Guild Wars 2

Let’s be clear, this version of condition stacking and condi builds being viable in all games modes is a large part of our goal. We just want to make sure we don’t create imbalances that actually make the game less fun. Don’t expect huge balance swings, but rather our balance goal has always been to make more small adjustments.

Gotejjeken.1267:

Please, for a love of whatever of the GW God’s you choose…get a test server. It is just unacceptable to me personally to see an entire game get unbalanced and the community have to play the waiting game until things are corrected.

This happens, because as bright as the people balancing things are, they simply cannot predict what is going to happen in a mass environment with live players. Can run all the algorithms in the world and that won’t stop a few players from devising a way to totally ruin the game.

Also, I don’t think we should pin this on conditions being too strong. I think everything is too strong.

I understand that this would be helpful but in the absence of a test server, which is our current situation, we will do as much as we can as fast as we can. We made some changes today and more will be coming as the week goes on. After that our intention is to make balance and bug fix changes to this stuff every couple of weeks leading up to the release of HoT.

Also, not everything is too strong, just all forms of damage.

Jon

Daegony.3604:

JonPeters.5630:

Cheshire.8761:

Are you going to address how you forced characters to train into builds using their hero points without their consent? :o

Why not. Basically there were two options, both with a large number of edge cases.

1) We wipe your stuff and let you respec as you see fit. Because so much had changed this was our initial plan. Here are problems it ran into.

• People return from a long hiatus and don’t remember what they were running
• People log in and the first thing they have to do before they can play is learn both the new unlocking system and the new build system.

2) We look at what you had equipped and unlock the necessary skills and traits to re-equip you. Here were some discussions points around that:

• We might give you stuff you don’t want
• at least this won’t matter for lvl 80s if we make all the unlocks possible by just reaching lvl 80.

There is a third option which I’m sure you will bring up.
3) let players choose
Here are some reasons we did not go with that:

• Its twice the work
• Its actually more than twice the work because it would have required temporarily saving both options until you choose which is more complex technical work.
• People who were unlikely to understand or want to explore the new system were going to be potentially more confused by the choice.

At the end of the day we wanted to ship this build so we had to decide. Based on instinct we erred on the side of helping people we thought would be more overwhelmed by the opposite choice, and I would make that choice again because it has less edge cases, impacts more expert users, and leans towards over unlocking for free to benefit most of the edge cases anyway.

Hope this info helps you understand our process a bit more.

Thanks,

Jon

Does it break anything if you just add a “refund hero points” button? That way you can just let the game re-build your choices and if your not satisfied, just refund the points and assign them to what you need/want. Just a suggestion anyway =D

It actually breaks everything. The point of a system with more points that points to spend is to allow players to both eventually unlock everything and to bank for future unlocks. If you take a system like that and allow people to refund in it you break both of these fundamental reasons for the system existing. There are two ways to go with any system that has points spent.

1) Let people continue to earn and continue to progress
2) Limit the amount people can progress or spec and make a refund system.

This new system actually contains aspects of both of these. On the side of unlocking we went with a “keep making progress” system where players would eventually get all of the things they want and more, the more they played. We felt like for unlocks this is a better system because it gives people more to unlock and it doesn’t put pressure on a refund system to make the most basic functionality of having stuff work.

On the build side of things (and this is a general principle of GW2) we went with a make choices and refund system. The choices being which skills, specs and traits you select and the respec process being basically free once everything is unlocked.

Jon

Just getting these out there so we know we are all in agreement:

1) Conditions seem a bit strong
2) World bosses are currently too easy
3) There are some bugged skills and traits
4) There are some overpowered builds

We won’t fix it all at once but these are four large topics we are talking about. In the meantime keep the feedback and bug reports coming, and I guess farm up some world bosses. We are dedicating time towards these issues and are intending to resolve them as quickly as possible. As we have said before, the live environment differs too greatly from anything we can reliably simulate internally so big changes like today’s build will cause things to sometimes change at an alarming rateTM.

Thanks for your patience,

Jon

Got it. Thanks!

Can you provide more info?

Was hoping saying it once was enough but I’ll say it again. This is a work in progress. Try to give feedback based on the utility and synergy of the trait instead of the numbers. Slow every 3rd critical hit could also be every 10th critical hit. It could be 8s of slow instead of two. Obviously these numbers are an attempt to be accurate otherwise we wouldn’t even give them but a lot of this stuff will go up and/or down before HoT is released.

Jon

Hey all. Here are the Chronomancer traits from Robert! Keep in mind, all numbers are a work in progress.

Minor

• Time Splitter – Gain access to continuum split/shift which allows you to revert to an earlier point in time.
• Flow of Time – Gain alacrity when you shatter. (1s)
• Time Marches On – You move 25% faster. The duration of incoming movement-impairing conditions is reduced by 25%. (Cripple. Chilled, Immobilize)

Adept

• Time Catches Up – Activating a shatter gives your illusions Super Speed
• Delayed Reactions – Interrupting a foe slows them. (3s of Slow)
• All’s Well that Ends Well – Wells remove conditions from allies when they end. (1 condition)

Master

• Illusionary Reversion – Gain a clone after you activate a shatter skill.
• Improved Alacrity – Alacrity applied to you lasts longer. (33%)
• Danger Time – Gain additional critical hit chance against slowed enemies. (30%)

Grandmaster

• Lost Time – Every 3rd critical hit will slow your target. (2s of Slow)
• Chronophantasma – Your phantasms respawn the first time they are shattered.
• Seize The Moment – Gain quickness for each illusion you shatter. (1s of Quickness)

A couple notes on Dragonhunter. We went with this name because we felt it was evocative of the medieval witch hunters. Guardians consider themselves protectors of the innocent. Followers of their faith be it in honor, valor, etc. The origin of the dragonhunter is a more subtle nuanced version of this. Guardians fight for justice and the dragonhunter faction believes justice is the eradication of dragons and their minions. I understand this is a lot more high concept than Mesmer but at the end of the day we felt like we wanted to try and push a more mature theme here. I hope this helps explain our thinking. We had other generic names in mind but felt like it was important to have a mix of spec names that are generic fantasy, more Tyrian fantasy, and more high concept. This one falls more in the third category.

