Guild Wars 2

This trait is working functionally on live if I am correct. What is the issue you are having? Where are you using the trait? What other traits do you have equipped when testing this? How are you being applied conditions when this trait is not proccing for you?

Aeonblade.8709:

Lheimroo.2947:

Moshari.8570:

Give the ascended gear either “limited” stat swapping or full stat swapping like legendaries…or a way (a quest for instance) that would allow you to Add a stat for stat swapping.

If there were epic quests in place where you could unlock stat combinations for your gear that’d be.. awesome. That would be unbelievably awesome.

No more grind; make it about challenges.

I agree, would love to hear from Chris on this idea specifically, epic quest chains to unlock swappable item stats and new item stat combos.

This is a cool idea. Lots of logic problems to think about in regard to it. Need more time to think (-:

Chris

Nike.2631:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Nike,

There is no morass and no concept of ‘us’ trying to dig ourselves out of it.

((shrug)) I won’t quibble over the use of evocative terminology, but I suspect if we could somehow call for a show of hands and asked “Hey, how many people think BiS gear for 10 slots should be gated behind RNG and Crafting with ZERO alternatives” you’d end up counting more chirping crickets than paws going up .

((chirp—chirp—chirp))

Like I keep saying I am very much looking forward to concentrating on Horizontal Progression. In the meantime however I want to make sure that we give Ascended the attention it is due.

Other than wrangling some numbers/price points which would be better handled by people who can actually poll the game’s progress metrics (i.e. not us players), I think I’ve said my piece .

I look forward to the Horizontal Phase also…

…You sure you wouldn’t rather start it as a fresh and focused thread?

Might work out better than ‘gating’ it behind 30+ pages of tangential-at-best reading .

Sorry you don’t see it this way Nike. But this thread has been super useful for us already and no doubt super useful to those who have spent the time to contribute to it.

Chris

Herr der Friedhoefe.2490:

Still no Dev comment that I’ve seen on Time Gates, something that many players brought up early in this thread. Sort of disappointed by that.

Hi Herr,

I have asked Izzy to respond to that particular question as mentioned on Saturday. Note however that I do not expect my team to work over weekends, therefore i am sure he will respond as soon as he can.

Chris

Nike.2631:

VOLKON.1290:

I can’t possibly disagree more with this opinion. If accessibility becomes to easy you will soon enough find a new problem where some players have all the ascended gear they want.

I think the direction gaining momentum is less that acquisition needs to be faster and more there need to be multiple paths of comparable difficulty/time investment.

Making each piece count as all 17 possible pieces (and hey, what happened to Giver stats anyway…?) at the same time as allowing players to acquire them by multiple tracks simultaneously is gonna turn the tier into a rubber stamp, not an intermediate activity while inching up on your Legendary.

I understand the appeal for the players, but I don’t think it’s a good call for the game.

As a result they’ll begin to demand more progression past ascended.

I don’t think I’m alone in my willingness to tell those players “bite me.”

‘Vertical progressionists’ had their say once already and the result is this morass we’re digging out of now.

Lets not indulge in the insanity of repeating it.

Hi Nike,

There is no morass and no concept of ‘us’ trying to dig ourselves out of it.We are having a discussion about accessibility around ascended gear in relation to how the community wants to acquire it. I still stand by its inclusion and want to ensure that it is equidistantly positioned between Exotic and Legendary. I also want to ensure it is accessible to all players specifically in regard to how they play within the world.

These are all areas we have thought about at Anet. Personally I don’t think there is anything wrong with having an open discussion with everyone about how the play, and their feelings toward the opinions of other members of the community and the Developers.

Like i keep saying i am very much looking forward to concentrating on Horizontal Progression. In the meantime however I want to make sure that we give Ascended the attention it is due.

Chris

FeveredDreamer.2693:

I realize this is a bit behind the current debate but it was a good question which seemed worth answering.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Agreed. Let’s spend a little more time discussing and brainstorming the following questions:

Controversial: Vertical Progression acquisition can be a pain but what if any elements do you like about Vertical Progression?

Lets keep coming up with some awesome Horizontal Progression systemic ideas and also reward ideas?

Try to tie these ideas into the core foundation of GW2’s systems and mechanics please.

Chris

While I prefer horizontal progression, vertical progression does not in and of itself suck, the problem is that ANet chose perhaps the poorest quality way of developing vertical progression. Vertical progression via items is particularly terrible because of its innately “temporary” feeling, bottom line sooner or later all of the effort you’ve put into vertical progression via item grind becomes pointless. I’ll try to explain my thoughts on the subject succinctly below.

What is fun about vertical progression?

• The feeling of character growth
• The thrill of progress and the feeling that your efforts are being rewarded
• The ability to display your time and effort spent

What is not fun about vertical progression?

• The invalidation of all of your past efforts
• The feeling of monotony

What might be done to make vertical progression in GW2 more enjoyable?

• Attach more progression to your character rather than gear
• Make gear upgradeable rather than disposable

People rarely point out SWTOR as a brillaint show of MMO ideas, but lots of the account unlock ideas worked into SWTOR would work nicely in GW. This material was all doubtlessly vertical progression but it wasn’t attached to RNG and the newest “Sword of Pwning +1” that would soon be made worthless by your “Sword of Pwning +2”. Even in GW2 the new approach to infusions (though it sucks that they can’t be removed, fix this) is built on developing strength rather than replacing it. You combine your +1 infusions to get +2s, rather than just throwing those +1s away.

Good post Dreamer. Excellent food for thought.

