Guild Wars 2

Combat improvement suggestion thread?

Combat improvement suggestion thread.

To be honest, I don’t mind downed state TOO too much, but it does need improvements, otherwise there’s no real point in it besides a way to drag out your defeat. My thoughts
1. Improved downed state base damage (not sure how much, possibly a lot for the suggestion next)
2. lower down state HP significantly (make it really do or die, or at least ’let me die fast)
3. Improve the healing rate speed of being revived or the self-heal.
4. Three strikes, your out! Simple as that: downed two times within a short period, you just drop dead on the third hit that drops you to 0 HP.

I think part of this though is shaped by my Left 4 Dead experiences.

A second thing I would like to have that would really require a lot of changes:
5. Block key
Basically the opposite of dodge, you get into as ‘bracing stance’, move a lot slower, but you take reduced damage, and its reduced further depending on your equipment slotted traits, etc. Having a shield and a lot of toughness makes blocks even better, possibly even reducing condition duration!

Some characters would be better dodging, others would be more more suited to dodge, but in the end, both types of defenses would be needed.

flipyap.5789:

I know he said"when it’s ready" last time we got fed that we wait another 2 years for the launch of the game.

Given the state we GOT the game in, I’m perfectly happy to let them take their time and release it when it genuinely is ready.

I left this game for a long time now. I only popped back in to “steal” free living story installments. And a few weeks ago, when i needed hard drive space, I uninstalled the game.

It was done. Over. The ride had ended for me.

AND NOW YOU PEOPLE PULL THIS! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW UTTERLY HAPPY AND ENRAGED I AM OVER THESE ANNOUNCEMENTS?

I HANGRY! I HAD! SOOOOOO JOUYESSED OFF RIGHT NOW!

I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE FREE FROM THIS GAME! I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DONE!

CURSE YOU, COLIN! AND CURSE YOU, ARENANET!

Well, my own idea on how Guild Halls could be done goes something like this:

Guild halls are ‘Unstable Mist Fractals’ this is to justify their being millions of them without them being on the map. These Unstable Mist Fractals can be accessed from anywhere in Tyria (because they’re so unstable, you see) and take the form of large chunks of land or even as ships/large vehicles floating on infinite oceans as sort of self-contained pocket dimensions.

What makes them unstable then?

Guild Versus Guild battles where basically two world’s collide. Ships will dock at island bases, islands will appear not far off from one another, ships will suddenly meet. Etc. Etc. Or to simplify things an enormous rift in the air appears with the image of the other guild hall.

I would want Guild Halls to be low priced, either purchasable through gold, or only a low amount of guild prestige.

Halls could come in many styles, I was thinking one based on each race, then one for each order, and finally an Air Ship and a result Sea Ship.

If you need monetization resources, consider selling customizations in the gemstore, like changing colors, styles of furniture, that kind of things. Not only that but new guild hall themes could also be added to the cash shop overtime. The nostalgia dollar could net top income if you brought back old styles of guild halls.

For functionality, I would propose it to have as much functionality as Guild Halls of GW1, at least. Crafting stations, Trading Post, and Guild and regular bank access are a must, either unlocked or out of the box.

Oh, also the siegability of each hall.

That’s all off the top of my head.

Nice to see this garden of terrible is blooming pretty well, lemme toss some more awful on there:

New weapons and weapon proliferation-
Shotguns/scattergun/blunderbuss
Available for engies (who get some of the current rifle skills moved to shotgun while gaining new rifle skills), Guardians, and Necros.

Pistols now available for Guardians too!

Story-
Retcon Logan’s failure involves heavy gambling debts which he came to DR to help pay off under the orders “Bring us the girl and wipe away the debt”, but it may not be quite what he thinks.

Expansion content:
Scarlet briar is back, and is building a base of operation in a brand new continent! Arenanet and Hasbro are proud to present; Guild Wars 2: Friendship is Magic!

You will join forces with Scarlet Briar because reasons so she can take her rightful place as Equestria’s newest princess!

Oh, we also unlock three new races: Earth Pony, Unicorn, and Pegasus.

While not exactly “ruining”, if I was allowed to make MASSIVE changes to the system, I would basically try to make this game, in the numbers GUILD WARS x10!

Basically, I would mostly base all stats and numbers off of those you could achieve in Guild Wars classic. And multiply by ten.

