Guild Wars 2

For those that don’t feel like checking out the google doc here are my suggestions for new DS skills. DS would be based on your primary main hand weapon so even with two weapon sets you only have one DS type.

New death shroud skills

• Axe based on current on land death shroud (mid range skills power and vulnerability focus)

1. Life Blast; stays as is
2. Dampen Life: explode your life force to deal damage and inflict vulnerability and weakness to 5 foes near you.
3. Corrupt Life; remove boons from target player and gain life force for each boon removed
4. Life Transfer: same as before
5. Life inversion chains to a cancel ability; channeled attack that connects you and enemy player with a spectral tether pulses damage and vulnerability on target until canceled or you run out of life force. Enemies that pass through the tether are inflicted with vulnerability. Allies that pass through the tether are cleansed of a condition

• Scepter based on current underwater name changed to Terror’s Shroud (Condition stack and transfer focus)

1. Plague Blast: Blast a foe with a plague that transfers one condition to them
2. Plague Eruption: bleed and poison your targeted enemy and foes around them
3. Plague of Terror: you launch a spectral wall in the direction you are facing. Any enemy that the wall passes through is afflicted by fear.
4. Gathering Plague: Draw conditions from nearby allies to yourself. Gain lifeforce for each condition drawn. Gain weakness each pulse.
5. Plague Shackles: Bind nearby enemies with your life force, stacking chill and bleeds on them with every pulse. If the bind is allowed to expire apply heavy bleeds chill and poison.

• Dagger main hand uses skills themed on liadri name changed to Shadow Shroud(melee power tank focus)

1. Shadow blast melee PBAoE hits target and up to four enemies around the target dealing damage and inflicting blind
2. Shadow path: Path similar to current DS #2 only change is it is a shadow step and does not cause bleeding
3. Shadow Lash similar to spectral grasp but no chill and it costs life force
4. Shadow fall create a shadow field around you that destroys projectiles after three seconds the shadow field erupts dealing heavy damage.
5. Dark Domain create a well at your feet that pulses stability to you and creates a warding line around the perimeter that prevents enemies from crossing it.

• Staff focuses on utility and control effects name changed to Tainted Shroud

1. tainted blast: damage and Poison target
2. Tainted Steps: Dodge backwards from target leaving behind a spectral wall that immobilizes enemies passing through it. Imobolize target.
3. Tainted Will: Freeze and enemy in an ice block for x Seconds, while frozen they are immune to damage and will not trigger traps or marks. Can be broken by stunbreaks.
4. Tainted Abyss: (Based on frozen abyss) channel create a continual expanding area that applies chill and poison to enemies.
5. Tainted Domain Place a mark on the ground. When it is triggered you gain stability and up to 5 enemies around the mark are knocked prone and poisoned.

• Greatsword would provide access to the current reaper shroud

I like the trait Idea, but I feel like that means I have to choose DS condition traits over general condition traits if I want to be able to use DS effectively.

I think that using traits to shore up DS will continue the situation we currently have where if your traits are not setup and focused on using DS you actually loose effectiveness when you enter DS.

The goal of my design it to make it so that when you swap into DS even if you aren’t traited for it, there is still a reasonable amount of utility that you can get from it. This would allow ANet to create traits for builds rather than having to use traits to shoehorn DS into our build.

Traits would also be a good route to shore up weaknesses. If this post does well I might try and make a series out of revisiting various parts of the necro design with the necro forums help.

hmm maybe I should call the blog post [armchair CDI} Death Shroud

Hey fellow necros!
I am working on a blog post for Relics of Orr where I dream up a death shroud revamp. The goal of the post is brainstorm ways to shore up some of the necros weaknesses and rework death shroud so it is more focused towards a player’s specific build rather than the mixed bag it currently is. If your interested and have the time the you can find the document here

Death Shroud Armchair Developer Blog Post

Also if there are any shows or events ya’all would like RO to highlight let me know at shongaqu@gmail.com (this offer is on the table regardless of if you have the time to peruse by blog post)

Finally make sure any comments you make include the name you would like to be credited under when I publish the blog. Please keep the names clean or I can’t print them

Thanks!

@Patrikan Habaton
I like your idea for the boss fight. The idea to add an emote element to the fight was very intersting. Do you think adding non-combat elements to boss fights would encourage paying attention or simply encourage macros on your keyboard?

Rewards
The current rewards for completing fractals are very RNG centric. Many posters have suggested several ways to improve rewards I especially like the ones that emphasize fractal relics and pristine fractal relics.
Proposal
Ascended Fractal Armor
Goal of Proposal
Reward top Tier Fractal players while giving them a project to work on.
How the proposal would work
Level 50+ fractals would drop components for ascended fractal armor. The components would have a chance to drop off bosses and chests and one would be guaranteed from the daily level 50+ fractal reward. Once they player has the specific components needed and enough fractal relics they can buy a pure piece of fractal armor from a vendor. The pure armor has infusion slots and an appropriate AC, but it has no stats. The player unlocks the stats by buying a special ascended insignias with pristine fractal relics. Each armor piece can have multiple ascended stats applied to it making it not only swap stats but particle effects as well. This armor could use the zodiac armor skin but have the bodysuit change effect based on stats following the current ascended spectrum. Since vitality gear glows blue the gem shop armor could be adjusted to have the same effect as twilight.
Risks

• System could begin to feel like a grind
• 6/6 fractal armor could become required for pug runs

Leaderboards
Proposal
Introduce separate challenge mode fractals and seasons to dessa’s lab
Goal of Proposal
To make fractal leaderboards compelling, rewarding and logical
How the Proposal would work.
Leaderboards with random fractal selection is difficult if not impossible to balance. Adding Special portals into Dessa’s Lab that connect to specific fractal combinations would allow players to take the time to plan out their strategy when assaulting a given set. Leaderboards could offer several different challenges for example survival or speed.