Thanks,

Jon

MiniEquine.6014:

Any idea for Cooldowns if these would be put in place? The Tomes are pretty cool, but Courage, currently, is almost useless.

I don’t have the heal/boon duration numbers in my head but the current test cooldowns are 180 on signet of course and 30 on “feel my wrath.”

Jon

Thank you all for being patient with this. Something we introduced on 3/16 broke passive mode. We believe we now have a fix for this and it is in testing. As soon as we confirm this fix has solved this issue we will push it to the live game at the first possible time.

Thanks,

Jon

Patch is in. Let me know if there are any anomalies that we missed on this particular front. Fear interrupt fix should be coming shortly behind this one.

Jon

Zetsumei.4975:

JonPeters.5630:

Hey all. We have found this bug and are working on a fix. Thanks for your help in identifying this problem.

Jon

Just sayin, necro fears have stopped interrupting a couple of patches ago

Should be a hotfix for this incoming as well.

Hey all. We have found this bug and are working on a fix. Thanks for your help in identifying this problem.

Jon

It appears something in this patch has broken a lot of the skill timing on live. We are looking into this and will get a fix to live as soon as we know what happened. Thank you for all of the detailed reports, hopefully they help us track down the source of this issue ASAP.

Thanks for your patience,

Jon

Nike.2631:

JonPeters.5630:

…we have said for a while now, we know that the current stack cap creates problems for condition players who want to work together. What you saw today was the first test in solving some of these problems. Keep in mind, it is not necessarily final and absolutely not the entire plan.

A question:

Do you anticipate whatever solution AreanNets settles on to be delivered prior to HoT’s release like the current stability changes or to be held to coincide with the expansion?

We don’t know yet, but the goal is to have this BY HoT at the very latest. I don’t think we would hold it if we felt it was the right solution, tested it well and felt it was balanced.

Thanks for all the posts in the last few days. I’m not ignoring you just too busy to post and discuss right now. Keep the ideas flowing.

Jon

I’m definitely pushing to have us work on some detailed brainstorming of the guild upgrade system. Here is a very short summary of discussion thus far:

• Someone suggested that the upgrades be tied to buildings which I think has some very clear potential.
• People have suggested a few ways to break those upgrades down but none too specific.
• We need to discuss how the building system would incorporate old upgrades but also provide new ones.
• What kind of new upgrades would be possible because of the system turning into buildings?
• What changes to influence and guild progression should happen to make it more intuitive if we went with buildings?
• How do we build customization into this upgrade system where there currently is none? Someone suggested this and there were some talk of separating clear core functionality from the unique customized features, but that is sort of where we stopped.

I’d love to see people just blue sky take a crack and fleshing out some of these ideas and then I would be happy to summarize which ones I think gel well together and try to combine them into a more cohesive design that we could then begin discussing the pros and cons of.

Jon

munkiman.3068:

Tryxtr.6295:

Way too many ideas in here to comment on all of them, but here’s my thoughts on a few.

Suggestion to Devs
I think it would be extremely helpful if the devs could constrain our brainstorming a little bit by making a decision on a few key areas, such as instanced -vs- open world and minimum size. That would help streamline the conversation a little. I would also suggest starting an entirely new thread once a couple concrete decisions are made.

Lots of amazing ideas so far and there’s a lot of potential here.

I agree, however i do wonder if it’s just that further internal discussion would need to take place before they could narrow things down. I like that they are putting in little guided points to discuss, but not totally locking us into a key concept. Both Jon and Chris have stated they prefer instances (vs open world design) as well, but it’s good that they are willing to listen to reasons behind the idea and various suggestions to fix the issues, instead of just entirely dismissing it. Still at some point someone has to call it, just for the sake of progress or not beating a dead “mount”

To be fair I prefer open world design, but think its very hard to overcome many decisions that have already been made in the game.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

JonPeters.5630:

My box is guild upgrades. I want us to brainstorm how we could revamp the upgrade system given the introduction of a feature such as guild halls.

1.) Something that comes to my mind would be a system where you have a specific number of free slots and you have to choose which things you’d put into them – just like the skill-system (3 utility slots but many choices to put into those). This would make guilds relatively unique vs. others.

The bigger the guild – the more variety is available for them via more slots. Small guilds may have only 2 slots (e.g. they specialize on dungeons and sPvP) but it’s not too hard for them to reach the higher tiers in these categories, since their chosen slot-options are designed for small groups.

