Guild Wars 2

There will be a new song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbPDKHXWlLQ&feature=kp

Let’s talk about ways to improve this two roles in the game.
I’d like you (reader) to contribute with your own ideas and to point out flaws in other people suggestions.

SUPPORT
Range of support skills should be more wide (600/900 maybe?) at least with people in your party. Same for supportive AoE combo effects (Fire, light, lightning+blast and water fields)
Boon duration should be tied to the fielder and not the finisher (iirc now that’s not the case) expecially now that boon duration has been toned down a bit with the rune change.
More traits/skills that work like shielded Mind (Guard XII in Virtues) possibly with a lower cooldown (too op?)
Normalize range of support traits/skills (guard virtues=1200, shouts=600, mesmer mantras=360, Ele EarthVIII Rock Solid=240 wtf? )

CONTROL
AoE combo effects that affect your party (chaos armor, frost aura) should be more wide (600/900 maybe?).

About Usefulness of Support/Control roles in PvE and the current reward system

Mobs should acquire/lose boons reapplied over time when scaling up/down (boon removal as counter). Removing a boon should count as doing X% damage for the reward

Mobs should have a mix of hard hitting slow attacks (dodge, vigor, healing, aegis blind,health,block,retaliation as counters) conditions debuffs/attacks (cond cleaning as counter) and fast low damage attacks (armor, prot, confusion, block,retaliation as counters). Counters should count as X% damage when the reward is given.

Each condition applied to a mob should be counted as applied for its full duration even if overwritten by another player damage-wise when the reward is given.

Any feedback and contribution is appreciated, thanks for your time and have a nice day.

i’d rather have limits in the character creation plus different dyable armor sets than a game with an amazing char creation with all the ppl walking around in the same identical outfit (from the videos i’ve seen that’s the case with BD). Plus it seems that BD have class/sex/race locked combinations, so it’s a HUGE customization step back.

Imho that level of customization it’s overkill if you’re not going to run around in your underwear all the time (inb4 that’s the point/that’s what i’m going to do).

Quick question: given the fact that we will still have to pay to transmute skins on our gear and that almost all the new skins we had the past 17 months weren’t actually in the game but on the online-shop to buy, can i hope that after this change we will actually get new skins (full armor sets, weapon sets, even new town clothes maybe) as rewards for doing something else than farming to convert gold to gems?
I don’t care if it will be through quest completion, killing [insert mob name here], filling the achievement bar of the LS or any other way.
I’d just like to know if there will be any chance that we will get new stuff playing without going through the online-store or if this is the price to pay to have free updates and not expansions.

I’m still trying to sort out if i like this business model (yep, after 1 year including betas) and this will really help me in that regard.

Thanks in advance, have a nice day.

I’ve red your OP multiple times, just to be sure not to sound rude and to understand what is your point of view.
Your question is :" Correct me if I’m wrong" about 2 points:
The first “1. This patch will make 3000g I spent go to waste” : uncorrect. This patch will end future differences between one person that have multiple copies of X, where X is something purely aestethic, and another one who’ll make a one time purchase. That means that you’ve paid 3k gold and got something that lasted 20 months. While i can get your point, imho if you have the time/cash to gather up 3k gold (or more) to get expensive stuff, even if they put a disclaimer “benefits will end in 20 months” nothing would have changed because as you stated you’ve done that because" the reasons I play this game (and probably for many others) was to feel exclusive."

As for point 2 : “2. This patch will make legendaries a lot more common (people can just walk around with different copies when having only 1 or 2, if I’m correct), and ruin that exclusive touch that I and some others had.” Again you are wrong.
Talking about the item itself, nothing will change: as many other stated before me, you still have 2 forever-BiS items to equip, the only difference is that now you can pass them on your alts more easily.
Aestetichally nothing will change: to get the skin you still have to posses the item.
If your point is “i’ve done it for the skin only, because having 2 legendaries twins made me cool”, again i have to say you’ve paid to have that for the last X months, and nothing would have changed because as you stated you did that because " the reasons I play this game (and probably for many others) was to feel exclusive."