• Speed runs are straight forward, how fast can you get through the specific series of fractals?
• Survival would be similar to phase 2 of the Grawl fractal where players must defend an object or objects while fighting increasingly more difficult enemies. This could allow some cool twists on current fractals with us defending the gates of Surmia with Dulfy against the Flame Legion.

In addition to having different fractal challenge modes the leaderboards could be set up in seasons with the top teams receiving exclusive miniatures or cosmetics.

Associated Risks and Costs

• Difficult to tie into current fractal progression
• Caters to Premade groups.
• Splits the Fractal Running Community

Proposal Overview

I propose adding elite Fractals designed for two to three groups to queue for and run together through an expansion of the squad system.

Goal of Proposal

My guild runs fractals regularly, but we often have people who are left out because the content is locked at five players. I would like to see a new set of fractals assessable through new, individual portals that scale for two to three groups. By using the scaling technology that is already in game and enhancing the squad system, elite fractals would provide access to challenging zones for large, organized groups of players.

Proposal Functionality

The elite fractals would be non-linear zones with several bosses and dynamic events with packs of dangerous enemies scattered between. When you enter the zone the players kick off a dynamic event chain that will lead to several branching event chains. The players complete the dynamic event branches in any order each one ending in a difficult boss battle. Once all the chains are complete the zone boss will spawn.
Potential stories that can be explored

• The realm of the Owl spirit. With the owl spirit dead a new one must be named help one of several potential spirits take the throne.
• The elemental realm of Air, a zone where you help Zomorros resolve an ancient conflict between him and his brother. Player guided Airships and floating islands!
• The exile of humanity, Lead a group of human refugees to a new world! The gods have prepared the way now you must battle through the servants of the evil god Menzies to the portal that will lead to your salvation. Choices for the group to vote on throughout that change the difficulty and how many refugees survive.
• The death and rebirth of Quorra Sum (not in current lore). Long before humans arrived on Tyria a plague of unknown origins swept through the subterranean city of Quorra sum. Battle your way through demons attracted by the incredible suffering to find a cure and maintain the quarantine. Explore the backstreets to find hidden labs and build powerful environmental weapons to aid you against the demons.
• A Wealth of Blood. A flame legion prisoner tells the blood legion of a molten alliance mine that exploits the infinite nature of the fractals to constantly mine rare resources thereby fueling scarlet’s war machine. With Scarlet defeated it could be a valuable asset to the Charr. Help the blood legion prelate capture the realm after it resets. Battle both molten alliance and the fractal locked denizens for control. Resource based battle. Collect more resources than the other sides to win.
• A New Leaf. The Pale Tree hears herself calling for help in a dream. A team of Sylvari Valiants follow the call to the fractals where they open a portal to another instance of Tyria where the pale tree is under assault from the steam realms army. Save the pale tree and push back the encroaching steam creature army.

Associated Risks

The main risk is a reduction in focus on large scale open world events and encounters.

Weapon Unlocks
When a new weapon for your profession is introduced into the game there will be two ways to unlock it. In PvE you will receive a mail in game with an item. The item tool tip and the mail both inform you to take it to x dungeon or zone and activate it. When the item is activated an event spawns and the new weapon spawns as a bundle. The encounter has 3-5 phases as you enter each on the next skill on the weapon is unlocked. The first time you complete the encounter you are awarded with the ability to use the related weapon. Helping other players complete the event awards significant amounts of karma.

Unlocking the weapon in WvW will be very different. As you complete DEs in WvW you will be awarded weapon Fragments. These fragments can be brought to a keep lord and traded for access to the new weapon.

The weapon will be unlocked in SPvP immediately.

Skill Hunting

To gain new skills I like the idea of tying skill books to champions that relate to the skill. If you are human and you want asura racial skills you will need to hunt down inquest champions. If you want Norn racial skills kill son of svanir champs etc. Necromancer skill books would drop from undead and ghostly champs, Warrior books from large monster champs etc. Books would be account bound and tied to a specific skill. You can turn unneeded skill books in for karma or scraps of knowledge two scraps can be combined into a scroll of knowledge. Five scraps can be combined with a philosopher’s stone crystalline dust and a scroll of knowledge to make a tome of knowledge. It would also be interesting if scraps of knowledge could be gained from exploration chests like those in JPs and the like.

In WvW utility/healing skill books would drop off of tower lords while elite skills would drop off keep lords.

Secondary Professions and Decks

The more I read the sub-class systems the more they seem like interesting ways to get a secondary profession system back into GW. After a year of playing GW2 I feel that it would make a lot of sense to bring the GW1 concept of secondary professions to GW2. Secondary professions would unlock utility and elite skills from the secondary profession, but not the core mechanic, weapons, traits, or healing skills. Skills that exploit/recharge the core mechanic of a class would have to be either not available to secondary professions or adjusted to work with each profession’s core mechanic.

