Guild Wars 2

As long as ANET has the average age of its’ playerbase and also how many of those people enjoy the Living Story content, they would be capable of gauging focusing the story to a more mature audience.

Like the OP said, this idea does not mean Game of Thrones Wars 2.

1. Replayability

The content that comes out of Arenanet is always top notch. Making sure that the content created is enjoyably experienced many times will give longevity to player satisfaction allowing for ample time to create more top notch content.

2. Advancement

GW2 arguably has the best character customization in any MMO to date. Seeing this trend continue will be a motivating factor in running these raids many times over. Also, I’d love to see gameplay advancements as well.

3. Profitability

Not just for the players, but for Arenanet as well. Finding ways to monetize raids through gem store items would be great.

Post victory for each above event, one player can pick the orb of power up. Support spells fill the player’s weapon bar. These three orbs must be marched to a different location.

Bad guys spawn and attack the orb holders along the way. Tough bad guys block the altar – another event. Once placed on the altar, the raid receives a MASSIVE magic find boost for each orb placed.

Remember, the original timer that leads to greater rewards is still tickingso splitting up can be an option for the more knowledgeable/skilled groups. Hopefully it leads to build/gear variations. Less skilled groups can still pull it off by staying as one large group. This slows them down and might prevent them from hitting the timer for increased rewards, so, as a stimulant:

For each orb placed on the altar, some, but not much extra time is given to the raid AND numerous, difficult, awesome loot-table mobs spawn throughout the map for each orb placed on the altar. The raid will need targets to use these newfound magic buffs after all!

Now, there were several paths mentioned, not just three. The other paths lead to (insert number of) mini-bosses. They can absolutely be skipped and a raid can go straight to big boss as originally mentioned. One problem though, whichever mini-boss(es) is/are not killed when big boss is engaged, show up to wish our raid group well, with death and destruction. Insert titles or achievements for pulling off the final fight with however many mini-bosses present. Hardcores unite!

The breakdown: By throwing a timer in as a catalyst you force the raid to make choices and you make failure sting, but not catastrophic. Rather than clicking a hard-mode button in the UI for additional loots and monsters doing more damage, I felt players making choices and having to organize just to get to the hard-mode was a little more unique and interactive. Throw in some randomization and you have (I hope) the Replayability element satisfied.

II. Progression

A couple of quick thoughts on this topic, if you wanted, you could make the entire raid instance automatically have an ongoing Agony Aura, especially if this raid is say, against the Mursaat. Fractals would then be needed for agony resist.

I’d personally prefer the raid to have an incredible loot table with the above mentioned magic find buffs amplifying this. To prevent the economy from collapsing, raids being clearable once every (insert random days here) would prevent that while still being very rewarding.

III. Reward Structures

A couple things here…

The first has already been discussed, gold and good loot.

Second, are horizontal progression rewards, some of which have been discussed already (legendary armor for example). I’d like to throw out a sparkly idea. I’d love to see the raid reward “tokens” upon completion or have the mobs/bosses drop them. These tokens could be used to buy a particle effect. There would be several to choose from and they would be affected by player dyes. They would only attach to weapons because I’m assuming your graphics programmers have developed a toolset for your artists to easily slap these on the weapons that you already churn out? Should diminish dev time.

You could have a fiery affect, the misty glow from jotuns greatsword, etc. These would be expensive and would be unlockable (new unlocks and things to sell on the gem store!). None of these would allow players to apply any of the affects that legendary weapons currently provide and no footsteps either, but they’d still get players excited.

Some miscellaneous thoughts:

A boss that only takes damage from critical hits.

A boss that stacks Defiance up to 10 and takes 0 damage while defiance is up, but 10x damage when CCed.

NPC’s are fighting bad guys. The bad guys cannot be harmed by players, but the NPC’s can harm them. The NPC’s have a degen aura on them and are also taking moderate damage from the enemy. Keeping the NPC’s alive through CCing the enemy and healing the NPC’s is the only way to succeed in the event. Perhaps the NPC’s join the raid afterward or become the vendors that sell the raid rewards etc.

It aint a pretty post, but hopefully my ideas were clear enough to understand.

I’m late to the party. I read through the summary thread and a few pages in the CDI. Apologies for the sloppy editing, I’m in a rush and already edited the whole thing beautifully and the forum ate it, so here we go…

A quick note on my philosophies when it comes to a MMO’s PvE:

I feel that the two pillars of any profitable MMO are Replayability and Advancement.
Replayability contains: Challenge, Randomization and Uniqueness.
Advancement contains Character Customization, Power Scaling (Horizontally and/or Vertically) and Progression. The ideas I’m about to outline will aim to increase/create/amplify the above.

I. Encounters and Raid Content
This section will describe how to cater to everyone, while challenging everyone and allowing the players to choose how/when/why they overcome the obstacles in the instance (I’m an instanced guy).

Catering to everyone in a (hopefully) unique way:

Raid group enters the instance. Big boss fight at end as per usual. However, there is a timer (insert lore/story reason why here). This timer is relatively easy to meet by all players should the raid decide to fight their way straight through to big boss and his allies. Even if the raid fails to meet the timer it does not mean the raid fails, loot is still rewarded, but it’s less awesome. Casuals unite!

Near the entrance are several paths. Three of these paths fork out in different directions and lead to three different events. These events end with an “orb of power” to be dropped. Description of some potential events:

Triangular area for event. Three bad guys. Raid encounters the “Holy Trinity.” A healer, a tank and a DPS. Attacking the healer enrages the tank, so he gains large AoE crowd control abilities and the DPSer does large AoE damage. Healer gains no special abilities though. Conversely, attacking the DPSer turns the healer into super healer and tank once again has wild cc abilities. Attacking the tank leads to no over the top abilities, but he’s a tank so it takes a long time to tear him down.

Gameplay info for the above: If the raid spreads their damage out to the healer and the DPSer then all 3 would enrage. Spreading the NPC’s out, focus firing, having someone move the DPSer out of the raid to avoid AOE damage etc. This one would require several or all raid members.

Circular area of event. One random raid member is possessed. He receives 5 new weapon abilities. He is “red” to other raid members and becomes an attackable boss. He has a massive AoE damage aura with an instance-wide range. If he does not constantly do a high amount of damage to allied raid members, his high damage, instance-wide aura continues. If he successfully beats his friends senseless with the 5 abilities, the damage aura is minor. All 5 of his abilities are AoE attacks that split their damage equally among all targets hit. So, if he only hits one, odds are, that one player won’t live long. If he hits 8-9, things should be fine, but it’s still challenging damage.

Gameplay info: The raid will need to bring several raid members to this encounter and likely stack on each other to heal through it. If you wanted to be tricky, you could have the damage aura only reduce when a certain amount of damage is done, so tanky builds or damage reduction abilities might backfire. Feel free to give the possessed player some NPC allies to make the encounter more difficult. Maybe the possessed player’s damage heals his NPC allies, so the raid has to burst him down and take all the damage in the face.

Square area of event. The bad guys that spawn are directly related to how many raid members enter the area. No less than two can spawn and no more than however many raid members present in the area. Killing one feeds the remaining bad guys the first bad guy’s abilities and heals the surviving bad guy(s) to full. Raid can bring the whole group or send in a lone ranger/elite squad to take care of them.

Gameplay info: Focus firing the bad guy that has the weakest ability first and following that trend is the proper way to overcome the encounter. Splitting up bad guys is likely needed in case of AoE/CC/healing abilities.

With these examples in mind, the reason for describing the area of the encounter (circle, triangle etc) is because I would suggest having 9 total events that can go into these areas – three potential events for each area and one event is selected when the raid first enters the instance.

(Continued)

Employees of Arenanet that read this post, I need your aid. It is imperative that I be allowed to have direct contact with Mike O’Brien. I need this humans email address. The very fate of the planet may be at jeopardy here.

I’m aware we can’t post it for these heathens to see, so if you’ll kindly PM me the information I so desperately need, I will make sure to mention you when I’m accepting the Nobel Peace Prize.

To the moderators that read this thread, I’m certain it will be deleted and you’ll send me one of those infraction PM’s, this is fine, all I ask is that you delay the deletion of this thread until you feel that you are no longer doing your job.

I’ve tried 156 random email combinations to reach this man, search your souls Arenanet employees! Search them and know that my cause is true and just and beautiful1!

Let Zommoros know Muke will be throwing things at him 4 at a time. Thanks.

The second concept is superior in my mind because:

Hope seems to be an inherent quality of us humans. I suppose that’s why gambling is so prevalent – everyone wants to be the lucky one. However, as you pointed out, in a truly random system, like GW2, there are “losers,” through no real fault of their own.

By allowing people to build up some kind of resource to eventually get what they’ve been denied, you allow the luck/hope element to still provide the thrill of the hunt, while diminishing the justifiable frustration that would arise from a player killing Boss XYZ 1000 times and walking away empty-handed.

With the first concept, it seems to diminish the luck/hope/thrill element quite a bit because everyone knows, within reason, that they’re rewards will arrive in a given time.

In short, keep the gamble, but reduce the impact that “losers” endure.

If you’re looking to flesh out the how-to with these concepts and aren’t simply looking for people’s opinions on which they prefer, I’ll edit this post.

I call if Fire and Ice. Run it with a Barb amulet for extra health if the zerk isn’t working out. If you’re going for the Barb amulet, I’d suggest swapping the runes over to Ice as well.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Behold-Muke-s-build-of-builds-revealed/first#post4468355

Anyone else weighing in on the thread? I feel like another summary wouldn’t change much just yet, so I’ll bump this and see if people are still passionate about it.

Malediktus, if a new player approached you, who you knew without a shadow of a doubt to be a future hardcore AP hunter and asked you if it was fair for him to have to grind a full year longer than you did for the same armor set would you tell him tough luck?

Parts of the game that gave out large amounts of AP are gone, new players are at a disadvantage. This is one of several arguments posed in this thread to have this looked at. It’s a decent thread really, I’d hate to see it brushed aside.

