Guild Wars 2

Khisanth.2948:

Relic.2136:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Khisanth.2948:

What the collections offer is smoke and mirrors to hide the total cost.

As for grind … well that is all on you. If you want to rush it then yeah that is going to require some grind.

The OP is saying they like the smoke, they like the mirrors. What they don’t like is just coming up with mats for no reason.

I would go further and say that the “smoke & mirrors” are the collections I did NOT like – the silly master crafting ones that just had you dump a stupid amount of materials. Collections that take you out into the world I would not classify as smoke/mirrors at all, but that’s just my opinion. :-)

It looks like the smoke and mirrors did an extremely good job since you seem to have forgotten the other tiers that requires ascended materials. Such as the deldrimor steel ingots that go into making the flasks for HOPE’s t3 collection.

Oh also exclusive to the HoT legendary is the recipe sheets. “Oh looks like I got all the materials, lets just toss them into the forg… NOPE looks like I need to spend another 80g on recipe sheets first -_-”.

Uh, no…that’s exactly what I’m talking about. I like the collections that are active and take you places, and I dislike the parts of crafting that involve huge mat dumps, including the ascended components. I’ve never made a HoT one, so I didn’t know about recipe sheets, but if they’re just gold sinks then yes, I’d oppose those, too…

Thank you all for your responses, and especially for being so reasonable and calm when disagreeing! One of the many reasons I <3 the GW2 community. :-)

Djinn.9245:

Hevoskuuri.3891:

I very much second this. I’ve played multiple hours every single day for almost 2 years now, and still do, but I still consider myself way too casual to even start attempting to make a legendary. I’d love to see one or two of the HoT leggies in my inventory one day, but I just can’t see myself farming for hundreds of hours. At the moment, legendaries don’t really ask for effort, mastery or anything of the sort, but simply the ability to withstand the mind-numbing grind they require.

But hey, I’m just bragging here. I know they won’t change the legendary crafting process, and enough people seem to be fine with it, since every third person you see is running around with at least one. Maybe in 10 years I’ve gathered enough materials via regularl play to attempt making one, we’ll see.

I am an EXTREMELY casual player that has played since Beta. I have taken a month or 3 off here and there in that time and did not play every day. About 6 months ago I decided I had enough mats saved up that I wanted to start Chuka & Champawat. So far I have had enough wood collected to get through The Hunt and Ambush. I used up all my high-tier leather and had to buy more, but it didn’t make me broke. It seems that Ambush was the most material-intensive step, so I think I’m in the home stretch except for the Mystic Tribute which I am not too far off from.

Keeping in mind that through my time playing the game I wasn’t even thinking in terms of crafting a Legendary, I would think that someone who plays multiple hours every single day with a goal would be able to make one much quicker.

Djinn – I’m a super casual player, too. Maybe an hour or two of play each day, if that, on average for me. In five years I’ve only ever built one set of ascended armor, but never have I ever had 250 of any T6 mat. I have nine characters (one of each profession) and all the crafting disciplines maxed out, all the elite specs unlocked and actually tested to see if I liked them, main story and HoT done multiple times, all dungeons completed at least once, and personal fractal level 50 or something close to that.

I’m not bragging – it took me five years to do all that in the little time that I have to play, but I’ve enjoyed it immensely and I’m proud of what I’ve achieved. Even during summers or vacations when I had several consecutive hours to play I would never spend it repeatedly farming mats (or gold in order to buy mats). While it’s true someone with time on their hands could grind up mats to craft a Legendary faster, one of the strongest reasons I continue to play Guild Wars (been around since Prophecies) is because that sort of grind is not necessary, on principle. Of course we could say Legendaries aren’t “necessary”, and I fully agree, but that doesn’t mean we should encourage grinding in order to acquire them, in my opinion. :-)

Khisanth.2948:

Relic.2136:

I didn’t like these, but there are other collections that took me out into the world to collect frozen water samples, chunks from ice elementals, and stuff like that. I loved those, and they felt like they made sense, thematically!

In many cases they just reused existing content. It’s not very interesting if you’ve already done those things a dozen times already. In some cases multiple collections also overlap. Nice if you are doing them in parallel. Potentially a bit annoying when done in serial.

Khisanth – I can sympathize with that point of view. Personally, I don’t mind re-visiting existing content when it makes sense to me – collecting water samples and ice elemental parts for Frostfang was good fun! It got me to go back to locations I don’t frequent anymore, and I felt like it really put me in tune with the nature of water and ice throughout Tyria. :-) That sort of thing is the reason I play MMOs!

