Guild Wars 2

I just want some skimpy armor options for male avatars. I can’t even find one that bares my arms. Especially something like a more cutaway version of masquerade armor, sophisticated/skimpy.

Equal representation and more options/customization the ftw!

GvG with customizable, “raidable” (not that kind of raid) guild halls.

Customizable housing in the home instance, with story lines related to improving your neighborhood.

“Social” events (as opposed to “Zerg this boss”) and hearts in capital cities.

More activities/minigames, like we there were supposed to be.

3-6 utility skills for each profession, scattered throughout the game world similar to GW1 skil capture or tied to new dungeons/fractals.

Access to a new weapon for each profession (MH pistol for mesmers).

More minipets available from actual gameplay vs. the gem store. Maybe some more cosmetic mounts like the broom and carpet, available the same way.

I’ve wanted this since beta. Mesmer just feels so much better playing with this trait. More fluid and natural.

Playable instruments. Possibly the best social/rp support a game can have.

Seems relevant:

http://io9.com/bathing-goddess-deals-with-a-stubborn-perv-in-this-sill-502240908

Bearzu Smash.5962:

And lest you think this an anti-cash shop rant, I’d be more than happy to pay $10 for an outfit or a cool weapon skin I couldn’t otherwise get. But to gamble for it? No way.

(Well, ok, maybe not “more than happy to”, but certainly willing to.)

I would be absolutely delighted to pay $10 a pop for a skin I like, as I did for the reusable mining pick (another worthwhile, straight-up microtransaction). I loathe the lockbox approach and will not buy them.

Whip (2H, easier to add in that way) – thief, mesmer, necro, ranger, warrior

GW2 needs more minigames, not less. The crab toss should stay.

Wasn’t the Lost Shores survey pretty fairly anti-temp content? Or were the results private? All I remember is people griping about it, so clearly the answer is to keep doing it…

I want Cantha and a kungkittenmonk ASAP. The only downside I can see is comparison to MoP… Except GW1 had monks with some vague kungkittenelements (mostly related to aesthetics, but whatever) and Cantha well before Pandaria existed.

As for western markets not caring for Asia… Factions says “hi.” MoP flopped setting-wise because Pandaria is an irrelevant gaiden non-sequitur born of an April Fool’s joke, whereas Cantha has been an integral part of GW for years, now.

Adding Cantha and Elona and their diversity of cultures would make the game more “universal,” not less.

Edit: …Why can’t I say kungkitten

Things Rift has that GW2 does not:

- raiding (this is a reason I wouldn’t play, personally)
- trinity (as above)
- five spec slots
- collections system, including in-game books
- mounts (meh)

Things GW2 has that Rift does not:

- level scaling
- active combat
- waypoints
- non-competitive looting and gathering
- mesmers
- WvW

Personally, I also feel Rift’s graphics have a muddy/claymation sort of look, compared to the lush, colorful, painterly GW2. I don’t really see a reason to jump ship, but I would like it if ANet added collections systems and especially readable lore books.

Change Compounding Celerity to “Celeritous Signets: equipped signets give a passive 25% movement speed increase in addition to their standard effect” or “Mantric Celerity: increase movement speed by 5% for each active mantra” or similar.

1 – it’s pretty!
2 – eusocial: no competition for nodes, killstealing, etc.
3 – jump puzzles and hidden areas
4 – lore and class concepts (mesmer > than anything in any other MMO, ever*)
5 – action combat
6 – honorable mention for dye system

• EQ bard and enchanter come close

Carighan.6758:

To be honest I’d just make it trigger on attack, with a duration equal to the inter-attack delay.

I would love this.

At level 80, I just met Magister Sieran. I’m much more a fan of world exploration, which can easily level you beyond the personal story.

The issue seems to be you’re confining yourself to human starting zones – travel to any other racial capital should be free. Check out Caledon Forest, Metrica Province, or Plains of Ashford.

You’re going for all PoIs, skill challenges, vistas, and waypoints, too, right? Gathering everything in sight? Completing the daily achievements? I was only at 50% world completion and 0% PvP when I dinged 80.

PvE/PvP skill split, a la GW1. balance the two independent of each other and spare us all the headache.

PvE: dynamic event palooza. There just need to be more. More events, more dynamic changes, more meta events more breadcrumbing and cascades. More challenge and tactics. Better tuning for small numbers of players (I’m of the opinion that, if only one player is trying to repel the cyclops from Nageling, it should be feasible for one player to do so) and the larger zergs. I really feel the focus of GW2 should be enhancing the sandpark feel and encouraging players to actively travel and adventure through a living world. Everyone farming Plinxx or Fractals does not do much to invigorate the rest of the game.