Rangers would be an exception. All secondary rangers could choose 1 pet to have out. Secondary rangers could not pet swap and they would have no direct control over the pet like necro minions. To unlock a secondary profession you would have to speak with a trainer for that profession and spend 50 skill points. You would then receive a mission to defeat a champion of that profession. )Liadri for necros, Anisse for mesmers, various members of Destinies edge etc. Trahern for necromezmardians). Once unlocked you can have the trainer remove your secondary prof at any time. You can unlock all the secondary profs and switch between them for a nominal fee similar to respecing.

To encourage players to mix things up Anet could use the deck system I described earlier;
@Orpheal Would a deck system that unlocks unique profession specific appearance items by using the ‘deck’ to complete content fulfil your idea of the sub-class? This does not require the addition of sub classes per se but creates recommended builds that when a player selects the deck it will change their skill bar and spend their trait points as well as recommend the optimal stats/sigils/runes. By completing content with the Deck equipped your xp gained would work towards unlocking unique cosmetic items. A necromancer who uses the corruptor ‘deck’ would unlock armor that leaves behind poison pool footsteps while a lich deck causes the character to gain a spectral sheen. As new skills and weapons become available new decks would incentivize players to try the new skills/weapons with their characters.

This system could start with some of the most popular builds rewarding players who have been using them as well as giving starting players a good goal to work towards. Not only can Anet create decks but they could have yearly contests where the players create and then vote on a new set profession decks.

I have several posts in the work first one is…

Global Dominance

I love the idea of global dominance. It would be cool if each successful defense at 80% of zone control or above rewarded champ bags shifting champ farming from circle killing and incentivizing event completion and zone control. Getting a zone to 100% grants a guaranteed daily rare and jug of karma. Those rewards can also be gained by helping to defend a zone that is at 100% from the world boss and their army that spawns to take the zone back. (Think karaka queen, but without the crazy event spawn rates in South Sun).

If tied to the factions and faction missions, helping to complete 100% domination in a zone could replace the HM vanquishing that was required to max out factions in GW1. This would tie the system in to character progression and incentivize players to complete the zone. Unique skins/stat combos could be available when the zone is at 80-100%

If it is possible to track total number of players logged into the server and not include players in SPvP and WvW GD could scale to make it easier on players during off hours. They wouldn’t get the epic sieges that primetime would, but they could complete DEs to help maintain world control and buff up base defenses and supply lines. A server wide announcement detailing an off hour siege could also serve to bring off hour players together in the open world.

By modifying the map interface to display a percentage of the map under control would help players choose which map they want to join. Overflow maps will have the same events going but do not contribute to overall server ranking. The percentage control display will transition from green to red based on how full the map. Green means you can get in right away, yellow means it is nearly full and red would let you know that there are overflows on this map. If a guild has used their ability to claim an outpost on the map guild members will receive priority queuing (guilds could only claim on outpost in all of tyria).

Outpost claiming would serve as a nice mechanic for guild progression as it would invest them in a location and give them a place to (at least for a day or two) call home.

@DarkWasp
You have converted me to instanced housing! Great ideas.

With regards to subclasses Chris wants us to output a proposal. From what I have seen we probably should do two presentations. Have Orphal and the group that wants subclasses powwow either through PMs or on the forum to craft their proposal or heck I could make some google docs.
Have Nike and those who don’t want subclasses craft their own alternative for profession HP. I recommend reading this article from gamasutra if you guys want this I can set it up and give you three days to hash out two designs before we post them here.

coehl.2948:

coehl

hide spoiler

My post will be specifically geared toward “What will keep people playing, or coming back”. I have many friends that stopped playing months ago, and it’s become crucial to my enjoying the game, since this is social.

I want more diversification of skills, but I actually feel that something else will achieve what I stated more.

I support the following:
Other games have often garnered attention toward their game by using vertical progression, but I feel Guild Wars 1 proved that horizontal progression does the same trick. People don’t need to feel “better than others” to feel like they’ve achieved a lot.

That said, your character is almost always the display of your achievements, and diversity also promotes this.

I suggest that in order to get more people involved and interested in LS content, PvP, dungeons, etc. You provide visible rewards that provide the opportunity to be unique from (not better) than the person next to you. You have excellent artists at this company, task them more with developing unique assets that characters can literally equip and showcase.

If another LS dungeon like Molten, or Aetherblade, were to release but with the potential of having whole armor sets and weapons received for doing it more than once, I think it would incentivize people to do it more. If they have complaints, they’re probably complaining while still doing the content. With MMO gamers, that’s a win whether the harsh criticism feels like it or not.

One “it could drop” backpiece per dungeon won’t do it though. People want to define their overall style in different ways. One rocket pack is rarely gonna do that barring an engineer here or there, lol.

You don’t have to stop creating gem store armor and weapons, but slowly working our way toward an overall character we aspire to own, by participating in actual content, ropes people in.

In summary, give us very character defining looks and choices with new content. I emphasize new content, but with more replayability. Remove RNG as much as you can, and balance the grind needed to what keeps people playing but also from growing too bored to bother anymore.

first – Welcome to the CDI!!!

second – similar to how they did the new path in TA, but without the tiny drop rate of the new weapons? actually the new weapons could be ascended with their fancy effects and we could use classic tokens to unlock them…

@Orpheal
Would a deck system that unlocks unique profession specific appearance items by using the ‘deck’ to complete content fulfil your idea of the sub-class? This does not require the addition of sub classes per se but creates recommended builds that when a player selects the deck it will change their skill bar and spend their trait points as well as recommend the optimal stats/sigils/runes. By completing content with the Deck equipped your xp gained would work towards unlocking unique cosmetic items. A necromancer who uses the corruptor ‘deck’ would unlock armor that leaves behind poison pool footsteps while a lich deck causes the character to gain a spectral sheen. As new skills and weapons become available new decks would incentivize players to try the new skills/weapons with their characters.

