Guild Wars 2

So, all this started when I went to check out Foefire’s Heart again as a refresher. Was on a necromancer, decided to see how it looked from Death Shroud for funsies. All I could think was, “Wouldn’t it be super neat if there was something about this ghost-maker that only a necro in death shroud could see?”

Of course, there wasn’t. But I think there should be.

I loved finding the cave in Queensdale that could be opened with an emote. That’s another storytelling device that isn’t done enough imo.

SO, WHAT AM I PROPOSING?
That at least one profession should get extra goodies (in the form of new info/easter egg, nothing gamebreaking) in upcoming LS releases (better yet, shortcut-type-thing in a dungeon if it’s released).

While any profession-exclusive skill could work, I’m focusing on the actual class mechanics skill here.

SPECIFICS, kitten.
OK. Since this is easier said than done, let me spitball.

• Elementalist: Must attune to fire to walk through lava and pull a level to shut off the trap
• Mesmer: Must literally shatter an illusion that’s paralyzing the rest of the team
• Necromancer: Must get info from a ghost that can only be seen/spoken to while in deathshroud
• Ranger: Set a Cerberus-esque baddie to passive so the passage forward is clear
• Engineer: Reconfigure/repair/repurpose ancient technothingie with their toolbelt for a new recording
• Thief: Has to steal a maguffin from somebody
• Warrior: Some herculean feat of adrenaline, like lifting/holding open a closing gate to let the rest of the party through
• Guardian: Prove themselves worthy to some mystical whosit by virtue of their .. um .. virtues

…. OK. So I know those are REALLY rough, and it would be way too much to implement something for every profession in every episode. Sprinkling something like this throughout, though? That shouldn’t be impossible, should it?

>Other profession-specific skills (IE, not general stuff like stealth but specifics like Rocket Boots!) could work too. And of course emotes, but Anet has used them well already, albeit not often. I recall some graves you could cry at for a nifty easter egg as well.

So … whatcha think?

There are some fascinating ideas here…

I think elements already exist of what you’re thinking, albiet for races, not classes – some skritt will speak to you differently whether you’re an asura or a sylvari, for example.

It would be rather neat to have, say, a dungeon with multiple paths, where one path would be open to a specific class, but not the others, building off of your examples!

I think the only question would be how difficult it would be to implement such things.

DraconicDak.9340:

There are some fascinating ideas here…

I think elements already exist of what you’re thinking, albiet for races, not classes – some skritt will speak to you differently whether you’re an asura or a sylvari, for example

Yes, and you know that Aerin’s note is a Soundless mantra immediately if you’re sylvari, for instance. I like what they’ve done so far, I’d just love to see profession matter the way race does for these little things

While I support this variety wholeheartedly and whis they would apply it, sadly Anet has completely and utterly forsaken player character’s choices when it comes to classes and skills since the very start of the game. (I am looking at you, Mesmer path in Orr where my character is unable to recognize what an illusion is… despite he himself is a mesmer. Worst commander ever.)
Only exceptions I have spotted is two dialogues with random npcs that can only be triggered by a thief, and another one in Godlost Swamp for necromancers.

As it is, the Living World team appears to be fumbling with time and resources enough that small details leak all over the place, so perhaps when they settle down a bit on their tracks and the game’s updates stabilize accordingly they may remind themselves classes exist as a personality factor.

I support this idea! I’ve always wondered why certain choices other than race aren’t more represented in the story, and your choice of profession is a glaring one. Don’t get me wrong, in the Tower of Nightmares they had instances which showed characters that were close to your character in the personal story, such as logan, rytlock, Tybalt, forgal, and trahearne.

The thing is though, that may have been cool and all, but what if they had a scenario where you had to talk to a human character who was on the streets their entire life. Humans have a street rat option at character creation. Wouldn’t it be cool to have a unique “I know what that is like, I lived on the streets of Divinity’s Reach for a large portion of my life.” response versus other characters’ responses of “That’s too bad.”?

