Guild Wars 2

Having watched Predator again lately I was thinking of some content ideas. This idea as I explain does add a pop culture reference though a much larger reference than the … Golem named...OVR-9000 in the Asura story … that I know of. The reference as I explain it is related to the movie but not directly.

So then we know of a “CHOPPA!” at Fangfury Watch in Fields of Ruin, Kailani’s flying machine noted by the dynamic event that happens there. Let’s say she actually gets a good working prototype functioning and then someone takes notice and asks for her help to rescue some important people from a cut off location in a jungle area that the choppa can only reach. A team is assembled of just you and a Vigil Asuran male named Arny or Clutch or something, it could be a Norn due to body size but trying to keep the reference minimal. Now you set off with, let’s call him Clutch for now, to a jungle area to rescue captives.

You reach a safe destination deep in a jungle with Clutch and start finding strange transformed human like statues while searching for the captives. You’re both curious of what caused these transformations and you think that it might be viable to go get more help but Clutch explains that the people you’re trying to rescue may die by the time help gets there. Finally you reach the camp of the captives and find the captors transformed into the human like statues and the captives still alive within a large cage but very scared. Now as you go to unlock the cage you hear a strange noise shaking some trees and bushes behind the camp.

You’re curious of the noise but gather the captives and set out with Clutch towards a river with a tree fallen across it making a bridge. Once across the river a large basilisk type creature jumps out of the bushes. Clutch runs back across the tree making it to the other side and the basilisk swipes it’s tail causing the tree to fall into the river. Clutch begins fighting the beast and yells to you, “Go now, get the captives to the flying contraption!” You then lead the captives back to the choppa.

I didn’t include filler as I wanted to just get straight to the point. Thanks for reading!

After a caffeine fueled morning and just thinking of random ideas about GW some ideas about Guild Halls sprung up. The ideas don’t need to be done exactly as stated, they’re just ideas nonetheless.

I was thinking of more community building ideas and started thinking of Guild Halls, if they get implemented in the future, that maybe they could be floating archipelagos based on Asuran technology.

Why floating archipelagos?

So for example GvG battles could be where archipelagos could meet up on a map and battle against one another effectively connecting each guilds hall to the map with allowing mild damage to the halls from battle. Strong incentive to protect what you own.

Besides PvP, can allow traveling to archipelagos to visit other guilds and see their customizations.

Rewards could be based on allowing customization of the halls besides regular PvP rewards. Earn PvE customization rewards from PvE activities and PvP customization from PvP activities.

Could have a ranking list setup to vote on Guild Halls which would be influenced by the customizations.

Lets break down their design fundamentals.

- horizontal leveling – time to cap decreased compared to older games
- level scaling – able to keep content challenging for all levels
- vertical progression – from level 1 to cap their is a progression slowly over time
- rewarding challenging content at cap – FoTM currently
- rewards – a constant push of better items through leveling by hearts, drops, and trade
- new abilities – rewarding character progression in smaller increments of time instead of long gaps
- small power gaps – power gains in smaller increments

What has been introduced to relieve the idea of being left behind?
Horizontal leveling, level scaling, rewards, new abilities, and small power gaps.

Now lets look at vertical progression from level 1 to cap.

- obtaining new abilities and gear – gaining more power
- constant changing content from leveling – the illusion of no grind, grind is in every game but content creates an illusion of it not being there.

What can we deduce from their concepts and player perception?
The game was never truly horizontal to begin with.
There’s nothing really wrong with vertical progression but there can be problems in the way it’s handled. Rewards for going back to older content isn’t satisfying enough, people usually want the best rewards for their time. This is something I hope will change eventually. The game teaches progression as people play but doesn’t provide the same experience at end game. So it’s possible Anet can add more outlets for people to progress their characters that they have plans for.

Interesting enough people are fine with the vertical progression to level cap and its grind. End game content just needs to be adjusted to account for the way people are comfortable playing the game. They just need to provide more opportunities for acquiring items at endgame that have a better illusion than grinding the same content like FoTM.

Generally it’s not good design practice to abstract away your core gameplay once the game is out. A range/radius factor is already done through traits in a more balanced way. Expectation has been met already and remodeling base gameplay in a more awkward imbalance way hopefully isn’t a developer’s design goal. So your idea isn’t really a suggestion for GW2 but more of an idealistic approach for a game you would want to play and I respect that.

The idea you have is basically the same as vertical progression but in a more grindy stale way. Gear in itself already provides small advancements in power as you progress, along with traits. Not only that but if you think of GW2 as a teaching tool it actively reinforces the idea of vertical progression as you play throughout leveling and has a base type of gameplay already in place. Smaller power gaps is a design choice Anet made that I really agree with though. If ascended was in the game at launch along with the other ways to obtain it that would certainly of been better as devs have also mentioned to promote more equality for the different play styles and lessen the whole vertical progression arguments.