Instead of up to 20 in an attribute, you can go up to 200! Instead of the base health of all characters at max level being 400, it’s now 4000! Swords in GW1 went from 11-22 slash damage at 20, in GW2, it goes from 110-220! I think you get the picture by this point.

Armors would become blank slates with only Light, Medium, and Heavy classes, from there you put in a Rune which would give it the bonuses that most benefit a certain profession (Like a Ranger one which buffs your elemental resistance), and then there’s the Insignia slot where you put in things HP boosting and so forth.

The only thing not x10 would be level, which would instead be slashed down to 40. Because reasons.

In summary, I’d turn Guild Wars 2 into Guild Wars 1 x10 with races, dodging, new weapons, and some new professions.

I’d also restore pure interrupts and add more resource management for skills.

Palador.2170:

All that choice stuff
By the time I was done, the game would lose its T rating, and therefore likely crash.

I’m not sure how adding moral choices with real consequence and some darker aspects to even the heroic factions would remove the Teen rating. SWTOR’s got some of those things, ESPECIALLY with the Republic Belsavis quests and it makes it with a T rating. Also the ability to sleep with NPC companions, and at least one of them becomes kind of a kitten who apparently guts people after sleeping with them. *Cough*DSJaesa*cough*

A lot of us like to talk trash about the direction the devs are taking or how much better our own ideas are.

That’s not this thread.

This thread, we discuss terrible ideas we have for Guild Wars 2 that we would force down the throats of the player base if we, the players, were in charge.

Starting off with me:

>Scarlet Briar’s whole story goes from being obsessed with waking a dragon and instead is a war monger looney who wants to experience first hand the horror of wars like seen during the height original Guild Wars. She is also now fat. And short. Basically she becomes The Major from Hellsing only a bigger wannabe because she never actually has fought the wars she’s dreamed of. In otherwords, the whole firsr arc of the Living Story is about how Scarlet Briar wants Guild Wars 2.

>Gem Shop cosmetics! You think it’s bad now? You have no idea! Put me in charge and loads of anime junk will flood this story, like Fate/Stay Night weapon skins, cross promotional with Team Fortress 2 (Who else wants the Sandman bat as a scepter skin with special baseball projectiles?), and then there will be putting all the old GW armor and costume skins in the store.

>Semi-canonizing/sly references to I an my RP friend’s GW roleplay, both past and present. So there will be references to a Krytan Minister of Education who is the headmaster of the Krytan Academy and said to be “far older than he looks”. There will be references to a NOT!Polynesian Island archipelago somewhere west in the Endless Sea populated by humans. Leading to my second point:

>Nuts to this racial diversity and importance junk! HUMAN PRIDE, TYRIA WIDE!

>Actually, I would give special attention to other races, for example have the Sylvari fractured even more into groups like The Fir Bolg (very martially focused group), The Tuatha De Dannan (worship Dwayna and are magically inclined), Camelot (takes up the knight and chivalry stuff to eleven), and The Red Caps (sociopathic psychos even the Nightmare Court are scared of).

>Related to the above: more racial sub factions for everyone! Charr now have to deal with tons of deserters/AWOL, Norn have a group of blood knights who just like fighting everything that’s in weapon/arms reach, The Asura ‘nations’ basically becomes Shadowrun. (Hahahaha! Time to hack kitten Tech Krewe!)

>Also: MOUNTS! MOUNTS EVERYWHERE! Because I would double the size of all maps and make waypoints fewer and further between! Get running!

I think I’ll stop there for now. Let people recover from their stroke, heartattack, hernia combo.

Tachenon.5270:

I’d trade GW2 for City of Heroes in a heartbeat, but I’d want to keep Guild Wars. Guild Wars and City of Heroes were my ‘home’ games – the ones I’d always come back to after whatever else I decided to try got old. Never forget, never forgive.

I just miss my base and my friends so much!

The one friend who I played GW2 quit and its made even logging into the game for living story chapters painful and lonely.

I’m going to be perfectly honest, I really feel so little for the game these days I only log in to snatch a living story chapter, and even that’s just to be a spiteful leech, really.

