Guild Wars 2

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I haven’t been able to contribute in this thread because of family engagements (Wife’s Birthday, Preparation for Christmas Day etc). I intend to discuss my personal favorite ideas on the 27th.

We have plenty of time on the thread and it seems that most everyone are enjoying themselves and I am sure we will see some more focused proposals soon.

Chris

Thank you for your contributions so far. And a special thanks to all the organizers as well. This thread truly brings out the heart of the GW fanbase!

Although, Chris, I thought ANET was made of cyborgs, who exist only as a red name on a forum? BACK TO WORK!

Nahh, just joking. Glad to see your morale is high. Hmmm… THAT’S IT!

I have another idea to throw at people… http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Morale_boost

What if slaying a champion increased our HP and Endurance regeneration by 2%, up to 10%, until we die or leave the map? Such a mechanic would be an awesome throwback to GW1 (Fan service!!!), and it would add an interesting sort of progression in open-world PvE.

It would also give players a good reason to slay champions outside farming, and during events like Claw of Jormag.

The mechanic could also be expanded during world events, where players buff themselves to take down bigger foes without being OHKOed.

Time for some crazy ideas. Here’s the first one. It’s called head hunter challenges. Content for 1-2 players.

1.) You buy a signet of capture from a karma vendor
2.) You cast it on a champion in the open world.
3.) Now you return to a Norn fighting arena.
4.) The claimed champion is waiting in the arena to fight you. The arena is instanced but other players can spectate, just like Queens Gauntlet but without the dome. Just an invisible wall.
5.) You can bring along one player to help you.
6.) increased rewards: 5-8 dragonite ore and 3 champion lootbags and 1 skillpoint. Once a day you have +500% MF on that special skin the champ is dropping.

here’s where the horizontal progression comes in:

• there is an achievement for killing every champion in the game. You have a checklist (!!) (including location) where killed enemies got crossed out.
• once you’ve defeated all champions in a family, you unlock a mega-champion of that family as extra challenge.
• rewards would be minis for each killed family, a 22slot bag for each family.

So here horizontal progression is about progressing in difficult challenges, finishing a checklist and getting partial rewards for completing certain categories (killing each champ of a family (e.g. centaurs). This could accompany a reputation-system as well.

Horizontal Progression for Different Factions
Lets take a tally on some of the many different Factions in Guild Wars 2….

• You got the Priory, Vigil, and Order of Whispers.
• You got the Seraph, the Ministry guard, and the Shining Blade (also the Ebon Vanguard)
• You got the Ash, Blood, and Iron Legion (not to mention all sorts of warbands too)
• You got the College of Dynamics, Statics, and Synergetics.
• You got the Lionguard
• Who knows what else I missed….. (there’s also the Hylek, Skritt, and Largos, and what about the Tengu, Kodan, etc.?!?)

How many of those have special weapons and Armors? not much. We get to buy one armor set for each of the orders, and while there are some weapon sets from other factions….that’s about it.

You want Horizontal Progression? How about giving us up to 10 Faction Ranks for the Orders, and all other friendly Factions in the game (even unfriendly factions in some cases!). When we reach a high enough rank, then we unlock new titles. We can also then Purchase special Faction weapon and Armor skins, using Gold, not new Tokens, or anything else. You can raise your faction rank by doing events that involve those factions or defeating certain bosses.

Doing this, Players can see us with a Title showing our support for a particular Faction, or they can visually see that we Really Support a Particular faction by equiping special Faction Weapons and Armors.

For my Example, lets use the Hylek, for no other reason than talking poisonous frogs just seem awesome.
At Rank 5, we unlock a Title, “Friend of the Hylek”.

At Rank 9, we get a Title called “Ally of the Hylek” and we can now purchase new Weapon and Armor skins, and for the Hylek, those could be some seriously awesome Tribal looking stuffs. You could also buy special Hylek themed Finishers for use in WvW and PvP!