Alethia.3597:

Rambodacious.7495:

If one person alone is trying to boost it up, its 504 hours of game time for the first tier of an upgrade alone. Further, remember, he has to be representing this guild, and it’s just him. While he represents, there’s no bonuses of any kind, from any guild. If he ever stops repping, the time stops too. It’s you Captain Loner, for months on end to push it to one completely upgraded Specialization Path. Using the increasing difficulty model, our hero would be playing for more than a year(s) at least, all by himself, to get all the specialization paths.

It might need some work, as far as I know when someone idles out while repping a guild and stays on the character select screen they might count as online and in the guild. At least on the roster they show up as part of your guild and online which has caused a lot of confusion for us since launch. In that case, it would take Captain Loner 21 days if he stayed connected which some of my guild members have days on end, so it is theoretically possible.

A solid point. Looks like what’s needed is code to ensure actual in-game time and/or making sure log in screen time is not counted. I will say, if we run the specialization method, the person would have to actively be in WvW or a Dungeon or in an adventure (non-city) zone in Tyria etc depending on the path they’re trying to unlock. In that sense, just the log in screen problem would need to be looked at.

Really, if someone wants to hit their keyboard every few minutes, while sitting in a Dungeon by themselves for weeks and months on end, doing nothing, I say let them have at it. In my mind they’ve earned the reward through endless hours of tedium.

A special note on specializations, and to address Chris Whiteside in regards to alliances. I’m hopeful specializations are placed in, because I would suggest that after the first specialization is completed in its’ entirety, the tier one for the next selected specialization would cost (examples)40k tokens for "route 1, or 1.5 months of time from “route” 2, or 5k gold at each tier from “route” 3 to obtain.

This doesn’t preclude guilds from obtaining all specializations, but it certainly encourages alliances. A guild member could represent an allied guild and help them run “route” 1 or 2. Maybe a direct donation from the big WvW guild to the smaller PvP guild they are close with to help them unlock the PvP Specializations Guild Hall. Why because any guild member from the WvW guild could then represent that allied PvP guild and obtain the specialization features of that guild in the given game mode without the extremely expensive/long grind of getting to it with the original guild. Even if they didn’t help, they’d seek out an alliance with a guild that has the desired specialization to obtain the benefits of all game modes for their primary guildies to keep their guild attractive.This encourages cooperation among large portions of the player base.

Potential Loop Holes Explained: Let’s assume that people see “route” 2 above and think they’re going to start making their own one man upgraded Guild Halls to later sell them. The breakdown:

If one person alone is trying to boost it up, its 504 hours of game time for the first tier of an upgrade alone. Further, he has to be representing this guild, and it’s just him. If he ever stops repping to get bonuses from other guilds, the time stops too. It’s Captain Loner, for months on end to push it to one completely upgraded Specialization Path. Using the increasing difficulty for additional specialization (such as PvP, WvW, Dungeons), our hero would be playing for more than a year(s) at least, all by himself, to get all the specialization paths. Tough to exploit.

A final note on “route” 2, if it’s deemed too harsh, it could allow for a total of 2 players or 3 players to combine overlapping time to march toward the amount needed…

One last side note to Chris. I know the Specializations I posted about in my previous post are a mountain to climb dev time wise, they can certainly be watered down to require less man hours.

Actually, I’ll say, on a side-side note, the Dungeon one, that allows players to give themselves 50% increased damage taken and 50% increased condition duration upon entering a dungeon would be easily implemented. It could provide the hard mode many people are after, especially if it came with the speed run copper loot bonus that stacks and resets if something isn’t killed after a time. No additional gold is earned over what’s normally given upon completion of the dungeon path, this hard-mode exists to give players an economic and challenging reason to engage dungeon wildlife. Tweaking this further, to allow for greater build variations – increase healing received by 200% from other players only. Just a thought.

Editing this the following day. You know, middle sized guilds can kind of be in a rough spot with the above system. So, maybe an exact middle ground could be allowed. Example: 5000 tokens and 252 hours. I say exact because if not, then you’re left trying to calculate how many seconds/minutes equate a token and the reality is, the more people after tokens, the less they should mean time wise. So, if you just chop them both in half and combine them, it should give guilds comprised of 30-50 a reasonable option.

Responding to Chris Whiteside and Jon Peters simultaneously this time.

From what I gather, Chris is after information about alliances and how they might operate/function and Jon is looking for the means with which guilds go about creating actual upgrades/visual improvements?

I feel like I’ve come up with a system, that allows large guilds, small guilds and alliances to -all- acquire what they want.

First, the framework: whether a guild is purchasing a general upgrade/improvement OR whether they are specializing, these three “routes” would be present and usable to all guilds regardless of size. I do personally lean toward the specialization theory of GH’s as I feel it solves alliance issues. Some example specializations categories that I will call on here for ease of explaining the system are WvW, PvP, Adventuring, and Dungeons.

Guild A goes to purchase the first tier of a Guild Hall Specialization. They have 3 “routes” to obtain this. The first route is very basic:

The first route (Best for Large Guilds): A glorified scavenger hunt linked to the particular specialization. Let’s say this guild chooses WvW as its’ specialization. First, the guild must choose the specialization to be sought by the Guild Leader or allowed guild member locking in this option from the User Interface or speaking to an npc. Once that is done, guild members must represent the guild to obtain the items necessary, say, tokens. These would drop off enemy players and high importance NPC’s (Tower/Keep Lords) in WvW. They stack to 250, are bind on pickup, and are taken to the Guild Hall (or appropriate NPC) and deposited.

When the guild acquires and deposits, say, 10,000 of these (easily adjustable), tier 1 is unlocked for the specialization (or general guild upgrade without the “locking in” from above if specializations are done away with). The next “tier” in the upgrade line would require a larger number and so on. However, there’s no time gate here! As soon as the huge guild throws in the tokens, the job is done! Boom, onto the next tier!

(Stay with me through this)

The second route (best for small guilds): When any guild member logs in and represents the guild, a timer starts. Now, if we’re using the specialization requirement from above, they would again, have to “lock in” their choice and represent the guild etc. However, there’s no scavenger hunt (if specialization track, then you’d still need to play the game mode linked to it, here, let’s say WvW again, so go into WvW). What happens is, it takes 3 weeks total time = 504 hours of at least one person representing.

Example: Let’s assume, at 2 pm, Guild Leader logs on and starts representing this small guild, the clock has started, second after second starts ticking away at the 504 hours. He plays for 8 hours. Further, one hour after he logged in at 2 pm, a second guildie logs in at 3 pm, the time is -not- additive. It’s one person only that is counted. So if two are on (or a thousand are online at the same time) it’s irrelevant as long as one is representing (and playing the appropriate game mode if specialization method used) then seconds tick away at the 3 week total. No one on in the middle of the night? No time ticking away. Want the upgrade? Log in and represent (and play the right mode if applicable).

Now, let’s talk about how this second “route” ties into the first “route” above. They are mutually exclusive. Meaning, Guild A has 9800 tokens and 480 hours representing, it doesn’t matter. Either you have 10,000 tokens and you get the upgrade OR you represent for 504 hours and you get the upgrade. There, now big guilds can burn through a scavenger hunt, speeding up their upgrade, but if a guild knows it can’t obtain 10k tokens in less than 3 weeks, run “route” 2!

It might not seem fair for the “route” 1 people. Well, they’re doing something they would already be doing and they’re acquiring the upgrade faster. So as long as they toss 250 tokens at an npc before logging off, they’re good.

The third route: Gold. That first tier upgrade for the WvW specialization? It’s 1,000 gold. Pay it and it’s yours. No time-gate. No rep. Done. Why? Simple – economy. Everyone will want these guild hall upgrades. Everyone. If you give the rich folk the ability to have something a few weeks or months ahead of people, they’ll do it, and then, the economy is awesome! With so much less gold out and about, fewer people buy gems, gem prices drop, meaning more gems for less gold. Those folks that didn’t go the gold dump route and went route 1 or 2, they can now buy more pretties off the TP for less golds. The next tier in the upgrade for this “route”? 2,000 gold. 3000 for tier 3, then 4k and so on. “Route” 3 assumes Anet is looking for gold sinks.

Continued below to discuss alliances, possible loop holes and any adjustments that may seem necessary…

Adventuring – Specializing in this category provides:
Tier 1 – Adventure Vault – Every monster a guild kills in an open world zone gives the vault 2 copper. This money cannot be withdrawn, but gives members with appropriate permissions the ability use use the vault to directly purchase armor repairs once per day.

Tier 2 – Unlocks the ability for guild members to purchase guild waypoints. Guild waypoints are one-time use consumables that a guild member with appropriate permissions can spawn on the map with a ground target ability after double clicking the object from their bags. The waypoint lasts 15 minutes before it dissipates. Cannot be used in combat or while stealthed. Can only be seen by people actively on the particular map instance and can be used by everyone on the map.

Tier 3 – Unlocks the ability for the guild to generate one Event Battle Standard once per day. Maximum of 7 can be stored. A guild member with appropriate permissions throws down an EBS and monsters, common to that zone, spawn and scale upwards in difficulty (champs etc.) with the more players that are present.

Tier 4 – Unlocks the passive ability of every representing guild member to provide every other representing guild member, within 1500 yards in a given zone, a buff that increases Karma, Experience and Magic Find by .5%. Capping at 10%. Time to hang out more eh?

Dungeons Specializing in this category provides:
Tier 1 – Unlocks the Dungeon Vault – Every dungeon mob that players kill puts 5 coppers into the vault. Guild members with appropriate permissions can use the vault to directly purchase armor repairs once per day.

Tier 2 – Unlocks the ability to purchase the Speed Run Token. This can only be purchased through using the Dungeon Vault money. This is a one time consumable, usable only once inside a dungeon, that provides the user and all actively representing guild members present, the speed run buff, lasting for 30 minutes. The speed run buff provides all affected members a buff whereby every mob killed, drops two additional copper(special note below) to each member, per mob, stacking infinitely and lasting 60 seconds before resetting back to zero. So, if a group killed 10 mobs back-to-back, in addition to the normal loot received, they would also have looted an extra 110 coppers (1.1 silver). 2+4+6+8+10+12+14+16+18+20 = 110 coppers. It pays to clear dungeons folks.