If anything, knowing it before hand would have made your purchase even more exclusive (less people willing to pay for a temporary aestethic item).
Having 2 twins legends will now make you more “exclusive” than before, because people that will do the same will be less.
You won’t be able to show off, but that’s not what we’re talking about; if that’s the case, to me "(and probably for many others) ", you’re playing the game for the wrong reason.

I don’t have any legendaries and i don’t plan on making one till they fix the precursor lottery, but i honestly think this update is for the best given the fact that the ability to switch stats it’s almost pointless as it is now since usually there is only 1 or 2 stat combinations worthy for each class/weapon combo.
Your efforts after the patch will be rewarded more by allowing you to maximize your legendaries.

Sorry for the wall of text, for my bad english and if i sounded rude to you.
Have a nice game (and lend me some money LOL )

Rank won’t be a problem, it’s going to become account bound. About the leveling experience i feel you.
Sex change is possible with the total makeover kit.
Race change is not possible for the reasons given above by other ppl.

Now i want a norn-sized GS on my Asura Krall :P

16 months in the game it’s naive to think that the first maps will be loaded with people (and still some of them are because of champs trains). The server isn’t empty at all, it’s just that you are in the wrong place to find the people.
Just level up your Asura and you’ll be fine on SfR. Happy new year

Chrispy.5641:

Its not that easy of a fix though. There are tens of thousands of items in the game, and there is no “Change all to X” Switch, where you can magically make it to where you right click on an item with stats, and choose “Convert to Skin”. The amount of programming it would require would fill several living world updates I bet.

The other thing I want to address is these things::
(1) Why is Farming a bad thing? People already do it for months at a time in order to get materials necessary for Legendaries, gold necessary for certain items. Its basically the endgame right now as well. There is not enough other activities for someone to play the game without farming in some way in the game’s current form.
(2) Why are Transmutation Crystals a bad thing? If your answer is that you don’t feel like spending gold to change your character’s look, its a bad answer, because, what the heck else are you going to spend gold on, if not to change your look at in the endgame?
(3) Why are Gold/Moneysinks a bad thing? It keeps ingame inflation down, and has kept the prices of items relatively stable for well over a year now. If you suddenly remove one of the larger goldsinks in the game, inflation goes up, which will devalue most items, anyways.
(4) Referring to the above two, why are Microtransactions a bad thing? Its kind of one of the ways Anet makes money right now.
(5) Currently Legendaries being able to Switch stats is what makes them so rare and exclusive items. It is currently beyond Endgame. It is the the end of the endgame. Are you really trying to suggest that we stomp all over Legendaries and allow anyone to do that from the start (and no, I don’t own a legendary)

I’m not qualified to tell you if it’s easy or not, and honestly it’s not the point of the discussion. You’ve pointed out some concerns, i’ve adressed them in the way i think they should be adressed.
To your other questions/statements:
1) Because AN said that they don’t want us to farm and are actively trying to prevent us from farming. There are all the activities that you want and no endless repetition (aka farming) is needed. Do each dungeon every day, fractals, DEs, WvsW or sPvP. Plenty of things to do in this game, the point is if you enjoy playing the game without getting a shiny back.

2)Because they are something required if i want to pair some stat with a specific look. In a game where cosmetics are a good part of the endgame imho are a bad thing. Just my opinion, i’m not forcing it on anybody. To me they are like an item i have to buy to unlock the final stage of a game.

3)They are not. This particular moneysink for me is a bad thing (see point 2 above)

4)Again, they are not a bad thing themselves. They become a bad thing when in 16 months we had quite a few new armor sets and none of them can be obtained playing. The only new complete set that we can obtain playing is the ascended one.
The Ascended Armors to me are quite flat, while the one in the gem shops have little particle effects in some details. As far as i know, quite a few people agree with me about that.
The most negative people think that it’s a way to make you spend a lot to craft them and then spend some more to transmute them.

5)No, that is not the reason they are rare and exclusive. The massive farm behind them to get the T6 and the precursor (or the money to buy those items) is the thing that make them “rare and exclusive”. They were designed to be a long term skin goal in the first place, then they should have been “on par with the BiS item”, now they are the BiS item. There is not a single weapon that is on par with them, because they are each and every Ascended weapon of that kind stat-wise.
Back when exotics were the BiS, Legendaries were what they were meant to be and people still tried to get them first. Now they are not.

