Guild Wars 2

Considering this is the first major issue I see when it comes to people supposedly “quitting” the game. We have found out people seem to have pushed through A-net’s content quickly now. Both legendaries and full dungeon armor has been obtained by the main player base, faster then A-net thought possible. Some people have stated we want our “carrot on the stick” or “grind treadmill” in GW2 to make it better for their experience. We have A-nets response which was of course the much debated ascended tier.

First let’s talk about the new ascended tier:

A) Keep them as is.
B) Turn them into the same stats of exotics, but with an upgrade that can only be used for that dungeon (or future dungeons). Being only effective in PvE and not PvP.
C) Turn them completely into exotics and throw out a notion of a new tier of armor.
D) Other

Second opinion would be what you want from A-net to do about end game content (you can pick multiples of course):

A) More cosmetic items for your own personal preference.
B) More overall level 80 areas to explore beyond Orr
C) More Jumping Puzzles, Dungeons, Mini Dungeons, and Mini Games (looking at you Polymock)
D) Unique events that happen around Tyria as you explore.
E) New game mechanics that don’t borrow from old archaic MMO philosophy to use as a time sink.
F) Your choice.
G) All of the above.

My personal preference is there is so much they can expand on. Lore wise they have probably a phone book of lore they can expand on for PvE alone. I am talking about 5 other elder dragons besides Zhaitan, Cantha, Elona, Mursaat, Dhuum, Menzies, seers, the 6 human gods, Razah, the scepter of orr, the Largos, and the Tengu are just some examples, A few of these things have been foot notes left in GW2. To me the personal story was the weakest element to GW2. It felt like GW1 crash course storytelling and got anti climatic towards the end. However there is always room for improvement

to me its the exploring and story mode that keeps me going.
after that, ill probably leave.
im no grinder..
i left wow exactly a few days after hitting lvl 80.
was burning crusade i think. been a while.
anyway. redoing content drives me crazy!

C and G.

There is so much they can add, and they come up with a gear treadmill? Come on Anet, you can do better than this.

Waar Kijk Je Naar.8713:

C and G.

There is so much they can add, and they come up with a gear treadmill? Come on Anet, you can do better than this.

Erm, this is just a small content addition.

They haven’t even touched upon Cantha, Elona, Ring of Fire island chain, Dominion of Winds, etc etc – this content update is more like a Sorrow’s Furnace GW1 update. They are adding a new dungeon, a new zone and new items. Personal story and the like won’t be added until most likely a new expansion or when they add content that involves us going after the next elder dragon. Who’s to say jumping puzzles aren’t being added with the new zone that’s opening up.

Too many people whining before they actually see what’s offered.

gear threadmill is kinda bad.
and yeah, i thought that arenanet would have been more original.

reality bites :/

As you may have noticed recently, Arenanet has started releasing more “end-game” after many complaints… and we are going to have new, more powerful gears, called Ascended Gears – but, don’t take me wrong, this thread is not about that, it’s about general end-game.

So, my little finger (and many threads) are telling me that it wasn’t really what people were expecting, so, I’m asking to you, what should end-game be ?

EDIT: This merge function is just horrible.

As I did not open this thread without something in mind, I am gonna start by my own answer to this question.

To me, end-game should have three letters: HoM. Hall of Monuments was simply GREAT in Guild Wars, first owner of the name. It was an unique and awesome place to collect skins and achievements. It was using the feeling of completion, like gears, but it was even better and nobody could whine about it.

So, why not? I’m saying “why not” because this idea has been proposed multiple times and we still ended-up with gears instead. I see no problem with the lore ; it could be somewhere in the Mists. I see no problem with the powerful gears ; it can work with too.

EDIT: This merge function is just horrible.

End-game should be within the eye of the beholder. To me, it’s a sandbox to do whatever I want, when I want.

Magiofdeath.2745:

Waar Kijk Je Naar.8713:

C and G.

There is so much they can add, and they come up with a gear treadmill? Come on Anet, you can do better than this.

Erm, this is just a small content addition.

They haven’t even touched upon Cantha, Elona, Ring of Fire island chain, Dominion of Winds, etc etc – this content update is more like a Sorrow’s Furnace GW1 update. They are adding a new dungeon, a new zone and new items. Personal story and the like won’t be added until most likely a new expansion or when they add content that involves us going after the next elder dragon. Who’s to say jumping puzzles aren’t being added with the new zone that’s opening up.