2.) What if each player could choose 1-2 occupations in the guild hall? He would gain personal reputation and would unlock stuff only specialists on that area could get. This way the huge guild-group would be split into multiple sub-groups which work together for their sub-goals. (e.g. the dungeon-specialists would unlock dungeon portals for their guild, but only on higher level tiers in their sub-paths. Players who play a lot of GvG could unlock new GvG-maps for their guild. They also unlock personal prestige rewards (like costumes) but also stuff for everyone in the guild. etc.)

Not everyone can unlock everything, which would make smaller groups within the guild more meaningful. You would have to specialize, which would be important so that more people are involved in the upgrade-process instead of only a few hardcore players who unlock everything and make the others feel redundant.

(something like TF2’s classes – the more you play with one, the more you can customize your character and the more you can help your team in a variety of ways).

This could go even further: The dungeon team could also have multiple sub-categories, where players can and should specialize. Players who play very supporty (revive a lot, heal a lot) could unlock exotic gear with support-stats for everyone to purchase, while they unlock personal things as well (skins which show off the support-role).

The TLDR here would be: give every player something to specialize in so that this player would feel special in a guild while he unlocks stuff for himself (prestige-items) as well as for the whole group (useful items).

I like this, but would want to make sure we don’t deny access to core features. Someone suggested guild hall upgrade trees as guild hall structures. I think you could make an argument for structure types. Ones that contain core features vs more unique specialized structures that guilds must choose some number of to build.

munkiman.3068:

Thorfinnr Sleggja.1209:

Devata.6589:

Thorfinnr Sleggja.1209:

Devata.6589:

Did you read the thread and know what the air-ship suggestions where about?
Basically the idea whas you could build your own airships and for idea’s of what would be possible see the Wizard’s Tower http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Wizard's_Tower and the Zephyr Sanctum http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Zephyr_Sanctum

In short, yes, I have read the thread…and many ideas that have been listed are fine and actually quite cool…but in perspective…may take a long time in development to get them into the game. Which is why I suggest start small, get the GHs in, get some quick wins with the community, and keep a group(obviously not their only thing) working on new additions to go into GHs say every 2-3 months(some go in automatically, some may need a Guild to “work” toward adding them to their GH). Each small addition could build on the background supporting system development to work up to the big adds that many are suggesting here and get them into the game.

I would expect them keeping adding new stuff to it. But you first do the bulk of work and then start adding stuff, not the other way around.

OK…apparently this is now Devata’s Thread, and I do not fit in with his expectations of contribution.

Chris and Jon, this was a good thread with many good point-counter-point ideas and discussions, but since 1 person has now decided to deride any suggestions, not only mine, that are not in line with what they think should be done, I will no longer add input to this thread.

Good Luck, and I hope more constructive things like this can take place.

I’m waiting on Jon to come back with “a box” list so we can really brainstorm further on potentially good ideas. I’m also waiting on Chris for question 2

I think the idea of open world guild halls is sound, for another game, like Archage

My box is guild upgrades. I want us to brainstorm how we could revamp the upgrade system given the introduction of a feature such as guild halls.

munkiman.3068:

Devata.6589:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Devata.6589:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

‘As for guild alliance halls. They could work, and would be neat. The only issue would be, what happens if the alliance breaks apart? who gets the hall?’

Initial thoughts are that members of the Alliance would each get an instance of the shared guild hall. And yes I am aware I said instance. This is purely because I am a fan of instance over open world (-:

Chris

Personally I think I’d prefer instanced Guild Halls over open world ones anyway, since I wouldn’t necessarily want people wandering into my hall uninvited. Would be like someone simply wandering into my home without knocking. But, that’s just my take on it.

Now, with each guild getting their own instanced of the previously built “shared” hall, if the guild entered into a new/different alliance would they then lose that, since this different alliance would potentially have their own shared hall? Could they potentially lose all the effort they put into the previously shared hall, or would that effort then translate into the new alliance? (which opens up a whole different selection of issues and potential exploits)

“I wouldn’t necessarily want people wandering into my hall uninvited.”
And why would that be possible in open-world guild-halls?

Especially with doors like in WvW where the guild can set a door only allow guild-members or allow everybody in, or other rules. Whatever they want.

Or guild-hall airships. Maybe you allow gong on to other airships but maybe not. (if the gap between two airships is to big)

That has been given as a solution in this thread.

The common theme with open world is the ability to go anywhere as you please. Thus the keyword “open.” It’s all one big instance without restrictions. To lock non guild members out makes it not ‘open world’ anymore, as the hall becomes its own instance. It’s own map. Similar to crossing from Queensdale to Kessex, for example. Open world guild halls (at least to me) would be much closer to how the lodges function in Hoelbrak.

I’m not sure on the airship proposal. I’m not keen on air ships to be honest. But, that’s just my perspective on it.

Open world means your guild hall is in the open world. That does not mean that there are no restrictions and it does also not mean everybody can get inside it. But everybody could walk or fly past in.

You know just like in real life your house is in the open world but you can’t build everywhere you like and the door prevents unwanted people from getting in.

Basically, my vote is a no. There is an expectation to guild halls IMO, that it’s a private place for Guilds to gather, especially on top of it issues with megaservers and population. As discussed already, what is the population cap of a guild hall? 150-200-400? Right now open world won’t hold much more than 150 people in most cases and we are talking about server plots on maps that are capable of holding something like 1000 players or more?

I’d also like to see Guild halls mapped out like they were in GW, where you had 2 sides (2 structures) that supported GvG, which isn’t possible in an open world scenario. I’m of the mind that you solve every issue discussed by just making them an instance, besides boring and showing off.