At Rank 10, we get a new Title called “Zintl’s Chosen” (Zintl, being the Hylek’s sun god.), but there can be a catch to it. There can be only one Zintl’s Chosen on any given server, and the one who gets the title is the one with the most faction points with the Hylek. In addition to having a Unique Title, you could have a unique Golden Aura surrounding you, and you get infinite access to the Hylek themed Finisher when in WvW and PvP.

Geting to Rank 10, and keeping your faction higher than everyone elses and being able to compete at that level would take some serious dedication, and are only for those who are that dedicated to the game. However, aside from that unique Title and Golden Aura, casual players can get access to everything else that faction has to offer.

Links to my other Ideas in this Thread
Horizontal Skill Progression ::: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3413290

Nadesh.7953:

…

I’m very fan of the idea of Order Quests ! Developing Living Story plots, giving additionnal informations.
It will be a nice improvement of the Nightmare tower toxic offshoot destruction events when you have to help a random order : Whisper bombs, Vigil mortars, Priory Hazmat suit.

I dream that Vigils have to defend themselves and their supplying roads or cut ennemies reinforcement/supplying, pick pockets corps and investigate.
Whispers Order have to go sneaky and stealthy in ennemy’s camp to steal some papers, investigate and track.
Help the Priory to understand ennemies weapons and tools, test things, or gather material and data to study.

But Daily Order Quest is too short content to be interesting. It will monopolize efforts for fast consumed content. Or it will be like Dailys : generic and tasteless content.

I would love to see the home instance as a showcase of your progression in the game, just like the Hall of Monuments in GW1. What has to be done though imho:

• give players a portal stone which ports you to the HI and back where you were again.
• Redesign some of the homeinstances. Imho the norn HI is underwhelming compared to the Human and Charr HI.
• add fun activities to the HI which you can do with your friends
• add fun events like the ones from Ebonhawke to the main cities – people should feel rewarded for visiting cities other than Lionsarch.

I guess it is about anything that does not increase the character level/strength – so mostly cosmetic.

Some general thoughts:

1. Remove Soulbound from any consumables. Actually remove soulbound period.

2. Have more skins that behave like the achievement point ones (i.e. reusable and easy to apply). Phase out transmutation stones (like already begun with fractal weapon skins)

3. Make storing skins more convenient – like the PvP locker.

4. Since RNG is the driving force for most expensive items (including legendaries) – pls reduce the impact of RNG and add more deterministic progress (like you did for the black lion scraps).

I like the idea of the cosmetics. A beard, hair accessory, santa hat, tattoos, make up, etc… It’s fun to play dress up! (See: every player that has ever saved up for a specific set of armor for looks + dye prices).

However, I do not like the “temporary” part. Limited edition is fine, as in it’s only available for purchase for short period of time. Limited use makes panda babies cry.

Some people in map chat were saying they would love to have a wintersday long beard to put on their characters for that holiday and I thought that would be fun.

If these items/cosmetic enhancements were temporary (just for that particular holiday or whatever time period) and cost a few gems then that would be a neat addition.

It might serve as a small gold sink too since people would convert a few gold to a few gems readily…

Part 2

Now proposed Ideas on how to fix/help with these issues.

