Guild Wars 2

1.) Make Endless Horizon baseline. Because I thought thats why the dogderoll was replaced by the cloak, so that enemies cannot make out the real mesmer.

2.) Holosmith is a great class with even more great traits. Thats how all traitlines should work.

Yeah the problem is that old engines and concepts will always compete with the new additions and therefore limit the possibilities of the devs. Best example: AllyTargeting. In the early days for some reasons Anet decides that it would be bad if you were able the target allies directly. That worked because because “supporting” abilities were quite a minor part of the game and basically reduced to combofields and some buff abilities. Now we have dedicated support specialisations….. without the possibility to target an ally ……

Or take mounts. I do not want to know how boring the old world will feel when you simply can rush through it with your mounts…… but on the other side I also do not want to miss my new raptor friend.

In a complete new game Anet could build the whole system around the concepts they had developed (Overworld with Mount focus, Elite Specialisations, Mastery System instead of Levels etc etc):

That may work in pvp but how do design that in pve? What happens if an raid boss fires it death attack into that mirror – do the mesmer get then that overpowered abillity?

The whole mesmer class has a flawed design and should be redone from scratch.

I totally agree that the choices I made for my character should influence the game more…. I always feel sad that my As Legion Charr Warrior who is also a Lightbringer now acts completly the same then my Warmaster human Mesmer. In Vanilla GW2 you had some illusion of that when playing as an Member of the Order of Whispers as you could speak with there agents and find their secret lairs…. I want more of that…..

Because there were some negativ comments about the new mastery “minigames” like the chef one and the teleporter one I just wanted to mention that I actually enjoyed them very much. It felt like actually achieving something in the new culture than just reaching some random spot.

I also like that the new specialisations are connected to the lore. Would suggest to embrace that by making a lot of the hero challenges connected to npcs (either as friendly or as enemy) which have that elite specialisation.

Like Setting, Map and Lore. Exspecially like raptors. Like events. Exspecially like protect event which fails if the npcs die. But would suggest making this NPC range fighters. That allows for more tactics to complete these events, like using projectile block walls or knockbacks to keep enemies aways from the NPCs.

Miss “epic” meta events, e.g. an attack on amnoon. Dislike that events dont have any (even no temporary) consequences regardless if they fail or suceed.

Really like concept of bounty system. Dislike that they only have 2-3 spawnpoints. Dislike that you know from the beginning where the boss is. Suggest using the “search” function from living Story (where you click the extra skill and get a direction where you have to go, but not a concrete location). Also suggest some Lore and Boss Mechanic notes at the “Black Boards”.

Sorry for doubleposting but I seem to be unable to attach two pictures to one post. Here is the path how you get to the shown location. The text on the event says: “Escort Refugees from the temple of Kormir to the southern waypoint”. Thats there were the other “Escort Refugees” Event start.

Hi Folks,

while exploring every corner of the new map I noticed some strange portal (see pic 1). You cannot see it on the picture but that blue stuff is actually whirling around in game – like a portal does.

From the Map you can see that this structure is in the middle of the first PoF map – so this is not a portal which leads to some other map as they are normally at the border.

Also I dont think that it just connects to the inside of the temple of kormir (the name of the big building you can see on the picture), because Amoon is full of explorable buildings without a loading screen aka portal in them.

Last option I had thought of was that there might be some story relevant stuff behind it – but why a use a portal to segregate it? Why not just make a star and a closed door in its place like all the other instance entraces we had in the recent years?

So the only thing which remains is that is the entrance to a new raid. Also the place fits, as Kormir is the Goddess of secrets (or at least contains all the secrets from abbadon). Maybe the new raid will take place there because the player characters want to learn something about Balthasar or so.

So what do you think where that mysterious portal will lead to? And also why is there an big yellow/white something in the middle of it?

PS: If you want to see it ingame just follow the path shown in pic 2.

I also agree on the search mechanic. That even intensifies group building because structured groups could try triangulation to get an better overview how far the boss is away .

I also hope that the bosses can spawn ov er the whole map and not just around the hub like it is implemended currently.

Last but not least some Lore justification on why these targets are searched for would be really nice. Like they did with the guild missions.

