Guild Wars 2

Well, there’s a point where ignoring the square/cube law becomes rediculous, but ah what the heck—why not!

Though the bigger a boss gets, the sillier it seems for melee types to pound on its big toe until it dies.

Maybe a dragon could be a jumping puzzle? Imagine players swarming over a dragon like the ants in Rammstein’s Links-2-3-4 video taking down the beetles. That would be epic!

@Ronah – I respecfully disagree. Rather, you should be encouraging as many others as possible to play games like this. How any lives could have been saved across the scope of human history if those who bear the drive for violence had games like this to focus those energies into?

I suppose you think that the game comes first, and the urge follows. I have no such illusions. I know my heart. I know what people like me evolved for. For those who are born warriors, the thirst for war isn’t just an ability but an undeniable urge. 500 years ago, it wouldn’t have been a digitized axe in the hands of an avatar, it would have been my axe and it would have been the blood of other human beings. But thankfully I live now, in this place where relative peace and even a fair degree of harmony have become the norm. And I have games like this to exercise those demons’ incesant call rather than finding less harmonious ways to express them. I am deeply grateful.

So anyway, how about that jumping puzzle?

Yeah, there is always a slow start where you wait for the barely disguised undead to reveal themselves. (frequently they say something less than discrete as you enter, like “Kill everything!”) No way to change the outcome of that though—I tried several times.

Unfortunately the circling shields appear to be immune to AOE DOT attacks—I killed couriers for an hour dropping Smite in their path after each courier kill but when I checked back they were all at full health. It looked like they were taking damage though, so maybe they just go to full health when you get too far away. However, playing a melee player you have to leave the area in order to chase down the couriers. Realistically you have to run at least to the top of the stairs to have time to wear the couriers down before they get to the mouth. If it is just a matter of not being able to go farther than this without the shields refreshing, then some cue to tip the player off on what is happening would be good. Maybe the mouth could use their “yeild to the power of Zhaitan!” line when the shields regenerate to give the player a clue that something is happening.

As it is, it is nearly impossible as a non-ranged DPS class to continuously kill couriers, dodge attacks, and damage the shields long enough to wear the mouth down. Eventually you’ll either make a mistake and die or make a mistake and let a courier through. I asked for someone to help me but I then got tipped off that eventually he stops eating. Waiting for this makes it a lot easier to win, but feels cheap. It would be better if the shields just didn’t regenerate/weren’t immune or if there was just a bit more time between couriers to give melee players time to run back and forth.

Maybe if +healing had other effects like helping us resurect faster. Still, yes it would leave the door open to the return of the trinity.

Well, obviously it couldn’t really be a Horn of Gondor or Tolkien’s estate would have issues. It would help players in different parts of the map play together in events and dungeons without spending huge amounts on constant WP use, and hopefully without breaking the WP system. A function or item that would only be usable either in a dungeon or near an even would allow players to call for help from up to 4 other players who would be specified in the call. Those players would see that there was a call for aid from the initiating player and the name of the dungeon or event it was being place from. They could either ignore it, accept it, or pull up the world map where the location fo the call would be shown before taking action on it.

They would have a set amount of time to accept—perhaps a minute—which they could use to decide whether to accept and/or to get to a relatively safe location if needed. Accepting the call would temporarily teleport them to the location where the call came from. The teleport would last as long as the event, or until one left the dungeon at which time one would be teleported back to the starting location. There could be a region around the event that players teleporting to it couldn’t leave, which would show on the map like an instance and give a message “return or you will be kicked” if they tried to leave, which would teleport them back to their starting location.

I think the game balance of the existing WP system is fundamentally correct. It means that WP use isn’t the primary form of medium distance movement, but the option is still there when moving really long distances. At the same time I have sympathy for people who want to join their friends in an event or dungeon that isn’t close to their location. By allowing temporary co-location without permanently changing location it would keep the WP system intact while still allowing people who have friends in the game to join forces even if they are playing in different areas of the map.

I still sort through my inventory so I know what I want to sell and then I get to the TP and… right. I have taken to just skipping the TP and selling from my inventory by right-clicking instead, but closing the window and going to the next item gets tedious if I have a lot I want to sell. I only go there if I want to buy or I forget that I don’t want to go there.

The world is so beautiful, but it is even more beautiful with the UI hidden. Similarly, as great as battle is, it is a lot more immersive without the UI. I’m willing to forego seeing my cooldowns for the better view at times, but it is way too easy to die when you can’t tell how much damage you are taking. Having an option to show the screen-edge flash when the UI is hidden would be very nice. The screen-edge flash when we take damage doesn’t exactly tell you what your HP is, but it is close enough to at least let one know that it is time to re-enable the detailed UI.

Having an alternative to the main UI that is very minimal with the health bar, F1,F2,F3,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9&0 abilities, and our various buffs reduced to a single line across the bottom of the screen that is as narrow as the currnet buff icons with simple cooldown indicators for each would be very nice as well. Aside from the buffs & debuffs there wouldn’t really be a need for graphics on these. We should know before very long what our keys do. Though the most recognizable part of the full-size icon of each utility and signet could be cut out of the original graphic or it could be reduced to the size of the buff and debuff icons.