Devata,

I don’t want to call you out, but because you are such a strong proponent for open world, what kind of systems, tied to guild halls would you like to see to help gain some of the benefits that you feel make open world so compelling.

P.S. I agree that open world is super compelling, but also feel like in an already live game you can see both the resistance you are going to get from existing players and the difficulties you will have to overcome of decisions made in the past.

Jon

DiogoSilva.7089:

JonPeters.5630:

Conski Deshan.2057:

I find the current upgrade system quite stagnant and boring, you get your influence passively, click a button then wait a week.
(no offense intended to the creator of the system)
Maybe have the initial guild hall unlock under architecture say level 2/3 but past that an active system is needed.

On Categories for upgrades ,I’d see it breaking down something like this: (I may have what you meant by this wrong?)
Structures:
-Towers -halls -corridors -entry halls -Misc rooms
Defenses: (could be just graphical)
-Trebs -Cannons -Hot oil -Misc
Interior:
-Seating -Tables/cabinets -Rugs/banners/flags -Wallpapers/wall -statues/monuments -Misc
Exterior (wouldn’t actually limit it to placement outside as I’d like water features in the command room)
-Fountains -Trees -plants -training grounds -Livestock -Misc
NPCS
-Functional -Decorative -Alts
Glory or Rare category (this section would have limited placement (i.e once per guild hall or 10 per guild hall) basically the more prestige and high end stuff.
Limited Section for limited items i.e reward from once off events or competitions like a new Christmas tree each year.

This is a great break down, but I was speaking more about categorizing guild upgrades. Let me give an example to help get things started:

• WvW
• PvP
• Guild Missions
• Dungeons

This would tie the upgrades more to game mode than to the current arbitrary categories.

Before making a breakdown, I would like to think a little about Conski Deshan’s point regarding how “passive” influence is. I mean, I pretty much forget that it even exists, most of the time.

So, I am thinking, assuming the simplest case scenario: no customisable halls (excluding a visual representation of the guild upgrades), what could be a good reason to add guild-driven dynamic events/ quests/ hunts all around the world, if there’s no furniture to hunt down? Well, to make influence more actively obtainable!

Anyways, back to the breakdown, I think your example is effective and simple to understand. But I propose the following:

• Architecture (the guild halls itself)
  Unlocks guild halls, determines their size/ scope, unlocks general merchants and functionalities (bank, etc) within the guild halls, in addition to the current effects;
• Guild Identity / Representation (marketing the guild or having a presence)
  Unlocks and/ or expands upon guild armors, emblems, advertising boards, flag buffs, etc;
• Competition
  WvW buffs, GvG privileges, access to and maintainment of a guild-bound custom arena (as an alternative to the current means), ability to set up tournaments, unlocking access to pvp training area (with dummies) in the guild hall, etc. Also includes unlocking the respective merchants.
• World Presence (player-driven or player-created events)
  Guild missions, guild-related hunts or dynamic events for privilege/ furniture/ whatever, ability to organized guild events in towns, ability to set up duels, etc. Maybe the flag buffs can be here. Maybe this category can be fused with Guild Identity;
• General PvE Experience/ Organization
  For dungeons, fractals, raids, open world events and buffs.

Good categories. I agree influence is not a good system and we should think about how we would change how you obtain upgrades once we have talked through the specifics of what kind of upgrades a new system has and how it incorporates the existing upgrades.

Edgar Doiron.2804:

munkiman.3068:

JonPeters.5630:

This is a great break down, but I was speaking more about categorizing guild upgrades. Let me give an example to help get things started:

• WvW
• PvP
• Guild Missions
• Dungeons

This would tie the upgrades more to game mode than to the current arbitrary categories.

So. This is about changing the categories to be more inline with game modes and it looks like you’re adding a few as dungeons and PvP only oriented categories don’t exist currently. Since politics and economy work globally across game modes (in general), where would they fall in this new category structure?

I’m at the point of trying to see what this has to do with the halls themselves though. Or are we just speaking about what parts of these new categories would be displayed in a hall? I like the idea of having an extra Asura Contractor show up and start building stuff in a workshop (which could currently sit in the architecture area “Build a physical workshop in your guild hall”). They could be crafting things like banners banquets and the like. While it’s a fun idea, it really doesn’t add much functionality to the upgrade system, but it does integrate the idea of halls more closely to the process.

Yep i’m trying to grasp what Jon wants here.

Does he just want us to redistribute the current upgrades under new names? or what?

If Guild Halls become the upgrade system it is an opportunity to look at the upgrade distribution and make it more meaningful and more sensible. This is an opportunity for you to do that. I just gave an example so that you could make your own suggestions within that understanding.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

JonPeters.5630:

[…]

Saved for later when we get a dungeon or raid CDI: I like the direction in which this suggestion is going but I would suggest another implementation.

Back to Guild Halls
One question I would like to have answered:
Guilds can hold up to 500 players. Normal maps can hold up to 100 – 150 (?) players.
How do you want to ensure that players don’t feel separated from each other, can you raise the player-cap for Guild Halls?
Do you have any other idea how to get around this issue?

As Chris would put it: Le Bump.
I would like to know how you want to get around the player cap.

I’ll chime in a bit here. It is a good question. I think there would be some conflict here but that there would also be some technical wiggle room. I think we can safely assume that 500 players from a guild being logged in is not the common case. What is a “reasonable” maximum # of members in the guild hall to you? 150? 200? 400?

