want me to upgrade those to ascended given the time investment it represents? Also, because of ascended, I need to decide now which alt I want to play in which environment.

Maybe you should just make ascended “unlocks” and require only a few, more common, components to build a piece of the unlocked category. Now I feel like when I had only 1 gold and decided who would get it first, making me look more than one year back.

This way, I also don’t feel like I’m progressing, but regressing. I have the BiS, then you release something new and suddenly I don’t have the BiS anymore. So from my point of view, I’m losing. I now have 3 pieces of ascended armor in addition of everything else ascended, meaning that I can beat level 50 of fractals right now. You’ll open levels up to 60? When that happens I’ll already have the rest of ascended armor. Then when you’ll open levels until 70? I’ll already have the 3 +10 infusions. So for the next 2 releases of new fractal levels, I’ll be ready.

The vertical progression in this game just doesn’t make any sense.

You know what, just get rid of the levels and stats all together. And of the vertical progression while we’re at it. I’m very happing collecting skills, skins, utilities, etc.

This way you can reassign the people on it to make fights more challenging, because so far, all fights are really easy. The hardcore community doesn’t ask for better gear: only better fights.

You want this game to be accessible to casuals again? Well, the current vertical progression is not an option. Also, don’t make the rewards for skills-based fights vertical-progression-items: make them nice cosmetics items. In that regards, your pvp section is perfect.

I still cannot believe that we’re even discussing character progression without addressing broken class mechanics that impede progression. It’s like fixing the roof while the foundation crumbles beneath you.

Khisanth.2948:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Nike.2631:

Anyone here have a huge complaint against the idea of being able to buy Ascended Weapon/Armor Chests with some of our account-bound currencies?

Maybe~

Guild Commendations – 150 commendations, any stats
Badges of Honor – 800 badges, any stats
Dungeon Tokens – 1,000 w/ stat combinations matching the each dungeons’ existing flavors
Fractal Relics – 1,500 w/ stat combinations matching the current capacitors

((all quantities subject to change and offered only to inspire thought))

Good question. And morning/afternoon everyone. Just reading through all the new pages and great discussion. This is awesome.

Chris

I have a huge complaint against numbers that do not make much sense. I know you said they are just to inspire thought but these sort of problems also exist in the game already(the Halloween stuff for example).

150 guild commendations equals 25 weeks minimum assuming you do guild bounty, challenge, rush and puzzle every week and that assuming you are in a guild with all of those unlocked.

1000 dungeon tokens would take about a week or less.

1500 fractal relics is harder due to variance from fractal scale. Assuming 3x scale 6-10 runs per day it takes about a month.

Even if you ignore the actual numbers the less accessible thing should not take 25 times as long.

However, it is a good thing to bring up. Too many things in the game seems to ignore the math and just throws in randomly big numbers. Like kill 1million dolyaks.

I also think adding more things to Guild Commendations is a terrible idea. It already has too much contention as a currency for buying ascended gear. Adding more pressure does not seem right.

I forgot to add this. Matching stats to the existing dungeon items and the fractal capacitors is also bad. Those things already have poor stat coverage. You shouldn’t be trying to repeat a previous mistake on purpose.

There are approximately 18 possible stat combinations in the game but dungeons only cover 9 of them despite the fact that there are 24 “slots”(8 vendors with 3 prefix each).

The fractal capacitors even worse being limited to 4 stats.

Khisanth.2948:

The fractal capacitors even worse being limited to 4 stats.

Don’t the new backpieces (Light of Dwayna and Shadow of Grenth) have selectable stats of choice?

Zaoda.1653:

cesmode.4257:

Finnway.2183:

Nike.2631:

Anyone here have a huge complaint against the idea of being able to buy Ascended Weapon/Armor Chests with some of our account-bound currencies?

Maybe~

Guild Commendations – 150 commendations, any stats
Badges of Honor – 800 badges, any stats
Dungeon Tokens – 1,000 w/ stat combinations matching the each dungeons’ existing flavors
Fractal Relics – 1,500 w/ stat combinations matching the current capacitors

((all quantities subject to change and offered only to inspire thought))

Nike,

This is a great suggestion! But what do you think would be an appropriate number of dungeon tokens (we’ll use that as an example) to buy Ascended armor? Right now it costs 1380 tokens to buy a dungeon armor set. Should you be able to buy Ascended armor with tokens from just one dungeon or should it require tokens from all dungeons to purchase Ascended armor? i.e. 690 token from each dungeon (5520 total), or something. This would be a great step away from the “need gold to buy anything” mentality.

EDIT: Another thought, they could add new Ascended armor skins for each way you could unlock it. This would add prestige to Ascended armor not just because you have it, but because of the way you unlocked it (i.e. you excel at dungeons, WvW, farming gold, etc.)

~Finn

As long as you are able to buy the piece without requiring each of the currencies…
For example, if I could buy a piece of ascended with 800 honor badges, or 1000 dungeon tokens or 150 commendations..not 800 and 1000 and 150.

I don’t do guild missions, so, for example this would still exclude someone like me. Or, some people don’t run dungeons, or some people do not play WvW…

To add onto this, I think it would be an awesome opportunity (should Anet allow us to obtain ascended weapons and armor via other currencies/methods) to add GW1 weapon and armor skins that have been requested so often.

Imagine purchasing an ascended chest for example, choosing a shield, and then deciding to upgrade its looks by purchasing, say, a ‘tormented’ skin for 800 WvW badges or something, and thus turning it into an EPIC looking ascended shield? :-P see attachment below :-P

Sorry but my opinion on this addition of tormented skins back in the game isn’t right. For those of us who played gw1 and spent tons of time earning those skins and putting them in our hall of monuments this wouldn’t be fair. I agree many skins in gw1 could be used instead such as the voltaic spear, obsidian edge, eternal blade (although i spent tons of time geting this as well and i still have it), dhuum’s scythe, and the list goes on forever. So yes i agree this is a good opportunity to add gw1 skins and lore back into the game i want to make a point that how you implement these you must be careful since you will offend alot of us who spent insane amounts of time earning them there and shouldn’t have to spend more time in gw2 to get the same skin.