I made a quick mockup of what it might look like.

I agree that more weapons is better than more professions. More professions just means new boxes to be locked into. More weapons means new ways to express one’s profession. Besides a new profession means a new character, while a new weapon means new ways to enjoy one’s existing character(s). I would love a way to learn new utility skills that could be substituted for the basic skills we start with to make unique builds like we could in GW1.

The gates and mystic forge will always make LA a hub, even if it didn’t have anything else. I don’t see a reason to craft, use the bank or the trading post in LA when it is easy enough to do these things in the other cities and each of the cities is just a short hop away through the gates. However taking something away from LA would cause resentment. Giving the capitals something LA doesn’t have would be better. I like the suggestion of guild-halls, and locating each guild’s hall in one of the capitals and having the themes available depend on the capital it is located would be a great way to do this, especially if guild bank access was then transferred to the guild hall instead of being located in the normal banks. I also like the idea of the cities being centers for more extensive quest chains. There could even be procedurally generated level 80 fetch-quest chains, since they are pretty rare in the rest of the game. Fetch-quests aren’t all bad—even the Holy Grail was a fetch quest. It is just that when they are the vast majority of all questing in a game they start to get old, and that isn’t the case here. Rather than or in addition to fetch-quests though, quests to learn advanced utility skills that could be substituted for the standard skills available for each weapon would be awesome.

I don’t think the zone itself would become locked, rather the events would be. I would say that the zones controlled by the Orrians should have significantly more Orrians in them, or that there should be patrolling veteran or champion mobs that would come to the aid of any of the more common undead that were in a fight nearby. If a player or group of players wants to infiltrate that is their option but it should feel like being behind enemy lines, because it is. Meanwhile zones controlled by the players should be very safe. Maybe a few infiltrators or a random chicken or eagle to keep the players there on their toes but no significant numbers of random mobs everywhere. If something like this wasn’t implemented in Orr, it would be great for the endgame level of a future expansion.

The logical extension of this scenario is to make an MMORPG that is actually an MMORTS with players instead of units. Then players wouldn’t be following a scripted event—even an event with a complex script, but rather making decisions that drive the action, building a world and investing in the world. Then the threat becomes exactly what it would be in the real world—the possibility that if we the players fail, part of the world we built will be destroyed. That is a real threat. Anything else is just a plot device.

I like the hard mode idea, though gearing would start to be (even?) more of an issue, and most of us want to avoid the way some games handle that subject. I was thinking that having enemies prioritize opponents by going after poorly geared players first would be both a reasonable tactic and encourage the poorly geared players to either get better gear or else be bad-kitten enough to take the heat. So hard-mode dungeions would be a good avenue to introduce that mechanic.

It was before my time, but I’ve heard from oldtimers that when WoW was released, the level cap was 50 and the endgame content was Blackrock Depths. Also that you had to walk everywhere and it was uphill both ways…

Content does grow over time. It took a long time for Blizzard to build WoW.

Making an unending campaign through dynamic equilibrium could be achieved by the starting Tyrian position being nearly unassailable, while the starting Undead position is equally unassailable. By contrast the no-man’s-land in the middle would be balanced, and there would be a continuum of balance between the two sides. The task of the players to defend the Tyrian side would get progressively easier the farther back they are pushed, while the task of the players to defeat the undead would likewise become progressively harder the further into the undead territory they were able to penetrate.

The simplest arrangement would be a mountain range, foothills, a plain, more foothills, and another mountain range. The mountain ranges would be really tough to attack, the foothills less so, and the plain is wide open. But any arrangement with similar properties would work as well. It would create a natural ebb and flow as the number of players in the game changed during the day and week, even without events. Yet at the same time, the area would never be unplayable simply because there were not enough players—the front line would just move back til they reached an equilibrium that the players could maintain. Then the events could mix this up further to keep things interesting.

Periods of very low concurrency can be really frustrating when there are not enough players on a map to complete group events because the players are spread out too much to take on challenges like champions supported by adds. Making the map roughly trianglular would help. Then as the players were pushed back by the undead they would be concentrated in a smaller map area with a narrower front where they could work together more effectively. Similarly, the triangular shape would help with large numbers of players because those players would then have more room and be less concentrated when more of the map was conquered.

Conversely, if the strength of the undead side was a final line of mutually supporting fortresses arrayed in depth, this would mean that storming the fortresses would require a very large number of very powerful and motivated players since they would not be able to defeat the defensive line piecemeal, and any temporary successes would be dislodged by counterattacks supported by the remaining fortresses if less than total victory was achieved. Eventually the players would presumably get strong enough and organized enough to overcome the final position. Of course, surely there would be another challenge waiting beyond!