Conski Deshan.2057:

JonPeters.5630:

Actually it hasn’t been talked about at all. I’ve seen a lot of basic suggestions, but what I am suggesting is that we flesh something out here in this thread. I’m choosing the upgrade system because someone actually started breaking it down. I think the first question(s) I have is:
Are the current upgrade categories the ones we would use or would we break it up differently? If not, how many categories would you think make sense? Specifically what would your categories be?

Jon

I find the current upgrade system quite stagnant and boring, you get your influence passively, click a button then wait a week.
(no offense intended to the creator of the system)
Maybe have the initial guild hall unlock under architecture say level 2/3 but past that an active system is needed.

On Categories for upgrades ,I’d see it breaking down something like this: (I may have what you meant by this wrong?)
Structures:
-Towers -halls -corridors -entry halls -Misc rooms
Defenses: (could be just graphical)
-Trebs -Cannons -Hot oil -Misc
Interior:
-Seating -Tables/cabinets -Rugs/banners/flags -Wallpapers/wall -statues/monuments -Misc
Exterior (wouldn’t actually limit it to placement outside as I’d like water features in the command room)
-Fountains -Trees -plants -training grounds -Livestock -Misc
NPCS
-Functional -Decorative -Alts
Glory or Rare category (this section would have limited placement (i.e once per guild hall or 10 per guild hall) basically the more prestige and high end stuff.
Limited Section for limited items i.e reward from once off events or competitions like a new Christmas tree each year.

This is a great break down, but I was speaking more about categorizing guild upgrades. Let me give an example to help get things started:

• WvW
• PvP
• Guild Missions
• Dungeons

This would tie the upgrades more to game mode than to the current arbitrary categories.

timmyf.1490:

Jon-

As the leader of a smallish (5-15 active/day) guild, my primary concern would be gating off access to content or increased rewards. For example, it’s not a big deal if larger guilds have bigger, cooler guild halls. My members will be fine. But if guild halls bring extra/better buffs or rewards, that makes it harder to recruit and retain members.

I think the core functionality should be time-gated, higher-end cosmetics cost-gated and/or activity-gated.

Ok. I think as a good exercise, try and be more specific. If you give specific examples in each category it is a lot easier to extrapolate than if you try and generally describe the categories.

Donari.5237:

On scaling of costs:

How do we keep it fair given that guilds change size? As Conski asks, would this system encourage people to make a small guild, create a huge hall, then invite in all the other members waiting?

I don’t want to limit small guilds, but with scaling it might be vital to have a hall size limit based on membership, so when you get more people in, you can build more space but at the increased costs. (And then we worry about inactive members bloating costs just as afkers scale up events). Contrariwise, guilds that downscale should not have their large space demolished. Remember my adamant stance against decay, here!

I think one solution to the scaling problems is to create different aspects that work on different scales. For example some aspects can be time gated and therefore don’t favor any size guild. Some can be based on straight up farming which favor larger guilds, and some could be driven by activity and favor guilds with active members. Think of it like the 3 branches of government, and the aspects within that. The senate favors states, the house favors population (or gerrymandering at least ), etc…

I think in that way the question that comes to mind is what parts of Guild Halls would you want to have work in what different ways so that we can reward big guilds for those areas but not punish small guilds for the things they really want…

Jon

Devata.6589:

JonPeters.5630:

Sarrs.4831:

JonPeters.5630:

I don’t remember saying locked. I said how would you change some of the current functionality to be more integrated with guild halls? I don’t think functionality has to go away to do this and I’d like to see what value you all might envision a guild hall could bring to things like Guild Missions, the current Guild upgrade system, etc.

Jon

Let’s go all the way.

Your guild instance map is seperated into four sections: Politics, economics, art of war and architecture. As you upgrade these things through the I-VI lines, the sections will get grander; for example, if you have level 0 politics, you have no building on that section, if you have level 1, you have a basic lodge, all the way up to a palace at level 6.

The other smaller upgrades have smaller effects on the plot. For example, if you build a guild workshop, you have an actual workshop on your architecture plot. If you have Outsource Asuran Contracting, an Asura hangs out in your Politics building and you can talk to him. If those upgrades are actually doing something then they’re doing something in the guild hall; for example if you’re building something at the workshop, the machinery is running and you have a few NPCs running about working, if you have the Asuran Contractor working, he’s fiddling about on one of those computer things they have. Every upgrade should have something along these lines actually happening in the guild hall to correlate with it.

Also a few upgrades could have added functionality, or new upgrades that come out of them. For example, you can upgrade your Guild Workshop to have crafting tables.

This is a great start and since I said I would try and break down a single thing lets do it with this topic during the week. I think your proposal is great but it really only 1 step of the way. I hope we can take this a lot further and look forward to doing that on Monday.

Jon

This is the most basic idea of guild-halls. Taking it a lot further is what happened during the last 15 pages I would think?

Now about locking out content. You will be always locking something out for people who don’t join guilds as this is a guild-feature. What is important that guild off all sizes are able to participate. And that is give them things to do in the game.. Things that might not all be new or guild-related.

The examples of dungeons rewarding portals to city’s for example. The content ‘dungeons’ is already availing for people. Whats new is the reward and the ability to use that in the guild-hall.

Actually it hasn’t been talked about at all. I’ve seen a lot of basic suggestions, but what I am suggesting is that we flesh something out here in this thread. I’m choosing the upgrade system because someone actually started breaking it down. I think the first question(s) I have is:
Are the current upgrade categories the ones we would use or would we break it up differently? If not, how many categories would you think make sense? Specifically what would your categories be?