Hello everyone,

like a few of you I also went the last 6 hours exploring what the desert has to offer. One thing that really hit me was the new head hunt system. For quite I while I miss a little bit that people in Guild Wars 2 play alongside each other instead of with each other. In the events there are just rarely pug groups and if you find one they are quite silent … just running with the zerg. So I really like that the headhunts force the groups to communicate and if its just to decide which one the next target is

But back to topic: If why already have a “black board” with the quest why dont we get any information on the target? Like some Lore behind them why they are wanted and what abillities they have. That would also allow Anet to make the mechanics of each boss more punishing because the player knows in advance what awaits them. They do not need to stop the battle to read some tooltips and skill effects……

The non plus ultra would be ofc If we could actually not only read about the misdeeds of our targets but actually witness them first hand. Like for example introduce a special boss of those molten balth guys by some events where he stands untargeble in the back while commanding his underlings to attack some farmers or so …. the just imagine impact when you can then finally hunt him down later per head hunt….

While I am on the train for a more clear customization of the playstyle I dont think that your classification will work. For example “Condi” might fill all the 3 other roles DD, Tank and Support by itself. (Bleeding and Fire are Damage Condis, Weakness and Vulnerable more support orientated and Protection and Stabillity lets you tank more)

Also having a fixed corsett on the main part of your customization system might influence build crafting really badly.

So I would much prefer to see that kind of playstyle categorization on the weapons… So that each class has at least one weapon combi that does normal damage, condi, support, cc etc …

While there are some classes which have such kind of clear categories most of the weapons are still a mess, like having 4 skills with normal damge and one with bleeding and so on.

For the Traitlines I would rather like to see a categorisation into the “Holy Trinity” (Damage, Support, Control – not Tank, Healer, DPS) because they are the main playstyles I think we should focus on (with Survivabillity/Tanking beeing a part of Control).

That question is difficult to answer because everyone defines “casual” a bit different. So it depends on what deatures you disliked on HoT.

If it was the multilayered map design, then I have good news for you. The new zones are in the desert which means by default that they are my open and spacious then vertical. So a lot easier to navigate through.

If it was overall enemy difficulty. Then I have no idea. I guess we will find out this weekend.

Also when using distracting daggers with my thief there now actually fly daggers around my right arm ….. that wasnt there before was it?

Squirrel.6318:

Like the heroes of GW1, there’s so many. Gwen, Rurik, Mhenlo, Master Togo, Nika… so much more.

Or if has to be racial then. Vekk, Jora, Gwen, Pyre Fierceshot, Ventari…

Fully agree, exspecially Ventari deserves his place as a legen……. oh wait .

Mallyx is “helping” us, because he has no other choice. The lore behind the renevants is that they basically can enslave any soul they like.

Is it just me or did some of the skills get an grphical update? I cannot remember that e.g. the hammer skill from the jalis rev looked so flashy when they are created…. and somehow the fire seems …. smoother.

After the update I first checked if my graphic options were automatically put higher but that seems to be not the case.

I think I like that they have chosen Kalla over Pyre. Simply for the fact that she is a character that was active outside of the timeframe where GW1 played in.

If you look at other legends (Jalis, Shiro, Mallyx, Glint, Ventari) you see that they all were active when we had our adventures in GW1. It feels like there didnt happen anything interesting outside the 5-10 years where GW1 played in. With the introduction of Kalla we finally now leave that timeperiod and new lore in the GW Universe. Because the timeline of GW is not only restricted to what happened in the first entry of the series.

This also brings my hopes up, that some day we will be able to summon truly historical figures (I historical even from a GW1 point of view) like King Doric or Saul D`Alessio. Uhh what would I give to summon Saul D`Alessio with my rev. With a Mursaat Companion as Ult ofc. Then that model was not wasted on a few story instances ^^.

(And spoiler would be kind of mad of us to bring back the mursaat into this realm…… but who cares )

YES! YES! YES! YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That is exactly the kind of fluff I imagined the Rev had since its launch…… I was really disappointed that all they were talking where catchphrases when using a heal skill or elite or so.

Does the chatter come randomly or do you have to do something for it? Like applying a buff or killing a enemy?

That it is Racespecific is the non-plus-ultra…… hopefully Anet will go more into that direction …….

