Guild Wars 2

The idea behind the progression system is to have next to no vertical progression, and instead focus on horizontal progression. Players would go through the game unlocking more options, not more power.

The level cap would be 10. The idea is to have level progression as a tutorial for the game, so a new player would not be overwhelmed by new mechanics once starting; but the cap would be reached extremely soon, before leaving each starting zone. Experience would continue to be earned, resulting in more skill points, as today.

Our current stats – Power, Precision, etc – wouldn’t come from gear, but rather be chosen by players, in a new mechanic combining the trait system from Guild Wars 2 with the attribute points system from the original Guild Wars. Each attribute would have its own line, so players could increase it or decrease it as desired, from a single pool of attribute points. For example, a character with 1.000 attribute points could invest 500 in Power and 500 in Vitality, or spread 500 in Power and 250 in Precision and 250 in Critical Damage, and so on.

Similar to the current trait lines, players would be able to pick traits at specific breakthrough points in the attribute progression – for example, minor traits would open at Power 100 and 200, major ones at Power 300 and 400, and a Master one at Power 500.

A character who has just reached the level cap would have full attribute points, and begin from a baseline that includes all attributes above zero… But he would have access to only two attribute lines, Power and Vitality, as well as access to only one of each kind of trait in each trait slot. Access to the other attribute lines – Precision, Toughness, Critical Damage, Condition Damage, Condition Duration, Boon Duration and Movement Speed – would come by accomplishing major challenges in the world; minor challenges would give access to new traits. Both attribute lines and traits would be unlocked in any order the player wanted – he could unlock first Critical Damage and then Precision, or the other way around, for example.

Skills and skill acquisition would work as they do today, with weapon skills being unlocked by using the weapon (it would be faster for elementalist due to the attunements) and other skills unlocked through skill points. There would be no tiers of utility skills; they would all cost the same, so players could choose freely in which order unlock their abilities. Elite skills would become available at level 10 and would require more skill points than utility skills, as today.

This one is simple. No loot. No currencies, either; no gold or karma. Killing a monster doesn’t give anything other than a bit of experience. For the records, I have never been fond of the idea that our characters, the heroes trying to save the world, always stop after killing someone to steal the armor and the weapons from the body, leaving a sea of half-naked corpses behind.

There would only be a single tier of items, and all players would begin the game with this basic equipment: armor with maxed static defense (but no upgrades), and all weapons with maxed weapon damage, but no sigils. Changing weapons would be a matter of picking among options in a menu; there would be no inventory at all.

The main reward system for the game would be based on skins. A new character would begin with access to only the most basic skin for weapons and armor; new skins would be earned not as items, but as unlocks. For example, someone who had unlocked the Acolyte armor skin and the Embroidered armor skin would be able to change each armor piece between those skins freely, as many times as desired. Armors would be unlocked as full sets, as well as weapons, so a player wouldn’t unlock the Zodiac sword skin; he would unlock the Zodiac weapon skin, and then be able to change the look of all his weapons as often as he desired, to and from the Zodiac skins.

The second item customization system would be upgrades – sigils and runes. Since stats wouldn’t come from items, rather from the attribute system, sigils and runes would work by adding new functionalities, like the current Sigil of Fire, and some of the effects from runes (such as the sixth level of Rune of Vampirism). Those upgrades would also work under an unlock system, so once available players would be able to change between them in the same circumstances in which they could change attribute points (outside instances, when out of combat).

In practice, players would change their equipment in the current Hero window. Each of the current weapon slots would show three kinds of option: weapon type (mace, sword, etc); weapon skin; and sigil. Changing one option would keep the others instead of defaulting to nothing, so someone currently using a Zodiac Sword of Fire could change to a Zodiac Mace of Fire just by changing weapon type from sword to mace. Armor pieces would work in the same way.

Other rewards would include minipets, tonics, titles and other aesthetic features, also working as unlocks. Together with skins, they would be rewards for doing (once) specific activities in the game, to be mentioned below.

“So the point of the game is to play dress up?”

No. The point of the game is to have fun through gameplay, not to get shiny stuff. The above systems are ancillary to the main experience, not the main experience itself. This is a different point of view from those players who play to get stuff, and so believe they have “beaten the game” once they have everything; but this version of GW2 would be specifically tailored to not fit that audience anyway.