ArtemusHunter.9521:

I saw a post about player housing being open world. I gotta wonder if eventually space would run out lol.

This is the eternal issue with player housing. If they opened the outer wall of DR as it’s own zone that might open up a good amount of space. I suppose it really depends on how many accounts can be tied to a server before it is considered full. Making 10,000 houses in Tyria would be insane. If servers max out at 70-100,000 like my quick math suggests then as much as I like open world housing I don’t think it is an option. The issue here comes into the cost that Chris mentioned. While similar, open world vs. instanced housing would have to be coded into the game very differently thus making a hybrid of the two much like cost effective. I love the idea/function of open world housing, so I’ll keep championing it, but instanced would probably be a better use of their time in the long run. If anet added new zones with houses in them there could be a fun land rush element to zone launches.

cesmode.4257:

Chris, if you remember, I suggested something to this regard about global ongoing goals within the living story CDI thread. I think I titled it, global dominance where depending on how much of the world the players control, we receive certain benefits similar to WvW.

Hmmm tie the idea of global dominance to guild claiming of outposts in the open world and you would have a fascinating meta game that could involve the whole server. Small guilds of 5-10 could fortify camps and outposts while towns and forts would be available for larger guilds. It would cost influence and guild merits to claim an outpost and you would have to make sure the guild checked up on it at least once a day.

yes Malchior I got some of my sandbox ideas into the horizontal CDI I am sorry :P

Malchior.5042:

Hero Recognition based on Order choice, Player Housing, Guild Halls, etc…that could branch into further Diversification and Performance through new skills, events, challenges, etc…

So based on the above mix of Chris’ original categories, I’d say Hero Recognition/Sociopolitical development could set a solid framework for the different skills, events, and challenges that we’re all eager to see as well.

Are you thinking PvE skills like we saw in GW1? or something else? new weapons based on faction even?
example faction system with necro that has attained mid rank

• Great Sword for Vigil
• Scythe for Order of Whispers
• Chakra Guides for Priory

all three would be melee AOE type weapons but do different things GS is power based, Scythe is Siphon based, CG is condition based. depending on what weapon you want to be trained in you chose a faction to gain rep with. Ultimately you can unlock all of them. Add token buffs like the Kiel/Evon ones to WvW for your faction so everyone can work towards it regardless of game type. Make them unlocked in SPvP for free.

Just sort of going down a rabbit hole with this…

Sociopolitical Diverification! Adding more ways for players to invest their characters in the world of Tyria is always welcome.

I am curious what sort of rough cost difference there is between implementing open world housing vs instanced housing.
I really like the idea of open world housing, but I am curious if everyone else feels it would add to their investment in Tyria?

Kulvar.1239:

Shongaqu.5279:

1. Open world Housing:

And no one will ever go back to a city because of the 7 hours of loading.

Good point. I suppose they would need to adapt culling to the housing system if it was open world. I’m not saying it’s the easiest option to implement, but I feel players would be more invested in open world vs instanced housing.

As far as horizontal system development my top three are

1. Open world Housing: There are a ton of buildings in the open world without interiors that could be converted in to houses. Each racial city could have an auctioneer that buys and sells the houses from that region. If you no longer want your house you can resell it through the auctioneer who takes a 10% cut. One house per account must wait one week before selling it.
2. Deck System instead of subclasses: Instead of changing core class mechanics offer suggested builds in the form of decks (Stat Set, skill/weapon selection, and traits). Each Deck has a meta-achievement associated with completing content with the specific deck. Once completed gain a title and themed armor set. New Skills/weapons/traits would introduce more decks into the game.
3. Faction Missions: Various factions (ex. DR, LA, Order of Whispers, Ascalon Ogres) have mission boards in towns and outposts. You can pick from randomly created missions that will spawn Dynamic Events similar to how guild missions work. These events will be randomized from within a subset of mission types. The scarlet invasions and toxic blooms show that there are many locations around Tyria where ANet can spawn events.
   To add actual horizontal progression to this system there would be ranks and titles that can be unlocked. I like the idea that was suggested earlier of the player with the most reputation for given faction having a unique title and unlocking a unique finisher. Items could be purchased with karma from faction vendors with faction rank requirements on the items. The higher rank you are the more locations and difficulty ranges of missions you will have access to.
   Possible mission types are as follows.
   • Bounty (go to x location in the faction’s region to fight y champion or legendary)
   • Artifact recovery (go to x location escort associated faction to z artifact)
   • Raid (go to x location steal y goods from enemy faction deliver to faction npc)
   • Defense (Go to x location defend location from raiders trying to steal z goods)
   • Requisitions (Craft x number of y item for related faction)

Hey all shongaqu form Relics of Orr here! I am putting togeather a team to stream running arah with 5 minion masters. We will be running this at 9 am Pacific this saturday the 21st. We need two more necros. If you are interested email me at Shongaqu@gmail.com and I will get you more details!

The reason Skritt are smarter in larger groups is that they communicate in a high speed near binary language. One skritt proposes an idea then the community as a whole analyze it propose changes and vote on the best course of action. Imagine the Collaborative Development Initiative only with near instantaneous response and parsing from all participants. When a skritt talks fast to a human and seems impatient it is because their natural mode of communication is several orders of magnitude faster. So if a skritt is speaking with someone and they sound smart it is because the skritt community in the area is helping that skritt know what to say.

