Guild Wars 2

The Lost Witch.7601:

But what can we give as a skill based reward that isn’t either:

a) too awesome to lock out for those without the required skills. (Be it strategic, social, linguistical, mathematical, musical, memory or reflex based) For instance, access to Elona would be too awesome.

b) making the economical difference between those with the preferred skills and those without too big. (If skilled players suddenly start earning twice the money, that means that those without those skills will have to pay much more for all the things they would like to get due to inflation)

c) making the game easier for those who are good at it. (Locking combat-improvements behind skill-gates sounds like a terrible idea)

d) locking off player interaction. (If doing things alone is more rewarding than playing in a group… I don’t think that works well for an MMORPG)

e) gating players into groups. (This is what fractals are doing in a way: they seperate the skilled veterans from the newbies with an agony lock.) This makes it harder for guildmembers to play with one another.

f) offending. (Imagine all ‘unskilled’ players having a green aura, while all ‘skilled’ players have a blue one…)

g) infuriating. (RNG coming in to make the difference between the players skilled enough to beat the challenge once or twice, and those who can do it five times a day)

And we’re down to a pretty short list.

Especially if we take into account that hiding skins behind a skill-gate is also slightly problematic:

If we hide too many skins behind skill-gates, then the masses won’t get many skins since there are only so many dev resources. And if they are too awesome… we’re not complying to rule a).

If we hide too few skins behind skill-gates, then all the skilled players get the same thing. And what’s the fun in everyone looking the same? (Though the obsidian armor-masses in GW1 beg to differ I guess.)

Unless… it’s all just to show off your accomplishments.

A title, or a hat/backpiece of some sort? Or a trophy to put next to the fireplace?

At the very least, a harmless achievement would be nice. Perhaps one of those that you cannot see on the list, or that doesn’t give any achievement points… an achievement that is just there to tell you that you’ve accomplished something awesome… but not part of a ‘to do list’.

But from what I hear … the skilled players want more than that. For me it is enough. And all the text before this was just to explain why I think that it should be enough.

I would consider skins to be harmless enough as a reward, this seems to be an issue exclusive to guildwars, a unique skin was always an acceptable reward for completing hard content.
Titles are good and all but, you are limited to one and they add no visual flavor, I often miss what title a person has unless I’m fighting a mesmer.

Your points appear to be getting nearly as hyperbolic as mine (skill locking an entire continent?), I was only ever suggesting skins primarily ( I did suggest non-specific title to new skill unlocks to but that wasn’t a fully fleshed out idea).

on your point about locked skins, we have very few locked skins, fractal skins being the only kittene, Dungeons could be considered a medium one?, other than that people are able to buy all the skins.
We could do with some rare skins in the game, I mean genuinely rare not because you need a ticket from the black lion rare. I would like to see situations where I go “I’ve never seen anyone carry that before” , “Oh wow is that? it is! a holy moon staff only 100 people on our server have those so far, maybe if I work hard enough I might get it some day”

I disagree on your point about skilled players being unable to earn more too but would like that to be treated as separate from my desire for unique skins.
Having to farm for something is always a punishment, getting better or playing actively should naturally reward more, all players can improve over time a skill gate in not forever in most cases.

So one line sum up:
I vote for unique skins gated behind skill content, both group and solo.

Okey crazy conspiracy theory time.
What if we actually got this all backward. What if its not Primordius who is controlling scarlet but the other way round.

What if by mixing chaotic magic with dragonic magic scarlet managed to somehow stop and control primordius.

What if the purpose of the nightmare tower was to create a hallucinogenic which is the last ingredient in scarlets plan to control the dragon. The thumpers might be there to trigger and earth quake in order to open a chasm to let primordius out once he is under scarlet’s control.

Then there are the steam creatures. We already kinda know they probably come from the future (infinity ball personal story)… what if they’re nothing more then scarlet harnessing the firey power of primordius / destroyers in order to power an exo skeleton armor to enhance her legion of minions?

