Guild Wars 2

Rouven.7409:

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

(…)

• Darker nights can then be used to allow for new mobs to spawn with unique drops and for unique night time events to kick off.(…)

I played another game that had something like that. All this particular point would do is add yet another timer to the game. Personally I would go without this part.

I read that and what came to mind was: “Oh blessed Tunare, Kithicor Woods again?” For those who don’t know the tale . . .

There was a game called EverQuest which had a day/night cycle. During which in certain areas you were . . . in professional terms “completely boned” if you didn’t have some form of night vision in forest areas. Many human newbie characters died to secure this as one of the fundamental pieces of every character’s “Survival Kit” of abilities. “Must get night vision” was on there, along with “some method of water breathing”. But I digress slightly.

Now, in this game there was a massive GM event which ended with what was called “Bloody Kithicor”. The evil faction and the good faction on a continent met in combat in one of the more underutilized zones which happened to be a forest right outside one race’s starting city. There were GM-spawned NPC soldiers for both sides, there was a big battle and it ended when the evil side dropped what was a magical equivalent of a neutron bomb and killed everything alive in the woods except those fortunate enough to be protected. This was “Bloody Kithicor”, and it is well known to veterans of that game who lived through it. (I was out of town and unable to participate.)

As a result, in the aftermath . . . by day the forest was dark as usual (i.e., bring your light sources)and populated by the usual forest denizens. When the sun went down? Out come the really high level undead who have faster movement speed than unbuffed characters, will follow you the entire length of the zone, and some of them have a one-shot instant damage spike which can wreck anyone lower level than them.

In short? You stayed out of Kithicor Woods after sundown. You made that journey only with speed buffs and only if you were confident in your ability to identify and duck those spike-tossing undead.

This was not, as could be said, a popular change. But it definitely left a mark!

I seem to remember though reading an answer to this a long time back, along the lines that it was darker in beta but people did not like it, got changed etc. But take this with a grain of salt, it’s been a while.

It’s generally said if you have to choose between immersion and playability, you should decide which exactly is more important for your game before chucking one or the other. This is also noted in games where realistic need for food and water was considered but left on the floor after betas.

OP and Wasbunny, I love your ideas, and I don’t think it would end up being another timer that people had to watch, because I would hope Anet would make it so that the day/night cycles were different, but not different levels of rewards. So it wouldn’t reward you more/less to play at night/day, but you would get different types of events to do, and maybe a few different (not stronger) rewards.

sanictoofast.9317:

this is how it should be.
OPEN WORLD DUELING
individual town arenas
no ques
no scaling, if my noob friend wants to get SMASHED i wanna SMASH THEM

No, and I don’t think it’s possible to properly state in words how emphatically I believe that to be a horrible addition to the game. The very design of the PvE is built around all players being on the same team and cooperating whether or not you’re in a party. It’s ridiculous to attempt to modify working, live code at the very heart of the game for something best left, if implemented at all, to either a PvP zone or specialized arenas located out of the way, for example run by the Consortium in Southsun.

It would also be interesting if existing creatures that favor the dark (such as the Nightmare Court & the Dredge) have an increased frequency of appearing and triggering more dynamic events at night.

A lot of the Nightmare Court’s dynamic events involve taking poor hapless Sylvari prisoners which you need to free, but you never see this actually happening. What if during the day the Sylvari are going about their normal business with mainly ‘helper’, ‘gather’, or ‘escort’ type quests but as soon as night falls the Nightmare Court come out of the shadows to enslave and torture the Sylvari locals. These would be dynamic events that would only be triggered at night and could be won or lost, allowing you to keep the Nightmare Court at bay or if neglected the Sylvari are overrun and enslaved, leading to the ‘liberation’ type dynamic events.

And the Dredge…oh the dreaded Dredge. They would mainly be seen crawling out of their holes only at night, running for the shelter of their underground tunnels as the sun rises. Dynamic events on the surface world would be greatly increased in frequency and number during the night. This making one think twice about wandering alone at night in places like Lorner’s Pass or Dredgehaunt Cliffs.

So many possibilities with day/night cycle linked dynamic events, not to mention…vampires!

moiraine.2753:

Dueling is a PvP activity so it’s place is only in the Mists and no where else.

