Guild Wars 2

Chris Whiteside.6102:

The topic will be open until at least Jan 6th and probably longer.
The next CDI topic will be a CDI process evolution thread.
The CDI will carry for as long as it is valuable to GW2.
I am able to weight relative feature cost for us when it is appropriate to do so in the thread.
Chris

First off, thank you for the blazing fast answer, this further reinforces the feeling that you guys are actually keeping watch over this constantly and should serve as a healthy reminder to anyone of; “even if devs don’t reply to you, it doesn’t mean they haven’t read it.”

The two bolded things are very intriguing to me. If the CDI is going to continue for the coming months, as it seems, and perhaps years (perhaps not in the current abundance) then I am extra curious to know if we would be getting any estimate of “okay, we’re working on this now” or if we are getting our surprise patch along the way

It is also really great to know that you mentioned yourself as being the one who has enough weight to start getting the things mentioned rolling.To me, this is about the most valuable piece of information posted.
It proves someone who sits on a power lever is interacting with us actively, and not just someone who is “proposing things”.
Please do not take this as a hidden insult, I meant none. You know, even though your title is “Studio Design Director” – and titles can be fancy at that – it was no direct indication of how much decision power you have.

But with this very statement of yours, the future for GW2 just got a lot brighter
Cheers, Mr. Whiteside. I guess I’ll be digging up the pages of notes which have been accumulated in the past months to get more active, because now is the time again where I get the feeling that things can get done, finally.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Anet once stated in an earlier interview, that it’s more likely to add more weapons to current professions than adding another profession. I like this decision because this means I don’t have to level up another character but instead get more depth to my current characters.

I’m going to look for the source for you.
Edit: source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Weapons-before-Professions/first#post2426745

Oh don’t worry, I remember this. I reply to you that if they add weapons, then they are going to fit the theme of the profession more than anything else. The Warrior has currently the biggest ar…se…nal (( seriously, forum admins, do your homework of censored words, this is ridiculous)) of smashies right now, so if anything, it is going to be other professions who are getting more weapons unlocked first. Also, by saying “new weapons” it doesn’t necessarily mean “previously locked weapons accessible.” I could totally think of new weapons finding their way into the game, let’s say, while the Warrior gets a Greataxe and a Crossbow, other professions get more than two weapons added/unlocked, while Engineer and Elementalist might only get one, due to their inherent profession nature.

Without wanting to play the devil’s advocate here, but I stopped believing in any earlier interviews as many of those became not really accountable any more, because since then and launch there was so much change, and we all remember the flak ArenaNet had to take from the players for “breaking promises in earlier statements.” I believe it when it goes live.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I want to emphasize this:

Anet

It can’t be something that when players run out of things to do we give them more challenges that they need to grind out to do and that add another 100 hours to the game.

It’s pretty clear that Anet is against some of our ideas here.

It is pretty clear, that ArenaNet was against their OWN ideas. Or maybe it wasn’t ArenaNet who shafted them. °wink wink nudge nudge°

At any rate, not wanting to continue idle banter but putting something more constructive into the topic;

Mr. Whiteside, is there any estimate when this topic will be closed, which CDI is going to be next, how many are there still to come, and can you already mention what your plans are to inform us about the brainstorming you had in-house?
Is there any chance we can get related coders on board to answer the likelihood and difficulty of implementation to the highest ranked suggestions?

Thank you

Swagger.1459:

Donari.5237:

Swagger, those are mechanics alterations. Whatever their merits, I think they more properly belong in Suggestions — this thread is for brainstorming ways to broaden our character experience through game play, as in, adding stuff that enriches game time but does not change power level.

Though I suppose asking for additional buttons to press might count. To that I’ll say I wouldn’t feel broadened, I’d feel cluttered. I love the simple but flexible design we have right now.

Thanks for replying!

My super awesome ideas are mostly about building a strong core foundation for the rest of these other future horizontal progression suggestions. You’ll be thanking me later for my tremendous contribution to this thread, so I’ll do the preemptive standard reply now… You’re welcome!

No. This is another one of these “I take parts from my favourite kind of game and put it elsewhere.”
We don’t need another whack-a-mole MMO. Guild Wars has always been about less buttons, and I thoroughly enjoy that. Trust me; I’ve been there in other games; 42buttons hotkeyed. It wasn’t fun.

Your suggestion also forces things into slots which only furthers the narrowing down of choice and selection. At times, I even think the dedicated healing button is too much enforcement, and more often than not I wished my elite slot could also house regular skills.

No. Really, no. This would be detrimental to the game.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

… and then guys come along and demand 40 new skills per profession. Seriously? How can this be feasible in any way? I’d love 40 new skills per profession, but I think more realistic would be a new weapon (3-5 skills) per profession and maybe 1-5 utility skills… and I assume this takes quite a while to design and balance.

If I would take the time to sit down and just design alternate Weapon skills for ranger weapons only, I’d be done in roughly 2 hours. I didn’t grab my proposition of mostly inverting weapon skills out of nowhere.

Ronah.2869:

No, I want a warrior with a scepter and dagger summoning minions

Why? By Lyssa, why? Not only has this NOTHING to do with the Warrior theme, it also isn’t quite fitting the guardian theme. I bet you just want “cool-looking” plate armor in a dark themed style summoning and casting darkly-themed stuff? I’m not even sorry to say it but; wrong game. Stuff like that exists in abundance elsewhere.

Ronah.2869:

In GW1 you could wiled any weapon you wanted. There was no calss or level restriction. In return you got the possibility to change your 2nd profession and be whatever you wanted.

That is wrong. Without a sword, you could not use sword skills. Without a Dagger, you could not use dagger skills. The efficiency of said skills also depended on your weapon attribute. A Warrior with a caster-set was “abused” to become an “Obsi-tank” which was nothing but stuffing lots of elementalist skills in the bar. There have been more feasible obsi tanks, but that wasn’t for the nobrain player.
And this is also why secondary classes went away with GW2; now every profession feels like it is doing their thing. I don’t need to be required to go for a secondary class to IMPROVE what my main class should be doing in the first place.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Then give the warrior the new weapon scepter which has a dark-theme (summoning minions) and a dagger. Taught by a “deathknight” themed npc (A necro-warrior) who survived the old days of GW1.

Again, people, don’t you realize that you are wanting and suggesting things which are going to strangle future expansion of the game? We have 8 professions by now. Such a thing COULD become it’s own profession. And it should, quite frankly, instead of violating the theme and style of existing classes.

Oh totally. Neither am I qualified to decide and judge what is right for the game, and it is their job to figure that out. Yet, why should we make all of our lives more difficult than they should be? Granted, some of the problems will never disappear.

One of them is player-entitlement, which is a growing disease cropping up in the last decade. People think only because they bought a game, they can dictate whatever they see fit to the developers, or think they are entitled to 100% of the content because it is what they bought… both being logical fallacies, naturally. This ties to what you said about the people posting here not being representative of the entire playerbase, and to a certain point I agree with you. If I would grab a few examples from the recent CDI topics, then one clearly sees some posts of expectations and wants from people who don’t want to spend a single buck in gemstore and want everything presented on a silver plate. Then you see those who really provide great and logical additions to the game itself. And of course, those who want to come around and want to bring as many things they are used from other MMOs into this one, because it is their “favourite recent one”, and not because it is fitting to the game. How the relation of these three groups are in real numbers cannot be measured.
It still boggles my mind though, why developers in general do not try and create an ingame survey / poll for their needs of feedback, like we had in GW2 beta. Address the masses where the masses are… right in the game.

So it is going to be a stretch for the developers to do both, please the community but still let the game be directed in their own vision. Which is not always as possible as we think it to be, which brings me to the second point:

Gaming industry isn’t fun. It is not sunshine and butterflies.
Being a developer who has to answer to a higher authority because they’re just a subsidiary, isn’t fun.
Being a Community moderator isn’t fun. They have to deal with the flak of the players and need to walk knife’s edge of trying to calm them down without being allowed to say certain things.
On the same token, games are in high demand, meaning there can be a lot of money made, which is where big companies kick in. There is a difference in making a good living from a game, or milk as much money as possible from the playerbase.
We will never know how much ArenaNet truly is in control, after Nexon has been driving deep into the roots of NCsoft. We will never know how many decisions about the marketing and presentation of the content are in the hands of ArenaNet. I remember the faux pas of Josh Foreman about the reward system and availability of the Super Adventure Box where he mentioned it wasn’t quite how he envisioned it to be, to put it mildly.
Will our ideas be measured and weighed by how good they are for the game or by how much additional income could be generated through the gemstore? We simply don’t know because we can never be sure until this stuff goes live.

GW2 might have done well on paper and finances, but I am not sure if it has done good as a game itself during this year, to give an impression of “this is built to last” such as GW1 did – which is still frequented. At least something was happening, else we wouldn’t have gotten the CDIs all of a sudden.

I welcome this move, don’t get me wrong. To me – someone who has mentally quit with GW2 and only plays along with the guildies – it was a spark of hope that ArenaNet somewhere sat down along the line saying; “okay, this can’t go on for long, we need a better plan.”

I remember how people have been sceptic and sarcastic when the first announcement of the CDIs happened. Some people still are, because in the end it will be depending on how ArenaNet will communicate their brainstorming and how they will implement the new features.

To be fair, I’m a hesitant about the outcome as well, and I’m not as naive to think everything will happen in a short amount of time. Putting it bluntly, the only think I hope is them going to say which things they are going to prioritize, nothing else. I’d be surprised and my faith in ArenaNet reinstated if they manage to pull off 3 things mentioned on the list before July 2014.

If there is one thing I wish for the CDIs, then it is ArenaNet managing to restore the good reputation they’ve lost, and something tells me there is a small part in this of why they are exactly pushing the CDIs to the foreground. A game can only live for so long with people passing by, dropping money and leave after 4 months. Bonding with the playerbase and not disappointing the regained trust and faith is probably the best thing ArenaNet can do as of today.
And we should help them in the best way we can, without thinking about the dark side of this dedication.