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Khisanth.2948:

What the collections offer is smoke and mirrors to hide the total cost.

As for grind … well that is all on you. If you want to rush it then yeah that is going to require some grind.

The OP is saying they like the smoke, they like the mirrors. What they don’t like is just coming up with mats for no reason.

I would go further and say that the “smoke & mirrors” are the collections I did NOT like – the silly master crafting ones that just had you dump a stupid amount of materials. Collections that take you out into the world I would not classify as smoke/mirrors at all, but that’s just my opinion. :-)

Khisanth.2948:

The collections for the precursors are often more costly than just straight up buying. Then on top of that you often have to do other stuff too like Dry Top for the geodes or various fractals or wait around for events.

What the collections offer is smoke and mirrors to hide the total cost.

Khisanth – sometimes I agree. I’ve only done the Frostfang precursor, but some of the “collections” were a joke. At one point it was just 750 mithril ingots and 500 elder planks, or something like that, followed by another collection that required five ascended axe blades and hafts among other things. I didn’t like these, but there are other collections that took me out into the world to collect frozen water samples, chunks from ice elementals, and stuff like that. I loved those, and they felt like they made sense, thematically!

Crossaber.8934:

What about change the gift to wvw acqure only? Make a wvw collection instead, do you like it? No i guess.

Crossaber – actually that would be great! Think of this: a PvE player completes a collection by running every dungeon path once. Each completed dungeon gives one item for the collection. A WvW player just completes a reward track for each dungeon to get these items, instead of running the dungeons themselves! That would be fantastic, and everyone gets to play their preferred game mode. :-)

To clarify – I loved the collections for crafting Frostfang’s precursor that took me all around the world to gather items from ice elementals, water from various locations, etc. They made sense to me, and I felt like I was doing them for a rational reason. I absolutely HATED the “collections” that just had me dump something like 250 axe blades and hafts, which included some ascended mats. This gave me no feeling of accomplishment; I didn’t DO anything but grind mats or gold to buy mats, and it felt like I was just sinking mats for no real purpose. I would have gladly spent time in WvW, dungeons, map meta events, etc., instead.

I admit one huge problem is that some players only ever do WvW or PvP – I understand their frustration, but as an open-world PvE player I don’t personally care. To me the open world is the real game, and these other modes are just for fun, not vice versa, and it’s incredibly frustrating to constantly have every aspect of my experience, from crafting and upgrade components to stats and skill functions, limited by the needs/wants of people who rarely, if ever, leave the Mists. The whole idea of WvW is cool, and I love that we have this great game that each player can choose to play however they like, but the constant tug-of-war in balancing stuff like this is frustrating (can’t even imagine how stressful it must be for the devs!).

I like the idea that crafting a Legendary requires me to spend a little time in WvW and Fractals – just enough to whet my appetite if I’d never experienced them before, but not so much that it feels like grind. Also, I know ANet wants to move away from the old Dungeons, but I love that most of the core Legendaries need tokens from them, and I’d love to see the Gift of Magic or Might replaced by a reward track or some other collection type thing is all I’m saying, maybe from Dungeons, or World Bosses, or something dynamic, you know?

My wife raised another issue on behalf of ANet: Legendary weapons are huge gold sinks, and changing the Gifts away from T6 mats might hurt the in-game economy. I don’t know about that, but I suppose it makes sense. Still, I’d love to see this change!

I just crafted by first precursor after five years of playing, and I have to say I’m displeased. I know everybody out there who has several Legendary weapons doesn’t want to hear it, but I’d really love to see Legendary crafting change from mind-numbingT6 mat/gold grind to something more like the collections aspect of the precursor steps. I understand it’s difficult to implement stuff like this, and the system has been around so long it’s unlikely to change. Nevertheless, I’d personally much prefer a set of collections that took me through every dungeon path once, one that took me to each world boss, or some of the jump puzzles, etc., rewarding us for playing varied content without endless repetition. This could even be a way of reacquainting players with lore! You could have collections for reading historic markers or something.