I gave up City of Heroes for Guild Wars 2, and while I regretted it before, I can honestly say I would give up BOTH Guild Wars games and Arenanet itself to have Paragon Studios and City of Heroes back.

hazenvirus.8154:

Zhaitan fight should have been more personal. I understand we needed plot device laser to harm the elder dragon, but after being fire bombed a bit he should have leapt the the aircraft and pulled it down with him. After the crash we find ourselves in a narrow canyon with a badly wounded Zhaitan staring us down. Then fight him to the death in close quarters.

Please make the Mordremoth fight more personal this time. I can understand a plot device to wound it, but let us deal the finishing blows. People want to stare down the dragon and kill it with their own hands.

I like this.

My old idea for how the fight with Zhaitan should have gone was a three stage battle:

Stage 1: you’re on the airship, shooting at him, while Zhaitan drops minions and bombards. Pretty much what we have now.

Stage 2: Zhaitan begins to fly off and decides to play the ranged game. Players jump onto personal fliers and dog fight with Zhaitan a bit before everyone goes down.

Stage 3: Zhaitan is grounded, fight him face to face.

I concur, but coming from GW1, I’m just happy I can inflict conditions on things like stone elementals.

Now, I have a different solution: what if instead of actually applying a condition to an inanimate object, each time you would inflict a condition, you instead deal extra damage equal to the amount of damage the condition would have done.

Though I do think vulnerability should work normally since, on more opponents, that’s all about weakening their armor, the inanimate object they wear to protect themselves.

Kalavier.1097:

Muchacho.2390:

Actually i am surpised that we never saw any undead horses in Orr since in Gw1 we saw undead orrian horseriders. Though i think they sorta explained it somewhere…

Part of it would definately be the Orrian undead in GW1 are almost ALL military based (armored and uniformed in some way), while much of the orrian risen are more civilian like, pirates, or the various ones with coral and such growing from them.

About horse, they exsist in the world of GW. They aren’t ingame to stop people from complaining about not being able to ride them IIRC. But lots of evidence for them exists. The carriages are set up like horse pulled ones, a number of humans in Kryta mention ponies , and stuff like the jousting props. Also, in GW1 there were references as well. Like the founder of the White Mantle was rode a distance from Kryta when exiled, and left in the wild.

As silly as it might sound, it might be possible that the Orrian undead in GW1 stayed dead upon destruction, and thus, over the years we wiped out the entire Orrian undead military, there probably wasn’t too much left to begin with given the charr invasion. (Thus why we fight mostly civilians, otherwise Zhaitan probably would have been happy to use undead military)

Also, I’ve long speculated we don’t see horses because they’re rare these days from the human/charr wars. Why? Charr are too big and heavy to ride horses, their equipment is scaled for them and too heavy for horses. But they gave humans enormous mobility advantages and thus the charr began hunting down horses to keep them them out of human hands.

I was just thinking of this.

I don’t know details, but I think elite forms of Engineer kits should let them drop a second kit for teammates to pick up and enjoy themselves like conjured weapons. Like once every 60 seconds?

For more specific thoughts…
Thieves Guild (Utility)
You summon a single dagger/pistol thief for 30 seconds. 180 second cooldown.

All thief traps plus caltrops: (Elite versions)
Can now be affected by active venoms (consumes a charge). Like when a foe walks into an elite caltrop trap while devourer venom was active, they’ll find themselves briefly immobilized, or trip wire while skale venom applied vulnerability and torment. (this might be horribly overpowered.)

All thief venom Elite forms:
Add one additional charge.

All necro minion skills (elite form):
Summons an additional minion (two additional in the case of bone minions). Let the necrozergrushes return!

Nerelith.7360:

The culture of Tyria has evolved beyond the need to make beasts suffer to transport us from place to place.

This is ethical.

To force beasts to suffer to transport us, when other means are readily available is to be cruel and egocentric. This is from a Lore perspective.

Actually, from a lore perspective, waypoints seem incredibly ambiguous as while they get mentioned, there seems to be no mention of people using them. Not to mention they can be pretty easily shut down with just a sufficient number of hostiles around them.

Not to mention there’s a lot of quests where someone needs you to help escort them and their cargo ferrying animals. (Why not just use those waypoints? How do they even work? Magnets?)

This is particularly weird for asura who seem to have hover everything except carts.

