Guild Wars 2

Erasculio.2914:

The ideas are good, but it’s the execution that remains to be seen. This has always been ArenaNet’s main issue.

I’m really curious to see how are they going to make people play in the open world. Unless the daily achievements are very specific (“Do X events in map Y” or “Do X events in region Z!”), players are just going to find the most effective place to do a given task, and flock there leaving the rest of the world empty. For example, if there’s an achievement for “Do x dynamic events!”, people will find the single map with the highest concentration of events and farm it once a day, instead of spreading through the entire world. This kind of thing would hardly benefit the game as a whole.

I’m also not exactly happy with the “Guardian Gear” and similar boxes. We don’t know what they are yet; I am strongly hoping, though, that they are not something we open to get random pieces of equipment useable for a given profession. The game already has waaaaay too much RNG as it is, for ArenaNet to introduce an achievement tokens lottery in the game.

This would actually be an improvement on RNG, by trying to insure that the items being rolled on would at least be armor class and weapon types usable by your profession! I really wish this was expanded to include things like Zone Completion rewards.

I’m very glad that they intend to eventually allow dailies to be completed by choosing from a “bucket” of achievements, rather than forcing players to do a specific set of tasks. Expand that to Monthlies as well and the game will be much better as a result.

I hope this will be prioritized to be part of the new system as early as possible. IMO, the new variations of daily tasks should not be introduced with out this part of the equation. I don’t want to miss out on dailies because the list has something I can’t/won’t be able to complete. The current dailies can be completed by people with fairly limited time and by characters in any level range. It’s important that doesn’t change.

Fiontar.4695:

Fozzik.1742:

It all sounds really good. The only thing that is a tiny bit frustrating is the TONS of achievements I’ve already completed and gotten nothing for. I wish I could do them over again once they are worth tokens. =\

Indeed. There better be a way to get rewards on previous achievements, because we can’t reset achievements and veteran players will really be at a pretty big disadvantage.

Either retroactive rewards, or a reset of completed achievements, with the current AP totals not being effected would be fine. I don’t mind having to revisit achievements I’ve already finished, but retroactive token rewards would be nice to have. (I’ve been focusing on achievements recently, now I have to wonder if I should stop that until there is some clarification on this).

They have explained in another post that once the initial system is implemented (Daily/Monthly for crowns), they will retroactively reward players with crowns for their already completed achievements. It WONT be part of the initial release though.

For achievement retroactivity, how about using the current achievement score as an actual currency? You could be able to buy crowns with achievement points as well as earning them through the daily or whatnot. That way, people who already have completed a bunch of one-time achievements could capitalize on that.

Guild, Achievement & Friends panel should be showing how many points you have accumulated in total in your GW2 career. Your personal achievement panel could show how many points you can spend alongside your total points.

How does that sound?

ColinJohanson.2394:

Pinkus.2860:

Fiontar.4695:

Fozzik.1742:

It all sounds really good. The only thing that is a tiny bit frustrating is the TONS of achievements I’ve already completed and gotten nothing for. I wish I could do them over again once they are worth tokens. =\

Indeed. There better be a way to get rewards on previous achievements, because we can’t reset achievements and veteran players will really be at a pretty big disadvantage.

Either retroactive rewards, or a reset of completed achievements, with the current AP totals not being effected would be fine. I don’t mind having to revisit achievements I’ve already finished, but retroactive token rewards would be nice to have. (I’ve been focusing on achievements recently, now I have to wonder if I should stop that until there is some clarification on this).

They have explained in another post that once the initial system is implemented (Daily/Monthly for crowns), they will retroactively reward players with crowns for their already completed achievements. It WONT be part of the initial release though.

Since I think all of this can be a little confusing until seen in practice, and because some of the details aren’t yet fleshed out, a few points to help clarify:

• Previous daily and monthly achievements will not be reward retroactively with crowns, it will be newly completed daily/monthly achievements only. (January achievement if completed after the release will not give crowns, monthly from February on will qualify.)

• We will develop a separate reward system you’ll see later for other types of achievements, this system hasn’t been finalized, it’s entirely possible this system will not reward the crown currency at all. This system will retroactively reward achievements you’ve already earned (except dailies/monthlies) and may possibly cap out the rewards you can earn from infinitely repeatable achievements, so no one has an unfair advantage.