In the footage of woodenpotatoes and aurora peach you could already see adventures …. so yeah they are coming back.

Each new Elite Specialisation comes with up to 8-11 new skills (2-5 weapons, 1 heal, 4 Utility and 1 Elite)…. so why just take 1 if you can have both?

In some special cases (for example the mirage or weaver) that skill numbers will also be extraordinary high (around 35 for the weaver I heard)

Yeah….. and I just made a post about how I liked the depiction of Balthasars Followers as battlehungry but not “evil” per definition….. and then they replaced them by molten demon things ….. which slaugther unarmed civilians …… because why not?

Wasnt Balthasar a god that honored braveness and despite cowardness? I think in the new map there also was a story about this. And isnt the thing this herold of balthasar is doing in the first mission exactly the definition of cowardness? Attacking those who cannot defend themselves and avoiding those who can fight back (like the PC).

I really hope there is a deep backstory behind this and not just “Balth is evil now, because …… lulz.” But my trust in the story writing capabillities of Anet is going downhill pretty fast…..

Okhu.7948:

I assumed the “Oath” was another lie. Livia literally tells you where the SECRET BLADES HQ is and doesn’t die. So its mostly to intimidate you as far as I’m concerned. The only “Blades” secret you’re ever given is their mission and where the HQ is. Considering you completed the mission the only thing you have to not tell others about is the “Secret” Blades HQ.

…. I was so focussed on the part why it is a stupid decision from our Character to actually do this death oath thing that I completly missed that gigantic plot hole…….

So the whole “if we make you believe hardly enough that you will die you actually will” thing becomes more and more realistic. Therefore Livia (and probably Anise) are immune to the death oath because they know the truth. That is actually quite cool.

It is still stupid of our Character to just agree on it. Because he/she doesnt know about that…..

The really sad thing is that all it would need to completly solve this problem is 1-2 race specific lines from our Character….. and everyone would be happy.

So for example a human would say, that he/she is honored to serve his country. While a Charr might be like: “A Death Oath? Things like that do not exist. If you want me to say some words I will do, but dont bother me with that fantasy stories.”
And a Asura might just Analyze that such kind of spell is impossible, because there is no clear definition of “secret” or “telling a secret” (compare a few posts above).

That would highen the story by so much ……… just 1-2 race specific lines…….

ErickDntn.1847:

• As many mentioned, we are free agent. we have no obligation to come to the Blade’s aid no matter how dire the Krytan needs us, we just have to keep their secret. Moreover, this oath that we take seems to serve to destroy the barrier between the PC and the Blade, rather than a rope that binds us and our loyalty to the Krytan throne. Though, Anise does mention that we are not to be complicit with any force working against Kryta. This is interesting to me as Anet can still elaborate on this. But to me, it seems what Anise trying to emphasize is that using our experience working with the Blade against them will also break the oath, obviously. But again, this is the most intriguing part of the oath to me and hopefully anet will get back to this oath.

Well this is not the whole story. The commander effectively cannot spill out any secret the shining blade and therefore the krytan government may have. So if tomorrow queen jennah decided to make a surprise attack on the charr in ascalon to take back their lands, there is not much we can do about it …. because we cannot even tell anyone….

So the story is perfectly fine for a human. They should have at least some trust in their government. And for many of them joining the shining blades is also a great honor.

But for a Charr? Even if he somehow is so smitten by the 3?….4? times he have met with the human queen, that she will never cancel the peace contract…. that death oath is made with the shining blade, not the queen per se. So if the queen somehow dies and her successor is more leaning to the war path ….. that death oath is not cancelled ….

You want to tell me the PACT does not have the gold to revive their lost commander? Or the order of whispers? Or the krytan kingdom? Because the whole drama for the wounded Logan would be meaningless if he could just get such a kind of reviving orb.

Also gems can be bought by gold.

Riving orbs do not exist in the lore. They are a gameplay thing. Otherwise every dead in the story would be meaningless because they could just be revived with such a orb.

I think for me personally I will go with a nice explanatin from reddit ….. namely that my character was completly drunk in the entire season 3. That fits well because my main is a norn with the hangover story line…… last time she managed to loose a kittening TANK in the wilderness …… so swearing death oath for fun isnt to far fetched.