Special Note – This is 1 copper stacking up in the lower dungeons, 2 copper in mid-tier dungeons, and 3 copper for high end dungeons like Arah etc.

Tier 3 – Unlocks the ability to purchase a guild waypoint inside the dungeon. This can only be purchased using the guild vault funds. Allows party members, not in combat to travel to the waypoint or rez at the waypoint when dead. Lasts for 3 hours.

Tier 4 – Unlocks hard mode. This is free for all guild members and is activated by a small button above a guild members utility bar. When activated, every representing guild member receives an uncleansable debuff. They take double damage from all direct damage attacks and damage over time attacks. All condition durations are doubled. All damage dealt is reduced by 50%. Healing received form abilities is not affected. Passively increases magic find by 100%. All cash loot received is doubled. Yes, this stacks with the Speed Run consumable. 4+8+12+16 etc. etc.

Responding to Chris Whiteside

I love the idea of the alliances you posted, but I think each guild should have to build/improve their own structures. If you represent a given guild within the alliance then you can take advantage of their buffs. This would allow guilds of varying specializations from above to band together and give all of their players access to all aspects of the game without having to grind out their own upgrades. Also, with this change, small guilds could then benefit with little to worry about.

Allowing a special channel for Alliance Chat would be great too.

Honestly, smaller guilds could just ally with the larger ones and get all the bells and whistles. Bigger guilds would want it, because it’s a few more people repping the guild here and there throwing coppers into the Guild Vaults per above. Everyone wins.

As far as how to go about actually unlocking the tiers/upgrades etc from above? I’ll get to that tomorrow.

Addressing Jon Peters’ Guild Upgrades Here

A Foreword: All Guild Halls come with a Mystic Forge of Zommoros. More on this throughout.

Section I
(Skip this section if you do not want the current Guild Upgrades available in game to be visually and physically interacted with inside upcoming Guild Halls)

I’ll only touch on this briefly as it has been discussed, but I do think it’s a great idea if you want to add it in so guilds can visually see their progress from the upgrades currently in game. Not everything could have a visual look associated with it, but things that could, like building the Guild Emblem under the Politics category – would then appear on the walls of the Guild Hall and/or on majestic flags hanging down from the ceilings etc.

Section II
This section will provide additional features arriving with the inclusion of Guild Halls that all guilds would have access to without specialization.

Again, many posts have mentioned these and they would be under a General Upgrade tab. Portals to various areas, target dummies, a jumping puzzle, etc.

Section III
Specialization is targeted at a specific game mode and comes at only a moderate cost to allow for all sizes of guilds to acquire their first specialization. You must move up the Tiers within a given specialization. The first specialization is relatively cheap as per above, each new specialization (if allowed at all) would be nearly exponentially more expensive to give larger guilds something to work on over several months. If not allowed, then the guild can completely remove its specialization and build a new one, over time, for a moderate price. The areas that a guild can specialize in are:

WvW
PvP
Adventuring
Dungeons

WvW – Specializing in this category provides:
Tier 1. WvW Vault – Every enemy player that by someone actively representing is killed provides the Vault 5 copper. The money is never removable from the vault, but instead allows the Guild Leader and members with permissions the ability to use the vault to purchase upgrades directly with it, like traps, improved walls etc in WvW.

Tier 2. WvW Guild Finisher – A giant, like giant, gleaming flag pole shoots down onto the enemy with a banner blowing in the wind, the guild emblem prominently displayed on the flag. (I know a guild finisher already exists, but this one’s better :)

Tier 3. Unlocks the ability to toss a designated number of WvW badges into the Guild Zomorros alter to gain Increased Magic Find, Karma, WvW Experience while in WvW for 2 hours.

Tier 4. Unlocks the ability to replace one of the 4 objects placed in the Mystic Forge to be replaced with WvW Badges. Example: 50 Badges replaces a fine item, 100 masterwork, 150 rare, and 250 badges replaces an exotic. Can’t replace more than one object, so it would still take 3 exotic items and 250 badges for one go.

PvP – Specializing in this category provides:
Tier 1 – PvP Vault – Each first, unique kill of an opponent in a map provides the PvP Vault 20 Copper. We don’t want it to require a lot of kills to allow for the regular strategies to prevail while still allowing people to fill their vault’s coffers easily. The vault cannot be withdrawn from, but can be used to purchase a Custom Arena Starter Kit or Time Tokens.

Tier 2 – Unlocks the ability for every guild member actively representing the guild in a PvP game to throw their guild emblem onto the ground via ground target. This is activated from a tiny icon above their utility interface. The emblem is of moderate size, but hovers relatively high above the ground so as not to encumber combat.

Tier 3 – Unlocks the ability to acquire pvp tokens from winning custom, solo queue and team queue games. One token awarded from a custom arena win, two for a solo queue win and three for a team queue win. Throwing 4 of these tokens into the MF allows for a 2 hour buff that gives Karma after a PvP game (more karma for a win and assuming 7 minutes of more of participation) and 5% increased Rank Points for 2 hours.

Tier 4 – Unlocks the ability for pvp tokens to be used to replace one of the 4 objects placed in the Mystic Forge. Example: 4 tokens replaces a fine item, 8 for masterwork, 15 for a rare, and 25 tokens replaces an exotic. Can’t replace more than one object, so it would still take 3 exotic items and 25 tokens for one go.

(Continued…)

Interesting thoughts Nutjob.9021. Someone earlier in the thread said that the chest piece and legs were able to be dyed? Would that change your mind about the pieces?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Rambodacious.7495:

JonPeters.5630:

Iason Evan.3806:

Baltzenger.2467:

.

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

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

Mr. Peters, I have to categorically disagree with you here. Guild Halls cannot be a bandaid for you guys. They simply can’t. You’re bleeding players and we both know it (NA and EU). If you burn massive amounts of development time on things that will be interesting for a couple of weeks and neglect the vast majority of other areas of your game, you will continue to bleed players. You’ll get the initial spike of everyone coming back to check things out, they’ll be excited for 2-3 weeks, and then the forum posts start and players start to leave again. I speak as though this is fact because by looking at the past, we can accurately predict the future. No more bandaid patches.

I’m suggesting that Guild Halls are a glue that not only ties game modes together, but would also have ways to occupy a player’s time unique to Guild Halls. Abandon spending any time on trying to make players see them from the game world, or having some scavenger hunt for GH unlocks that requires loot tables coded in and other nonsense. Unnecessary man hours, just keep it simple.

They’re airships (seems to be the consensus). They’re customizable (also unanimous). Beyond this, it gets rocky.

You know what, if I’m going to tell you to stray from this idea, I’ll give you things that will not only get players to come back to your game, but keep them as well. Just remember this when you’re looking at my resume for the designer position you have listed.

Here is a way to revamp all dungeons, make them replayable with endless variety, challenging enough to break the “zerker meta” yet not bring the “trinity” into the game AND do it all with minimal development hours:

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

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

To prevent frustration from the added time now needed to complete a dungeon, these much more difficult mobs now drop a silver each. There you go, it’s rewarding, challenging and infinitely replayable because it’s always something different to prepare for. These are what dev time needs to be spent on, not a massive scavenger hunt for GH unlocks that is a temporary time-sink designed to mask the problems that the game suffers from.

(P.S. To prevent players from killing mobs near the dungeon over and over and not killing a boss to allow themselves to farm high cash dropping mobs over and over, make mobs deeper in the dungeon, near the end drop 3-4 silver per mob (with great loot tables) and the ones by the door drop 25 coppers etc.)

Hi Rambo,

Not sure how you took Jon’s comments as a band aid. I think he pretty clearly stated that he believes that anyone taking on a task like this must exceed expectations.

Unless I missed something.

Chris

Chris, firstly let me say I’m sorry for your loss. I lost Indiana Jack, my Jack-Russell Terrier a few years back, was a sad time.

What I meant by bandaid was content, while certainly professionally done, providing a temporary amount of content and lacking long-term durability or even outright replayability. My concern was that Anet might spend too much time on a few GH features that absorb a large amount of resources and wind up keeping us players busy for a shorter period of time than hoped for. Sorry for the confusion.

JonPeters.5630:

Rambodacious.7495:

Each type of mob in each dungeon is given 4 abilities. Each of the mob types is randomly assigned 2 of the 4 abilities.

1) What makes a creature interesting and challenging?
1a) How do you make sure that all 6 combinations of skills are similarly balanced,
2) One thing that makes difficult content satisfying is mastery. How does this system allow players to develop a sense of mastery?
2a) How do we develop a clear visual language for 4 skills and how they combine into 6 patterns for creatures using the already limited set of creature animations and effects?
3) Many of the dungeons already have walls, and requirements for completion that players have found workarounds in the system to get past. How does your system actually solve those problems?
4) How do you propose to build those creature skills in a way that allows players to use a variety of tools to gain mastery over them?

The beauty of GW2 is that you guys have 8 classes that truly feel and look unique, but they are all homogenized in the sense that their unique abilities allow them all to accomplish any task in the game efficiently. This is a good thing, it simplifies what is needed to provide a repeatable challenge – straight-forward, difficult, randomized content.

Just give mobs ANY 4 awesome abilities. For example, a given mob has:

- A 2 second knock-down on a 10 second cooldown
- A 360 aoe bleed that ticks for 250 per tick and lasts 10 seconds on a 3 second cooldown
- A 360 aoe vulnerability stack that lasts for 15 seconds on a 3 second cooldown
- A self stacking damage buff, if they successfully land an attack, the next attack hits 15% harder, stacking infinitely until a miss occurs

There, give a mob, that is in a group of 10 any 2 of the above and you have the unique challenge to answer your #1 and #1a. No need to carefully craft the list, just make the list nasty like the above and both the mob and the players will sort it out.

2. Mastery currently involves watching a youtube video or listening to another player tell you to jump a wall or hide around a corner before AoEing a group of mobs. Mastery is when a player uses his character’s skillset to overcome challenging content, not through repetition and memorization (in zerk gear).