Hope that helps a bit, more info once we’ve finalized more of the details.

I completely understand that have no way to give accurate time frames on systems that haven’t even been decided on yet, but could I ask just to clarify on this one part: Does this (the overall achievement rewards structure-not just dailies etc.) count as part of the Jan/Feb/March series of updates or will it be after them?

Andalamar.4201:

For achievement retroactivity, how about using the current achievement score as an actual currency? You could be able to buy crowns with achievement points as well as earning them through the daily or whatnot. That way, people who already have completed a bunch of one-time achievements could capitalize on that.

Guild, Achievement & Friends panel should be showing how many points you have accumulated in total in your GW2 career. Your personal achievement panel could show how many points you can spend alongside your total points.

How does that sound?

They don’t want to do that because of the repeatable “endless” achievements. Also, I’ve heard of a HoM “exploit” by where you get achievement points every time you grabbed a new skin (get weapon skin, delete, get weapon skin, delete, etc.), though since I do not have HoM points I have no idea of the validity of that rumor.

Interesting!

There are two items that I am interested based on the OP’s picture.

1) 10 Unidentified dies
2) Advanced Harvesting Sickle

I wonder how many uses will the sickle (and assuming the other two tools) get?

Also seeing obsidian shards in there – I wonder if charged lodestones and other precursor materials will also be added?

That would be good!

Death Reincarnated.3570:

Interesting!

There are two items that I am interested based on the OP’s picture.

1) 10 Unidentified dies
2) Advanced Harvesting Sickle

I wonder how many uses will the sickle (and assuming the other two tools) get?

Also seeing obsidian shards in there – I wonder if charged lodestones and other precursor materials will also be added?

That would be good!

Same, Lodestones would be nice, too… wink wink

As long as engineer gets a decent exclusive armor, id just say: Thank you!

I am glad with the up coming changes. Covers a lot of things I wished for this game. Also got friends coming back to the game as long as these changes happen.

Got friends that hate dungeon crawling but with the achievement system coming into place, they are coming back.

Been very slowly leveling because I was waiting to see the post about the upcoming changes. Can’t be bothered with another dungeon spamming MMO. Reason why I loved the sound of this game till I heard about Fractals.

Liking the sound of the Guild Missions,

Also just want to say Thank you Anet. For this been a B2P, the amount of content, It’s amazing.

I’m a little sad …
although I’m glad that the game evolves, I am disappointed …

I was hoping to see the new maps appear.
as Magus fall, Tarnished Coast, or Steamspur mountains, and again, Deldrimor Front.

With all that, the arrival of Guild Hall, and housing! And a little more hairstyles for all races.

But thank you for making the game alive, and ever richer arena net!

Wesley.4590:

Lot of negativity here, let’s see how the first half of the year goes first. Then see if there are reasons to complain…

I think one major source of negativity towards the game at this point was that it attracted lots of hardcore MMO gamers that went through the content shortly after the game went live and are now bored/disappointed at the direction the developers seem to be wanting to take the game in 2013. If the game was originally intended to be targeted towards casual gamers they should have said so in Beta so people that spend 30+ hours a week grinding PVE content could have saved $60.

Cirroq.2531:

Wesley.4590:

Lot of negativity here, let’s see how the first half of the year goes first. Then see if there are reasons to complain…

I think one major source of negativity towards the game at this point was that it attracted lots of hardcore MMO gamers that went through the content shortly after the game went live and are now bored/disappointed at the direction the developers seem to be wanting to take the game in 2013. If the game was originally intended to be targeted towards casual gamers they should have said so in Beta so people that spend 30+ hours a week grinding PVE content could have saved $60.

I disagree with that statement entirely. I’ve been a fairly “hard core” MMO player for 14 years and this is the game I’ve been waiting for since I played my first MMO. I’ve logged almost 800 hours so far and I’m still enjoying the heck out of the game.

I’m very happy about the new reward systems and other measures to try to incentivize players to take advantage of the massive, detailed game world. However, it’s pretty clear to me that they’ve had to turn their focus to this because too many players lacked the imagination and sense of adventure needed to break out of their old MMO mentalities and see exactly how much game play GW2 actually offers. With out some sort of carrot, too many players were just failing to understand or appreciate just how much content there is in this game.