Chris

VOLKON.1290:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Is it fair to say that regarding Ascended Gear we would like to see more ways to earn it and in terms of drop rates, a higher percentage chance of acquiring them through this method?

Chris

Possibly, or in lieu of that a means to add flexibility to the gear to allow for stat changes without needing to create a whole new set (see my inscription idea as an example).

Someone creates a whole set of berserker ascended and finds themselves getting rolled still (as glass cannons do) in WvW may have buyers remorse when that PVT set starts looking mighty tempting…

Yep thanks Volk for adding Stat changes to the proposal.

’Is it fair to say that regarding Ascended Gear we would like to see more ways to earn it and in terms of drop rates, a higher percentage chance of acquiring them through this method?

The ability to change gear stats.

The ability to potentially use tokens from encounters (allowing users to work toward acquisition of Ascended Gear) that would otherwise only offer RNG chances on Ascended Gear, allowing users to work toward the items (courtesy of Nike and others)’

Note this is the formulation of a proposal for discussion.

Chris

Is it fair to say that regarding Ascended Gear we would like to see more ways to earn it and in terms of drop rates, a higher percentage chance of acquiring them through this method?

Chris

As the above poster stated, the bonus applies to rank gain and not glory gain.

Team Arena awards the most glory per win, followed by Solo Arena, then hotjoin. TA and SA are also theoretically more difficult to win, so take it with a grain of salt!

Make sure to use a glory booster!

jsduke.6537:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I play a PVT AOE Heal shout War. I have played this role fora long period of time and have never played a DPS War. On top of this I am also easily able to hold agro and support my group. My DPS is terrible but I keep my team alive while they run around destroying everything…

I like you believe that Horizontal Progression should be about role differentiation, however I feel like this system is already very core to the game…

Chris

It’s an excellent point that I think gets overlooked because of the prominence of popular cookie-cutter builds. I feel like those builds are good teaching tools, but it’s easy to lean on them as crutches. There seems to be a reluctance to stray too far from the “tried-and-true” builds.

I’d like to see Horizontal progression in terms of role diversification and hybridization. I’d love to see more options for “exotic” builds that step outside of the normal comfort zone of the professions to add more flexibility to builds, and new ways to engage content (read as: wreck kittens).

It seems to me that there are a lot of options for dps and damage mitigation, but there is tremendous opportunity to expand the meta game in other aspects of combat:

• Toggle Abilities
• Inter-profession Synergy
• Environmental Synergy

Toggle Abilities are Player States that are either on or off, depending on what the player needs at the moment. Risk and Reward should be a big part of Toggle balancing. For example, Warriors could have a “Determined Stance” that, when on, provides the Warrior with Stability, but drops Critical Hit Chance to 0% while the Toggle Ability is active.

Inter-profession Synergy is something that could be really exciting. It could also be really complex. It could work something like this:

• This would be a Party mechanic that you would set up when you form your Party.
• Each Profession has 1 Synergistic Effect with each of the other 7 Professions.
• Each Party Member can only have 1 active Synergy Effect at a time.
• To set up the Effect, you target the Party Member and “Offer Synergy”.
• The Party Member accepts or declines the Synergy.
• Synergies can be changed at any time outside of combat.

When the Synergy is active, both players benefit from the relationship. An example would be “Bond of Blood” between Warrior and Necromancer. While the Synergy is active, the Warrior’s attacks generate Life Force for the Necromancer. While in Death Shroud, a portion of the damage the Warrior takes comes off of the Necromancer’s Life Force Pool instead. This encourages players to work together in new ways.

Environmental Synergy is another Party Mechanic that could work in a number of ways, but basically it changes the ways professions operate under different circumstances. For example, a Guardian could have “Valiant Avenger” that grants the Guardian +Power or +Might for every Party Member that is either downed or dead. Necromancers could have “Parasitic Bond” that grants +Condition Damage for every Party Member that is below the Health Threshold. Rangers could have “Alpha Dog” that provides +Critical Damage for every active pet/minion in the party.

Hi JSDuke,

I agree with your initial points and also your ideas are very interesting. Certainly thinking out of the box, but at the same time building on core foundations.

Chris

The forums is not the proper place for reporting exploits. Please email all reports to exploits@arena.net.

Thanks!

How long have you had your forum account?

Hi All,

Just got back and am up to date. There are a number of posts I am going to think about before replying. I will either reply tonight or in the morning.

Chris

Mungrul.9358:

I want to post this here while Chris is active. At least that way my posts might be seen.

Thoughts on Vertical Progression
Levels
Geared Stats

Thoughts on Horizontal Progression
Cosmetics
Achievements

Hi Mun,

Just wanted to let you know that I have read your posts and that I do stay on top of the thread. I read it as often as I am able. The reason there is no reply to the Vertical post you made is that I feel i have discussed those points in other responses. In regard to Horizontal I am focusing on Vertical currently so we can cap that conversation and move on.

Hope that makes sense?

Chris

Hi Mun,

Just wanted to let you know that I have read your posts and that I do stay on top of the thread. I read it as often as I am able. The reason there is no reply to the Vertical post you made is that I feel i have discussed those points in other responses. In regard to Horizontal I am focusing on Vertical currently so we can cap that conversation and move on.

Hope that makes sense?

Chris

Harbard.5738:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Harbard.5738:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Reesha.7901:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Reesha.7901:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Ok another brainstorm idea.

What if certain pieces of ascended gear could be crafted and sold on the TP such as gloves and boots?