Jaken.6801:

I heard peaople appealing for a branching class developement. Greatly discribed by the player Orpheos.

I am against this kind of direction, even though i love this concept in other games.

Guild Wars 2 in it`s core allready allows this multi class developement along the lines, thanks to it`s trait and skill limitations.
If i want to play another class direction, i just change how i set these up.

A branching tree which limits my choices does not make any sense with the current system in place.

Guhracie.3419:

I still cannot believe that we’re even discussing character progression without addressing broken class mechanics that impede progression. It’s like fixing the roof while the foundation crumbles beneath you.

I agree with both of these gentlemen/ladies/nondescript-individuals-of-worth.

It’s more of a discussion for another thread, but the simple fact is the core class customization in Guild Wars 2 is a good idea, it just doesn’t have enough love. Many classes don’t have enough weapon sets to fill multiple roles with half their weapon bar, and many of their class mechanics are far too pidgeonholed.

Mesmers should be able to select which skills go on their F1-4 keys instead of having one playstyle constantly occupying that real estate. Necromancers should get a selection of death shroud skills or have them conform to their chosen weapon, rather than having a system that only favors point blank power builds. Rangers could use more exotic pet styles that allow them to fit more scenarios (such as pets that use the “latching” mechanic like karka hatchlings, or aerial pets that just buff participants and can’t be attacked in turn). And everyone, everyone needs more weapons, from melee items for Engineers to practical ranged weapons for Guardians and far more offhand choices for Thieves.

The system we have will be enough if it gets the tender love and care it deserves. Adding another layer of customization is pointless while the current one requires more attention.

But that is a discussion for another thread on another day.

Zaoda.1653:

Which leads me to my next point… Why are these ascended weapon and armor chests sooooooo hard to obtain? My elementalist has gone 441 WvW ranks without a single ascended weapon chest. Am I doing something wrong? Am I just extremely unlucky? In my opinion, if you’re like me and have gone that many ranks without an ascended chest, something is clearly wrong, and that ‘something’ needs to change.

The ascended boxes are currently just a pointless excuse so people can point to them as alternatives. Since the release of ascended weapons I’ve done well over 1000 worlds bosses for the chest. Then there are all the champion boxes from various sources. Then there are the random chests sitting out in the world. Then there are the various JP chests. I’ve also gotten some rank chests, no where near as much as you but in the end our results are exactly the same.

0 drops.
If you are unlucky I wonder what that makes me.

Judging from the stuff people link in mapchat(I know, not reliable) you have a much higher chance of getting a precursor than one these boxes.

Another thing about Factions/rep grind. Please make it account wide. Nothing is more miserable then having to grind rep on every single character (I’m looking at you MoP). If you don’t make it account wide then at least make it so that after your main gains the rep that the alts all get a big rep boost or something so they gain rep faster. Still think account wide is the way to go though.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Many of you have mentioned this problem, so let’s discuss it some more. If the supply of ascended gear is made more accessible to the populous either through drop rates of items and mats, and/or sale ability of gear then is this something that is acceptable to early adopters?

Regarding:

‘Yes, I know you’re communicating! I’m grateful. But getting a ‘game plan’ out to players is crucial, whatever ends up decided’

There has been a clearly communicated game plan. Our focus is on Horizontal progression and I felt that Ascended was a necessary step. However as many have pointed out this gear was designed to sit between Exotic and Legendary and thus be a better bridge. Personally i feel like it could be made more accessible through playing different parts of the game. Once we have concluded the discussion on the tightening up of Vertical Progression we will move onto Horizontal discussion. Huzzah (-:

Thanks for your input and i hope that adds some more clarity.

Chris

Thanks for the reply!

I’m aware that you’re going more horizontal. That’s good!

But what I was referring to about communication was precisely the potential problem for early adopters if accessibility ends up majorly revamped/eased. In other words, if tomorrow it’s going to be easier, tell people today so they don’t end up feeling like they wasted effort.

I would be happy if the difficulty to acquire ascended gear followed the difficulty curve already in place from blues to exotics.

From what I can tell, this curve is not linear… it is exponential… and I am fine with that. It makes sense.

If the difficulty to acquire ascended followed the same mathematical progression as appears to be in place currently (blues to exotics), I would be a happy camper. I am one of those hardline “horizontal progression” people, however, I could handle a more normal vertical progression curve.

There is enough in the game for me to tolerate vertical progression if it is laid out in the manner I describe despite having purchased the game because of the art (which is still there) and the promise of no vertical progression.

If nothing works out in a way I like, I will continue to play, when I play, in exotics. I want the joy back and breaking the HP promise took a lot out of it for me.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Many of you have mentioned this problem, so let’s discuss it some more. If the supply of ascended gear is made more accessible to the populous either through drop rates of items and mats, and/or sale ability of gear then is this something that is acceptable to early adopters?

I would be extremely annoyed but sometimes unpleasant things needs to be done to create a better future. This hinges heavily on the actual change. Ascended gear is already 90% buyable. Making them 100% buyable changes very little. At the end of the day that is still just a question of how much gold you are willing to farm and at what rate. If you improve the drop rate like you improved the drop rate for precursors then no that change would also be irrelevant. For a more recent example there is “Loot dropped by the Karka Queen has been improved”. Imperceptible change does not count as change. On the other hand I guess irrelevant changes would avoid the whole ‘offending early adopters’ problem but you end up offending everyone else.

Regarding:

‘Yes, I know you’re communicating! I’m grateful. But getting a ‘game plan’ out to players is crucial, whatever ends up decided’

There has been a clearly communicated game plan. Our focus is on Horizontal progression and I felt that Ascended was a necessary step. However as many have pointed out this gear was designed to sit between Exotic and Legendary and thus be a better bridge. Personally i feel like it could be made more accessible through playing different parts of the game. Once we have concluded the discussion on the tightening up of Vertical Progression we will move onto Horizontal discussion. Huzzah (-:

Thanks for your input and i hope that adds some more clarity.

Chris

I don’t see how you can say your focus is on horizontal progression when we have had a year+ of nothing but vertical progression with the single exception of maybe the new healing skills. The previous healing skill is also vertical, it is just in the negative direction. Your words might say horizontal but all your actions have been for vertical and actions have more credibility than words.