But I have to disagree with the Sylvari-Argument. I am pretty sure that each individual sylvari somehow has the ability to hide certain memories from the dream ….. because there are also highranking agents of the order of whispers who are sylvary. And I am pretty sure the order of whispers wouldnt allow members to join if they automatically post everything they see to the tyrian equivalent to twitter.

What makes the boss really difficult is that people dont understand its mechanic ….. mostly because it wasnt explained well.

If its mechanic got more and more known the difficulty will decrease enormously.

Crinn.7864:

The PC character quit their position in the Pact and by extension their position in their chosen order.
The PC is no longer bound by their order and could join a new order at their discretion.

No. Your Character never left its order. Otherwise you wouldnt have access to the inner sanctum of your orders headquarters.

And if Anet really did pull that off, that is even worse. Because that would make any decision you made in the main game completly irrelevant. Which is exactly the opposite of what they were trying to do in HoT. And that would suck. Because getting that little extra information for my lightbringer from other agents was a really cool part of the world building, if that will be gone in future because Anet cant handle a customizable protagonist ….. is kind of sad……

I would prefer to have a bit less story but small bits depending on your choices then having completly the same story with every character, where none of your decisions matters.

I really liked the way they handled the followers of Balthasar. I was really afraid that they would just make them either “evil” or abandon Balthasar. In GW Lore it was well established that Balthasar is by no means a nice god. He is the god of war, so of course his followers dont expect him to be a softy.

So picturing them as more defiant, more thrilled for battles and more brutal in their ways of honoring their returned god was a good idea. The next logical step would be for them to reevaluate the peace contract with the charr and trying to push the krytan (or elonian) government to retake lost land (like ascalon) by military means. That would generate enough conflict with peace-loving faction our characters are member of. Especially now where the thread of the dragons is falling to the bottom.

I really like stories where the protagonist and his/her enemies are acting smart.

So, hopefully Arenanet dont decide to let them make stupid thing (like burning same innocent villages down for the lulz) just to find a good excuse for the player character to fight them.

Oh yeah how I miss the times where I was optimistic that in future Arena Net would fit the story to your Characters decisions, race and gender etc …… like the previous Story-Chief told us at the annocement event for HoT …..

I really happy that I didnt play that episode with my lightbringer. That would be kind of an awkward conversion with my bosses.

“So Lightbringer, I heard you have managed your way into the inner circle of the shining blade. Noticed anything which might conflict with the goals of the order?”

" I am sorry sir, I am not allowed to tell you that. I promised to never tell any secrets or try to harm kryta or the queen."

“And if someday kryta decides to rekindle the war with the Charr Legions, destroy the order of whispers and seek for world domination, then …. "

" I will keep silent and stare intensively, like I have promised."

“Lightbringer, please follow me. We have to do an intensive conversation about secrets and loyalties ….. "

While I agree that race of the character should have an impact on the playstyle (or at least should have the possibillity to impact the playstyle) there is an even bigger personal choice that deserve that spot ….. the order (whisperers, durmand, vigil) you joined ……..
The coolest thing that happend to me in the whole time I played GW2 was when I went with my second char (a lightbringer) through a map my first char (crusader) already have cleared and found all the agents and little hideouts the order of whispers had installed. The world of GW really felt alive at that time. Unfortunately, with the forming of the pact these kinds of discoveries became quite ratre…. until the point where I barely remember which char I put into which order …..

So to improve that (in the gameplay area, the story telling stuff is something different) I suggest the implementation of 8 new (elite?) specializations. One for each playable race and one for each order. Putting all the racial (and order?) skills into a specialization will make them come with their own trait line and allow Anet to redesign that dam stuff to actually synergize which each other …. because currently the racial skills are just a bunch of random skills thrown together with some loreful package put around.

If put into a whole specialization – specially if its an elite one – will hopefully put the racial lore into a meaningful gameplay element. Some that synergizes with the rest of your build and is not just a copy of other skills in a new color.