This of course backs the theory that there is a massive number of skritt in lions arch.

DiogoSilva.7089:

1. Active effects are usually more exciting than passive effects.
2. Getting both flavor and efficiency is more satisfying than sacrificing flavor for those “+10% damage” effects.

I totally agree but I think that can still be achieved with traits.

• For example a Necromancer grandmaster trait explosive conditions: any condi’s applied above the condi cap to detonate dealing some percentage of the condi’s full duration damage to the target.
• Warrior grandmaster trait mighty roar: shouts require/drain adrenaline grant might and knock down your target.
• Ranger trait druid’s force: you and your pet’s attack damage is reduced but you both gain effects for every spirit you have out beyond the current effects.
• Thief spectral smoke. Whenever a skill summons smoke spawn a smoke elemental that absorbs projectiles moves to your target and detonates for x damage scaled with your highest attribute.

All of these actively change skills and can be placed in trait lines. By removing the x% based traits and adding skill modifier traits it will allow players to achieve more customization.

It looks like we will be talking about two kinds of horizontal progression in this thread or the next if it gets split out. First I see Profession centric horizontal progression (subclasses, cosmetics, new skills and weapons, etc) and character centric horizontal progression (order missions, cosmetics, housing, etc) thoughts?

Bullet points of my thoughts on subclasses

• I prefer decks with cosmetic unlocks to subclasses
• The 6-10 Skills and Traits (especially grandmaster) should have more of a mechanical impact on classes
• New weapons, skills, and traits can fill the same role as subclasses
• Subclasses unnecessarily narrow a character’s breadth and can be borderline vertical progression
• Some professions already have robust “subclasses”

Before reading Nike’s post about subclasses I was staunchly in the subclass camp. I now see that there are already many fully functional “subclasses” in the game. My necromancer can be an epidemic/BiP “Putrifier”; a team support/dps Well based “Corruptor”; a” minion master”; a deathshroud based “Reaper” using power and/or fear duration. A job system is a cool idea that harkens back to GW1 secondary classes but I like the idea of adding traits that change things even more. Many Minion Master Necros have expressed a desire for more control of their minions. Anet could create a MM subclass or they could add a grandmaster trait in death that gives MMs and F2 and F3 skill that is attack/recall. This gives MMs the interesting choice to have more control of their minions vs the fantastic death nova. If spirit or bundle skills ARE added to the necromancer they essentially gain the subclass of ritualist. Perhaps a Grand master trait gets added that changes how death shroud works to support your spirits or have them follow you. Traits are an extremely powerful tool for the devs which I believe is currently underutilized.

Beyond traits additional weapon availability/types would add significant levels of horizontal progression. Swapping weapon sets in game is already akin to changing your class. For example I can run scepter dagger with minions. This build would focus on my character stacking bleeds while using the minions as extra damage and to kite. I can go dagger warhorn and wade into melee timing my daze to counter big hits and using my flesh golem to strip defiance. More weapons mean more subclass like options. It will not take a level 80 characters long to unlock a new weapon but figuring out good builds and learning how to better play the new weapon will take time and open up more options for your character.

With the limited number of skills available to each profession and much of the focus being on weapons it is easy for players to create various builds though traits can be somewhat obtuse. Rather than adding subclasses I recommend borrowing from the secret world and adding in decks that are made of skills, weapons and traits. Completing a deck could reward players with profession specific outfits. This would guide new players towards builds and encourage long time players to try out builds they had not looked at before. As more skills are added to the game more decks could be created and tied to thematic cosmetics. A Mesmer who unlocks the chronomancer deck will have built into abilities that speed up their allies while slowing their foes and unlock hourglass weapons and chronomancer armor. This is not a perfect option with how easy it is to unlock skills. Perhaps you could be required to complete a series of challenges with the build to unlock the cosmetics.

Tear this apart as you see fit!

Shongaqu

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

This is my last day at work before the holiday season and I am going to be very busy!

Once I am on vacation I will have more time to respond and engage.

I am therefore going to postpone the focused discussion on Horizontal Progression until tomorrow. I will catch up post page 36 today (or at least try).

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

Chris

I vote for splitting the thread.

Khunvyel.3972:

Trying to catch the few things addressed directly at me;

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

Have you been watching Relics of Orr? :P

I talked a bunch about this on the show last night and agree 100% with the idea of order missions. I think it would be a great way to make the personal story less of an isolated chain. I totally agree with getting tokens as well. I would implement it differently by suggesting the missions be scaling open world events built in a similar manner to guild missions. This would be an amazing content update that fits well with the philsophy of the living story and it’s free content updates.

I came to this thread hoping to discuss horizontal progression and i am looking forward to that discussion, but I will share my thoughts on ascended gear. The 5%-7% stat increase is small enough that it has not significantly affect my play, but I still feel as if I should pursue it to tick my numbers up just that much higher. I strongly agree with idea of normalizing max stats to exotic or even better to the maximum stats available in SPvP to facilitate balance and theory crafting. Allowing ascended gear to have the legendary stat swap ability would make the time gating worthwhile without making it feel like it was put in as an obstacle to horizontal progression. This would alleviate fears of new content being balanced around the current tier 1 ascended gear. Defining the maximum stats our characters can achieve should be done before going forward with horizontal progression as that will allow Anet to define how difficult various forms of horizontal progression are.

ptitminou.6489:

Shongaqu.5279:

TLDR : I would like to see a horizontal progression system in the game that focuses on investing us in the world of Tyria; a system that allows us to build something beyond our character’s stats and appearance. I would like to see a system that rewards gameplay with expanded options to generate world content for yourself and other players.