Chris

Yes please, or even better:
All pieces could be crafted and sold on the TP.
All pieces could change stats.
All pieces could be obtained outside crafting without relying on RNG.

Personally and note this is not the opinion of Arena but I like the idea of uniquely skinned BiS items dropping in challenging content. My opinion as a player is that the current drop rates could be tweaked.

Chris

That will not remove the RNG factor…. Look at it this way:
Say you increased the drop rate on Tequatl. That means a higher change to get a weapon. But it is still RNG.
Some people will get several drops, others will get nothing, most will get items with the wrong stat combination. Please, please, please: No more RNG!

What if you could sell them? Thus complimentary to other forms of acquisition?

Chris

What’s the point of having an unique skin drop from a challenging encounter if you can just buy it on TP? Isn’t the point of the skin showing you beat the challenge? If a unique gear is gonna drop from a challenging encounter, it should be guaranteed and account bound, and the encounter really tough.

Yep your right sorry I should have given more detail in the brainstorm idea. In the idea I imagined Sunless not being trade able but other normal Ascended gear being trade able. Note this is just a brainstorm idea.

Chris

Non tradeable content-specif skin is great. Tradeable run-of-the-mill ascended sounds good in the beginning, but at these drop rates, they’re gonna be as expensive as precursors, and very prone to speculation, flipping etc… I think higher drop rates and keeping them account bound makes it more interesting. You could be able to pick in the box the type of gear and stat combo tho.

Bottom line: Find it while playing always beats the “farm, buy on tp” drudgery. But drop rates have to be decent.

Agreed.

Chris

I am heading out for a bit and will be back home this evening. I feel like having read all of the discussion and great ideas that we are closer to putting forward proposals but not quite there yet. No worries though because we have a ton of time to continue to discuss so let’s give this part of the topic the time it deserves and continue to enjoy the conversation and collaboration.

Personally I am really enjoying and looking forward to more Horizontal Conversation but as they say, all good things come to those that wait.

Catch you all later,

Chris

Feyhen.7432:

Hello everyone,

i would like to give my point of view.

I have had problems motivating myself to play Guild Wars 2 for a while know. Here is my personal reason why: I love character progresstion.
I love game with a vast amout of thinks where my character can evolve. I love getting new attacks, getting new ways to combine my attacks, getting new cool weapons and abilitys. Mechanics that opens up while new levels of gameplay.

I am not the gear type, i dont care much about vertical Progression.
I am more in love with horizontal progression and this is,

where Guild Wars 2 lacks.

I play as Warrior and although i have plenty of Alts, my Warrior is my favorite.

But since there are so limited skills and abilities my character can obtain, i dont feel like progressing any longer. I know that i could go for some ascended gear but i am not really interesstet in shiny new armor. I would like to be able to choose my own fighting style rather then only my own look.

As the skill system in Guild Wars 2 is right now, people like me will feel unsatisfied without more abilities to be learned.

Personally i would like to see an enhanced combat system with more ways to progress, with more styles to play. The warrior next to me may have a better looking Greatsword than me, but he will always play like me, execute the same weapon skills with that awesome sword like me, no matter what. I feel like there are not enough ways to individualise at the machinical level.

Hi Fey,

I play a PVT AOE Heal shout War. I have played this role fora long period of time and have never played a DPS War. On top of this I am also easily able to hold agro and support my group. My DPS is terrible but I keep my team alive while they run around destroying everything (-: The reason I raise this is because I would like to know what your role is with you War and I am wondering if you are aware of the different roles that each Profession can play dependent on their traits/skill/sigil/rune and weapon setup?

Note I ‘Look’ like a DPS war because i use a great sword (greatsaw) and a Longbow (Arthropoda). I like you believe that Horizontal Progression should be about role differentiation, however I feel like this system is already very core to the game but that we could do a better job of teaching how it works to a broader audience.

In short there are multiple War and profession roles and thus it is quite unlikely that that War next to you plays just like you.

Chris

Player.8373:

I came up with this long ago but never made a post about it.

What about a diffrent part of Fractals of the mists that’s sort of a boss. Everytime when a party defeats a boss, they will fight against a harder boss. When the party is wiped, the party will get tp’ed back to the instance and have to start over. This will be hard content. I bet Arenanet and the community could think of bosses/ enemies from the past/present. Everytime you defeat a boss you will get better loot. (and mayble punish the players by letting them do it once a week.)

This is just my idea for progression (hard content).

Interesting Dark.

Chris

Harbard.5738:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Reesha.7901:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Reesha.7901:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Ok another brainstorm idea.

What if certain pieces of ascended gear could be crafted and sold on the TP such as gloves and boots?

Chris

Yes please, or even better:
All pieces could be crafted and sold on the TP.
All pieces could change stats.
All pieces could be obtained outside crafting without relying on RNG.

Personally and note this is not the opinion of Arena but I like the idea of uniquely skinned BiS items dropping in challenging content. My opinion as a player is that the current drop rates could be tweaked.

Chris

That will not remove the RNG factor…. Look at it this way:
Say you increased the drop rate on Tequatl. That means a higher change to get a weapon. But it is still RNG.
Some people will get several drops, others will get nothing, most will get items with the wrong stat combination. Please, please, please: No more RNG!

What if you could sell them? Thus complimentary to other forms of acquisition?

Chris

What’s the point of having an unique skin drop from a challenging encounter if you can just buy it on TP? Isn’t the point of the skin showing you beat the challenge? If a unique gear is gonna drop from a challenging encounter, it should be guaranteed and account bound, and the encounter really tough.