The Mists would be ideal, I agree, but Consortium run arenas in Southsun would add an element to the game (getting the Consortium more involved in things) and may start drawing more people to Southsun. Sure, the audience would be there to watch the fights, but a massive karka event in the audience would be worth the price of admission.

The best way dueling could fit the GW2 world would be for the Consortium to open up dueling arenas in Southsun where you and your challenger could pay a couple silver and queue up (if there’s a queue) to step into a dueling circle (think similar to the Queen’s Jubilee) and have at it as a spectator sport. The side bets alone would make that worthwhile and you wouldn’t intrude on the cooperative PvE world.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Everything thats making this game look nicer isn’t wasted.
Also, like I said, it wouldn’t be too hard to implement and, like you can see at this threat, there is a huge demand.

Your suggestion is gamechanging, therefore it has to be balanced and tested.

I… I didn’t realize you were threatening me.

Kidding, of course. It would be wasted (imo) because it wouldn’t be used except by maybe a handful of people, and it’s questionable if they’d keep it full time.

Yes, my concept would have to be balanced and tested (as would any changes to be honest). However you have to admit… it does open the door for more types of content to be added to the game. Why only change the darkness when you can also do so in a way that livens the game up with potentially new mobs, new events that kick off in the night, new strategies in WvW, etc?

If there’s a change to be made, why limit it in a way that doesn’t allow for potential growth, as sliders would? If you’re going to go for it, go for it with gusto and make it matter!

juno.1840:

To be clear — I don’t want more Tequatl. I want smaller scale, instanced, difficult content requiring coordinated team play.

A comparison from the current market: any of the LotRO raids (4 teams of 6) in Orthanc. Those were hard requiring many attempts to master.

I want them to go away from instanced content. BUT I also want something similar as you: content for small groups.

This doesn’t have to contradict each other imho. Sure, if you put a huge timer on a homepage, people would swarm such szenarios. If these are found via exploration though, and they are random events in the world, I think people would be excited. I feel that we need such events as rewards for exploration.

The Great Al.2546:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

In all seriousness:

Starting on a basic level:
Daily achievement always in cycle like Gatherer; “Daily Visitor: Visit 5 houses”.
Social achievment “Houseguest: Visit W/X/Y/Z Houses; Title: Couch Surfer / Neighborhood / Honored Guest / Toast of the Town”

Personally not feeling any of these. I already am under the strong impression that probably 90% of players will spend less than 1% of their time in these ‘houses’. Forcing it with a daily or achievements isn’t going to make it a more attractive option.

I wouldn’t call it forcing (a few achievement hunters may complains that’s all), I’d like them like that I only ever want to do my 5 and then move on to my days goals, so easy ones like that are always good for me.
(My favorites are daily laural vendor, Leveler, gatherer) (My least favorite is oddly ambient killer, it’s actually more of a pain than you’d think.)

I also think that people will surprise you. Giving players housing gives them a massive tool for creativity and social events, I would not be surprised that like the daily mining run and world tour that social parties become a social staple.
I’m not an Rp’er and usually don’t bother interacting with people outside my guild and current party but when I first got housing in Runescape I was throwing get together s, it was fun. There’s an element of showing off what you created and there’s the element that the space was designed with things like this in mind, we sat in the virtual chairs and had the virtual food.
The housing in this game had minigames too so the people naturally gravitated to them and started playing, having friendly competitions making wagers.

(This is actually where size comes in as a factor, my house had 3 stories and about 18 rooms and a garden, it was big enough that it could hold the people, I’m not talking about single room houses that I’ve seen implemented in other games)

The Great Al.2546:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

In all seriousness:

Starting on a basic level:
Daily achievement always in cycle like Gatherer; “Daily Visitor: Visit 5 houses”.
Social achievment “Houseguest: Visit W/X/Y/Z Houses; Title: Couch Surfer / Neighborhood / Honored Guest / Toast of the Town”

Personally not feeling any of these. I already am under the strong impression that probably 90% of players will spend less than 1% of their time in these ‘houses’. Forcing it with a daily or achievements isn’t going to make it a more attractive option.

That’s not forcing it. That’s doing the same amount of “forcing” as they do to people to go do the Daily Activity Participation, or to go to WvW for “Mists Land Claimer”. It’s making it a quick, simple option for people to get credit and it might lead to them actually caring about it.