Or what about with charr, you meet a charr character who is very loyal to the blood legion. Most characters wouldn’t have any dialogue related to that but ash and iron legion charr could have dialogue saying, “Iron/Ash Legion is better than your legion.” or blood legion charr saying, “I agree, Blood Legion is the best.”

Maybe it’s just wishful thinking on my part. :/

As much as I’d love to see this, it wont happen. ANET is completely against giving X class/race anything unique that makes them more useful in X situations. This would mean that in X dungeon we would need a certain class to make a path easier, or doable. This of course is an excellent idea because it makes each class/race be more unique and important in certain stages of the game. Even in the books we can see examples of class/races being useful in ways that only they could be of help. Another example of ANET unwillingness to make the different classes and races be more unique, is the racial skills/elites, they’re all horrible, even though it’s supposed to make each race stronger or have an edge over the others in certain ways (other than plain looks). Another example is the personality, remember that they promised each personality would change how the world sees you? LOL Right……. It never matters if you’re a brute, a charmer or honorable, the outcome of everything is always the same, the only difference is a meaningless dialog that changes absolutely nothing about the story. So in the end, there are some amazing ideas out there that would make the storytelling, and whole game itself, 1000x better, and memorable for example: your ideas of class specific assets during dungeon paths, racial skills that are not completely bs, and are actually useful, and personality enhancements, story differences depending on your personality, maybe even personality bound armors/weapons, emotes, partners (other than DE, or DE 2.0), or other NPC’s to hang out in your home instance. The list goes on and on, but again, as much as I absolutely LOVE this game, we’ll probably never get any of this, and instead get a bs excuse from ANET saying how “unbalanced” the game would be. Because that my friend, is ANET’s way.

ANet does have a lot of subtle conversation changes for different races / classes / orders, but you only really notice them if you play through open world completion multiple times, and go slow on subsequent playthroughs to see the dialog. If anything, I like that the effects on open world gameplay are more subtle, because if there was a major difference, everyone would pick the choice that gave them the most benefits. “We need a Brutal Sylvari Ranger for this speed run because that opens up a path and bypasses a fight that cuts a minute off the speed run.”

The Scarlet death scene was the only one I caught with a class difference (Engineers have additional exposition with the activated Breachmaker). There are a number of people that react differently based on race; the Brill Alliance Skritt IQ test is my favorite, I had to go back with a couple of characters to get races I’d missed. (It was funny to me every time, so worth it).

There are a lot of secrets that open up to members of the Order of Whispers; my first playthrough was on a Priory member, and often I haven’t joined an order by the time I do a playthrough, so I missed a lot. I was randomly exploring with an Order member in an earlier zone I’d completed before and found a couple of surprising undercover Order agents hidden here and there. I’ll avoid breaking their cover.

Sorann Peace.9056:

Or what about with charr, you meet a charr character who is very loyal to the blood legion. Most characters wouldn’t have any dialogue related to that but ash and iron legion charr could have dialogue saying, “Iron/Ash Legion is better than your legion.” or blood legion charr saying, “I agree, Blood Legion is the best.”

There’s a bar at the Charr starter zone where members of the Legions get into an argument about which Legion is best (Ash, of course). You can fight them, or get them to back down by answering trivia about their Legion. Or, if you’re a Charr, you can get your Legion to back down by telling them you are a member.

It’s rare (all too rare) but it’s there.

Rainshine.5493:

Yes, and you know that Aerin’s note is a Soundless mantra immediately if you’re sylvari, for instance. I like what they’ve done so far, I’d just love to see profession matter the way race does for these little things

You’ve probably seen the little lore things they’ve included for Engineers since the end of the first season, and a few things for race and personal story choices. Adding actual play mechanics to easy-mode a single encounter for one or more professions…. this is brilliant. It speaks to the True Dungeon fan in me ;D

To be fair, you’d have to include something for everyone eventually, but I do like this idea.

Pass.

I’d rather they focus on making good content that’s accessible to everyone than try to think up special little things for only one class to see.