To make sure that you do not have to create a specific race/class combi for raids etc and therefore level up 5 different warrior chars, then can do two things:

a) make this race/ order specializations elite specilisations and slightly weaker then the others. So basically similiar to how the racial works just updated that their is actually a concept behind them

b) make all those elite specs temporally available to all characters ( my favourite). You can also wasily find a lore explanation for this. The change of order could be explained that you were requested by that order to do something special for them (like e.g. lightbringers go undercover to find a traitor in the vigil, crusader temporally join the priory because they have developed new weapons you shall test for them etc etc) and for the race change you use the trinkets ( like the one that makes you a kodan). If these changes can be made in all PvP and high end PvE areas (like fractal lobby or raid lobby) then there should be no reason to level 5 different characters for each class just to fit into the meta.

Or just make the skills scale with attributes, like in Guild Wars 1 with the attribute lines or (for a more recent example) League of Legends.

You want a elite specialisation to build mainly around toughness? Make its abillity scale with toughness and player will buy toughness gear. Simple answer. For illustration how that might work just look at a random GW1 skill and replace the attribute line scaling with an actual attribute scaling (in steps of 50 or so)

Also doing some events outside the “kill stuff” would be helpfull. For example the “mushroom events” in the second HoT map you had quite a nice diversity, in one event you had to break a set amount mushroom, in the next one you were supposed to rez die small mushrooms while fighting off enemies but also could just heal them up while stunning the enemy….. thats what my druid did all the time. So having events with different approaches would be nice….. and for the next expansion I kind of expect that.

But I would also not be to unhappy if they used lake doric as a blueprint on how to create “battle/siege themed” maps. Because with every character you could solve the events a little different: With my Reaper I just jumped into the frontlines and AoE the hell out of them. With my Daredevil on the other side I jumped always at an isolated target (mostly ele or mesmer) to focus that down and prevent it from casting skills. And the druid approach you already mentioned.

Oh yes we definetly need the Holy Trinity ….. but in the way Anet tried to introduce it prelease (and horribly failed to actually implement) ….. Meaning the Trinity between Damage, Support and Control.

If I could skill my class in a convinient way to burn through those break bars then maybe they will also fall sometimes before they are nerfed into oblivion……

I would like if they introduced new dynamic events to show that “cleansing”. Like the temples have a “undead infested” state and a “free” state with elementals as enemies.

So what I imagine is not only a bunch of “Protect Pact Member XXX while he plant some new seeds” or “kill the undead infestor” events scattered around the map but a complete new meta event like for example “Build up the new Pirate town whatever” with its own corresponding events and progression bar. Fullfilling the events will slowly fill up the progression bar and “unlock” (build) new buildings in that city for some activities. When it is finished the events will change to ones that keep the undead infestation in check (also represented by a bar). This time only failing events will move the bar further ahead, but the events will become harder and harder the longer the city stands. And when the bar is full the undead will try to overrun the city, destroying everything you built up but letting behind some nice ruins to explore ……..oh and it would be really nice if the guys who do the build up events can decide which building is built where (like in a vote or so) so that the ruins will also look a bit different each time ……. ok I will stop dreaming now

While I meanwhile agree that “Quests” as in Singleplayer/Characterspecific task and progression can and should coexist with the “multiplayer” events, it is definetly not because of any reasons the OP mentioned.

Like you can make Quests that are riddles, stealth stuff etc etc you can make the same content as an event. Anet just decided to not do. Because “kill stuff, pick stuff, escort stuff” are the easiest way to deliver content and therefore you can produce it faster. Regardless if it is an Event or a Quest. In the early day MMO the games are full of that holy trinity of Quest design.

Also the other stuff you mentioned is or at least was planned to be included.

Events with multiple choices are for example technically implemended in the dungeons. As each way is a event chain and your group decides per vote what you want to do. Also events like the magic gathering stuff in the norn starting area (where you can decide if you want to support the consortium or durmand) represent player choices. The only difference is that your choice is not the only one.

Also about the SWTOR stuff: That was actually planned in Guild Wars 2, too. Remember the decision between charm, dignity and ferocity as character creation? It was planned that the game keeps track of how you play with a character and let the NPCs react accordingly. Unfortunately that was scratched because to time intensive.