And I do agree, it’s very likely most of the players won’t really use the content. I’d say the same about a lot of things in the game – it’s very likely a lot of players will do Timberline Falls for world completion and then never go back there. It’s very likely most of the players will never touch sPvP/WvW/Fractals/World Bosses no matter how the rewards are revamped.

But it’s something they can put in which could be interesting and has been requested since before launch.

Nope – it’s the actual description I bought the game under that has me jerked around. I took part in the conversations with the dev teams, followed the blogs, and provided feedback. Right up until 2 months after the game went live, every comment they had on gear could be summed up as “everybody will be able to have BiS gear when they hit max level”. Gear was going to follow the same guidelines as GW1.

What that means is that the BiS gear I got in 2005 would still be BiS, were I to log in right now. I wouldn’t be behind. I could roll a new character, and be at max level with absolute best gear inside of 20 hours.

This is what we were told gear would be. It’s how it was implemented. They changed that.

I’ve not once denied that there’s nothing in-game that can’t be done in exotics. That’s not the point. The fact that, all other things being equal, the better geared person WILL win in any comparison – that’s a problem. Dungeon runs? Well, the fellow in full ascended will be dealing (assuming zerker gear) about 14% more damage than the guy in exotics – he will die less, and be done faster. In wvw, it won’t make an individual difference, mostly. Across a large group? The side with the most people kitted out with Ascended WILL win.

Hell, people have already started demanded Ascended gear pinging for dungeons. Mind you, to me that’s a sign that I don’t want to play with those people in the first place – but it will become more common.

Those are the reasons that ascended upsets me.

Patrikan Habaton.2548:

I guess you missed my Point here. I am only speaking about dungeons not world Content. I think dungeons and Fractals should be the world where hard Content Needs to be found. It’s just a fact that it is way to hard to Balance Content in open world reasons for this are:
- People going afk while dead scaling the Event up
- Trolls
- Many ways to exploit bug things ect
- Way more issues that can appear

While it might be intresting to test it I think the real Content with Special dungeon tokkens should be around dungeons only. Where you can make your fix Group and make sure nobody is desturbing it triggering another Event by mistake.

Short Version: I think you didn’t get I was only speaking about dungeons:)

I disagree. I think where GW2 is really strong is the open world, it’s dynamic events. It’s the main content of the game and all people should find interesting enough content for them to do at the main content. Sure, dungeons should be hard. Explorable mode was supposed to be rock-hard, don’t know what happened there. The newest iteration (Twilight Arbor Path) looks like they found a good balance.

Open world hard mode could definitely work with downscaling imho. Dead people / afk people cannot scale an event up, that’s not how it works. You have to be doing enough damage to make an event scaling up. If you’re dead because you are bad, the event (should) scale back again (I haven’t tested this) since you aren’t contributing.

As you see, you can’t troll via downscaling. You are just the same as a lowie player, and you don’t scare lowies away, do you?

Conski Deshan.2057:

There were other issues with both of those releases, and people do still do them.
With Tequatl the fights alright, it’s effectively guild content and that’s good, it just requires a lot of players and coordination which is hard to pull off, additionally rewards are RNG based which people dislike, not that I can see a better way to keep people coming back again and again that doesn’t involve more tokens.

With the Aether path, it takes much longer that the other two paths, especially with a Pug if they can’t coordinate or a player doesn’t understand the mechanics. For all that extra effort the only additional reward is 1g more, The rare items are RNG again and really really rare (check the tp they sell for the same as precursors) which makes them not a reliable reward output.

There will always be some that do them just to do them. Just as there were always some that did The Deep in GW1.

But essentially, what you’re saying is these are like UW before the chest, and that until people figure out the ‘SC’ and get the ‘guaranteed ecto from the end chest’ it’s just not going to be good enough for people. Sort of supports my original point… those of us that enjoy the challenge for the challenge are the exception, not the rule. For the majority it’s all about getting to the shiny as fast as possible with the least amount of effort.

zamalek.2154:

DarkWasp.7291:

I’m tired of PuGs, but I also want to PvE on my own time so organized groups aren’t generally an option. I just want stuff I can do solo.