That sounds awesome, but programmatically, how can it be done? At the base, it sounds like gathering influence for a guild and once the bar is full allow players to access x content. If it is generated dynamically, it sounds like what SOE is trying to do with EQN and the first impressions of how it works, well, let’s say they are a long ways from that goal.

The mission system that I talked about in my previous posts would spawn in a similar way to how scarlet invasions spawn. They could even use the same event location hooks since anet has already vetted theose for open areas and NPC spawn locations. The player would go to the location marked on the map and use and item to start up the event, or it would trigger when they arrive. The new content in what I described was entirely for the single player content (building/interface/etc).

Aye.8392:

Shongaqu.5279:

…Continued form above…

TLDR : I would like to see a horizontal progression system in the game that focuses on investing us in the world of Tyria; a system that allows us to build something beyond our character’s stats and appearance. I would like to see a system that rewards gameplay with expanded options to generate world content for yourself and other players.

This sounds like a great game, but it doesn’t sound at all like GW2.

Do you feel that way because of the single player elements ? Because it departs from the gneral farming philosopy that pervades the PvE game? or some other reason? The design ideas were mostly dervied from guild missions and trying to come up with a better way to do rep grinds than GW1.

Sytherek.7689:

Ascended gear is only progression if you like the skins or magenta lettering — or if you think the minor stats increase matters in a game mode you play (such as WvW). Otherwise, there is no reason to get ascended armor.

Which is fine. In GW1, obsidian armor was pure vanity, and that’s fine.

But ascended armor is not progression for many players I talk to, or me. I’ve looked at it, and see no reason a non-WvW player like me should go thru the pain to get it.

So what’s meaningful progression for me? Most people in this thread are focused on ascended armor; what about those of us who have no interest in grinding it?

And I have posted ideas, only to see them lost in the ascended frenzy.

It does seem like it may be a good idea to split the CDI into two threads so that the ascended gear debate can go uninterrupted and disscussion on horizontal progression doesn’t get swallowed up.

Continued form above…

Agents come in seven different quality types corresponding with gear rarity; common, fine, master, rare, exotic, ascendant and legendary. The bulletin board in your headquarters will track potential recruits of common to rare quality. Exotic quality and better recruits will be found through rare events similar to the Treasure Skritt as well as meta achievements from the living world, WvW and SPvP. Random events in dungeons could also be set up to introduce special dungeon themed agents; like a freed ghost from Ascalon Catacombs or a Dredge rebel from Sorrow’s Embrace. All agents that are not out on a mission will appear in your headquarters in uniform or out in your home instance in plainclothes or custom gear skins. As your agents gain experience they will progress from trainees to field agents. Successful agents can be promoted to the coveted position of special operative or even one of five management positions in your headquarters.

While managing your agents would be an important part of the sub game you would also gain access to personal missions from the bulletin board. These missions would send you out into the open world similar to Guild missions and allow you to kick off events that award faction commendations to anyone who participates. Commendations would be used to buy order skinned soulbound exotic and ascended gear as well as order specific miniatures and other cosmetic rewards. Missions would vary by faction from members of the vigil going out and fighting large champions and world bosses to the priory searching for artifacts to the order of whispers sneaking into places to steal plans and gain intelligence on the various villains of Tyria. Anyone who participates in an order’s mission would receive that order’s commendations. Characters that are in a specific order would receive a commendation discount in that order’s store.

As you gain reputation with your Order and upgrade your headquarters new upgrades and mission types can be unlocked. Depending on your upgrades you might focus on espionage missions over combat or crafting over exploration. Once your reputation reaches a certain level you will be offered the chance to open Order headquarters in other cities. You may even have the chance to take over command of your order entirely.

Key Features:

• New content that provides new purpose for the home instance
• New long term progression system that emphasizes organization and gameplay over gear.
• Customizable headquarters for your Order
• New dynamic events that directly affect who you see in your home instance
• New crafting recipes that improve your agent’s stats
• Open world content that bases events on how you play
• Story that brings back characters from the early parts of GW2: The Road to Orr
• Unique decorations and premium headquarter skins in the gem store
• The opportunity to build an all Quaggan army for the order of whispers

Challenges

• Large number of new interfaces needed to be made.
• New code that affects the back end of the game
• Long implementation curve may need to be released in small chunks
• May pull players out of the open world initially

Opportunities

• Provide a framework for player/guild housing.
• Allow players to affect the world individually
• Invests players in the world
• Adds passive progression that makes players excited to log on
• A platform to provide lore and living story links beyond “your herald told you to”
• Monetize new art assets that can be used to expand the world

TLDR : I would like to see a horizontal progression system in the game that focuses on investing us in the world of Tyria; a system that allows us to build something beyond our character’s stats and appearance. I would like to see a system that rewards gameplay with expanded options to generate world content for yourself and other players.

Hey guys I’ve noticed that there is a lot of discussion on ascended armor and gear in general. I love the ideas for normalizing ascended and exotic armor and giving ascended armor precursor status and unlockable stat swapping. I hope you don’t mind me veering off in another direction. My idea for horizontal progression moves away from gear and into investing players in the world. The following is a summary of an article I wrote for Relics of Orr back in February.

I would like to see additional horizontal progression in the game serve to provide the character with additional content beyond simply changing how you character is built and focusing on who your character is and has become through the personal and living stories.