Jon

Sarrs.4831:

JonPeters.5630:

I don’t remember saying locked. I said how would you change some of the current functionality to be more integrated with guild halls? I don’t think functionality has to go away to do this and I’d like to see what value you all might envision a guild hall could bring to things like Guild Missions, the current Guild upgrade system, etc.

Jon

Let’s go all the way.

Your guild instance map is seperated into four sections: Politics, economics, art of war and architecture. As you upgrade these things through the I-VI lines, the sections will get grander; for example, if you have level 0 politics, you have no building on that section, if you have level 1, you have a basic lodge, all the way up to a palace at level 6.

The other smaller upgrades have smaller effects on the plot. For example, if you build a guild workshop, you have an actual workshop on your architecture plot. If you have Outsource Asuran Contracting, an Asura hangs out in your Politics building and you can talk to him. If those upgrades are actually doing something then they’re doing something in the guild hall; for example if you’re building something at the workshop, the machinery is running and you have a few NPCs running about working, if you have the Asuran Contractor working, he’s fiddling about on one of those computer things they have. Every upgrade should have something along these lines actually happening in the guild hall to correlate with it.

Also a few upgrades could have added functionality, or new upgrades that come out of them. For example, you can upgrade your Guild Workshop to have crafting tables.

This is a great start and since I said I would try and break down a single thing lets do it with this topic during the week. I think your proposal is great but it really only 1 step of the way. I hope we can take this a lot further and look forward to doing that on Monday.

Jon

munkiman.3068:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

JonPeters.5630:

I think the only good assumption here is that we are talking about to bring up the positives and negatives of a system. What are the benefits to guild halls having a large cost? What are the drawbacks? I’m saying this because I think it has both and am wondering what your take is.

My take is no matter what you do, the forums will be on fire afterwards about how the decision is obviously wrong and ANet is “once again out of touch with what players want”.

There isn’t a way to do any of this which is going to get a 100% approval rating, no matter what you read here in the forums. I’ve inferred such to Chris several times before we started down these CDIs.

And so, I’m trying to think around that particular blocking thought – because it’s become an increasingly stressful problem on trying to come up with anything useful.

What i’ve seen with these CDI’s in general, is the basic fact that we as players don’t really know what our constraints are, so we make all these elaborate proposals and brainstorm around them. Which works amazingly well when you know what is technically feasible. So we get a lot of great ideas floating around, and people say “wow” that’s great, but then we get either a shell of the idea or something radically different.

It’s definitely a bonus to “think outside the box”, yet if you don’t know how big the box is, it’s very difficult to think outside of it. I know it’s their goal to build off the elaborate discussions we have in these, it just seems to typically lead to additions or changes that end up being more frustrating than fun. Add to that the rule of what’s discussed here is just for the sake of it, really doesn’t give anyone a clear design goal.

I got the concept behind all this, but they really need to be more open and focused with us than just have us run with wild ideas. I mean we are going to get those anyway, even when we have a tighter constraints. That’s just how discussion among a large group tend to go.

this is a great point. I have not explicitly said what the box is on purpose but I’m happy next week to take an idea and really ask all the hard questions to try to boil it down more so that you can all see how this works more clearly on our end. One thing is the constraints we have are rarely what you all imagine they might be so I think it will be good to break down an actual problem that way.

Jon

Ok all. I’m done for the night. Got a busy day tomorrow so see you back on Monday likely.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

JonPeters.5630:

• What makes you think Guild Halls are difficult to acquire?
• Try to brainstorm ways in which Guild Hall acquisition could be fun.
• Think about some rewards a physical Guild Hall might give you that couldn’t be done without it and how the ability to give those rewards could create a version of an improvement to a system that previously was considered impossible and is now instead very simple, clear, and compelling?

Responding to #1 – I think the assumption is going to be “guild halls are limited by cost or number” until otherwise stated to be not the case.

I’ll respond to the other two as I think on it a little more tonight.

I think the only good assumption here is that we are talking about to bring up the positives and negatives of a system. What are the benefits to guild halls having a large cost? What are the drawbacks? I’m saying this because I think it has both and am wondering what your take is.

Palador.2170:

JonPeters.5630:

I don’t remember saying locked. I said how would you change some of the current functionality to be more integrated with guild halls? I don’t think functionality has to go away to do this and I’d like to see what value you all might envision a guild hall could bring to things like Guild Missions, the current Guild upgrade system, etc.

Jon

If you think of an improvement to something like Guild Missions, fine. Go for it. I’m sure a lot of guilds will thank you for it.

But, if you need to have a Guild Hall to get that improvement, then there’s a problem. Make it work with guild halls? Fine. But it needs to have a non-guild hall way to work for the other guilds. Otherwise that improvement IS locked behind a guild hall.

Let’s take an example: Guild vs Guild. A lot of people seem to want this to involve Guild Halls. Fine, but it also needs to work for those that don’t have a Guild Hall. Maybe, if one’s required for you to defend, then a guild without one is given a generic hall to defend for the duration of the match. That way, even guilds without a hall are not locked out of GvG.

Do you see what I’m saying? Any changes or improvements need to stand on their own, and then they can be integrated into Guild Halls.