Chrispy.5641:

(4) – (Negative) – Transmutation stuff would be obsolete. People would only ever need 1 skin, so the prices of every single item in the game would drop, even very rare skins (even craftable skins) like the Wings of Dwayna. The game’s Economy would grind to a halt, and the effect would be far worse than anything the Ascended updates have done to the economy.

(5) – (Negative) – Because of #4, everyone will only buy equipment for the stats, which means that the only thing in the economy that doesn’t change would be those items. All items used to craft very rare and exclusive items would drop.

(6) – (Negative) – People would be allowed to craft only one very rare item under this system (Such as infinite Light), then just deposit it in the skin locker, then pull out 2, BAM, he just created 2 Infinite lights for the price of one, making his life automatically easier than the thousands of players before him that had to spend the time and money to craft 2. Just like #4, people would only ever need 1 instead of the number they actually should of bought in the current game.

Super Easy Fix: Just change every item so that we can remove the stats and transform it in a skin (add the option in the rightclick menu with a pop up to confirm the command).
Skins will works like tokens.
The locker will work like a storage tab for skins.
You can have max 250 skins of the same type in each tab.
Once you apply a skin to an object it will become account bound.
Removing the skin will unbound the item.

Now stats and looks are splitted and everybody is happy.

Add in milestones to mark your progress in collecting every skin in the game.
Add titles for each milestone.

About Transmutation consumables becoming obsolete: the end-game is cosmetic for the most part (now we have ascended, and Legendary weapons being able to switch stats became the new BiS item so it’s not 100% cosmetic).
Putting stats on weapons and armors+ transmutation consumables= bad design + goldsink/moneysink.
Imho linking stats and look is a terrible idea. Making the customer pay to go around that in a game as GW2 is worse.
Giving the customer the option to pay for that with ingame gold doesn’t change that, it just promotes farming.

That’s correct.
On the other hand I think that if someone gives you the chance to point out if something doesn’t work/should work differently/should have been in the game since day 1 and 90% of the people answer the same it’s in their interest to at least consider that for a couple reasons:

1) People that use their time to come here and post essays on the CDI thread are the most interested in making this game better than it is atm. I’m not saying that the other don’t care, but it’s a fact that they care less/they’ve given up/they’re fine with gw2 as it is.

2) If They’re willing to improve and ask for my opinion I think that the most respectful way to answer is to point out what really doesn’t work in the game for me regardless of the entity of the issue. It’s up to Them to see if it’s something that can be fixed and if it’s something the playerbase as a whole would like to see implemented in the game. I don’t want to sound arsh, but it’s their job, not mine, i’m not qualified to do that in the first place.

That’s something you have to take in account to, imho.

To me the main concern about the CDI is that it’s not rapresentative of the whole playerbase and could do more damage than good.
If they really want our feedback before taking action they should advertise some sort of Poll or yes/no questionary as a secondary step after this one.
But again, i’m not in charge, so the best that i can do is just to give my honest opinion and to hope for the best.

Gamblit.5041:

Soa Cirri.6012:

Not a single legendary, believe it or not.

You haven’t really played Gw2 untill you crafted a legendary weapon.

Actually i think that’s exactly the reason why he doesn’t have a Legendary. Because he just played the game the way he liked the most.

@Soa : all good games come to an end.
People this days need “a reason” to play something, fun has been replaced with a shiny reward to show off to other people that probably couldn’t care less.

Old fashioned mindset like yours are a dying race and sadly the game industry have to move on to keep getting money from us.

That said, i feel you.

I’ll just write down my top 3 without suggestions, so that we first can understand what to focus on.
I feel it’s kinda pointless to write down an essay if at the end of the day our 3 choices as single players won’t pass the selection.
Once Mr. Whiteside will tell us what They feel it can be improved in an acceptable amount of time among our proposals, then we should start to discuss the 3 topics.

1)Visual Customization
2)Rewards acquisition
3)Guilds enhancement

Ctrl+rightclick on the skill n°1. Do it again to enable autoattack.