I don’t like the idea that the other achievements won’t reward crowns, what about all of the work people put into their characters and achievements? It’s not an unfair advantage when you’ve put the time into getting these things done. What about those people who put the time into finishing EVERY spot on the map? What about getting achievements for entropy or finishing jump puzzles? I just think it’s a little too hasty to automatically throw out crowns from every other achievement that people spent alot of time doing. It’s not an easy thing to do to finish the entire world especially with the issues of the final mile being WvW.

SolarNova.1052:

I got some questions regarding the latest news about months ahead.

When are we getting a proper LFG tool? and what type will it be?
I know this was mentioned in the news but i was kinda hoping for a bit more specific info…
Im not talking about an Auto Dungeon finder like those found in ‘other’ western MMO’s (since they ruin social interactions). I just mean a tool/window that u can post a start up group for people to search for and join that is server wide, an example that comes immediatly to mind is Tera’s original LFG tool, similar to Aion’s original one iirc.

Will the tweek/changes to bosses in dungeons and open world be such that tactics matter more than how hard the boss hits or how much hp it has to make said boss ‘hard’ ?
By that i mean, atm a bunch of bosses are arguably ‘hard’ simply becouse they hit like trucks, have unavoidable mechanics, and/or have tons of HP. I think we would all prefer bosses that end up being just as hard, or harder in fact, due to proper mechanics that requir tactics instead of spam reviving after being 1shot, burning boss down as quik as possible, and/or using unintended tactics like geting some other npc to fight it whilst every1 sits and watches. etc etc

You mention loot; will bosses,veterans,champions, actually have worthwhile loot that drops always instead of a small increased chance ?
ATM its still not worth taking down champions since they dont drop anything worth while. Veterans are no better than normals ether.

Will you ever be increasing the number of skills that each weapon/weapon type has to choose between ? as currently there is next to no customizaion
Currently main hand has 3, off hand 2, 2hand 5. meaning if u see som1 as X class with Y 2hander, u know exactly what primary skills they have, and will likely also know what secondary/utility skills they have also.

Death Reincarnated.3570:

Interesting!

There are two items that I am interested based on the OP’s picture.

1) 10 Unidentified dies
2) Advanced Harvesting Sickle

I wonder how many uses will the sickle (and assuming the other two tools) get?

Picture shows 10 uses. Same as Black Lion Harvesting Sickles.
Assuming all green tools are equivalent in terms of their “increased efficiency”, I think they should remove those tools from things you can buy with crowns. A 25 use Foraging Sickle can be bought with 658 karma. You get 1 crown per daily so that is 3 days to get the Advanced Harvesting Sickle. In that time you also get 3 Jugs of Liquid Karma which is enough to get 20 Foraging Sickles.

Advanced Harvesting Sickles – 3 days 10 uses
Foraging Sickle – 3 days 500 uses

Even if the Advanced Harvesting Sickle was better it would have to be more than 50 times. This seems unlikely. If it was at least 50 uses then at least it can be partly justified for the space saving.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Pinkus.2860:

Fiontar.4695:

Fozzik.1742:

It all sounds really good. The only thing that is a tiny bit frustrating is the TONS of achievements I’ve already completed and gotten nothing for. I wish I could do them over again once they are worth tokens. =\

Indeed. There better be a way to get rewards on previous achievements, because we can’t reset achievements and veteran players will really be at a pretty big disadvantage.

Either retroactive rewards, or a reset of completed achievements, with the current AP totals not being effected would be fine. I don’t mind having to revisit achievements I’ve already finished, but retroactive token rewards would be nice to have. (I’ve been focusing on achievements recently, now I have to wonder if I should stop that until there is some clarification on this).

They have explained in another post that once the initial system is implemented (Daily/Monthly for crowns), they will retroactively reward players with crowns for their already completed achievements. It WONT be part of the initial release though.

Since I think all of this can be a little confusing until seen in practice, and because some of the details aren’t yet fleshed out, a few points to help clarify:

• Previous daily and monthly achievements will not be reward retroactively with crowns, it will be newly completed daily/monthly achievements only. (January achievement if completed after the release will not give crowns, monthly from February on will qualify.)

• We will develop a separate reward system you’ll see later for other types of achievements, this system hasn’t been finalized, it’s entirely possible this system will not reward the crown currency at all. This system will retroactively reward achievements you’ve already earned (except dailies/monthlies) and may possibly cap out the rewards you can earn from infinitely repeatable achievements, so no one has an unfair advantage.

