Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 is awesome, obviously, but let’s face it. There are still those ‘other’ MMOs out there. The popular ones like World of Warcraft, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and Rift all have more players and bring in more money than Guild Wars 2 and have fiercely loyal playerbases, so they are obviously doing something very right on their end!

So what ideas from other MMOs would you like to see implemented into GW2 in some fashion?

NOTE: This is not meant to be a suggestion post, simply a discussion on what fantasies you have of Guild Wars 2 :P

My choice: More customizable looks! WoW has Transmogrification, SWTOR has endless choices of adaptive gear, and Rift has their wardrobe function. I would love more options to customize my look in Guild Wars 2, especially because a lot of the sets are recycled with different stats and not much else.

Have fun!

Interesting loot.

As far as skins, I actually like quite a few of them and think they’re well designed, but too many of them are meh on the other hand.

Also looking forward to eventual player housing and hopefully a variety of crafting to go along with that.

i want to be able to change the skins and stats of every piece of gear when not in combat. this feature not found anywhere else.

Skill variety and customization from GW1.

Pvp modes from…. well every game other than conquest.

Wardrobe system from Rift. Other than town clothes.

But mostly the first one.

Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine

The ability to contract “demons”(equivalent of mobs in gw2) which function like the ranger’s pet that can help in combat, but can be “fused” to create higher level, more exotic demons.

Archon voting system from RF Online.

players vote for racial leaders to lead them in the game’s chip war.

Housing. Or at least a more customizable home instance.

housing
15 chars

The wardrobe function from Rift definitely. Though this would eat into Anet’s transmog stone gem sales I would love if this made it into the game.

Also the ‘Public Group’ system in Rift, an easy to join drop-in drop-out grouping method that often led to complete strangers staying together and looking for more to do after the first event. In a MMO this is a good thing, right?

Its so hard to just pick one. But I’ve narrowed it down to two, and both are from City of Heroes:

#1: The character and outfit design options (or the equivalent for a sword and sorcery RPG)

#2: The immense skill selection system.

I guess #1 won’t work as well in a sword + sorcery RPG, since superheroes have much more freedom in their style choices. Of course, I’d still like something like that. In City of Heroes I grew quite attached to the 10 characters I made, and each one was unique and cool looking. So much so that you could spot them from a mile off and go “oh yeah, that’s Bill. Hey Bill! Over here!”. So many other games I’ve played, this one included, the characters just sort of fade into the background as Guardian #28501. They have a dye system and an armor system, but ultimately you feel like a sum of armor parts associated with your class. In GW2 it comes down to this:

Heavy armor: big hulking pieces of metal with various dents in them for design.
Medium armor: more trenchcoats than every flasher in the world combined.
Light armor: skimpy outfits that raise the ESRB rating of the game single handed.

And it really shouldn’t. Then it is about classes and archetypes instead of individuality.

From an operational point of view, #2 is something that nearly any game should strive to make. Ultimately it again comes down to individuality, but since most people probably don’t know how City of Heroes skill system worked, I’ll explain it in order:

Step 1: Pick a class. 14 archtypes to choose from, 4 with dedicated power sets, 10 that let you picked your own.

Step 2: Pick primary power set in character creation. This was a list of 8 to 14 or so different skill sets that would give you a pool of 9 collaborating skills to choose from. The sets were sometimes shared along classes who did the same things (I.E. archetypes with ranged offense would sometimes share the same power sets), sometimes they were unique to the class.

Step 3: Pick your secondary power set in character creation. This is another list of 8 to 14 different skill sets that gave 9 skills that worked together. Again, some of these sets were shared while other sets were unique to a class, and these sets were sometimes mixed and matched with the primary power sets of other classes.

Step 4: Pick your global power pools while leveling up and playing the game. These were abilities that any class can pick up, not having any special distinction between whatever class you chose. These often included movement powers, too. There were, again, 14 of them (and more kept being added), and you can choose various skills from up to 5 different pools at once.

Step 5: Pick your ancillary or patron power pool at later levels. These were class specific pools to choose from. Ancillary power pools were 5 sets of 5 skills that you could pick from, patron pools were unlocked via story content and were 4 sets of 5 skills to choose from.