I love the Gift of Battle coming from a reward track – that’s great! I don’t have to put on a podcast and grind mats or gold for weeks on end; instead I can focus on just playing my class well in that game mode and when the track is complete I can move on to something else! Gift of Exploration? Fantastic! More stuff like that and less grind would make me a very happy camper. :-)

I’d love to see all armor and weapons have removable runes/sigils – this should not be reserved only for the best of the best. Some runes and sigils are prohibitively expensive, and impossible for some folks to craft on their own if they missed the content that provided the recipe. In my opinion you should not have to destroy an item to remove its upgrade component, or destroy the component itself to replace it, at any level.

I would absolutely adore a webpage or some sort of utility where I could create a character from scratch and preview all the armor/dye combinations in one place! I don’t know if it’s possible to use some kind of API to tap into the game resources and allow this, but I could spend countless hours just creating custom toons like this. Being available outside the game itself would be nice, too! (I have tons of free time at work, LOL)

I imagine it like a combination of the character creation screens and the wardrobe preview window, but big enough to see the entire character with armor and weapons, plus the ability to preview all the dye colors right there in one convenient location. :-)

I think the point most people are trying to make here is that there isn’t much of a choice. Make sexy armor, by all means, but please include more options that look more practical for those who don’t feel the need to display their sweater kittens. :-p

I agree with some of the others, too – if you’re one step away from nip tassels, why do we not also get some banana hammocks? Free the D or it’s just hypocrisy, lol.

I’d love to have a full preview window that let me choose skins, dyes, etc. (even those I haven’t unlocked yet) so I can decide which ones I want to buy. Right now I can preview most things from Wardrobe, but I have to look up dyes on TP and preview from there – it’s just cumbersome. This would be a really cool API though, or even a stand-alone web app on the GW2 website: let you do character creation, armor/weapon choice, dyes, etc. to play with the character look. Basically I get bored at work and this would make my life complete.

Cheers!

Thanks for the link; posted there now. Cheers!

I just came back to the game recently and I completely agree with this. Made a new topic on this today because I didn’t realize this thread was already here. I’d love to see Order and/or Cultural armor (especially 100g+ Tier 3!) become skins at least. Rare gear is just a waste of gold in the current state of the game, and doubly so if you can’t vendor, scrap, or forge it.

Hi, just a quick suggestion: cultural T3 armor skins are super expensive, even at the half-price + badges of honor now, and they’re only RARE quality, so effectively you’re only buying the skin. Could we maybe have these super expensive skins be free to apply, or upped to Exotic or even Ascended quality? It’s over 100G for a full set normally, which for me is quite an invenstment, and that doesn’t count runes.

Personally, I’m a lore/RP nerd, so I dig the cultural and Orders armor skins. They’re all rare quality, so you basically have to add the cost of a transmutation charge onto them if you want to use the skin. It would make me incredibly happy to see all these RP-type armor skins become free to apply, or to become worth acquiring in and of themselves.

I had the exact same experience regarding the portal being created where the ground got destroyed, thus making it unreachable. Also, the air launchers/columns of spiraling air would sometimes not launch me, or anyone else in the party and we’d wipe. Extremely frustrating – had this happen again after restarting the entire last mission. Henge Of Denravi server, about 8:30pm EST 10/31/2015. Others in /say chat are telling me the same thing.

I agree in some respects. I think LS Season 1 was the right way to go, but too many people got upset because they can’t play it now. The destruction of LA and the events around it were significant, meaningful, and changed the game world permanently – and players were able to participate in that. Personally, I would like to see an MMO where the main storyline, like killing Zhaitan, was an event limited to a few months. As long as future epic encounters were sure to be available, like killing Mordremoth, I would totally support that. It sucks to miss it – I’m kicking myself for missing LS 1 – but it makes what you do in-game so much more important.

These are my alternate personalities. :-)

I try very hard to create outfits themed to their backstories – hence the Lionguard thief, the Ebon Vanguard warrior, and the leonine Blood Legion warrior. I’ve re-rolled a couple of these since making this, and haven’t had time to update in Photoshop.

Since I’m Relic, and most of their names use that, I like to imagine them being all in the same guild, called “The Reliquary”.

Preparing for Druid spec! Will use the special HoM green staff skin when we get that ability. :-) Show me your mix and match druid-looking armor sets!!