Hope that helps a bit, more info once we’ve finalized more of the details.

I hope the general achievements rewards use crowns as well. IMO, the entire Crown currency isn’t really needed, just an expansion of Karma rewards, but I can see the reasons for the new currency as well. However, I think you should really try to keep to Crowns for all Achievement related rewards, because splitting off into yet another currency just seems redundant. I’d hate to see the game a year from now with another half dozen or more additional alternative currencies.

As to the infinite achievements, I could understand the rewards being cut a bit for each repeat of the tier, or an increase in the effort needed to fill out repeats of the tier, but I’m totally against disqualifying repeats from the reward system entirely.

I do want to thank Arenanet for working on alternative rewards for world PvE play and also for the fact that most of the rewards appear to have nothing to do with a power curve gear grind. It takes a lot more effort from developers to provide non-gear grind rewards and it’s very much appreciated.

As a 100% pve player the 2013 promises sound great. Only thing im missing is the promise to have veterans and champions drop loot, and preferably slightly valuable loot.
Pssst that will encourage that community thing, you know players helping eachother. When I started playing players said in map where champs roamed and players actually went there to kill it. Now I have seen players ask for help to kill a champ and the answer they get is: its not worth it. More and more people realise this and there are thus so many ignored champs out there.

Selebrity.7469:

As a 100% pve player the 2013 promises sound great. Only thing im missing is the promise to have veterans and champions drop loot, and preferably slightly valuable loot.
Pssst that will encourage that community thing, you know players helping eachother. When I started playing players said in map where champs roamed and players actually went there to kill it. Now I have seen players ask for help to kill a champ and the answer they get is: its not worth it. More and more people realise this and there are thus so many ignored champs out there.

As a PvE player myself, I am somewhat interested in the new features. But there is one that was not addressed, “monthly achievements still need you to PvP.”
The blog post only mentions dailies and no changes to monthlies.

morrolan.9608:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Gombar.7324:

Excursion.9752:

Paid Transfers is not such a good idea. Why not just not allow people who transfer servers to play in WvW for one week. This would stop people from transferring for WvW purposes.

It means money for the company and share holders….that’s why.

This isn’t some new evil plot to make more money. This was the way it was in Beta and as it was always planned to be. They have been very kind and allowed free transfers for significantly longer then they originally planned. From what I remember the original plan was to stop free transfers 1 month after launch.

It is a way to make money though, but a reasonable one given they will be implementing guesting. Unless you want to change servers for WvW purposes you can just simply guest on another server. God knows I’ve got my complaints about anet but this isn’t one of them except the length of time its taken to implement.

To add:
Changing servers for map completion purposes. Especially for those would are PvE only players.
And for those PvP players whose servers are more often than not on the loosing end. Sorry, but you can’t conquer an entire PvP map by yourself. And your friends are usually more interested in running Fractals than doing PvP.

I’m hoping 2013 comes with something that has the feel FoW, UW, and DoA gave me. I’ve got a lot of great memories from those areas. Our guild would come up with silly team concepts to run through those areas, and do dumb amusing things like rebirth drag a BiP spammer, or let an Imbagon sit in the Vocal Minority, or send pull suicidal griffons off the safe path… lol good times.

Really though since there’s minimal build specialization in this game, a lot the great things from GW1 isn’t there.

I’m not keen on the change to dailies. It’s bad enough that the monthly achievements always require participating in at least one part of the game I don’t enjoy, but now dailies too?

Plus, I’m not sure this “hot spot” idea is going to be good in practice. Unless I’m misunderstanding the concept, how is this not going to lead to overcrowded areas and dozens upon dozens of people mashed together trying to complete whatever the daily task is? That doesn’t sound like fun, that sounds like lag and frustration.

Lane.3410:

Plus, I’m not sure this “hot spot” idea is going to be good in practice. Unless I’m misunderstanding the concept, how is this not going to lead to overcrowded areas and dozens upon dozens of people mashed together trying to complete whatever the daily task is? That doesn’t sound like fun, that sounds like lag and frustration.