Since we are on the topic communication. I am very certain it has never been communicated that it is intended for everyone to be using a full set of legendaries. So why would it be necessary for there to be a bridge to legendary?

Lheimroo.2947:

Thanks for the reply!

I’m aware that you’re going more horizontal. That’s good!

But what I was referring to about communication was precisely the potential problem for early adopters if accessibility ends up majorly revamped/eased. In other words, if tomorrow it’s going to be easier, tell people today so they don’t end up feeling like they wasted effort.

By the time any of this gets decided it will already be months down the road from now, in other words too late.

Part 1

Since this is a discussion thread, can we have a serious conversation about progression both vertical and horizontal in regards to underwater?

I touched on these ideas on page 4, but i feel as they have gone overlooked.

If you take all the underwater areas in the game it at the very least makes up around 4 entire zones, or roughly 1/8 of the current playable map. So why is 1/8 of the world in such terrible shape as far as combat and content goes, and why has there never been a serious discussion or anything addressing underwater development from Anet (as far as I have searched)?

So to start I will list some of the current problems with underwater content that drives many players from it entirely.

1. Current trait builds have little to no added benefits for underwater combat. There are no joined underwater/on land traits, so pretty much everyone suffers underwater.
2. Breathers cannot be crafted, the highest quality of breather is “rare”, and they only are obtainable as a rare drop Tequatl or on the TP for an exorbitant price.
3. Breathers only have 3 available skins (white, grey, and red)
4. There are no World Bosses for underwater content.
5. Dungeons with underwater parts are avoided or disliked due to the disadvantage of playing in them.
6. There are no Major Dynamic events that take place underwater, and those dynamic events that do are often flooded by mobs and undoable by single people (talking about the inquest event in bloodtide near Sorrowful Waypoint.
7. Ground targeted utilities have no use underwater as you can only target surfaces.
8. Thief, Necro, Guardian, and Elementalist have only 1 elite that works underwater. Warrior has 2, however one is a banner (see above for ground targeted skill problems)
9. No races have any underwater Elites.
10. Most Area of Effect skill ranges are impossible to determine while underwater, unless against/near a surface.
11. There is a lack of diversity with underwater enemies. (dragon corrupted -primodus, sharks, 1 whale, inquest, pirates, krait, hylek, baracudas, skelk, wurms, jellyfish, maybe 3 largos, and drakes)

Part 2

Now proposed Ideas on how to fix/help with these issues.

1. No need for a separate trait build like that in pvp, simple additions/ alterations to current traits will do fine. Traits that benefit land only abilities/ weapons have added traits that will benefit aquatic only abilities and weapons. I.E. (10% of toughness is converted to power = no changes. Greatsword skills recharge 20% faster = GS and spear abilities recharge 20% faster.)
2. Craftable breathers of all qualities, including ascended. Breathers now drop from underwater mobs only, helmet drops removed from underwater mobs (or keep them in, doesn’t matter to much on that detail)
3. Additional Skins for breathers. I was super disappointed that “gas mask” skin was not for underwater. Ideas for additional skins: full helmet, gas mask like helmet (can see your face), breather/goggles combo, breathers like those from SW: Episode 1, old timey dive helmet, or anything you guys can think up.
4. Add an underwater world boss. Since underwater fights include the Z axis the mechanics will need to change from normal world bosses. Possible mechanics: multi level shockwaves that run in the X and Z axis (alternating for increased difficulty), all encompassing aura of damage while in close proximity (like Claw of Jormag’s Ice field), “Water tension”: boss sends mobs to wipe out those trying to escape to the surface, whirlpools: drag you to the bottom or throw you in a random direction… most ideal location for this would be Aquabase Terror Seven: Inquest, while researching “insert plot device” Unleash/ Attract from neighboring waters a (Water Elemental, Crazed experiment, Giant something, etc.) Terror base seven has a large enough area with sparse naturally occurring mobs. and it has 3 waypoints somewhat close by so people can get there accordingly ( block off the closest during the boss fight of course)
5. One of my favorite parts of this game is the underwater mini dungeon in Diessa Plateau, it has puzzle mechanics, a difficult boss, and a good dynamic event leading up to it. Hell it is the best underwater dungeon in the game. HotW has underwater parts, but the boss fights seem crowded and have terrible camera angles/obstructions.. Add additional underwater paths to dungeons, or an entire new dungeon that is mostly underwater. Large underwater areas (openish world, or a large sea cavern. Final boss fight in a not super clustered room, add smaller hallways for the inbetweens (ex: Underwater fractal) or even darkness like in the aforementioned fractal. New dungeon armor that is underwater themed.
6. Adjust the scaling for underwater events so that it correctly scales to the players in the vicinity, add dynamic event chains that are more than an escort quest (Orr).
7. Remove the ground targeting aspect of those utilities while underwater and have them just drop wherever the player is. Banners can turn into bouys or bobbers, aoe rez skills just rez in the immediate area.
8. Add at least one additional underwater elite for each class or alter the current ones so they can be used underwater. (reskin the lich form to something underwatery, call in the thieves guild while underwater, new underwater only tome (mix of offense and defense) “waterlogged Tome”, not sure what to alter for elementalist, so maybe just an new elite.
9. 1 underwater elite for each race. Charr: depth charge (sends out depth charges all around the charr, enemies explode on impact. Human: Servants of Lyssa (dolphins come to your aid and attack your foes). Norn: Become the Polar Bear (same as become the bear). Asura: Summon Dive suit (you summon a dive suit golem to attack foes, looks more aquatic than the normal suit). Sylvari: Algae ( send out and aura of algae, blinding/crippling foes and healing allies
10. AoE skills that normally are only shown via circles on the ground should be aesthetically altered to be thin bubbles surrounding the area they are effecting, it could be anything from a color change to particle effects surrounding/filling that area. kind of like the guardian bubble or elementalist boil/ electric field.
11. More/diverse whales, combatable dolphins/turtles, eels, squid/octopi, water elementals, alligators/crocodiles (if they exist in this world), giant versions of sea creatures, pirana, deep sea fish, karka (while underwater)

Finally what would really float my boat is a mostly underwater area, with only a few areas of actual land (small islands, a conglomeration of sea vessels, floating town/city) The rest of the map ranging in coral life, caves, deep waters, shallows, and tide pools.