Also, when a civilization stops using animals for transport, that means a mechanical means of transportation, which charr and asura should have, but, once again, rarely ever seem to use. (Well, charr have those massive NOT!SandCrawlers we see laying around but when they need to fall back they never start’em up.)

A thought on mounts to keep them travel only and only very briefly for show: What if mounts had a special duration timer which ticked down as long as you were standing still on them? Something like 30 or 45 seconds, maybe a minute tops.

Timer’s up, you automatically dismount. (you know, and auto dismount in combat)

So someone just loitering in the city will need to keep moving along, or they’d need to resummon. It would be a bit annoying for pro-mounters, but I think it might be reasonable.

It is amazing how emphatic some people are in their dislike of mounts. Some people going so far as to say “They will quit” and “it will ruin the game”.

And I mean no sarcasm, it is simply interesting and makes one wonder what horrific experience did they have in the past that turned them off from mounts?

I will also say I myself am ultimately pro-mount, though my own suggestion would be that instead of genuine mounts for travel, they serve as environmental weapons for certain events and even renown hearts. Thus, they are limited to a certain area and/or for certain periods. Then again, I’ve always seen mounts/vehicles as a possibility to explore lore and do world building, and give us a chance to really drive some charr chuggers, or see if Asura will use non-humanoid vehicles for combat/warfare, what do the sylvari do for heavy, armored artillery? and so forth.

rabidsmiles.5926:

I think it’s funny that people are wanting these rather unattractive back pieces when in the Engi forum there is the longest thread running that would like those ugly things gone. This community is a strange place sometimes.

The community is not a hivemind. We all have our own opinions on matters, that’s why you see some people praise Scarlet as the best written villain from GW lore, and others feel she was a waste of Tara Strong’s time and talent.*

I, myself, would like these backpacks because more variety is always good.

As for the engineer thing, I don’t mind the kit backpacks, I would just love skill customization in PVE to allow for changing up their looks to either something more racially fitting (like maybe asura flame throwers involve crystals and blue fire with electrical sparks in it) or just things that fit other technological aesthetics in the game in general than the “hobo scrapper look”. (which does sort of fit since, as I understand, Engies are on the super cutting edge of Tyrian tech, beyond even stuff most of the charr legions produce, so most of the tech is pretty much garage kitted together.)

But, I’m just making wistful thoughts. Skill customization ranks right up there with special event gliders/personal flying machines, bringing back a reimagined Ritualist, and to be made head writer for the living story myself. (Who wants to deal with rogue Flame Legion cults who have decided to worship players in the story arc: It’s Tough to Be a God"?)

*Probably not a waste of her time though, I mean last I heard (back in 2012) veteran VA’s like Tara Strong can make up to $600 an hour for Videogame voice roles. Given how much dialogue Scarlet did get, multiple takes, she probably put in 36 to 40 hours of work total within the time frame she recorded Scarlet’s lines (which I assume was all done together), then there’s her misc. role as the Queen’s Gauntlet announcer. (I think VAs get extra checks per-role)

raahk.2786:

I like these a lot. What’s with people saying they’re unattractive? Not enough particle effects for you people?
I want the bear one the one, but the treasure chest and anvil are nice too.
A norn or a charr would probably use the anvil one the best.
People saying that they’re glad they aren’t in need to realize that more options is always a good thing and that responding in this way might screw over chances of someone else, like me, who would want these skins.
And I personally find these a lot more attractive then the multiple reskins of the holographic dragon wings.
Those wings are terrible.
It looks like actual effort was put into designing these new backpacks, and I sure as hell hope we get the option to craft them soon as well.

They’re the rather entitled sort who not only don’t want to use certain skins, but do not want to see others to use such skins for it offends them that much.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Lol. This reminds me of the ‘slippery slope’ some were sure the game was on before launch when it was discovered there would be, ‘gasp’, Boosters in the Gem Shop.

This has pretty much been part of my own argument for Mounts: we already sell speed boosters in the gemshop, so why not?

The only big argument that really does seem valid to me is fear of screen clutter, anything else seems to be a pure assumption on how mounts would work.

As for my own demands from the devs: I just want permanent content that has nothing to do with Scarlet and/or Sylvari. We can return to Sylvari later, heck, we can even revisit scarlet in two or three years, but after more than a solid year of Scarlet, and sylvari specialness in general, I’m kind of tired.