Each skill or “power” you picked had upgrade slots, and as you leveled you could choose to increase the number of slots in whatever skills you want from 1 to 6. In these slots you could customize how the power worked with enhancements. They would increase damage, increase accuracy, increase range, reduce endurance cost, reduce recharge time, reduce interrupt time, increase healing, increase resistance mod, increase endurance mod, increase defense mod, etc. There were also special enhancement sets that would give global bonuses for slotting multiples of those sets, and those sets were well rounded in themselves.

At the end, when you finally reached level 50, there were incarnate powers, which were extremely potent “nuke the room” type abilities that were available to every class, regardless of class type. Some were global buffs, others were procs, some were summons, some were defense, some were team buffs, etc. These made up the late game raid grind. There were 5 slots unlocked, and each slot had at least 8 different skills to choose form, which each had different customization trees to go down for those powers.

You couldn’t take them all. You only received, like, 20 skill slots you could pick for powers, and many powers were gated behind earlier ones in their tier.

With each individual power customizable in color, brightness, or even chosen animation style, the end result when combined with #1 was someone all to your own. When you made Bill, if you had even a shred of creativity, Bill was completely unique and there was no other character like him. From the strengths he had, the weaknesses he had, the way he played, and the way he felt, Bill was all yours, and people would recognize you for him. Whether you made him as a joke, you made him to be serious, you made him to roleplay, or you made him for teaming reasons, it was yours.

I miss that so much in GW2.

This is probably going to come with Legendary armor, but one thing I miss in WoW was a certain armor effect from BC.

If you remember Voidheart, when you had all the pieces, you’d have a chaos rift with lightning behind the character begin to appear. it was purely aesthetic though, but it looked brilliant.

I want them to bring that sort of stuff to GW2, if they can.

I miss fishing as in both Rift and WoW. I would love to see it implemented in GW2.

Crafting/gathering/surveying from Star Wars Galaxies.

Bump, more suggestions! how can we make this game as successful as WoW and SWTOR??

CoH character customization.

Bonus missions

From many other MMOs, I’d like to see guild wars.

Tera
targeting with a cursor in the middle of your screen instead of locking on a person. For one thing ride the lightning would be easier to use and not hit as many yellow mobs when I’m just trying to get somewhere fast

1. Wardrobe function from Rift and Age of Conan, where you had two slots for each bit of armor, one for stats, one for looks. Knowing that Anet wants to sell transmutation crystals, though, maybe a hybrid system where you have to first use a crystal on a piece of gear to transform into a skin before you can put it on the skin slot.

2. A looking for group interface similar to the one WoW had around TBC. No auto forming of groups, just allowing you to list yourself for different dungeons so you can get whispers from groups forming, or whisper to group leaders for an invite.

3. The skill acquisition system from GW1. I liked having to explore the world to find a skill vendor in some far away outpost because he had a skill I wanted, and also having to equip signets of capture and heading to hunt a mini boss to get elite skills.

4. One I just remember.. from WoW, unique gear tied to crafting. If you leveled tailoring, for example, you got to create some epic gear that was on par with entry level raiding gear, but you could only wear it as long as you had tailoring (and a specific kind of tailoring) as your active crafting profesion. I’d like to see something like that with things like exclusive skins or things like that. Plus I’d also like to see a permanent “made by XX” on crafted gear.

One Character
Many Professions
(aka GW1 secondary profession system, but as primary)

Drop the mindless overwhelming the mobs/players with numbers gameplay and add innovative experiences.

Oddly enough, the one thing I am usually opposed to, and was at first for GW2: LFG system for dungeons. An IN-GAME LFG, not some site. No it’s not the same.

I think it usually robs a social aspect from the game, but outside of guild runs most people use the site for LFG already so having an in-game system would just be more convenient and welcome for me.

A couple have mentioned it already, but def CoH char customization. There were literally thousands of combinations possible, and they were all cosmetic — no stat bonus, etc. Plus, you had the option to customize your skills’ effects, not only with colors, but for some skills, there were different animations and different effects. For example, for the mesmer, instead of butterflies when an illusion shattered, it could be flies, or stars, or shards of glass, and they could be of the color you chose. Or for the thief, with dual pistols, the animation could be the one they have now, or the animation CoH had for the dual pistol skill Bullet Rain (which was really cool). But as one poster stated, it allowed for everyone’s chars to be easily identifiable from a distance (assuming you knew them, lol) since no two chars looked the same.