Any and all thoughts, criticisms, contrasts, previews, or really any information at all would be greatly appreciated on any of these topics.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, if you have.

Gralo.7230:

Part 1

Since this is a discussion thread, can we have a serious conversation about progression both vertical and horizontal in regards to underwater?

Heh that is a very good point. I guess there is a tiny slot in my heart for vertical progression after all. In around a month I’ll have all ascended armor, all ascended trinkets, all ascended weapons and …. a masterwork aquabreather that only exist has a single possible stat combination so it doesn’t match anything else I am using.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I play a PVT AOE Heal shout War. I have played this role fora long period of time and have never played a DPS War. On top of this I am also easily able to hold agro and support my group. My DPS is terrible but I keep my team alive while they run around destroying everything (-:

Chris

Maybe you’re just testing us, but I’ll give it a shot anyways..

There is a massive dispiarity in the efficiency of offensive roles and defensive roles in GW2. In fact, most people who claim to run PVT “Tank” in GW2 dungeons are usually kicked and laughed at.

Firstly, let me make a distinction: There is nothing wrong with running survivability.

Sets like Valkyrie and Knights are actually common sets welcome into most groups. Their ability to provide offense while also providing defense is what makes them so great, and they hold a comfy place in most players’ hearts. To a limited extent, Rabid (Condi, Prec Tough) is also a decent set with survivability

Their efficiency lies in two key factors: Critical Damage, and Precision. The former is key to damage, while the latter is necessary to trigger many traits and sigils.

However, PVT is a set which provides neither of those. You’re saying it is within your own game’s mechanics to provide a support role instead, so mind clarifying?

Could you explain to me how you’re magically able to “hold” enemy agro and prevent their attacks from hitting other members? Against things like Archdiviner, Subject Alpha, and the Bloomhunger, where their attacks are mostly AoE, your claim really doesn’t make sense.

I suppose you can “hold” the Butcher’s agro in HoTW P1, but since his attacks are melee AoE, what purpose does “tanking” serve if it doesn’t actually prevent damage against allies?

What support does a PVT provide that someone more offensive cannot?

As for shout healing, granted, it’s not a bad build. However, healing only 3k HP every 20 seconds really isn’t something to boast about either, especially in a game where bosses hit for 5k HP. What exactly does this mitigate?

Chris, with all the best regards for the well-being of this game, I would like to run Arah P4 with you, and see if your claims are true.

Gralo makes lots of excellent points. Would love to see UW combat and progression given equal balance to the rest of pve. I love being underwater, it just needs improvements – most of which are covered in his post.

First you should read this post on MMORPG.com:

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/view/news/read/29353/Ascending.html

The writer makes a very good point about reaming the current implementation of Ascended Gear in Guildwars 2 by saying its not the problem of Ascended Gear being there, its a problem of how it was implemented and how you obtain it.

I like how crafting is made important in Guildwars 2, but there is no reliable way of advancing aside from boring mat collection and farming. The game promotes players that want to advance to enter an extremely tedious hamster wheel that uses pre-existing content and time-gated repeatable dailies.

This was the WRONG way to implement a progression scheme in the game.

If you look at games like RIFT, WOW, TOR, and just about everything else, progression is tied to large scale challenges and new content. Namely raiding.

I am not saying Gw2 has to have raiding, but the game does need to implement a system of advancement that links character progression to content progression.

Also advancement outside of crafting in Guildwars 2 is tied to RNG. By doing other content that awards the .00000005% chance of getting an ascended weapon box, the box you get might not even be the right stats that your character uses.

There should be a token system that allows players to advance in content, obtain ascended gear, and be rewarded for participation in a way that allows hardcore players to advance faster while still allowing casuals to experience the content.

RIFT was very successful in this through their implementation of “Instant Adventure” and story mode raids. I think Guildwars 2 can use a few lessons from Trion regarding this.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Feyhen.7432:

Hello everyone,

i would like to give my point of view.

I have had problems motivating myself to play Guild Wars 2 for a while know. Here is my personal reason why: I love character progresstion.
I love game with a vast amout of thinks where my character can evolve. I love getting new attacks, getting new ways to combine my attacks, getting new cool weapons and abilitys. Mechanics that opens up while new levels of gameplay.

I am not the gear type, i dont care much about vertical Progression.
I am more in love with horizontal progression and this is,

where Guild Wars 2 lacks.

I play as Warrior and although i have plenty of Alts, my Warrior is my favorite.

But since there are so limited skills and abilities my character can obtain, i dont feel like progressing any longer. I know that i could go for some ascended gear but i am not really interesstet in shiny new armor. I would like to be able to choose my own fighting style rather then only my own look.

As the skill system in Guild Wars 2 is right now, people like me will feel unsatisfied without more abilities to be learned.

Personally i would like to see an enhanced combat system with more ways to progress, with more styles to play. The warrior next to me may have a better looking Greatsword than me, but he will always play like me, execute the same weapon skills with that awesome sword like me, no matter what. I feel like there are not enough ways to individualise at the machinical level.

Hi Fey,

I play a PVT AOE Heal shout War. I have played this role fora long period of time and have never played a DPS War. On top of this I am also easily able to hold agro and support my group. My DPS is terrible but I keep my team alive while they run around destroying everything (-: The reason I raise this is because I would like to know what your role is with you War and I am wondering if you are aware of the different roles that each Profession can play dependent on their traits/skill/sigil/rune and weapon setup?

Note I ‘Look’ like a DPS war because i use a great sword (greatsaw) and a Longbow (Arthropoda). I like you believe that Horizontal Progression should be about role differentiation, however I feel like this system is already very core to the game but that we could do a better job of teaching how it works to a broader audience.

In short there are multiple War and profession roles and thus it is quite unlikely that that War next to you plays just like you.

Chris

Since you brought it up… I’d like you to provide something I’ve been asking ANet to provide for the past 6 months…. can you tell us, the players, what role YOU feel the Ranger class should fill? Because no one who actually plays the class has the foggiest clue why the class exists, what role it should fill, why it doesn’t fill that role, or what to suggest to actually make it fill whatever role you seem to want it to fill.

