Guild Wars 2

Take note that I am a french player who does a big effort to write properly in english. Im writting in the .com forum since it is more likely to be viewed and read by more people than in the .fr forum.

Last week I made this topic : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Am-I-the-only-one-being-disappointed/first

After a lot of replies with lots of different oppinions on why update bring in a huge disappointment, here is what I propose in term of possible content that could be added to the game.

I will start by saying that I mostly play PvE and this what I mostly did since Gw1.

In the past weeks, I read a whole bunch of threads. Many of them were talking about the lack of end game, lack of reward etc. I actually agree and disagree on this one.

What is already great with end game is first off all, 8 dungeons with many paths, fractal of the mists, world bosses etc.

Now here is where I think this end game content could be improved and what I think could be added:
1. Dungeon difficulty
2. Dungeon Rewards and Token Merchant
3. Dungeon titles
4. Unique Rewards

Dungeon difficulty
Here is my background regarding dungeons. I am currently a member of the Keep Running [Kr] guild, previously named We Are Unstoppable [WaU] in guild wars 1. We are specialized in speed clearing dungeons and constantly challenging ourselves to go faster and find better ways to finish dungeons.

In Gw1 we were specialized in speed clears of DoA. And that guys, was first of all extremely difficult and also extremely rewarding. We used to log in the game at 9pm and make groups to practice DoA and then attempt to finish it as quick as possible. The amount of time we failed was huge, but in the end we kept going back in for the challenge and also for the reward (reward being loot and beating our previous time).

In Gw2 we tried to challenge ourselves into finishing Crucible, Ascalon, Sorrow, Fractals, Arah etc as fast as possible. It is challenging, but not as close as challenging as what we were used to do in Gw1.

With what we have currently in Gw2, I think the paths in the different dungeons are good, but maybe a bit to easy. To be honest, I don’t have the solution for that, but maybe, if the bosses were not to linear, maybe if dodge would not make us completely invulnerable, maybe if the difficulty of the dungeon could scale on the level of the player

Note: By the level of the player, I mean that a team at max is composed of 5 players with maximum level being 80. Now suppose the dungeon scales in the following way: For a complete team (5 players), Sum(i=1 to 5) (player(i) level)= Total level of the team, now this gives you an Index which is at max 5×80=400 and at min 5x(the dungeon required level) and the game adjusts its difficulty with this index. Take for example: Player 1: lvl 50, Player 2: lvl 65, Player 3: lvl 80, Player 4: lvl 80, Player 5: lvl 35. Sum= 310. Max Sum = 400. (310/400)*100%=77.5% of the index. Now the dungeon could scale to 77.5% of its true difficulty in order to make the dungeon livable for everyone. And people that actually want to be challenged would go with 5 lvl 80 player and play at the maximum difficulty with is on index 400 hence at 100% difficulty. Now people will say that this is a bad idea because some team will take a low level player just to make the dungeon easier. The solution would be to also scale the reward with such index. Taking my previous example 77.5% difficulty could bring in also 77.5% total reward and 100% difficulty could bring in 100%. I know this is probably a bit to simple, but its just an example. And to add an incentive to play to the maximum difficulty add something more (I will discuss that in Unique Reward).

I personally think that I would see less people saying in the lfg: Only lvl 80, no noobs, no ranger. The elitist can do their thing at max difficulty for max reward and people that are low level can actually complete the dungeon with an equivalent reward to their level.

Dungeon Rewards and Token Merchant
Usually in MMO, PvE players will go to dungeons for the fun of it but also for the reward it can yield. I already love the token system but what I want to point out is the following: Now that I have my set of armor, I keep going in the dungeon because I like it, but now that I’ve done the dungeon over a hundred time, I have so many token that feel useless. What should I do with them?

Some players in my guild to me 3 days ago to just go to the token merchant, buy armor and recycle it for valuable. I personally think that is just to stupid and that in the end when you got all you wanted from the token merchant you have nothing more to do with these dungeons tokens.

What I propose is the following, make the weapon section of the token merchant a possible loot inside the dungeon, from either mobs, or champions or bosses and chest. Leave the armor section the way it is because I think it is already perfect that way. And make the tokens you have in extra worth something. One way for that would be to implement unique features such as, 1000 token for a consumable infusion specific to the dungeon that makes your armor better in the said so dungeon.