Yep your right sorry I should have given more detail in the brainstorm idea. In the idea I imagined Sunless not being trade able but other normal Ascended gear being trade able. Note this is just a brainstorm idea.

Chris

Lheimroo.2947:

Incidentally I think the idea of giving ascended gear stat-switching ability gives us a kind of metric for determining how difficult it ought to be to acquire.

Say, (for example), ascended can go with 12 stat combinations. Functionally the same thing can be achieved by multiple exotic sets, but that’d be far less convenient.

Add in a bit of a premium for that convenience and in principle ascended gear perhaps ought to be priced around 15-20 times the ‘effort’ required to get exotic gear.

I’m not talking about gold price on the TP; exotic gear value has taken a dive due to it being much less desirable now, and so freely available. I’m talking effort in terms of playtime to get the karma/dungeon/celestial/cultural sets.

I’m completely on the fence about making ascended sellable via TP. If the acquisition is tuned too high the prices will be astronomical and we grind gold while watching inflation push it continually out of our reach. If it’s too easy, ascended becomes a redundant brand of exotic. There is a certain convenience factor to that and it is seductive.. but darn it, I like the idea of gear attainable through gameplay only. And gameplay challenges more than through repetitive gameplay, but.. well, not everybody could beat Liadri even if you did put an ascended weapon on her.

Though if ascended remains a source of ‘vertical’ progression and not optional, all that goes out the window: it has to be easy.

I know that’d still devalue what people’ve already put into gearing up their characters, but I can’t think of a good solution that honors that effort while putting ascended in reach of the average 1-2 hour/day guy with multiple alts. That’s the reason why I think communication on the subject from Arenanet can’t come soon enough.

Yes, I know you’re communicating! I’m grateful. But getting a ‘game plan’ out to players is crucial, whatever ends up decided.

Many of you have mentioned this problem, so let’s discuss it some more. If the supply of ascended gear is made more accessible to the populous either through drop rates of items and mats, and/or sale ability of gear then is this something that is acceptable to early adopters?

Regarding:

‘Yes, I know you’re communicating! I’m grateful. But getting a ‘game plan’ out to players is crucial, whatever ends up decided’

There has been a clearly communicated game plan. Our focus is on Horizontal progression and I felt that Ascended was a necessary step. However as many have pointed out this gear was designed to sit between Exotic and Legendary and thus be a better bridge. Personally i feel like it could be made more accessible through playing different parts of the game. Once we have concluded the discussion on the tightening up of Vertical Progression we will move onto Horizontal discussion. Huzzah (-:

Thanks for your input and i hope that adds some more clarity.

Chris

The Lost Witch.7601:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I think it would be cool if we can get a proposal together for treatment of stat based evolution as it currently stands in the game and then concentrate on Horizontal progression ideation.

Chris

Awesome inspiring ideas from everyone. And while it would be great to have the best of everything, I feel that we have to be practical about this. So far the overall thoughts in the thread lean towards more horizontal progression and more accessible vertical progression. So while I really like some of the more elaborate plans to make stats less gear bound or introducing new gear systems… I tried to think up a proposal with the following in mind:

The fewer resources it takes to make vertical progression manageable, the more resources we have available for horizontal progression.

So without further ado:

Proposal for the treatment of stat based evolution.

In chronological order:

• (Early 2014) Announce a large increase of ascended gear sources.

• (Early 2014) Announce the end of stat based gear tiers. (Even if just for the forseeable future, 2 years?)

• (All over 2014) Use the time bought by vertical progression to come up with horizontal alternatives.

• (Mid-late 2014) Increase the amount of ascended gear sources dramatically. Everyone who plays about 8 unfocused hours a week will have multiple characters in ascended gear at the end of 2014.

• (2015) Final destination: ascended gear is just about two/three times as hard to get as exotic gear currently is, so we can afford to make different sets for different builds. By then there should be enough horizontal progression in place to keep us busy.

Interesting proposal(-:

Chris

barabajaga.7652:

All this thread seems to me ,that you (anet) have derailed so much from the original idea of the manifesto and what gw2 were suposed to be ,that you dont have any idea of what direction the game is going.

All since the introduction of ascended gear,you have craeted such a kittenstorm that now you are sinked to the knees in it and do not know wich direction to go.

What makes me angry about all this ,is that you got it right in Gw1,so i still can not understant how can you manage to screw it up so much,yeah sure Gw1 has its flaws and whatnot,but instead of improving on the idea of Gw1 to create Gw2 ,you just converted this game in to a massive grind ,and its not a grind for aestethics like Gw1
its a vertical grind for better gear (that was absolutley no needed ,exotics should have been the las tier of gear).

And you now what the worst part about all of this is?,well the game is no fun anymore
its just a massive grind.
People didnt want ascended gear,nor living story(another grind ,this time for achivements).

What people do want is ,new skills ,new traits ,new weapons for each professions,new wvw maps,new spvp modes,new zones new enemies new classes…..

Any way im just angry at what this game could have been ,and what it sadly have become,i dont know if you are stil on time to fix it but i hope you can come with a solution to all this mess .

I know that this i not a constructive post,but come on this all thread just reeks of the fact that anet have lost northwith the direction of the game.