It is nice to see a developer mentioning their own personal top 3

I hope we are getting more info from Mr. Whiteside or other people from the team after this CDI to actually talk about the possibility and chance for implementation, so we know at least what to expect about the suggestions even before the developers put their heads together and decide which things should actually make it first.

AlanaTheStrange.1463:

I made a tally with numbers, but some things are grouped into other things. I tried my best to make “umbrella” categories (up to Zone.1275’s post):

1. Weapon Skills 34
2. Quests/Order Missions 33
3. Homes 28
4. New Skills 24
5. PvE Skin Locker 23
6. Faction Reputation/Titles 21

~ ~ °snip° ~ ~

Thank you for providing this wonderful summary
Just straying my 2 cents, where I am pondering and speculating the chances of those things getting implemented;

ad 1) I don’t know how difficult it is to add the customization from the other half of our skill bar onto the weapon sets, but if it is fairly doable, I could totally see the first alternate weapon skills crop up in as early as 2 months… IF ArenaNet decides that the time is good for that. They might well wait to ship this with an expansion set.

ad 2) We know that branching story decisions are possible and inside the game, and Order Missions could run on the same framework as Guild missions. If there isn’t anything evil in the code, then I am fairly positive that we could see this happen soon should ArenaNet believe this is a worthy addition to the game at the present time.

ad 3) The technical aspect to populate our home instances is given, since we have quartz and candy corn nodes. It entirely depends on the implementation of home-instance content if this feature would be used more or not.

ad 4) I still play the devil’s advocate here, saying that I don’t see a large chunk of skills coming our way without an expansion pack. The single extra healing skill is prove of concept that they can add those things at will, but I don’t think that dripping single skills every now and then is meaningful enough to give the players a sense of progression, especially if those skills continue to be unreasonably expensive.

ad 5) We have the PvP skin locker, and we have achievement skin vault, so chances are the only obstacle for this feature is ArenaNet deciding what the best way to implement the rest of the functionality is. And of course, when the best time to drop it comes.

ad 6) Faction titles would be part of achievements, which should be fairly easy, and progressing titles are already existing in the rank system of pvp. At least it sounds like an easy thing – the harder one is filling them with reasonable titles. It feels like this could be best coupled with the Order missions.

I know you just brought out one example, but of the many you could pick have picked, you chose a very interesting one because:

We had first person camera in open beta. They took it away from us. It is a feature we know that already existed and suddenly with one other beta patch it was gone. So that should actually be a really minor issue for them to fix.

A lot of the supposedly doable things based on what we’ve seen already in game would have a serious impact in comparison to the suggestions, which is the opposite of “admitting to be a nigh perfect game.”

What I hope to see is, after ArenaNet decides that it is enough talk (CDIs) and time for action, that we get someone of the coding team down to discuss the difficulty of implementation to our proposals. No, I do NOT say that the easiest things should be implemented first, absolutely not. But just giving us, the players, who have no clue about it, an idea of the effort required for our suggestions might or might not shine light on some things that are supposedly easy to do but for a weird reason, are not.
Who knows? Perhaps they removed 1st person view because the camera could get stuck in places, since it is an actual object in the game that follows us, and they couldn’t fix it? Perhaps there were bugs that couldn’t be ironed out where people got stuck in 1st person view and the only way to get out was rebooting the game?
We don’t know. Which is a problem, because the less we know about the reasons, the less we can understand, which ultimately leads us to grow more disdain. All I know is, 1st person camera was in the game AND GW2 is a heavily modified gw1 engine, and you could do 1st person in GW1 all the time. Why we still have to struggle with 3rd person view? Nobody ever cared to elaborate, which is sad, as this is causing aggravation.

I don’t want to make the impression of talking smack at Mr. Whiteside, nor at anyone of the community. The only thing I wish for is more awareness on our side, the player side, about the nitty gritty stuff, and it would help a lot if we know more about the insides. Hence my hope for some of the coding team to step up and discuss some of our suggestions, either soon or when the CDIs are over.

And of course, I hope we are going to get more information about why and how things are limited and which reasons ArenaNet had for doing things this or that way. Mutual understanding is pretty much the only way for the community and the developers to grow closer for a better relationship to achieve greater results for a more thorough experience.

As a closing word I would like to say, that I do not believe housing to be “bigger” than first person view. Simply because we do not know how many people would benefit from housing, nor how many would benefit from 1st person view. However, if I was to make an educated guess? I reckon it wouldn’t be housing. Simply because 1st person view is part of the interface, and the UI is the ONLY thing in any game that we have to deal with 100% of the time when sitting down to play it, thus drastically increasing the chance of them going for a zoom function to begin with.

The best content is worth bantha poodoo if people don’t get there because of unbearable nuisances within the interface, or other elemental parts of the game.

So I thank you greatly for bringing up exactly this example, so I could throw my 2 cents in about it, as this showcased brilliantly what I mentioned at the start of this topic: the bigger picture and objectivity vs. the awareness of self and the supposed awareness of the wants of others.

At least I am not alone on this train, and I also share this concern with you about how players will react after posting page after page about their personal ingame baby waiting to happen.
From what we see, there are a good number of things even in the recent top3 lists which don’t seem to require much additional code for a similar process is already in place, but there are also others asking for immense changes of things that have no common basis to start from.

I dearly hope when CDIs start to close down and conclusions have been reached, that ArenaNet is going to communicate which of the things listed are going to be focused on, and which are going to be pushed back for later – all providing reasons doing so… because an explained foundation for an argument lets people understand and leaves no room for suspicious debates.
For example, they’ve said a while ago that Guild Halls are pretty low on their priority list. That is absolutely okay to say, but if we would get a reason why, then a lot of us would understand it better or could discuss it more properly.
The same thing will make or break the aftermaths of the CDIs – if Mr. Whiteside continues to be as zealous with a summary and rough estimate about the things which have been mentioned several times, and why, then this should be good for a great many of people.

I firmly believe many people are happy enough to know if something is going to be worked on or not, instead of “it is somewhere on the list”. Even if it is within a 12 month period of time. Uncertainty and doubt is more often than not the trigger for riots.

I let the flamesticks poke me into oblivion for saying;

“I’d rather have a top 3 list of things that could actually make it in the game with existing technology and not having to do crazy amounts of extra coding, than having a top 3 list of things people want in the game just so without any further thought.”

°bracing°

Ever since the CDIs kept cropping up, there is an ever growing concern of mine which I finally attempt to address in public.

There are without a doubt a plethora of really great and well written thoughts from players in those CDIs, and it might just be me, but with certain things I don’t get the undertone out of my head of “we want it all, and we want it now.” Here is what has me worried:

I am not sure if everyone is aware of the concept to keep room for an expansive experience. If all the things which many people in the past months have cried for would have been in the game since day 1, or up to 6 months into the game, then the chance for having it detrimental to the future of GW2 is rather high. There are only so many things one can bring without a truckload of bugs to iron out and without oversaturating the player. Lots of content that has been long worked on can and will be blazed through within a fraction of the time required to build it, having a player soon again stand there saying “MOAR MOAR MOAR”.

This goes for the people who want an expansion pack, and I am one of them too, yet if have never brought it up for the following reasons:
Many things have been changing on a game-mechanic level, and the event systems are still being tested under a blanket. This is clearly evident with the living story events, and the different aspects of them. I am dead certain there is an expansion already in the works, but more in terms of conceptual lore and story and graphics assets instead of actually populating it with playable encounters. Look how much has changed in the past year, if they would have started working full front on these things, they would have been working for the trash can, as things got rewritten and all. Other than that, when looking at certain spots of the developers who are still in the company but you don’t see or hear them doing what kind of work, and when observing employee counters, I would be inclined to think we’re getting an expansion for certain, the question is only when – and patience is a virtue in this case.

The second big one being more skills, more weapons and all the whole shebang. Yes, I’ve all suggested that myself, but I also feel the need to mention that I don’t expect it any time soon. I expect new weapons in general and more unlocked weapons for professions in an expansion, not earlier. I actually do not even want to see them earlier. Alternate weapon skills could be done before an expansion pack hits, indeed, but I am on the fence about other additional support and elite skills being new content for an expansion or should be available before that.
Because the problem is, how would they mix these players who bought the expansion vs. those who didn’t? Not easy to answer from a marketing and fairness perspective.

Lastly, I want to promote the road of “cleaning up before going elsewhere.”
Sometimes, the goal for longevity is not putting out more new stuff and over-the-top ideas after the other, but rather going back and improve what is already existing. No, I do not talk about “rehashed content”. I talk about really improving and expanding old content plus fixing it. Not only playable content itself but also certain game mechanics or even interface parts as a whole. If I had to drop one example, only one, of the things that needs serious amounts of improvement (in my opinion) since day 1… I guess I would say… trading post interface. Cumbersome to work with. Horribly designed, bad performance.

But the same thing goes out to other content. Sure, I want to see an expansion, sure I want to see new zones, sure I want to see more weapons… but only when the time is right. What good would new stuff be if they would break old, unrefined things even more?

So what have I been intending to do with this topic other than ramble?
Sometimes one has to step above and beyond themselves and actually look at the bigger picture instead of what ones wants personally. I have left out a few suggestions in the CDIs because I realized… I wanted to change the game of GW2 itself. And that would have been the wrong to do. Even more, I’ve suggested things that I am not even absolutely wanting myself, moreso like… “would be nice if it is in, but I’m not all that a sucker for it” simply because I thought it would be complementing the product on a bigger scale far better than just my narrow point of view.

Ultimately, I hope some of us – including me – can take a step back and reconsider what would be doable based on existing mechanics AND reasonable for the GAME and not necessarily for us. Because in the end, forum users are just a fraction of a game’s population, and those users who actually WRITE stuff are just another fraction of the total forum users.

1.) World story progression and consequence
This means wrapping up the things we already did to give them meaning and inject continuity. Give us Order Missions and get the Elder Dragon storyline back on track, the living story is wasting our time as it is. Go on an alternate schedule; main Elder dragon storyline – buffing world – living world (aka sidestory). I’ve written a deal about this HERE °click°

2.) Content that challenges our skill and not our wallet or gear stats
Bring harder variants of dungeons. Bring achievements that are worth skill and don’t just don’t happen along the way like doing 25times the same thing. Don’t gate harder content with better gear because then the only challenge is obtaining it, not doing the content.

