Guild Wars 2

Progression feels limited and despite the living story, it makes the game feel a bit empty.

I have a million karma and nothing really to spend it on, gold accumulating and nothing to spend it on either (repairs and way point travel?). Leveling crafting is expensive and unexciting due to the reuse of the same basic models over 400 levels. The living story is cool, but finishing it rewards you with little to nothing. Map completion feels accomplishing but rewards you with a gift used for building a legendary and not much else – not an ambition I’m interested in but I’m starting to feel is the only thing left to do.

I’m not here to bash on GW2, just point out that it needs more character progression for its players. How about adding unique models to the craftable items between 1 and 400. How about adding more gear models between levels 1 and 80. There is no gear grind and I love that, but if there are no bigger numbers to get excited about then the chance for a cool new model to wear should exist. That is the most exciting part of getting new gear and it’s completely missing.

How about an outlet for Karma that isn’t just cooking materials or leveling-gear. Or a HOME in our home instance to upgrade and customize. Things to hunt in the game, rare monsters or plants or ore that yield rare materials to make unique armor sets. Give us new weapon skill sets to learn for each weapon per character. I’m just spit-balling here, but the point is, I think More character (horizontal) progression is needed.

are you asking for more character progression (i.e. more levels, story content, and end game dungeons) or are you asking for ways to spend your in-game currency that you appear to be accumulating without having a reasonable outlet to spend it all? Because the two are not the same thing.

I’ve spent a ton of karma buying obsidian shards for legendaries and ascended mats. Used to have millions but now i can stay over 1m to save my life.

Characters have no progression in the living story. This is deliberate since it allows new players to enter the story with exactly the same progress as everyone else, no progress at all.

Stooperdale it depends on how you define progression. The Living Story isn’t really designed to progress a specific character at all. Rather it is designed to progress the entire game world as a whole. That is what makes Guild Wars 2 different from other games, the entire Living World System is designed to allow the players as a group to alter the very world they are playing in as an entity. Where as in other games, no matter what the players do, the world generally remains more or less static. At least it does unless the game developers release a new content update or expansion that somehow drastically changes the game environment.

That isn’t necessary with the Living World. With the Living World, if the players defeat the end boss of a given Dynamic Event, that End Boss is effectively dead. At least until the Developers decide to recycle the event for some reason. Thats why the Living World is so different.

At least that was how I understood it to work. Correct me if I am wrong about this.

You’ve all misunderstood me. I apologize for not being clear. I do not expect more levels or want them, nor am I asking for more story content or even dungeons necessarily. I’m not complaining that there is no character progression within the personal story. Neither am I asking for a way to spend currency.

What I’m trying to say is that at end game character progression seems to stop. Cosmetic changes are mainly all you have to work with (referring to character progression). And sadly most of the unique armor and weapon models are only available at level 80. This makes leveling less exciting because you will rarely see gear that looks any different then the gear you saw at level 10. This also makes crafting less exciting because again the models are all the same for the most part up to level 400.

With that said I meant to point out that there’s a lot of things that could be added to the game to allow players further horizontal progression of their characters. Such as adding unique gear models throughout the game and into crafting pre level 400 or player housing with the option of upgrades purchased with karma or gold or maybe unique armor SETS built from rare materials from rare monsters or creatures in the game (a visible feat to show off other than just legendary weapons), or giving each weapon another set of skills to be learned and swapped out for the old ones and so on.

the things you are asking for do not technically count as “Character Progression.” Rather they are largely things that add cosmetic appeal to the game, though at lower levels. The same effect could be achieved by allowing skins to be purchased at lower costs, or through more varied means than via the Trading Post. A concept that Anet appears to have considered in their latest update by including some new weapon skins on the Gem Store in addition to all the Armor Skins that are already there.

That said, in most Role Playing Games (I am not even going to limit this to just MMORPG’s because this phenomena has been occurring since the genre was invented), the best LOOKING gear, has always been End Game Gear.

In Dungeons and Dragons, the +5 Vorpal Longsword cost roughly 2,000,000 Gold Pieces. That means it costs approximately 1,900,000 more Gold than the value of the most expensive item you could buy in a city the size of Ancient Rome. At least according to D&D Logic. This was the kind of item that had to be found or made, because the players certainly weren’t going to be able to buy one off a random magic-mart.

Point is, the phenomena of “The best items always cost the most” or “The Best Items are only available to End Game Players,” is not new. It has been around since the conception of the genre.

