Guild Wars 2

As of now the Personality System in GW2 is useless. When players gain points in a Personality they aren’t rewarded with anything to acknowledge their character’s change in personality. Because of how the dialogue choices are set up you can redo them repeatedly to change your character’s personality, which makes the choices less impactful.

In order to make the Personality System better I believe two things need to be done.

1. Dialogue choices need to be made permanent on a single character to make them more impactful and to stop players from redoing them to get the reward through “path with least resistance”.
2. There needs to be a reward given for reaching different personality thresholds to give players acknowledgement of there choices.

Now to tackle the latter of the two. I felt the reward should reflect the players personality. Also I wanted a reward that would not cause players to go for the personality that gave the best reward, the reward had to be balanced between each personality. So, what is the reward?

Each player will be given a skill based off what personality they have at any given time, which means this skill can change if your personality does too. When this skill is activated it causes the NPC’s (that don’t participate in combat with the player character) around the player to perform an action that is fitting to the players personality. Example; My Charr has a Barbaric personality so when I activate the said skill, it will cause all NPC’s around my Charr to perform an animation where they whimper and shake in fear of my Charr. Or if a noble character uses the skill it will cause the surrounding NPC’s to bow down on their knees. The reason for having the effect is to give the appearance that the world is reacting to the player characters behavior. If I’m intimidating everyone with my Charr then I want the world to reflect that.

I know there are bigger ways in which to improve the Personality System ie; Quest, cut-scenes, ect. But I think this is a less costly way for ArenaNet to improve it.

In order for the changes to be permanent, despite having options that repeatedly alter your personality (speed boons in Divinity’s Reach for example), the game would have to only accept the response you used the first time you responded. That should be easy enough to work through.

Also, I like the idea of roleplay/cosmetic differences with the personality system, though I would like to see it even deeper than what you suggested, such as with the way NPCs talk to you, though the things they offer you could still be the same.

Temariah.9372:

In order for the changes to be permanent, despite having options that repeatedly alter your personality (speed boons in Divinity’s Reach for example), the game would have to only accept the response you used the first time you responded. That should be easy enough to work through.

Also, I like the idea of roleplay/cosmetic differences with the personality system, though I would like to see it even deeper than what you suggested, such as with the way NPCs talk to you, though the things they offer you could still be the same.

I would like to see additional stuff too. But I figured it would be better to start small, that way this has a better chance of getting added to the game. Also, Thanks for the reply!

I’d have been rewarded enough if they’d been able to pull off the personality system they originally envisioned wherein charr cubs ran and gladium cowered before my ferocious charr, men cheered and women swooned as my charming human walked the streets of Divinity’s Reach, and citizens and wardens alike saluted my dignified sylvari. Such a system would have been rewarding in its own way without making players feel they should aim for one personality or another. It’s a shame they couldn’t pull that off.

Just don’t make an “off” choice too persistent. Sometimes, even a charming character will want to tell someone off. You shouldn’t have to give up that in-character option to gain some reward.

darkace.8925:

I’d have been rewarded enough if they’d been able to pull off the personality system they originally envisioned wherein charr cubs ran and gladium cowered before my ferocious charr, men cheered and women swooned as my charming human walked the streets of Divinity’s Reach, and citizens and wardens alike saluted my dignified sylvari. Such a system would have been rewarding in its own way without making players feel they should aim for one personality or another. It’s a shame they couldn’t pull that off.

Thanks for commenting!
Yes! That all would have been great to have at launch of the game, but hopefully we’ll see that stuff latter on. Better late than never at all.

Palador.2170:

Just don’t make an “off” choice too persistent. Sometimes, even a charming character will want to tell someone off. You shouldn’t have to give up that in-character option to gain some reward.

Yes, but because how the Personality system has already been implemented picking a dialogue choice every now and then that goes against the majority of your personality wont hardly effect it.

It would be really cool if your current personality balance made NPCs talk about you differently. Nothing elaborate, just a couple of dialogues and phrases that could play at times.