Conquering undead strongpoints might require not just attacking the surface fortifications but also completing underground instances. If these were procedurally generated tunnel complexes (cuz you know, they keep getting destroyed by the war and rebuilt…) that would be awesome. Nevertheless, since these would only be available while the players were in control of the surface fortification (the game could give a couple of hours grace period before a counter-attack was staged so it wouldn’t be necessary to leave players on the surface), we wouldn’t be repetitively playing them over and over anyway. The instances for the harder to conquer fortifications could be a real treat to finally explore. Once the area was finally conquered then we could do the repetitive instance running ad nausium.

Perhaps the complexes for the smaller fortresses in the no-man’s land could be procedurally generated while those for major fortresses in the enemy’s main defensive line could be more elaborate permenant instances. The latter could have much more impressive loot and because players would have fewer opportunities to run these, the rewards wouldn’t have to be as random. Also the offensives that would have the opportunity to conquer these could be planned events that would be that much more of a draw because of the relatively rare opportunity to access these instances. Once the map was conquered the instances would revert to normal level of loot since players would be able to run them over and over again.

I may have misunderstood, but it seems to me that giving players the option to rate a commander and either vote them up if they like their leadership, or vote them down if they don’t like it would work better. Then the 5 commander limit could be limited to the top 5 rated commanders at any one time. Two additional functions that seem useful would be the ability to set rally points and objectives. Rally points would be a spot for players who have been killed to group up at before rejoining the fight so they don’t just straggle into a blood bath and get killed one by one, and objectives are self explanitory. Player ratings would be better than PvP performance because individual fighting ability and tactical leadership are not the same.

I’d like to see rally points in PvE as well where any player can call a rally point and only 1 would be allowed in a given area so if a group event goes badly and everyone dies the players can group up near the event and counter-attack in force.

On one extreme there could be no WPs, on the other extreme they could be free. Free WPs mean unlimited movement anywhere in the game, which is convenient but also means there is no sense of continuity between maps. Having a fixed fee regardless of level means low level characters walk, while high level characters teleport at a cost so low it might as well be free.

This system has the cost based primarily on level and secondly on distance. So it makes sense to teleport if you are going a really long way to save time, but for closer distances it makes more sense to just walk. It is a good balance in my opinion.

The default order of the skills makes sense when you learn them, but after that… not so much. Why is my closing technique with a sword #2 not #1? I want to click 1 first when I close. 2 is just confusing to me.

While it would be a total paradigm shift, the original Diablo did a great job allowing players to equip whatever they wanted. Mage in plate? Sure. Warrior in cloth? Sure. Mage or warrior with a bow? Sure. Melee Rogue? Sure. Magic Rogue? Sure. All of these were viable builds that allowed players to experiment with a variety of play styles.

Why wouldn’t everyone want to wear plate then? If the gear is balanced, then there could be many reasons. Maybe the armor value of heavier armor would be balanced against a slower cooldown cycle. Players using ranged DPS would avoid it—not because it is banned by fiat but because the slower cooldowns would reduce their DPS and be a bad idea for them. On the other hand being able to avoid being overwhelmed by enemies while slinging spells might make the “tank mage” build attractive. Similarly, a melee player might choose to use lighter armor to reduce their cooldown and increase their DPS. Or they could wear heavier armor so they could wade into a melee and not die as fast. Meanwhile the slower cooldown would make it easier to maintain situational awareness while managing their powers in the chaos of melee.

A bigger and both realistic but potentially problematic change would be that there could be two movement rates depending on whether one was in combat or not (which seems to maybe be the way it works already). Out of combat movement rates would be the same regardless of your armor, but in-combat movement might change depending on how much armor you wore. If you want to kite enemies you wouldn’t want heavy armor, but in light armor you’d be a lot more able to kite enemies. Meanwhile heavy armor would make it harder to avoid a stand-up fight, but you wouldn’t have to avoid fights as much because you are in heavy armor. Also the leaping and teleporting powers could be scaled to the level of armor you wear. Light armor would mean longer teleports and leaps than heavy armor would allow.

Balancing movement vs. armor in PvP would be the tricky part, since ranged skirmishers and hit/run melee would be able to wear down more heavily armored opponents with impunity unless strong CC powers prevented this. On the other hand, if the armor was strong enough, the ability of heavily armored players to penetrate through to objectives could be a key advantage.

Balancing armor protection with other attributes like cooldown or movement and letting any player wear any armor might actually make it simpler to balance each class. Offensive abilities wouldn’t have to balanced against as many defensive variables, just with defensive abilities and HP. Meanwhile if a ranged player wanted more HP they could pick modifiers that supported that, while if a melee player wanted more DPS they could pick modifiers to increase it. As long as offensive and defensive strength for each item was balanced, and as long as the value of defensive modifers stayed in balance with the value of offensive modifers, the classes would still stay in balance.

Players would have a lot more build options to explore, and furthermore, since more of those options would be able to be changed easily during play, players would have a lot more options in situations like facing different dungeon encounters, and the precise mix of classes going into the dungeon would be even less important than how the players played their classes once they got there.