In numbers: 1000 token for 1% dmg reduction in the dungeon that caps at lets say 10% or 1% more dmg in the dungeon.

It could also be something like trade x number of tokens for a currency already in game such as laurel or karma (NOT GOLD, NEVER).

With that said, if people know that they can drop weapons in the dungeon (specific to it) and that with the extra token they can actually do something valuable with it, people will in the end feel rewarded. (That is my oppinion).

Dungeon titles
Slayer of ghost, Slayer of nobles, Slayer of nightmare court, Slayer of Blood legion, Slayer of dredge, Slayer of etc…..

People that love horizontal progression will probably love that kind of thing. Let’s say that after killing 10k Blood Legion in Citadel of flames you could have a unique emote , that would be so awesome. You could show in town that you are a true vanquisher of the citadel!

Think of this as the /zrank or the /rank of Gw1

Unique Rewards
Fractals of the mist is an example of a dungeon with unique rewards (In the dungeon). Ascended items, fractal weapon etc.

Now to make what we already have a bit more appealing to players, a unique reward could be added to each dungeon.

Make it as what the obsidian edge was to FoW.

An idea could be adding unique backpieces (that can be ascended through the mystic forge and with the stat combination of your choice) as a drop in the dungeons.

Example:
-Phantom bag: Ascalonian Catacomb
-Royal or bandit bag: Caudecus
-Vines, flower, thorns etc cape: TA
…….

Now again people who want to play through dungeon for unique skins (not attributes) would have another incentive to do so and play a dungeon for a backpiece skin they like.

Well guys, I could go on and on and on with ideas and things like that but I have homework to do. Feel free to add constructive feedback to what I just said. It can be negative or positive. As a player I just want this game to be better since I like this game a lot already.

Arwen

TL:DR : Lazyness leads to no where in life, if you actually took the time to click on the post, well take your time and read it haha.

Normally I cringe at walls of texts on forums (people like myself suffer with being unable to read them if on a PC screen), but I’m glad I made the effort – there’s some interesting ideas in your post – esp in terms of titles and rewards

Randulf.7614:

Normally I cringe at walls of texts on forums (people like myself suffer with being unable to read them if on a PC screen), but I’m glad I made the effort – there’s some interesting ideas in your post – esp in terms of titles and rewards

Probably because unlike most walls of text, this one was well laid out and not just paragraph upon paragraph. And while it was long it was concise and to the point.

I also like the idea and would love to see something like this added to the game

There are some pretty cool ideas in here, thanks for the read OP. I recommend everyone else read it as well, the dungeon token ideas are great!

I have one objection so far: why give low level players lesser rewards?? A lot of us like to play alts, but if you nerf rewards for alts, you make dungeons useless for low levels. It will also make low levels less wanted because they make your reward less if you’re running with one. No thanks.

Sirendor.1394:

I have one objection so far: why give low level players lesser rewards?? A lot of us like to play alts, but if you nerf rewards for alts, you make dungeons useless for low levels. It will also make low levels less wanted because they make your reward less if you’re running with one. No thanks.

I don’t want this to be intended as a nerf for lower lvl alt. I also have alts btw

What I really mean by that is that you receive the appropriate loot for your level. In the past day, I was doing dungeon with my main character and then at the end I would reroll to my alt to get the exp. The reason why I was doing that is that because It is way to hard to do the dungeon using my alt that has not that much gear (I know I can craft them). And even if I have my gear, people in dungeons will not take me in their group because I am not lvl 80. My idea from the loot and difficulty thing rises from the fact that if the dungeon could be scaled to the level of the player: ex: if I am lower level the dungeon would be a bit easier and at the same time even though the reward is reduced a bit since the difficulty is lower I would still get rewarded. Now I think I would enjoy leveling up with alts by doing dungeons and by getting an actual reward scaled to my level.

I am pretty sure that if you want a full reward, you would go to your level 80 character and do some dungeons.

I simply gave this idea as a way to make the lower level player have a chance to play the dungeon at a decent difficulty and hence making it possible to level up and gear up like that.

Some very interesting ideas.

