Guild Wars 2

Anet, you have made a wonderful game and that is why I am posting this.

GW2 must adapt to survive….period. I implore the devs to consider the following:

1. Add dueling as an option
2. 2v2, 3v3, and 5v5 DEATHMATCH Arenas! Just do it already! There is a reason why WoW still has them, SWTOR kinda added them, and Wildstar launched with them!
3. Actual Raids with mind blowing and challenging mechanics
4. Some type of gear progression
5. Player Housing
6. Fix Orr, in other words, Orr shouldn’t still be controlled by undead. I’ve posted on this before in more detail
7. Add blood. Make the fantasy world of GW2 as dark as the concept art and not the goody two shoes we currently have. Appeal to adults with money and not 10 year olds!
8. Finally, look at Wildstar and see how much they have to offer for Endgame content. Arenas, battlegrounds, warplots, dungeons, huge raids, open world pvp!

As for the last point, no I don’t want to go play a cartoony game like Wildstar. I love the classes, gameplay/combat, innovation, living story, spvp, and art of GW2. The point of this post is to ask Anet to put in the staples of a successful MMO with longevity. GW2 should be competitive with other MMOs as well as newer ones coming out. Wildstar shouldn’t have more to offer than a game that has already been out for 2 years!

Finally, Anet, to make these changes it takes money. You should go to a subscription model similar to SWTOR. $15 a month and customers get special privileges with a subscription and everyone can use the gem store for more revenue.

I know not everyone will agree to this, but if these changes came with a huge downloadable EXPANSION to justify the newer payment model, then you would draw in returning players and newer players. Example: SWTOR: Makeb expansion.

Make these changes and additions the way I suggested, and GW2 will quickly become top dog of MMOs! There is so much potential here! Always ask yourself, as a dev, why would a player want to keep playing your game? So far, the answer is living story, WvW monotony, legendary and ascended grinding….not much. PvP doesn’t make enough gold and there are no arenas. The 4/15 patch was a fantastic step in the right direction for PvP, but not far enough. You must look at your competitors and always be adapting, modifying, and revising.

While I agree with most of your points,

1. Fix Orr, in other words, Orr shouldn’t still be controlled by undead. I’ve posted on this before in more detail

Please offer a link where you describe this more in detail.

1. Some type of gear progression

As long as it’s not vertical progression.

1. Add blood. Make the fantasy world of GW2 as dark as the concept art and not the goody two shoes we currently have. Appeal to adults with money and not 10 year olds!

I’m gonna say no to this one as there’s enough, in fact too much particles in the battlefield already.

Im really not sure actual raids with mind-blowing mechanics is possible in the open world, considering we are still getting hang of the very difficult mechanic of ‘split up’….

Anet hates instanced raids for some reason.

The smallscale stuff would be horrible. The combat in GW2 is not meant for smallscale combat.

In fact, I remember Ghostcrawler in WoW saying that 2v2 arena was one of the most damaging ideas they ever implemented, long-term. Only it was/is too deeply seated to flat out remove.

Why?

Because smallscale balancing in a RPG is a really bad idea. The underlying class/spec mechanic of RPGs, where your character specializes, and as a result gains upsides and downsides, is incompatible with the idea of balancing any engagement where each side doesn’t feature each effective class.

“Effective class” in this case doesn’t mean one of the 8 classes, but rather each distinct combat framework. I.e., Scepter Condi Necro, Power Dagger Necro, Well Support Necro, DS Necro, just as an example. Each class has a fair few of them, but on the other hand some specs on different classes are actually the same effective class as they bring no unique effects to a fight the other one doesn’t bring.

But anyhow, the point is: Smallscale PvP in RPGs cannot be balanced. Not without extensive underlying changes to the classes, the specs and the combat system.

I thought this topic would be about the ranger trait.

On topic, I agree with #1 and #2 would be nice, the rest are kinda meh.

Just wondering why Orr needs to be fixed?

Yes we killed Zhaitan in the PS and begun the cleansing of Orr. However if it were to be cleansed than new players arriving in Orr would find a cleansed/healing Orr, and that wouldn’t line up with what was going on in the PS. From what I understand is that the open world is locked in time. Orr is locked in a state pre defeat of Zhaitan and the PS. If you were to have a cleansed Orr you’d have to have a whole seperate map just for those who have completed the PS and killed Zhaitan. And there wouldn’t be much to do there anyway. None of the DEs would apply, The temples would no longer be under Zhaitans control, so no need to take them, etc. It would quickly become a dead zone after the PS. No reason to “fix” it as it’s not really broken.

Zephyron.7081:

1. Some type of gear progression
2. Player Housing
3. Fix Orr, in other words, Orr shouldn’t still be controlled by undead. I’ve posted on this before in more detail
4. Add blood. Make the fantasy world of GW2 as dark as the concept art and not the goody two shoes we currently have. Appeal to adults with money and not 10 year olds!
5. Finally, look at Wildstar and see how much they have to offer for Endgame content. Arenas, battlegrounds, warplots, dungeons, huge raids, open world pvp!