PvP needs more game modes and more maps in general. Dueling options at least in HotM for players to spar.

WvW I honestly don’t know what I’d do.

Bonus thoughts: GvG. Housing. Activities and minigames. City revitalization via social skills enabled via townclothes, town hearts, town events. Minipets should be added throughout the world, not just on the gem shop, more achievements, add mounts. Take a look at collections in Rift or Free Realms.

Embolism.8106:

You don’t have to stagger them out, using Diversion with 3 Sword Clones and Illusionary Persona at point blank range will remove 4 stacks of Defiant regardless. Staggering them out just causes the Daze to last longer, but even if they all hit at the same time they still count as 4 Dazes.

Good to know. Thanks!

Iruwen.3164:

Jairyn.6913:

• staggering your illusion’s distance from the target can help your stack Diversion, stripping champion mob’s control immunity

I didn’t get that one, could you elaborate?

I’m blanking on what it’s called, Defiance or something. The buff a champion gets when it suffers a control effect makes it immune to the next 3 (actually, it scales to the number of players present). As each illusion counts as a separate Diversion, staggering them out so that they each hit separately will count as three dazes and peel off three layers of control immunity. Diversion doesn’t stack, though, so you have to get the timing/placement right such that each illusion casts its Daze before the next reaches the target to shatter.

Correction:

Embolism.8106:

You don’t have to stagger them out, using Diversion with 3 Sword Clones and Illusionary Persona at point blank range will remove 4 stacks of Defiant regardless. Staggering them out just causes the Daze to last longer, but even if they all hit at the same time they still count as 4 Dazes.

• conjuring a clone before a phantasm can help draw aggro to ensure phantasm lives (PvE)

• blink, phase escape, and swap can all be leveraged into a pseudo extra dodge

• torch has our only blast finish, but combined with chaos storm, time warp, or a glamor, this becomes AoE chaos armor

• chaos armor is awesome, use leap finishers like illusionary leap and phase escape to armor yourself whenever possible

• feedback basically causes unaware ranged attackers (like npcs) to kill themselves for you

• set a portal before a difficult jump to flash back where you started in case you missed, or use it to help people to the top of jump puzzles you’ve completed

• descent into madness, available at 10 point chaos, reduces falling damage by 50% which increases our exploration potential

• goes for everyone, but: major traits and utility skills can be swapped out of combat to better tune yourself to a given situation

• chaos storm can actually be stronger placed on you/allies/illusions as a defense rather than offense

• deceptive evasion and illusionary persona traits are amazing, illusionary elasticity buffs mirror blade and winds of chaos considerably

• when possible, conjure clones around corners or in heavy spell effects to help confuse enemies

• know your instants: skills loke mantra charge use and shatter can be cast as you channel other skills (like stomp)

• drop your illusions apart from each other to make them less susceptible to AoE

Thing is, it never worked to reflect projectiles, that I’m aware of. Changing the name of the buff to Blur from Distortion to delineate it from the shatter skill is something that’s in datamined info since beta. I just wish they would’ve made the change 500+ “distortion on blurred frenzy doesn’t work with masterful distortion” threads ago.

alcopaul.2156:

See, exotics will be the first step in the process. you can configure your exotic jewels to be berserker+emerald jewel and whalla, ascend it to have berserker+emerald stats with a slight increase. or you can configure your exotic weapons and armors with runes and sigil, ascend it and the ascended version will have the rune/sigil attributes.

this ascended versions are fixed and cannot be reconfigured but the infusions and the only way to reconfigure your ascended gear is to go the exotic way again and do all the configuration there with the appropriate jewel, rune or sigil and ascend them again.

with this setup, exotics are not obsoleted and is a prerequisite to get the ascended item.

I rather like the sound of this.

I definitely hope they find a way to retain the customization of runes as they roll out ascended armors.

It also would be nice to have ascension, infusions, and agony worked into the rest of the game, particularly the lore of the game. Use the upgrade process as a means to advance the story somehow, like in GW1, where it was part of the plot.

Reading the item descriptions was, in my opinion, one of the little highlights of the Baldur’s Gate series and Tyria has a pretty rich background of lore to draw from, I’d like ascended and legendary items to be able to have similar depth and flavor, to enrich the long process of their acquisition.

All of the above. So far as I’m concerned, unless virtually all avenues of play award max stat gear, eventually, the entire “play your way” paradigm is bunk.

I’d especially like to see more epic quest/scavenger hunt/skill challenge kind of mechanics applied to assembling ascended, just collecting mats and farming points is boring.