This one would receive a big overhaul. Instead of our characters making minor choices that have little to no impact in the plot, as everyone is fueled through the same storyline, we would have the opposite: few options, but each race would have its own story. A human character, for example, would be a noble who ‘s friend of Lord Faren, later joins the Virgil, loses its mentor in the invasion of Lion’s Arch by the Risen, joins the Pact, and leads the ground assault against Zhaitan. A Charr would be a member of the Iron Legion who joins the Order of Whispers, meets Tybalt, never goes to Lion’s Arch, helps to build and protect the airship factory of the Pact, and becomes the captain of the airship used in the aerial assault against Zhaitan. A Sylvari would join the Durmand Priory, meet Sieran and Traheanne, fight against the Risen as they try to invade the Pale Tree, join Traheanne as he tries to cleanse Orr, and would fight Zhaitan from within the Dream.

The story would also show our characters’ personalities. While some players like their characters to be blank canvas in which they could imagine themselves, from a storytelling perspective this doesn’t really work – it turns our characters into mindless drones, who just go from one place to the other blindly following orders (and so being eclipsed by NPCs). Each race would show a different kind of personality, but our characters would actually plan and take charge, instead of just following others.

The story structure would be changed, as well. The current very short missions used through the personal storyline have the advantage that they may be played quickly and very casually, but the price we pay is having extremely simplistic and forgetful missions. They would be replaced by longer and more complex scenarios, similar in length to the missions in the original Guild Wars, but still focused on solo play.

Beyond those five stories, there would be a sixth one – Destiny Edge’s tale, told through dungeons’ Story Mode. Those would also be made for solo players, like all other storyline content, and would show Destiny Edge getting back together, plus their contribution in the fight against Zhaitan.

The idea behind Dynamic Events was great. The flaw has been in the execution, though: we have few events that tell a story or show a significant impact on the world, and basically no event that deals properly with scaling (which is why zergs can stomp everything).

Dynamic events often are repetitive because they offer at most two situations. Most of the “keep this camp!” events, for example, consist on a camp owned by the characters’ faction being attacked by a given group of enemies; if it succeeds, everything continues on the status quo; if it fails, those enemies control the camp, and soon the characters’ faction will launch a mission to retake it. This setup isn’t interesting from a gameplay point of view (both events boil down to “kill a bunch of these same enemies!”), or from a replayability point of view (you know what you will find – the camp owned by allies, or allies fighting to retake the camp).

The events need to branch more, and to be built more like trees than the binary distribution we have right now. Say a camp in the Shiverpeaks is owned by the Vigil; there could be an event in which they are organizing a fighting tournament to practice, leading to stronger soldiers in the camp if it succeeds. The camp could then have an event in which the Icebrood attack it; and an event in which the Skritt attack it. If the Skritt win, the camp becomes hostile and is filled with shiny baubles; from there, it would trigger an event in which the Skritt try to bring more of their own to the camp, and it that succeeds the baubles begin to turn into defensive weapons. Then there would be an event in which the Order of Whispers try to gather information about the Skritt, and if that succeeds the Order sends an expedition to offer baubles and shinnies to the Skritts, making peace, which would turn the camp back into a friendly state, but this time it’s occupied by friendly Skritt and the Order of Whispers, not by the Virgil. And so on… A player going to the camp could find it in multiple different states (friendly with the Virgil; friendly with the Order; hostile with the Skritt; hostile with the Icebrood), and each state would have its own DEs so the camp wouldn’t be just eternally locked in a tug of war.

We would also have more events that tell small stories in the world (like the Rani versus the grawl chain), or that actually interact with each other (such as the ale dropped by pirates in the Captain Penzan event being later found by Norn researchers from the Durmand Priory during another event).

The reward system for dynamic events would be based on participating in any step of a given chain for all events in a zone, and on defeating the world bosses. For example, participating on all event chains in Kryta would unlock the human cultural weapon skins, with multiple tiers unlocking each of the 3 sets. The tracking system would list which chains a given character has already done, so players would easily know when a new event chain had been added to the game.

Exploring the world is currently one of my favourite parts of GW2; the ambient dialogue, the beautiful landscapes and all the great Easter eggs in the world make exploration a joy…

… Other than in Orr. And in Southsun Cove, but IMO it should never have existed. Orr is a pain; it may be a farmers’ paradise, but the lack in enemy variety, the very shallow Dynamic Events, all the multiple annoyances in the area (the statues, all the enemies with pulls and immobilizes) and the repetitive and somewhat ugly landscape make exploration there a pain.

I don’t know how to fix it. In fact, I wouldn’t even try. I would make four changes:
• Merge all 3 maps into a single large one. The player limit before creating overflows would increase accordingly (but c’mon, if GW2 were like I’m describing almost no one would play it, so the point is moot :-P). I’ll explain why later.
• Remove skill challenges. No time for that with Risen stomping everything.
• Remove the statues. Just a small quality of life improvement.