Too many people whining before they actually see what’s offered.

This topic was more in tuned to see what people want in the near future or far future. The timeline is irrelevant because we all know it takes awhile to add something. One of the biggest problems I have seen so far is people don’t have a cohesive understanding of what they want. I believe the much debated ascended tier was added because of this. If people know what they want, it will send hopefully a direct message to A-net about what future content should be for the majority of it’s player base. Instead of taking missteps in dealing out new content so that way they don’t irritate their player base. Yes, I understand you can’t make everyone happy.

it isnt to the player to ask for something they want.

it s for the designers to create it.

seems like they tried (manifesto), they ended up failing, stuck at a road block.
they went back to an easy and proven treadmill mechanic.

Avatar.1923:

it isnt to the player to ask for something they want.

it s for the designers to create it.

seems like they tried (manifesto), they ended up failing, stuck at a road block.
they went back to an easy and proven treadmill mechanic.

Developers usually intake the vast opinion of the player base. This is why they have forums, in game anonymous reviews of content use, focus groups, and even play testers. From what has just occurred to me with this Lost Shore content is reflected on the people who wanted things to feel like past MMO iteration.

° For the game develops, I already think that the events should have much more impact in small areas. It extends to the major cities.

° Cities should main advanced, grow, or get more details. (eg City Asura would be Cafetera, dormitory, and jumping puzzle in it.)
Activities like the battle of barrels in the norn should be implemented in large cities.

° In the instance staff area:
– Addition of titles.
– Museum of armor.
– Evolution of buildings / street or you just. / Decorations for your adventure, more NPCs.
– Bibliothèqueou you can read our discovery and as far!

° Festive Events for each entry of the races.

° The evolution of dungeons: After completing the four paths, news three open.
Dungeons add, but always with exotic stuff. or … Ascension now. >.> But it’s still the same stats.

° Areas with new content, and a story related. (Arena Net does well, I’m a fan!) And the narrative contained with 12 zones, you pay the addon!
Return to Cantha, Elona, ??and higher in the distant cimefroide!

° Add the armor Gw1 revenue is found dungeon exploration or jumping puzzle!

° New challenge group! As the race with Arah password of a luminous ball!

° But above all, the events evolve and become more immersive world. They go a Real Impact!

° Bonus comfort, I thought a NPC Asura / charr, feminized armor for Asura woman / charr.
Additions hairstyles for them, and change the current armor to make it a little different from the male.

° Separate skills that PvE PvP.

° Add guild wars, and défits speed / intelligence between players. Title with a key.

° And have much more personal story race.

Bump!

Are you all happy with the gear grinding? End of the debate?
If you don’t give HoM a strong voice, it will never happen. 3 guyz asking this across a few random threads is not enough.

Also all end-game ideas are welcome here. More content? Dungeons? Improvement of WvW?

EDIT: This merge function is just horrible.

In no paticluar order, things I would like to see:

1) Challenge Missions. For those who do not remember them from GW1 they were instanced PVE zones where you could complete various objectives and recieve a score, there was a leaderboard for best teams fo the Day, Month, and Quarter. I spent a ton of time in Glint’s Challenge and was thrilled to see my team on the top of the leaderboard for an entire quarter until only time removed our score. We worked hard on it as a team, refining and fine tuning our strategy and build. The rewards didn’t get significantly better, but oh, the sweet, sweet bragging rights Running the challenge mission took an average of 15-20 minutes for many of them and were a great way for a group to have a goal that wasn’t loot based. Would love to see this implemented with GW2 side kicking to allow anyone to play at 80, but could be done in the saame method as Dungeons and have them established at many levels.

2) Progress in Lore / Story. I felt like the human personal story left off with a giant cliff hanger when I left poor Logan to deal with a threat to the ruler of my nation while I went off to join a foreign order and face a threat to the world. I would like to see more content that adds 1-2 quests to develop personal story lines, even if it’s ‘down leveled content,’ but giving us 1-2 quest steps every now and then would let me feel like STORY is still progressing. Story progress > gear progress or lvl progress

3) More dynamic events that have a high chance of failure. My current favorite event is the Risen Priest of Balthazar. It fails, badly, more often than not. YAY! We have to work hard, and play better to succeed! This is good!