3.) Give us more incentive to explore our class and be diverse
Switching builds and traits WITHOUT needing to purchase a gem-store item should become interesting. Reward people for wanting to be diverse and carry different item sets, and don’t punish them. Do not punish them even more for trying to keep the look they sunk a decent chunk of money in, for that keeps many players from getting more into their class. °insert skin locker proposition here°
Introduce alternate weapon skills, which would be either be simply inverting the skills or change a bit of the utility. In this context, bring a few more support and elite skills which should ultimately address underwater combat. I’ve written about it HERE °click° and also THERE °click°

timmyf.1490:

(As a side note, I feel like Hearts are the absolute worst part of this game and am shocked that anybody would WANT to repeat them.)

This only serves as proof and healthy reminder for everyone in this topic to remain open and objective, for there are a great many of different mindsets playing Guild Wars 2. And I am one of those who want to repeat hearts for my previously mentioned reasons.

timmyf.1490:

Sorry Ronah, I’m only a fan of a Hard Mode in instances, not in the open world.

I pick that to show my support for this.
Hardmode in instances only. Selectable open world hard mode is a relic of GW1 that worked well because EVERYTHING was an instance, but people fail to see how big the split of the community would be if this actually was done in a true open world. You punish so many people doing that, and drive a wedge into the playerbase.

Arenanet can later seed by-default very hard zones which are like southsun cove, so not required for map completion, thus the achievement hunters or people who do not seek the challenge are not forced to go there. All achievements for this zone / Event would provide ZERO points, but give you certain titles and other goodies instead. An example would be something like Orr, but way more linear and much harder. Instead of random attacks throughout the map, we would be pushing a border into enemy territory, reinforcing the frontlines, and the enemy fights back hard and fast so people have to keep at it, else they lose ground. The further we get in, the harder it is to establish a foothold and keep it.

What they COULD implement into the regular open world without needing to fiddle with a hardmode version is extra stuff on the map, not required for 100% explorer completion but as a separate bar. Skill challenges would become “hardmode” on selection, which either phases you into a different sub-instance or just leaves things in the open, and the skill challenge becomes a lot more difficult and diverse.
They could also introduce a completely new type, similar to guild challenges, but only in enclosed areas. Special dwarven keys which unlock hardmodes, and only people who have that key can enter with the others. Effectively making “hardmode pockets” in the same zone, but you are still on the same map, playing with the same people, reading the same map chat.

Zanthrax.6538:

no one is forced to do it anyway…..the stat increase is so marginal 100% of the gw2’s content is doable without ascended gear except for fractals….and guess what fractals isn’t doable because of 3 more power….its solely for the Agony Resist that its NEEDED for fractal progression. Leave it the way it is.

The problem is, not everybody thinks the way you do. Many people do not care how marginal the increase of stats is. They just view it as “best in slot” and need to obtain it. Their carrot on a stick. It didn’t take long until some random groups wanted everyone to post their pink trinkets + weapons, and if not, people got kicked. It will happen with ascended armor too. This is passive griefing of the worst kind. Or even worse, checking how many Achievement points someone has and using that as an LFG entry requirement, which is perhaps even worse.
People who are not even doing fractals are obtaining said ascended gear BECAUSE of it’s availability. What do WvW players need ascended gear for who don’t even set a foot into PvE? Nothing. Still they get it, because extra stats. Many players throughout the game put +20% gold infusion into their necklace. What does that have to do with fractals, I ask? Nothing. That is cringeworthy.

The biggest problem with ascended gear are the extra stats on it. The impact on the community is huge, the outcry back then ways immense, and the repercussions become bigger and bigger. It could have all been avoided completely with the removal of extra stats on the ascended gear, and have it just being a fractal-only resistance item, ideally using an “upgrade kit” to be slapped on an exotic to make it of ascended quality with the added infusion slot.
Back in beta, the outcry was similar huge about legendary weapons doing roughly 5% more damage than exotics. Arenanet listened and tuned them back down. They didn’t listen with removal of stats on ascended gear, and now we have a cancer in the game that keeps spreading.

Nike.2631:

The absolute king of all: allow a player to buy their way onto the Captain’s Council. This would be a truly unique way to allow a single player to show off in the hugest way possible.

Yeah, I could get behind that.

I’d wish that it wasn’t a way to get there with gold, but rather with actual dedication and investment of exceptional quality, like the Council of Stellar Management (CSM) from Eve online. These are community elected players who are directly interfacing with the developer teams.
I’d rather see the council of Lion’s arch to be actual players holding said positions which haven’t gained that spot through gold, but through personal dedication, investment and sheer awesomeness in whatever they do, pure quality – and then receiving the official acknowledgement of ArenaNet. They would represent a tighter link to interface between community and developers, and also would be represented in the game to also showcase the global awareness of this.

I know what you say now. But allow me to dream for just five minutes :/

The only thing that should inherit stat change on click should be legendary armor, and those will be coming for sure.

The problem with ascended gear when it first has been introduced was, that it had extra stats on it. If there was ONLY agony resistance slots on there, I dare saying it wouldn’t bother people all that much. In my opinion, Arenanet has done a great deal of damage to the game by introducing something that was intended to be a “Fractals only” thing to have slightly higher stats. People do not care about the little boost ascended gear provides over exotics. People care about the highest possible ratings to attain out of principle.

I fear we long passed the point where ascended gear cannot be brought back down to “exotic level gear with infusion slots”, which is – again, my opinion – what they should have been in the first place. Resistance gear for a specific dungeon.
I am not fond of thinking about how different resistance mechanics would be build into the game, similar to fractals and agony…

But back to topic;
Yes, ascended armor is not easy to attain and you have to do too much outside of fractals to get said materials, which doesn’t make sense for something that was designed to give you benefits ONLY inside this instance.
No, ascended armor should not become “free full attribute switch.” Leave that for legendary armor to come.
Yes, I would agree to a “you can only switch the stats around which you have unlocked by whatever means.”

I’d like to give Mr. Whiteside best wishes and thanks for this initiative.
You Sir, have made people who haven’t been happy with the game literally come back and regain hope and faith into the game by the CDIs which have the community rolling.
You Sir, are the “missing link” that proves ArenaNet still cares for us and wants to get things progressing, together.
You Sir, should have a very well deserved Christmas celebration

We are all very anxious to see how and what is going to happen because of this collaboration. Merry Christmas, inhabitants of Tyria.

Chrispy.5641:

Im not trying to talk down any suggestion you made, since most of them are very good suggestions, but, there’s alot of them that have nothing to do with Horizontal Progression, which is the topic of the thread.

Some of them don’t look like that, indeed. But not only is “horizontal progression” a very loose term, but I have also written some things in there which act as further-growing foundation to even certain horizontal progressions that I have stated throughout my posts.

I actually had to slap my fingers to not post certain stuff which definitely was not horizontal progression and tried to give some of my points the explanation of why I believed them to be horizontal. Again, loose term, and I’m partly sorry for Chris and everyone else who is meticulously reading through all this stuff… but if the end result is worth it, then the only thing I can do is provide thought-through stuff that is hopefully worth a read and remotely understandable.

Part E) Broaden the game’s horizon to make people play more together

• Redesign the strict 5-man cap in dungeons.
  Just looking into my own guild, it happens so often that we are only 4 people, which makes running a dungeon fall flat, but sometimes we don’t have 10 people to make two groups, so someone always have to be left at home. And no, it is not always possible to say “okay, we run that later” because time constraints are a thing. And no, “just get a pug” is also not the correct answer. If people want to invest their time in a dungeon then they also want to make sure it works well. Pugging doesn’t guarantee that, and also, what is a guild for then, hm?
  I suggest you lower the amount of people to run a dungeon to 4 and let a dungeon be scaled up to 8 players per group. With 8 you might as well make second group, yes, but hear me out: This way you can even enrichen dungeon experience even more by building in additional mechanics and even sub-mechanics that requires one or two people to branch out (like Dredge Fractal. fricking love it!). Plus, you definitely make more people happy who are playing your game. I cannot be the only one in a mediocre sized guild who runs into this problem. How is this horizontal progression you ask? Simple; increasing the accessibility and variety of your content is going to have more people play it.

• Make fun things happen again
  Where is the Bar-brawl? Or the shooting range? Where is Polymock? Why can’t we enter activities as a group, if we clearly can enter a prefab group in a pvp tournament? Why are there no leaderboards for activities? And most importantly; why have you arbitrarily locked some activities down to only be available every few days? If I want to play Kegbrawl, I want to play it now, and not when you decide to. This is time a player is not spending in your game. This is time of a player not enjoying your game. This is time that will make players spend their money elsewhere, because they continue to be disgruntled and shunned away from things that should only act as funny sidetracking.

• Make hearts replayable
  Let us be serious, there are easier and faster ways to get Karma and money than replaying heart events. But this little feature would add us to enjoy going down and play with people, as we are not jus twaiting for them to complete the heart but doing that ourselves. I would even be willing to consider that heart progress should be group-tied, but I guess other people will call this out for leeching. Especially with the following suggestion:
  Remove Karma and coin from Heart quests and introduce “Heart Tokens” which can be used for whatever. We have a Laurel Vendor, a Guild commendation Vendor, I’m sure you can come up with what a Heart vendor should sport easy enough.

• Expand Guild Interface and guild options
  Even many casual guilds have already maxed out everything but there is nothing on the horizon how our guilds are going to be improved. I tell you one thing that is going to have people go crazy: Guild halls. Yes. Give us back the core that was there make a guild the tangible thing in the world. Allow us to build crafting stations, hire guild heralds, trainers, whatever. Showing off a new armor or weapon to your guild members? Quickly meet there. Sitting around a bonfire while waiting for a member to come online for the group? Guild hall. Give us back the social interaction we once had. Neither Lion’s Arch nor the mists are an acceptable alternative to this.