Hello there, i’d like to contribute with my 2 cents:
1)Add some sort of Hall of Monuments-like structure where characters can display achievements related stuff: like many of us suggested, having something to track down and display what we’ve done so far it’s a nice feature to have. Gathering nodes are a good start, i’d like to see more stuff in that direction (Slayer achievements, explorer, jps, LS related and so on). GW1 HoM was something really well done imho.

2)Add new Titles for the already existing achievements (jps, slayers, explorers and so on)

3)Release a new set of armor skins with each LS arc, so that we’ll end up with a whole new set upon arc completion: doing so we’ll get 1 new piece of armor every 2 weeks and a whole new set every 3 months. This amount of work should be manageable .

3) Adds some way to improve/modify slightly some of the existing armor skins (t3 light human cultural->flamekissed is a good example of that) using recipes involving skill points and something else. Doing so the amount of work on Your end will be less than making a new skin from zero and at the same time we will get some more customization (and new goals). The same thing can be done for Orders Armors, Dungeon Armors, Cultural Armors and maybe a new Pact Armor.

4)PVE Locker: as many of us suggested, it’s a highly needed feature. Getting the Emperor title for example give us 90 armor pieces (iirc). That’s 90 new skins that occupy 90 slots in our bank/bags. We really need one place to store skins that we’ve earned through the game, so that we can collect them and use them on demand.
This should have been a core feature given that the endgame in GW2 is purely cosmetic.

I’ll add more things later, thanks for giving us this opportunity.
Best regards

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

[…] There is a way in GW2 to obtain huge amounts of money which isn’t fun, and and I have the feeling that a lot of players play like this: Trading Post Flipping. You sit hours in front of your open trading post window, click the same stuff repeatedly and gain a huge amount of money without any real gameplay.
[…]
Even if I’d hurt myself with this suggestion, I’d say: rework a lot of the non-bound stuff to make it untradeable. I’d like to have fun while earning money effectively.
[…]

So much this. TP stuff should have been account bound on acquire since day 1.

Pros:
1) No more flippers.
2) Prices reflect real demand and supply
3) Developers monitoring the tp can understand if an item is too easy/hard do obtain and if the community as a whole like/dislike said item.
4) Traders can still do money by selling items that are high on demand (but this time they have to actually work to get them like anybody else)

As the TP works right now putting in Ascended Armors will help rich ppl to work around the time gated content while the poor will be left even more behind.

DCUO works like that, Stats and Skins are splitted and you can change looks whenever you want once you’ve unlocked the skin (by equipping the item once).

A PvE Locker is the answer to the Skin part, they just need to upgrade the already existing achievements-tied panel to a full PvE Locker.

Yuri.5810:

A buffed version of myself = nope.
A buffed version of myself with a tradeoff = i can live with it.

As someone else suggested before, “Prestige Classes” where you trade off something for something else could be nice. For example you get an improvement of one kind of utilities but you have to use 2 slots out of 3 for that kind of skills (mantras, glyphs) and are forbidden to choose another one (pick at least 2 mantras, can’t pick glamour).

This will help to enhance the role you want to play in a party without ruling out one specific profession (all of them have 3 families of utilities).

Expanding on this.
You should be able to turn on/off your Prestige Class, so that when you’ll be playing with pugs you can use the vanilla version while in more organized groups (guild parties i guess) you’ll be able to split tasks.

A buffed version of myself = nope.
A buffed version of myself with a tradeoff = i can live with it.

As someone else suggested before, “Prestige Classes” where you trade off something for something else could be nice. For example you get an improvement of one kind of utilities but you have to use 2 slots out of 3 for that kind of skills (mantras, glyphs) and are forbidden to choose another one (pick at least 2 mantras, can’t pick glamour).

This will help to enhance the role you want to play in a party without ruling out one specific profession (all of them have 3 families of utilities).

About stat progression and fractals.