Now on topic to the rest of the thread…. my issue with the progression model in this game is how you’ve moved away from obtaining gear easily to one that forces players to craft to compete. I personally can’t stand crafting. EVE is the only game I’ve ever seen that has actually had a real crafting system that is profitable and I have on interest in doing it unless there’s some benefit out of it. What I liked about GW2 originally was I could just buy what I wanted. Now I have to craft which is aggravating… I have a timelock to deal with that is aggravating… I play Ranger so I don’t even benefit from my gear the same as most classes which is aggravating…

While these vertical progression models work in other MMO’s because they need to constantly evolve their game with everharder content, that is clearly not the model you are using in GW2. There’s no reason to get better gear because PvE content isn’t complicated. We could easily hit the agony cap to clear all fractals without the armor. WvW is really all the endgame you provide players outside of the pointless PvE grind (with fractals being the only permanent content added to this game). And in WvW where balance is already an afterthought, I’m not sure we needed armor to throw things even further out of whack.

I just don’t see the point given what kind of game GW2 is to have a gear treadmill. There’s no PvE content to keep pace with and that’s typically the only thing other MMO’s have gear treadmills for…

Morrigan.2809:

Carighan.6758:

Morrigan.2809:

I came about this post several months ago and what I really liked about it was the fact that it expanded on the current professions but added horizontal progression-without the idea of balancing classes nightmare

Eh, why can’t I simply be a Mesmer, the three advanced ideas all sound pretty lame

oh I agree- If you only want to be a Mesmer- then be a Mesmer.

Not everyone is interested in flavors or sub-classes that is why I suggested that the sub-classes only unlock after you already have your base build.

So say you are happy with a base Mesmer- you play as a Shatter Mesmer, Phantasm Mesmer or whatever. No problem

Snip

I see this differently.
Sub Classes should be a clear step further, thats what specializations are meant for.
The Chronomancer is basically an upgraded form of a Mesmer, that specialzes on Illusions, but doesn’t use Clones to shatter them, but instead uses illusions to alterate mentally for the foe the timespace around them in an environmental form of an illusion.

This should be the progress line a player has to go through to receive the option of specializing their class.

1) Reach Level 80 to let new Teacher NPCs appear in your Home Instance
2) Go now into your Hometown to find there a new Teacher NPC
3) In regard under which Teacher you will study their Wisdom and Techniques, you will unlock those 3 Sub Classes, once you’ve mastered all of their Tasks.
Each Teacher asks you to do 10 Tasks for them, that will be for each player/character different based on their Personality, their Achievement Points ect.
4) Once unlocked, the unlock is characterbound.
5) Successfully doing the 10 Tasks will reward you with Skill Points, Trait Points, Gold, Experience, Karma and Equipment for your first Sub Class based Ascendent Armor-Set.
Don’t expect the 10 Tasks to be easy, they should be something that takes time to complete, but therefore those rewards will feel really rewarding each time you do succesfully one of the Tasks.
6) Once you’ve mastered all 3 Sub Classes, you can speak with those Teachers to change your Sub Class for a small fee like 5 Silver or so similar like Trait Reset.
The Term of the Basic Class Name gets always replaced with theTerm of the Sub Class completely, so no silly double terms, like in GW1 with stuff like W/Mo or so …

If you’ve chosen to specialize your Warrior for example into a Berserker, the result will be called also in the end Berserker and not Warrior/Berserker or in brief W/B, that would be nonsense. As said, the new term replaces completely the old one.
Means, each Sub Class receives for the game its own symbol for the LFG-Tool, the only thign that will be in common for sub classes with the basic class will be the COLOR of the Symbols.
So the berserker Symbol will have the same color, like the Warrior Symbol, so that you can see, that they belong together, because the berserker basically is just a warrior – just an improved one.

Why should Sub Classes be changeable?
For the simple reason, that making maybe a wrong choice shouldn’t feel in the end, that you get punished for havng chosen something, that you don’t like later at the end. Sub Classes should be basically the next advanced step for the characters to progress. They shouldn’t be some kind of end station, where you can’t get back, once being stepped forward.

I think, a player, who likes in the moment the Core Gameplay of the Mesmer, would most likely go the route for becoming a Bard, because the only thing that would change is a bit the Shatter Mechanic, instead of destroying Clones, bards would alterate their Clones through Tunes, Melodies, Sounds ect. and by turning of the pitch of a Sound, they could make their Clones shatter like glass still, if you want to do that, but the Bard would add just more options to the system, than permanently only shatterign your Clones, what is boring, if thats basically the only thign you could do with Clones always, when there are so many more interesting options for how you could interact with your Clones as an advanced profession, like the Bard could be, especially because the Bard favors also very much the specialiation for the Mesmers core concept of Inspiration (Music is pure Inspiration!) mixed together with its gameplay mechanics of Chaos Magic having always positive and negative effects at the same time for allies and foes, like Chaos Storm could have the Songs of the Bards positive and negative effects at the same time, in regard of who, foe, or ally, hears them.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

There has been a clearly communicated game plan. Our focus is on Horizontal progression and I felt that Ascended was a necessary step. However as many have pointed out this gear was designed to sit between Exotic and Legendary and thus be a better bridge. Personally i feel like it could be made more accessible through playing different parts of the game. Once we have concluded the discussion on the tightening up of Vertical Progression we will move onto Horizontal discussion. Huzzah (-:

If ascended actually was a slot between legendary and ascended, I think it would be much less of a problem.
But the thing is that it’s not a slot in between, it’s a detour.
If you go for ascended gear, that eats up your wallet and you can’t go Legendary as fast because you can’t use your Ascended gear to get Legendary.

The fractal backslot and my idea,
described here
and partly here
in this thread, gives you an actual slot between and not a detour.
I think those ideas is what you really should use instead of making detours.

That is progression through upgrading gear instead of making new gear.
Especially if you can “unlock” parts so you can go back and use the skin from the old gear for example.

Because currently when you create ascended, you completely throw away the exotic. When you make legendary, you completely throw away the ascended. Everything is a big waste of value. If you instead had a platform where you add on to your gear and make it perhaps customizable and where you can change skins and stats as you like among the unlocked ones, then you have an infinitely upgradable platform where you will never lose anything.