Finally, Anet, to make these changes it takes money. You should go to a subscription model similar to SWTOR. $15 a month and customers get special privileges with a subscription and everyone can use the gem store for more revenue.

Ok, my opinions:
1. Gear progression
I don’t exactly get what you’re going about this.
Hit lvl x, buy/craft gear lvl x, max lvl, buy/craft gear lvl max, upgrade when resources permit for higher rarity grade.

2. Player housing
Well, it could be good, since we only have 1 home instance per race.

3.Fix Orr
Impossible, since it would break the immersion completely from the personal story.
Unless ANet figures some form of “multilayer maps” that depends on player personal story progression. We didn’t have separate maps in GW1 either, NPCs as friends before and foes after still remain, tho winds of change did affect cantha in GW1.
There are concepts of defeated elder dragon going to hibernation, and these have not been completely wiped off from lore, tho are only implication of the toughness of the elder dragons.
We have no confirmed kill on Zhaitan, we haven’t found it’s corpse to confirm that he’s dead, or that he’s gone back to hibernation to recover the critical damage sustained from battle above ruins of Arah.
Also that the cleansing process will propably take longer than few years, it could take over hundreds of years and only after if we have confirmed kill of Zhaitan, the source of it’s corruption.
Not to mention Tequatl The Sunless, who evolved some time after Zhaitans defeat.

4. Blood effects
As I would have also liked this, but since there wasn’t a prominent theme of graphic violence in GW1, and the devs decided to go with the current path with GW2.

5. Wildstar
Wildstar is a newer game, with the monthly fees it has the money, though many of the GW2 players play this game because of the lack of monthly fees.
Also that NCsoft is being pain about releasing expansions to GW2, being pain on GW2 itself, limiting the progress, according to some rumours.

6. Subscription fees
This would be the final nail on the coffin and death of GW2, since one of it’s main attracting points is no subscription fees.

I can agree with about all points, oddly, except this one:

Zephyron.7081:

1. Add blood. Make the fantasy world of GW2 as dark as the concept art and not the goody two shoes we currently have. Appeal to adults with money and not 10 year olds!

I’m sorry, but you think adding blood and gore instantly makes something adult. The gratuitous use of gore is one of the biggest signs of immaturity in a game. Now there can be proper uses of blood, like adding blood pools beneath dying/dead NPCs to let you know “they ain’t gonna make it”, or dried and old blood to some places where slaughters and battles occurred, but if you’re suggesting fountains of blood on each swing of a sword or gouging an opponent to death as a finisher, all I can say is “don’t cut yourself on all those edges, mate.”

Though I can also agree that GW2 is often so lighthearted is puts My Little gods kitten Pony: Friendship is Magic to shame. Outright saccharine at times.

There’s also a reason why SWTOR failed, WoW is currently bleeding subscriptions and current “active” players are actively seeking other MMOs, and WS is too new to say anything, but if it is a WoW clone, it will go the way of every other WoW clone.

It’s because people are BORED of the same old MMO formula. Most of us have experienced the WoW formula for years. Then we got bored and tried new games. Even games that were very WoW-esque, yet that didn’t satisfy us, so we go back to WoW, realize it is still WoW, and then quit again when a new MMO comes out, and then get on the forums to implore the devs of this new MMO to make the game more like WoW….

So what? So we can realize why we quit WoW in the first place when the game starts becoming too much like WoW and then get on the forums to complain why it is just another WoW knock-off and not as good as WoW, but we’re bored of WoW, but we also want to keep playing WoW, but not WoW, a different WoW, but it can’t be too much like WoW otherwise we will be bored, but not too different from WoW because then it wouldn’t be as good as WoW…

My head hurts..

pdavis.8031:

Just wondering why Orr needs to be fixed?

Yes we killed Zhaitan in the PS and begun the cleansing of Orr. However if it were to be cleansed than new players arriving in Orr would find a cleansed/healing Orr, and that wouldn’t line up with what was going on in the PS. From what I understand is that the open world is locked in time. Orr is locked in a state pre defeat of Zhaitan and the PS. If you were to have a cleansed Orr you’d have to have a whole seperate map just for those who have completed the PS and killed Zhaitan. And there wouldn’t be much to do there anyway. None of the DEs would apply, The temples would no longer be under Zhaitans control, so no need to take them, etc. It would quickly become a dead zone after the PS. No reason to “fix” it as it’s not really broken.

Except for one thing : the living story. It has the magical power of making time flow in the zone affected by it. How much time ? Well it’s been up for debate I think.
And there’s already been some problems with LS vs PS. “Oh no Zhaitan is going to attack LA…oh wait, it’s already wrecked”.

ANet tried to keep the LS away from the PS to avoid confusing new players. Except that it limited their choices and forced them to create Marjorie etc. to replace Destiny’s Edge. And it still confused new players.
Hopefully they won’t do the same mistake with season 2.

Zephyron.7081:

1. Add blood. Make the fantasy world of GW2 as dark as the concept art and not the goody two shoes we currently have. Appeal to adults with money and not 10 year olds!