Let’s get back to issues like The Flame Legion, The Sons of Svanir, Inquest (I’d love a living story arc dealing with Inquest trying to do legit business, like operate a casino and Zojja being an overtly paranoid nut), and so forth. Better still, why not revisit old plothooks and mysteries like The Scepter of Orr, what happened to MOX, the Wizard Tower/floating castle, and Glint’s children.

Huh, you know, thinking about the argument of “Bundle + swiftness = mount” does make me think an engineer ‘bundle’ that’s basically one of those pocket motorcycles with little machine guns and such would be kind of cool. If also adorable on asura.

>This thread
>People saying “altering a small part of my avatar and granting a speed buff is not a mount”
While I won’t say ‘yes it is a mount’ I will say this makes me baffled then why so many people are against mounts when they would pretty much do the same thing?

Even more minimalist if the first mounts were basically some kind of asuran hover scooter/segway. I can see the description now…

“They look incredibly dumb but they really work!”

You know, this much venom against mounts reminds me of the TOR community being against the idea of advanced class respeccing.

Makes you wonder if there’s one thing in every MMO community that 90% of its forum community hates with a passion and never wants to see for rather vaguely defined reasons?

Sir Vincent III.1286:

King Al

Now I’m just seeing Rytlock doing that thing in the trailer, then King Aldelbern rises looking like Al Borlen from Home Improvement to say: “I don’t think so, Tim.”

I just pray Anet remembers its own lore and remembers that you need Maegdar AND Sohothin, AND a descendant of Ascalon’s old royal bloodline before Adelbern.

So either that trailer needs to be deceptive and Rytlock’s not there are all, or the charr solo-attempt on ending the curse should not work or backfire horribly.

Thuggernaut.1250:

Mass Effect:
1. Reapers awaken every 50000 years to consume life
2. Player experiences a vision of the reapers from a beacon (which he inadvertently triggered to save Ashley)
3. Player builds a multi-species coalition to fight reapers

Guild Wars 2:
1. Dragons awaken every 10000 years to consume magic
2. Player experiences a vision of dragons from Omadd’s machine (which he inadvertently triggered to save Taimi)
3. Player builds a multi-species Pact to fight dragons

I think anyone that saw the new cutscene from the most recent episode (that also played Mass Effect) instantly got a flashback to Commander Shepard. At first I thought that the writing got marginally better (compared to season one), but come on… now they’re blatantly ripping off another game with a threadbare plot to begin with?

And Mass Effect was ripped from the Star Control games. Seriously, there’s even racial parallels.

Astral Projections.7320:

Tamini wearing swimwear. Is that something similar to this perhaps?

I’d like Everyday Life with Monster Girls but that comic is SOOOOOOOOO not worksafe. (I mean nothing hardcore but… yeah.)

But it does show centaur swimwear. And Ceanora is much easier on the eyes than any GW2 centaur.

Fyrebrand.4859:

Racial skills typically are pretty lackluster. I would appreciate the chance to gain some new skills, but new ones — not just more blah racial skills.

Thing is, Anet currently holds back on racial skills because they’re race locked and fear someone might find one race/profession combo superior to others.

This way, it wouldn’t matter, if a racial skill is superior, the other race players can pick it up later.

This is all just a ploy so I can ultimately get my asura battlesuit to be as bad-A as it should be.

Basically, learning the racial skills of another race- Wait, don’t walk out yet! Here’s the logic behind it:
-Arenanet demonstrates Tyria as an increasingly cosmopolitan world, you have humans and charr, breaking bread, asura teaching. Some cross cultural bleed is going to be inevitable, and this includes skills.

-A lot of the racial skills, especially charr, seem like things that can be learned, fabricated, or earned overtime.

-From a meta stand point, it might clear the way for racial skills to gain a buff, as now they are no longer racially restricted, but simply it determines what racial skills you start with, and thus, no race would be better in the long run with a certain profession

-From an RPers outlook, it opens up all kinds of interesting concepts. Maybe your charr tried to prove the racial skills are nothing more than psychosomatics but became a true believer in time? (Or maybe are right and want to rub it in that you don’t have to be a human to become an Avatar of Grenth) How about the norn trapper who observed the Charr for so long he figured out how to mimic much of their technique and technology? This doesn’t even go into personal refluffs (like an asura who hired out a bunch of mercenaries)

It could either be implemented similar to trait hunting (tied to various events) or have something similar to the old faction system in GW1 where you can talk to NPCs in certain regions and choose to represent a nation/faction you’re fighting for in a region and gain reputation with them as you slay enemies, fill renown hearts, and run events.