It is a ‘discussion’, a chance for us all to talk about the game we are so passionate about. An opportunity for the community and developers to brainstorm, theory craft and ultimately evolve a pioneering game with. If it makes you uncomfortable then don’t be part of it. But don’t for one minute assume that we don’t have direction, of course we do. However we are a ‘live’ game with an amazing community and thus the CDI provides us all the opportunity to evolve the game in a much more informed and valuable manner. So please try not to confuse assumptions around lack of direction with the reality of community/developer collaboration.

Chris

Nike.2631:

Anyone here have a huge complaint against the idea of being able to buy Ascended Weapon/Armor Chests with some of our account-bound currencies?

Maybe~

Guild Commendations – 150 commendations, any stats
Badges of Honor – 800 badges, any stats
Dungeon Tokens – 1,000 w/ stat combinations matching the each dungeons’ existing flavors
Fractal Relics – 1,500 w/ stat combinations matching the current capacitors

((all quantities subject to change and offered only to inspire thought))

Good question. And morning/afternoon everyone. Just reading through all the new pages and great discussion. This is awesome.

Chris

Cliff.8679:

I also want to chime in and say that I really liked a lot of what you guys did with this release. The puzzle was an awesome change of pace and it was actually fun figuring out the solutions, even if they were pretty simple. And a small touch, I liked that you guys did that panning cinematic around Marjory, Kasmeer, AND our characters when you first talk to Marjory. It was a small thing, but it was inclusive to us, which is something I’ve felt the living story (and even the personal story) hasn’t been. Usually I feel like I’m just along for the ride, and the story hardly acknowledges our contributions. This release, steps were definitely taken in the right direction to rectify that (although there’s still a ways to go). The cutscene at the end of the tower exploding was also, as everyone has already noted, completely awesome. Easily the best cutscene you guys have produced.

And finally, I wanted to mention that you guys did a great job with the dialogue, both ambient and direct interaction, at the camp in Kessex. I spent a good 30 minutes just hanging around there listening to the ambient dialogue and exploring all the conversations. I particularly liked how some conversations you could have would affect others. For example, when I first talked to one of the characters, she asked me if I had heard anything about the fate of a particular skritt inside the tower. The exit dialogue option was “I’ll ask around,” and I specifically thought to myself “Yeah, not like it’ll affect anything.” But I was wrong. Another character did know the fate of that skritt, and I was able to go back to relay that information to the original character. It might not have affected anything (although in the future it would be amazing if this kind of dialogue interaction carried over between releases) but it made everything feel more substantial and fleshed out.

This release has given me a bit more hope for the living story model. Good work guys, I hope we continue to see improvements like those I mentioned.

Thanks for the comments, Cliff.

I was very pleased with how the puzzles eventually turned out. They started off being quite complicated and even esoteric, but as I was implementing them I really began to see the flaw in that design. Namely, that someone coming into the game during this release, who hadn’t played the previous releases would have NO idea or context for some of the solutions. So although you can still see the skeleton of the plans I laid out for those puzzles, in the end I erred on the side of making them as accessible as possible, so they’re simple, but hopefully capture the flavor of those prior releases.

The camera pan including the player character was most certainly a deliberate decision, and will be something that, at the very least, I will continue to advocate for. But I had a lot of fun creating some of the in-game camera sequences during this release, so I hope to be able to do more cinematics in a hands-on fashion.

All of those conversations and scenes in the post-release camp were done entirely by our writing team this time around. A couple of us on the content design side were able to sit down with them and actually teach them how to do basic spawning and scripting, and with that base of knowledge they were able to populate the camp with all those interesting characters, which I think of as a huge win for the studio. It’s not that we’ve not had the capability in the past, it’s just that those kind of things usually end up low on the list of priorities for those of us who do the bulk of the content authoring, because although it’s really not hard to do, it’s also usually not that intense in terms of setup and scripting. When you are faced with the decision to fix a half dozen Pri.1 and Pri2 bugs or implement an NPC with conversation, the former will always take priority. So I would like to think that this is just the tip of the iceberg and that the bar will continue to be raised on content like this.

The Lost Witch.7601:

Dev post recap:

Summaries (read these!):

A summary of the first 3 pages by Izzy. Big post!

General:

Izzy on fractal progression reset.

Will there be more vertical progression?

Dev questions and discussion requests:

What are some of your favorite progression systems of all time in others games?

The ideas of DiogoSilva. Discussion request.

Would ‘faction’ progression like in GW1 be grindy if it offered exclusive rewards?

Vertical Progression acquisition can be a pain but what if any elements do you like about Vertical Progression?

Lets keep coming up with some awesome Horizontal Progression systemic ideas and also reward ideas?

What if there was vertical progression in the Fractals with gear that increased in stats but when outside of the fractals defaulted back to BiS numbers?

Brainstorm statement: The idea of a statistical power creep is redundant.

What if certain pieces of ascended gear could be sold on the TP?

Request to get a proposal together for stat based evolution to make room for more horizontal progression brainstorming.

Devs responding to individual posts:

We like the idea of a skin wardrobe.

Why weapons are easier than armors.

A sense of personal progression through challenge.

Catching up with individual replies to the first 3 pages. 15 posts that continue on the next page!

Chris continued with many more replies on page 13 to 15.

Thanks so much for doing this. It isn’t easy! Virtual Hug.

Chris

Ok i am going to play GW2 for real now (-:

See you in the morning or maybe later.

Chris

cesmode.4257:

StriderShinryu.6923:

Reesha.7901:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Ok another brainstorm idea.

What if certain pieces of ascended gear could be crafted and sold on the TP such as gloves and boots?

Chris

Yes please, or even better:
All pieces could be crafted and sold on the TP.
All pieces could change stats.
All pieces could be obtained outside crafting without relying on RNG.