Keep in mind GW2 was designed to be social. You may not get too much traction with ideas that exclude social interactions. In my opinion: at same time a lot of PUGs behave in an antisocial manner; so a small amount of soloable and challenging content might be nice for when you want to take a break from them.

I’m in the same boat as DarkWasp. I don’t enjoy groups, but in GW2 you don’t need to be grouped to have a lot of fun. You can interact with other people at any time, this is what makes the game so special. You are right: it’s designed to be social, but this doesn’t mean that everything has to be designed for organized groups only.

I love roaming around with other people. It’s just the freedom to go wherever I like without being kicked from any specific party if someone decides to do this, that I love.

Having said this, I definitely want GW2 being designed to be a game for everyone, even for people who love the freedom to go their own paths occasionally. For this the game should use the scaling mechanic to support this. It’s not fun to fight a champion for more than 20 minutes, although I’m good enough to dodge all of his attacks.

Well, we have a new kind of mobs now, elites – something between champions and veterans. I like this a lot, it shows me that Anet hasn’t forgotten about us lone wolfs. The difficulty is a bit low though imho, not much stronger than veterans and quite rare in the world (I can’t remember where I have seen the last one).

You might say that I should play singleplayer games, but it’s not other people I don’t like, but rather the artificial grouping and the dependencies from certain people and the rigid structure. Finding other people in a battle vs. a champion and having to group them first in order to be able to interact with them is bad. Good thing GW2 is better than this.

Danikat.8537:

I would also prefer just horizontal progression. But you’ve got to bear in mind that a lot of people who play GW2 want at least some vertical progression.

When the game was first released a lot of players breezed through most of the available content (or at least levelling, getting a full set of exotics and doing all the dungeons) then started complaining that there was nothing left that gave them any sense of progression of any kind. What they asked for specifically was vertical progression – usually in the form of a gear treadmill with raids as the method of acquisition.

Personally I think Anet did a good job of compromising by adding just 1 new tier with a relatively small stat increase which is only actually required for the ‘hard mode’ version of one optional dungeon. And especially doing it in such a way that the one tier has kept those who want vertical progression occupied for over a year.

But I am concerned about what they’re going to do when most of those people have got a full set of ascended and start demanding something else to grind for. Or how they’ll handle an expansion. I’m sure many people, particularly those who came from other MMOs are expecting an expansion to include an increase in the level cap and new tiers of equipment to go with it and will be disappointed and/or angry if that doesn’t happen, but other people (aka us) will be disappointed if they do that.

But I think we should worry about burning that bridge when we get to it.

maybe those people complaining about no endgame and no vert progress would be happy with a endgame with more interesting story, living story, new skills and so on.
if they were bored by the game, it wasn’t for the absence of a gear to grind ONLY.
but also for a lack of contents that anet tried to fulfill with the easy carrot: grind to BiS.

so switching back to only horizontal prog. might be a right compromise

DarkWasp.7291:

1. What would you do to help players along to getting visitors to their houses?

Provide bonuses for visiting? E.g. Craftable foods that can only be used in housing that provide pretty decent bonuses (“Gold Tea: Visitor: 10% Gold Find for 8 Hours, Host: 5% Gold Find for 2 Hours” – that way the host has incentive to visit as well). You can’t consume it unless you are visiting someone or have a visitor.

Edit: Another idea, the mere act of interacting with a house will give you one of:

- Entertained (visited someone else) – +10% magic find for 2 hours
- Proud (hosted someone else) – +10% gold find for 2 hours
- Rested (spent 6 hours offline in your house) – +5% XP per character on your account for 1 hours

Additionally it could also be possible (gem store “Disco-Tron Party Contract”?) to host parties at your house (in some ways similar to the communal bonfire).

DarkWasp.7291:

2. Do you feel that open world or solo content needs a “Hard Mode” of some sort?

I really enjoyed tribulation mode, so you can probably guess my opinion there. Players who do not do the Hard Mode should still have access to the same stuff that the players who do can get (except marginally lower drop rates or whatever). E.g. Hard mode dungeons could yield 20% more gold at the end and could have a 20% MF boost (while in the dungeon). Although I think hard mode is somewhat off-topic here?

DarkWasp.7291:

I’m tired of PuGs, but I also want to PvE on my own time so organized groups aren’t generally an option. I just want stuff I can do solo.