…And, the real thing: defeating Zhaitan would unlock a new version of Orr. Those who have finished the storyline would be able to choose, whenever they enter the map, between the old, Risen-filled one, or the post-Zhaitan one. The new Orr would have no Risen, would have a renovated landscape (trees, grass, common animals, etc), and would have new outposts for each of the major races. The Norn would create a new huge lodge near the Temple of Melandru, enjoying the hunting possible by all the animals that would move there; the Asura would build an outpost near the Temple of Dwayna, using her lights to power new inventions; the Charr would somewhat begrudgingly make a large forge near the Temple of Balthazar, using the fire-improving properties of the area; the Sylvari would occupy part of the island with the Temple of Grenth, as only them wouldn’t be annoyed by the surrounding aura of death. The humans would build a new temple, the Temple of Kormir, as a symbol of hope; and the Temple of Lyssa would receive a monument to the Pact, commemorating the victory against Zhaitan. All those would have their own dynamic events, talking about the aftermath of the war, and foreshadowing the future of the storyline.

Arah would become a personal instance, serving as a player housing area. It would act as an epilogue to the personal storyline, showing many of the NPCs met through the game; Charr characters would have a section with an apple tree garden, cared by Tybalt; meanwhile, for Sylvari characters it would have a lush garden, watched by Traheanne, who, after being terribly burned and losing his legs in the ritual to revitalize Orr, would be taken care of by an eternally sunny Sieran; and so on. Arah would also work as a gallery of skins unlocked by the character, through an armory section, as well as a repository of collectibles unlocked by playing through the game (interactive statues like an improved version of the Zephyr Sanctum model, and so on).

Dungeons would follow the current model, in that explorable mode would include three paths; one would be the relatively easy, to teach groups about the area’s mechanics; one would be somewhat challenging; and one would be rather difficult, for those who want a big challenge.

Players would also have the option of using AI-controlled henchmen for help, when they can’t fill a party with real players. Those NPCs (the members of Destiny’s Edge) would come with pre-set builds and skills; they would allow a player to solo the easiest path, but from there they would be better used to occupy a single empty slot than to make a full team.

Dungeons would also receive changes in enemy distribution. Instead of having enemies just standing around that players can (and often want to) run through, the design would be more similar to the current Crucible of Eternity: each part of the dungeon would act as a closed room with a given scenario that players have to go through, like the laser puzzle on CoE, or the computer hacking scenario, or the Norn miniboss. Progression through the dungeon would require completition of the previous scenarios, but there would be no enemy to kill between one scenario and the next. I’ll mention dungeon bosses in the next section.

The reward system for dungeons would also be different. Completing one unique path a single time would unlock the runes and sigils associated with a given dungeon. Completing two unique paths would unlock a dungeon’s armor skin. Completing all three paths would unlock the weapon skins.

“Unlock? But the dungeons would be dead, because no one would receive any reward for repeating them!”

Yes. Arguably, dungeons are half dead already, and some of the most played are more ran through and exploited than really fully played. We would still give players a reason to experiment them, and hopefully repeat them simply because they enjoy them. But there would be no carrot linked to grinding a dungeon over and over.

I think one of the main sources of longevity and replayability in the game should be horizontal progression, by offering players multiple viable builds, each so different from the other that doing the same content but with a different skill set feels like something new.

This point of view relies on the design of the game, but also on the players. Someone who makes a build and refuses to change it no matter what would be more likely to hit a wall and just keep hitting it until being overwhelmed by frustration than to enjoy the game. Being able to enjoy flexibility and change would be almost a requirement in order to enjoy this version of GW2.

The first big change would be in the link between PvE and PvP. The latter requires near perfect balance, and a bit of variability; but PvE requires a lot of variability, of course with some degree of balance (otherwise variability would not really exist). Those two game modes are not really compatible. Meanwhile, I agree with ArenaNet’s point of view regarding how having two versions of the same skill, one in PvE and another in PvP, makes the transition between both modes harder than it has to be, all well as making balance more troublesome.

I think there’s a somewhat simple solution to this problem: PvE-only skills, weapons and traits. Those would NOT be more powerful than the PvP-allowed ones (otherwise there would not be true variability), but they would allow ArenaNet to keep PvP more balanced while giving more options for PvE players without having to create multiple versions of the same skill. Using the current meta as an example, skills inflicting conditions are too powerful in PvP, but too weak in PvE; removing the worst offenders from PvP would allow them to be properly balanced against AI-based enemies.

The skill bar would work as it does today – half linked to a weapon, the rest split between healing, utility and elite. But not only we would have more options – more weapons and more of each kind of skill -, we would also be able to modify the current skills.