You may argue that “ok but if you never lose anything, how is value thrown out of the game so that there’s no inflation?”.
There is a value sink in the platform in that it allows for upgrading.
The current system however forces the player to not waste any more money because once you have your ascended that’s it. You will stick to that in 9 cases out of 10. And it will most likely be berzerker stats too. If you make another set, you don’t have the skins you want and if you transmute them you lose the old items so you don’t want that since they’re ascended and expensive. You can have dual sets but that takes up inventory slots and I would guess that most people finds 400 gems per bag slot qute expensive so not alot of people will have the slots or even the energy to run around and switch gears all the time.

I think an upgradable platform with changeable stats, skins etc is the solution.
Gets rid of detours.
Gets rid of value loss.
Allows for both vertical and horizontal progression both in skins and in stats.

Edit: For altaholics, you can also have the option to mirror the progression onto your alts for X amount of value.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Agreed. Let’s spend a little more time discussing and brainstorming the following questions:

Controversial: Vertical Progression acquisition can be a pain but what if any elements do you like about Vertical Progression?

Almost none. I hate vertical progression in all its forms. Levels, should be removed. Stats, please take them out of the game completely. Gear tiers? Rare was good enough to have sufficient differentiation in item drops, remove exotic/ascended/legendary.

There are only 2 places where I think vertical progression makes sense:

• The crafting system, to level up your craftskills and be able to craft better/prettier items.
• In specific activities that stand seperate of the core game mechanics. Fractals agony for example. Doesn’t bother you when you don’t play Fractals. WvW experience and specialization. Doesn’t bother you outside of WvW.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Lets keep coming up with some awesome Horizontal Progression systemic ideas and also reward ideas?

I just really want to see more differentiation in my builds. For that, I think we need a lot more skills. Not one healing skill, but at least 50-100 skills more for each class.

I really want to have a pool of weapon skills for each weapon which I can pick 5 from. Don’t even need to tie all of these to specific classes IMO, just tie them to the weapontypes.

I want to see elite skills that synergize with your build. See for example Keystone Signet in GW1. THAT is an awesome elite skill that synergizes with specific other skills (all skills of the signet subtype).

And the cooldown for most skills is just way too high. More skills on short cooldowns <5 sec, please. Or tie them to a resource (iniative, adrenaline, etc).

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Many of you have mentioned this problem, so let’s discuss it some more. If the supply of ascended gear is made more accessible to the populous either through drop rates of items and mats, and/or sale ability of gear then is this something that is acceptable to early adopters?

Well I have just crafted some ascended stuff yesterday and I got a full set of ascended trinkets, and I’d be the first one to cheer if you toss them out of the game completely.

The gear threadmill belongs in WoW. This is Guild Wars! You know, that game series where you could go to max level in 3 hours and get max-stat items from killing any monster with a colored aura around it, or just picking up 5 simple collectable items and handing them to an NPC. Wasn’t GW2 supposed to have everything I loved from GW1?

I find it totally unacceptable that T3 cultural, a set that costs over 100 gold, does not have best-in-slot stats.

I find it totally unacceptable that the weapon you get at the completion of your personal storyline does not have best-in-slot stats.

I find it totally unacceptable that when I complete a dungeon a dozens of times to purchase an aesthetically pleasing set of armor, it does not have best-in-slot stats.

Ascended gear invalidated large parts of the game, and made their UNIQUE rewards mostly meaningless. Jewelcrafting and dungeon raiding are now broken

about the subclasses discussion: that’s just not feasible. You guys basically want entire new professions, tons of new skills. Anet is struggling to give us “a few skills”, we got a single healing skill lately and I love that. I can’t imagine that they will create 30+ new skills (minimum) per profession. Seriously?

As much as I like the thought of subclasses, I can’t see how they could possibly achieve that. And think of it: we already have those subclasses. Rangers can spec into the beastmaster traitline, Thieves into Acrobatics,…… also the weapon heavily changes our roles on the battlefield. Give the Elementalist a sword with one of the next patches and we’ll have our Battlemage. Or a staff to our ranger to call him Druid.

What I can see though: optional cosmetical changes. Killing enough enemies with a beastmaster spec would allow you cosmetical upgrades to your pet (bigger, armor,…). A healing-specced guardian would have the option to choose between golden wings, a halo or the standard look, when unlocked.

Shakkara.2641:

Almost none. I hate vertical progression in all its forms. Levels, should be removed. Stats, please take them out of the game completely. Gear tiers? Rare was good enough to have sufficient differentiation in item drops, remove exotic/ascended/legendary.

And the cooldown for most skills is just way too high. More skills on short cooldowns <5 sec, please. Or tie them to a resource (iniative, adrenaline, etc).

Well I have just crafted some ascended stuff yesterday and I got a full set of ascended trinkets, and I’d be the first one to cheer if you toss them out of the game completely.

The gear threadmill belongs in WoW. This is Guild Wars! You know, that game series where you could go to max level in 3 hours and get max-stat items from killing any monster with a colored aura around it, or just picking up 5 simple collectable items and handing them to an NPC. Wasn’t GW2 supposed to have everything I loved from GW1?

I find it totally unacceptable that T3 cultural, a set that costs over 100 gold, does not have best-in-slot stats.

I find it totally unacceptable that the weapon you get at the completion of your personal storyline does not have best-in-slot stats.

I find it totally unacceptable that when I complete a dungeon a dozens of times to purchase an aesthetically pleasing set of armor, it does not have best-in-slot stats.

Ascended gear invalidated large parts of the game, and made their UNIQUE rewards mostly meaningless. Jewelcrafting and dungeon raiding are now broken

I strongly disagree with these.

I just really want to see more differentiation in my builds. For that, I think we need a lot more skills. Not one healing skill, but at least 50-100 skills more for each class.

I really want to have a pool of weapon skills for each weapon which I can pick 5 from. Don’t even need to tie all of these to specific classes IMO, just tie them to the weapontypes.

I want to see elite skills that synergize with your build. See for example Keystone Signet in GW1. THAT is an awesome elite skill that synergizes with specific other skills (all skills of the signet subtype).