1. No need for a separate trait build like that in pvp, simple additions/ alterations to current traits will do fine. Traits that benefit land only abilities/ weapons have added traits that will benefit aquatic only abilities and weapons. I.E. (10% of toughness is converted to power = no changes. Greatsword skills recharge 20% faster = GS and spear abilities recharge 20% faster.)
2. Craftable breathers of all qualities, including ascended. Breathers now drop from underwater mobs only, helmet drops removed from underwater mobs (or keep them in, doesn’t matter to much on that detail)
3. Additional Skins for breathers. I was super disappointed that “gas mask” skin was not for underwater. Ideas for additional skins: full helmet, gas mask like helmet (can see your face), breather/goggles combo, breathers like those from SW: Episode 1, old timey dive helmet, or anything you guys can think up.
4. Add an underwater world boss. Since underwater fights include the Z axis the mechanics will need to change from normal world bosses. Possible mechanics: multi level shockwaves that run in the X and Z axis (alternating for increased difficulty), all encompassing aura of damage while in close proximity (like Claw of Jormag’s Ice field), “Water tension”: boss sends mobs to wipe out those trying to escape to the surface, whirlpools: drag you to the bottom or throw you in a random direction… most ideal location for this would be Aquabase Terror Seven: Inquest, while researching “insert plot device” Unleash/ Attract from neighboring waters a (Water Elemental, Crazed experiment, Giant something, etc.) Terror base seven has a large enough area with sparse naturally occurring mobs. and it has 3 waypoints somewhat close by so people can get there accordingly ( block off the closest during the boss fight of course)
5. One of my favorite parts of this game is the underwater mini dungeon in Diessa Plateau, it has puzzle mechanics, a difficult boss, and a good dynamic event leading up to it. Hell it is the best underwater dungeon in the game. HotW has underwater parts, but the boss fights seem crowded and have terrible camera angles/obstructions.. Add additional underwater paths to dungeons, or an entire new dungeon that is mostly underwater. Large underwater areas (openish world, or a large sea cavern. Final boss fight in a not super clustered room, add smaller hallways for the inbetweens (ex: Underwater fractal) or even darkness like in the aforementioned fractal. New dungeon armor that is underwater themed.
6. Adjust the scaling for underwater events so that it correctly scales to the players in the vicinity, add dynamic event chains that are more than an escort quest (Orr).
7. Remove the ground targeting aspect of those utilities while underwater and have them just drop wherever the player is. Banners can turn into bouys or bobbers, aoe rez skills just rez in the immediate area.
8. Add at least one additional underwater elite for each class or alter the current ones so they can be used underwater. (reskin the lich form to something underwatery, call in the thieves guild while underwater, new underwater only tome (mix of offense and defense) “waterlogged Tome”, not sure what to alter for elementalist, so maybe just an new elite.
9. Add one underwater elite for each race. Charr: depth charge (sends out depth charges all around the charr, enemies explode on impact. Human: Servants of Lyssa (dolphins come to your aid and attack your foes). Norn: Become the Polar Bear (same as become the bear). Asura: Summon Dive suit (you summon a dive suit golem to attack foes, looks more aquatic than the normal suit). Sylvari: Algae ( send out and aura of algae, blinding/crippling foes and healing allies
10. AoE skills that normally are only shown via circles on the ground should be aesthetically altered to be thin bubbles surrounding the area they are effecting, it could be anything from a color change to particle effects surrounding/filling that area. kind of like the guardian bubble or elementalist boil/ electric field.
11. More/diverse whales, combatable dolphins/turtles, eels, squid/octopi, water elementals, alligators/crocodiles (if they exist in this world), giant versions of sea creatures, pirana, deep sea fish, karka (while underwater)

Finally what would really float my boat is a mostly underwater area, with only a few areas of actual land (small islands, a conglomeration of sea vessels, floating town/city)
The rest of the map ranging in coral life, caves, deep waters, shallows, and tide pools.

Any and all thoughts, criticisms, contrasts, previews, or really any information at all would be greatly appreciated on any of these topics.

The best part of GW2 is the dodge mechanic. I can’t play any other MMO that doesn’t let me dodge or evade attacks coming at me — and I’m not talking about using LoS like in WoW. I wish every game got rid of “hit chance”, and just let you either dodge it or not.

Vertical:
I think Vertical progression is good but very hard to correctly introduce since it has to be:

• long/hard enough to be an achievement
• rare enough so it doesn’t feel like a treadmill
• rewarding enough so there is actually a meaning for player to invest the time/resources into it
  and at the same time it has to :
• be easy enough to let more casual players go for it, even if it takes them a long time
• keep the power increase low enough so that old content does not become too easy
• keep the power increase low enough so that new content does not absolutely require this vertical progression (fractals does not require ascended gear unless you go for higher levels)
• avoid penalizing people with alts/ wanting to play multiple builds