I do not really care much for the scaling idea that you have laid out. As it stands now, one or two sub-80s are a little bit of a drag on the party’s speed and efficiency, but this isn’t really a big deal since the content is generally very easy anyways. If they were cutting into the loot received, however, I would simply stop grouping with them. The dungeons already provide a sort of progression, some being more difficult than others, so I do not really see the need for that type of scaling. If your group isn’t quite cutting it at a certain difficulty level you can choose to do a different path rather than having to have the dungeon scale to you.

The addition of more and meaningful rewards is absolutely dead on! This would really breathe new life into the currently lacking endgame, giving players something to go out and do that actually gives some (even if small) meaningful return. Many GW2 players really love showing off titles, and if they had an emote attached that would be all the better. There really should have been some repeatable thing to do with dungeon tokens from the start.

I also feel that 8 dungeons + FotM is not nearly enough. It has been over a year now. We need new permanent content!

It is true that 8 dungeons + FotM is not enough but for the time being, I would prefer seeing improvement in what we already have instead of implementing new content of the same type we already got.

I seriously would enjoy new content if its actually great quantity wise (reward, time spent etc) and quality wise (content, is it enjoyable or not)

An extremely worthwhile read. I do hope that someone at Anet takes notice.

I absolutely love your ideas. Every single one of them. +1. Now I see people disagreeing on the scaling for lower levels but let me say this, do you actually run through with your lower level alts or do you run through with an 80 and then right before boss is dead switch over to your salt to get the exp? I frown upon this because I feel as though its in a way, cheating. This would fix that so that you would actually be able to run through the dungeon with a possibility of winning and not have to just switch your low level at the end. You would actually be able to run through the whole dungeon as that low level. I understand why you all are disagreeing with the loot part but doesn’t that just make you strive to get to 80? The loot difference is there for a reason, and that reason is to prevent people from just running through with lower levels to beat it and get the high loot as well as IMO, to have people avoid switching to their salt at the end of the dungeon.

I would not have a problem with rewards scaling if it gave rewards based on personal level and not the average level of the group.

So a player who is level 60 for AC can run with a group of level 80 players and not drag down the loot to level 76 gear. Which is too low for the level 80’s and too high for the level 60.

I think ‘difficulty’ needs to be specified, as in what makes it difficult. There is good difficulty and bad difficulty. bad difficult would be the new wurm boss, where it requires the coordination of 90+ people and you can’t easily specify who those people will be. bad difficult is 5 players vs. 100 trash mobs that don’t give loot.
good difficult would be lupi. (he’s the best boss imo). variety of mechanics, requires skill, it’s obvious what you should do, not complicated, etc. the individual marionette champs are a pretty good attempt, but the fact that if any one team fails due to rng giving them 2 players while another team has 8 means that the whole event’s success is just the luck of a draw, which makes it bad.
place a bomb under the boss to make it vulnerable to attack is a good mechanic. having to place 20 within 30 seconds is bad. each bomb placed makes it semi-vulnerable to attack for a short time (20 would make it fully vulnerable) is good.

Seera.5916:

Randulf.7614:

Normally I cringe at walls of texts on forums (people like myself suffer with being unable to read them if on a PC screen), but I’m glad I made the effort – there’s some interesting ideas in your post – esp in terms of titles and rewards

Probably because unlike most walls of text, this one was well laid out and not just paragraph upon paragraph. And while it was long it was concise and to the point.

I also like the idea and would love to see something like this added to the game

Good point re: walls of text. Also to the OP – if you were originally worried about your English…don’t be – it’s better than most peoples in a written form!! (mine included…)

Seera.5916:

I would not have a problem with rewards scaling if it gave rewards based on personal level and not the average level of the group.

So a player who is level 60 for AC can run with a group of level 80 players and not drag down the loot to level 76 gear. Which is too low for the level 80’s and too high for the level 60.

For sure the reward should be scaled to the individual player with respect to the difficulty. But I’m happy that you actually see the idea behind that. If I have the time, I’m pretty sure I could build a mathematical algorithm that specifies the difficulty assigned to the whole group and the reward scaled to the individual player. But that will not be for now :P

A R W E N.6895:

Seera.5916:

I would not have a problem with rewards scaling if it gave rewards based on personal level and not the average level of the group.

So a player who is level 60 for AC can run with a group of level 80 players and not drag down the loot to level 76 gear. Which is too low for the level 80’s and too high for the level 60.