In the long run, I’m not terribly set on this, just an idea that popped into my head.

Galphar.3901:

I’d just like to be able to choose the weapon skills I use instead of being stuck with the same 5.

I would love them to expand weapon skills, for example, single handed mainhand weapons give a full 5 skill bar.

In addition, each weapon can be “further leveled” so you unlock new skills for each skill slot that you can switch around. In my ideal, la-la-land, each skill slot for every weapon would have five alternate weapon skills you can use.

Also, something I’d want brought back from GW1: Interrupts. Pure interrupts that halt a skill and put it on its default cool down as though it actually got used. Not knockdowns, knock backs, knock-tos, petification, or any other control function, it just completely shuts out a skill.

Bring back interrupts!

Yeah, I’m just being heavily facetious, Argon. Remember kids: racism in real life is NOT cool. But when you’re dealing with an online game with multiple races, it’s okay to playfully declare your favorite race as the master race!

Though in all seriousness, Asura golemancy , waypoints (especially way point) is engineering as by definition, Engineering is the practical application of knowledge.

I can think of few things more practical than quantum tunneling used in waypoints and gates to aid with travel.

You might say engineering is all about solving practical problems.

(Also, because of this, synergetics is a weak college of hippies and humanities majors. Dynamics forever, go Jungle Raptors!)

AdelaisAer.4109:

I honestly don’t even care anymore.

I think this is a very dark sign of things.

Well, OP, I wouldn’t mind something like skill appearance customizations either. Even willing to pay for them. But why stop at turrets though?

Wouldn’t it be awesome for Sylvari racial skill seed turrets to look more like roses than tulips? How about new fur/coat patterns and colors for norn forms? Or being able to make your asura battlesuit look like a more streamlined mecha? And even class skills: it might be cool if I could have my thief’s thieves guild skill or ambush trap summon copies of my character (in appearance that is) for the whole “ninja cloning skill” or even to imply the concept that my thief is simply a mesmer with more martial inclination than others.

Naturally, these customizations would not work in PVP to avoid confusion. And personally, I’d like racial skills and turrets in general to be buffed first. (if it’s a PVP balance concern for racials, why allow them in WvW and not just lock them out like in other PVP forms?)

Argon.1563:

The engineer profession was pioneered by The Charr, so the turrets would match their aesthetic. Asurans don’t really “engineer” anything, they infuse stone using magic, to make it do certain things.

and us Charr don’t really get a lot, AN refuses to fix our clipping issues because we’re the least popular race, statistically. The turrets are our only friends at this point, don’t take them away, let us spread their love to the other races of Tyria!

If charr wanted more, maybe you shouldn’t have dropped the kitten Searing on Ascalon and accepted being pushed back north by humanity. Also, Asura have been engineering things while charr were still painting their furs in feces and blood while running around buck naked and without a proper language. (in otherwords, all charr history to present day)

To think a bit outside of the box: what if instead of mounts that were actually bought and used just to get around, what if they were instead environmental weapons during map events?

Like a charr tank raid on a Flame Legion stronghold, use human gliders to fly over centaur defenses or drop bombs on them, ride with some norn ‘dolyakboys’ to round up the herd!

Though, more cosmetic mounts like the sonic drill and broom are fine.

Also, to those who say waypoints are the end all:

Waypoints do not unlock account wide, and some of us don’t want to fight our way through mob after mob after mob to get to our next objective.

Cormac.3871:

Given the amount of variables involved I would say that monthly for this kind of thing would be the best we could expect. If we get something from early in the story, from memory for each race there are three possible paths to start along for a total of 15 possibilities. The lesser races quests have one of five possibilities for who is involved, making things more manageable. The order stuff would be more naturally centred around that order’s HQ though.

I’d love to see once a month a new quest like this come along, but even done minimally it would be a huge undertaking.

Ah, the beauty could be that they are updated once a month, but then they fall into a daily rotation.