While I don’t consider it an MMO, somewhere along the way the name got slapped ‘near’ it at least, so I’m going to count their latest game for the purpose of this discussion, so I can include a ‘feature’ from the company as a whole.

Communication and community involvement philosophy from Gazillion.

Edit: Wait, almost forgot!

I’d like to include swimming pets from Guild Wars 2 into Guild Wars 2 pets (Plush Griffon).

OP got infracted for saying “GW2 is awesome” lol
I’ve had one for saying “Welcome to GW2” so ehh random mod is random.

On topic: I would bring loot from any other game, LFG tool, (Even Diablo1-2 had these c’mon, server names ect.) and the story from any/all of Bioware and Bethesda’s writers.

Darkness Falls (DaOC, of course).

Reason? WvWvW JP’s are somewhat nice, and could be exciting. Have some unique traps. However, there is zero reason to enter these days. If you designed the environment to yield:

1. More exp per kill
2. Increase in Tx mats or precursors
3. Increase in money per kill
4. Added NPC mobs, veterans, or randomly roaming champs to yield 1, 2, and 3 above would provide reason
5. Control to prevent others from joining and giving more reason to control towers, etc

Basically there needs to be a reason to go in there. Money talks, everything else walks.

1.as stated a in game lfg would be nice like in gw1
2. every mmo has a duel system so why not gw2?
3.something unique maybe have a voice chat in game instead of using 3rd party software , it would be one less thing running.
4. would be nice to bring back random area, mix up the teams play with other people make friends..
5. leveling up by yourself sucks why not have people who are low levels do quest and kill stuff together not have to grind events till they wanna slap a baby

I really miss the flexibility of the costume system in City of Heroes. Transmutation stones are better than nothing, but I’d love to be able to mix and match across armor types, color my weapons and spell effects, save multiple costumes that could be swapped on the fly for my current appearance without changing gear/eating up inventory space, and have all equipment appearance unlocks be permanent and universal for all characters on my account.

I also really miss the CoH housing system, which was huge and incredibly versatile.

I really just miss CoH. If NCSoft hadn’t murdered it, I’d have dropped GW2 after the introduction of Ascended gear and still be stomping around Paragon City.

A real autoloot – when I kill it the goods go straight to my bags until they are full.

There is nothing engaging or compelling about having an extra click after every fight to pick stuff up, or running circles around a battlefield hopping you found all the loot you earned but didn’t happen to grab at just that moment.

The skin wardrobe system from DCUO. This game is in dire need of proper cosmetic progression. Also, autoloot.

Housing that was like in daoc or rift….. please no instanced housing

. . . extra dungeons like in D&D Online you could spend some Gems on to access through the Fractals lobby.

I want to feel strong.

In City of Heroes, the first lead Dev said he wanted characters to be on par with THREE “even con” (same level) base level foes. Eventually, that became a sort of baseline, and characters frequently grew up from there. At max level, my tanker could solo missions set for 8 person teams, with a +2 level shift for the enemies. Not all characters could do that, but some did a LOT more.

Feeling powerful isn’t all about raw power, though. My robotics mastermind would have support powers running and I would often make her stand “at ease” while I controlled her minions to wipe out everything in the area. My stalker would enter battle impeccably dressed in burgundy dress pants and suit vest, over a white dress shirt that matched his sword. My scrappers used totally different styles of martial arts, one with flowing Tai Chi style movements and the other with brutal street fighting moves that looked downright painful. One character could cover the ground in black plants with violet flowers when she used her powers, and another could cause black and green flame to rain down from the sky. And every one of them FELT powerful, even when they really weren’t.

Guild Wars 2 lacks both the reality and feel of characters being truly powerful, for the most part. Yes, there are moments where they have at least part of it right (Engineer flamethrower, for example, feels powerful), but it’s very rare that they deliver on both.

We’re supposed to be the big heroes. Let us feel like it.

I want the DPS/Heal/Tank/Debuff roles back<

Does Guild Wars 1 count as an MMO for these purposes? Because if so I want that skill system (and all that entails) and dual classing.

Perma Death character creation.

In short, create a character and level to 80. If along the way you die you lose everything and start over, from scratch, using a new name. Name of fallen character is kept track your awards page.