It’s what they added to GW1 to breath life into the open world(towns and outposts), and while indeed felt like daily zerging with how crowded the closest town to a daily mission of quest always became, it was better than the alternative: 98% of the population crammed into end game outposts and trading hubs to the point of them having constant overflow servers.

Fiontar.4695:

Cirroq.2531:

Wesley.4590:

Lot of negativity here, let’s see how the first half of the year goes first. Then see if there are reasons to complain…

I think one major source of negativity towards the game at this point was that it attracted lots of hardcore MMO gamers that went through the content shortly after the game went live and are now bored/disappointed at the direction the developers seem to be wanting to take the game in 2013. If the game was originally intended to be targeted towards casual gamers they should have said so in Beta so people that spend 30+ hours a week grinding PVE content could have saved $60.

I disagree with that statement entirely. I’ve been a fairly “hard core” MMO player for 14 years and this is the game I’ve been waiting for since I played my first MMO. I’ve logged almost 800 hours so far and I’m still enjoying the heck out of the game.

I’m very happy about the new reward systems and other measures to try to incentivize players to take advantage of the massive, detailed game world. However, it’s pretty clear to me that they’ve had to turn their focus to this because too many players lacked the imagination and sense of adventure needed to break out of their old MMO mentalities and see exactly how much game play GW2 actually offers. With out some sort of carrot, too many players were just failing to understand or appreciate just how much content there is in this game.

No one is claiming that there is a lack of content, if they are then they’re misrepresenting others in doing so, what many have issue with alone, is that there’s a lack of RELEVANT content for every niche of gamer, something the modern MMO should at least try and address given it touted a “broad range of play styles” and yet many feel hasn’t delivered.

The idea of a “flawed MMO mentality of old” is also based on a flawed assumption that other MMO’s got it ALL wrong, as opposed to just what needed to go, I still fully support their “No Trinity” and “personal loot drops” wholeheartedly and adore the game for incorporating them, in fact many of the games base design is awesome, It’s only let down by grindy low droprates, horribly designed legendary acquisition, Magic find and a rubbish Cash shop with gambling boxes etc etc, all areas where clearly a different principle was incorporated and one that clearly has bad synergy with the original core design.

I’m sitting on the edge of my seat for update notes/preview.

ANET hinted something might be happening on the main page tomorrow.

Kain Francois.4328:

I’m sitting on the edge of my seat for update notes/preview.

ANET hinted something might be happening on the main page tomorrow.

Oh? Where to?

How about a poll on what players want to see improved the most? I for example am playing mostly WvW. I have no intention of grinding fractals or PVE-Events for better gear, but if I don’t I can’t compete with others who do this stuff at some point because I miss the stats I need? My impression was that the game was supposed to be fun for every kind of playstyle, and grinding is feeling like work to me that I’m forced to do to be able to play the game competitive in WvW. I have several thousand badges of honour, and I did read that you want add stuff in WvW to get the ascended gear. But later this year? Does this mean I have to fill my whole Bank with badges of honour until you add gear and items for WvW in December? I’m fully aware that adding new content to the game takes time. It’s just that I’m under the impression that your team seems to have other prioritys then the community of Guild Wars 2. If this is a money related problem I’m 100 % sure the community will have your back. We players organized WvW communitys with hundreds of players on quite a few servers within weeks, making sure you have everything you need to speed up the developing process shouldn’t be a problem.

I just wanted to say I have logged in some other MMOs I played / tried back over the years and even got into the new ones and I can say like this:
GW2 is good in most of the aspects of the game but it is THE BEST in landscape, character design, colors of the world and the natural feeling you get while traveling thru.
As GW1 is the best looking game of 7 years ago and still beats up most of the new ones, GW2 will the best looking game on the market for the next 5 years
No matter how much rendering the other games do, the natural feel of GW2 is exceptional and irreplaceable.

What concerns me is that one area has been completely ignored in the “Months Ahead” blog and video. Class skills and balance is what I’m referring to, and that area tends to be fairly important.

Gameplay becomes extremely monotonous at higher levels (or after extended play sessions), because players unlock all the skills they really want by the time they are level 35. So first of all, you need to massively increase weapon skills’ variety. The easiest way to do this is to create another 5 skills per weapon (10 if you’re feeling generous) and allow players to slot whatever skills they want into the different slots (you might want to differentiate slot 1 from slots 2-5, since slot 1s tend to be auto-attack chains). Adding this would increase replay-ability across every area of the game (PvE, PvP, and WvW).