Summary of Part E

You have to remember, that many people still play an MMO simply BECAUSE of the persons they met there, not necessarily because of it’s content. They just hang out and roll with it. If you promote the “do things together” part instead trying to sell this “epic open world experience” that I am still waiting to see then we will stick around for longer. Just because it is a nice place to be. But nowadays there is this looming feeling of being slamming with the solo-player-in-a-big-blob hammer “Made by Arenanet”.

~ ~ ~ No addition, show is over folks! ~ ~ ~

Part D) Improving our character should be diversified and easier to access

• Hook new skills to special skill challenges.
  When you introduced the new healing skill recently I was like “25 skill points for a simple healing skill? No challenge? No quest? Just trying to remove abundant skillpoints from the game?” It was a nobrain-click which reeked of lazyness. Any new player or person who levels a new profession is going to ask “why the hell is that thing so expensive and isn’t actually better than any of them?” You shot your own foot with that. No, if you introduce new skills, give us a meaning to get it. Go out into the world or have an instanced skill challenge available at your skill trainers, whatever.

• Alternate weapon skills to choose and unlock.
  I was all giddy back then when I read that certain traits and probably even skills are going to be unlocked with challenges happening in the world and you really need to earn your stuff. What has become of that? Idly smack a guy with a teal symbol above their head. °sadness°
  Allow us to unlock alternative skills for each weapon in the world or through other specific challenges, like mentioned above. Those skills should be very much themed to the skill we already use, usually an inverted option. Example, Ranger sword 2: Instead of Hornet Sting + Monarch leap, simply “learn” to reverse the chain order. That would be a game changer for some people. Or instead of Ranger Dagger 5 of throwing it, the skill becomes a melee attack that thrusts down on the opponents foot, crippling, and then you make a leap backwards to gain distance. There is a ridiculous amount of possibility which is easy attainable by simply inverting the majority of skills or giving them a different, yet thematically fitting utility function.

• Add templates for skillsets and traits.
  It is tedious to click around. It really is. I want to play a different build today? One click should be all I need to do, after saving the trait and equipment before handed. Paying 3 Silver whatnot for the corresponding trait reset? Of course, here, have it. I don’t have a problem with that. I would even spend a SKILLPOINT for every trait reset, that is how dire I want it.

• More Support and (especially) Elite skills.
  I think this goes without saying, but I absolutely want to see any new skill as mentioned before tied to a skill challenge. Hell, you can even make some of the existing skills retroactively available through these challenges. Because why not? You get the sense of investing into the character and then gaining something PERMANENTLY for it after succeeding. Now the question arises, what about choice? I’d totally be fine with to pay a multiple of the originally required amount of skill points to simply skip the challenge. Pay for convenience. Shouldn’t hurt many people who already spent 25 points for an average new healing skill.

• More underwater variety please.
  It boggles my mind how some skills are not being correctly transitioned underwater, and I am growling how restrictive Elite-skill choice is as well. Your underwater combat in general deserves more attention. All underwater combat I’ve seen was outright atrocious. Yours is at least interesting and bearable. And I usually love underwater combat and want more of it.

• Personal instance 2.0
  The hall of monuments is for the past. Bring life to the present, the personal instance. Let us go there whenever we desire, like we go in the mists, and not needing to jump there first with a loading screen that we don’t need (city loading). This would also be the place where you would get all your unlocked account stuff, etc, and perhaps even the place where you re-play the stuff you did in the past.

Summary of Part D

If you give us meaningful ways to expand our characters, we will be more invested in them. A few quality of life improvements will yield a higher frequency of actually USING this accumulated diversity. I will not reignite the subclass versus trait system here, this will be done in a different topic, but your entire trait system definitely needs work to cope with future changes.

Part C) Exploring and customizing our character should not be resctrictive

• Give us incentive to play our characters differently and explore our professions.
  I am one of those people who want to have mulitple sets of exotic armor to play various builds and reset my traits to do so. But build-changing is not viable, even discouraged by the game. I need a trainer for that. Why? I should be able to click a button in my interface which subtracts the 3silverwhatnot and reset my traits.
  You said you don’t want to make people switch their stuff because it doesn’t give them a meaningful connection to their actual build. I disagree; you are promoting mindlocks and kill diversity, and you also discourage people from trying out new things. Insert my complaint of not having a dedicated testing area °HERE°. Because the Mists are not a viable testing ground.
  This is horizontal progression that even benefits you. I pay gems for these extra bags slots to house this armor. I remove money out of the economy to reset my traits. The more I can change this on the class I like to play, the longer I am going to have fun with my class. More fun = more playtime = higher chance to drop more money on cash-shop. It makes no sense why you give us many ways to play a profession only to tell us “choose 1 of the many ways, and stick with it, or level another copy.”

• Allow us to upgrade existing equipment.
  Why should I trash my exotic gear just to get ascended one that is just a minor upgrade and adds infusion slots? Milk more transmutations stones out of me? Why can’t I get the option to upgrade it? Subtract material cost of the exotic and give us the ability to forge an “upgrade kit” with the remaining ascended materials. What has this to do with horizontal progression? Simple: More people will be willing to upgrade more sets of their armor which have already been tailored to how they want to have it, so this puts more emphasis on build diversity. You shouldn’t be locked into one build in very high level fractals because you require the resistance.

• Cosmetics. Do not punish us for how we WANT to look.
  I DO NOT ask for of “you’ve unlocked this stat combination on this piece of armor, so you can switch freely.” If you want a shifting entity to change stats? Get a legendary (and legendary armor WILL come).
  I ask for a skin locker similar to what we already have in the achievement panel and the pvp locker in the mists. Use a transmutation stone for the respective item level to consume a piece of equipment which will then have it’s available in your locker and can be drawn upon indefinitely (just give us sorting options please).

• Achievements should become ACHIEVEMENTS, or at least finally getting to this level.
  With the introduction of A-chests, people start working down all those useless stuff that they didn’t bother before – even to the point where they stop doing things with their guild members. I like that you can get something with achievement points. I just don’t like how it was done and I don’t like how meaningless these achievements are. There is next to nothing that claims; “this player has skill.” The only one I could think of the top of my head is defeating Liadri and having the minipet to prove.
  The vast majority of achievements is just useless. Things that happen over time. But here is an example of what I am direly missing: a 5 tiered achievement for each dungeon path, going:
  “Completed Caudecus Manor Path 1 with everyone in the group wearing equipment of quality no higher than: Exotic – Rare – Masterwork – Fine – Basic” . Oh yes. Let the skill bar rise. Rewards? I dunno, other than “YEAH WE DID IT” how about special skins / titles / whatever to unlock, the further down you are getting. Why everyone in the group? To avoid leeching.
  But there is another thing with your achievements; WvW and PvP players miss out. On a large scale. They want their reward chests as well. Do not force people to do content they don’t want to do… but this addition is going to be very hard to turn around for the better.

Summary of Part C

It all boils down to choice. The more choice a player has, the more is going to be investigated of this choice, come time. If you restrict possibilities too much, players will NOT develop and get to know their class better. Until the point where they leave your game.

Part B) Playing the world isn’t compelling any more

• Give us visibility, for it doesn’t exist.
  Why am I forced to use third-party services to know what is happening ingame? Why can’t I go to a town scryer or scout to see what is going on? We have asuran technology. You cannot tell me a world overview is lore breaking. Tie meta events to the “state of the zone”, and I don’t just mean the boss ones. And if not world, then region. Ascalon, Tyria, Maguuma, etc. The more we see what we can do, the more we are venturing forth. At the very least please show all events in the current zone I am in. Horizontal progression at it’s finest; information ignites initiative to go somewhere and DO things. Even Rift had to learn that lesson.

• Your dungeons are lacking.
  Open PvE world should be easy? Maybe. But why aren’t dungeons harder? And where are those extra events to make every single dungeon experience unique? All I can think of is Ascalon; “Is the Troll event triggering at the crossroads today or not?”
  Your new reward system is making people do the dungeon for REWARDS, not the dungeon itself, save for the few who still want to get the armor.
  You managed to bring instances in GW1 that players were awed and challenged. That was a GOOD thing. Clearing out the Underworld, or the Domain of Anguish for a regular guild group that wasn’t running cookiecutter specs was an achievement worth mentioning and was a real undertaking (speaking about my own casual guild now). Clearing out any dungeon in GW2? Not. Add more diversity through different events, perhaps even different bosses, and on top of that: introduce hard modes to dungeons, but don’t let them be arbitrarily gated with gear.

• Promote a fair system for big events to enrichen diversity of playing those.
  Your players doing support events miss out. Temple of Lyssa anyone? Everybody who keeps the 3 locations uncontested is basically shafted as they need to go back and forth hitting on Lyssa to be eligible for the end chest. Not okay. Defending locations / doing things which are a required part to keep the meta event going should be chained to this reward. That way, you can design branching events in which players need to be more flexible. I’m one of the few people who grudgingly back away from the fight to make sure the event keeps going by defending those nodes, gritting my teeth, hoping that this means I’m not being kicked out of the reward table – which happened.
  You also need to add the same reward levels for DEFENDING these events and thus also have similar difficulty doing so. It is really bad that players let the temples be claimed before they go there again.

• Give us consequences, for there are none.
  I beg you, beef up your dynamic event chain system. I have been saying this in open beta already, and I will do it again: Meta events mean nothing without tangible consequences – and yours are irrelevant. Not only are the events too easy, even in high levels, and some group events can be done solo, but they simply have no long-lasting impact on the world. What happens if we fail to kill Tequatl or the Shatterer? NOTHING. Something else;
  I want to stand in Lion’s Arch at my crafting station, and suddenly civilians start to run south, guards run up north, alarm bells are ringing, and NPCs tell me to grab my weapons and come help. Why? Because the Centaurs who have been neglected all that time have built up massive numbers and equipment to lay siege on Lion’s arch. I want the same thing happening for the Flame legion invading the Black Citadel if neglected long enough. I want to see Ebonhawke being under siege. Right now, your world is nothing but a feast for players, wading through rewards. Even Orr, arguably the island that should be the most difficult, has been getting karma-trained ever since last year. Give us a world where things actually happen. Give us a MEANING to band together. Daily boss chests are just braindead benefits. Give us a world that ACTS and not RE-acts. Tyria needs a big buff. Your living story gives no meaning to the world, and stuff like the Molten Alliance felt very questionable and arbitrary.