I think the way ascended gear was introduced was rather good considering those criterias, especially the small stat increase. It lacks on the last point though: crafting a whole set for one char is ok, but going for multiple sets is really long/expensive. I personnaly think we should not get more vertical progression, at least for a while. It will take a while for people to fully gear themselves with ascended, and PvE content (dungeons especially) is easy enough for experienced players that more power creep would trivialise it.
To main problem I have with gear in gw2 is how the rune/sigils are handled: unless you buy an item from the gem store you lose the old rune/sigil when using a new one. And if you want to be able to switch runes often (pve set and WvW set, for example), you need two separate armor sets. It was ok with exotics, not so much with ascended. The solution I propose is to have runes/sigil stack on the weapons/armor piece they’re added to with only one active at a time. Adding another sigil/rune would not erase the first one, but instead the player would be able to chose which one he wants to use when not in combat mode, just like the stats combo on legendaries. This could also be used for infusion slots.

Horizontal:
I really think horizontal progression is the way to go, I really loved the way gw1 was almost exclusively horizontal. I see three main types of horizontal progression: skills, cosmetcis and achievements.

Skills
It has already been stated that new skills are to be introduced, like the new healing skills in the last update. I think there should be a special mechanic for unlocking those new skills/weapons (whiel being automatically unlockes in PvP), maybe a dedicated instance where the character learns something, with the new skill/weapon as a reward. This instance could or could not be profession-specific and skill-specific, depending on the work needed and of the number of new skills that are to be introduced.
On a related topic, having templates for traits would be a great improvement. I know I almost never change my build because I am too lazy to go through the whole process, but there are multiple occasions where I wish I could easily adapt my build to my team composition.
(to be continued)

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Bring back the Hall of Monuments.
It’s already in the game. Use it.

This.

And guild halls.

And expand the home instance!

I want a physical place to show off my minipets and accomplishments. A bank tab is dull and the achievement panel boring. It would be even more awesome if all your alts are there as NPCs to bring the place to life, as living mannequins showing off their nice clothes and gear.

They are removing most of the pieces that were added the last year, but they’re not removing all town clothes from the Gem Store.

Besides, what would they gain by removing Town Clothing? Even if it makes just a little money, that’s better than none. And there are many people who enjoy messing around with new outfits.

There are also two unofficial RP servers where Town Clothing is immensely popular. And the Festive Clothes were already made for last year, so they don’t have to spend money making something new either, they can just let us buy last year’s stuff.

Last year we got Festive Town Clothes on the Gem Store, though unfortunately I could not afford them last year. This year however I do have the cash for it, and was going to get it for both myself and my friend but… there are no new outfits at all. Ascended Gear is all well and good, but it takes ages to get for some of us. I was really hoping to get the Festive Town Clothes this year, any chance we might see them returned sometime before Christmas Eve?

Thanks.

Why do you continue to limit what we can do in character creation, where we establish the personality of our characters more than anywhere else? Why not just add the faces and hairstyles to the game via the character creation screen as well as the Total Makeover Kits? People who want the new faces on their old characters can do so via the total makeover kits, while those who are new to the game can experience the full force of Guild Wars 2’s character creation options right from the beginning? I am fine with weapon skins in the Gem Store. I am fine with Armour skins in the Gem Store. I am even fine with dyes, convenience items and yes, makeover kits in the Gem Store. I’m fine with all of those things, this is not a rant, but I just want to why you guys insist on locking part of this avenue of the game behind gem purchases?

There are many suggestions on this forum talking about issues related cosmetics and customization both for armors and the characters themselves. Here is another.
(its a big issue)

Customization is a HUGE deal for many players. This video illustrates the situation quite well. Please watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO8GIoRLGa0

Frankly, GuildWars2’s character creation/customization pales in comparison to all of the games featured here.
While I understand that a creation engine like the one in APB Reloaded would require extensive funding and hours to put together, I’m certain ArenaNet could give more than what is currently offered. The face sliders are very good, but there are no hair sliders, no body sliders (muscle mass for individual body parts and yes, butt slider and boob slider for females. There is no reason not to include it when so many people want it). Norn tattoos should be applied by body parts (i.e. I like this option but I don’t want any tattoos on the face…etc.). Tattoo and accessory color options are simply not enough. humans should be able to have tattoos as well. These are just a few things. The bottom line is, I don’t want to feel like I’m flipping through a catalogue when making my character, but rather that I’m using the provided tools to build my own character to my desired specifications.