Also – in theory – events could be characterfocussed. Like a quest may just be avaiable to a specific group of characters (charrs, order of whispers members etc) or have different objectives depending on your background you can do the same with events. Like e.g. a Ascalon Ghost Champion only spawning when a charr is nearby. Or a raid on a pirate fortress where only lightbringers have the objective to save an informant.

The possibilities are there. Anet just do not have the experience or tools to create them. Because the evemt system is in comparision to the quests quite fresh.
If you dont believe me, just name a quest and I construct a corresponding Event for it.

…..

Well actually there is a thing what quests can do but events cannot. And that is saving progress. While you can interrupt a quest chain and and pick it up whenever you like the event chain will just continue when you log out. Therefore doing stuff like the collections for the new backpack would be nearly impossible (or at least incredible frustating) with events. So thats why I think that events should be utilized to tell Stories of the world and quests should more be like these collection achievements – a set of predefined task on a search for a specific item/ skill/mastery etc.

I agree that the core mesmer need some serious redesign to make him on par with the other classes. That is not the fault of the mesmer mechanics per se but more because the different gamemodes have so different requirements this class a lot.

Enemy centered illusion may be viable in PvP and also quite Lore friendly (because you create a illusion …. it only exists in the mind of your opponent and therefore ofc dies with him), but absolute horrible for the normal PvE gameplay. Portal is in WvW a really cool tool, but is broken for jumping puzzles and does not see any other uses, Interrupting traits are a nice concepts for PvP but make no sense in all of the PvE content …. and the list goes on.

Unfortunelaty I have no idea where to start ^^. But I think making Phantasm independend spells (meaning you dont cast them on enemies but they act like companions) may be a good start.

Well if …. certain information ….. are true then I think the whole run XX% faster skills and traits will be removed anyways ….. because there will be a new new system which is much cooler and make them obsolete ;9

Well at least it is not “failing” as hard as some of its competitor who vow on the “industry standards” like the threadmile …. like Warhammer Online, SW:TOR, ESO etc etc.

If you want a threadmile they are tousand of games that you can play. Why should Anet change their principles and upset a whole lot of their players just to please the “mainstream MMO” player? That market is oversaturated as hell. Games with much higher fanbases behind them (like Star Wars, Warhammer or the Elder Scrolls) tried to get there and failed horribly. At the end it is just not worth the risk….. because the game will definetly loose a whole lot of its current player base when doing that.

Well if you implement mounts, the game should be created with that in mind. Which means that the maps should be more open, town hubs etc farer away from each other etc. And with these wide, open maps you need lots of small secrets/stuff to fill them.

So to put it short I think if mounts are implemented in the next expansion then they should go full on mounts, reducing fast travel significantly and designing the the maps in that regards.

Swagger.1459:

Bolded responses…

We don’t need the devs to waste time and resources on any of the stuff you listed in this post or the other one.

Ähm but you realize that the actual suggestion are in the second post? What you are commented on was stuff which were first in GW2 and then also became a thing (because of accident or Nintendo beeing inspired by ArenaNet) in Zelda. My point was, that if you could take nice working concepts from GW2 and make them a thing in Zelda then you can also take nice working concepts of Zelda and make them a thing in GW2. Or GW3.

castlemanic.3198:

DarcShriek.5829:

So let me get this straight, you guys want ANet to make GW2 more like a single player game?

I don’t think that’s a fair assessment of the requests. I think the requests are for more open world experiences within GW2.

Exactly. Its just about the world design. GW2 is an Multiplayer game and should stay one, but that does not mean that nice features of singleplayer titles cannot be adapted into a multiplayer game.

So then finally to the stuff why could probably see in future. Maybe in an expansion, maybe in Guild Wars 3 (if that will ever become a thing) or maybe in a complete other MMO ….. who knows?

A living breathing world: One of the biggest accomplishment which immediately hit my eye was how much character and complexity the world has. Enemies perform different activities like hunting, dancing, sleeping and sitting together at the bonefire instead of just standing on their spawnpoint and waiting to get killed. Wildlife will spot and flee from you, wolves will run away if they loose number advantages etc etc. The world is just so ….. alive ….. I think there was an thread about improving wild life in Guild Wars 2 just recently and most people said that it should only have a low priority because it does not really create new content. That ofc is true but I was surprised on how much immersion and atmosphere the game creates of details like that are done right, so I wouldnt underestimate it.