You already have it, that’s Agony Resistance. More Ar> Easier Fractal.
There are two options and none of them can please everyone:
1) Having those buffed stats will help me cleaning harder content i won’t be able to do otherwise without giving me a better reward. (Unfair to people thinking that playing a game should be like a work: more time spent=better quality/quantity of rewards)

2) i will be able to steamroll lower level fractals, so you’ll have to tone down rewards for them, so the new players will get crap just because i’ll have over 9000 power/critdmg/whatever you want. (Unfair to people new to the game/with less time to play)

The Raids you’re talking about are already in the game: fractals. The problem is that people that like vertical progression stat-wise want it in every content. People that dislike it don’t want it.
I’ll try to explain myself better: the point of vertical progression is to have a benefit (content gets doable/easier/faster).
If i like the content with vertical progression but i dislike the progression itself i’ll think that it’s unfair that people with more time than me to play will have an advantage over me.
If i like the content without vertical progression but i dislike horizontal progression i’ll think that’s unfair that i’ve put much more time and effort in that content and yet i don’t get anything more in return.

I don’t blame it on the game, it’s a matter of mindset. Casuals and Hardcores can’t be pleased by the same game as a whole because they want to find their mindset in every single aspect of it. That’s my opinion.

Directly to the TL;DR Version:

About Ascended Gear: Amulets and rings are fine to me. Accessories are too expensive (time-wise expecially) if not purchased with Guild Commendations. Same for Backpieces if you dislike fractals (like i do).
Weapons and Armors are awfully expensive (level up crafting) and way to long to acquire (time gated stuff): if an alternative way to obtain weaps and armors comes out tomorrow imho no one will be crafting them. It’s just a huge goldsink.

About Vertical progression.
Stuff that i like: vertical progression that define my character (skills, skins, titles) only if not too grindy (Legendary Weapons, i’m looking at you)

Stuff that i don’t like: vertical progression in terms of better stats. As it is now in this game 90% of your stats comes from gear; this is not alt friendly, against build diversity and a huge goldsink.
Having to gear up multiple characters and/or for multiple roles it’s something i really dislike.

The main question you should ask yourselves (and then tell us the answer) is : what kind of customers do i want to appeal to? Because you can’t keep a foot in both camps (casuals and hardcore).

I’d really like to see the animation linked to the attunement i’m in, but 90% of armors clip with the current one that’s hardly noticeable.

I suggest to put the attunement animation directly on the weapon itself (as for the necro staff autoattack).
Doing so you’ll obtain an easy way for other ppl to identify you as an elementalist without looking at the UI (something you’ve said you want to promote) and elementalists get a sort of revamp of all their weaponsets (as a staff user i still can’t find a good “elementalist themed” staff).

Given that Necromancers already have something along this line implemented, this change shouldn’t be too hard to do.

Thanks for your attention, best regards.

Given that:
1 I can’t afford to buy gems for gold because i have a real life (house, bills, family)
2 I don’t farm because i already have a job. Same for playing the TP.
3 I don’t want to spend the little time i have to play harvesting stuff because it’s freaking boring. Same for FoTM.
4 I’m poor (9gold atm , see point number 2)

My question is simple: will they plan to add other ways to obtain Ascended Weapon/Armors other than Crafting or 0,000000000000001% drop from Champions?
Because i can’t see me acquiring them the way they are now, and if things won’t change i’m better off quitting.

You can’t get a tricolored key but only 1 piece (green, pink or blue)

sephard.2470:

The tower is not even meant to be solo’ed. So why exactly are you trying to do that?

I joined a PUG and we started to slowly aim for the top, cleaning everything along the way. We were wiped twice by a group formed by 1 elite, 2 veterans, some trash and plants respawn.

In my opinion when you can’t clean some content if you don’t meet some criteria (dps check, number of ppl, access to X boon/skill and so on) it means that it’s poorly designed.

sephard.2470:

GOD. Guys really!
I did ALL of the achievements with an Elementalist (just turned lvl 80) with full exotic armor and only ONE ascended amulet. I’m pretty squishy, around 12k hp.

So just try an other build or get yourself some cleansing skills.

(I’ll have to admit though, no other class has a mobility comparable to the Elementalists)

Kudos to you. Now do it alone with a necro without Mistform, Arcane Shield, Armor of Earth and Perma swiftness.