2a. How do we create this without sending an army of animators and graphics programmers to overtime land for 6 months… Alright, well, mobs have at least one attack animation already. By taking any two of the above abilities and replacing the mobs current attack animation, we’re half-way there. Now, if you want to save time, you can fudge it a bit by taking a mobs animation they don’t normally use, like jump/dodge/run/hurt and assign the other two random abilities to one of those. If it’s a dodge, the mobs wouldn’t move, they’d dodge in place to avoid confusion etc. Now players know after the very first attacks what to look for.

3. Invisible walls, certainly created by the boss of the dungeon in question, not by a programmer of course. 80% destruction of mobs in the vicinity and the wall dissipates. No more skipping, but of course, increased loots for our courageous party members.

4. Using our mob from above, let’s say he gets the first two abilities. The group sees 10 of this beast and they send in the bunker warrior/guard to “test the waters” – but wait, they don’t have a bunker. Okay, the ranger sends in his pet? Wait, no ranger either? Maybe they don’t scout it at all. Maybe they all rush in and dodge roll straight to the middle of the mobs. The mobs encircle them about to unleash hell – that’s when our group unloads the AoE’s, but so do the bad guys! Now our group pops a stun breaker or temporary invulnerability spell or dodges out, the bad guys hot on the trail. A group member throws out some swiftness and our high damage, low durability group kites them around the room, throwing out cripples or chills and aoe damage.

Like I say, because you’ve created 8 one-man-armies, there’s plenty of ways to skin a cat – this is not to say that a particular group will always be successful with a given group makeup, and that’s fantastic. Your manifesto comes alive. Players playing how they want, all that is required is that they play that particular build wisely AND with the group in mind – because no one knows what’s in there and no one can say a zerker/pure dps build is maximum efficiency.

The only real sticking point is the animations. Cheesing it as per above could allow you to put this in relatively quickly and then sentencing a poor animator to an extended duration in the animation dungeon could allow him to slowly soup it up over time.

Further, you could try it on one dungeon – Arah for example. See how players react to it.

See here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Behold-Muke-s-build-of-builds-revealed/first#post4460011

And here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Muke-Muscleshell-s-Manliest-Man-Builds/first#post4457316

(scroll down the page on the above link pas the fire and ice)

Anyone get an opportunity to roll this puppy out this weekend with a Barb Amulet?

Voice communication does allow for more in depth strategies and counter-strategies. Hopefully Anet can introduce this.

I will say that Curse Gaming created a voice program for a different game company recently that has a MOBA. I don’t know if they’re involved in an exclusivity contract with the company in question or if they’d be interested in working with Arenanet as well. Might be a cheap, efficient way of implementing such an idea.

Also I would like to add a comment about a small confusion I’ve noticed we players have toward this thread. In many posts members of Anet tell us to just be creative and don’t restrain ourselves to what our ideas can be. This is not intuitive for us, because, and I think most people here, as players of this genre, this is a weird situation, not many times we are heard in this way, so we tend to try to suggest things “we think would not be rejected”, over standards that we really don’t know, like how costly this would be, or how much time it would take to be implemented, or if by proposing a complex idea, it would damage the game by taking attention away from other matters.
To that, I only can say “thanks”, I can’t speak for everyone, but at least for me, I think we are being listened, and that we are really participating, it is a bit scary, but also exciting.

Firstly, thanks for summarizing as best as possible. Secondly, in regards to your final point, I get what you’re saying. I do. My concern over this, which is pretty obvious, is that Anet might think that dumping massive man hours into GH’s is the solution to keeping players long term. I love this game – we all do – I just would hate to see yet another bandaid. With that being said and with Anet having read mine and others’ concerns, I’ll leave it be and focus on contributing!

You told us to go all out Jon Peters and Chris Whiteside, so, here’s the why before the what (Guild Halls). You’ll understand the reason for that order if you want to burn the time reading:

The Living Story starts to arc toward the stories’ NPC’s bickering, large amounts of failure, in-fighting and of course death. Death of all beloved characters slowly, over time! Sometimes in sudden large chunks, red wedding style (muahaha)! Leaderless, with certain areas/cities destroyed by the remaining three dragons, the races of Tyria have only one hope left – themselves. Guilds! The rise of guilds! Players are the only thing to stand in the way of the Dragons and total annihilation of Tyria! The only ones to hold the key, which is event-spawning via their Guild Halls.

Why this story arc? Because GH’s will come with the ability to spawn events. These events will come at a cost, those guilds found worthy on the field of battle (GvG) will have the ability, through the resource earned in GvG tournaments, to spawn the biggest, best (living story advancing) content. Other guilds can launch events as well, but without the tournament winning resource, they wouldn’t be Living Story related. Any person or guild can be involved in any guild launched event(LS or otherwise), but the top GvG guilds launch “invasion events” whereby Dragon lieutenants etc are spawned and people have to slay them all or some such.

After enough of these events have been completed (you can easily set GvG to the tune of tournaments and reward a specified amount of the event spawning resource to time-gate this as you see fit) then you’re ready to unleash the Dragon of your choice upon the populace, all of course because the players spawned the events that led to this standoff.

Over the course of another 2-3 years the players can finally defeat the last of the Dragons. At that point, you’ve gotten 6 years out of this game, a barrel of dollar bills and can decide where to go from there.

Just wanted to stop by this thread and tell the OP he is an awesome person for creating this and then giving it to us strangers.

Devata.6589:

Rambodacious.7495:

Mr. Peters, I have to categorically disagree with you here. Guild Halls cannot be a bandaid for you guys. They simply can’t. You’re bleeding players and we both know it (NA and EU). If you burn massive amounts of development time on things that will be interesting for a couple of weeks and neglect the vast majority of other areas of your game, you will continue to bleed players. You’ll get the initial spike of everyone coming back to check things out, they’ll be excited for 2-3 weeks, and then the forum posts start and players start to leave again. I speak as though this is fact because by looking at the past, we can accurately predict the future. No more bandaid patches.

I’m suggesting that Guild Halls are a glue that not only ties game modes together, but would also have ways to occupy a player’s time unique to Guild Halls. Abandon spending any time on trying to make players see them from the game world, or having some scavenger hunt for GH unlocks that requires loot tables coded in and other nonsense. Unnecessary man hours, just keep it simple.

They’re airships (seems to be the consensus). They’re customizable (also unanimous). Beyond this, it gets rocky.

You know what, if I’m going to tell you to stray from this idea, I’ll give you things that will not only get players to come back to your game, but keep them as well. Just remember this when you’re looking at my resume for the designer position you have listed.

Here is a way to revamp all dungeons, make them replayable with endless variety, challenging enough to break the “zerker meta” yet not bring the “trinity” into the game AND do it all with minimal development hours:

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

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

To prevent frustration from the added time now needed to complete a dungeon, these much more difficult mobs now drop a silver each. There you go, it’s rewarding, challenging and infinitely replayable because it’s always something different to prepare for. These are what dev time needs to be spent on, not a massive scavenger hunt for GH unlocks that is a temporary time-sink designed to mask the problems that the game suffers from.

(P.S. To prevent players from killing mobs near the dungeon over and over and not killing a boss to allow themselves to farm high cash dropping mobs over and over, make mobs deeper in the dungeon, near the end drop 3-4 silver per mob (with great loot tables) and the ones by the door drop 25 coppers etc.)

“You’ll get the initial spike of everyone coming back to check things out, they’ll be excited for 2-3 weeks, and then the forum posts start and players start to leave again.”

“Abandon spending any time on trying to make players see them from the game world, or having some scavenger hunt for GH unlocks that requires loot tables coded in and other nonsense.”

You do understand that having it in the open world is what give people more reason to build / work on there guild-hall and those items (adding items to a loot table takes a lot of code time.. whut?) in the world is exactly what keep people busy for much longer as 2-3 weeks.

Also “No more bandaid patches.” This go’s in against what you just said. A new big thing, no you say we need to just make things to keep people here.. That is bandaid patches. and then you say, no more bandaid patches.

No Devata, the addition of visible guild halls in the open world requires massive development time for very little payoff. Your logic of people being encouraged to work on their guild hall is not significantly boosted simply because their GH is visible. People will work on them to obtain the benefits that come with working on them, not because someone else could see they have portals etc. in their GH.

The bandaid patches I refer to are what’s been coming out for the last 1.5 years. Little to no new content, minor balance changes, leaving game-changing bugs in the game for the 6 months until the next patch – these kinds of things. (Please know I’m not trying to hate on the dev team here, but am trying to make a point about where dev time should be spent!) They need to burn dev time on changes that revitalize, in a permanent fashion, old content OR create new, highly replayable content. Building up a GH will take a few weeks and then players will be back to the same complaints.

Hopefully I’ve explained myself a little better.

JonPeters.5630:

Iason Evan.3806:

Baltzenger.2467:

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

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

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

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

Mr. Peters, I have to categorically disagree with you here. Guild Halls cannot be a bandaid for you guys. They simply can’t. You’re bleeding players and we both know it (NA and EU). If you burn massive amounts of development time on things that will be interesting for a couple of weeks and neglect the vast majority of other areas of your game, you will continue to bleed players. You’ll get the initial spike of everyone coming back to check things out, they’ll be excited for 2-3 weeks, and then the forum posts start and players start to leave again. I speak as though this is fact because by looking at the past, we can accurately predict the future. No more bandaid patches.

I’m suggesting that Guild Halls are a glue that not only ties game modes together, but would also have ways to occupy a player’s time unique to Guild Halls. Abandon spending any time on trying to make players see them from the game world, or having some scavenger hunt for GH unlocks that requires loot tables coded in and other nonsense. Unnecessary man hours, just keep it simple.

They’re airships (seems to be the consensus). They’re customizable (also unanimous). Beyond this, it gets rocky.

You know what, if I’m going to tell you to stray from this idea, I’ll give you things that will not only get players to come back to your game, but keep them as well. Just remember this when you’re looking at my resume for the designer position you have listed.

Here is a way to revamp all dungeons, make them replayable with endless variety, challenging enough to break the “zerker meta” yet not bring the “trinity” into the game AND do it all with minimal development hours:

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

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

To prevent frustration from the added time now needed to complete a dungeon, these much more difficult mobs now drop a silver each. There you go, it’s rewarding, challenging and infinitely replayable because it’s always something different to prepare for. These are what dev time needs to be spent on, not a massive scavenger hunt for GH unlocks that is a temporary time-sink designed to mask the problems that the game suffers from.