Summary of Part B

Add horizontal progression to the world itself to blend “Quality of life” with “give impact to what we do and what we fail at”. Give us reasons to go out there other than daily chests. Please stop holding our hands. Please stop with “I can do everything on my own, even some group events and for the rest of the time I am part of a big blob slashing at a hitpoint bar”. How should we see the other end of some chains if things are so easy to complete?

Part A) You have a bunch of loose ends

• Our choices we did in character creation for the personal story ceased to matter.
  Either spread these options out to higher levels, or give us the choice to persuade several branches of the story how we see fit. Introduce completely new branches of the storyline that we get to decide in the future.
  There are no different outcomes or choices based on my “ego” (ferocious / dignified / charming) other than in unimportant, written NPC dialogues. Living story does not affect or shape my character, and neither can I shape the events in return. You build the living story in obsolescence. We don’t get anything anywhere to recap or even replay what we did other than story mode dungeons – which have no impact on our personal stories.

• After defeating Zhaitan, we never hear anything again from the Orders.
  Give the Orders more meaning. Give us Order missions. Give us “living story” Order events which are permanent. Give us lore to discover. Give our character a purpose of why we did those decisions back in the days. We are part of an ORGANIZATION that never gets back to us? That is like being employed but never doing something. The last time I was visiting my Order hub to check for armor skins was… heck… I don’t know.

• I thought we are fighting Elder Dragons?
  Look at Tyria. Partying around the world. We’ve slain Zhaitan and now everyone is mingling with the unimportant things called living story. All the dragons who wrecked havoc are not doing anything after a YEAR?! The giant scar left by Kralkatorrik and no sign of the dragon nor other activities of his mishappen creations on the Dragonbrand? And Jormag? Apparently his promises to the Sons of Svanir aren’t that great. We play whack-a-mole with them like there is no tomorrow, including the Elder Dragon’s Lieutenant. You can’t tell me Chicken McFrostywing isn’t annoyed by that? There are no rumors, no events, no activities, no unknown things popping up.
  I am playing a character who went great lengths to steel himself to fight and defeat what is the looming threat of the elder dragons. Since then I was an explorer of crab-island, babysitting a queen’s jubilee, going for unreasonable bands of enemies, betatesting asuran pixel boxes and dashing after a pigtailed twig? For a year? (not that it wasn’t fun, it just destroyed the credibility of the setting)
  If I had a say in it, I would re-schedule your 4 living story teams. One for main story continuity, one for personal character continuity (this includes the Orders), one for things that just happen to be in the world (like what we had an entire year for now) and one for continuous world changes, bringing in more meta-events and shaping the world to be a richer place. When was the last time we got a new zone? Right.
  This would be a much more diverse and fun and meaningful cycle as the content gets published. Just make sure all that stuff STAYS to be playable at ANY TIME.

• What happened to the Zephyrites?
  Trade agreements? Sharing knowledge and power? Will we help defend their ship? IAir superiority isn’t self evident °Dragons, wink wink nudge nudge° and they putz around in a really clunky vehicle that doesn’t look like it could withstand ANY. What about Evon? He is definitely NOT polishing and improving the trading post. Horizontal progression through continuity. Do not let loose ends hang suspended. At least feed us info every now and then.

Summary of Part A

Horizontal progression of the lore, character story and the additions you bring – give us the choice what we want to do, give our previous choices meaning and let us develop on them. Also, keep the bigger picture in mind. Tyria lost a lot of plausibility and credibility because the reason we originally came here – defend the world against dragons – has long since been dismissed. I do not want to fight an elder Dragon every 3 months but I want to at least see a very gradual build-up and stray information.
Time-restricted events are not going to help returning or pausing players, far from it.

This only shows how split the community is. I know next to no player in my GW2 circle who finds the trait system lacking and boring, and almost all of them have been playing GW1.

The thing is though, this approach can be turned against itself. If you say players view the trait system as “how much can I improve my desired build” – which is in my opinion the desired intention – then why would the same players view the subclasses differently? Chances are, it will be turned into another chase for efficiency.

Being effective at what you do isn’t a bad thing. Trying to improve said efficiency through traits is thus desired. The problem therein lies in some traits being useless and some weapons are simply performing better than others, and thus your choices are limited to trait from the start. So the problem isn’t that the trait system is boring or passive, but it hasn’t as much meaningful variety AND proper, fair balance.

So to me – and that is just me, because I can’t speak for any of the other players I hang out with because I haven’t asked them – subclasses are just the same as traits. Just a different flavour of specialization, which automatically leads to restriction as well.
Restriction is not a bad thing, but this is again something I am scratching my head and asking “why re-inventing the wheel if the current one already works and just needs more polish?”

If subclasses have rules and restrictions and players deal with that, how is that different from what we already have? Forgive me, I might completely miss the point, but I see absolutely no difference, and please rest assured; I really want to…

There is another problem I am seeing with subclasses; too much themed specialization automatically leads to diversity shortages because you have to make subclasses for 8 existing ones, and we already have deficits on variance with the current system, I don’t see subclasses improving on them… AND they would also impact the possibility of adding new professions entirely. They would have to design subclasses in a way so niches and themes are intentionally left open for future additions, and then said new professions need to be tailored around that as well.

I am not wanting to be a partykiller here, because I really want to see someone coming up with an idea of subclasses that I totally dig – no matter how often I turn and dissect it, I cannot find an advantage to them which cannot already be done with current systems.

My disagreement with subclasses is hereby written as well, for the following reasons:

As been previously mentioned by a great many of people, literally all so called subclasses can already be implemented with the current systems available WITHOUT actually putting a sub-class choice in it. The thing you actually want by trying to promote subclasses is already possible with next to little change.

I really don’t want to talk down on those who promote subclasses, I really do not, please take what I say for face value and not for “he just wants to flame me.”
BUT.

Some people have the tendency to grab the most enjoyable aspects of games they liked and try to push it into their new current favourite title. In this case it looks like suggested subclasses smell like GW1 players trying to get back their secondary classes, among other games.
Please bear in mind, that in GW1 your character consisted almost entirely of skills to create your build, and next to little else. Weapon choice was negligible on classes who didn’t utilize weapon-based skills, and more often than not the gear specialization was negligible as well. 95% of the time you just went with extra energy and a varying set of attribute runes and that was it. Attribute choice usually was tied to the skills you were using, 12/12/3 was common to work well across the board, but basically attributes have been pretty straightforward. Push the skills you want to improve, nothing more.

Here, in GW2, the pie-chart for the character build is a lot more balanced. Weapon choice matters an awful lot, attributes are of higher value because they can be tailored better to suit your needs, traits & support skills are the meat’n’potatoes of your build and last but not least, Runes sometimes provide exactly that extra special feature you searched for. Creating a build in GW2 requires a lot more than just overlooking hundreds and hundreds of skills. Don’t get me wrong, I had a really great time in tinkering with builds in GW1, and I wasted hours to come up with the craziest things. But I don’t miss that. I love it in GW2 as well, it is simply different and I don’t want to be a scrub, so I sink my teeth into new mechanics and wrap my gumption around them.

Back to the point of subclasses:
Everything anyone talked in this topic about subclasses is fully possible with:

1. Larger selection of traits
2. Perhaps even one or two new trait-lines (horizontal progression – see what I did there? instead of increasing level cap, we get more traits to spend points to. Keeping gear on the same level but improving power through combination and diversification of traits.)
3. Larger selection of support skills (( some builds are either completely based around support skills or heavily complemented by them. Spirit-ranger or Trapper, here you go )).
4. More weapons unlocked for professions (( which causes more skill variety ))
5. New weapons in general (( Crossbow, Two-handed Axe, Polearms, etc ))
6. A second row of alternate weapon skills which can be toggled out of combat like support skills. (( so you basically doubling it, many skills offering either an inversion of what the original skill did, or changing the utility of it. Making a 2hand sword having 10 skills but you choose which individual 5 you run to battle with. Nothing more fancy to keep weapons simple and meaningful. Inverting the skill theme is almost always possible, easy to balance and keeps the association with the weapon intact)).
7. More Elite skills (( this was edited in, sorry, how could I possibly forget that? ))

The bonuses suggested by people do nothing but promote the type of profession they want to play or showcase a deficit of said profession. Yes, granted, some professions are not good at certain things. Yes, granted, some buffs and tweaks could be made to increase their utility in said fields.
But does this warrant an entirely new subclass system?
Look at the list I posted. The answer is; no. Absolutely not. We have the systems in place to build upon for increased variety. It just needs to be a bit more populated. There is zero incentive to create another unnecessary layer of character-building.

Melliarc.5870:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Meanwhile I have a question. This thread is BIG. Would the folks who have already commented on Horizontal want a new thread which is just based on Horizontal or should we just carry on with this thread?

I think that whichever is best for you since you’ll be the ones reading it and compiling the answers.

Inverydeed this. You Mr. Whiteside are the one who is doing the dedicated work of siphoning every single page with hawk’s eyes and every replying meticulously, so whatever gets you more feedback with less time required to do so is better for the greater good. I guess the more specialized a topic is that you’d like to have feedback on, the less offtopic we can get. As long as you provide a very tight frame of what you want us to say, that is

Shongaqu.5279:

Have you been watching Relics of Orr? :P

I’m sorry, what? *reads on*

Okay, no, I don’t have time for podcasts, vlogs, livestreams or any sort of that kind, no matter if it is just audio. Or rather, I would have time for that if certain circumstances could be met, but I wouldn’t talk about these in a public forum.