Head: Subterfuge Hood
Shoulder: T3 Norn
Chest: Carapace
Glove: Inquest (has a nice dangly cloth bit that matches Carapace nicely!)
Pants: Carapace
Boot: T2 Norn

I don’t understand the mindset of dungoneers. I enjoyed the dungeons in this game because they made sense – Story Mode kills the main boss, and the explorable paths saw the player mopping up lieutenants and pretenders to the throne, as it were. I have never, in any game, understood why people enjoy re-running the same dungeon content every single day, endlessly. It makes even less sense when those grinders are unhappy with how boring it gets…

Personally, I’d like this to go in the opposite direction – when a player completes Story Mode and all explorable modes, I’d like to see that unlock the armor and weapon skins for purchase by the dungeon reward npc. The very idea of repeating content multiple times to farm up tokens doesn’t strike me as “earning” the objects they purchase; in my personal opinion it’s just tedious grind, for no reason. It’s rewarding people for playing in a way that actually encourages skipping as many fights as possible, insisting on maximized/optimized builds, and being extremely unforgiving of players new to the experience.

And I agree with several other posters here – too many people complain about dungeons being easy or short, but skip most of the content because they want to get through them as quickly as possible. Fractals’ randomized, more difficult maps were the answer to most of these problems.

I think what you need to do is make one important decision: what part of the game do you enjoy playing the most? Open world exploration, dungeons, PvP, WvW, Fractals of the Mists? Once you decide which of these you enjoy doing most, the “to-do” list for getting appropriate gear, creating a working “build” for your role (solo, team support, etc.), finding a group to run the content with (if need be), kind of creates itself and gives you the immediate guidance you need.

As long as the end goal is something you enjoy, the process in reaching it – even if it’s tedious farming – will be worth it because you don’t hit the end and go, “Well crap, what now?”. Instead you are rewarded with the ability to continuously play the content you like. If at some point that gets stale, experiment with content you may not be familiar with. I have a guildie that just discovered how much he enjoys PvP; he never tried it before, but now it’s all he does.

I’d desperately love to see the Stag Helm come back on the Trading Post. I missed the first Wintersday celebration, and I haven’t noticed it being sold since. It would look fabulous on a new druid…. Pretty Please with Sugar on Top!

[Edit] The question is, will this ever happen?

I would wet myself if taming a griffon was possible. Owl griffon’s, too.

Pretty sure there is a tiger-like cat in the game we can’t tame, but the actual name eludes me atm. Some of the others listed by the OP would be fabulous, too: Raptor, Minotaur, Warg, Stag.

How kittening sexy would it be to have a white STAG pet for your DRUID!?

Give me a bump, Vasily. One bump only, please. :-)

A quick question for the devs working on the new Guardian traits: we have a few skills classified as “wards” but no traits that do anything with that skill class. Any chance that could happen with this trait system overhaul?

I feel like we could add this classification to a few other skills, like shield #4, and the new longbow #5 finale-fence-thing, and then having a nice sexy trait or two for wards could be cool… Just a thought.

P.S. I love that more elites and other skills are getting “categorized” like this; the thought never occurred to me before, but this will be really groovy to play with!

I think you need to just learn how to read, rather. ;-)

I get through the dungeons just fine. The suggestion is simply to make the unique skins available as an unlock for completion as opposed to endless repetition (read: grind).

In keeping with the “no grind” philosophy I’d like to suggest changing the dungeon token system. I encourage all players to complete the story modes and each explorable path because the stories behind them are interesting and meaningful, in my opinion. However, the fact that you have to repeat the explorable paths so many times to unlock even a single piece of armor is – to my mind – the definition of grind.

What if we did an unlock system instead? Like if you complete all the dungeon paths, including story, you unlock the ability to purchase the armor/weapon skins with gold? You could replace the daily token rewards with something like transmutation charges, or even a random skin, to reward the players who enjoy the endless repetition of paths and encourage people to help friends/guildies/randoms complete them.

Well obviously players would prefer to have them available free of charge; however, I wasn’t suggesting either way specifically, just that it happen. I think plenty of people would spare 60g in-game on their level 80s if they wanted to change the face without re-rolling to get it for free, or even purchase gems to get them, so ANet could still get money.

I’ve purchased several of the total makeover kits to get access to new faces/hairstyles – my characters’ appearances are very important to me – and I totally understand that this is an income stream for ANet, but is there any possibility that the new faces/hair will ever be available for new character creation?

I would never delete one of my lv80 toons that has traits unlocked just to get a new face, but I’m an alt-aholic and I’d love to be able to use some of the wonderful new designs on new toons after spending the money for an extra character slot…

@Linken – now that I’ve learned the term “erp”, I can certainly say that instead. Thank you.

@DietPepsi – good information, thank you.

