Guild Wars 2

After more than 100 hours on my norn guardian lvl80 (I’m not going to start everything all over again…), I wish I could change the Order I’m in… simply to wear that kitten vigil helmet that I like so much >.> (I’m in the priory…) I think the only change that should be made should be to allow player to wear any skin, even from other orders Easy fix, quickly done, no additional mission arcs to “transfer” a character from an Order to another

Idea 1: Introducing a sprinting feature.
This idea is pretty simple: allowing players to sprint trough the usage of endurance. For example, holding down a key (shift by default) would drain one’s endurance but make him run “x” % faster. It would then be possible to empty one’s endurance bar by sprinting for a given amount of time (let’s say 6 seconds, where 1 second of sprinting takes 33% of the endurance that a dodge-roll takes). Not only would this be useful for running around when out of combat, but also would it add a completely new world of possibilities for combats: should a get away faster with sprint but get hit by that arrow because I didn’t dodged? Should I hunt down this kitting playing by sprinting to him, but weaken myself by emptying my endurance pool in return?
I think that, in addition of being a fun and useful “upgrade” to the game, using one’s endurance for sprinting and dodging feels and sounds completely natural, as these two features should both use the same resource, like they do in real world: endurance.
Idea 2: Giving more significance to the word “endurance”
In a real fight, one’s endurance can certainly affects one’s odds of winning. Therefore, I feel that it could add both immersion and tactic to do a change to the endurance bar itself.
“Endurance bar A”: this is the endurance bar as it is right now. Although there’s no number on the bar, there are 100 endurance units and dodging takes 50 endurance units. The regeneration of the bar is set at 5 units per second.
“Endurance bar B”: this endurance bar would have 100 units, dodging would take X units (to be decided by developers, I feel like the right value should be 40). When a character would be at 100% endurance, he could possibly have a tiny (let’s say 2-3%) boost to HP and/or damage (because he isn’t tired yet) and could suffer from a condition when getting under a Y value (I suggest that Y should be 20, and the condition could simply be “weakness”, applied until the character regain endurance over the Y value). Of course, the bar would look almost exactly as it is right now, with no number on it at all.
This “upgrade” to the endurance bar would make this resource feel more realistic and more important from a tactical point of view. It would also go well with the idea 1.

As it is right now, the endurance/dodging mechanic is one of the most important parts of GW2. Think about it for a second: endurance is the one and only resource (except for HP, of course) that every player and character share in the game. Furthermore, dodging creates a balance between all characters and plays a huge role in the game in general.

Without endurance — and dodging — the game wouldn’t feel action-oriented as much as it does right now. Dodging is also an incredible mechanic in and of itself: everybody understands it, everybody can use it, and yet masterfully using it is often the difference between life and death ( this is especially true in PvP or in Dungeons, where dodging is sometimes the only thing that one can do to avoid a certain death).

Seeing how important and fun the endurance/dodging mechanic works in GW2, I can’t help but to think: why not take it a step further?

“Upgrading” the endurance mechanic is, of course, an ambitious idea, and therefore should be regarded as a long-term project. The following suggestions, as they could radically change GW2’s gameplay, are primarily things can could almost only be implemented via big extensions (a bit like heroes in NightFall =D).

Idea 1: Introducing a sprinting feature.

This idea is pretty simple: allowing players to sprint trough the usage of endurance. For example, holding down a key (shift by default) would drain one’s endurance but make him run “x” % faster. It would then be possible to empty one’s endurance bar by sprinting for a given amount of time (let’s say 6 seconds, where 1 second of sprinting takes 33% of the endurance that a dodge-roll takes). Not only would this be useful for running around when out of combat, but also would it add a completely new world of possibilities for combats: should a get away faster with sprint but get hit by that arrow because I didn’t dodged? Should I hunt down this kitting playing by sprinting to him, but weaken myself by emptying my endurance pool in return?

I think that, in addition of being a fun and useful “upgrade” to the game, using one’s endurance for sprinting and dodging feels and sounds completely natural, as these two features should both use the same resource, like they do in real world: endurance.

Idea 2: Giving more significance to the word “endurance”

In a real fight, one’s endurance can certainly affects one’s odds of winning. Therefore, I feel that it could add both immersion and tactic to do a change to the endurance bar itself.
“Endurance bar A”: this is the endurance bar as it is right now. Although there’s no number on the bar, there are 100 endurance units and dodging takes 50 endurance units. The regeneration of the bar is set at 5 units per second.
“Endurance bar B”: this endurance bar would have 100 units, dodging would take X units (to be decided by developers, I feel like the right value should be 40). When a character would be at 100% endurance, he could possibly have a tiny (let’s say 2-3%) boost to HP and/or damage (because he isn’t tired yet) and could suffer from a condition when getting under a Y value (I suggest that Y should be 20, and the condition could simply be “weakness”, applied until the character regain endurance over the Y value). Of course, the bar would look almost exactly as it is right now, with no number on it at all.
This “upgrade” to the endurance bar would make this resource feel more realistic and more important from a tactical point of view. It would also go well with the idea 1.

These are not my 2 only suggestions to a possible change to the endurance bar, but I honestly think that, if I wrote my other ones, the post would get too long and nobody would read it… lol. If the “Idea 2” is somewhat complicated (but worth it, in my opinion); the “Idea 1”, on the other hand, would be a simple, fun and useful upgrade to the endurance bar. I sincerely thank you, especially if you were patient enough to read this whole text

tl;dr : the endurance bar is an awesome mechanic, and in my opinion it could be used for more than should dodging (sprinting)