Guild Wars 2

Hey guys.

I’ve been developing this idea in my head for quite a long time now, and it first stemmed from the fact that exploration in GW2 to me, didn’t really feel like exploration. All you really did was look at the map and go to whatever heart/waypoint/vista, etc, that you needed to go to until a map was complete.

There wasn’t much effort when it came to finding things like jumping puzzles or mini dungeons, or other similar secrets and once you knew where they were, exploration as a whole became rather arbitrary. There’s no real sense of adventure in GW2 from an exploration point of view because you feel like you’re just discovering something that has already been discovered 1000 times before you even got there.

So, this idea popped into my head. What if we introduced a treasure hunt of sorts, one that would bring back that sense of adventure and mystery back into GW2? And that’s where the idea of “The Vault” (working title) came from.

How would it work?

The idea behind “The Vault” is to introduce a secret, hidden treasure room that appears in some random location around the world, that can only be accessed through a keen amount of investigation, and a specific set of player actions (kinda like a puzzle you must solve). It shouldn’t be easy to find, and there should only be very scant clues given as to its location (if any at all), and even should it’s location be discovered or guessed, there should be some effort involved in opening it.

Once a player finds the entrance to the vault and manages to figure out how to open it, he and anyone in his party at the time will be transported inside, and given, as a reward, their choice of a precursor and an achievement. After that, they’d be teleported out of the vault, and it would close and disappear completely, only to reappear in some other location in the world, so that the hunt can start again.

Why do I think the vault should disappear each time it’s found?

The reason the vault should disappear immediately after one player or party has reaped its contents, is because you wouldn’t want it to be too easy for a lot of players to access. It would also keep that sense of adventure alive, because it wouldn’t simply be another case where once one player discovers a secret, everyone will know about it and have easy access to it. Having a vault that always changes locations every time it has been found, would ensure that the excitement of a global adventure is renewed every time for those who want to take part.

How hard should “The Vault” be to find?

I think it should be quite difficult to find. I wouldn’t even mind if in some cases, it would take weeks for players to find “The Vault” each time it appears. That way, the sense of achievement in finding it would be that much greater for enthusiast explorers. However, you also don’t want it to be too hard to find, to the extent that people end up giving up on it, so they could introduce a system where clues are given as to its location for each week that it remains undiscovered. The clues get more and more elaborate as more time passes, until eventually “The Vault” is found.

Why a precursor as a reward? Why not some special kind of unique loot?

The reason I think a precursor should be rewarded is because you don’t want to punish players who are not able to find the vault by introducing exclusive gear that can only be acquired in the Vault and nowhere else. Given that The Vault might take quite a lot of time and effort to find, and only allows one party in at a time before it relocates, means that only a small minority of players would ever get to go inside it.

Precursors can be found or bought through various other forms of play, so even if you don’t take part in the hunt for the vault, you won’t feel like you’re being completely left out of some exclusive rewards.

Closing Notes

I’ve seen a few forum posts, and even instances in game where players or mods have introduced treasure hunts or mysteries of their own, and players seem to be keenly interested and involved in such cases, even if they reap no rewards themselves. Some simply like to try solve the mystery. Others enjoy the thrill of the hunt itself. And many might even collaborate on the forums to try and discover the location of the vault simply for fun, even if it means they don’t acquire its rewards for themselves. Entire guilds could even get their members involved in the hunt, if only to then raffle off the reward to some lucky guild member, or use it to acquire gold to help upgrade the guild, etc.

The possibilities are quite extensive if developed properly, and I think it would be a fun addition to the game for a lot of players.

I dont think that new pve content that draws alot of attention but only rewards a few is a good idea.

People in different time zones will complain that they cant be online at a certain time.
Then people who datamine, will maybe have more info than others, etc.
ITs also very work intensive to write a treasure hunt and implement it. Especially, if you have to make a completely new one, everytime the vault is discovered.

Wanze.8410:

I dont think that new pve content that draws alot of attention but only rewards a few is a good idea.

People in different time zones will complain that they cant be online at a certain time.
Then people who datamine, will maybe have more info than others, etc.
ITs also very work intensive to write a treasure hunt and implement it. Especially, if you have to make a completely new one, everytime the vault is discovered.