Actually I’m not sure I see what you are saying. By inherently adding Guild Halls to a game that becomes a core piece of guilds where it not only makes the system more integrated and potentially more interesting through how these pieces of systems interact, but also is likely to make things more clear by physically representing what is happening to players.

• What makes you think Guild Halls are difficult to acquire?
• Try to brainstorm ways in which Guild Hall acquisition could be fun.
• Think about some rewards a physical Guild Hall might give you that couldn’t be done without it and how the ability to give those rewards could create a version of an improvement to a system that previously was considered impossible and is now instead very simple, clear, and compelling?

Ohoni.6057:

What current aspects of guilds would you change to integrate them more with guild halls? If you would change something, how would you change it to work more with a physical Guild Hall?

Jon

I think guild halls should only add, not take away. I think that they might become a more convenient place to access guild features like guild bank and guild NPCs, but the existing ones should all remain in place for guilds without a hall.

Do you mean some form of Guild Crafting? How would you expect that to work?

I think it would be fine if Guild Halls could unlock permanent crafting stations so that members could have access to them without leaving the hall, but I am VERY opposed to any ideas that would involve making guilded crafters better at crafting than non-guilded ones, such as having unique recipes that can only be unlocked through the guild system, or bonuses to crafting speed or something. A member of the biggest guild in the game, standing in front of his guild hall Weaponsmithing station, should not be in any way better off than an unguilded player standing in front of one of the ones in LA.

One way to change something is to add to it. Also for example the method for something could change it strictly for the better. i.e. when we made WvW progression account bound and spent on character instead of character bound.

One version of Guild Crafting is some way for your guild to craft stuff, as a Guild, not people crafting in your guild hall but some sort of guild factory. Could influence or merits or other aspects of guilds be improved by integrating with this “factory?”

I see this kind of response a lot and for this and future CDIs, I want to quote a wise person I work with, who will remain anonymous. When you are commenting on someones suggestion, start by thinking of the coolest possible version of it that they “must” be thinking of in their head, not the crappy “first implementation that pops into my head” version of it.

This is one of the best golden lessons about both game design and collaboration.

Jon

Palador.2170:

JonPeters.5630:

Something I haven’t seen much discussion on that I thought would be interesting. Not saying you have to go this way but.

What current aspects of guilds would you change to integrate them more with guild halls? If you would change something, how would you change it to work more with a physical Guild Hall?

Jon

NOTHING!

Again, I repeat, other things should not become locked behind guild halls. Not everyone will want to mess with them. Making a guild work differently in expectation of a guild hall is just asking for problems.

I don’t remember saying locked. I said how would you change some of the current functionality to be more integrated with guild halls? I don’t think functionality has to go away to do this and I’d like to see what value you all might envision a guild hall could bring to things like Guild Missions, the current Guild upgrade system, etc.

Jon

Asukai.4507:

Guild Halls and Housing would be good in the game maybe getting some crafting going with it

Do you mean some form of Guild Crafting? How would you expect that to work?

Something I haven’t seen much discussion on that I thought would be interesting. Not saying you have to go this way but.

What current aspects of guilds would you change to integrate them more with guild halls? If you would change something, how would you change it to work more with a physical Guild Hall?

Jon

Rambodacious.7495:

Each type of mob in each dungeon is given 4 abilities. Whenever a group enters the dungeon and the instance is spawned, each of the mob types is randomly assigned 2 of the 4 abilities. Further, there are walls that prevent players from skipping past many sections. For the players to continue, they must kill the mobs present.

Now, the mobs have say, knock-downs and AOE bleeds. Maybe instead, it’s poison and boon corruption. Always something new. Sometimes, 5 zerks work. Sometimes they don’t.

I don’t want to derail the entire thread, but this is a collaborative environment. Let me ask you some of the questions I would ask one of our designers if they proposed such a thing.

1) What makes a creature interesting and challenging? Is it their skills, and would a combination of two random skills be balanced, rewarding, challenging?
1a) How do you make sure that all 6 combinations of skills are similarly balanced, create a variety of tactics, work together, get used in a way that makes their synergy work. Don’t create problems of triviality or difficulty when combined with a different creatures randomly chosen combination of skills?
2) One thing that makes difficult content satisfying is mastery. How does this system allow players to develop a sense of mastery?
2a) How do we develop a clear visual language for 4 skills and how they combine into 6 patterns for creatures using the already limited set of creature animations and effects?
3) Many of the dungeons already have walls, and requirements for completion that players have found workarounds in the system to get past. How does your system actually solve those problems?
4) You suggest some aspects of skill ideas, namely the outcome but you do not discuss what the player experience is in getting to that outcome. How do you propose to build those creature skills in a way that allows players to use a variety of tools to gain mastery over them? How do they force the players to use strategies that enforce what we think are the important pillars of GW2 combat. For reference a small sample of those include:

• Synergy in using your own skills
• Making tactical positioning decisions mid combat.
• Finding interesting ways to deliver your tools to creatures who have counter measures to those tools.
• Being able to understand clearly what a creature is doing and make adjustments to that.
• Finding versatile ways to use the same skills to solve different encounters

Jon

MajorValtiel.6310:

Would also be nice if, within the Guild Halls, players could buy private chambers for themselves. No need to add a physical space for them in the guild hall either, a door titled Private Chambers would lead players to their own Private Chamber Instance. They could also invite maybe a miax 8-10 players to their own PC instances.

What would you want to be able to do in there?

Or perhaps what happens in private chambers stays in private chambers?