(P.S. To prevent players from killing mobs near the dungeon over and over and not killing a boss to allow themselves to farm high cash dropping mobs over and over, make mobs deeper in the dungeon, near the end drop 3-4 silver per mob (with great loot tables) and the ones by the door drop 25 coppers etc.)

OP, if you’re looking for support, the above Hammer build providing large amounts of Protection is solid.

If you’re looking for the top PvE DPS build for dungeons, see here:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAR8dlsApcoVCxQI8DRR8Qldd0izotfwLUVAgDA-TxhAABXcRA0S5nO7PsnuBAeCAXq+TaKBJFgeCrA-e

When fighting 4+ mobs, Greatsword is superior to sword. When fighting 3 or less, Sword is the way to go. Feel free to swap Radiant Fire to Powerful Blades to allow efficient use of both weapons based on number of mobs.

Harbinger.8637:

Rambodacious.7495:

Harbinger.8637:

Dirame.8521:

Lachanche.6859:

mmh when i saw spirit weapons i was a bit diffident but after trying your build i had a blast, it’s so much fun !
You can bounce people around with hammer of wisdom and your hammer,block them with line of warding and ring of warding, chill… oh the chill, i love it XD Want to kite my hammer ? Nope, chilled. Want to get out of the teamfight ? Nope, chilled.
I think i will try a variation with soldier amulet, berserker gives you some nice precision but i feel too squishy with so little thoughness, maybe i’m too used to world vs world where you can have both :P

I have one question though, wouldn’t it be better to take defender’s flame instead of meditation mastery ? That way you can burn enemies when they remove your aegis and more burning is always nice.
You would get a slightly longer cd on renewed focus though, not sure if that could kitten your survivability :S

I don’t think the reduced cooldown on Renewed Focus changes much. It’s more the fact there’s no stun breaker. A CC chain from a Necro could see you dead in seconds.

It’s more than that, the build is just inherently flawed. No stun breakers with only one condition remover, which is passive, so you can’t even control it. Also add in the fact you have very little vit and tough with no sustain what so every.

So in a team fight your pretty much going to explode. Even in smaller situations you’re going to have a tough time.

Parts of your response are incorrect. Between the knock-backs, knock-downs, chills and immobilize there is CONSTANT up-time on your target. This build was designed for Solo Queue Bunker/Defender Assassination and it does it extremely well.

Other parts of your post are absolutely true. There is no stun breaker and conditions ARE a huge weakness of the build. The goal is to burn them down through cc/control to kill them before they kill you. If people deem it necessary, running a Barbarian trinket could replace the Zerker.

Remember, this build is an assassin, meaning you find a target holding a point and you kill them and take the point for your team. It’s not really designed for TPvP, though it could be worked in, it would work wonders as a target caller. I’d definitely run a Barb trinket in that situation though.

Someone asked me about Meditation CD reduction. Renewed Focus is a Med. Feel free to run Purity or Retributive Armor instead if you don’t like the lowered CD.

Ok so it’s pretty much just a funnies build that would work fine in hotjoin or at lower levels of play, but against any competent player this build isn’t going to work.

Also it would be better to swap out Grenth for Ice, Grenth is only an extra 44 burning damage, which isn’t much at all. At least with Ice you get a damage multiplier.

It seems like you haven’t taken the build out for a spin. As you said, it is extremely effective in solo queue. However, it could easily serve as the perfect complement to a thief/mesmer/warrior specced to kill in TPvP. One of those classes running alongside this build wearing a Barbarian Amulet and anyone they would want dead, dies. The target isn’t going to have 4 stun breakers and constant condition removal – even with a bunker right next to them, they can’t be saved – your burster gets to do what they wanna do, maximum damage due to maximum up-time on target.

Your counter-argument is likely: “but what if they kill you first?” My response is how? They’re knocked down/back repeatedly, Chilled and Immobilized. I’ve also got a healthy chunk of HP’s and Invincibility.

As for Ice vs. Grenth, you have a solid point, but my reason was to allow for another easy application of Chill hooked on a skill that will be used frequently due to the squishy nature of running the zerk amulet (probably even the Barb amulet). Trading another application of Chill for some health and more damage when the opponent is Chilled is a legitimate option, but I prefer more control personally.

Take the build out adjusted as you see fit. Grab the Ice Runes and a Barb Amulet. See if it performs.

I, like many others in this thread, would like a personal-only, non-linkable to chat DPS meter so that I could at least improve myself.

I think that is an efficient compromise for everyone.

shadowpass.4236:

Fire + Ice build has meditation recharge trait. ur not using any meditations tho

Renewed Focus is a Meditation. If you don’t want lowered cd on RF then you could take Purity to help reduce the build’s weakness against conditions or Retributive Armor to pack more punch.

Also, I posted in the SPvP forums, if you’re finding the build too squishy, take a barb amulet instead. Should give you more time to tear down the bad guy.

Harbinger.8637:

Dirame.8521:

Lachanche.6859:

mmh when i saw spirit weapons i was a bit diffident but after trying your build i had a blast, it’s so much fun !
You can bounce people around with hammer of wisdom and your hammer,block them with line of warding and ring of warding, chill… oh the chill, i love it XD Want to kite my hammer ? Nope, chilled. Want to get out of the teamfight ? Nope, chilled.
I think i will try a variation with soldier amulet, berserker gives you some nice precision but i feel too squishy with so little thoughness, maybe i’m too used to world vs world where you can have both :P

I have one question though, wouldn’t it be better to take defender’s flame instead of meditation mastery ? That way you can burn enemies when they remove your aegis and more burning is always nice.
You would get a slightly longer cd on renewed focus though, not sure if that could kitten your survivability :S

I don’t think the reduced cooldown on Renewed Focus changes much. It’s more the fact there’s no stun breaker. A CC chain from a Necro could see you dead in seconds.

It’s more than that, the build is just inherently flawed. No stun breakers with only one condition remover, which is passive, so you can’t even control it. Also add in the fact you have very little vit and tough with no sustain what so every.

So in a team fight your pretty much going to explode. Even in smaller situations you’re going to have a tough time.

Parts of your response are incorrect. Between the knock-backs, knock-downs, chills and immobilize there is CONSTANT up-time on your target. This build was designed for Solo Queue Bunker/Defender Assassination and it does it extremely well.

Other parts of your post are absolutely true. There is no stun breaker and conditions ARE a huge weakness of the build. The goal is to burn them down through cc/control to kill them before they kill you. If people deem it necessary, running a Barbarian trinket could replace the Zerker.

Remember, this build is an assassin, meaning you find a target holding a point and you kill them and take the point for your team. It’s not really designed for TPvP, though it could be worked in, it would work wonders as a target caller. I’d definitely run a Barb trinket in that situation though.

Someone asked me about Meditation CD reduction. Renewed Focus is a Med. Feel free to run Purity or Retributive Armor instead if you don’t like the lowered CD.

So, I’m assuming you guys don’t want crafting areas in GH’s because that would reduce the population of cities and we’re after the living world feel with bustling cities. We don’t want to create SPvP loadouts/maps because then less people are in SPvP areas. Honestly, we would want something that is unique to Guild Halls right? And something that brings players together?

Here are four ideas:

How about a series of NPC’s unlocked with everything unlocked? Like, everything. Follow me on this:

- This gear is not wearable anywhere else similar to how SPvP locks gear to the Heart of the Mists.
- It would have all the same looks/shiny things as real ascended/legendary/gem store equipment to allow players to try on various sets leading them to desire armor weapons and buy/earn them.
- There would be target dummies that provide actual Damage Per Second data allowing players the opportunity to hone their builds/gear using whatever gear they want.

There, now plenty of guildies will be sitting in their hall wielding Sunrise with Radiant Armor wishing they had these things/testing different builds/socializing.

A second idea, which Devata and others mentioned is Portals. These should definitely be involved because skipping through the Heart of the Mists is dumb. Guildies can see other guildies running toward portals and ask if they can tag along etc – social interaction and also something to unlock.

The third idea is an area that will explain, visually, conditions and boons on players. They had an area in GW1 that had NPC’s constantly burning or constantly poisoned. It would be great for new players to be able to see all the boons/conditions in action. Further, players could purposefully step in the circle with the NPC and acquire these conditions to test their survivability etc.

The last idea is a jumping puzzle. Specifically, if we’re using airships for GH’s, it could be very difficult, whereby if you fall, you fall, like down to Tyria into a random zone. The player wouldn’t necessarily die, but they might find themselves surrounded by mobs in Orr. The chest at the end of the puzzle could be labeled Guild Stash or something and be available for completion once per 24 hours.

Conski Deshan.2057:

Rambodacious.7495:

The problem is you’re forcing guilds to run dungeons. The unlock in a guild window allows players the opportunity to play how they want to and still unlock guild hall content.

If Anet wants to implement specific content to unlock GH features, they’d need to do it across four platforms and also do it equally amongst them. WvW, Dungeons, Open World and lastly, SPvP.

They might be better suited devoting design time to making these game modes better rather than implementing drop rates and rewards to unlock GH features. It would seem to be more profitable – making the game more fun, rather than more grindy.

An easy way to do it that doesn’t involve much development time is tying the unlocks to achievements from each game mode (As outlined on my proposal on page 1) The “Blueprint” could appear on a guildhall vendor after a check is done of the interacting players achievements.
For PvP each each champion title and each 10 rank title achievement could unlock stuff.
For WvW each Season title, the EOTM achievements, and possibly a new WvW achievement (since the existing ones are unusable).
For low level PvE, Map completion, Story Completion,JP’s, Each living world chapter achievement completion.
For mid level PvE, Dungeon Master, Teq, TT, etc
For High level PvE, Dunguneer sub-catagories, Fractal lvl50, Harder challenges from living world, liandri,Tribulation,Mad king clocktower.