Absolutely. Once again, no reason at all to restrict gathering of high tier gear to any one method of acquisition. Allow all pieces to be bought and sold. Allow all pieces to be traded for using a variety of the in game currencies that are already in place (dungeon tokens, karma, laurels, glory, etc.)

You do realize that even just one of these pieces will run well over 50 gold….Im thinking closer to 100. For one piece. If people have that much gold on hand, you might as well just buy your precursor as well while youre at it.

Whats interesting to think about is that if this went live and people started buying ascended gear off the TP, these are most likely going to be the people who have their legendaries already, and probably multiple legendariesalready because they have fat wallets in the real world and able to buy gems. Its amazing… people complain about legendaries being tradeable on the TP, but this would be acceptable?

Doing this would cause greater disparity between a RL richboy vs the normal joe, and the 24×7 farmer and the normal joe.

Yep this is definitely a valid concern. If the drop rate was higher though and it wasn’t just crafted then supply could be more deterministic in terms of demand.

Chris

Reesha.7901:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Reesha.7901:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Ok another brainstorm idea.

What if certain pieces of ascended gear could be crafted and sold on the TP such as gloves and boots?

Chris

Yes please, or even better:
All pieces could be crafted and sold on the TP.
All pieces could change stats.
All pieces could be obtained outside crafting without relying on RNG.

Personally and note this is not the opinion of Arena but I like the idea of uniquely skinned BiS items dropping in challenging content. My opinion as a player is that the current drop rates could be tweaked.

Chris

That will not remove the RNG factor…. Look at it this way:
Say you increased the drop rate on Tequatl. That means a higher change to get a weapon. But it is still RNG.
Some people will get several drops, others will get nothing, most will get items with the wrong stat combination. Please, please, please: No more RNG!

What if you could sell them? Thus complimentary to other forms of acquisition?

Chris

Once we have discussed more of the question I listed above I will put together a proposal that we can discuss and then move onto Horizontal brainstorming.

I am going to head in game and play for a kitten

ris

cesmode.4257:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Ok another brainstorm idea.

What if certain pieces of ascended gear could be crafted and sold on the TP such as gloves and boots?

Chris

I dislike this idea. Its similar to allowing legendaries to be tradeable on the TP. People with thick wallets to turn $$ into gems into gold can purchase their way to BiS…or people with loads of time to farm materials to sell can purchase BiS.

It solves nothing, unfortunately. For me it would be more of salt in an open wound than helping alleviate the problem.

Doesn’t it allow another avenue for players to work toward the gear if they don’t enjoy crafting? Initially prices may be prohibitive but i would see them dropping.

Chris

Reesha.7901:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Ok another brainstorm idea.

What if certain pieces of ascended gear could be crafted and sold on the TP such as gloves and boots?

Chris

Yes please, or even better:
All pieces could be crafted and sold on the TP.
All pieces could change stats.
All pieces could be obtained outside crafting without relying on RNG.

Personally and note this is not the opinion of Arena but I like the idea of uniquely skinned BiS items dropping in challenging content. My opinion as a player is that the current drop rates could be tweaked.

Chris

Barsimoprimo.2759:

The idea of having inter profession specializations is pretty intriguing and could really work. It’s also an excellent way to introduce new weapons and skills. It should require some sort of effort( not too much) to specialize and should happen at level 80.

I always loved hybrid class design in AD&D.

Chris

cesmode.4257:

Im simply amazed at the amount of people that are opposed to vertical progression being confined to FoTM. If you think about it, it is the only place ascended gear is required(currently). So why does a stat increase even need to exist outside of it?

If ascended stats were confined to fractals, then the rest of us who may not want to step foot into fractals would not need to worry about power creep or a treadmill in the open world.

Im very much in favor of this and again, Im amazed that people are against it.

Yep and kudos to you Cesmode for offering the counter argument.

Chris

I think it would be cool if we can get a proposal together for treatment of stat based evolution as it currently stands in the game and then concentrate on Horizontal progression ideation.

Chris

Palador.2170:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Here is a crazy brainstorm idea, not in anyway indicative of our direction.

What if there was vertical progression in the Fractals with gear that increased in stats but when outside of the fractals defaulted back to BiS numbers?

I am asking this because it is going to generate some left field conversation not because I think it is or isn’t a good idea.

Chris

This would be quite awful.

As people grow in power within the fractals, they would eventually reach a point where they can clear the lower level fractals easily enough and fast enough that it becomes the new way to farm. At that point, you get to pick one:

• Reduce rewards in the fractals, especially the lower level ones.
• Reduce the power players have earned in the fractals because some are using it in ways you don’t like.
• Make the fractals tougher to compensate.

All three of these will unfair to new players in the fractals, as well as unfair to the people that have earned their way up through honest play.

However…

Let’s add a new item slot to characters. Call it “Luck Charm” or something. We can come up with a few of them, but one version will be specific to the Fractals. It starts at level 0, and can be leveled up like AR. And as the party’s Fractal Luck goes up, there’s an increased chance of a rare fractal showing up. Or a rare variant of a normal fractal. Maybe these fractals will give better rewards than normal? Maybe they’re just fun? Maybe there’s a really REALLY rare one that gives a title if you see it ( and bonus points to ANet if they can disable screenshots in that fractal ).

There’s some horizontal progress for the fractals that I bet people would love.

Yep some good points and cool ideas here.

Chris

Ok another brainstorm idea.