I agree with these.

50-100 more skills would be a balancing nightmare, and precisely why they dumped that idea for GW2.

I’m glad they did. Can’t agree whatsoever with that idea.

Here’s ways some of these suggestions could be implemented while still not being a massive implementation effort:

1) Each weapon has a #5 skill (or #3 for main-hands) tied to the weapon, not the weapon/class combo. Meaning there’s a Greatsword 5 which is an option for Mesmer, Guardian, and Warrior. You can swap between your class/weapon-specific #5 or choose the weapon-specific #5.

2) Instead of subclasses, how about race-specific trait trees? Putting points in these trees would allow you fixed traits (at 10, 20, and 30 deep) which would improve racial skills and primarily racial elites. These trees could have different stat bonus combos than the other five trees allowing slightly different stat diversity.

These would be something along the lines of…

Asura: Golemancy
Norn: Animal Spirits
Sylvari: Power of Nature
Charr: Warband
Human: Divinity

I won’t go so far as to suggest a full list of traits, but here’s an Asuran version.

Per trait point: +1% damage from golems, +3% health to golems

10 points invested: golems last an extra 30 seconds.
20 points: golems to not have a time limit.
30 points: summoning any golem summons an extra 7-Series golem.

(I have not spent much time thinking about balance here, these are just an example.)

timmyf.1490:

2) Instead of subclasses, how about race-specific trait trees? Putting points in these trees would allow you fixed traits (at 10, 20, and 30 deep) which would improve racial skills and primarily racial elites. These trees could have different stat bonus combos than the other five trees allowing slightly different stat diversity.

well the devs stated that they don’t want players to feel like they have to take a certain race to be superior in certain aspects (e.g. you have to be a norn to do the most damage).

It sounds quite interesting, to develop those racials further though. I guess it would be a balancing nightmare, just like the cross-profession skills in GW1.

I’d rather see a further evolution of the trait system in general. Traits are the factors which change our basic skills, but not enough yet imho.

In early iterations of the trait-system there were traits bound to each weapon you wield. I wonder if this could be revived and merged to our current traitlines, to allow for more customization of our weapon-skills without gimping us in our other trait choices.

Regarding vertical progression

I really enjoy gradually improving my armors and weapons, but I don’t like the way the agony crafting now works. It’s basically a giant hole that I throw money in. 15s (for the reagent) every time I want to turn a +1 infusion into +2? Ugh! Money down the drain…

As mentioned by others before, I prefer to earn my equipment by doing stuff in the game, and not just through achievements or a very long grind. But that ultimately leads back to the transmutation problem. Everyone wants to craft the best stats on their favorite gear. You can pretty much say that transmutation is an essential component of the game play…. so why is it locked behind the gem store? That really needs to change.

I prefer to see the gemstore as something optional. If you want a fancy Quaggan Backpack, or a make over, you go to the gemstore. But for something as essential as transmutation… I have to pay real money for that?

For the record, transmuting was always free in Dungeons and Dragons Online. (a game that pretty much had giant red “you must buy the expansion for this” signs everywhere, except on transmutation)

The way I see it, transmutation is something that should be doable either directly through crafting, or by using transmutation stones as crafting materials, to make them into crystals. There needs to be an in-game way to do this, that is independent of the gemstore. It is essential to the way we improve our own gear.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

timmyf.1490:

2) Instead of subclasses, how about race-specific trait trees? Putting points in these trees would allow you fixed traits (at 10, 20, and 30 deep) which would improve racial skills and primarily racial elites. These trees could have different stat bonus combos than the other five trees allowing slightly different stat diversity.

well the devs stated that they don’t want players to feel like they have to take a certain race to be superior in certain aspects (e.g. you have to be a norn to do the most damage).

It sounds quite interesting, to develop those racials further though. I guess it would be a balancing nightmare, just like the cross-profession skills in GW1.

In my head, these changes would allow for an interesting new way to play your characters, but would almost certainly be underpowered compared to other builds. Still, I’d likely take a DPS hit if it meant running around with two golems all the time.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

You can pretty much say that transmutation is an essential component of the game play…. so why is it locked behind the gem store? That really needs to change.

[…] But for something as essential as transmutation… I have to pay real money for that?

You could convert gold to gems to buy the item. It’s just in a different currency

They could just make it so that merchant sell transmutation stones for varied exchange price between 3g20s to 5g per stone and it would make it effectively the same. Would you still complain if they do that?

Shriketalon.1937:

Jaken.6801:

I heard peaople appealing for a branching class developement. Greatly discribed by the player Orpheos.

I am against this kind of direction, even though i love this concept in other games.

Guild Wars 2 in it`s core allready allows this multi class developement along the lines, thanks to it`s trait and skill limitations.
If i want to play another class direction, i just change how i set these up.

A branching tree which limits my choices does not make any sense with the current system in place.

Guhracie.3419:

I still cannot believe that we’re even discussing character progression without addressing broken class mechanics that impede progression. It’s like fixing the roof while the foundation crumbles beneath you.

I agree with both of these gentlemen/ladies/nondescript-individuals-of-worth.

It’s more of a discussion for another thread, but the simple fact is the core class customization in Guild Wars 2 is a good idea, it just doesn’t have enough love.

But that is a discussion for another thread on another day.

I don’t see how it isn’t directly tied in, when Chris is discussing build viability, diversity and access to new skills and traits. And it certainly ties into vertical progression, in the sense that engineers do not benefit from the ascended weapon boost if they opt to have a weapon swap. If horizontal progression is tied at all to delving into class diversity, I don’t see how it isn’t utterly necessary to fix broken mechanics first.

Does cooking even give the full 10 levels anymore?
Should “downed” skills be part of progression?
Are cosmetics a part of horizontal progression?
Is underwater combat ever going to be more interesting and fully developed?
Should underwater skills be a part of progression?

I guess what I’d like to know is what the development team has decided to completely scrap as a waste of time (underwater breathing masks, for example) and what is off the table (the way kits “function” for engineers?) and what aspects of the game really matter in terms of progression.