I also feel that guilds should be forced into certain activities for more advanced rewards. It creates verity based on the guilds play style. Plus unlocks from multiple locations generally end up with one being easier than the rest leading to that being spammed. (I believe there was a reddit post earlier that showed it was actually faster to get dunguneer via PvP than by actually doing the dungeons due to the daily restrictions.)

I see you and Devata’s points. The problem is, there are many people who want to unlock content playing a game mode they’re happy to play, that they want to play. There are a lot of people that stick to one game mode and plan to for their duration of time in this game. Anet wants profitability, and one of their ongoing business models is that player’s can play how and when they want.

Really, when you think about it, it’s not that big of a deal to allow someone playing 60 hours of WvW to unlock what someone that played 20 hours of WvW, 20 hours of Dungeons and 20 hours of SPvP unlocked. They both had fun and they both played for the same amount of time. Give them both a reward – now everyone is having fun their way. I get that you want the population to spread around and try different game modes, but I don’t think it leads to maximum profitability for the reason above.

I reiterate that HOW the unlocks happen should be generic, BUT, the WHAT is unlocked is where our time in this thread should be spent, especially now that it’s a foregone conclusion that GH’s will be customizable.

Devata.6589:

Ghotistyx.6942:

Just a couple of thoughts I’ve had while catching up on the discussion:

What are the advantages of an Open World GH over an instanced one? How would one really, fairly, place every single guild in GW2 into the open world (within their respective regions of course)

It feels more immersive, your guild-hall can now be more of a representation of your guild in the world, there go’s more pride into building and owning your guild-hall, people see each others guild-hall (from the outside) without needing be be invited in.

That would be why.

For the how questions multiple possible solutions have been given. Special guild-hall maps, sky-maps (if guild-halls would be floating airships), having a limited number of spots in the current world, have your guild-hall usually in an instance but every week or two weeks it might be in one of the open world map.

A massive undertaking for a little immersion isn’t a good trade-off. I’ll try and list all the problems with the idea:

1. Guilds currently playing have first dibs on this territory, so if it’s limited in space, future players are SOL.
2. If you try and make GH’s disappear after a given time frame of non-use, then you reduce the likelihood of players returning after a break, also bad.
3. The creation of a zone linked to each guild’s customized GH is a nightmare for coding and the zone would have to be so epicly big it would be simply be tedious to run around looking at guild halls.

Rather than look for ways to make GH’s immersive for all players visually, it’s far easier, development-wise, to focus on allowing the owners of the GH to customize within their own instance. Besides, I think we all realize there’s only so many development hours they have and we would all want more time spent on the actual GH rather than being able to see someone else’s GH in a zone.

Devata.6589:

Trent.5201:

~

Just a question here. Would you be fine with it if those unlocks would not be unlocked with influence (or at least not all of them) but it would also be blue-prints you can earn in the world by doing stuff with your guild.

I talked about earning blue-prints in the world before and mentioned walls and stuff but it could also be things like you mention here.

For example there are 8 dungeons in the world and there are at this moment 8 logical locations for portals to go to.

The races 5 city’s, (6) LA, (7) Stronghold of Ebonhawke and (8) Southsun cove
.
Now while you might get a nice rng blue-print drop from a boss in a dungeon (when doing it with guild-members) and unlocking an even better drop for completion one dungeon path, completing all paths of a dungeon could unlock the blue-print of a portal to one of the city’s. (Then you can place as many of them in your guild-hall as you like).

Of course you would try to make the unlocks sort of logical. Arah unlocks blue-print for the portal to LA just because it’s the hardest. AC to BC, CM to DR, TA to The Grove, CoE to RS, SE to Hoelbrak, HotW to Cursed Shore and CoF to Stronghold of Ebonhawke.

All have to make some sense in a way.

Unlocking the SAB blue-print (maybe this would be a unique one that you can only place of of in your GH?.. Maybe not) you could likely do with completing SAB with guild-members.

You see I would prefer it this way because it’s most importantly fun more fun then just an unlock in your upgrades window, it gets rid of another currency grind (except maybe the supply to build it), it give guilds things to do and goals to directly! work towards and it’s doable for big and for smaller guilds.

The problem is you’re forcing guilds to run dungeons. The unlock in a guild window allows players the opportunity to play how they want to and still unlock guild hall content.

If Anet wants to implement specific content to unlock GH features, they’d need to do it across four platforms and also do it equally amongst them. WvW, Dungeons, Open World and lastly, SPvP.

They might be better suited devoting design time to making these game modes better rather than implementing drop rates and rewards to unlock GH features. It would seem to be more profitable – making the game more fun, rather than more grindy.

Thread Summary:

Those who reject the OP’s suggestion are stating:

- No one deserves the full armor set unless they have 33000 AP’s.
- If Anet wanted to award the full armor set at 18000 AP’s they would have done so.
- Very few people should ever be able to have the set.
- AP’s should allow players to stand out.
- Anet shouldn’t have to create new rewards for the AP system. The current rewards are the only ones they will ever make, so adjusting the rewards to allow the first set at 18k will remove the reason to acquire anymore AP’s

Proponents of allowing the first full set to be unlocked at 18000 AP’s are stating:

- The length of time required to obtain one set isn’t worth the reward
- Only a handful of players will ever have the set and this content was created to be enjoyed by players
- New players are at a large disadvantage because of how easily AP’s were obtained early on in the game’s lifetime
- The AP system, over the course of the game’s lifetime, will always expand and Anet will ultimately have to create new rewards, so adjusting the time frame of obtaining the first set won’t reduce the content needed to be added to the AP system
- Anet didn’t award the first set at 18k when the system was initially launched because the full set wasn’t created yet, so they couldn’t have
- AP’s will still allow players to stand out via titles

My take: Bump the thread until a red response comes along.

If the consensus is customizable guild halls and the problem is how to accommodate the smaller guilds, the answer is simple. Do what they already did with guilds.

Obtaining a guild hall is of moderate difficulty for everyone. However, the bells and whistles are not only time gated (like upgrading a guild is now), but also expensive (like upgrading a guild is now).

There, small guilds have a guild hall and access to all the “game-changing” features it provides with some elbow grease, but don’t get all the bells and whistles the large guilds get as quickly.

Tada.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

With that out of the way, let’s move on to more difficult problems, GvG. My proposal was to remove current WvW on account of massive population and coverage imbalances and server stacking. Guilds queue up much like players currently do in SPvP. They meet on a battlefield similar to GW1 GvG, but on a much larger scale with the current WvW elements (supply camps, keeps, towers, siege weapons, WvW talent trees yada yada).

Remember that when visited normally in their instanced Guild Hall in PvE it’s the customizable PvE experience everyone has already been describing in this thread. This is a way of providing ANET the opportunity to fix all current player complaints in one fell swoop. See my detailed post here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Guild-Halls/first#post4454359

Thoughts?

These armor sets are out of reach, by around another 1.5 to 2 years for the top AP holders in the world. That would put the first person obtaining one set 3.5 – 4 years into the game’s lifetime.

I’m all for Anet making them difficult to obtain etc. However, and I’ve yet to see a valid counter to the argument of reducing the acquisition of the first set to 18k AP’s, these sets are not only for reward, but to be enjoyed by players. Preventing 99.999999999999% of your game’s population from ever obtaining a full set is ludicrous.

Further, these were put in game prior to Anet creating the full set which is why they are staggered the way they are reward-wise. Anet’s only difficulty now isn’t deciding whether to change the first full set being awarded at the already-difficult-to-achieve-for-the-majority-of-the-game’s-population 18k AP’s, it’s putting in the code that removes everyone’s selections and allows them to re-choose which set they want to pursue first.

Lastly, it’s simply more profitable for ANET to use 18k AP for a full set. Many people simply won’t try if it remains at 36 AP, hell, many won’t try if it’s 18k, but at least some will and that means players continuing to play the game that otherwise wouldn’t. $$$

Introduction:
I call this Guardian build Fire and Ice. It’s my invention, my baby, my everything… and I’m giving it to you filthy ingrates. Enjoy!

Note:
This build is a roamer that kills enemy defenders and takes points. It’s capable of constant, high, offensive output. Avoid using the Spirit Weapons off of points because they like to follow people everywhere!

Major Pros of the Build:
- Spirit Weapons last extremely long, do great damage and cause burning on every auto-attack
- +10% Damage against burning foes
- Enemy Knockdowns on Hammer of Wisdom and Bane Signet (5 seconds of free damage)
- Your Hammer crits Chill with additional damage every 15 seconds from Glacial Heart. Enemy also Chilled on hits from Hammer via Sigil of Ice. Enemy Chilled when you’re struck every 30 seconds. Enemy Chilled when you use reduced cooldown heal on Signet of Resolve. Enemy Chill duration increased 70%.
- Spirit Weapon burns and Hammer/Rune Chills cover each other from condition removal (kitten ed if they do, kitten ed if they don’t)
- Berserker Amulet for maximum offensive power
- Every utility skill has reduced cooldowns

As you can see, between burns, chills, knockdowns and the berserker amulet this build will strike fear into the glacial heart of opponents.

I personally am running Signet of Resolve over Shelter because the build is so susceptible to conditions. Blocking a couple conditions won’t help much, especially when there’s a stack of them on you already, but a large chunk of health does help keep you up long enough to finish the job. It’s only 2 seconds slower than Shelter in this build as well. Your mileage may vary.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJASWl0ApIoVBxQI8DRR8Ql1dY5JkBVGAVwl/wTC-TJhBwAAeEA52fIyVAYcZAA

There they are ladies and gentlemen, the builds that will enable your rise to cyber-stardom.

Thoughts? Comments? Exhausting Praise?

bloodletting wolf.2837:

This would ruin how I play wvw. I enjoy upgrading/defending towers and roaming while I keep my supply camp/mercs open. I love killing other roamers that want my yaks/camps/mercs. I am however in support of a game mode added with the guild hall idea. I miss testing builds and just for fun fights in the guild halls in GW1.

Admittedly, upgrades to towers and keeps would be limited, but defending them would certainly still be a common occurrence. Yaks would still run supply etc. It would be a large map, with all the standard WvW features that you’re used to short of an abridged version on upgrades for keeps/towers.