Oh what lies beyond those mountains?: One thing BotW Overworld does exceptionally well is the ratio between content and size. The world is scaled with purpose in way that there are parts which are just empty. While that sound contraproductive it really enhances the gaming experience. The most common way in which players play the game goes like – see something in the distant, plan to go there, get distracted, get distracted from the distraction, forget where you wanted to go in the first place, see something in the distant …… and so on. Which leads in most cases to the feeling of “getting lost in the world” (in a positive sense of course)

Weapon durabillity: The whole endgame discussion would be obsolet if your ascended weapon would just break after using them a few times and you have to farm them again …… ok just kidding

Total Freedom: Climbing……. You can climb everthing in BotW. EVERYTHING. That opens the map in an unbelievable way and make every hill to a new goal, every wall to an obstacle, every mountain range to a challenge. Works extremely well with gliding.

See those mountains in the background? You can get there!: One thing every zelda does extremly well is the placements of Points of Interest (Like Death Mountain, temples, Hyrule Castle etc). Those can be seen over miles away in the distant. In this game there are also travelling merchants etc which tell you stories about places and cities from the other side of the map. That generates a thrill of anticipation to finally go to those distant places and explore them first hand.

Probably most of what I have written, requires at least a new expansion (when not even a new game at all) to make it happen. But I am really waiting for an MMO which is based on these design philosophies ……..

Hi folks,

as a really long Guild Wars and Zelda fan I was really happy when Nintendo decided to go back to open worlds for their franchise. Now, after the initial hype has cooled down a bit I am really eager to discuss if Arena Net could learn something from Nintendos newest sucess for their nearer or further future. Because regardless what you may personally think of that game, one of the highest scores on Metacritic and almost 4 Million Sales in the first month are a benchmark that tells its own story.

Well, I am well aware that one game is a MMO and the other one a singleplayer adventure, so why do I want them to compare nevertheless? Because while playing BotW I realized that the developers took a whole lot of concepts which are also present in Guild Wars 2. And just adapted them to match their concept. So I asked myself the question if this could be done the other way around……

If you do not believe my word, here are some concepts from Guild Wars 2 which are also present in Zelda BotW:

- Enviromental Weapons: While that concepts was kind of scratched in GW2, Nintendo has pushed it to the limit. Every enemy drops its weapon, which can be picked up by you or other enemies. The game goes so far that the environment itself (tress, stones, rocks and even grass …. GRASS…..) can be transformed into a deadly weapon.

- Weapon skills: While Zelda do not have skills in a traditional sense, every weapon type has it own characteristics, strengths and attacks you can perform with it. There is also a simple combo system like frozen enemies can be pushed further (an example that was advertised for GW2 but sadly never realized ….) or you can create a fire to generate an uplift to push yourself into the air with a glider (which I want really badly to also be a feature in gw2 ……)

- Dynamic events: Ok the zelda system is really barebone in this regard. But still – on your adventures you run into fellow hylians who are under attack by monsters or into a miniboss which comes out of nowhere etc.

- Cooking: Obviously not the system itself, but in both games you mainly cook by putting “fitting” ingredients together and look what it will become.

Thats exactly what you can do … get close with 5, then 3 and 4 to go back. Or you can swap 3 and 5 if the enemy is so nice to come to you. And that over and over again. The weapon skills of the elite specs are usable and combined nearly always and in every order… it is hard to describe but I have the feeling that the elite specs are much more fleshed out while the core specs seems to be more like “whatever the player is playing we need at least something to support that”.

Another good example is the Longbow of the Warrior – half of the skills scales with normal damage half of it with conditions. So regardless what you skill some parts will always feel supbar.

Moonyeti.3296:

For your Engineer rifle example, you have to take into account that an Engi can’t swap weapons. In this context the rifle makes sense. You are correct that it is a melee / range hybrid, but the skills support this. It isn’t just ranged or melee damage, it is also transitional movement skills into / out of melee range. For a more focused ranged weapon an Engi would use a pistol (or pistols). To me that gives a proper theme to the rifle, it is a skirmisher type weapon.