EDIT: To answer the controversial question about what I like about vertical progression: I like that it adds new skins into the game. I like that it gives value to materials that are generally undervalued, at least for a little while. I like it when it is meaningful in terms of the content (adding agony resist for fractals, for example), but not when the content is built around a vertical progression (increasing level cap just to increase stat allocation/dps numbers/etc). I like vertical progression that helps my entire account (account bound luck).

Stars.2179:

You could convert gold to gems to buy the item. It’s just in a different currency

They could just make it so that merchant sell transmutation stones for varied exchange price between 3g20s to 5g per stone and it would make it effectively the same. Would you still complain if they do that?

Yes I would complain about that. It shouldn’t cost that much just to transmute some statistics from one item to the next. It is a basic part of gearing up your character, it shouldn’t cost a fortune to do.

As a side note regarding new skills and traits, I agree (as Guhracie mentioned) that broken class mechanics need to be fixed first, before we move on to any new traits and skills. Some classes have very little build diversity, because certain traits and skills are completely useless. One need only look at the recent Healing Skill for the necromancer, and the angry posts on our rarely visited sub forum, to see that people get very upset about hastily implemented skills. Fix the skills and traits that we have first, before rushing in even more skills and traits. That simply makes sense.

I would welcome new skills and traits in the future of course, but I think the real issue lies in not having a whole lot of options with what we’ve got. Some traits seem to have been more of an after thought. Traits such as Toxic Landing for example (does anyone ever use that? Or skills such as Mistfire Wolf. Yeah, nice bonus skill for a preorder. If it wasn’t so rubbish).

If there is to be any sort of progression in the combat, then there have to be better defined roles first. You can’t build on a system that is kind of shaky. It is no secret that conditions are kind of like an unwanted step child in PVE. We know the current system is kind of broken (plenty of threads on that already). Yet I’m told that my class is the master of conditions… great, what do I do with it? If we want to expand our combat options, and add more depth to the combat, then I think the basics need to be sorted out first.

I think the biggest thing Anet needs to start working for is item uniqueness based on skill level. Right now an item is considered to be very unique or rare because the drop rate for such item is very low or the collection requirements are very high.

Deified.7520:

I think the biggest thing Anet needs to start working for is item uniqueness based on skill level. Right now an item is considered to be very unique or rare because the drop rate for such item is very low or the collection requirements are very high.

That’s a good point as well. I would love to see some content that demanded real skill, and had unique rewards tied to it. With Super Adventure Box we had Tribulation Mode, which already offered us a special backpack for conquering some of the hardest platforming the game had to offer. And I liked working for my reward.

But should such an item be tradeable, or remain account bound?

regarding vertical progression, please remove “raise the level 80 limit” off the table.

in other words, please make sure the level 80 limit is never, ever, increased at all. yes, please.

no to vertical progression. especially the level limit of 80

Man Slauterer.5984:

Zaoda.1653:

cesmode.4257:

Finnway.2183:

Nike.2631:

Anyone here have a huge complaint against the idea of being able to buy Ascended Weapon/Armor Chests with some of our account-bound currencies?

Maybe~

Guild Commendations – 150 commendations, any stats
Badges of Honor – 800 badges, any stats
Dungeon Tokens – 1,000 w/ stat combinations matching the each dungeons’ existing flavors
Fractal Relics – 1,500 w/ stat combinations matching the current capacitors

((all quantities subject to change and offered only to inspire thought))

Nike,

This is a great suggestion! But what do you think would be an appropriate number of dungeon tokens (we’ll use that as an example) to buy Ascended armor? Right now it costs 1380 tokens to buy a dungeon armor set. Should you be able to buy Ascended armor with tokens from just one dungeon or should it require tokens from all dungeons to purchase Ascended armor? i.e. 690 token from each dungeon (5520 total), or something. This would be a great step away from the “need gold to buy anything” mentality.

EDIT: Another thought, they could add new Ascended armor skins for each way you could unlock it. This would add prestige to Ascended armor not just because you have it, but because of the way you unlocked it (i.e. you excel at dungeons, WvW, farming gold, etc.)

~Finn

As long as you are able to buy the piece without requiring each of the currencies…
For example, if I could buy a piece of ascended with 800 honor badges, or 1000 dungeon tokens or 150 commendations..not 800 and 1000 and 150.

I don’t do guild missions, so, for example this would still exclude someone like me. Or, some people don’t run dungeons, or some people do not play WvW…

To add onto this, I think it would be an awesome opportunity (should Anet allow us to obtain ascended weapons and armor via other currencies/methods) to add GW1 weapon and armor skins that have been requested so often.

Imagine purchasing an ascended chest for example, choosing a shield, and then deciding to upgrade its looks by purchasing, say, a ‘tormented’ skin for 800 WvW badges or something, and thus turning it into an EPIC looking ascended shield? :-P see attachment below :-P

Sorry but my opinion on this addition of tormented skins back in the game isn’t right. For those of us who played gw1 and spent tons of time earning those skins and putting them in our hall of monuments this wouldn’t be fair. I agree many skins in gw1 could be used instead such as the voltaic spear, obsidian edge, eternal blade (although i spent tons of time geting this as well and i still have it), dhuum’s scythe, and the list goes on forever. So yes i agree this is a good opportunity to add gw1 skins and lore back into the game i want to make a point that how you implement these you must be careful since you will offend alot of us who spent insane amounts of time earning them there and shouldn’t have to spend more time in gw2 to get the same skin.

I agree, the way they’re put back in should be done carefully as to not completely cheapen the skins (like putting them in the black lion chest would be a really sad way to reintroduce tormented weapons in my opinion), but it’s also important to note that Anet also can’t please everyone – and when GW2 was announced, it was pretty much common sense for everyone to know that a lot of what you earned in GW1 would not be transferred (or compensated) over to GW2.

Being a GW1 player myself, I had some destroyer weapons and mini’s mounted in my hall of monuments, and I put a lot of time and effort into what I earned in GW1 – full obsidian armor for my ritualist, Spirit Ouverture, for example. Even if they were easily obtained in GW2 though, I don’t think I would be too worried because 1) GW1 is in the past (including all the time and effort I put into that game and my characters), and 2) regardless of IF and HOW they come into GW2, that would be celebration enough I say the more skins, the merrier.