A long time ago, when GW2 was still in development, ArenaNet had traits that actually changed how a given skill worked. There was a trait that made the skill “Bone Minion” summon 3 minions instead of 2; another that changed “Ice Storm” into “Maelstrom”, changing its functionability; and so on. I would like to rescue this system, and change all minor traits to work like that – change already existing skills, especially weapon skills, into something new. The new minor traits would be selected by the players instead of being defined automatically, and we would have a large variety of them in order to make many skills more malleable. We would also lose the traits offering only passive damage increases, and instead keep the traits that add new functionalities and actually change gameplay (such as the ranger trait that makes all arrow attacks pierce targets).

Combat itself would receive some changes. Right now, dodging is the main crutch in the game. For example, the Alpha fights in CoE path 2 have a very interesting mechanic: the boss creates multiple large area of effect attacks, centered on each player, with two concentric circles. The attack either fills the inner circle or the outer ring, and this can be predicted by watching the animation before the attack happens. What do the players do, then? They completely ignore this mechanics, simply count to three, and dodge the attack.

I would, then, significantly increase the endurance cost of dodging so a single dodge costs an entire bar. I would also remove Vigor from the game, as well as all the effects that increase endurance regeneration; this would leave dodging as a last resource when things are going badly, not a crutch to be relied on all the time. I would switch the defensive focus to support skills, such as unidirectional blocks that would allow a character to protect others from an area of effect projectile; and I would change the Defiant system, so it would only add a short timer in which control skills don’t work, to prevent bosses from being completely stun locked while making control skills actually useful.

Bosses would also need to have different mechanics than they do today. Currently, most champions and bosses are based on having a very high health and doing slow, big attacks that players are encouraged to dodge. This means there is little point in using anything other than Berserker stats for almost all boss encounters in the game.

Some “easy” changes include decreasing health but significantly increasing armor, so condition damage becomes more useful than direct damage against some enemies; significantly decreasing damage per attack but increasing attack speed, so players would have some use for toughness; reducing damage from raw attacks but increasing the use of conditions, to make vitality and condition removal more important. Each of those changes would be implemented on different bosses, so we would have variability in the game, and different party compositions would be more suited to different fights.

Instead of just modifying stats, though, the bosses also need more interesting mechanics. The Alpha fight in Coe path 2 would be a great fight if players weren’t allowed to dodge, for example. World Boss fights should be more similar in structure to the fight against the Ancient Karka, in which the boss would move across the map, all the way from the middle of Southsun to the top of the Karka lair, as players had to cooperate through multiple different phases to defeat it.

Wouldn’t exist; as in, players would be unable to trade Gems for gold or gold for Gems (see section 2, on the other side of the Great Wall of Text, for the reason why). There would be an in-game store, but players would only be able to buy things using real money.

The store would sell:

• New weapon skin unlocks and backpack skin unlocks. Those would be account-based, and would work, once bought, like other skin unlocks already in the game (available an infinite amount of times). Only new skins would be offered here.

• Minipets. Many would be available in-game as rewards, but others would be available from the store, and from nowhere else.

• Costumes. Those would be like the costumes in the original Guild Wars, as in, they would be skins unlocked for all characters in an account, available as many times as desired. They would work as sets made from only two pieces, one for the head and another for the entire body. This would make costume design easier than armor design, as, since players would be unable to mix and match costume pieces with pieces of body armor, there would be no need to worry about clipping with existing attires. Those costumes would work during battle, unlike the current town clothes.

• Mini Mission Packs. Similar to the Bonus Mission Pack, those would be small sets of solo missions in which we play not as our characters, rather as someone else during an important moment of Tyria’s history. Possibilities include playing as a Mursaat during the previous war against the dragons, playing as a Margonite during the fall of Abbadon, playing as a Norn during the escape from Jormag, and so on. Other than the experience itself, playing through all the missions in a given pack would unlock new weapon skins.

The Living Story would work as monthly and/or bimonthly updates, continuing the story of Tyria by following on currently existing characters and plot points, instead of just introducing new ones out of thin air (hi, Scarlet!). Examples of possible Living Story content would be opening a new dungeon in the floating Wizard Tower, in which players would fight the wizard controlling all those elementals in Garenhoff.

Eventually, we would have expansions, increasing the size of the world to Cantha, Elona and beyond. Those would offer one new race, one new profession, new skills for the original professions, and continue the personal storyline through the fall of the dragons, the return of the gods, and the rise of what the gods were running from when they bought humanity to Tyria all those centuries ago.