Guild Wars 2

Tyria is gorgeous, but is there really much of an incentive to explore it? The unfortunate reality is that MMO players do not tend to play content for its own merit. They want the carrot and they want to chase the stick it’s attached to for the shortest possible time. The result of this? 90% of the game’s PvE content – its large, detailed maps and often-exciting dynamic events – are neglected.

It’s often said that Guild Wars 2 needs more open world content. Well, the truth is that it has an overflowing bounty of it, but this content is so underplayed and the community is so poorly distributed that the addition of new content would only serve to worsen the population spread of the world as a whole.

So, no. The solution is not more. Not yet, anyway. First, we need unique incentives to explore every nook and cranny of Tyria, participate in its wealth of dynamic events, and overall choose to play the content that we desire while being uniquely rewarded for this.

Dry Top is love, Dry Top is life.

In this new map, we see a huge potential for a new and improved open-world rewards system. Let’s take a look at its reward mechanics:

Rotating sandstorm that dynamically changes the events offered by the map and encourages player cooperation with constant content.

Widely spread event spawns and randomized treasure placements encourage exploration of the whole map.

Unique map currency.

Exclusive skins associated with this map.

How can we apply these mechanics, beneficially, to the overall game?

This would be a several step system involving:

- Regional currencies

- Region exclusive skins (account bound)

- Map exclusive skins (which can be traded)

- A renovation of existing systems to support these.

- (Unrelated) An increase in the value of Karma

Regional currencies

The map-exclusive currency of Dry Top, Geodes, is promising, but it would be unwise to add a unique currency to each map, as the result would be a massive bloat in currency types. On the other side of the coin, making Geodes a currency universal to every map would be similarly unwise; Karma already fulfills this role and to make Geodes a global currency would only serve to undermine its value.

The solution, then, is to create a new unique currency for each region. These can be spent on Karma vendors in that region in order to purchase exclusive items and Lockpicks.

Region exclusive weapon skins

Each region would have one exclusive set of weapons that can be obtained by playing any of the maps in that region and randomly obtaining and building these. They are account bound, and can thus be freely used by your characters, but cannot be traded. Sound familiar? This is Dry Top’s Ambrite weapons. And with this change, Ambrite weapons would become the exclusive weapon set for the Maguuma Wastes region (Dry Top and unreleased future maps).

The current playable regions of Tyria:

Ascalon

Kryta

Maguuma Jungle

Maguuma Wastes

Shiverpeaks

Orr

The Mists (WvW and EotM)

With the Wastes already offering a skin set, this change would involve the addition of 6 new skin sets. That’s quite a bit, but it’s entirely manageable, and would greatly improve the community’s opinion of Anet’s recent business decisions (regarding the gem store and weapons).

Map exclusive exotic armor skins

In addition to being able to earn region exclusives, each map should also offer a few map exclusive skins. The combination of the map exclusive armor skins in each region would form a complete, coherent set for that region. These skins would be unbound, and could thus be traded. Sound familiar? For Dry Top, this would be its unique headpieces. These can only be acquired by a level 80 character, as they constitute exotic drops.

Let’s just use Kryta as an example, as it has numerous maps:

Queensdale – unique chest armors

Kessex Hills – unique leg armors

Gendarren Fields – unique boots

Harathi Hinterlands – unique gloves

(Unique helmet – to be added in a future map).

Now, the use of a system like this also adds an extra level of excitement to new map additions, because it implies new armor pieces.

Let’s make WvW a notable exception, as it wouldn’t benefit from more maps and forcing players into any particular map to obtain its skin rewards would only hurt WvW as a mode – not help it. In the case of WvW, divide its skin rewards into WvW Armor Boxes that can be obtained in any of its maps – including EotM, for those PvE players who tend to not care for standard competitive WvW in the first place.

Map exclusive weapon skins

Each map would also have one extremely rare, unbound exclusive exotic weapon. I am not suggesting an exclusive set for each map, as that would be ridiculous. No, they do not have to form a coherent set. In fact, they shouldn’t. Keep them to the unique, eccentric flavor of that map.

These exotic weapons can be cheaply upgraded to Ascended Tier, account binding them. This makes for a pseudo-ascended tier of weapons that can be traded, but which require a notable sacrifice that is in the form of commitment, not a major drain of resources, in order to be upgraded to best-in-stat performance.

Dynamic event rewards

With the new system, each (SUCCESSFUL) dynamic event would reward you with a random green-or-better piece of gear. These can include everything from standard greens to exotics, including map-exclusive exotics and precursors. Of course, the chance of a particular reward diminishes as its value goes up in order of (from most common to rarest): green, rare, exotic, region exotic (weapon or armor), map exotic weapon, precursor. Don’t count on dynamic events being a fast way to farm for these, but the change would make DE’s more comparable to other farming sources.

Hidden chests

Each map would also carry hidden chests which require (universal) lockpicks to open. Chest locations vary by overflow server and change with each daily reset.

Karma

Karma would then become the universal open-world currency. It could be used to purchase region and even map exclusives at downright exorbitant prices, but it would also carry value for a series of new, much cheaper items, including region currencies, lockpicks, unique recipes, and other valuables.

Overall

Through the addition of map-exclusive and region-exclusive skins and currencies, coupled with an increase in the value of karma, my hope is that Tyria’s open world content would flourish and would receive a wider range of play with a more evenly spread playerbase than Tyria has seen thus far.