I’d love to hear from other folks what they do for their own characters after reaching the apparent end of existing content to keep things fresh! Please feel free to post any of your fun stories from the gameworld here!

I actually saw a group of Charr in Iron Marches recently walking around and occasionally talking to each other in /s chat as though they were all in a warband together. While the dialogue from player to player felt a bit awkward, their goals seemed fun – they were basically helping a lower level guildie do reknown hearts and personal story section, but as a warband instead of random friends. This would be a great way to experience the other cultural story sections, so I may do that. :-)

@penelopehannibal – it’s not an ignorant view, and it’s also not intended to be an all-inclusive view of all forms of live-RP in-game. I’m just specifying that in this particular case I’m not wanting to talk about that kind of RP. My apologies if it seemed otherwise.

@Leo G – I hear you. That’s what I’ve been doing for a while now, but I’m approaching the end of what normal game content I had goals to accomplish. I’m hoping to find something that doesn’t require solely the use of my imagination, for while that can be (and has been) fun, interacting with the game world directly is preferable of course. I’m currently caught up in Living Story chapters, and have spent more time than I care to admit running the Vinewrath event in SW, though that is not noted below:

My Charr is Faznar Painmaker, Centurion of the Blood Legion. At the request of Rytlock Brimstone he joined the Vigil to help fight the Elder Dragons, and after defeating Zhaitan he was given a rare opportunity to stand down from active duty for a brief while. He used his time to explore the uttermost boundaries of Legion territory, put down the renegade Charr in Fields of Ruin, and push back the Flame Legion in Fireheart Rise. He’s travelled far and wide since helping Rytlock and Logan Thackeray defeat Gaheron Baelfire in the Citadel of Flame, even venturing into the Mists on occasion to sate his thirst for bloodshed. Proudly adorned in crimson and steel, he spends most of his time stalking the hills of ancient Ascalon like a hungry lion.

I’ll echo what the previous posters said about PvP and WvW – very popular class. I don’t run my necro in dungeons, but I absolutely loved playing necro in open world PvE. I alternate between a minion-focused build (oh, how I miss my MM from GW1!) and a power/might based Death Shroud build mostly. Terrormancer doesn’t really translate to PvE well, but it can be hilarious in certain areas – if ANet would let us knock/fear/pull enemies off ledges like we can other players, it would be one of my favorite PvE builds, lol.

Condition heavy builds also work great in PvE – if I switch to my condition damage/duration gear, no other class can touch the insane variety of badness I put on enemy mobs.

I agree; it would be nice if they could put the town clothes in as a free outfit for everyone instead of a tonic.

I love to roleplay, but not the kind of hardcore "/em looks at NPC1 with lust in his heart and asks, “Can you polish my spear, love?” sort of thing – too much of that craziness going on in Rata Sum! What I’m talking about is getting really into the design of your character, their history, getting into their mindset, and playing the game accordingly as far as decisions go – choosing relevant quests/zones, etc. Using available emotes, and maybe taunting your enemies in /s chat are about as far as I go with imposing my RP on other players.

That being said, let’s hear everyone’s ideas on how to continue to roleplay after reaching level 80. For example, I have a Charr warrior – Blood Legion all the way, gruff and impatient, who hates rabbits. Trying to find things to do that aren’t mindlessly repetitive, but still stay true to the rest of his personality and history, is a challenge! I’ve spent hours and hours combing through Fireheart Rise to help keep the Flame Legion at bay, made regular patrols of the Brand to help other Legion soldiers and helpless humans in the area, and even visited bloody vengeance on the traitorous louts who are trying to scuttle the treaty with those Krytan mice. Now I find myself running short on ideas for what this character can do, when he’s not helping guild members achieve their own goals. Map is 100% complete.

Any advice for my Charr would be appreciated, but I really want to hear what all of you do for your own toons after completing all the relevant hearts and stuff!

I agree with BrooksP – just having a “check availability” option would be fantastic. Although for me the hard part isn’t getting the name I want – I have never, in the history of playing GW1 and 2, had a name I wanted taken, and I’m a confessed alt-aholic. This issue, in my experience, comes mostly from using silly names like “Moar Cowbell” or “Gods Shadow”, “Tyrion Lannister”, etc. etc.

For me the challenge is coming up with a name that seems like something you might actually see on an NPC in your faction – my Charr “Faznar Painmaker” or my necro “Relic the Unholy”. I dislike having to use titles within a name, but a single first name is almost impossible to get. Sometimes I have to sit and think for days before the right name hits me, so having a save-progress feature would be groovy for that, too. Though I understand why they probably won’t implement it, lol.