@Rfreak

People usually want the best rewards for their time and a mega server coupled with something similar to Zaishen Missions as evolverzilla and you mentioned could help. More populated zones and more content for max level would be good.

Generally speaking about rewards you can add incentive to each unique event you do each day grants you more karma and coin a bit above normal compared to your level. This could alleviate the feeling of grinding by getting people to not just grind the same 2 or 3 events back to back each day. That would add more incentive to exploration even at 80 making all content of any level worthwhile but can also have a negative impact on the economy depending on how it’s balanced, etc..

@Rfreak

I understand what you are talking about but I believe it’s better to get more population in all zones rather than focused on certain zones for particular areas in those zones per say. A mega server has the potential to keep zones populated throughout rather than dailies/weeklies/monthlies and not focusing a huge crowd of people in particular areas. Population balance that is spread wide creates more dynamic grouping opportunities which for leveling would be really great which mega servers can offer.

The best solution would be something that has been talked about a few times before about “underflow” servers or a mega server so to speak. I’d vote for a mega server big time over incentives to keep leveling zones balanced toward where people choose to level through providing larger population to all zones.

XP per fractal on a scaling system that way wouldn’t work right like Kaimick pointed out. A scaling system will split people apart as we’ve seen which is also a not so fun downside. Scaling can slow down progression though since you have to find people around your scale.

You can scale the fractals by resetting daily like saying each day everyone starts at scale 1 and can work toward higher scales opening up better grouping opportunities per day. Downside with this would be calculated against casual players based on time per session.

Scaling works better when players can select their difficulty from a smaller set range up front rather than continual unlocking giving casuals more opportunity also. The intention though relies on what the devs have in mind.

I think it would be interesting to see a perk system added with perks unrelated to stats that characters could unlock over time while playing just for fun to add a bit more depth. The key to this doing well is focusing on fun.

Examples:

Deep Pockets – extra bag space or more gold from drops.

Dancing Star – new dancing emotes.

My Best Friend – ability to play with pets.

Treasure Seeker – ability to find special items hidden in the world.

Crafty Crafter – craft an item anywhere in the world. (high cooldown maybe)

Cunning Traveler – lower waypoint cost.

I’ve Lost My Marbels – trait point reset anywhere in the world. (high cooldown maybe)

Fine Smelting – chance to get extra bars from smelting.

Master Chef – chance to get extra food on each craft.

Fishing if ever added…
Master Angler – higher chance to catch rare fish / catch rare items.

Feel free to list more examples/thoughts.

I don’t like the idea of putting the AA’s behind dungeons that way, but I agree that it can be difficult finding groups because there’s really no incentive like tokens, which is a form of progression.

AA’s could work even for PvP for example, seperate AA’s into 2 different categories PvE and PvP and earn PvE AA’s by doing PvE and earn PvP AA’s by doing PvP. Wait what about SPvP and balance? The simplest solution would be either to not have AA’s for SPvP or unlock them all for SPvP allowing everyone the chance to select which AA’s they want to bring to the fight.

Wait a sec, AA’s that can only work in PvE and AA’s that only work in PvP sounds a bit reminiscence to old GW with the difference really in what kind of AA’s are available.

Now this creates more incentive to play and motivators. The thing is to not create very high gaps for example, “+20 Str PvE AA” is not a good AA design. So really having small gains with AA doesn’t create a large gap and helps keep everyone effective and you aren’t left very far behind. Also the fear of being left behind from such small gaps shouldn’t really exist but it will to some, and if you are playing the game you are getting your AA’s.

What about people for example in PvE requiring me to have certain AA’s before I can run a dungeon with their group? This will happen regardless of AA’s or not but tuning AA’s to not give extreme boosts will help.

@ piitb.7635

I like the idea of having progression at high level without an entire focus on gear like you are talking about. I’m not saying gear shouldn’t be added but AA could supplement gear for overall sense of progression especially at max level.

I like how we unlock traits through the trait system but once you’re at level cap and have all of them the focus shifts away toward spending skill points on other things like you said. Sure being able to acquire skill points after max level to buy things is an easy way to keep people playing, almost like doing dailies depending on how you play, but I was getting better gear and traits while leveling then left with gear only to farm out at max level.

A lot of games have a similar drop off at max level, but having AA’s can add another layer of depth to our characters that I’d really like to see take shape if it’s extended out beyond max level. So basically when your at max you can progress with both gear and acquire AA’s.

“Hey guys I just got a new weapon and this new AA that lets me punt my Asuran group members!”

… think about it devs come on, it would help them with their jumping puzzles!