I absolutely disagree. The muddy tones and darkness of most zones is already holding the game back. The art direction of this game is very narrow of view. You want the game to thrive it needs to be wider and appeal to more players. Anet should be making the game more dynamic by adding cleaner and more vivid Fantasy zones. Of which there are zero right now. The only nice zone in game was Queensdale. Of course they slapped a GTFO sign on it now. And blood, umm… that adds nothing. This isn’t some trashy hbo series.

The only thing I agree with is housing. Also, a progression system added to it so we can customize and build it up.

Don’t care for raids one bit but I could do with player housing, dueling, open world PvP and some kind of chess game involving miniatures.

[sarcasm] It’s hard enough to see who’s not zerker in a dungeon, now you want to add massive raids? [/sarcasm]

Zephyron.7081:

1. Some type of gear progression

We have that. It’s called Ascended, and if that’s not good enough, how about a Legendary. One of the original promises of GW2 is that it wouldn’t have a grindy endgame. If you want it to go against one of (if not the) it’s core promises, you’re best off with another game.

Zephyron.7081:

You should go to a subscription model similar to SWTOR. $15 a month and customers get special privileges with a subscription and everyone can use the gem store for more revenue.

Never ever. Subscription fees, even optional ones, are completely kittened.

Carighan.6758:

The smallscale stuff would be horrible. The combat in GW2 is not meant for smallscale combat.

In fact, I remember Ghostcrawler in WoW saying that 2v2 arena was one of the most damaging ideas they ever implemented, long-term. Only it was/is too deeply seated to flat out remove.

Why?

Because smallscale balancing in a RPG is a really bad idea. The underlying class/spec mechanic of RPGs, where your character specializes, and as a result gains upsides and downsides, is incompatible with the idea of balancing any engagement where each side doesn’t feature each effective class.

“Effective class” in this case doesn’t mean one of the 8 classes, but rather each distinct combat framework. I.e., Scepter Condi Necro, Power Dagger Necro, Well Support Necro, DS Necro, just as an example. Each class has a fair few of them, but on the other hand some specs on different classes are actually the same effective class as they bring no unique effects to a fight the other one doesn’t bring.

But anyhow, the point is: Smallscale PvP in RPGs cannot be balanced. Not without extensive underlying changes to the classes, the specs and the combat system.

this game doesnt actually have the type of systems you are talking about, with extremely specialized classes that cant do stuff, and while balance would not be perfect, it would probably better than balance in WvW and open world events.

I don’t know for the rest but this game badly needs team deathmatch arenas and ratings. They are obviously never going to add GvG system, but if they want PvP in this game to flourish a real competitive pvp mode must be added. Because camping caps is not skill, it’s not competitive in any shape or form. The native PvP population is really small, the majority is rank/chest farmers.
All good PvP teams left for a good reason.

Bigsexy.8302:

I don’t know for the rest but this game badly needs team deathmatch arenas and ratings. They are obviously never going to add GvG system, but if they want PvP in this game to flourish a real competitive pvp mode must be added. Because camping caps is not skill, it’s not competitive in any shape or form. The native PvP population is really small, the majority is rank/chest farmers.
All good PvP teams left for a good reason.

Even if they did implement this, I still wouldnt play pvp. That being said, changing it to be like other games isnt the right answer either. I do agree they could do more with it, but it woild have to be uniquely gw2. Otherwise it Would get flamed down as “Anet is trying to copy X” and be pretty much in the same boat we are in now.

out of your whole list i think 5 would blow my mind the most

i cant even begin to describe how much i would low construction as a guild wars 2 skill….starting off with ugly (yet still somehow pretty with gw2 graphics) wooden furniture and leveling up to build thrones of diamonds and marble fireplaces where i can burn logs and create buffs for myself and sleep in my bed to give a “restd” experience buff that gets stronger the fancier bed you build and a personalized dungeon full of monsters i pay for and AHHHHHH im excited just thinking about it anet give us a construction skill!!!!!!

“The point of this post is to ask Anet to put in the staples of a successful MMO with longevity. GW2 should be competitive with other MMOs as well as newer ones coming out.”

The whole game would have to be redesigned for that to happen. The appeal of GW2, was to be different from other MMOs. It was the same philosophy GW1 had too.

Some ideas were good, but some were bad. There was a reason more traditional MMOs had some mechanics in place (such as; trinity, travel, instanced raids, etc.), because they worked and solved the problems of open-world encounters.

As for point 7. This will never happen. We will get more cute and fluffy gem-store things, such as, quaggan backpacks, tonics, and sunglasses. GW2 will never be a serious game. There are no factions or rivalries for players to participate in, against each other. The only thing is WvW, but it’s just server-related and not tied to anything from GW1 lore (i think). Everyone is supposed to be working together and hold hands in GW2.

Zephyron.7081:

Add blood. Make the fantasy world of GW2 as dark as the concept art and not the goody two shoes we currently have. Appeal to adults with money and not 10 year olds!

Yeah so this game is rated T… they can’t exactly go back on that now.