And i’m not even on a glass cannon spec, i actually have 2800 armor and 18k hp.
I just find plain stupid to put ALL TOGETHER :
1 AoE Knockdown all over the place (sometimes overlapping) so that if you get kd once, you are done.
2 Almost every single mob has to be stomped, so you can’t almost rally. Sometimes there are no mobs near plants, and plants respawn in 5 secs not giving you the time to heal yourself
3 at least one of the mob in every group has either kd or fear and all of them have insane aggro radius. They just tag along forever.

This doesn’t make the game hard, this make the game impossible to do for some professions and at the same time support zergplay (rush, skip content, get the chest).

I beg to differ and i actually want to enjoy the game. In this way i can’t and as far as i’ve seen i’m not the only one.

Pro Tip for Necro: don’t even bother to try it solo. Reroll Thief or Warrior or wait for a zerg so that you’ll be able to skip all the poorly designed content and get the chest. Because apparently that’s how we are supposed to play this game.

As a Necro this was the most frustrating experience i ever had in a game. Ever. Knockdown/Fear spamfest + 80% veteran that won’t make you rally + no access to vigor and poor access to stability+ 2 seconds respawn of mobs = FAIL

And i have to pay every single time for the wp, really?

I don’t have infinite endurance, i don’t have infinite stability, i don’t have infinite condition removal and yet i’m forced to either pick up the new healing and spec for stability in DS or to level up a kittening warrior just to do this kitten.

I’m really, really, really, really, really disappointed. Really. And kitten.

If even PvE content is going to become zerg or die i guess i’m done with this game

Store Please take out RNG from the gem store. This is not a gambling game. It’s a MMORPG. If people like to gamble, they’ll go playing slot machines. I want to be sure of what i get when i spend my money in a MMORPG. So take out rng from the gem store OR add alternative ways to obtain the same stuff. You’re being a little too greedy there in my opinion. I know that we’re talking about skins, but that’s all about this game is.

Game Balance WwW, PvE and PvP are different to the core. I know you want to keep it simple to grasp, but it’s something too hard to achieve. I’ve red you’re starting to split more and i just have to say THANK YOU.

BLTP I don’t know what to say without enraging everyone.
Right now this is the only way that doesn’t take ages to make a worthy amount of money (except grinding). Prices goes from “poket money” to “omg wtf am i reading” without anything in between.
That’s another way to say “Drop Rate in this game is a mess”, that leads to my final point.

Drop Rate and Money: imo it doesn’t matter what you do, there will always be people that are richer because they have more time to play.
If i should say one thing that i dislike about GW2 in its current state is that despite it doesn’t force the player to play by having a sub fee, it actually do so with drop rate and money rewards.
I have a “casual gamer” mindset but i spend at least 4 hours per day playing Gw2 (90% of my free time) because i actually LOVE this game and i’m lucky enough to have a wonderful gf that loves it too, so that we can enjoy our time together playing.
I’ve played since the headstart doing what i wanted to do (helping guildies, exploring maps, doing dungeons, leveling 4 alts, crafting, doing DEs around to see how they change the surroundings and so on). Atm i have 100g, i’ve never done a T3 armor, i don’t even bother to start to work for a Legendary weapon and i’m wondering if i should cut in half my gold to buy 6 runes (divinity) for one of my alts.
I’ll plan to play this game at least as much as i’ve played its older brother (5 yrs) so i’m not in a hurry, but sometimes i find myself wondering if i should stop playing the way i want(as the game was advertised) and start to grind stuff(lodestone, money) because *playing the game for fun feels just like the free version of ftp games: you miss out too much doing so * (in this case skins, that are the endgame of PvE)

Thanks for reading and sorry again for my poor english.

Hi there, first of all my english is far from perfect, so if you can bear with me.
This will be a quite long post, because i want to cover almost every aspect of the game.

SPvP Add Elo to tournaments. Spvp is for people that want to compete. If you want a skill based leaderboard, imo ELO is the way to go.

W3 Add more ways to spend Badges.