Yeah, I didn’t think about the datamining issue… that would probably kill my dreams. T__T

Actually GW2 has many secret locations that’re not listed in the map completion poi / vista. You just need to explore the world more to find it. People want quick gratification nowadays, so they all just watch youtube or look for a website and find everything. It is actually their own fault for spoiling the fun of adventure.

I played GW2 when it first launched, and I had some much fun at my first 3 characters that I roam around the maps w/o looking for guide and such. There’re often many Easter egg in each areas for me to take nice screenshot. However, nowadays, most people are just so reward oriented, doesn’t care about the adventure anymore. Your vault system exactly confirms my theory.

Also, your precursor theory is just a sneaky way of saying you don’t care about unique loots (like those worthless collectible such as an Easter egg item: enchanted map + key), you want precursor yourself lol.

Aomine.5012:

Actually GW2 has many secret locations that’re not listed in the map completion poi / vista. You just need to explore the world more to find it. People want quick gratification nowadays, so they all just watch youtube or look for a website and find everything. It is actually their own fault for spoiling the fun of adventure.

I played GW2 when it first launched, and I had some much fun at my first 3 characters that I roam around the maps w/o looking for guide and such. There’re often many Easter egg in each areas for me to take nice screenshot. However, nowadays, most people are just so reward oriented, doesn’t care about the adventure anymore. Your vault system exactly confirms my theory.

Yeah, for me though, I kinda enjoy games like Dark Souls where when it comes to exploration, your hand isn’t held in any way, shape or form. You don’t get a map, or a pointer showing you where to go. You have to find everything on your own purely through discovery and trial and error. GW2 is largely missing that, because aside from a few hidden JP’s or such, there’s not much in the game that isn’t shown to you on a map or pointed out clearly to you, even if you completely avoid guides.

That’s kinda what I was going for here, introducing a system where it’s purely up to the players to find a hidden location, with nothing to point them in the right direction other than perhaps, some vague visual or verbal clues.

I’m not sure how my vault system would imply that my goal is purely reward oriented though, when the system clearly would only reward a few, even if many contributed to the discovery of the Vault. The idea was to introduce something fun that was exploration based, or mystery solving based, for players to pass time between content updates. I even referenced other instances where mods on this forum introduced a mystery for players to solve and even though NO-ONE got any reward for solving it, a lot of players had fun (and even openly admitted so) simply trying to solve the mystery itself. Many even asked for more such cases to be introduced (the case in question was actually regarding a new mystic forge recipe. The mods introduced a short story that was updated now and then to give players clues as to what the recipe was, and a lot of players took part in trying to figure it out).

Aomine.5012:

Also, your precursor theory is just a sneaky way of saying you don’t care about unique loots (like those worthless collectible such as an Easter egg item: enchanted map + key), you want precursor yourself lol.

Thank you for this baseless assumption, but you couldn’t be more wrong. I’ve already gotten a few precursors and crafted a few legendaries that I wanted, and I certainly don’t need a vault to help me out in that regard. The reason I chose such a generic reward was already explained in my original post, and it’s because I don’t want players to feel left out of exclusive rewards. I don’t think I could have made it much clearer. Some of us are actually interested in fun you know. X__x

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Aomine.5012:

Also, your precursor theory is just a sneaky way of saying you don’t care about unique loots (like those worthless collectible such as an Easter egg item: enchanted map + key), you want precursor yourself lol.

Thank you for this baseless assumption, but you couldn’t be more wrong. I’ve already gotten a few precursors and crafted a few legendaries that I wanted, and I certainly don’t need a vault to help me out in that regard. The reason I chose such a generic reward was already explained in my original post, and it’s because I don’t want players to feel left out of exclusive rewards. I don’t think I could have made it much clearer. Some of us are actually interested in fun you know. X__x

There’re many “exclusive rewards” that no-one really cares because they worth nothing… (I already mentioned things like enchanted map and enchanted key that are only from JP chests) Also there were once 2 sets of pvp exclusive armors, and pretty much none other than PVP players care because they don’t worth a penny.

Precursor is just a way to drive this adventure into more reward oriented path, and attract only reward oriented players.