The theoretical ideal to such content would be that it could be modular (new variables or missions could get plugged in over time) yet repeatable (for minimal work), could be updated at any time, and give players more to do on a daily basis.

As a side note: while the HQ thing makes sense, this is something to help make home instances more useful.

Now, for another idea: while it might not be possible to make home instances completely customizable, being able to have up certain themes go up around the place could go a long way. The themes could change textures, a few props, and NPCS outfits and their idle actions.

For example, a charr player could order the Hero’s Canton to be a bit more “homey” which would include adding some more comfortable plush chairs, dress more charr in town clothing, and a maybe a few posters which seem to advertise/promote chugger racer personalities.

A big suggestion I have for home instances, and an ambitious one, is to make them a regular hub of content activity. Specifically, each day, on your active tasks bar (thought a menu option would allow you to make it invisible), you get a notice of someone wanting to speak to you in your home instance.

This individual would be in tiers that would go Racial (your destiny’s edge mentor), Order (the liaison of you order you chose like Hiroki from the Vigil for humans), and Pact (just a fairly random guy here), and thus, they would also tie into your personal story. Each of these tiers has a small selection of missions (maybe three for racial, four for order, and five for the Pact).

Ideally, there would be an additional two racial missions based on personal story choices (first invention/college, legion/father, etc.) or even specific choices within like saving Quinn or stopping the gangs. Further variations could be added based on choices you could make before the mission, like either how to approach an objective (sneaky or guns blazing) or even the specific objective on the map (prioritize defeating the enemies or rescuing hostage), and even if this is your first run through of this mission and/or if you have done it recently (so it can change flavor text and even enemy types enough to make it feel less repetitive), how far into your personal story you are, and if you’ve finished certain dungeons.

This is meant to not just increase the potential uses of home instances, but also increase options for repeatable content, give relevance and further development to personal story characters and the personal story itself in general.

As an addeum, ideally, overtime, more missions could be added per-tier, even allowing some missions become full mini-arcs and focusing on minor details (like if you picked Dinky for your warband mate, you could do a special mini-arc where you help him compete in a fighting tournament to take on his biggest bully when he was growing up).

And, other details could be added too (like if you ask why you’re still taking orders from your Order even though you’re commander, you could be told something like “Almorra (if vigil) doesn’t care if you’re the kitten ed Khan-Ur, you signed up with the vigil, you do vigil work, mind boggling, huh?”) and even a fairly cosmetic mission NPC for the Pact who will ask you to give orders and direct troops in a small series of choice text boxes as well as fill you in on the aftermaths of previous ones, just to even give the illusion you are a CO of the Pact.

Katz.5143:

They have to balance appealing and useful home instances versus making the outside world look empty of players because they are all inside there homes or guild halls.

Well, here are some compelling reasons to leave guild halls and home instances: it’s where the rest of the game is, it’s where you can get upgrades for your Guild Hall and/or home instances, and because your friends might want to do something outside of either.

Now, as for the rest of this thread, I concur wholeheartedly home instances need some major new additions, some of them could even be purely cosmetic, like holiday event decorations.

Dangit, I hit the wrong thing and mis-read the poll. I DON’T think we have enough options for non-skimpy and prefer non-skimpy and want more choices.

I can agree with about all points, oddly, except this one:

Zephyron.7081:

1. Add blood. Make the fantasy world of GW2 as dark as the concept art and not the goody two shoes we currently have. Appeal to adults with money and not 10 year olds!

I’m sorry, but you think adding blood and gore instantly makes something adult. The gratuitous use of gore is one of the biggest signs of immaturity in a game. Now there can be proper uses of blood, like adding blood pools beneath dying/dead NPCs to let you know “they ain’t gonna make it”, or dried and old blood to some places where slaughters and battles occurred, but if you’re suggesting fountains of blood on each swing of a sword or gouging an opponent to death as a finisher, all I can say is “don’t cut yourself on all those edges, mate.”

Though I can also agree that GW2 is often so lighthearted is puts My Little gods kitten Pony: Friendship is Magic to shame. Outright saccharine at times.

Zalyn.9534:

Elric.6971:

A weird part of me would like to keep the food crafting around purely as a flavor (if you’ll pardon the pun) craft set, though having its mechanical benefits severely reduced to removed. Also, maybe reduce the ingredients price.

From there, let’s add drink mixes and the ability to personalize recipes!