4) More utilization of unique mechanics. Several zones of the game have you pilot Asura mechs (or dredge suits) to accomplish tasks, or use environmental weapons to do things. I would like to see the end game put more focus on these mechanics…. we don’t need more powerful gear to fight the huge boss… we need situational tools that are only available having done the event chain to reach the boss! Less power creep to impact the rest of the game while still allowing for power growth of the enemy

5) More character custimization. Here, I really am looking for more particle effect options and more diverse skins for our gear. Character custimization is a part of endgame that I enjoy. I also like having endgame armor and weapons that simply standing around in town people say ‘wow, look at X…. that’s freaking cool!’ Maybe I’m elitist, maybe I like to ‘show off’ a bit, but that’s my carrot.

Dungeons I can get in without first reading up on the dungeons forum if it’s currently working or not.

I stood in CM story with the alt when the endboss spawned one add too few and the dungeon couldn’t be finished. I tried SE last weekend and we chose path 1 which is currently uber-hard and awaiting its corrective patch. Path 2 also bugged.

Give me working dungeons.

Next expansion, give me interesting bosses.

1. Open world PvP complete with conquerable guild keeps.

2. Housing in general. I love Aion’s housing and Rift’s housing sounds very compelling as well

3. more non-combat activities. These add immersion and overall fun. Also an activity that a guild can do as a whole since, at the moment, those are few and far between

New 80 dungeons and explorables.

Turn Ascended gear into reskins of exotics / fresh stat mixes equivalent to exotic. Make a world event that spawns every couple hours that infuses your equipped weapon & armor and drops a chest (Shatterer, Claw). No stat bonuses from it but lets you deal with Fractals better.

Unique loot to chests in each area and champions. Give people incentive to roam other areas. And scale the rewards for events and equips. No one wants to get level 30 gear as 80

Horizontal skill progression. More skills, more traits. Even if they will be PvE specific. Obtained by traveling a world and exploring.

Waar Kijk Je Naar.8713:

C and G.

There is so much they can add, and they come up with a gear treadmill? Come on Anet, you can do better than this.

^ This. I know you have many many talented artists on your team, leave the grind alone and just make new things to do. If some players want to grind they can make their legendary, get bored and move on to another MMO. As for us more casual players I say leave it alone and let us just enjoy the game for what it is.

edit: reading back on some of the suggestions offered, I truly hope ANet reads this one.

All of the above =)
1- Guild vs Guild wars.
2-More modes for Spvp
3-Different mini games.
4-Develope and release more armor skins for us to buy.
5-New Unique dynamic events for us to interact with.

I really dislike the idea of endgame. I want them to improve the whole game. I think there are too many ways for people to skip content and blow by [give them that and many do]. I’m out there being overrun by 10 second re-spawns and over lapping events and hardly any players out there anymore. I don’t know make them loop back for new content maybe but do something its getting ridiculous.

Id be happy with a new area to explore every month with new quests, all new foes, map completion stuff and events. i dunno how other people think of end game, but when i think of it it means ive run out of new areas to explore and quests to do. so that would remove any “theres no end game” to me.

I just brought my third character up to level 80, and the lack of differentiation in the personal story is pretty sad. I beat Ziatan twice already, do I really have to do it again? What was that about a permanent impact to the world?

So my first suggestion for “endgame” is to add new areas and new events. We don’t want to grind, we want new content! More level 80 zones in PvE and more WvW maps too (I don’t play sPvP much, but I bet they want new maps too).

Secondly, bring back Hard Mode from GW1. That was my endgame in GW1 and kept me occupied for over a year fighting the higher level and smarter mobs.

Thirdly, attract new players. The fact that GW2 has no subscription fee means it’s ok for players to leave, Arenanet doesn’t loose money. To keep making it though, they need to sell more copies, much like a single player game would. Improve graphics (DX11), fix bugs, and keep the world newb friendly (no gear grind!!!).

Asura build technology and ships.

Build me a race track in the ocean with power boats,
Let players race again each other and gather components for upgrades for their boats.

Add some thing other MMO`s Don’t have let us race each other in tourneys etc.

Not that hard to come up with new inventive mini type games.

My suggestions:

-Make bigger mini-dungeons. Actually have the current dungeon dev team go make their elite impossible dungeons for Hardcore players and promote the Mini-Dungeons guy to a normal Dungeon Dev. Those things are so awesome but waaaay too short.