What happened to the PvE/PvP rules split? It’s strange to have gone from pointing out GW1 to other MMOs as “how to do it” to begging them to do the same for GW2.

I can appreciate that maybe having phantasms be lazy might be necessary for SPvP, but it feels like it makes PvE unplayable. So far as I’m concerned the instant activation was the saving grace of phantasms, in the first place. Something that appears, pauses, and dies isn’t really worth a skill slot. They’re too fragile to work.

Put me down for wishing we had less powerful summons that actually work than “powerful summons” that wait to be killed prior to activating.

If this is working as intended, perhaps it’s time to revisit that “phantasms are sturdier than clones” concept?

I would absolutely love to have more minigames.

Social events in cities. Auto townclothes that grant special social city skills. Social city hearts. Instanced city dungeons.

I’ve tried to “friends, country men, brothers! A day may come when the courage of men fails, but it is not this day, let us retake the Temple of Balthazar!” in zone chat.

The response is always something of the tune to “lol, it’s still bugged, noob.”

Dear Toymaker Tixx,

I’ve been a very good boy this year. I always rez people who need it, even NPCs, and always thank those who revive me. I also make a point of using Portal to help people with hearts and jump puzzles whenever I can.

This Wintersday, I would like:

1. MH pistol for mesmers
2. A lower respawn on dredge
3. Something that checks to prevent player dodge and dodge-like abilities (i.e. Phase Escape) from dropping you off ledges
4. Holiday hats
5. Really cool armor skins for sale on BLTC, but directly for sale, not in mystery wonder chest #543
6. Penguin mini
7. Red and green fireworks

I like to think they will either add infusions on top of runes/sigils/gems or perhaps offer “Infusion of Lyssa,” “Infusion of the Centaur,” etc.

Very, very glad to have these in.

A good way to rapidly generate additional content is to host player generated content as exemplified by the Neverwinter Nights toolset or Architect Entertainment in City of Heroes. I believe some other MMOs (EQ2? STO?) also leverage this feature.

Of course, AE in CoH was also an example of players abusing this feature to gain unexpected amounts of xp and currency and needed to be checked, so a token/currency system would still probably work better then awarding singular items. The real appeal there is the novelty of different scripted experiences and player storytelling. Free content.

In theory, a robust system of cascading dynamic events and meta events that breadcrumb through the world and/or randomized instanced dungeons a la Diablo or City of Heroes could also provide a great deal of replayable content that remains somewhat fresher.

Technically, infusions are intended to serve as item progression (“the carrot”) and will be precipitated throughout other forms of content. What we’re specifically referring to here is Agony and the Agony Resistance stat, which appears on the current iteration of infusions.

In that regard, I most certainly agree with you. To me it stinks of WoW’s resist gear (retired as “not fun”) and LOTRO’s Radiance (almost killed the game, devs removed). It also serves as a classic example of the futility of progression: everyone runs as fast as they can to stay where they are.

A more elegant solution would indeed be removing agony resistance and simply applying agony, tuned to the increasing difficulty level of FotM and potentially other content. Agony resistance is a needlessly limiting factor, the seeming definition of “gear check.”

Those who may invariably refer to Spectral Agony from GW1 should take a moment to recall that it was more of a plot device and was mitigated by a one-off quest.

EQ→City of Heroes→WoW launch-Cataclysm→LOTRO/Rift/GW1→Guild Wars 2

I love so much about GW2, but I hate the idea of a gear treadmill, fragmented playerbase, funneling traffic into a single instance, etc. I wish we could see less focus on dungeon grinding and more on enhancing dynamic events (harder/better/more dynamic/longer chains) and making it the “Online World” concept they were briefly pushing pre-release. More sandpark.

I want to keep returning to play again and again because there’s awesome new content, not another +1 to chase.

The sad thing is, City of Heroes used to be the MMO I felt I could always go back to…

Mesmer and MH pistol are like peanut butter and chocolate. They’re meant to be.

nachtnebel.9168:

- unique weapon and armor skins
- new animations for my skills
- different dances and other emotes

All of the above, also:

- makeover kits, both simple and extreme
- new customization options: hairstyles, color options, face and body templates
- cloaks
- way less “renting” or gambling style purchases, more honest cash-for-(digital) goods

Contentious, but I’d kinda like to see:

- dual spec
- mounts
- HoM rewards

Mine was also flagged as spam by GMail. If you’re waiting on tenterhooks, check the spam folder.

I explained I did not invite friends as the ones I had already enticed to GW2 were angry with me for leading them into the bait and switch that is the “new item progression initiative.”

Attacking a generation is still ad hominem.

It’s really, really simple: people want the game they were sold on. That game featured a stat plateau and cosmetic rewards.