Keep in mind GW2 was designed to be social. You may not get too much traction with ideas that exclude social interactions. In my opinion: at same time a lot of PUGs behave in an antisocial manner; so a small amount of soloable and challenging content might be nice for when you want to take a break from them.

Not only that but also weather effects that aren’t zone-bound would be nice.

Um, I’m seeing a list of things you get in the gem store… that you’d get through the gem store. Including some achievement points, since that already happens with minis.

Only new thing I noticed is ‘port to friend’ and I’d expect that to be available as a gem store item too.

So they’re tinkering with a new scheme for bundling stuff they already sell. Not exactly cause for panic.

Chrispy.5641:

you are performing miracles spending all your time writing all these summaries. Keep up the good work.

Indeed, at the very least I think that the [promised] NPC that explains previous living stories should be named Bezagron .

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

VOLKON.1290:

Jahroots.6791:

I kind of like the idea of open world PvP, but it wouldn’t fit in GW2 at all. For starters, there’s next to nothing going on in most maps.

I’m sure there’s quite a few people who’d form a guild for the sole purpose of ganking and griefing people in the champion trains though, lol.

How would the game differentiate between who’s allied with who or enemies with who with regards to combo fields, AoE hitting whomever, etc? This isn’t like WvW with definite sides. In PvE we’re all on the same side.

In short, it wouldn’t. Open world PvP is simply an all out brawl. Any alliance is generally verbal between players, which could easily dissolve and result in backstabbing.

Which is why it would never happen… they’d have to basically rewrite the code for the PvE worlds and would completely go back on the whole concept of working together with everyone whether you’re partied or not.

OK, now that this idea is dead, who wants pie?

Devata.6589:

Let me say something about this. To make a game more skill-based requires 2 or 3 elements.

1 Very good AI. Don’t make a boss stronger by giving him more HP or damage or some by giving him some ‘tricks’ but by making him smarter, so a better AI. This however is also the hardest solution.

I think it’s also the one which is more likely to have errors crop up or have the AI ‘break down’ . . . keeping this in mind for future releases down the line is the best course right now because they have more time to be tested than something being patched to live on existing things.

2 Add randomness to it (so also randomness in the AI). As en example I will not take AI but a JP. Once you master a JP it becomes a trick but what if you have to jump on moving stones however the movement, speed and so on are completely random. Then it becomes really a skill thing especially to do it multiple times. Only thing to be careful of then is that the randomness does not make it impossible in some situations meaning it becomes more luck then skill. But when done correctly also in AI then randomness is very important for kills, else stuff becomes a trick you need to learn.

I’d say with regards to jumping puzzles, the idea someone mentioned of adding “gambits” of sorts . . . “now do the jumping puzzle as a charr”, “your abilities are now locked”, sort of thing.

3 Roles.. If you want to also take the team-work skill into the overall picture that is. Then very specific roles that need each other to survive and reach the goal is a must. Not needed when you do not take the team-work skill into consideration.

There was that in Urgoz’s Warren where there was one room you absolutely needed Necrotic Traversal or similar skills to proceed through. I wasn’t very fond of the idea then and still am not now . . .

adagiophoto.4512:

Sorry, I can’t keep up with this thread. I just jump in every so often, and then jump out.

On the subject of subclasses, I really feel like in this system class specialization is accomplished with weapon skills. Aesthetically it would be nice to say, “I’m an assassin thief” or “I’m a templar guardian,” but as far as mechanics and playstyle, that role is determined by weapon and utility choices. I feel like adding more weapons would be a better way to add diversity rather than subclasses.

A hammer warrior is a different beast from a greatsword or rifle warrior or from a hammer guardian. I wonder how subclasses would be any more of or a different distinction, other than being a more permanent choice. I would think that the better design process at this point would be to look at each class and decide what it is missing and build from there, either with new utilities, traits or weapons. I think there are so many good (and bad) weapons that could be added that would accomplish the task.

I’d like to give an example of subclasses via weapons. This is an imperfect example, granted but I think it illustrates the point and gives room to think about it.