Aomine.5012:

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Aomine.5012:

Also, your precursor theory is just a sneaky way of saying you don’t care about unique loots (like those worthless collectible such as an Easter egg item: enchanted map + key), you want precursor yourself lol.

Thank you for this baseless assumption, but you couldn’t be more wrong. I’ve already gotten a few precursors and crafted a few legendaries that I wanted, and I certainly don’t need a vault to help me out in that regard. The reason I chose such a generic reward was already explained in my original post, and it’s because I don’t want players to feel left out of exclusive rewards. I don’t think I could have made it much clearer. Some of us are actually interested in fun you know. X__x

There’re many “exclusive rewards” that no-one really cares because they worth nothing… (I already mentioned things like enchanted map and enchanted key are only from JP chests)

Precursor is just a way to drive this adventure into more reward oriented path, and attract only reward oriented players.

If it was purely reward oriented, I would have suggested a rare, exclusive reward that has a lot of prestige. When you consider that Precursors are quickly losing value and that there are a lot of items in the game worth a lot more than most precursors, and when you consider the fact that they are introducing precursor crafting in the expansion, you would have been able to conclude that this is a rather generic, and ultimately less desirable reward than a lot of the alternatives I could have come up with.

Add that to the fact that only a small minority of players would be able to find the vault, and it’s easy to see how it would probably be easier and faster for most players to buy, craft or find a precursor than it would be for them to get one from the vault. The precursor was purely a nice bonus incentive for finding the vault, and one that avoids introducing an exclusive reward that a majority of players would not be able to get (and thus, where you’d potentially upset a lot of people).

If I was only interested in my personal gain, do you really think I’d suggest a system where I have a 99.9999999999999% chance being beaten to the punchline? That would be rather counter productive don’t you think? >_>

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Aomine.5012:

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Aomine.5012:

Also, your precursor theory is just a sneaky way of saying you don’t care about unique loots (like those worthless collectible such as an Easter egg item: enchanted map + key), you want precursor yourself lol.

Thank you for this baseless assumption, but you couldn’t be more wrong. I’ve already gotten a few precursors and crafted a few legendaries that I wanted, and I certainly don’t need a vault to help me out in that regard. The reason I chose such a generic reward was already explained in my original post, and it’s because I don’t want players to feel left out of exclusive rewards. I don’t think I could have made it much clearer. Some of us are actually interested in fun you know. X__x

There’re many “exclusive rewards” that no-one really cares because they worth nothing… (I already mentioned things like enchanted map and enchanted key are only from JP chests)

Precursor is just a way to drive this adventure into more reward oriented path, and attract only reward oriented players.

If it was purely reward oriented, I would have suggested a rare, exclusive reward that has a lot of prestige. When you consider that Precursors are quickly losing value and that there are a lot of items in the game worth a lot more than most precursors, and when you consider the fact that they are introducing precursor crafting in the expansion, you would have been able to conclude that this is a rather generic, and ultimately less desirable reward than a lot of the alternatives I could have come up with.

Add that to the fact that only a small minority of players would be able to find the vault, and it’s easy to see how it would probably be easier and faster for most players to buy, craft or find a precursor than it would be for them to get one from the vault. The precursor was purely a nice bonus incentive for finding the vault, and one that avoids introducing an exclusive reward that a majority of players would not be able to get (and thus, where you’d potentially upset a lot of people).

If I was only interested in my personal gain, do you really think I’d suggest a system where I have a 99.9999999999999% chance being beaten to the punchline? That would be rather counter productive don’t you think? >_>

Your intention has nothing to do with how your system and reward is designed.
You may have good intention, but the community is not as nice as you think.
Most people will dedicate into this scavenger hunt purely for the reward that lies ahead. After your suggestion comes true, there’d be people who’d form a team with all warriors (most mobile class), search every single corners of the map everyday just for the reward. They don’t bother the adventure and stuff, they’d find the quickest way to travel the map, and the most efficient way to find the treasure.

Also we do not know how much materials needed to make each precursors.
It can be gift of light x 3 (300 charged lodestone), and the value of precursors will still be insanely high, if not higher when the “collection of precursor for exclusive new legendaries” comes into play. (Anet already talked about it before, new legendaries will come from collection, mainly precursors.)