If you hit 80, without death, you are granted a precursor of your choice and a title.

Crapgame.6519:

Perma Death character creation.

In short, create a character and level to 80. If along the way you die you lose everything and start over, from scratch, using a new name. Name of fallen character is kept track your awards page.

If you hit 80, without death, you are granted a precursor of your choice and a title.

And on that day, everyone sat around in LA crafting their way to 80 in under an hour.

lore / book collectibles

Crapgame.6519:

Perma Death character creation.

In short, create a character and level to 80. If along the way you die you lose everything and start over, from scratch, using a new name. Name of fallen character is kept track your awards page.

If you hit 80, without death, you are granted a precursor of your choice and a title.

Because we need to reward utter cowardice even more?

The Spiral King.2483:

Crapgame.6519:

Perma Death character creation.

In short, create a character and level to 80. If along the way you die you lose everything and start over, from scratch, using a new name. Name of fallen character is kept track your awards page.

If you hit 80, without death, you are granted a precursor of your choice and a title.

And on that day, everyone sat around in LA crafting their way to 80 in under an hour.

Point taken. But you don’t allow crafting or other means to get there or even boost you such as the instant lvl 20 thingy or other consumables. Zero to 80. Heck, make it ever lasting to include fractals, etc.

The Bazaar from EQ1…

The trading post is ok for finding a few things, but the bazaar in EQ1 was great!

Flying , I miss flying from another X mmo .

WoW … other than Sai no-one even mentioned it. I’m not saying it’s races-applicable, I have no idea how you would practically do it … but:

MOUNTS.

Nothing beats riding around on something, especially if it’s a gigantic mythical beast (or for Charr, maybe a Tank).

Crapgame.6519:

Perma Death character creation.

In short, create a character and level to 80. If along the way you die you lose everything and start over, from scratch, using a new name. Name of fallen character is kept track your awards page.

If you hit 80, without death, you are granted a precursor of your choice and a title.

Ironman mode?

IMO, just give an achievement for getting a character to level 80 as an Ironman, along with an account badge like the Explorer one.

I would love to have combat mode as an official option in game, rather than something done outside the game; holding down right click 80% of the time is just a little… =/ Just free up that button for something else like dodging, which would then free up the dodge button for something else like a skill… or something… and looking around would just feel so much more intuitive.

Another thing would be more epic boss fights; I have always loved the fights in games like vindictus and tera because they can just feel extremely epic at times (if your party isn’t too over geared/leveled for the battle lol). I mean bosses grabbing players and smashing them into the ground and the occasional save by a player throwing a spear at the bosses hand to get them to drop their party member, aiming siege weapons at bosses and stunning them, knocking dragons out of the sky with ballistae (Vindictus has probably my favorite and the most epic feeling dragons in any game I have ever played; making most dragon fights in other games just feel lame in comparison), being constantly on the move and just barely getting that dodge/block in time to save yourself, etc.

Another thing I would love to see in GW2 is more strategy based situations like from the original GW where you had to attract and pull away a group of mobs piece by piece to whittle their group down (and if you just rushed in, getting a guaranteed death lol).

Give players choices when engaging in battle; do we divide and conquer? Or do we sneak around/through them? And make players commit to their choice or risk having to back track their progress quite a ways to complete the dungeon/etc.

They should provide more situations that give players choices with real consequences they can’t easily reconcile (especially in stories; do more with that reputation thing…).

Housing, as customisable as it was in SWG, preferably not instanced, but I’ll take what I can get!

LFG tool from WoW

Reya.1895:

WoW … other than Sai no-one even mentioned it. I’m not saying it’s races-applicable, I have no idea how you would practically do it … but:

MOUNTS.

Nothing beats riding around on something, especially if it’s a gigantic mythical beast (or for Charr, maybe a Tank).

MOUNTS!! – I would so love that

eisberg.2379:

LFG tool from WoW

That too & mods so I can customise the kitten outta my UI and have things the way i want them like i did in WoW. Hell lets just take WoW with the GW2 philosophy of rewarding people for helping each other instead of rewarding for kitten each other over and that’s my dream game.

I’m going to be naughty and reverse the question.

If I could impliment one thing from GW2 to other MMO’s it would be the jumping puzzles

Would love more character costumizations éwè