Personally I don’t know the logistics of changing the system that’s already in place, but something needs to be done, especially considering how different professions now wear the same exact armor (a SERIOUS downgrade from GW1). I just don’t feel like my character is mine.

Edit:

While my post mainly focuses on customization of the character’s bodily features, I do see increased armor diversity as an area needing more attention in GW2.

Here are some other posts by players who demonstrate the community’s desire for more customization/aesthetic diversity. All good ideas worth taking a look at.

More armor choices
—TearsFromtheMoon

Some profession-specific armors
—ponts

Why not release some NPC armor sets to players?
—Lorelei

Support for asymmetrical armor
—jonnis

Appeal for more armor skins
—Deified

Bring back more GW1 armor instead of reskinning GW2 armor
—Septemptus

Cultural armors available to all races
—illo

Ability to hide chest piece
—Achilleus

Please support and contribute to these ideas if you feel the same.

Cant wait for this to happen makes most sense for the living blizzard to attack this holiday of the year.

Seveleniumus.5973:

There is that one mini-dungeon, where you need to run with a torch, can get pretty creepy. Don’t really remember where it is.

I think it was Lornar’s Pass, if not it’s in Timberline. Neat little place. Actually pitch black and the mini boss inside is almost scary as a result.

I would say again that there are still people like me (look for another thread) that still wait for many of the GW1 armors.

We would really love to get any of them instead of reskins :| …

Anyone else think a full underwater map would be nice?

Plain and simple, the ambient light on Tyria should be tuned down by at least 20% if not more…

Currently I have absolutely NO clue when it is night or day, other then perhaps some effects on my Sylvari, if I pay attention to them… When it was said that Tyria would have day and night cycles, I actually had ‘visions’ of scary gameplay moments, when sounds in the distance at night would alert my senses of great fights to come.

When an account wide ‘torch’ was handed out as some sort of bundle item, I expected to see a darker Tyria at night, one where this torch would come in quite handy, especially in caves and dense woods or other dark places… None of that (well except for maybe that one place in the WvW dungeon).

So I really hope a lot of people agree with this statement (and give it a plus), so that sooner than later we can expect Tyria to offer more truly ‘night’ gameplay. Instead of just daytime gameplay with periodic extra light effects from races and or weapons…

Santa here. Just Asuran you I am indeed a molecular construction just as yourselves. <Insert jovial onamonapia>. Observe around me the ice creatures parachuting down onto Tyria; known in some parts as Winter Flies.

I have confidence that you have all behaved in an optimal manner as I will be analyzing my list of ‘Good’ or ‘Bad’ with the Holographic-Organizing-Humbug-Online-Heuristic-Optimizer or the H.O.H.O.H.O. <Insert another jovial onamonapia>

The Sylvari…er…the Workshop Elves are in Advanced Production Mode to get all the events and baubles ready for the 25th..(what? oh the 10th)…just was informed by my Holiday G.O.L.E.M that something occurs on the 10th. That lug nut may be pulling something.

Anyhow I shall conclude this semi-brief revelation of my existence and bid you all a joyous end of the 365 day timeline. <Insert last jovial onamonapia>

So this ends my community service now right? What? Oh it’s still on?!

Every 6months to a year we should be seeing a new zone added through the living story.

Now you may be asking yourself, how do we populate these new zones?

For starts world bosses. An important part of world bosses though is that you must make all world bosses hard. A big issue with tequatl and Queen is that they are hard, they offer rewards that can be easily bought with gold, and there are a ton of world bosses that are wayyy easssieer. So I’d recommend adding world bosses to the new zones after you buff the other world bosses so they’re not just afk facerolls.