Aomine.5012:

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Aomine.5012:

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Aomine.5012:

Also, your precursor theory is just a sneaky way of saying you don’t care about unique loots (like those worthless collectible such as an Easter egg item: enchanted map + key), you want precursor yourself lol.

Thank you for this baseless assumption, but you couldn’t be more wrong. I’ve already gotten a few precursors and crafted a few legendaries that I wanted, and I certainly don’t need a vault to help me out in that regard. The reason I chose such a generic reward was already explained in my original post, and it’s because I don’t want players to feel left out of exclusive rewards. I don’t think I could have made it much clearer. Some of us are actually interested in fun you know. X__x

There’re many “exclusive rewards” that no-one really cares because they worth nothing… (I already mentioned things like enchanted map and enchanted key are only from JP chests)

Precursor is just a way to drive this adventure into more reward oriented path, and attract only reward oriented players.

If it was purely reward oriented, I would have suggested a rare, exclusive reward that has a lot of prestige. When you consider that Precursors are quickly losing value and that there are a lot of items in the game worth a lot more than most precursors, and when you consider the fact that they are introducing precursor crafting in the expansion, you would have been able to conclude that this is a rather generic, and ultimately less desirable reward than a lot of the alternatives I could have come up with.

Add that to the fact that only a small minority of players would be able to find the vault, and it’s easy to see how it would probably be easier and faster for most players to buy, craft or find a precursor than it would be for them to get one from the vault. The precursor was purely a nice bonus incentive for finding the vault, and one that avoids introducing an exclusive reward that a majority of players would not be able to get (and thus, where you’d potentially upset a lot of people).

If I was only interested in my personal gain, do you really think I’d suggest a system where I have a 99.9999999999999% chance being beaten to the punchline? That would be rather counter productive don’t you think? >_>

Your intention has nothing to do with how your system and reward is designed.
You may have good intention, but the community is not as nice as you think.
Most people will dedicate into this scavenger hunt purely for the reward that lies ahead. After your suggestion comes true, there’d be people who’d form a team with all warriors (most mobile class), search every single corners of the map everyday just for the reward. They don’t bother the adventure and stuff, they’d find the quickest way to travel the map, and the most efficient way to find the treasure.

Also we do not know how much materials needed to make each precursors.
It can be gift of light x 3 (300 charged lodestone), and the value of precursors will still be insanely high, if not higher when the “collection of precursor for exclusive new legendaries” comes into play. (Anet already talked about it before, new legendaries will come from collection, mainly precursors.)

I certainly don’t mind you criticizing my idea and frankly, if anyone else has any better ideas, I’m certainly up for their suggestions as well.

However, what you made the mistake of doing was criticizing me personally, and making assumptions about my character by saying something like, and I quote “Also, your precursor theory is just a sneaky way of saying you don’t care about unique loots (like those worthless collectible such as an Easter egg item: enchanted map + key), you want precursor yourself lol.”

My subsequent responses have been related to that rather antagonistic assumption of yours on my character. Now you’re saying my intentions might be good (thank you for the change of heart), but that’s a far cry from the tone of your original response.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Aomine.5012:

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Aomine.5012:

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Aomine.5012:

Also, your precursor theory is just a sneaky way of saying you don’t care about unique loots (like those worthless collectible such as an Easter egg item: enchanted map + key), you want precursor yourself lol.

Thank you for this baseless assumption, but you couldn’t be more wrong. I’ve already gotten a few precursors and crafted a few legendaries that I wanted, and I certainly don’t need a vault to help me out in that regard. The reason I chose such a generic reward was already explained in my original post, and it’s because I don’t want players to feel left out of exclusive rewards. I don’t think I could have made it much clearer. Some of us are actually interested in fun you know. X__x

There’re many “exclusive rewards” that no-one really cares because they worth nothing… (I already mentioned things like enchanted map and enchanted key are only from JP chests)

Precursor is just a way to drive this adventure into more reward oriented path, and attract only reward oriented players.