Background
My Idea draws influence from the duty officer system in Star Trek Online, the Assassin’s Creed 2: Brotherhood’s assassin guild system, and Star Wars: The Old Republic Crew Skills. The open world missions are based on skyrim’s radiant questing system.

Living World/Personal story Tie-in
Trahearne summons you to a meeting in his office at fort trinity. You and he discuss the results of your recent campaign in Orr. With your success at cleansing of the heart of Orr and killing Zhaitan you have allowed the Pact to gain a solid footing in Orr. With the threat of scarlet (or the season 2 big bad) and her myriad alliances Traherne sends you back to your order to set up a response team.

You arrive at your order and meet the rest of the leadership. The order determines that you should begin recruiting in your home city in order to help replenish the losses in Orr. Your herald offers to help you in your efforts and the order allows you to choose a junior member to be your aide. Then you are given the keys to the orders new headquarters in your home instance.

Your headquarters will differ depending on the order you are a part of; a basement safe-house for the order of whispers, a barracks for the vigil and a rooftop observatory for the priory. Each headquarters will start with a single room containing a desk for your aide, a bulletin board and a table with a map of Tyria on it. Speaking with your herald allows you to view and manage your headquarters’ funds, agents and upgrades. Your headquarters uses funds, gained from missions and your direct donations, on facility upgrades, gear for your agents, and general upkeep of the headquarters. You equip agents with purchased gear to boost their abilities and statistics. Agents have the same stats, professions, crafting disciplines and personality profiles that you can have.

In addition to player stats Agents also have a happiness rating and an injury status. Agents can be injured or killed when they fail a dangerous mission. If they are inured agents will take time to recover before they can be redeployed. Purchasing a medical ward upgrade allows your agents to recover faster. Other upgrades you can purchase for example are increased barracks size to house more agents or a pub. When you purchase a new room it will be immediately accessible in your headquarters. You will be able to see injured agents in your medical ward, training in a dojo and off duty agents relaxing in the pub where they can regain morale.

Morale is an important part of running your facility. Low morale can cause agents to quit or go AWOL. To improve morale you can add decorations to your headquarters and send your agents on vacation. When your agents are healthy and happy you will be sending them on missions.

The map of Tyria in your headquarters is how you send your agents on missions. It is divided into regions with randomized topical missions such as investigating murders, defending a town from monsters or searching for lost artifacts. You can even send your agents out to farm small amounts of random materials with a small amount of operational overhead (aka gold).

To recruit agents you will need to complete recruitment dynamic events. Recruitment DEs can spawn anywhere in the word and involve either saving or helping the potential recruit in some way (similar to assassin creed recruitment missions). You can only offer the recruit a job if you successfully complete the event. Periodically you will receive requests for help from characters you had befriended in the personal/living storyline. These requests will allow you to recruit the associated npc. As a Charr this would let your recruit your warband members into your order, as a human commoner you could recruit the spunky barmaid Petra and her father or possibly recruit operative-o-tron fresh off his community service.

Continued…

With the changes in the Guild Wars 2 economy connected to the shifts in the economy since the Queen’s Jubilee and the release of ascended crafting, we at Relics of Orr were curious about the direction of the Guild Wars economy and the philosophies and decisions behind the scenes. We went straight to the source, and were lucky enough to get some answers to our questions!

A huge thank you to ArenaNet, especially Regina Buenaobra, John Smith, and Izzy Cartwright for taking the time to answer our questions!

Relics of Orr is still around we do a live show every Tuesday at 6:00pm pacific as well and some gameplay starting around 5:00pm Relics of Orr Twitch Channel
and our home page Relics of Orr

Hey all Indo from Sanctum of Rall joined us on Relics of Orr to talk about the current WvW meta! I learned a ton!

Season 3 Episode 5

New episode of Relics of Orr is up!

Season 3 Episode 5

Also watch us every Tuesday at 6pm Arizona Time on our Twitch TV channel

Salt.4621:

I am really surprised both player and guild housing isn’t in the game already. Has there been any official comment regarding it? Housing is a fantastic gold sink, great for crafters, collecting (various trophies, etc) and completionist players and could benefit ArenaNet with some nice cosmetic items for the store.

The current word is that they are dong high level guild hall development. Essentially they are working on the design document for it, but it isn’t a priority right now. The last time that ANet was asked about individual housing they said that it was on the radar which means they are probably watching the community for interest in the subject. I suspect that we will see guild halls come in with the first paid expansion with individual housing coming one or two expansions later.

Lalangamena.3694:

Runiir.6425:

Player houseing? No.

Guild fortress/housing ? Yes!

this one, ^
player housing is redundant and useless, waste of developer effort and server storage.
guild fortress, guild hall, guild ship etc are required in a game that named “guildwars”

I expect to see guild halls and/or airships much sooner than player housing and am looking forward to working on them with my guild. That said I have to disagree that houses are wasted space or effort on the part of the developers. Houses are an excellent long term goal for players and something that wealthier Tyrians can sink a great deal of gold into. That is one reason I like the idea of housing in the open world, imagine a player owning one of the mansions in divinities reach or a barracks in the black citadel. You could walk into one of these houses and see their trophies on the wall from their legendary over the mantle to armored mannequins in the halls. Letting player’s show off their houses and collected odds and ends fit nicely with ANet’s focus on horizontal progression and cosmetics.

Sirendor.1394:

I have only one problem with your idea. It’s hard to get a house for everyone in the world. There’s hardly enough space.