Yeah I am aware of that. But you have still the case that in most cases half of your skills are useless and you have one combi which works well. If I compare that to the elite spec weapons there is a lot to introduce. The same counts for all the weapons that have half damaging conditions and half normal damage skills. Regardless what you play … you always feel like you have useless skills on the bar.

I agree that the mesmer needs a rework of its ground mechanics. Its hard to do anything in the open world when your illusions die everytime their target dies.
Therefore I also support the idea of the “hotfix” to make the phantasm AoE-spells – meaning that they are not bound to a specific enemy and only die when bursted or scaterred. This will also distinguish illusions from phantasm better. Illusions would be short cooldown abilities that shall distract the enemy and longlasting phantasm for damage (with higher cooldowns).

Also going back to scratch and giving each class a fitting theme is a good idea – but probably needs to much ressources to do that. If they do that they can also start to develop GW3.
But on the other hand at least the Weapons should get that threatment. They are often the most importand part of your build and at least the weapon skills of the “core-specialisations” just look like a bunch of random skills put together. The Weaponsskills should work like a champ from LoL e.g. – having a overarcing theme, a well-done gameplay and lots of combination possibilities.

As an example just have a look at the rifle of the engineer: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rifle

How shall you play it? As a range weapon the first idea is to stay away from the enemy – so that you can hit them but they cannot hit you. Also the snare on skill 3 supports that. Snare from and get some free shots from far away. Easy. But Skill 3 suddenly does more damage when you are close to your enemy and therefore contradicting the idea from above. Then skill 4 creates distance between you and your enemy so we are back in range theme. Last but not Least you have a nice leap which does the most damage when leaping on top of your enemy ….. its seems like the creator of that build couldnt decide if he wants to make a melee weapon or a ranged one.
Ok you could say that you could snare your enemy than leap on top of him use skill 3 and at the end skill 4 to get distance again …. thats a nice combo … but the only one which makes sense …. and using the same rotation over and over again makes the gameplay kind of dumb.

The lets have a look over a good example: The Greatsword of the reaper – https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Greatsword
First of the theme of the reaper is that of a juggernaut which slowly approaches and does lots of damage in close combat. This is supported by skill 2 and 4 -both beeing potent but having some kind of delay which your prey can use to escape. So the rest of the build is just to preventing that. You have a pull + chill on 5, chill in the autoattack chain and a cripple in 4. Plus a dash on 3 to get in position first.

So I want them to change all old weapon skills to match the quality of the new ones ….. if you get what I mean.

Well with Beta-Event 3 (I think?) we had the situation of nerved HoT-zones. Was really boring. And everyone wanted the difficulty back.

In my opinion you can critisize a lot on HoT. But not the overall enemy design and difficulty.

Well it is an cc. So like all ccs its only effective in pvp, againts elites and breakbars.

ChrizZcE.5981:

here are a couple changes how I would change the game:

skins drop randomly in the world so you aren´t forced to play in a specific part of the map. The most desirable skins will have the lowest drop rate, but any enemy can drop any skin. World bosses have specific, unique skins that only they can drop.

That is kind of an contradiction to itself. Shall every mop be able to drop every skin or are some skins exclusive drops from some mops. Regardless how you meant it, in combination with “no trading” that would mean, that if you are interested in an specific skin (lets say from the normal mop drops), you have to depend purely on RNG. And for myself, I wouldnt like that at all.

ChrizZcE.5981:

dungeons

dungeons have multiple difficulty tiers. After you complete the first tier you get a specific armor or weapon precursor with multiple stages that fits the dungeons theme. Successfully completing a tier makes the armor/weapon evolve until eventually you get the final legendary form provided you beat the hardest tier.

raids
similar to dungeons with multiple difficulty tiers. Rewards: special mount accessories and a special title that is visible to other players.

Good Idea. Also would implement an “Eternal” -Fractal mode, where you just complete one fractal after one fractal (maybe on time) with increasing difficulty and rewards of course.

ChrizZcE.5981:

no trading
exception being if you are doing group content and you get a skin that doesn´t fit your class then you can trade it with members in your group for a short period of time.

Which means, that all what is dropped is basically crap if you dont need it ….. as you cant even sell it.