Personal Story : the first levels imo are awesome. The story IS about you and help the player find his place in the living world.
I’ve tried almost every storyline and some of them lead to events that could be expanded later to “recall” the personal side of the story (Where Life Goes and Split Second are the firsts that come to my mind) OR for other events like the living story.
While i agree that even if it’s my story i am only a piece of the puzzle, i think that rather than introducing new characters i’ll have to help , future “living stories” should revolve around events that we’ve triggered during our personal one. In this way you’ll keep it familiar with people that have chosen that pact and you’ll unveil those storylines to people that haven’t played them, increasing the bound between characters.

Dynamic Events I love them. My only suggestion is to make all of the events occurring in a map part of a unique chain (while i really hate centaurs, the Ulgoth chain in Harathi Hinterlands imo is one of the best in the game. Loved the concept of 2 opposed forces fighting to gain ground in the map, defensive events and the rush to Ulgoth).
Every map should have a “final boss” event that trigger once you’ve reached some prerequisites, so that people will actually want to visit every map to keep Tyria safe (and get some nice loot, for the greedy ones )

Skins the endgame in GW2 is all about appearance, that was the premise.
Players need more option in that department and the actual state of the game has a lot of ways to achieve this:
1. through living story: Trahearne had is moment of glory, and quite a lot of people didn’t like that (i’m ok with being one of the main characters of a story and not the only one, but that’s subjective). I doubt he’ll be missed that much, and once he’s gone players could take the lead of the Pact (unlock order skins )
2. through DEs: as i’ve suggested a few lines back, with a final boss in every map there’s a lot of room for new unique skins that are thematically bounded to said bosses.
Temples skins should be different one from each other.
3. Weapon animation/ attack animation by class: Necro Staff autoattack is god tier. Mesmer GS autoattack is pretty tier (except for Asura, they just point the gs forward. I’ve died a little inside when i’ve discovered that my little Asura mesmer will never be as cool as the other races with is gs). Elementalist attunements are crap tier.
Add some effects on more weapons (like fused, Jotun gs, weapon of the mists, ecc ecc) or add some thematic animation on them once they’re equipped by each class (like necro staff, mesmer gs)
Another thing that i’d like to see is a PvE locker that still uses Transmutation stones (you’ll get your money) without the need to grind again for a skin that i already had (less grinding). I’m ok with being forced to do content i don’t like to get the skin i want ONCE. Doing as i’ve suggested people will experiment more with their look (and buy more gems to do so) allowing more variety.

Rewards: get rid of MF as gear stat. A lot of people have already pointed out that the system as it is now rewards player that contribute less.
Make Legendaries Account Bound (and not only them): if you feel like changing something in a class that take out the fun of playing it for a player, that player shouldn’t fell like she/he have wasted tons of time and effort too. Same goes for weapons that have expansive components AND work behind them (all the weapons crafted using the mystic forge).
ADD MORE WAYS TO MAKE MONEY. Seriously, find a way to do so. I’m actually punished for playing what i find entertaining rather than doing CoF1 1billion times/day, FoTM or plainning my playtime using timers. This is not a work, i’m supposed to have fun without feeling punished for doing so.
I understand that you don’t want to make money worthless, but looking at the game as it is i see goldsink/timesink everywhere and a few selected ways to grind money.
There are people that think “Fun is feeling rewarded, so grinding is fun because i’m rewarded for my efforts”
There are people that think “Fun is enjoying the game, so grinding is not for me”.
Take a position, you can’t satisfy both.
You’ve said once that don’t want people to grind. It’s about time to implement your views in the game.
Once you’ve done so (NOT BEFORE), change the game so that it will be pointless to grind. So people will actually start to play what they want because everything (DE, Dungeons, FotM, WwW) will be equally rewarding.

Or maybe just take out those bosses from lower Tiers, so that larger guilds can still have their challenge while small guilds won’t have to waste time and influence

Hello there.
Today we’ve tried our first bounty training and got Sotzz the Scallywag as target.
Aside the fact that 300 possible spawn locations are plain dumb (at least if you are in a small guild), i manage to find him after 8 minutes.
The problem is that after 10 SECONDS (i just had time to say “i’ve found it!” and to link the waypoint in map chat) he vanished in front of me.
IIRC this issue has already been adressed and solved in the past so i’m asking if anyone else have the same problem again.

Thank you for your time and sorry for my poor english.