Then rewards in the. With the new weapon and new armor post. you should implement these with the new zones. New dungeons are another way to get people involved with the new zones ( you could also make a way to unlock new fraclals by obtaining a piece of history for that fractal from its respected ruins or area in the open world and then giving it to dessa).

Now how to get into these new zones? I would go as far to say that add no waypoints inside the zone. Put one outside the entry. Link the entry to an event. Don’t make the event too hard, but make it engaging enough to be fun. However, inside the zone it is hard. You could traverse it a lone, or with a group. Don’t make it so hard that you Need a group to explore it, but make it hard enough that you need to know how to play your class. Kind of like Queen’s Gauntlent. You can make the zones have a theme so people can start forming builds around that theme. In these “hard” areas, exotics and rare items that you choose have a higher chance of dropping. Then you have armors and weapons that are considerably harder to get in these zones. There are towns, and safe areas, however there wont be a ton of waypoints so that dieing does have some punishment to the player.

Armor skins are an important part to your endgame horizontal progression. You must reward players these without using current ingames currently only. I know what you may be saying, thats stupid! However, current in game currencies are not satisfiying to use. If they’re not that means that players will easily buy them and they dont get the same satisfaction out of them.

For starts time frame. You should be introducing new armors in the game (not just in the gem shop, the actual game) every 1 1/2 to 2 months. The biggest and most important part is how players unlock these. Players must do something that is hard. Something that requires skill. Something that can be done with a few players. See the biggest issue tequatl has is that it requires all these people. I’d recommend organizing something with a minimum of 8 players in mind. Then scale the event to fit players larger than that. This means players will have to interact with the community to some extent, but it doesn’t take a huge amount of people like tequatl.

Lets talk about this event that will unlock it and how it unlocks the new armors. So say you introduce a new armor set for each type (heavy, medium, light). Lets just use the light set as an example. This light set can be obtained by doing certain things in one zone. What these “things” are are not timed to timers. They must seem random to promote exploration and they must not just suddenly appear. An example would be to put the light armor events in caldeon forest. At a minimum I’d say 7 areas inside the map could have the event that would give you the chain. Do not put a big marker on the map to show people where it is. Do it similar to a dynamic event. The difficult of them should be on the level of a guild challenge/queens gauntlent. You must challenge the players so you dont just afk attack like in champion trains or some world bosses. Some may be saying, why not just use guild challenge? Guild challenges use a UI to tell them where it is. It doesn’t promote exploration, it is timed, it is guild only, and it is not immersive at all because of the UI. So me and my party explore caldeon forest to look for the event to help one of our friends get the armor. Somone in map chat killed him. Ah alright, the event would have a 5-10min cooldown and then it would start again in a randomly selected area out of the 7. Here is an example in Caldeon.

Ruins of the Unseen- Skritt have found an ancient artifact of the Unseen and activated its power. You must stabilize the rift that has form from killing many of the surrounding wild life! The event would start, again it would challenge the players and require teamwork. Should they fail the event (dont just make a mission fail to a timer or to some npc dieing, gotta put in more ways that events can fail. NPC escorts are frustating for a lot of players. Timers get boring after a while), then the event would go on cd for 5-10mins and then spawn somewhere else.

Once a player completes the event they get a token. Only one and you can only get one token a reset. You take this token to the NPC in the zone and you can exchange it for one piece of the armor set. You can also exchange it for some gold (1g at the very least since it will be hard) so those who cant use light will have a point in doing it.

Do something similar for each armor type. This may seem like a lot of work, but it will keep players involved and something to do in the game. Something that can’t just be bypassed with some gold or karma.

What about WvWers? If WvWers deeply desire these armor sets and don’t want to do PvE at all, you can offer the armor set for a considerable amount of badges and ascended mats (ones you get from champions only, not crafted).

So with the new zones being released, and already considerable amount of zones to choose from, this system will do a ton for the game. It will offer challenging PvP content, an addition to the small gear look progression in the game, and it will begin to populate dead zones a bit better. With each new zone you have a new choice for a new set of quest and armor.

crosknight.3041:

snip

They look even worse on a Charr.