I agree there are too few spaces in the world that could be converted into housing. As a result most players would get a room with a chair a table and a bed. For most people I think this would be enough as it would give them their rested bonus when they logged off. Additional space could be made if they opened up the wall around Divinities Reach and carved out more space in rata sum. All that would still be too few with over ten thousand players per server. Especially in servers like sanctum of Rall. Perhaps a compromise is that everyone could set up a house in the home instances. That would leave open world houses for those who really wanted them… and the market speculator… housing bubble tyria? Thoughts?

This is only one way the housing could be implemented I’d like to hear other peoples thoughs outside the well tread guild halls/ airships.

I wanted to talk about guild and player housing on Relics of Orr, but since we probably won’t see either for six months to a year I figure it’s not great content for the show right now. However I’ve been thinking about how they could implement it. Now is the best time to discuss housing on the forums as any input we give could influence the design document before they start coding it. Once they have an initial design document radical change becomes much more difficult. I personally would like to see open world housing in GW2 and to that end, I think they have a few interesting options open to them.

Current World Housing
There are many buildings scattered around the game world both in cities and the open world that are currently closed with no interior. I think it would be very cool if ANet opened those buildings up and created a player market to buy and sell rental contracts. Some buildings could be set up as condos with multiple players each renting a small room. Furniture and decorations could be placed using a similar system to siege blueprints in WvW. I am especially fond of this idea because it does not require massive redesigns of maps and does not pull players out of the open world.

Furniture
In the open world some towns occasionally get taken over by enemy npcs. Houses in these towns could be cheaper to rent due to local hazards driving down property values. In addition to that perhaps the invaders would destroy furniture forcing players to replace what was destroyed. Furniture would be a great addition to the current crafting disciplines and the cash shop. Make recipes for racial furniture (Charr, Sylvari, Asura, etc…) available in the main cities while recipes for special furniture (Pact, Nightmare, ghostly) can only be bought from the cash shop.

Logged Out NPC and Rested Buffs
Since I’m making a list of things I want with housing. Allow player to designate one of their characters as the owner of the house and if they log out in the house that character will spawn as an npc and wander around the town, clean the house, shout at passing players based on their personality, and defend open world towns. To encourage players to visit their house ANnet could make it free to fast travel to your home and grant buffs(XP,Karma, magic find) for logging out in your house. Buffs could be generalized or based on what kind of furniture and decorations you put in your home.

Guild Strongholds
If a guild of players purchase houses nearby each other in a town outside the city their logged out NPCs could receive a boost based on how much influence they have provided the guild(normal >veteran>champion>legendary). Any NPCs that they kill defending the town could add a small amount of gold to the guild bank. Guild NPCs would count as part of event scaling and if the town is taken players could lose their housing buffs, some furniture and there would be no income from them to the guild.

Renting
Since housing would be server based, a new, sever specific, rental contract broker could be added to lion’s arch. It would function similar to the Trading Post with rentals searchable by zone (Divinties reach, Plains of Ashford, Metrica Province, etc…). Rent could be pulled from your bank every week. If you failed to pay rent for, say, three weeks your rental contract would be revoked and returned to the market at default value. Players could be limited to one or two houses per account and have the ability to resell their rental contracts. Buying and selling rentals between players would function like current TP system with players putting up sell orders and buy orders. If a property returns to the market due to delinquent rent and it has several players who have made deposits to purchase it the highest bidder would receive the contract.

I have more Ideas, but this is a rather long post so I’ll stop here for now. What sorts of issues do you see with this system? What would you like to see as housing in GW2?

TLDR; Now is the time to try and influence ANet’s housing design. I think they should make all the closed buildings around the maps into player rentable houses. Make city houses safe while open world houses could be attacked by NPCs. All furniture would be made through crafting with special recipes in the gem shop. Guild members who buy houses close to each other would gain bonuses. The Market would be like the Black Lion Trading Post, but server specific. When a player logs out their character spawns at their house as an NPC.

hey all earlier today relics of orr posted an email interview we had with arena net.
Check it out!

As Galk said relics of orr is in my intensly biased opinion a fun show though. We tend to run a little long, but we cover a ton of topics. Recently we started doing live shows our next one will be tomorrow at 4pm pacific. http://www.twitch.tv/relicsoforr we would love to have ya’all chatting at us.

did some house cleaning and I updated the OPwith all the latest episodes . Yay!

Just wanted to express my sincere hope that this is the last gear tier. That said I’m very disappointed Anet decided to go the gear treadmill route.

Episode 57 Actually Informative

Malchior Devenholm and Skullington join Coehl and Shongaqu to discuss the lost shores, builds, magic find and whether or not Anet should abandon home servers of districts.

Episode 56 Madness Recedes

The final part of the Madness Trilogy

With the mad king gone Relics of Orr returns to some semblance of normality.

Episode 55 Madness Is Here!

Agents of the Mad King take control of the podcast!

Episode 54 is live

This week Tigerfeet stages a coup to host a guild wars 2 girls night, with special guests Lady Verene, Tasha Darke, Izzie and Spirit.

They discuss upcoming Halloween Festivities as well as Pink Day LA and Tasha does some theory crafting for Power Vs Precision

Episode 53 is Live

This episodeCoehl I discuss the upcoming halloween event and pink day LA. We speculate about what a 12 man dungeon might look like and introduce a new segment called the orrian dozen.

show notes

Episode 52 is live and we are joined by Izzie from Talk Tyria

Episode 51 is up, and it’s less a rant an more a manifesto sort of thing :P

new episode is live!

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