Introduction:
The next few builds are for SPvP. I call this first one Fire and Ice. It’s my invention and I’ve yet to see anyone else use it… until now. Enjoy

Note:
This build is a roamer that kills enemy defenders and takes points. It’s capable of constant high offensive output. Avoid using the Spirit Weapons off of points because they like to follow people everywhere!

Major Pros of the Build:
- Spirit Weapons last extremely long, do great damage and cause burning on every auto-attack
- +10% Damage against burning foes
- Enemy Knockdowns on Hammer of Wisdom and Bane Signet (5 seconds of free damage)
- Your Hammer crits Chill with additional damage every 15 seconds from Glacial Heart. Enemy also Chilled on hits from Hammer via Sigil of Ice. Enemy Chilled when you’re struck every 30 seconds. Enemy Chilled when you use reduced cooldown heal on Signet of Resolve. Enemy Chill duration increased 70%.
- Spirit Weapon burns and Hammer/Rune Chills cover each other from condition removal (kitten ed if they do, kitten ed if they don’t)
- Berserker Amulet for maximum offensive power
- Every utility skill has reduced cooldowns

As you can see, between burns, chills, knockdowns and the berserker amulet this build will strike fear into opponents now that I’ve released it to the public. I personally am running Signet of Resolve over Shelter because the build is so susceptible to conditions. Blocking a couple conditions won’t helpmuch, especially when there’s a stack of them on you already, but a large chunk of health does help keep you up long enough to finish the job. It’s only 2 seconds slower than Shelter in this build as well. Your mileage may vary.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQFASl0ApIoVBxQI8DRR8Ql1dY5JkBVGAVwl/wTC-TJhBwAAeAA52fIyFAYcZAA

Introduction:
This next build is a common Meditation build that provides solid DPS with a respectable amount of defense.

Pros of the Build:
- 22k health and 2393 armor allow you to take a punch
- Permanent Retaliation from Virtues, Symbol of Wrath and Light Aura from leaping out of it with Leap of Faith
- Permanent Fury up-time from Meditations (6.25 seconds per use) and Rune of the Citadel provides a 23.5 second Fury proc from being hit every 30 seconds
- 2k Heals and reduced Cooldowns on every Meditation (Litany of Wrath becomes 3800)
- Reduced Cooldowns on both weapons allow for constant pressure/control
- Indomitable Courage allows you to guarantee stomps for you and allies with stability
- Some conditions removal on weapon attacks

A note on Litany of Wrath – this build is for Pros. As you become able to predict opponent actions to line up your burst combos, you’ll be able to pop Litany and then move straight into a burst combo that will heal for a surprising amount on top of the 3800. Also remember Litany is on a 24 second CD now, 6 seconds faster than Shelter for only 800 less health. However, Shelter is always available while you acquire the skills to run Litany.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJARSnkIS5Q2NEWDB/QmohgysH5HzNkhrPQCCAA-TJRJwAP2fAwlAg7TA4YZAA

Introduction:
This last build is the standard SPvP Bunker build for those interested.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNApdWlsApfn1CxVI8DRRCRkjNY/dmedQzBA-TJBHwALLDA4UA0b/hBPBAA

One adjustment, should you deem fit, is to take 2 out of Honor and into Virtues for Elite Focus should you feel more stability is needed.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNApeWl8ApToFDxVI0ENRChkVRsH1q01BacA-T1xGABA8EAwTJYunCgYV/Zo9HWS53r6DCAgA8eun7dPgf+zf+zf+z+5P/5P/5PLFgXjBA-w
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Introduction:
As mentioned above, the next build is suitable for Commanders that are far more mobile in zerg combat. This build focuses on condition removal and self-survivability, with some healing thrown in for support. Removing conditions in this situation is far more important, because Immobilize, Chill, and Cripple can thin out your ranks and leave you with a “tail” for the enemy zerg to destroy. Further, being durable allows you the ability to stay right next to your commander in the thick of things where support roles shine.

Major Pros of the Build:
- Two conditions turned into boons on 5 allies per shout
- Purity removes one from yourself every 10 seconds
- Torch 5 removes conditions from allies on the move
- Superior Sigil of Purity removes a condition from self every 10 seconds
- -40% condition duration food
- Over 25k health with 3142 armor and a solid amount of power to boot
- Large amounts of self and group stability
- Stability on Tome of Courage allows you to use skill 1, skill 2 (even more condition removal) and skill 3 on the move for 30 seconds uninterrupted
- Large amounts of protection given to allies
- Sigil of Intelligence guarantees a crit to proc VIgorous Precision for more dodge rolls

In short, the build makes the Guardian nearly immune to conditions while allowing, Shouts, Torch, and Tome 2 to remove conditions from allies on a regular basis. It’s also extremely durable without Altruistic Healing and still has enough power to add to the zerg’s damage.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNApfWlsApWotCxfH0ENhDBl9Oex9xuCX4DXFAA-T1BHABAcKAS4JA0z+DCp8jQ1fgSJoY6DCAgAcf2n9tPgje0je0je0O6RP6RP6RLDAzYA-w

Introduction:
The next build focuses on rezzing downed allies in WvW. Few people understand how valuable this is. Honestly, because of the fact that this build can rez just about anyone, in any situation, whether it be keep assault, keep defense or open-field zerg combat, makes it extremely underrated. Surprisingly, it’s crazy fun as well.

Major Pros of the Build:
- Tough as nails with 27.5k health and 2016 Toughness (2416 when rezzing someone)
- You rez people solo as quickly as two people would together
- Allies come back with half health, 13 seconds of Protection and a 2000 hp heal
- With the buff to Merciful Intervention, instantaneous aid is now a reality
- Resolute Healer and Binding Blade act as AOE knockbacks/pulls to aid downed ally
- Sanctuary provides a ranged AOE knockback on would-be stompers of your damsel-in-distress
- Hallowed Ground prevents any Fears/Stuns/Knockbacks
- Lowered cooldowns on every utility except Shelter
- Swiftness on Staff helps you get in if Merciful is down while Leap of Faith, Protection, Renewed Focus and Shelter help you get out after the rez
- Sigil of Energy and Intelligence for more dodges
- A solid amount of power and using a Greatsword to keep you adding to the zerg’s damage

An alteration could be trading Indomitable Courage for Elite Focus to increase duration of invulnerability to 3 seconds on Renewed Focus during escapes, but stability on Courage is likely better.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJARWlsApdoFDxeI8DNBERl9JUCzH2NQGclXFAA-T1BHABAcJAWZ/BhU+Ro6PQpEEOdBD8EACAgAcf7j9tPgje0je0je0O6RP6RP6RLFgsKjA-w

Introduction:
This next build focuses on farming and world exploration. It provides solid support, damage and survivability. It purposefully specializes in no weapon or utility skills allowing for the player to choose anything that is optimal for the situation instead of forcing a particular weapon or utility group into every situation.

Pros of the Build:
- Group utility from Strength in Numbers and Battle Presence
- Decent Might stacking from Superior Sigil of Strength and Empowering Might make for some solid DPS
- Can quickly take on different roles through gear/utility changes
- Easy to play

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQJARSl0ApRoFCxcI8DRRCBljNYPinXirDwFOAA-TxBBABV8EAA4SAI4+Dmp8LRdBOqEkU1fCAcAY91Xf91Xvrn+7tXf9SBs1yI-e

Introduction:
The following builds are guaranteed to increase the size of your electronic manhood and attract cyber groupies from all over Tyria. You’re welcome.

There are several burn builds out there, but they seem to be catered toward PvP/WvW. This first build is a top DPS dungeon and open world farming build.

The playstyle of the build is to leap in head first into a pile of mobs, vulnerabiliticizing (yes, that’s a word) and burninating them. Followed by some ridiculously hard hitting abilities. Enjoy.

Major Pros of Build:
+ 27% Damage (doesn’t show up on this calc’s weapon damage numbers sadly) and it’s constantly up.
All mobs constantly on fire for an additional ~430+ damage a second.
Still retains Vigorous Precision for additional dodges if things get crazy.

Additional Notes:
- I’m using a Greatsword because literally every ability it has hits 3 or more targets which will ignite 5 baddies in the area for 2 seconds every time.

- Can adjust build to use a sword/torch or sword/focus. Suggest dropping Vigorous Precision in favor of additional traits in Radiance like Right-Hand Strength and Powerful Blades, and replacing Radiant Fire. This is likely higher dps when facing 3 or fewer mobs, but 3 mobs and up likely means GS wins.

- A hammer would work in situations where protection is necessary without adjusting the posted build, but you’re losing the vulnerability stacking you get from GS/Sword/Focus skills.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQNAR8dlsApcoVCxQI8DRR8Qldd0izotfwLUVAgDA-TxhAABXcRA0S5nO7PsnuBAeCAXq+TaKBJFgeCrA-e

Introduction:
This next build is a Guardian Sniper build.

Major Pros of Build:
- 53% additional damage (56% with Focus 4’s vuln)
- 77% base crit rate (Right-Hand Strength doesn’t show up on this calc’s crit chance) allowing for Fury to bring your crit rate to near 100% which is why Save Yourselves is taken
- Scepter auto-attacks should be doing ~1200 damage and crits hitting for ~2400
- With Save Yourselves up and if all of Scepter 2’s attacks land on an immobile target, it should be ~19200 damage.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQRArd7flsApQo97wSI8DNR9QlVIa9FcCTQ1HQAsAA-ThRBABU8EAua/R5He6HA4kAQp6PmpEkUA6prC-e

Introduction:
This next build is going to be a mutable WvW support build. I will post optimal builds based on what the Commander you run with does most. Generally, Commanders tactics vary in the open field fights. Some will have everyone charge in to a specified location and then stack up. The other Commanders will dart in, sweeping the “tail” of the enemy zerg, so far more movement can be expected.

We’ll start with the stacking on the Commander build. This is the ultimate healer. By the time you’ve gone through your healing rotation, the first abilities you used will be back up and your DPS isn’t relevant.

The Logic:
Condition removal is great, we all know that. However, when standing still, 2 conditions (cripple and Immobilize) are worthless to remove. Further, incoming damage is actually higher from direct damage sources than from conditions when two zergs are stacked in front of each other. Therefore, healing is optimal in this situation.