I find the emphasis on endgame distressing. I find defining “dedicated” as “ground through content ASAP and now cries for progression” disgusting. I think ANet failing to make good on their word is unforgivable.

I wish the articles might percolate more into the mainstream, as GW2 release to pomp and fanfare did. Forbes, etc. what does Forbes think of fundamentally altering the goalposts? Nexon stock isn’t looking great.

So, were this true… What help can we give them?

… Also, to add fuel to the tinfoil… Shouldn’t the mods curtail conspiracy threads, not just change their titles? O.oooooo…

Upgraded skill appearance

The ability to reslot a skill from a weapon to another (i.e. I could equip a sword offhand for Temporal Curtain and Phantasmal Swordsman)

Vanity pets, titles, gear, trophies for player housing, emotes

New utility skills and elite skills

Training in new weapons

AA points

In game leaderboard/monuments for top performers

Player generated events and dungeons (can locate in the mists), puzzles

Some people will crucify me for this, but: mounts

Verteiron.8734:

Leave Ascended gear, it’s a nice balance point between Exotic and Legendary. Make sure it’s flashy and showy. Remove the Fractal-grinding prereq; tying top-tier armor to a single dungeon is a phenomenally stupid idea no matter how you look at it.

The Infusion/Spectral Agony mechanic was a bad idea in GW (notice they don’t reuse the mechanic after Prophecies?) and it’s an even worse idea the way it’s implemented here. Get rid of it. You want to make the Fractals dungeon ever-harder, do it the way you normally do: spawn more mobs and raise enemy levels.

Sounds good to me.

Content agnostic ascended and no Agony sounds like a game I’d love to play.

Fortuna.7259:

I think you mistake “replaced” for “saved.”

Anything else people do will be extremely limited.

This is rather true. I wish all rewards were normalized throughout the game. Content shouldn’t need to be incentivized: that should be the acid test for bad content. Let people play, not work.

Most people say they’d do Fractals without the gear, so that means Fractals is pretty great, but I wish it didn’t invalidate the rest of the game.

eisberg.2379:

This is what I agree with. Multiple routes to get them is perfect, which is what Exotics are.

I agree, too. No one would’ve really batted an eye at ascended if it was released available the way exotics are. Put in all the uber raid gear you want, as long as the rest of us can get it from crafting/events/PvP, too.

Shouldn’t that be the definition of pleasing everyone? I’ve never understood that about MMORPGs: if one is to take the (cynical and erroneous) view that people only play for more shinies… how exactly is restricting access to them supposed to keep everyone playing?

People would be more willing to chase the carrot if they didn’t have to jump through hoops.

Perfect quote, Corvindi. I may steal it.

I love the art style, with the exception of karka apparently being inspired by the movie Teeth and a fair amount of the Lost Shores landscape (especially the loading screen concept art) featuring forests of rainbow male anatomy, complete with bursts of steam.

MMORPG definition of progression: add +1 to player characters, add +2 to everything else. Progress!

I want more content, not lame systems created to artificially extend content beyond the point of over-saturation. Now, the Fractals are some good content, but it’d be easier to appreciate without gear gating, stat grinding, and content funneling.

Yes. So far as PVE goes, stats/progression is just an illusion, anyway, I’d prefer it over and done with ASAP, so I could focus on actually playing. Naturally, when it comes PVP, a stat imbalance is horrible.

Skill should be > gear throughout the game.

I wish we could still believe in the manifesto.

…then you really need a better gem shop.

Suddenly, ANet cares about vertical progression, and many say this is because they need those players for business purposes. I rather think, if the payout of BLTC was lower than expected, it might have to do with the offerings being terrible.

The #1 item for GW1 sales were costumes, we know this is also true for LOTRO – their biggest sellers are cloaks and dresses. The sparkle pony raked in extra millions for WoW.

So we get a cash shop of nonsensical town clothes, useless boosters, and hideously ugly gear available on an RNG basis from chests. No wonder it isn’t selling. Put in things that are worth buying and make that purchase guaranteed, and I promise the money will come rolling in.

I think ascended/infusions would’ve gone down a lot easier without a gating mechanic or dungeon content funnel. That combined with a tier, and the jaunty tone of the blog post, were like the recipe for a perfect storm.

If ANet needs to keep us all chasing +1s to pay the bills, they should ensure all players can.

I don’t envision dungeon grinders being huge patrons of the cash shop, shouldn’t they be able to get all the gems they want with gold?

I know I avoided TSW because of Funcom’s “reputation” and I never even looked at Age of Conan.

What’s still confusing me is that GW2 reportedly exceeded all expectations. Where did this gear nonsense come from?