OMG I love threads like this.

Charr Warrior: T3 Shoulders, T2 Chest/Legs, Temple Hands/Feet; Dyed steel, burnished steel, and salmon – these match Legionnaire weapons well.

Norn Guardian: Radiant Hands/Shoulders, Vigil Helm, Heavy Plate Chest/Feet, Carapace Legs; Dyed Fluff, Blue Tint, and Celestial

Sylvari Necro: Skull Mask (necro starter) Helm, Vestments of the Lich Chest, Cabalist Legs, Seer Boots on Feet; Dyed a combo of several greens to get cloth tones to match up, with Cream on the legs so the bat wing matched the bird skull.

Human Thief: Conquest Helm (from PvP), Outlaw Shoulders, Sneakthief Hands/Legs, Stalwart Feet; Dyed a combo of various yellows/tans/browns, and Scarlet I believe, to match the Lionguard weapons/theme.

Asuran Engineer: T3 Helm, Rubicon Shoulders, T2 hands, Magitech Chest/Legs/Feet (from Gem store, sadly); dyed a combo of Denim, Celestial, and the brightest blue I could find to try and match the eye glass (can’t remember the color, sorry!)

Sylvari Elementalist: Flamekissed headpiece, Flame Legion shoulders, Nightmare Court Chest/Legs, Seer’s Hands/Feet; Dyed a combo of Cinnamon, Cheery, Apricot, Flare, and I believe Antique Gold.

Sylvari Mesmer: T2 Head/Chest/Shoulder, I think T1 Hands…could be T2, with Nightmare Court legs; Dyed all sorts of nonsense blue/teal/purple hues. Looks good with pink highlights, too!

GuzziHero.2467:

Sadly, extremely unlikely. This is why I call GW2 an MMOAG or MMO Adventure Game since roleplaying isn’t really in the equation at all.

That’s an interesting acronym – I like it. I agree that it is more an Adventure Game than a Role Playing Game, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. My personal preference is for more RP options; I may just have to settle for hoping more stuff like that gets added.

I always wondered if they meant to do more with the Dignity/Ferocious/Charming personality traits, until they basically removed them from everything but toon creation and the odd dialogue choice. It wouldn’t bother me at all if that completely disappeared and we got more of something else.

Thank you all very much for contributing your thoughts on this thread – I love having intelligent conversations with the GW2 community. :-)

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I think the OP’s comment could more productively be phrased as:

Will our characters ever get to pursue the challenges introduced in the personal stories that don’t relate directly to fighting dragons?

They aren’t really asking about “role playing;” it’s more about other parts of Tyrian lore.

I totally understand that the primary focus of ANet’s finite resources should be the main dragon-fighting, world-saving plot line – and I’m all for that. My question is about roleplaying though, insofar as allowing more opportunities for your character to participate in these other parts of Tyrian lore allows one to craft a more complete character within the game framework, and that is why I’d like to see it happen. I believe you are correct, though, that the size of such an undertaking makes it unlikely to occur. But here’s hoping! :-)

Yargesh.4965:

I honestly don’t get it.
You are upset you are supposed to use your imagination (playing in your head)?

No, I’m not. Just wondering if any structured content might be provided someday to let us play directly with these NPCs/organizations/themes/plot lines, etc.

Palador.2170:

They need to build on that, so that instead of “I ran out of Separatists to fight” it’s “I’ve moved on to fighting the power behind the Separatists”.

Ah! That would certainly be one way to continue the storylines into higher level areas – I like it.

As far as the “home instances” go, I think that concept was well intended, but the execution could have been done better. Instead of trying to give the player a “home” which by its very nature would be difficult to implement and keep “relevant” to the character’s life, the idea of “home” could shift with player stories. For example, as a human Salma district may be my home, but when I join an Order of Tyria its headquarters becomes my new home. I can see that being equally difficult to implement now that they have several “home instance” items you can buy/earn, but I still like the idea of a place my character can return to for a reason.