Trying to catch the few things addressed directly at me;

About Order Missions;
I didn’t elaborate on it because of limited character space and wanting to see how people react to it. These missions should be themed accordingly. You get stealth, reconnaissance, sabotage, etc. missions for Whispers, you get up front beating things down BUT ALSO defending & escorting things straight up as Vigil, and you get to research stuff / test stuff / acquire stuff for the previous two as Priory.
These missions should vary between instanced and open world. The open world stuff could easily work like the hearts. Just do your job until a satisfactory bar has been reached. The instanced mode would and should scale up according to the people that are with you on that mission. They don’t need to necessarily be in the same Order, just your team helping you out. Group size scaling should work into the mission objectives.
This opens up more achievement sections, and rewards would be tokens which you can trade in for new skins or existing ones of the Order if you don’t want to spend the gold on those. And all that other good stuff available for Tokens, the game has plenty of possibilities what to do anyway.

About cultural armor should be exotic, not rare:
Just look at exotic karma gear which is dirt cheap in comparison to cultural T3 armor. Karma is essentially worthless. Still, Karma gear is exotic, and doing a braindead group event to get there, is not a challenge in itself.

Nike.2631:

...Would you be satisfied if the Cultural armor and weapon vendors sold only cosmetic skins that were click-to-apply and had no stats whatsoever?

Absolutely. Either make T3 exotic (note, I am only talking about T3 because this is max level. T2 and T1 are not, thus they can stay as they are) or make cultural armor simply skins.

Nike.2631:

The Devs have clearly expressed a concern that Exotic-grade gear proved too easily acquired. If making the Tier 3 cultural gear Exotic-grade is an _absolute non-starter_ of an idea because it would just make a bad situation worse...

Why? T3 cultural armor is already more expensive than any set of exotic level80 gear so I don’t see where you are coming from.
In my opinion, this expression of the Developers isn’t helping the game at all because it is simply promoting gear treadmill progression. It shouldn’t be that you get kicked out from a dungeon because you are trying to run it to ACQUIRE exotic gear for tokens, yet exactly this is happening. The relatively easy availability of exotics is not detrimental to the game because 1) you are more prone to get more sets because you want to play different builds, which leads to gem purchase for inventory slots and 2) this means you are more useful and diverse a player to begin with and 3) if people have their top-gear, they can look for actual challenge. Gear treadmills are just one reason of not putting out meaningful and interesting content because you just gate it with stats.

About grouped activities / Kegbrawl championship example:
This is not about who drinks more, but which team wins. Essentially, Kegbrawl is pvp but in a different environment. We can go to tournaments in the mists with a prefab group. We cannot do that in Kegbrawl, so that is all I am asking for. And then I just want to have a jumping good time in Wintersday or Halloween Clocktower with my friends but I can’t. The list continues.

About achievement points:
Yes, my proposal was either limit earned achievement points from dailies to 5 (just for the chest with the laurel) so you can actually CHOOSE what you want to do which frees up valuable time elsewhere, or get rid of these points for such a meager thing as dailies entirely. We have many so called achievements which are not even worth the notion of that title. Kill 1000 whatever with a specific weapon? Where is the achievement in that? This is nothing to work for. It just happens in time. To quote Colin Johanson in a slightly sarcastic way; "I swung a sword, I swung a sword again, hey I swung it again! that’s great..."
Is it?

Animaniak (top 5 EU achievement leaderbord) is in the same guild as me, and I can tell you one thing; this isn’t fun stuff to witness. He has a regular job and regular life and still is capable of pulling off this stunt. If achievements where more meaningful and less arbitrary, hunting these points would be a lot more fun. And that is ultimately what a game is about. Having fun, and everyone has their own view on it but I can tell for certain: MEANINGLESS achievements to grind for, isn’t fun.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea that you actually get something for your points now, it is wonderful, it is great. But not when they try to instil this "you have to spend more time in our game so we make more points happen", which there is ample suggestive evidence that they try to.

Now my personal issues with the current character progression:

1.) Our personal story progression is meaningless. Choices at the start of character creation are dealt with and have no repercussions once we get to level 30, and the world story does not continue after we killed Zhaitan. Orr remains a mess, and the Orders we joined never call us in for extra missions or additional work. After Zhaitan, we are clueless freelancers. We receive guild commendations from guild missions, you could easily use the same framework for Order missions.

2.) Our deeds in the game world are meaningless. Event chains are being worked down with no visible change... usually because they reset too soon. Not only are open-world boss battles an adventure of stifling as many yawns as you can, but there is no consequence in being victorious or not. If Tequatl manages to stay alive through the encounter (which he usually does thanks to the laughable change of the boss mechanic which is just done ludicrously bad) then nothing happens in Sparkfly Fen. No hordes of undead are pushing up, no nothing.

3) The game does not make us better players, difficulty isn’t increasing on a skill based level. The only additions are extra game mechanics which require us to obtain a certain set of gear to speed through it again. Once you gained sufficient Fractal resistance, entire fights became ridiculously easy. There are a few fights I really dig but those are few and far in between. World boss fights are not one of them. They are not even epic or merely visually enjoyable. I slice a dragon’s toe. Yay. But even aside nonexisting skill improvement, there just isn’t enough hard content. Where are our hardmode dungeons? Please don’t say Fractals...

4.) Gated crafting progression and account-bound materials was a bad idea. Those who want to burn a lot of money to have stuff on day 1 should be allowed to do so. I don’t want to even get started on the RNG factor - Glob of Dark Matter anyone? If that would be a fixed 1 Glob per exotic, it wouldn’t be so bad. Or if it was not account-bound, people would be giving no kitten .
But still people are obliged to get this equipment without even setting foot into Fractals. Why? More stats = more effectiveness = easier content. It doesn’t matter how little the bonus is, a noticeable number of people will go for it, invalidating your intent for agony resistance and Fractals even more.

5.) Don’t single-handedly tie things to random drops. Give us more linear progression that might look long and tedious, but also ADD the random element to give us a chance to get where we want faster - but those not having luck still can make their way towards the desired goal. Effort should never be less worth than luck. *insert more tokens here*. Fractal tokens for ascended rings where a good idea. Further this.

6.) Stop punishing people for not playing your game. Event-specific items which are unavailable any more because they are from achievements no longer obtainable is nothing but infuriating. Make them tradeable, this would solve the entire issue.

7.) Cultural Armor and Weapons being rare instead of exotic is outright insulting as it blatantly tells you "go to the shop and buy a trans-crystal." This has nothing to do with progression towards a desired item but milking money out of players.

8.) Our character progression becomes more and more solo and ego-focused, or rather "solo in a big blob of people." You continue to remove the incentive to play together. The two worst things you’ve done was adding more and more parts for the daily quest to complete which are giving out achievement points. You would be surprised how many people are chasing those points like mad and most of them are better off done alone. The other thing is, you are continuing to alienate bonded players by forcing activities into a non-groupable pvp set.

Please cap the achievement points obtainable for the daily reward chest to 5. The other way would be to remove achievement points from dailies to and monthlies altogether and do that retroactively as well. Completing a daily is not worth mentioning to be an "achievement" at all.

Allow players to group and join an activity as a group. Think of the community based tournaments that would be held. Quarterly Kegbrawl championships are just one of many possibilities. If you even add personal or time-specific leaderboards into those activities, a lot of people would play that more often.

Vertical progression requires to keep on going in order to keep a game alive, which automatically adds arbitrary additions of stats, rarity of items, etc. There is not enough vertical player skill progression, it is just tied to items. Things don’t get harder. There is no hardmode for dungeons, and there is still a useful set of really hard zones to fight through. Two-hit death mechanics or required gear/weapon setups are by no means valid ways to increase difficulty. It is just flat-out annoying.
Granted, horizontal progression is meaningless without a certain push from the bottom. So you really have to get down to one thing; diagonal progression or - as I want to call it; the T-approach.

Diagonal progression would be both, starting out at zero and increase with varying emphasis. You do have a good diagonal progression at the start of the game. Slowly improving on gear, unlocking skills, then adding trinkets and traits, and so on. Starting to play the game is fun but after level 30 nothing is really new other than the look of the zones. Enemies don’t get that much harder on your merry way to 80.

Nowadays there isn’t much to do. Nothing improving us as a player, nothing optionally challenging and all the living story stuff doesn’t have remotely enough impact to have sufficient longevity on the game world or in our minds. To be honest, your living story has zero impact on me. When was the last time I was saving Tyria from a looming threat? When Zhaitan the Lame was brought down.

We have ascended armor now, and I grudgingly ask... why? The extra stats are completely meaningless, yet this causes people to say "it is best in slot, so I need to have it for this little advantage." The uproar against ascended gear would have been a lot more quiet if there was only agony resistance as part of it, and nothing else. This instils worry if there are going to be more gear treadmills, and you have successfully kept vague about this future.

So, what is the T-approach? If you look at a T you’ll see it having a nice vertical bar and a horizontal one on top. Think of the vertical one as your way up to 80. You improve on items & mechanics & skills & experience. The horizontal one is basically what you can do with everything you’ve acquired at level 80 and branching out with special mechanics and increasing challenge - show how good you are at wielding this power. A slightly different version of Fractals would be a great example of horizontal progression:

It should not be mandatory content, but rather the "you want harder dungeons? Come here!" approach. However, the only thing ascended gear managed to do was making people lock into the grind-mindset of needing to get it because of... guess what... more stats. There are people wearing ascended gear and haven’t even set foot into a Fractal due to the availability of said gear outside this dungeon instance. Isn’t that missing the point?

Ascended gear should have been purely about agony resistance, not extra stats. With this basic concept you could do the same thing anywhere else. For example, a few new zones in a row which require you fight hard, open world encounters which reward you with occupied progression on the map as well as new kinds of items that give you a certain resistance against... I dunno, corrosive sulfur dust. Those areas would be like the Southsun cove, which doesn’t require map completion and therefore not MANDATORY for people to get there. If you add things, then they should only be relevant to that specific part of the game. Design content that people are interested to venture forth and check out, and don’t force them to do so. Those who don’t want Ascended gear should not be kicked out of dungeon groups because they failed to post an entire pink trinket set and weapon. Yet, this has happened. I am not even kidding.