Also, another, semi-important, thing with cooking crafting though is the ability to create dyes.

Drink mixes would be awesome! But I find the dye recipes boring.

Maybe we need a mixologist craft – making drinks (alcoholic, buffing) and potions.

Alchemist crafting! Make environmental weapons (like acid flasks), ammo for certain intractables like catapults, and all those others things you THINK Alchmeist engies should be able to do!

Also, mix a fine drink.

A weird part of me would like to keep the food crafting around purely as a flavor (if you’ll pardon the pun) craft set, though having its mechanical benefits severely reduced to removed. Also, maybe reduce the ingredients price.

From there, let’s add drink mixes and the ability to personalize recipes!

Also, another, semi-important, thing with cooking crafting though is the ability to create dyes.

Is it just me or do the human male ones look like they could be used as an age progression sequence.
One looks like a teenager, another looks like a young adult, and the last one looks middle aged. But the overall facial structure changes little. Wrinkles, scars, and a slightly grimmer expression seem to be all the get added.

Aidan Savage.2078:

If you’re that starved for content, go play another game until Anet announces they’re releasing new content.

Good idea!

I know I’ve been playing Champions and looking forward to The Old Republic’s next update! You know what the new update will include? Personal housing and guild halls! Or rather flagships.

In all seriousness though, you do realize that this is honestly one of the worst things you can tell people on an MMO forum, right? At least terrible from the developer standpoint. Free after purchase or not, GW2 still starts to look bad if the server population dwindles because people decide “nuts to this, let’s play another game”.

Chameleon Dude.1564:

So, some random nobody who wrote an article about NCSoft buying the rights to use the new Unreal engine has just decided Guild Wars 3 is happening…?

Yeah…

Hey, not what I’m saying. I’m voting for the equally far fetched use of the Unreal engine to improve an existing game. Probably not GW2 though, still too fresh. My money might be on Blade and Soul or Aion.

The more likely thing is that they’re making a new MMO.

The least likely thing is they’re going to try to relaunch City of Heroes in an attempt to get back into the super hero games market and simultaneously spite Missing Worlds Media who are also currently building their game on the unreal 4 engine.

one far fetched possibility might be getting a license for the unreal 4 engine to go back and add new engines to existing MMOs.

It’s out there, but I’ve heard it’s been done before and not impossible, just insanely difficult in most cases.

It is kind of something to wonder, really: I mean there’s lost of references to vampires, mostly necro skill names, but we’ve never actually seen a vampire in GW1 or 2, have we?

The Ancient Count Dracula and his army of the undead sound like a pretty kitten living world story lead up to Halloween.

I’ll second this rant, but we should be careful:

The Secret world had/has this problem too and people complained about it. So what did funcom do? release “Gender Equality” which was a swimsuit set.

Women got a full covering wetsuit with rebreather… The snark comes in when males got a lime green body thong.

Admittedly, it’s hilarious.

To add my own 2 copper into this:

Vehicles/mounts (because not all races would use organic mounts) come in two flavors:
1. Is just a faster way of getting around and looking cool.
You’re immediately dismounted for combat or when you end up in water, they also cannot jump.
They would replace your utility skill bar with things to help you travel (like a stealth and a dash to escape/avoid potential aggro).
Make a few different models (like five racial, one for each order, and then a pact one) and toss them into the gemstore for maybe 800 to 1600 gems and voila! more dosh for Anet.

2. Environmental weapons like the Golem Suit used in special heart or dynamic events.
These WOULD replace your skill bar and let you move faster, but you’d only have them for a limited time before you dismount, or cannot use them outside of a certain area. You also still cannot jump or go into water with them.
Imagine an event where the Seraph broke out their cavalry and asked the played to help raid the centaurs, and you’d get the gist of it.

You might also be able to fit the environmental version into WvW.

That’s my thoughts, might need a lot of adjustment though.

Twyll Blackleaf.9641:

perhaps meeting that potential just took up too many resources that were better spent somewhere else.

There is seldom a better way to spend resources in any game than to give players choices and to let them feel the consequences of those choices.

For me, it’s less that I think this is bad at all, I just feel like this is all stuff we should have gotten six months ago, both to give a break from the Living Story (as well as allow it to sink in better) or maybe even a full year ago.