I’ve also heard rumors that the balancing department consists of 2 people. If true, that is abysmal; an MMO has to have fairly balanced (and fun) combat if it wants to retain a player base. You’re just shooting yourselves in the foot. That would also explain why some classes (cough Ranger cough) still haven’t been properly fixed months after launch.

Regardless of how many people are working on balance issues, you need to pick up the pace. Players won’t wait years for their class to become usable (or reasonably glitch-free). Every class has an abundance of useless traits (both major and minor), and most classes have some near-useless weapons. Speaking from personal experience, I was extremely close to quitting the game altogether after waiting months without noticeable changes to my main class (Ranger); I still might (re-grinding to 80 is a pain).

Ganpot.3879:

What concerns me is that one area has been completely ignored in the “Months Ahead” blog and video. Class skills and balance is what I’m referring to, and that area tends to be fairly important.

Gameplay becomes extremely monotonous at higher levels (or after extended play sessions), because players unlock all the skills they really want by the time they are level 35. So first of all, you need to massively increase weapon skills’ variety. The easiest way to do this is to create another 5 skills per weapon (10 if you’re feeling generous) and allow players to slot whatever skills they want into the different slots (you might want to differentiate slot 1 from slots 2-5, since slot 1s tend to be auto-attack chains). Adding this would increase replay-ability across every area of the game (PvE, PvP, and WvW).

I’ve also heard rumors that the balancing department consists of 2 people. If true, that is abysmal; an MMO has to have fairly balanced (and fun) combat if it wants to retain a player base. You’re just shooting yourselves in the foot. That would also explain why some classes (cough Ranger cough) still haven’t been properly fixed months after launch.

Regardless of how many people are working on balance issues, you need to pick up the pace. Players won’t wait years for their class to become usable (or reasonably glitch-free). Every class has an abundance of useless traits (both major and minor), and most classes have some near-useless weapons. Speaking from personal experience, I was extremely close to quitting the game altogether after waiting months without noticeable changes to my main class (Ranger); I still might (re-grinding to 80 is a pain).

A million times this, specially the addition of more 1-5 skills and Ranger comments.

Fiontar.4695:

I’m very glad that they intend to eventually allow dailies to be completed by choosing from a “bucket” of achievements, rather than forcing players to do a specific set of tasks. Expand that to Monthlies as well and the game will be much better as a result.

I hope this will be prioritized to be part of the new system as early as possible. IMO, the new variations of daily tasks should not be introduced with out this part of the equation. I don’t want to miss out on dailies because the list has something I can’t/won’t be able to complete. The current dailies can be completed by people with fairly limited time and by characters in any level range. It’s important that doesn’t change.

Nail on the head, right there.

Ganpot.3879:

What concerns me is that one area has been completely ignored in the “Months Ahead” blog and video. Class skills and balance is what I’m referring to, and that area tends to be fairly important.

Gameplay becomes extremely monotonous at higher levels (or after extended play sessions), because players unlock all the skills they really want by the time they are level 35. So first of all, you need to massively increase weapon skills’ variety. The easiest way to do this is to create another 5 skills per weapon (10 if you’re feeling generous) and allow players to slot whatever skills they want into the different slots (you might want to differentiate slot 1 from slots 2-5, since slot 1s tend to be auto-attack chains). Adding this would increase replay-ability across every area of the game (PvE, PvP, and WvW).

I’ve also heard rumors that the balancing department consists of 2 people. If true, that is abysmal; an MMO has to have fairly balanced (and fun) combat if it wants to retain a player base. You’re just shooting yourselves in the foot. That would also explain why some classes (cough Ranger cough) still haven’t been properly fixed months after launch.

Regardless of how many people are working on balance issues, you need to pick up the pace. Players won’t wait years for their class to become usable (or reasonably glitch-free). Every class has an abundance of useless traits (both major and minor), and most classes have some near-useless weapons. Speaking from personal experience, I was extremely close to quitting the game altogether after waiting months without noticeable changes to my main class (Ranger); I still might (re-grinding to 80 is a pain).

Rather than add more skills for weapons, add new weapon archtypes (such as whips, flail, lances, etc.) to further diversify the combat. Exhaust the variety of weapons that can exist in a fantasy game, then expand the table of skills with each weapon.