Therefore, I would think the best way to have item-dependant content without adding extra stats would be getting rid of all trinkets and making them pure resistance slots. Because that is basically what they became, with the introduction of Fractals. Once you have opened that door, you can put in more resistance against anything. Broad resistance like Flame legion, Sons of Svanir, whatever. Specialized resistance against agony, corrosive sulfur, etc.

I wouldn’t mind it be changed to “set character to 20 if below 20” with the addition of; “if 20+, you get +5 levels”. I find +20 unconditional levels too excessive. +5 is okay.

I have refrained from writing a topic when the last change happened, but I can’t help but notice that one of the most crucial aspects of the game have been destroyed, so I mop all that is on my mind in one topic.

1) Skill 2 when holding a Keg, Lob, is a complete joke now. Not only does it seem to have a slight autoaim feature when having selected a target, it also shows you when having something locked when you are in range to hit thanks to the red bar underneath. Congratulations for making a lower entry level into kegbrawl, only it won’t work that way, because the people who are already good at it will continue to roflstomp the new guys. The new metagame is; if skill 5 (Pour Ale) is ready while you are on your half of the field, it equals more or less an automatic point to score. You just stay there, charge Lob, done. This is hilariously boring.

2) Furthermore, it’s maximum range has been reduced to some 45% or 40% of the entire field it seems. Before, you could throw it up to 80% of the field, and it took immense amount of skill to hit the keeper 70% across the battlefield to score. Now? Not.

3) It doesn’t even remotely make sense that you have to keep up the keg longer in order to throw further. It makes sense for the adrenaline shot of the Rifle, because you aim to find a better spot. It makes sense for “as long as you press this skill, you run longer”. But for throwing a keg? Have you seen any football, soccer, tennis whatever player to stay there for increasing amounts of time only to propel whatever projectile further away? I think not.

4) You removed the whistling sound when a new Keg is being tossed onto the playground from the . Doing so, you removed a crucial tactical advantage to anyone who pays attention to their surroundings, by splitting off the entire blob fighting near a keeper and speed to the middle line in order to catch the keg. Please bring the sound back.

5) You have completely invalidated skill 4 while carrying a keg, Head Crack. It is meant to be an interrupt, and interrupts are meant to be delivered quickly, especially in a fast paced game like that. Now, with a 1,25 second cast time… it became next to useless compared to the previous 0,5 seconds.

6) You still have not managed to update the skills you get when talking to the Kegbrawl NPC in order to test around a little. The skills 1 and 2 are completely different from anything else we ever saw in the live game. How do you expect people who are new at Kegbrawl to properly prepare against the veteran players when you don’t even give them the right skills?

Now that I filed my complaints, and dearly hope you are literally reverting ALL of your changes or at least give a reason why you changed them in the first place. Now moving to what needs to be improved with Kegbrawl in order to make it more enjoyable:

A) If someone throws a Keg out of bounds, they should receive a penalty on the team’s score, or a “flag” for said player and their skills are disabled for an additional 15 seconds or. Basically, anything that not only punishes griefers but also gives more incentive to actually try to get out of problematic situations without doing it the easy way and just throw the thing out. These are just suggestions how to punish people who shoot out of bounds, but I absolutely think that there needs to be a consequence.

B) Kegbrawl, like any other activity, is based on the PvP engine. You can make teams and enter pvp tournaments as a team, and you can see who of your team or guildmates joined a pvp game in chat, so it would be wonderful to have something like that available for Kegbrawl. And any other activity, really.
Either allow us to form teams, or at least add a “game browser” which allows us the possibility to join the current map of the activity, if not full yet.

C) I understand that you lowered the skill requirements to play kegbrawl for more people to enjoy it. There is this saying that you can’t please everyone, but I have to disagree here. Split it into two modes. Regular mode, and advanced mode, like you have hot-join and tournament pvp. Regular mode is with the current skillset. Advanced mode, with the previous one. This will have both parties happy. And if you make that happen that people can make groups, then people will pull an arm and a leg in order to make community based kegbrawl tournaments.

A long while he looks at the space to sign with his name. Then he shakes his head, the time is not now. He grabs the sheets, puts them into the right order, rolling and stuffing them into a thin leather tube which he cups and seals. The man looks to his right, at a Hawk that rests on a pole on the desk, following his writing with curiosity as if it understood every word written…, or if just to be enjoyed by the waving motions of the pen’s tip. Two pairs of eyes meet.

“I do not ask this often of you”, the man starts saying in a low voice, as if there could be someone eavesdropping and holding up the slim tube, “but I really need you to deliver this. I cannot even get close to old Marriner without causing too much attention, even if it is just a delivery of sorts, and even if I dress up as a rag-tag commoner of Lion’s Arch. Will you do this favour for me?”
The bird’s head flicks around twice, the eyes blinking. Then it turns around on the pole and spreads the wings a little. With a muted thank on his lips, the man reaches into a drawer and pulls out a harness of fine and soft leather straps, which he carefully rigs to he Hawk. He sets in the tube with the letters and lets two short ends from the harness rest to the left and right of the bird’s head.

“Reach with your head to pull on them to get rid of your package when you are at his desk. Get in from the west and then lose the trail flying over Lornar Pass before coming back.”
The bird turns around, shrugging it’s wings to rest the load a bit more comfortable and looks at him with an expression that could easily be translated to… yeah, right, whatever, I probably know better what I need to do, don’t you think?
The man gets up, opening the window, and steps to the side, giving the messenger space to take off. He looks after the soaring bird a few seconds before his gaze lowers and stares down the streets towards the west. Then In the distance, there is a crowd forming and he could see the banners from here. He sighs, closing the window, and gets himself dressed in a more sturdy garb, hefting sword and dagger. Better to be at the Majesty’s open air party early before the ruckus starts…

Ellen Kiel seems to be a shining star for the citizens of Lion’s Arch, and I surely pay a bit of deference to her accomplishments, yet she completely seems to have taken the wrong turn with this candidateship. She steps up, claiming a heroine, yet many of her actions where rather of reactive instead of preventive measure, and many of them where not possible without the aid of the numerous brave individuals that rushed to her aid. We don’t need somebody who strikes back, we need someone who looks ahead. She is a capable investigator, credit where credit is due, as Gnashblade is a capable entrepreneur. I fail to see how it can be called a victory over the Karka that invaded Lion’s Arch, when Claw Island was overrun by the undead and then reclaimed, the area should have been reinforced. Apparently the opposite was done, thinking the threat with Zhaitan – and any other therefore – is gone. I blame this to the fact that the Karka were able to rush past Claw Island and invade Lion’s Arch. However, let us look into the strange campaign Ellen Kiel has lead. She promised to reduce waypoint costs and research matters related to the Thaumanova reactor. Neither has anything to do with Lion’s Arch. This looks more like an Asura-heavy campaign. That is, all things considered, not a far stretch since she worked closely with Head Researcher Levvi. The question remains however, with Lion’s arch already two Asuran Captains strong, why would there be the need to convince a human Captain to further Asuran interests? If anything, this looked more like a hidden trade – letting Rata Sum reduce the transportation fee for Magi-matter transportation devices in exchange for priorities shifted to get more resources work to uncover the mysteries of the Thaumanova reactor. Let us be blunt, this is a strictly Asuran matter. They messed it up, so they should fix it. There are other more pressing problems on a global scale than to deal with this petty failure of interdimensional fallout.
Having said that, I fear that Captain Ellen Kiel will get too caught up in politics and we loose a valuable investigator, as well as a pressing defender of Lion’s Arch. This city is immensely vulnerable, just think about how easy the Aetherblades crashed into it.
_____________________________________________

So Kiel bargains with Asuran interests as a human, and Gnashblade tried to rush into the Council, likely to form a greater foothold for Citadel’s influence in Lion’s Arch. He already has lots of pushing power due to the inherent nature of the trading post. There are more human Captains already than anything else. The Norn are less interested in petty politics, not to mention of the Lion’s arch climate, and – hand at heart – it will take a while until Lion’s Arch will accept a Sylvari into the ring of the council, to become a true fair ground for all people of Tyria… leaving the Tengu out for the time being. Not to mention the Sylvari are even less interested in politics, which is exactly why I would want to see one of them in the lines of a Councillor. They would get together quite fine with the Norn when it comes to a tighter no-nonsense approach.

I hope in the future we will not fall flat on our noses because we failed to elevate our line of thinking to a much more important point. We face threats beyond our understanding, and we are very ill prepared. My hopes go with the Zephyrites, and that their prolonged contact will give us the necessary exchange to gain new understandings and development on both fronts – cultural and technological. To increase our fighting and defending capabilities against the dragons, and to improve as living beings socially.

Sincerest and best wishes for you and your well being, Commodore

.

This brings me to the choice of the candidates themselves. The main problem with both of them is, that they try to do two things at once – towing in the Zephyrites and vie for a place in the Council. I fail to understand how it can be so important to push both things simultaneously, when other pressing needs are duly neglected. What would the Zephyrites think of such a makeshift endeavour, when there are already others questioning this process? If I was one of them, being jumped with trade-agreements without even having the political base of Lion’s Arch properly re-established? This would seriously damage the credibility of said visitors in my eyes. Originally I was surprised to see that only Lion’s Arch has made efforts to contact with our airborne friends, but after looking closer at the candidates, it all became too clear why the other cities have not tried to get in there more actively, other than the obvious reason that Lion’s Arch desperately tries to remain the hub of Tyria and channel all efforts through it. Let me demonstrate;
_____________________________________________

Evon Gnashblade, as much a rising entrepreneur he is, starts to get over his head and grow flimsy if he thought he could field a bargaining chip for the Zephyrites, let alone handle a seat in the council. He knows about the deficits of the Black Lion trading post, as they are painstakingly visible. I wouldn’t be impressed as a Zephyrite if I was to accept the extension of the unsteady Trading Post to my flying home. How would he have time to oversee improvements of his own company if he is trapped in haggling with the Zephyrites on one end and petty politics of Lion’s Arch on the other? Lion’s Arch is a hub for many things, so it is lucrative to establish footholds of power… of any sort. Mr. Gnashblade would reinforce the interests of the Black Citadel, even more so than with Captain Scarclaw. His campaign promises were also worrying. How can someone who knows about the issues within his own company and knowing how cumbersome it is to use the Trading post give out discounts on Keys? This is a short time benefit for customers, but does nothing for the better in the long run. The auction house cuts the Black Lion Trading Company is making since so long now, should suffice to invest in an overhaul, which nets in a benefit for every user across Tyria. Furthermore, Evon Gnashblade wants to sponsor research about the fall of Abaddon. What ulterior motive is behind that? Yes, I wholeheartedly agree that we have to uncover more secrets regarding the Silence of the Gods and anything that could relate to this, especially since we know the Gods have been tangible beings, as research and history tells us. But why would a Charr be interested in that, and why would he – again – spend money that would be better invested in overhauling the very Trading Post? I dare saying his company and services are equally important as the Asuran gates and transporters. To see him waste this potential by being burrowed in the City’s plots, pains me.