If it was purely reward oriented, I would have suggested a rare, exclusive reward that has a lot of prestige. When you consider that Precursors are quickly losing value and that there are a lot of items in the game worth a lot more than most precursors, and when you consider the fact that they are introducing precursor crafting in the expansion, you would have been able to conclude that this is a rather generic, and ultimately less desirable reward than a lot of the alternatives I could have come up with.

Add that to the fact that only a small minority of players would be able to find the vault, and it’s easy to see how it would probably be easier and faster for most players to buy, craft or find a precursor than it would be for them to get one from the vault. The precursor was purely a nice bonus incentive for finding the vault, and one that avoids introducing an exclusive reward that a majority of players would not be able to get (and thus, where you’d potentially upset a lot of people).

If I was only interested in my personal gain, do you really think I’d suggest a system where I have a 99.9999999999999% chance being beaten to the punchline? That would be rather counter productive don’t you think? >_>

Your intention has nothing to do with how your system and reward is designed.
You may have good intention, but the community is not as nice as you think.
Most people will dedicate into this scavenger hunt purely for the reward that lies ahead. After your suggestion comes true, there’d be people who’d form a team with all warriors (most mobile class), search every single corners of the map everyday just for the reward. They don’t bother the adventure and stuff, they’d find the quickest way to travel the map, and the most efficient way to find the treasure.

Also we do not know how much materials needed to make each precursors.
It can be gift of light x 3 (300 charged lodestone), and the value of precursors will still be insanely high, if not higher when the “collection of precursor for exclusive new legendaries” comes into play. (Anet already talked about it before, new legendaries will come from collection, mainly precursors.)

I certainly don’t mind you criticizing my idea and frankly, if anyone else has any better ideas, I’m certainly up for their suggestions as well.

However, what you made the mistake of doing was criticizing me personally, and making assumptions about my character by saying something like, and I quote “Also, your precursor theory is just a sneaky way of saying you don’t care about unique loots (like those worthless collectible such as an Easter egg item: enchanted map + key), you want precursor yourself lol.”

My subsequent responses have been related to that rather antagonistic assumption of yours on my character. Now you’re saying my intentions might be good (thank you for the change of heart), but that’s a far cry from the tone of your original response.

Everyone can make assumption. I’m just using logical approach to observe your intention. Many people do that, and it includes me. I read through your post and saw the reward portion. Frankly I see many people like you, giving suggestion about doing some stuffs and just give out precursor, so I assume your intention is more about reward. I do not know you, so I give my assumption. You can disagree with it, but you shouldn’t take it personally.

Also, my goal of posting is not to offend you, but to criticize about how your theory may turn out to be. You should focus more about how to polish your idea so it wouldn’t turn out to be another reward chu chu train, instead of focusing me about offending you, which is clearly not my original intention.

Aomine.5012:

Everyone can make assumption. I’m just using logical approach to observe your intention.

I’m afraid your logical approach was not very logical. Lol. XD

But it’s fine, if you want to try justify your antagonistic behavior towards others, be my guest. But, that kind of attitude isn’t very healthy for these forums, and is in no way constructive as far as these kinds of suggestions go. I wish people would understand that.

It seems like you want something like Yakkington and Sandford but for gw2

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Nicholas_Sandford
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Nicholas_the_Traveler

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

It seems like you want something like Yakkington and Sandford but for gw2

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Nicholas_Sandford
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Nicholas_the_Traveler

From what I understand reading those wiki posts (I never actually played Gw1), the idea is similar as far as the extent of randomness and exploration goes. However, the main difference is that if an NPC asks you to find items, even if the items are random every day, you still know where to find the items so there might not be as much of a sense of discovery as I was hoping a system like The Vault would introduce.

Even my vault idea is flawed given that datamining could give people big clues as to where to find it. I wonder if there’s any way to introduce a treasure hunt type of mechanics into the game where you can avoid players easily discovering where to go or what to do. X__X

You do know you can turn off all the icons on the map and get that sence of exploring right?

people just dont do it becouse they take the path of least resistance

I would say the biggest flaw is the one Wanze mentioned and you quoted but only responded to the other point in his paragraph:

Designing a completely new treasure hunt to a completely new location every time players find one is far too resource intensive. Yet if it’s a repeating cycle, players will quickly know exactly where to go and there goes your fun in figuring it out.