A friend read this and asked me to clarify the Ebon Vanguard comment:

Getting into the head of your character is obviously largely dependent on your own imagination. I get that. What I mean is, if I want to play as an Ebon Vanguard recruit, or officer, or whatever, there isn’t currently a system in the game for that. You can help them out by doing an event chain or two, but the fun there ends pretty quickly. You can dress up like them, but there isn’t a built-in system by which you can earn their weapons, or ranks – it all has to be in your head, which I totally understand, I’m just wondering if we could ever potentially see something like this implemented. It feels to me like there is a whole world of potential sitting there teasing us, but we can’t partake in it directly…. yet? :-)

I am not talking about /em chat, or hard-core “ignore all non-rp players” sort of stuff. More like, will we ever get the opportunity to interact more intimately with the bits of story that never got really fleshed out? Like the treaty between the Charr and Kryta? Or the Centaur campaign? Or will we ever be able to become Peacekeepers, or Wardens, and have interesting opportunities to integrate our characters more closely with the cities we call home?

My reasoning: I love that in higher level zones we can struggle against the Flame Legion, or the Sons of Svanir, etc., as a way of continuing the roleplay of our characters if we don’t want to only follow the main story, but I feel like a huge chunk of immersion got dropped by the wayside in lower level areas. You never get any sort of closure about the Renegades and Separatists in Fields of Ruin, for instance – you can do a couple of events over and over, indefinitely, but I don’t feel like a player can easily get into the mindset of an Ebon Vanguard-type character. Same thing for Seraph, or Peacekeepers – there are just so many amazing aspects of each race’s civilization that I’d love to get more into!

I guess what I’m saying is that I understand the majority of players will want to focus on being the hero who saves the world by doing the main quest/living story. I’m all for that – loved the story, and still enjoy the new content – but the whole reason I play an MMORPG is for the RP part, and when the living story chapters end, instead of playing PVP or grinding fractals/dungeons I’d really love to have an avenue for returning to the major cities and lower-level content areas to reconnect with who my characters really are, where they come from, their motivations. There’s a great post on here requesting “cultural outfits” like Asuran college robes, etc., that really tickles me for just this reason.

I wholeheartedly support this – especially the really specific ones like Asuran “college” outfits. Anything that helps my characters relate more firmly to the lore content would be an instant purchase.

It’s all so versatile there really isn’t a single option for any. The current meta trends are for everyone to wear berserker gear and use their face to press the keyboard keys, but you can take any profession you want and focus on dps, heals/support, condition and control, or whatever else you enjoy doing. One of my favorite sights of this past week was watching a Cleric healing engie and a Magi support thief running around together in PVE just tearing the place up, lol.

I’m excited to see how the specialization and mastery mechanics effect PVE gameplay in HoT. As an avid PVE player – and I mean PVE, not just dungeons – this seems to me like the first hints of a redefining of “progression”. Personally I would greatly enjoy a game with no “levelling” per se – my character grows with my own skill at playing a class, which is difficult to do with the trait limitations enforced by a conventional levelling system.

In my mind an MMORPG’s primary responsibility is to give players the tools to roleplay, which is why I enjoy the “dress up” that so many others condemn as GW2 endgame. Creating a deep, vibrant character and connecting them in some meaningful way to the game world is the entire reason I play games like this. There is always room for improvement in every game, but I feel like GW2 is the closest I’ve come so far to my ideal gaming experience. If in the future the levelling mechanic was totally done away with, I would be incredibly happy. Many players find levelling to be the satisfying part of the game, but I believe they are truly craving meaningful “progression” of their character beyond arbitrary limitations like this. I would argue that what they find satisfying is participating in the game world, identifying with their races, Orders, or other entities, and growing “stronger” in skill as opposed to statistics.

Some contend that removing levelling pushes everyone to the “endgame”, making the exploration of open world zones totally unnecessary. This is an interesting dilemma, but one that has several solutions. In the end it all comes down to how the game world would be adjusted to function without player levels – enemies would have to also be normalized, but there are still ways to differentiate zones and skill levels beyond an arbitrary number like “level 25-35”. For one small example, enemies in Metrica Province might still possess limited skills/AI, whereas those in Orr are more numerous and tougher, as they are now regardless of their level. Just one idea to illustrate a larger point.

Another benefit to redefining progression is – I hope – enabling players and developers to reimagine the reasoning behind open world locations. If you don’t have to go to the Harathi Hinterlands because it’s one of two or three available zones for your level, what other reason might your character go there (beyond plain curiosity)? In my personal ideal game I’d go there to see what life is like in that zone, or to assist the Seraph in defending settlements or opposing the centaur advances. This is another small example of potential room for PVE improvements – investing your character’s time and effort into organizations like the Seraph, Wolfborn, Peacekeepers, etc., could provide some kind of tangible reward. And the range of possible quest types is limitless – thieves could actually stealth into the camps and accomplish objectives, guardians could defend caravans or heal wounded soldiers, rangers could bring scouting information back…none of which would have to rely on what level number you’ve reached.