-Mini-games with leaderboards and trophies. Take that Asura Chess game, bring it to Lion’s Arch and have players play competitively. Same with Polymock and RollerBeetle racing. These minigames are super fun and add to the ENDGAME possibilities :p

-Hard Mode

-Dynamic Dungeons. My guild only has 4 people. We somehow beat CM and we can’t do any other dungeons because there are so few of us. Scale the difficulty down with the number of people. GW1 let you play with up to 8 friends but you could also play solo. Now we HAVE to have at least 5 friends in order to enjoy content together. What am I missing, here?

-A few traditional quest arcs. Remember Villainy of Galrath (Or whatever it was called)? Nothing beat getting a task and then getting to travel with your buddies across the countryside to battle a boss. Sure events are awesome and the Personal Story is fine (Except for the cinematics, but that’s a whole other problem). Just add some quick and easy quests that we can complete with friends on our own time.

-Titles catered towards grind-focused players- Lucky, Unlucky, Drunkard, ETC.

New Skins – No more of this “Better than Best” gear progression.

I’m sure none of this will ever be looked at or, let alone, implemented but a guy can dream :p

Capturable skills like in GW1.

It can be done.

No more instanced things. I’d rather like if they did more things to do in the open world, or things that are apart of the open world.

Dynamic events but only “bigger, stronger, faster”! Look at Rift’s Major world events and then make it 10 times more awesome just because you can, Anet.

C

and own choice – expand on WvW

Tokugawa.1268:

1. Open world PvP complete with conquerable guild keeps.

this x 1000

C and G

They could add:
1) More interactions with NPCs (friendship/avoidance stats, attraction, etc.) even if just specific NPCs
2) Worked more heavily on making the current areas better:
*certain events in each area revamped (Claw of Jormag could be less “Spam attack -> Feared out of place -> run back and spam attacks again” and instead remove the ice field, add in some claw swipes for players to dodge when close, ice breathe that freezes and heavily damages players hit by it players with some large rock outcroppings to hide behind to avoid it, etc. some siege weapons for players to use even if they don’t add more damage than attacking normally; just variance overall)
*certain event mobs could be nerfed a bit so that they are actually worth killing (again events like Claw of Jormag; the mobs are pointless and take so long to kill, that everyone just ignores and avoids them…)
3) Boss hunts (bounties or something…)
4) Champions could use more combat variance than the normal mobs…
5)Event scaling
*STOP with the Hp and defense scaling; setup each event with a designated number of players in mind (Large events = 10-20 players; Medium = 5-10; small 1-2) and instead add new mini events spread out a bit from the main one to break up player groupings that are larger than the designed size
*Scale events by adding trebuchets, magical shield generators, etc. at a decent distance away from larger events that cause trouble for players if some of them don’t deal with them (breaking up groups larger than what an event was designed for).
*base this on how many players are in the area, not just attacking in the event
6) More emphasis on the order you choose
Give us missions and stuff based on the Order we choose in our personal story (Whisperers = smaller scale spec ops stuff, Priory = Exploration and experimentation stuff, Vigil = larger combat events, etc.)

7) WvW
Siege weapons easier obtain and setup or something (this kitten world vs wall is just boring as hell…)

The list goes on and on… yet they give us the same crap wrapped in a shiny new package. Oh, and the beginnings of a gear treadmill to boot…

Come on Anet; we know you can be more creative than this

they could
1. New quest from existing npc with a reward of unqiue skins and further the lore of that npc.

2. A guild boss or new world boss that has a random spawn timer requring people to find it rather than camping it.

3. Make the exisiting personailty trait do something eg.. npc sells you different item according to your trait.

4. GvG

5. Hunting for elite skills like in gw1 XD

Easy answer: C and G.

C and G is also what I was expecting based on Manifesto/dev posts/etc.

As for the 2nd question – they really need to add something other than Orr zones for 80 (and Agony needs to stay away from these zones).

I was really expecting more from GW2 in terms of the combat mechanics and boss fights. The removal of the Trinity is/was a great idea – but I don’t think the group mechanics really have done much to push MMO combat anywhere forward.

I do NOT miss the Trinity, but I do find the combat in GW2 less interesting than any encounter in WoW or Rift or TOR or EQ2 or FFXI (speaking as a lifelong player of healing and tanking toons – I found playing DPS in all of the above – bar FFXI – mindnumbingly dull), and so therefore I find the 5 man dungeons in GW2 probably it’s weakest component (well, the Personal Story is the weakest, but you don’t ever have to do that, and can only do it once per character anyway).