To me, character progression is pushing your character forward in some way. Generally speaking this could be getting better gear (in power or cosmetics), leveling up crafts, gaining access to features (more traits slots as you level up as an example), better/faster/cooler mounts (remember I said generally speaking), learning new combat skills, acquisition of a player home, etc.

So in my previous posts what I was trying to explain is the addition of things like what I suggested could at least aid in the feeling of character progression. Different and new gear models between 1 and 80 would help give the feeling that your character is becoming more of a hero and advancing by actually LOOKING like the gear they are wearing isn’t still level 10 gear. Adding new weapon skills would make combat feel like it was actually advancing and changing as well. Sure we gain new utility skills as we level up, but how many of them do we actually like enough to use often? And we all know we use our weapon skills the most and tend to stick to a few favorites. Anyways, I was just pushing out some ideas or examples. Mentioning currency was only to say these sort of things could be an outlet for that karma pile-up.

I’m not trying to start a debate, just trying to express a concern.

The cosmetic horizontal progression which was originally supposed to have been GW2 endgame was and is way too shallow for an MMO audience, especially when that HP was supposed to stand in for the VP found in other games. The cosmetic options needed to be way more diverse and robust than was the case at launch (and this is still true today).

Unfortunately, cosmetics (armor and weapon skins) were being asked to perform too many functions. They were supposed to be the basis for HP, they’re needed for crafting, and they are being used to generate revenue. This is why I believe progression going forward will be based on skills, and perhaps infusions.

I see you keep referring to all armor looking the same as level 10 armor. For me, at least, the special armors you can craft as you level up particular crafting disciplines do look different than what drops, or you crafted before, and…there are different dungeon armors to acquire starting at level 35, up to and through level 80. And, again, for me, Arah armor is the least appealing one of the bunch. There are also some rare and unique weapons that drop in particular zones. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your view, they are very, very rare.

This is not to say that more armor or weapon models would not be appreciated. As the game matures, I am sure there will be more choices for character progression, horizontal-wise. =)

I just want more armor and better armor. The armor choice is lacking so much in this game.

For character progession, i would say we need a Class Mechanic quest to upgrade its visual effect. I wanted to say its combat effects as well but i think Arenanet is doing a bad job at balancing the different classes so lets not make it worse.

Below is a simple idea for the Class Mechanic Quest using slyvari ranger named Shiny as an example. After hitting a pre requisite (lvl 80,all gw2 pets obtained,map completion) you can do the quest. The reward is a unique pet skin within a pet family that can be used over the current pet(eg feline/canine/spiders/etc)

Receives Mail from Caithe, she informs us that a firstborn,one of the best ranger of the pale tree is impressed with Shiny and would like to share a secret about rare pets.Meeting up with the firstborn, Shiny is told that there is a rare pet that can only be tamed by a great hunter. The first secret will be for free,subsequent secrets will need payment. You can select which secret you wish to learn,each secret is for 1 unique skin for 1 pet family (eg feline/canine/spiders/etc).

The secret will actually be information pertaining the location and the different conditions on how to capture the pet. . EG Show mercy in combat, bait the rare spider pet with certain food,reducing the pet hit points until it start to retreat to its lair, follow it to its lair and corner it,spare its life and tame it. Or Alpha male Bear combat, using a pet bear,you need to reduce the rare bear until submission,you cannot hit the bear and other pets are not allowed. Or Moa Racing, you will gain 3rd person view and control over your pet Moa and race the rare Moa pet in a race. Alot of different quest can be done this way.

The fun will be actually capturing the rare pets with the various method since it will be quite different from typical GW2 zerging or braindead dps + dodge.

All quest will be instanced to avoid interferrence from open world zerg/griefers etc

I think people are starting to understand me. there is a limited feeling of progression all across this game, sadly. Combat, crafting, even leveling feels limited.

They could add something like a “class guild” like the vigil, priory, shadow idea. Except there would be different sets of gear that you could purchase at different levels and different levels of “reputation” earned by doing class specific “quests.” Earning class armor sets would be cool IMO.

I’ve already mentioned a lot of this but upgradable player housing, new weapon skills that can be learned, unique models spread out throughout crafting professions, more challenges to overcome and rewards to show off those feats (more than just legendary weapons and dungeons)… I think all of these things would be great! Limiting character progression primarily to cosmetic changes at level 80 as far as PvE is concerned is underwhelming at best.