Of course deeper connections with Tyria’s Orders could benefit from the same scenarios. Tons of agents exist in the game world as Renown Hearts, but aside from Karma I personally feel like you don’t get much out of helping them. Instead of increasing your level by giving XP, they could give you progression points on a sort of reputation track, or mastery, or specialization, I don’t know. The only key would be avoiding the “need” to grind that kind of progression to get something crucial to gameplay – maybe as you increase your rank/rep/whatever in a given organization you can do different types of quests, or perhaps unlock titles or things like the language system coming soon in HoT!

It feels like this is the direction things might be going, and even if it takes until GW3 for it all to come to fruition I’m excited to be a part of it and this amazing community. If any of this comes to pass it will be totally cherry!

Another great way to earn gold and materials is the Vinewrath meta event in the Silverwastes. Most people hop from map to map with the LFG tool, looking for ones that are close to seeing the event occur, but if you can get a group together and stick through several rotations of the same map it can be much more fun!

You basically do a bit of fortress defense until a progress bar fills up, getting loot bags along the way, then do The Breach and Vinewrath events to get guaranteed rare drops. You get tons of Bandit crests for all sorts of goodies, including chest keys for that zone, plus a 50% boost to Magic Find after completing VW that effects opening those chests. If you stick around after VW ends, buy a few hundred keys, and organize a chest run you can end up with hundreds of good quality loot bags, a decent chance at exotic drops, and hours of interesting boss fights.

Learning the mechanics of the Breach and VW champions can be really fun (or agonizing and contentious, depending on other players). I recommend reading through Dulfy’s guides to get a basic idea of how the events work: http://dulfy.net/2015/01/15/gw2-point-of-no-return-vinewrath-silverwastes-achievements-guide/

I’m really sorry for posting again, but reading back through this thread:

phys.7689:

well the truth is this system is designed to make the leveling process weaker, and incentivize people to want to level up to get to the real game. They are going to be making it take more exp to level, and give more skillpoints to those who pay monthly in china.

Im sure there are some differences in our version, but they definately want people to feel like they need to level up more….

Is this at all true, or just BullKitten with a capital BK? I mean I know Anet posted in the news blog that they want to make the push from 60-80 more worthwhile, but this sounds preposterous! I love PVE and the story, and I already wish there were ways to play a finished, geared character through the story/PVE realm instead of waiting until I’ve completed the main plot for the “real game” to begin.

It certainly appears to me that this trait unlock system is shifting even more focus toward “end-game” content, and makes personal involvement in the story/pve world seem like an obstacle to grind through.

I don’t have a problem with the new grandmaster traits needing unlocks – it reminds me of capturing elite skills in GW1, which could be fun as long as I didn’t have to get a huge pug together to do it.

However, I just rolled a new Mesmser, my first of that class, and when I hit lv30 I discovered that most of the ADEPT (as in 1st tier!) major traits required things like 100% map completion of zones like Frostgorge Sound, killing dungeon bosses, etc. to unlock them. I know I can pay 10 silver + 2 skill points for each trait, but I don’t have lots of level 80s with tons of gold sitting around and I don’t enjoy “farming” to get more money. At this level I’m using my money to purchase necessities and using skill points to unlock slot skills, and there’s no way I can clear Frostgorge or Orrian zones to unlock my Adept major traits!

What this does for my play style, effectively, is forces me to grind up to 80 using only major traits that I unlock by happenstance through personal story mode and PVE. Furthermore, it limits my ability to re-spec and try out new trait/stat combinations during the levelling process, which I thought was supposed to be the whole point of this change… Lastly, the wiki estimates unlocking all traits on one character with money will cost just over 40 gold, whereas unlocking all three trait tiers used to cost, what, just over 12 gold?

I understand you don’t “have” to unlock them all – just get the ones you want, right? – but what if you want to experiment and see how traits you might not normally use interact with others? Are we supposed to just rely on theorycraft and math, instead of practical experience? In my mind, that also discourages real gameplay.

TL;DR – To my mind the cost of trait unlocks seem far too high for new players/toons, and in my playstyle this all but eliminates build experimentation.