Nothing about what they are going to do about the rampant memory hack programs out for gw2.

Nefar.8135:

Nothing about what they are going to do about the rampant memory hack programs out for gw2.

Wait, that’s news to me. Are you referring to the teleport hack or something else?

ColinJohanson.2394:

• We will develop a separate reward system you’ll see later for other types of achievements, this system hasn’t been finalized, it’s entirely possible this system will not reward the crown currency at all. This system will retroactively reward achievements you’ve already earned (except dailies/monthlies) and may possibly cap out the rewards you can earn from infinitely repeatable achievements, so no one has an unfair advantage.

Hope that helps a bit, more info once we’ve finalized more of the details.

It’s great that achievements will have better rewards, but please don’t add another currency we have to keep track of.

Currently we have:
1) general currency, gold
2) karma
3) Ascalonian Tears
4) Seal of Beetletun
5) Deadly Bloom
6) Manifesto of the Moletariate
7) Flame Legion Charr Carving
8) Symbol of Koda
9) Knowledge Crystal
10) Shard of Zhaitan
11) Fractal relics
12) Pristine fractal relics
13) Badges of Honor
14) Pact Victory Token
15) Captain’s Council Commendation
16) Laurels

Oh, and PvP Glory. I don’t know if it’s an actual item though, any PvPers around to chime in?

That’s nearly a whole bank slot right there, and frequently we need more than 1 stack of tokens for an item. Don’t you think you can have achievements reward better without adding yet more stuff we need to track and store?

Have achievements give tokens for the game mode? I.e., Laurels for PvE, Badges for WvW and Glory for PvP? Have achievements drop some item related to the achivement – loot for monster achieves, crafting mats for explorer or tradesman, cultural pieces for fashion, etc? There’s all kinds of ways to do this without making players work with an 18th form of currency.

JarekCyphus.7068:

Rather than add more skills for weapons, add new weapon archtypes (such as whips, flail, lances, etc.) to further diversify the combat. Exhaust the variety of weapons that can exist in a fantasy game, then expand the table of skills with each weapon.

As much as I would love new weapon categories, adding them wouldn’t have as big of an impact. Players still wouldn’t be able to adapt their weapon choice to their overall strategy, which means they would be pigeon-holed into less than ideal skills (there is usually one skill per weapon which is blah). By giving players a limited array of swap-able skills, the devs can increase build variety enormously, and cater to GW1 veterans (who miss the skill system). Plus, adding new skills would take (marginally) less work than adding new weapon types (because they wouldn’t have to create new meshes and weapon graphics).

Ganpot.3879:

JarekCyphus.7068:

Rather than add more skills for weapons, add new weapon archtypes (such as whips, flail, lances, etc.) to further diversify the combat. Exhaust the variety of weapons that can exist in a fantasy game, then expand the table of skills with each weapon.

As much as I would love new weapon categories, adding them wouldn’t have as big of an impact. Players still wouldn’t be able to adapt their weapon choice to their overall strategy, which means they would be pigeon-holed into less than ideal skills (there is usually one skill per weapon which is blah). By giving players a limited array of swap-able skills, the devs can increase build variety enormously, and cater to GW1 veterans (who miss the skill system). Plus, adding new skills would take (marginally) less work than adding new weapon types (because they wouldn’t have to create new meshes and weapon graphics).

This isn’t 2003; creating new character models is still hard, but creating new weapon meshes and textures is not half as hard as it once was. I don’t know how you fail to see the “impact” new weapons would have, though. Not only are you getting flavor variety, but you’re adding some diversity in design. That’s a far greater impact than simply adding a new weapon skill here or there.

I think overall, a healthy balance between new weapon archtypes and skill diversity with existing weapons should be struck to deepen the overall player experience, but I don’t necessarily agree with your “pigeon-hole” argument. I can count on one hand the number of weapons across ALL professions with a worthless skill, and most of them are underwater weapons. It’s because people still either don’t understand their classes/weapons, or they don’t like them.

I used to have that kind of backwards thinking about the Guardian’s staff, until I decided to give an exotic staff I picked up in the Cursed Shores a second try. It made the difference between group survival and excess aggro in two fractal runs, and several fights against the Risen Wizard at the Arah Gate, and all it cost was a little practice.