For sure the reward should be scaled to the individual player with respect to the difficulty. But I’m happy that you actually see the idea behind that. If I have the time, I’m pretty sure I could build a mathematical algorithm that specifies the difficulty assigned to the whole group and the reward scaled to the individual player. But that will not be for now :P

I completely understand and agree in a way from where he’s coming from with his point BUT, if you were to make it give better loot compared to the individual player and have difficulty based on the entire group then you would have level 80’s playing with lower levels to make it easier and get the best loot not caring about the difficulty. Loot needs to be scaled with the level of difficulty. I would agree on getting gear that scales with your level no matter what group you’re in but for the best rare items have RNG worse on easier difficulties and better on harder difficulties. If you get what I’m saying. So if you’re level 80 and you have a group of level 20’s with you the difficulty is less but you yourself still get lvl 80 items while the level 20’s get level 20 items but when it comes to exotics, rares, precursors, etc, the RNG is scaled on the difficulty rather than personal level.

Yeah I understand what you mean. I guess it could work but if you decide to scale something that is random with whatever method there is, it will still be random.

Just look at it this way, lets say that every item is assigned a fixed number between 0 and 1. The items that are more common will have more fixed number attached to it.

Suppose a simple dagger has assigned number: 0.1345, 0.5678, 0.7589 and 0.9089. Now suppose that when you open a chest, it goes through an algorithm that generates a random number between 0 and 1 with 4 decimal place. Now let’s say that when the chest open the random number is 0.1345. You then get that simple dagger.

Let’s now say that you scale the random number generator to 77.5% (I’m using my example from the first post where 77.5% is the difficulty index) Now you have 0.775*(0,1) and hence the new interval is (0,0.775). Now your random number will be somewhere between 0 and 0.7750. Now with that chart of all the fixed values representing items, if you scale your number generator, you will scale the fixed value also otherwise it would not work. Now the simple dagger has the following number attached to it 0.775*(0.1345, 0.5678, 0.7589, 0.9089). The new number will be in (0,0.775) and you will still have 4 out of (Sample space) chances of obtaining this simple dagger. Scaling down in this way does not actually cut your chances of obtaining that exotic or rare.

This example is probably way way way way to simple compared to reality but you do get what I am trying to bring here?

But now suppose that the chest you open has the following probability:
0.01 exotic, 0.09 rare, 0.25 green, 0.35 blue and 0.30 the rest. Now let’s say that since you play at 77.5% difficulty the game now scales your chances of obtaining item with a certain rarity the following way.

(1-0.775)=0.225, exotics and rare now have 22.5% less chance to occur when opening the chest and the rest scales so that the sum of the probabilities add to 1. Now you have 0.00775 exotic, 0.06975 and 0.9225 for (green with 25%, blue with 35% and the rest with 30%).

Do you get that now since you play at an easier level, you would have less chances to obtain an exotic than if you would play at the maximum level. Simply said, difficulty and reward should come together. That’s what I think.

Because in the end if your chances of obtaining a certain item would not be impaired if you play with lower level char and hence in a lower difficulty, people would start abusing that. On the other hand, if you want to have the maximum possible chance to get a certain item you would play in the maximum difficulty which would be 100% (5 character lvl 80).

I think what is actually an issue here is that why a team composed of let’s say lvl 40, 55,76,41 and 67 have such trouble finishing the dungeon to get their reward? People that are level 80 that create groups and specify level 80 only arises because at the moment when someone of lower level joins it makes it way harder for them to complete the dungeon.

Now if the difficulty is adjusted according to the player level, people of low level will be able to actually complete the dungeon and actually get the reward (but a scaled one). And people that want the maximum will play in an all 80 group and get the maximum.

I like the reward ideas, but not the difficulty ideas. As others have mentioned, it would just encourage me to never play a dungeon with any character under level 80, and when playing dungeons to never team with anyone under level 80.

Edit: Your background is from doing very high level organized dungeon runs, and the difficulty idea you propose would benefit players like that enormously. It would just completely destroy pick up groups. Some of us enjoy grabbing a few random people and just slogging through a dungeon. It might take longer, but we know we’ll get it done and get decent rewards at the end. Your difficulty idea is a disincentive to playing with other, random people, and helping new players.

I know my background is kinda elitist, but sometime i would also enjoy play on my alts with other low level and actually be able to complete the dungeons regardless of the reward.