What if certain pieces of ascended gear could be crafted and sold on the TP such as gloves and boots?

Chris

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Brainstorm statement.

I am assuming that you wouldn’t want a progression system in which new skills and traits superseded/replaced existing skills and traits.

Thus all progression must be complimentary, enhancing your current roles, perhaps creating new ones rather than just making you more powerful.

So therefore the idea of statistical power creep is redundant?

Chris

I am trying to see if we can just remove conversation around any form of statistical evolution in the CDI?

Chris

Brainstorm statement.

I am assuming that you wouldn’t want a progression system in which new skills and traits superseded/replaced existing skills and traits.

Thus all progression must be complimentary, enhancing your current roles, perhaps creating new ones rather than just making you more powerful.

So therefore the idea of statistical power creep is redundant?

Chris

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Randulf.7614:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Randulf.7614:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Here is a crazy brainstorm idea, not in anyway indicative of our direction.

What if there was vertical progression in the Fractals with gear that increased in stats but when outside of the fractals defaulted back to BiS numbers?

I am asking this because it is going to generate some left field conversation not because I think it is or isn’t a good idea.

Chris

For what purpose or benefit would said proposition bring? Currently Fractals works very well as it is because of how it is currently set up. How would the idea improve fractals? (ie can you expand a little more on the idea?)

Well let me be devil’s advocate then and give one example. Make it easier to play through earlier fractals when playing with lower level friends.

Chris

I dont see that as attractive to do though. The game has a fantastic feature in its scaling which maintains challenge at lower level content across the entire game, whether it is zones or dungeons.

If higher fractal player was with me, I’d hope for us both to experience challenge. Otherwise the lower fractal player would feel carried (me) and the higher lvl fractal player would feel bored. The sense of achievemnt for us both would be gone. Remember, people are getting to higher fractals because they are skilled not because of their stats.

It would go against a fundamental ideal of the game you implemented.

Yep.

Really the point of the question was to see if anyone would want to see vertical style progression live anywhere in the game. The question is essentially a forcing function to get a more macro level question answered.

Chris

Randulf.7614:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Randulf.7614:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Here is a crazy brainstorm idea, not in anyway indicative of our direction.

What if there was vertical progression in the Fractals with gear that increased in stats but when outside of the fractals defaulted back to BiS numbers?

I am asking this because it is going to generate some left field conversation not because I think it is or isn’t a good idea.

Chris

For what purpose or benefit would said proposition bring? Currently Fractals works very well as it is because of how it is currently set up. How would the idea improve fractals? (ie can you expand a little more on the idea?)

Well let me be devil’s advocate then and give one example. Make it easier to play through earlier fractals when playing with lower level friends.

Chris

I dont see that as attractive to do though. The game has a fantastic feature in its scaling which maintains challenge at lower level content across the entire game, whether it is zones or dungeons.

If higher fractal player was with me, I’d hope for us both to experience challenge. Otherwise the lower fractal player would feel carried (me) and the higher lvl fractal player would feel bored. The sense of achievemnt for us both would be gone. Remember, people are getting to higher fractals because they are skilled not because of their stats.

It would go against a fundamental ideal of the game you implemented.

Yep.

Randulf.7614:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Here is a crazy brainstorm idea, not in anyway indicative of our direction.

What if there was vertical progression in the Fractals with gear that increased in stats but when outside of the fractals defaulted back to BiS numbers?

I am asking this because it is going to generate some left field conversation not because I think it is or isn’t a good idea.

Chris

For what purpose or benefit would said proposition bring? Currently Fractals works very well as it is because of how it is currently set up. How would the idea improve fractals? (ie can you expand a little more on the idea?)

Well let me be devil’s advocate then and give one example. Make it easier to play through earlier fractals when playing with lower level friends.

Chris

Savoy.6824:

In addition to including the orders we joined in the regular game, I would like to see the choices we make represented in game through titles and npc interactions. About 30% of the time weve been given choices in how to proceed with a task and no where have I witnessed an outcome of my choice other than in the immediate path that follows the choice. I think the choices are fist, crown and heart. I dont think we need a system as involved as mass effect or skyrim (though that would be cool) but it would be nice to see your character progress slowly towards the dark side if you will. Please can someone tell me if Im missing something. Do your choices ever show up in the game anywhere?

I think it would be a nice form of horizontal progression.

How would you like to see this system extended Savoy?

What would the activities be and what would the rewards look like? I assume you are thinking it would work with the Karma system?

Chris

DiogoSilva.7089:

BACK TO HORIZONTAL PROGRESSION

Playing with alts
Anet had some sort of strategy about using player’s alts as new sources of money sink, but that has clearly failed, and we’ve been getting changes towards the opposite direction lately. This is great, because the more incentives there are to play with alts, the more incentives there are for a portion of the playerbase to log more often into the game.

• Ascended gear discriminates the players who like to invest on multiple characters, as it demands from them a much higher money sink than from players that stick to a single character.
• Likewise for dyes.
• Likewise for several soul-bound items.
• Exploring the world is very repetitive the second time.

Solutions

• Make ascended gear significantly easier to get after the first copy is crafted/ obtained, similar to the acchievement’s skins. After getting the first copy, the player could get the ability to create as many duplicates as they would wish for their other characters.
• Make dyes account bound.
• Make most non-story soul-bound gear account-bound. If I just replaced my ascended trinkets for new ones, why can’t I equip the old ones to another character I have? The money sink is already done. I have already contributed positively to the game’s economy. :P Let me at the very least use it somewhere else.
• World exploration is very complex, and I won’t dwelve into it for being off-topic. But it would be nice if, at the very least, the WPs were account bound, so we could quickly go to our favourite area or help our friends in a specific dungeon without being restricted only to our main.