Major Pros of the Build:
- Healing Breeze 4 allies for 8440.
- Symbol of Faith = 260 Health Per Second (HPS), the Regeneration it provides = 369 HPS, Battle Presence = 199 HPS and Monk Runes = +10% outgoing heal for a grand total of 910 HPS.
- While the above is going on, throw out Shield of Judgment and Shield of Absorption (1853 heal)
- Swapping to Staff heals nearby allies for 1221.
- Staff’s Symbol of Swiftness = 264 HPS, Empower gives out 3480 healing, and Detonate Orb of Light provides 1964
- If weapon swap is not up by the time the above rotation is completed, auto-attack for the heal proc of 500 before swapping back to Mace for another 1221 heal to allies.
- Tome of Courage 1 ability heals for 2200 per 3/4 of a second to 5 allies and ability 3 provides 14.5 seconds of protection and a 4840 health Regeneration.
- Stability in large amounts

A note on this build’s survivability:
Focusing on Nomad gear where applicable and Cleric Trinkets leaves you with 17.5k health and 3500 armor. Further, Altruistic Healing is tossing you 88 health per person that snags Regen/Protection/Stability/Swiftness/Might/Retal/Aegis. Assuming 5 people are receiving a boon from you per second, that’s 440 HPS. In the above scenario of Symbol of Faith, you’re being healed for 1268 HPS. Empowering while inside this Symbol only makes things ridiculous. You’re practically invincible in a stack of allies.

Can you give us numbers of your power and your condition damage with and without the trait involved and what retaliation was hitting for specifically?

I’ll say this, the buff given, if it happens, would need to be substantial as the talent is in an odd trait tree to begin with. Tried to come up with a build based on high retal using that Grandmaster trait a while back, always kept running into “why wouldn’t I just use this other build if I wanted to do X?”

Edge of the Mists remains as it is.

Current WvW is removed completely. Guild halls are implemented and are used to queue up in 25 and 50 man teams. The guild hall is on a map that has supply camps, towers, and 2 keeps (a WvW map). Points are totaled every 6 minutes for one hour. You can win by either reaching a set point total or by having a higher number of points at the end of one hour.

Rewards are given like SPvP, but in far greater amounts due to the difficulty of requiring so many people. Say one TPvP game is giving “1 reward unit” (where reward unit is how quickly players acquire gear/level up/etc.) The new 25 man WvW would give “6 reward units” and the 50 man would give “15 reward units.” This encourages people to aim for 50 mans even though it’s much more difficult to acquire 50 players than it is 5 for a TPvP game. Two additional reasons for these rewards are: First, even if they don’t hit the 50 mark, guilds will actively recruit to try and obtain the 15 reward units thereby keeping WvW populations healthy and at least queueing at the 25 man level. Secondly, as an indirect result of this guilds will recruit new players and treat them with respect in order to obtain their services on the battleground allowing for new players and the games population to remain healthy.

No more coverage problems. No more highly skilled WvWers stuck on a server that shows little interest in it. No more siege trolls. Lastly, WvWers finally get appropriate rewards for their efforts.

A more detailed post is here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Guild-Halls/first#post4454359

Thoughts?

TL;DR version: Guild halls are customizable, instanced, PvE zones that simultaneously act as WvW maps when queued up similar to how SPvP queueing works now. This alleviates all current and future problems of the game. I’m the greatest.

Overview
Guild halls as an all-encompassing solution to player complaints and easily met development deadlines.

Goal of Proposal
Solving the WvW problem, PvE content problem and also, the lack of immersion (due to megaserver) in one fell swoop. This can be achieved by using guild halls as a center for the games’ player base. The real beauty is that it hones development cycles to focused areas.

Proposal Functionality
PvE Solution: Under this system, when visited in PvE, guild halls are instanced zones available to any member of that guild. They can be visited by non-guild members if a guild member invites them to their group (like joining a zone now). There is a keep (of some kind), open lands, even events that fire off and ultimately, if left unchecked, mobs taking over the guild keep/structure. Further, there is an outside area/cave/structure that has difficult/high-level, scaling mobs and a boss or bosses. This area should be very difficult. It respawns once every 24 hours and of course, has great loot associated with it to encourage this as a daily spot for guild members to congregate while doing their dailies.

These guild hall zones can be varied, like halls were in GW1, for example a Shiverpeak themed zone, an Ascalonian themed zone, even a Canthan theme etc. Also, each zone would have a jumping puzzle – everything a PvE player could want. Further, you can allow guilds to purchase/unlock additional halls. This expands their content etc. You can make this very expensive/achievement based/time-gated as additional maps are unlocked. This also saves development costs by enabling each guild to eventually have all guild halls and therefore, to experience all the content created for guild halls rather than one per guild.

WvW Solution: A guild queues up, similarly to the way they do now in SPvP. Team sizes are either 25 or 50. Both guilds select which guild hall they want to use as the map fought on. One team would be selected to win the “coin flip” and their choice of hall is used. The PvE mobs and events would disappear and be replaced with supply camps, towers and other WvW significant structures. Game modes go to a given point total or the team with the highest points after 60 minutes. The enemy keep could spawn where the aforementioned high level, desirable farming mobs spawn.

WvW bonuses as they exist now, become guild wide bonuses resetting on a regular basis. These bonuses don’t have to be rewarded on a win only. As players are killed or objectives taken, they could be rewarded allowing for less successful guilds to still acquire the bonuses.

Rewards scale up as such: One “reward unit” (whatever it may be) for 25 and three “reward units” for 50. This is to give incentive to players to retain the large scale feel of WvW and also to give players a just reward for managing 50 people into a queue. It also keeps current large WvW guilds active and happy that they’re receiving rewards like PvErs do. Edge of the Mists would still exist for people wanting to participate in old school WvW.

Associated Risks
None really. The 24 hour respawn prevents guild halls from becoming an exploitable farming area. It gives guildies something to do together everyday as a guild.

WvWers ongoing complaints are addressed – they get to show that their group of players is truly the best with no “noobish” pugs or siege trolls ruining things. No population imbalances or coverage complaints. Also, no more complaints from PvErs about WvW maps requiring map complete. Further, it’s likely that WvW guilds would aggressively recruit people and train them to obtain the peviously mentioned higher rewards of 50 man combat. So, new players have a comfortable “in” to WvW.

Lastly, the megaserver isn’t harmed because the Living Story will still take place in actual zones. Resource nodes are still in the real game world as well. PvErs are overjoyed at the new content that can be quickly added and they also feel as though they have control over content because they’re choosing which map(s) to unlock/purchase. Also, Living Story enemies could launch invasions on guild halls allowing guilds to feel as though they’re a closer part of the Living Story and pulling in participation from a unique angle.

- Consider allowing the above WvW to gear up using the same way SPvP does. Allows for quick, changing metas, is easier to balance, and marries the game modes together in a logical fashion.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=;00;3kHFH0A47J-K0;9;4T9;0T59B4;615B5ZW0O;1vhrTvhrTm-FSVHLW10;0VLVQWVX_2f3l42o-G-2i;5cW5PcW5P;9;9;9;9;0k0V1;2577j

I’d use the other editor, but it’s down. The following is for PvE and isn’t really intended for PvP.

So, it’s looking like this has 97% crit rate in death shroud with 78% crit damage bonus. You get 35% bonus damage when the enemy is below 50% health and still sit at 15% when they’re above. You should be sitting around 18ish or more stacks of might. Your life bolt pierces all targets and causes vulnerability for 13 seconds per hit, so the enemy should have around 10ish stacks of vuln just from spamming bolt.

A good rotation would be to come out of shroud, go dagger for quick life gain (popping spectrals if being hit for more life gain), then when you’re about 20 or so % away from being full, swap to axe, hit them with reaper’s scythe and ghastly claws for an extra 9% vuln before heading back into shroud to spam bolts.

Thoughts?

Is the unlocked gear, any gear that our account has had access to at any point? Or do we need to have it in our bank or on our characters?

Also, another huge question is, does the gear we have in our PvP locker count toward the unlock?

All e-sport games have stood the test of time and haven’t shunned any predecessors.

Starcraft 1 had been around for a long time. Starcraft 2 built on that. It did not create an entirely new game. DOTA 1 and 2 did the same. While GW2 is a vastly different game, there needs to be more continuity, where applicable, between the two games. This will allow outsiders familiar with GW1 who either haven’t looked into GW2, or who didn’t like GW2 to find interest in GW2.

Guild halls were in GW1 and added a ton of flavor and social aspects to the game. They can easily be added to GW2 as a means of creating continuity between the two games, but also as another way of tying the various aspects of the game together. These should be obtainable by guilds performing skillfully in all three areas of the game, WvW, PvP and PvE. Also, they should be purchasable by guilds using currency or items acquirable by all three aspects of the game. Meaning there are two ways to get one, #1 Skillful play, but only when this is demonstrated in all aspects of the game and #2 A large amount of resources, but these resources cannot come from one aspect of the game alone, they must come from all three. This would allow competition and “bragging rights” to excite the player base, but also provide a path to a guild hall for the casual gamer as well.

GW1 saw much success through its tournament system that involved guild battles and even had $100,000 as prize money

The current game type, capture and hold is one dimensional and stale. Many of the posts (not all, but many) on the PvP forums state this as fact. It does certainly lead to predictable build types and can be viewed as uninteresting from an outsider.

Guild battles from GW1 involved organized play as two teams clashed against one another, morale boosts available from a cap-the-flag game element and also a “kill the guild lord” objective. These three things led to not only extremely diverse builds, but also diverse tactics that needed to occur on-the-fly.

The developers would do well to rethink pushing a game type that is clearly not interesting to the majority of its players. You’ve added maps, new tournament modes, removed the cost and still players are not showing up.

In conclusion, the above would not only add longevity to your game, but also justify additional resources to be spent on other aspects of your game. The individual(s) in charge of gem store sales will need to come up with ways to profit from creating continuity in your game. It’s his/her/their job and longevity is mandatory. Thank you for reading.

Anyone have a definitive response?