Iason Evan.3806:

Baltzenger.2467:

In my opinion, content should be designed for everyone, not just those who “you think will be potentially interested on it”, at least speaking of MMOs.

When you do that, later, you suffer from splitting your playerbase, specially when the game ages and you need to shift populations toward certain game types. Maybe Holly Homemakers should be taken into consideration when making the core of the system, but the guy that only plays fractals, will actually never try anything else, because the content will be designed to be “not for him”.

I probably didn’t explain myself well enough. If you design Guild Halls in the context we are talking about(free form object placement/design options etc.) for the person that is gonna want to spend 90% of their time in the Guild Hall then it will be for everyone because it will have more options than the person who doesn’t really care(Fractals guy) will ever use. If you design it for Fractals guy only, then the person that really cares about design gets left out.

This is precisely why the things we build take time. Someone earlier suggested to just list things that were seemingly easy so that maybe this could be a reality. I would suggest that the more innovative and compelling your ideas are the more likely they are to drive development because that is what we pride ourselves on.

ShadowDragoonFTW.3418:

JonPeters.5630:

Benefit of instanced that we could get in an open world system: Guild Halls are air ships that attach to places in the world improving that area for a while, but move around and have many attachment points. Access to the ship itself is controlled, but you still are in the open world.
Benefit of open world that we could get in an instanced system: Guild Halls are still halls but have functionality that lets guild create temporary content that attach to open world maps.

:o Jon quoted my idea. Sweet. (Yes, I understand how unrealistic it is, but I still think it would be super awesome.)

Which of these do you think is unrealistic and why?

On the editing topic I’ve seen a few things listed.

• NPCs
• fixed placement
• grid placement
• free form placement
• upgrading placed things

Assuming everything has a cost:
Some questions with sample answers:
Q: what kind of thing would you be ok with static placement?
A: a giant stone carving of Colin.
Q: What kind of things do you think work fine with grid placement?
A: A theatre where my guild can roleplay how angry we are with the guild hall system in game.
Q: What stuff would you want to have free placement?
A: Statue of Chris Whiteside

Jon

wwwes.1398:

Aeolus.3615:

JonPeters.5630:

The point of this question is to first generate wild ideas before discussing details of those designs and figuring out what problems/edge cases those details create that must be solved.

Jon

some fast brainstorming:

Guild leader option to buy a fraction of mist crystal to make a guild floating island, being the MIST a infinite world,:
Guild Research Tree – being asura, dregdge kodan human etc, and those tech’s would affect the guild , on PVE and WvW events guild’s could deploy some of their tech on the field.

Brainstorm on your brainstorm, what if your guild can even befriend dredge/kodans/skritt and get them to accompany the guild on bounties and missions.

Lots of cool potential in both these responses.

What kind of tech would you want to deploy? In PvE? In WvW?

What unique benefits for bounties and missions could different NPCs give you that you could NOT get from just having another player?

JonPeters.5630:

• How could we get the benefits of open world guild halls in a system where guild halls are instanced?

This is probably where the Guild Hall Zones come into play again, given areas dedicated to Guild Halls makes it possible for players to explore these areas and thus see and experience the variety of different Guild Halls.

This is a rather biased statement but I still prefer my proposal of having primarily instanced Guild Halls but providing a set number of open world Guild Halls for guild to war over, that way the landscape isn’t cluttered and everyone still gets a Guild Hall.[/quote]

You say war over space so let’s talk about that a bit.

• On a given version of a map there are X people.
• How many players from one guild would you expect to be in a map before that guild NEEDS to do guild activities? I would say that number is between 2 and X. Let’s say for sake of argument that it is a party so 5 people.
• This means you would NEED less than X/5 places where a guild can be interacting with the world in any given map.

I agree there is still conflict here but the biggest piece is reduced by allowing any guild with 5 members on a map together to have a place of their own. This definitely is missing an element of persistence but retains a large element of the visibility while reducing a large portion of the conflict.

In this kind of system what sort of non persistent things would be compelling to you and your guild?

Jon

JonPeters.5630:

I wanted to dig into the instanced vs non-instanced debate a bit. Here are 4 questions I’ll pose:

• What do people see as the benefits of instanced?
• What do you see as the benefits of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of instanced guild halls in a system of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of open world guild halls in a system where guild halls are instanced?

Jon

Going to quote myself for some clarity here. I have some answers to these questions that I will try to get down here but see if you can be specific. I’ll try to give examples and I hope you understand that this is probably even more blue sky than what you are thinking but I want to set the bounds of how crazy a system COULD be, not what is technically feasible.

Benefit of instanced: Your guild could control permissions on the map.
Benefit of open world: Your guild could control and improve something in the world that benefits more than just its members.
Benefit of instanced that we could get in an open world system: Guild Halls are air ships that attach to places in the world improving that area for a while, but move around and have many attachment points. Access to the ship itself is controlled, but you still are in the open world.
Benefit of open world that we could get in an instanced system: Guild Halls are still halls but have functionality that lets guild create temporary content that attach to open world maps.

The point of this question is to first generate wild ideas before discussing details of those designs and figuring out what problems/edge cases those details create that must be solved.

Jon

I wanted to dig into the instanced vs non-instanced debate a bit. Here are 4 questions I’ll pose:

• What do people see as the benefits of instanced?
• What do you see as the benefits of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of instanced guild halls in a system of open world guild halls?
• How could we get the benefits of open world guild halls in a system where guild halls are instanced?

Jon