The difficulty is scaling real bad IMO

I don’t understand why it would never make you want to do dungeons at a lower level. You already don’t cause you can’t. This would make it possible for a group of lower levels to do it.

I think all in all it is a great concept but… needs to be refined.

Low rewards for low level difficulty will in fact increase the amount of discrimination in LFG dungeon groups.

difficulty is something people get used to… look in raids in WoW or inferno difficulty in Diablo. Initially only the best of the best can be able to do it. Now even average Joes are walking around with ease.

This Brings to the table that, after some time, no one will be willing to run lower difficulty levels.

Why do I want to run low difficulties and help newbies if I am getting lessor than I create a “LFG lvl 80s NO noobs no rangers” group?

At that point of time higher difficulty dungeon will essentially be “more time consuming” and “more focus needed” rather than being “more difficult” and it contains “guaranteed better loot”.

This really needs to be thought through as it may hinder the ability for new people to join dungeon groups

Noliver.1475:

I think all in all it is a great concept but… needs to be refined.

Low rewards for low level difficulty will in fact increase the amount of discrimination in LFG dungeon groups.

difficulty is something people get used to… look in raids in WoW or inferno difficulty in Diablo. Initially only the best of the best can be able to do it. Now even average Joes are walking around with ease.

This Brings to the table that, after some time, no one will be willing to run lower difficulty levels.

Why do I want to run low difficulties and help newbies if I am getting lessor than I create a “LFG lvl 80s NO noobs no rangers” group?

At that point of time higher difficulty dungeon will essentially be “more time consuming” and “more focus needed” rather than being “more difficult” and it contains “guaranteed better loot”.

This really needs to be thought through as it may hinder the ability for new people to join dungeon groups

I would think that low level people would want to make groups with low level people. You don’t see that now cause its too difficult for them but if this were to be implemented I’d think you would see them making groups. I’m not saying it would, but I think it would.

Noliver.1475:

I think all in all it is a great concept but… needs to be refined.

Low rewards for low level difficulty will in fact increase the amount of discrimination in LFG dungeon groups.

difficulty is something people get used to… look in raids in WoW or inferno difficulty in Diablo. Initially only the best of the best can be able to do it. Now even average Joes are walking around with ease.

This Brings to the table that, after some time, no one will be willing to run lower difficulty levels.

Why do I want to run low difficulties and help newbies if I am getting lessor than I create a “LFG lvl 80s NO noobs no rangers” group?

At that point of time higher difficulty dungeon will essentially be “more time consuming” and “more focus needed” rather than being “more difficult” and it contains “guaranteed better loot”.

This really needs to be thought through as it may hinder the ability for new people to join dungeon groups

First of all, lets not compare WoW to Gw2. And as a fact, I never even played WoW so I know nothing about this game.

I would say that in Gw2 there is three type of players. Some that want to have fun and some that want to be the richest as fast as possible and some that want to have fun and have loot.

Sometime I do want to loot, and for that I go on my main character and start doing fractals and world boss. But sometime I want to get on my lower character and do dungeons to level up and do something different. Now there problem is that when I group with low level, I can’t finish it because it is to hard for low level. And then my solution is to reroll and finish the dungeon and then reroll back to get the exp. This is for me a big problem.

Let me say you something, if you truly want to get your reward as quick as possible then go on your lvl 80 and do the dungeon but I can garantee you that some player would not care at all for a reward if they could actually finish the dungeon and level up that way.

As a matter of fact, some player are selfish and will not care about helping other player and having fun (loot or no loot).

And if you ever played Gw1, the end game content that was considered Highly difficult had some form of requirement. For DoA you had to finish Nightfall, for Uw Fow you had to have an infused armor or you had to be closer to the star etc.

(My oppinion): we currently have no end game content that actually goes in the category of DoA like difficulty.

Randulf.7614:

Seera.5916:

Randulf.7614:

Normally I cringe at walls of texts on forums (people like myself suffer with being unable to read them if on a PC screen), but I’m glad I made the effort – there’s some interesting ideas in your post – esp in terms of titles and rewards

Probably because unlike most walls of text, this one was well laid out and not just paragraph upon paragraph. And while it was long it was concise and to the point.

I also like the idea and would love to see something like this added to the game

Good point re: walls of text. Also to the OP – if you were originally worried about your English…don’t be – it’s better than most peoples in a written form!! (mine included…)

Thank you