Some really cool ideas here Diogo.

Chris

VOLKON.1290:

Anyone remember skill books in GW1?

Great horizontal potential there if they come back.

Agreed.

Chris

Here is a crazy brainstorm idea, not in anyway indicative of our direction.

What if there was vertical progression in the Fractals with gear that increased in stats but when outside of the fractals defaulted back to BiS numbers?

I am asking this because it is going to generate some left field conversation not because I think it is or isn’t a good idea.

Chris

Septemptus.7164:

Chris Whiteside.6102

3373369

Solutions

• Separate the concept of (ascended) gear crafting from the concept of equipment stat customisation. Make it easy or easier to change stats, or at the very least, to craft new copies of the same gear with different stats.

There are some good ideas here which I would like to see us discussing as a group.

What do you all think about these ideas?

Chris

I have kinda a problem with this.
I know that there is or soon will be in gemstore an item that allows stat changing. (datamined)

So I kinda see it like this: We get extreamly money consuming armor and istead of making another copy of it we can do a one time stat change – so you just kinda created yourself a market for new item that was already datamined like 5 months ago.

It looks really bad for me.

I kinda would have a nice solution to back it up:
Make an item (gem shop item of corse) that will one time add another stat combo to an item.
How should it work.
I will craft berserker gear but I will think “wait on WvW I would use soldger” so I buy that new item and add soldger to the item and I will get list of 2 stats I can change on the item. I will then think, Carrion or Rabid could be also nice for come builds, so I will buy that new item 2 times and I will have ascended item that can choose stats from the list of 4. (or make them have choice ot 2 stats and add more to the list with gemstore item?)

That would be something I could place my money on and if it was only doable for ascneded those would be kinda (limited legendar like) and so they would have some meaning in making with the cost of them, because now they are way more like an eyesore.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I have read the posts. And I will specifically comment on them why I get to them in the order I am parsing through the thread. My point was for everyone to have a focused discussion around this. The point of the CDI is for us all to brainstorm not just Devs and single participants. I hope this makes sense.

Chris

It sure does.

Awesome (-:

Chris

Spectator mode has been re-enabled.

Septemptus.7164:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Agreed. Let’s spend a little more time discussing and brainstorming the following questions:

Controversial: Vertical Progression acquisition can be a pain but what if any elements do you like about Vertical Progression?

Lets keep coming up with some awesome Horizontal Progression systemic ideas and also reward ideas?

Try to tie these ideas into the core foundation of GW2’s systems and mechanics please.

Chris

Sure, all is in this 3 posts. I hope you will look into it:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression/page/7#post3370576
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression/page/7#post3370577
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression/page/7#post3370619

Hi Septemptus,

I have read the posts. And I will specifically comment on them why I get to them in the order I am parsing through the thread. My point was for everyone to have a focused discussion around this. The point of the CDI is for us all to brainstorm not just Devs and single participants. I hope this makes sense.

Chris

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Ascended Gear
So then why did we add ascended gear, well the reason is we wanted sometime between the transition and what we shipped with was very little time turns out global trading post has a lot more effect on this then we had original thought which made us need a non-tradable gear step. We still have some progression to smooth out around the rare -> exotic area as mostly you just jump from leveling greens to exotics and rare is really only used for salvaging into ecto. We have been spacing out adding each slot of ascended gear to make sure we don’t make our original mistake again and I’m sure we’ll need to continue to evaluate the time to gain this gear like we do all things.

Art Progression
Art progression! It’s horizontal why not do it more!!! Well we do this a lot all ready and a lot of it’s constraints comes down to costs. Every single piece of art we make is not liked by everyone and so the amount of art you have to make to give everyone a smooth art progression curve is very high. The cost of making some pieces of art is also very high (Armor especially) sense very pair of gloves = 10 pairs of gloves due to race/sex. We think art is a great horizontal progression system but not something that can stand 100% alone due to constraints of creation.

Grind
Alts

I group these together because I think they have some relation. Grind well I think grind is a kittene to fully describe because it really comes down to each person own personal feeling of I can only do x action so many times before its fun faction goes down and thus starts to feel grinding. For some this can be do something twice others 100 times, our goal with how to keep grind out of the game is the relation between time based and skill based gating. I think this is an area we are always trying to get a better sense on as we start to make things harder to add more challenge to the game sometimes we cross the time gate and skill gate too much and things feel more grindy then we intend. As for alts why I lump these up is I think often leveling up alts can feel grindy, our goals here are really about how we make things feel a little less grinding for some actions and we’ve been making a lot of steps with that combing WvW xp, adding tradable level up books, birthday gifts that level you up ect.. I think we are not done with the initiative to progressing alts being a bit more smooth and it’s something we will keep working on as we move forward.

Ascended creation time

We had a lot of discussion pre-releasing ascended armor to make sure the time to make ascended doesn’t blow out, We pull a lot of data and are watching how long it takes players and like we do with everything we will keep and eye on it but with anything with progression there are always a lot of tradeoffs when you make changes but we’re always looking at it.

Ok so that was a wall of text and clearly needs a cool story bro, but I wanted to get my thoughts out there before I head home for the day. Thanks everyone for posting we are reading it and maybe I’ll jump on after dinner if I get some free time.

Second part of Izzy’s page 7 Summary Bump

Chris