I’ve come up with a couple basic additions.

Token Infusion
Increases earning of dungeon tokens and regional currencies by 10%. (Rounds up, granting 1 extra Geode for even a Tier 1 Favor event and 2 Geodes for a T5+ sandstorm event).

Grant dynamic events the same duration-based rewards as mobs
Dynamic events that go uncompleted for a longer duration give out more experience, gold, and karma.

I am not sure you should use Dry Top as an someting to look up to. The metaevent tiers, for example, are one of the reasons i dislike that zone. Geode farming is another.

check out this thread. People didnt like the idea of completely resetting hearts as was the initial suggestion and it ended up turning into a bit of a brainstorm session. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Revitalize-the-Game-World-Resetting-Hearts/first

yeah right guys…………….

if we need 1 more thing it’s farming maps.

That’s exactly what a stagnate MMO needs, a bigger farming zone….good luck trying to market that to players who left for greener pastures.

How about explorable content? New skills? Races? Classes?

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Grant dynamic events the same duration-based rewards as mobs
Dynamic events that go uncompleted for a longer duration give out more experience, gold, and karma.

This would be difficult with the megaservers. Because unlike mob spawns, events often work off triggers or chains, and as such don’t spawn at the same time on each server.

But if they did manage it, because some events fail based on time, you should also increase the rewards based on the amount of times the event has failed without participants.

Yes! Anything that rewards being in the 90% of the game that gives almost nothing to level 80 characters would be an improvement.

There’s a whole lot more to Tyria than Frostgorge, Orr, and World Bosses.

Region based currency… that is a cool thought. You may be on to something there.

Absolutely. This is what I’ve been looking for in open world however I’ve got to add one thing. Replace all of the chests they have scattered in the open world with these types of chests that one must have a key to open which will improve the rewards. When I find treasure in any game setting, especially if it’s a real chest of some kind it needs to be useful.

Kurrilino.2706:

yeah right guys…………….

if we need 1 more thing it’s farming maps.

At no point have I suggested that the game’s reward system needs to be structured towards making maps based around farming – only that the reward systems of all maps should properly reward players for choosing to be there with unique and better rewards. All of these can realistically be obtained by just playing the game.

Nor have I suggested that existing content should be revamped – only the rewards bestowed by it. I even left the meta event farming mechanic of Dry Top out, because I think that it is counter-productive and would only add structure and numbers-demand where it doesn’t belong.

Will the community abuse it and farm particular spots? Yes. Will the player spread be better and more healthy even then? Also yes. Why? Because instead of the game having 3-4 popular farming spots, every map will be desirable. That’s a huge plus.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Will the community abuse it and farm particular spots? Yes. Will the player spread be better and more healthy even then? Also yes. Why? Because instead of the game having 3-4 popular farming spots, every map will be desirable. That’s a huge plus.

I agree.

I also agree Dry Top is a great map. Hope new zones are more or less created similar to Dry Top. My Farming guild runs farm trains their often. FGS/DT seem to be the most popular maps for us so far.

I agree with the OP.

We have a lot of great underplayed (and largely unknown) content in the existing maps, as there’s no extrinsic rewards for players to go and check them out.

Just check out these, for example:
http://www.reddit.com/r/LAExploratoryBrigade/comments/28bz79/lions_arch_exploratory_report_list/

I owuld personally volunteer to give Southsun Cove a complete make-over, a grossly underrated map that, with a few tweaks and additions, could be truly marvelous.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

I owuld personally volunteer to give Southsun Cove a complete make-over, a grossly underrated map that, with a few tweaks and additions, could be truly marvelous.

Southsun makes me sad. It’s a beautiful map that could easily be one of my favorites, but it has failed to become popular even through a significant overhaul.

I, unfortunately, predict that the zone will go ignored until (MAYBE) another rework following living story content involving the deep sea dragon (“Bubbles.”)

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

I owuld personally volunteer to give Southsun Cove a complete make-over, a grossly underrated map that, with a few tweaks and additions, could be truly marvelous.

Southsun makes me sad. It’s a beautiful map that could easily be one of my favorites, but it has failed to become popular even through a significant overhaul.

Well, for one, that “significant overhaul” didn’t address many of the problem points of the zone. Additionally, one point it did address (lack of world boss and metazone event), turned half of the zone to be undesirable, unless you were doing said metaevent – which takes about 10 minutes out of every 4 hours (meaning, it is something that should be avoided 95% of the time).

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Southsun makes me sad. It’s a beautiful map that could easily be one of my favorites, but it has failed to become popular even through a significant overhaul.

I, unfortunately, predict that the zone will go ignored until (MAYBE) another rework following living story content involving the deep sea dragon (“Bubbles.”)

FWIW, the main thing I can’t stand about Southsun is that the core set of mobs there is Karkas and they obnoxiously evade nonstop. It’s just irritating combat imo and makes the zone really unappealing on the whole.

I mean, outside of that, I can’t think of a thing that I dislike about the zone. The atmosphere is certainly more upbeat than cursed shore and I am so weary of our cultural obsession with undead anyway.

I just wanted to say bravo on the new patch. The new map captures quite a bit of what I was going for with this thread – even more so than Dry Top does – all while bringing in great gameplay mechanics.

I would love to see this form of fun and rewarding gameplay integrated into older maps, though it would need to come with a proportionate amount of waypoints to fit the size of the game’s bigger maps.