In a lot of class suggestion threads, people ask for a druid class. Players then proceed to tell them to play a ranger or a norn elementalist. If we were to add a weapon to the ranger class that would make the ranger play more like a druid, it would give more options to the players who want that playstyle or aesthetic. For example, give the ranger a staff (not melee). The skills on that weapon would consist of nature-style magics. Combine that with the right set of traits and utilities and then you would have a good druid-like class. Though, ANet would have to make an armor set or two that would aesthetically support that character type.

Just a thought.

The problem is they’ll end up like every other games pvp servers. Dead, with the few people left whining that the population is gone being the cause of them leaving in the first place.

Mindless gank servers are just that: Mindless ganking. Full PvP servers have a shorter life cycle than a triple A battery trying to crank a car.

Open world (non consensual) PvP is despicable. It’s just for sadistic people who want to gank, bully and harass others.

This is my first post in the forums I believe and I am making it because of how much I have enjoyed reading all of your ideas and hope I can contribute to the discussion even in a small way.

I was thinking about the acquisition side of things, specifically the mission based ones revolving either around the orders or a kind of personal quest line to unlock/acquire the desired step in the progression.

I think player triggered dynamic events for single steps in the process of the unlocking could be one option.

DiogoSilva mentioned this in his mini-dungeons post except I am thinking the player currently pursuing mastery etc. would be the Only trigger as opposed to it being a timed event, or the result of an open dynamic event chain. To me, making it something more personal in scale.

As an example:
A character could receive notice of a dangerous risen enemy that has popped up in the Maguma Jungle and the Vigil has asked the Character, as a champion of the order, to go deal with it.

When the player arrives in the area of the report the player would specifically choose to trigger the event. It would be an open event in which other players in the area would receive a dynamic event notice for and can participate in.
The player would receive a completion for the, for lack of a better term, step and the other players participating could receive the usual dynamic event completion rewards.

To try and explain a little further; I was thinking of this simply as a mechanic in how the player could pursue the horizontal progression. I was not thinking of the full system of mechanics that would could be needed or used. I saw a few posts about the different variety of mission types and themes that the player could be required to complete to unlock skills, weapons, traits, armors etc. and I think this could be One way of doing those missions. It might not be for each step, but maybe as the culmination/end of a number of prior steps or the result of meeting certain conditions. One tool in the box so to speak.

The “player events” could not be limited to just Kill X creatures or kill Veteran Y but could use the exiting dynamic event styles such as escorts, collection, scavenger hunts etc. or possibly introduce new ones/hybrids such as a race between an NPC. Through gangs of enemies or not, possibly with a timer: “stop him before he reaches the ship or we’re sunk!”

Players participating in the “player event” could also receive some kind of reward relating to the horizontal progression the triggering player is working on. If for example all the steps are linear they could receive partial credit for that step, or perhaps unlock it for themselves. The dynamic event UI notice could also be updated to so say something to the effect of “CHARACTER NAME is fighting for their life – help them!”

Participation and completion of the player triggered events could also be used as a way to communicate to other players the existence of the horizontal progression that is available them in the future through the completion text. In the case of the Master suggestion, when the player receives their completion notice the text could read “You helped TRIGGERING PLAYER NAME defeat Oogalook The Wrathful and learn their prestige skill” or something to that effect.

One of the reasons this appeals to me is that it gets people, out in the world participating and working together which is one of my favorite things about GW2 and I myself would enjoy seeing that in the horizontal progression. It also has the feel of me affecting the world a little more in that I am making the event happen rather than me responding to the events of the world.

I don’t know what technical limitations this would come up against, or what ramifications this might result in play-wise for all players in the zones, but wanted to try and contribute.

Sorry, I can’t keep up with this thread. I just jump in every so often, and then jump out.

On the subject of subclasses, I really feel like in this system class specialization is accomplished with weapon skills. Aesthetically it would be nice to say, “I’m an assassin thief” or “I’m a templar guardian,” but as far as mechanics and playstyle, that role is determined by weapon and utility choices. I feel like adding more weapons would be a better way to add diversity rather than subclasses.

A hammer warrior is a different beast from a greatsword or rifle warrior or from a hammer guardian. I wonder how subclasses would be any more of or a different distinction, other than being a more permanent choice. I would think that the better design process at this point would be to look at each class and decide what it is missing and build from there, either with new utilities, traits or weapons. I think there are so many good (and bad) weapons that could be added that would accomplish the task.