Sitting in a small office somewhere in Divinity’s Reach cramped to the ceiling with shelves, at a desk that isn’t made to impress but to remain practical, a man sets down the pen and picks up the lately finished paper with his left and sets it aside. Then he looks at the other pieces of paper and starts reading the full letter again from the beginning. His right grabs absent mindedly a strain of almost-white hair and plays with it. If someone would be looking close, there might have been traces of blond once, or was it completely whitened-out brown? His face belies the age he should have, according to the hair colour. The two-day grey stubbles of beard give him a distinctively rougher look than it should, so he might be younger than mid-forty. Stern grey eyes with a hint of green are whizzing over the words in focused clarity, and every now and then he subconsciously purses his lips when going over some passages. Lips which look like they might have laughed a lot more in the past. In a past long gone.

Esteemed Commodore Lawson Marriner,

Hesitant and alarmed I am writing these lines, due to my disbelief in the possibility of having an election getting through like this, which would barely withstand any amount of scrutiny. Yet here we are. I am baffled how you or the Council could even allow such two candidates to enter the competition, without anyone else being on board. While I agree to the importance of connecting to the Zephyrites it has been done through entirely wrong reasons. Trade agreements are one thing, but we all know there are other, more important matters at hand. They sport a flying living area, and last time I checked, humanoid races do not claim air superiority by any stretch of the imagination. The recent events of having Elder Dragons and their underlings loose on all ends of the world is a mortal threat to the Zephyrites, and I believe most of us have been at the Bazaar. The construction is filigree and easily assailable, and the only defensive measures they seem to have are the Zephyrites themselves, wielding the aspects. If I had a say in this, I would have started to ensure bringing technicians from all ends of Tyria to aid the Zephyrites in ramping up their survivability against airborne draconid attacks, as they have given us insights into the aspects on their own accord. We are at war, and sadly many people try to overlook this, clinging to the questionable victory against Zhaitan. Not only are we at war on a military scale, but on a social level as well. Too many open ends are being neglected in the pot of our mixed cultures.

Kegbrawl has the same problem. The question is: why? You can make Tournament PvP games with a complete premade team. But you can also make a group of 3, and get two randoms from the pool. The system is existing, so why is it not used for all the activities? This is what makes no sense in my point of view

Conncept.7638:

Let me get this straight, by your own words this mode is:

Fun
A solid idea and concept
Difficult, but not too much
Well made and detailed
A mode which the game lacked and fits well

But in spite of all that, it sucks because the carrot isn’t big enough? I think the principal problem is your outlook, when you start playing video games for a sense of accomplishment instead of fun, you need to shut the games off go look for real things to accomplish in the real world, and come back when you can see video games as a venue of entertainment again.

Thank you for this gem. This is the absolute truth.
Why are people doing this? That is, why are people trying to get 5 dolyaks alive until the end? Here is your carrot: for the achievement, nothing else. That is why you do this, people. Not for the gifts, but for them 20 Arenanet points. This is your reward, be grateful. If not? Then don’t play the minigame with 5 Dolyaks or only if you really have just the genuine fun for the accomplishment of DOING it. And not for arbitrary rewards at the end.

I just hope this is a bug, and will be fixed in the upcoming hours. I have not seen any group bigger than 5 yet, so the so called “pvp” mode is kinda useless. Please fix it so you can also come in with a premade team, even if it is not full, so it can be filled up with other people.
Please stick to your advertisement of making a game that is made to play with your friends and not rip them apart. This is the same issue that plagues Kegbrawl, etc.

The difficulty is quite okay, one just has to get used to it, learn the mechanics, learn the weapons, thats okay. But currently? Guildmates who want to play together are ripped apart. Huge decrease in fun.

Awesome.6120:

They already have the infrastructure to create in-game surveys, we saw it during the beta events. It wouldn’t hurt anything to get the players’ opinions.

I was not counting in the beta thing because there have been reports and concerns that their survey was never submitted. Had something to do with packets sent, etc. But yes, we clearly saw they had the ability to pull it off. Problem was a good amount of people who just skipped on this.

Having a survey of the magnitude we speak of… should either not be easily skipped or not skipped at all. This is the only way to get a REAL good sample size of data.

Having said that:
Vocal minority? The problem we are currently facing is of a vast MINORITY of players who have been hitting a so called progression wall. I fear the game is about to be trimmed badly for the rest of the community just to please them few. And what is really sad is… they have the ways and means to give BOTH kinds of players their fair share.

Back to topic:
Getting feedback data before launching an update is a double edged blade. It largely depends on the margin of data you acquire as well as the type of content you are questioning the people about. This can go bad but also can go well. It is really tricky to decide.

If we had ingame surveys and a launcher that provides actually useful information, then getting feedback would not be solely forum driven. A lot of people don’t bother with forums because they just want to play the game. So deliver the feedback INTO the game. We already have an ingame browser, namely the trading post.

Why not use the technology to bring ingame surveys for feedback?

Quaggan: no, too much hassle to implement animation wise due to their physique.
Skritt: would be funny but… pack mechanics. no.

Tengu and Kodan are the ones that I believe to be very valid and possible in the future.

Just remove the attributes on ascended gear. Problem solved.

And if we are at it, remove ascended item status and make exotics upgradable with an extra infusion slot.
Even more problems solved.

Wait seriously? I thought I s-…

Nevermind. unrefreshed page of mine, you are right. By Dwayna’s Light, dear moderators, I understand you have a very unpleasant job but… please?

No. The one in this forum with the simple collection of voices was closed due to infractions. I have no idea where these infractions would be if you read through them:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Remove-higher-stats-for-Ascended-gear/page/6#post718079

It was a really legit topic. Not a discussion, it was a survey.

They are not starting with the least marginal items. If it was that way they would use the backpiece and the earrings, not the rings. Also, stat wise, shoulders + feet + hands have even less stats and it would not be a huge problem to add an “Infusion socket upgrade” only to those items.

The problem with the increased stat points that contradicts and offends everyone still remains. Without the extra stats, this entire hailstorm would only have a third of its force.

I put it up here because I feared that the suggestion forum is going to be even more blotched then the general Discussion one. But thank you for bringing it up, I will check it out there.

I am inclined to disagree, I also see good things happening on the forum. This is also human nature. We take good things for granted and exaggerate on the bad things.

Forum definitely does not represent a majority, but a solid trend. When I ask in my casual guild, the high majority of them says no to extra stats on ascended items. Even asking the serious players I know say “thats not what I came for in this game.”

Everyone I ask outside the forums agrees with the removal of attributes = all fine.

I talk about sixtysomething people and hardly any of them check a forum. Make the test in your guild and your friends who play guildwars who are not as forum savvy. I’m curious what comes out.

Okay. I remove the spoiler. This is not open up for debate in this thread. The thing that counts is;

Removing the stat bonuses to ascended items.

Removing the stat bonuses to ascended items.
Period. Isn’t that what the majority of us wants? So people still do not need to feel inferiour anywhere else in the game, and the people who want to do that dungeon (and any dungeon that comes from here on) which requires a specific resistance to a environmental mechanic in there, get their extra stuff. And this extra stuff is only specific for THIS dungeon. If you want to go to the next, you switch your infusion upgrade. I’m fine with the mechanic, apparently a lot of others are too.

But seriously, Arenanet? Remove the attribute bonuses and a lot of people WILL shut up. Right?

“Fun impacts loot collection. The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.”

- Colin Johanson, 19th of June 2012
Source

Now… guys? Do you keep your ideals and Reputation and are you going to explain a wee bit more what this blagenflag of a balderdashing flubdub regarding the stat increase of Ascended Items is about? I really believe in you. I really do. Its just a bit hard right now, you know? I want to be proven wrong. I really hope that I am wrong about my fears that you will contradict yourself, lose the credibility you built up for so many years, and that you will not start a gear treadmill less than 3 months into the game. It is already tiring to see the “lfm only full exotic” messages in map chats for dungeon runs… ( I am so glad to have a decent guild but it still is alarming).

Please, do not disappoint.

AcidicVision.5498:

Plainly, the majority of players just aren’t getting as good as Anet expected them to get. Too many habits from other games and failure to adapt.

So how do you help those people along without nerfing the entire game? Add a new tier of gear to shoot for and make the current top tier more accessible to help that base of players while adding some more difficult content on the top end for the more skilled base of players.

These players go on farming runs with other players in overcrowded areas like Cursed Shore, even if it is not the best place to get money, and they do so until they have enough bling and materials to craft / buy exotic armor and spend karma on the other half of equipment. THEN they go running the dungeons because of the skin that looks cool and they want to have.
Some others even dump gems into the store and get gold out of it to speed up the process. If you don’t believe me; run a dungeon group with 5 full exotic people. Then run the dungeon with the same people in complete bluegreen gear. The difference is shocking.

Arenanet, please give us more information. Are you going to add a gear treadmill now? Are you aware how much of your player base you are going to offend because of this? A lot of people are on the fence of leaving just because of that. Because they do not want to play another geargrinder MMO.
Give us more information and please, for Dwayna’s sake, be mindful of the reputation you have and how you are damaging your own credibility if you continue to pull that stuff off.