It would kinda fit in a way… the dredge / flame legion alliance gave scarlet the fire based technology / magic interface

The sky pirates / inquest could provide the technology of the armor itself as well as the pirates capturing the creatures that go in the armor

the nightmare alliance the hallucinogen for the control aspect

and destroyers the core to power it all.

crazy I know but kinda fits too.

Patrikan Habaton.2548:

So you agree that reaction time is a skillbased System ? since you say and other skillbased System.. so you just don’t want have skillchallenges in the game because you are afraid that People Show off they’re accomplishments and you feel like they’re elitists cause of that?

I don’t think any of us are against having skill challenges in the game. It is more about how they should be recognized and rewarded.

When Tequatl came out, I’ve spend days co-organizing the server for a kill. The difficulty lay mostly in getting everyone together and explaining what needs to be done. Reaction time wasn’t really a factor in that.

Getting that kill was arguably harder for me than for most other players there. (I’ve spend more time and effort on making it work) Yet I did not get any rewards for it. (In fact, it cost me a small fortune on feasts and potions to share )

The reward lay in getting the kill, accomplishing something that was difficult for me to do. I was rewarded by the joy on teamspeak.

On another occasion I was slaying a troll champion of the group event kind on my own. I got butchered a few times, but made a few build changes to eventually come out on top. My reward was a champion bag, but more importantly, the thrill of a challenging victory. Reaction time certainly was a factor in this fight, and probably the reason why I had so much trouble with it. Because I’m lousy at thinking fast.

There are two things that I am getting at with these anekdotes:

• Not all ‘skills’ that should be valuable in this game is based on reaction times. (In my opinion… the focus lays too much on dodging )

• Challenge doesn’t always need to be rewarded through status or wealth in order to be satisfying. Although I agree… something would be nice.

But what can we give as a skill based reward that isn’t either:

a) too awesome to lock out for those without the required skills. (Be it strategic, social, linguistical, mathematical, musical, memory or reflex based) For instance, access to Elona would be too awesome.

b) making the economical difference between those with the preferred skills and those without too big. (If skilled players suddenly start earning twice the money, that means that those without those skills will have to pay much more for all the things they would like to get due to inflation)

c) making the game easier for those who are good at it. (Locking combat-improvements behind skill-gates sounds like a terrible idea)

d) locking off player interaction. (If doing things alone is more rewarding than playing in a group… I don’t think that works well for an MMORPG)

e) gating players into groups. (This is what fractals are doing in a way: they seperate the skilled veterans from the newbies with an agony lock.) This makes it harder for guildmembers to play with one another.

f) offending. (Imagine all ‘unskilled’ players having a green aura, while all ‘skilled’ players have a blue one…)

g) infuriating. (RNG coming in to make the difference between the players skilled enough to beat the challenge once or twice, and those who can do it five times a day)

And we’re down to a pretty short list.

Especially if we take into account that hiding skins behind a skill-gate is also slightly problematic:

If we hide too many skins behind skill-gates, then the masses won’t get many skins since there are only so many dev resources. And if they are too awesome… we’re not complying to rule a).

If we hide too few skins behind skill-gates, then all the skilled players get the same thing. And what’s the fun in everyone looking the same? (Though the obsidian armor-masses in GW1 beg to differ I guess.)

Unless… it’s all just to show off your accomplishments.

A title, or a hat/backpiece of some sort? Or a trophy to put next to the fireplace?

At the very least, a harmless achievement would be nice. Perhaps one of those that you cannot see on the list, or that doesn’t give any achievement points… an achievement that is just there to tell you that you’ve accomplished something awesome… but not part of a ‘to do list’.

But from what I hear … the skilled players want more than that. For me it is enough. And all the text before this was just to explain why I think that it should be enough.

Devata.6589:

The Lost Witch.7601:

cesmode.4257:

I disagree that the WXP system is verticle. You become stronger but not in the sense that it makes it verticle. In a straight up fight between you and me using only the class abilities at our disposal, pure skill (and, yes gear) will determine who wins. Having a fully maxed out Siege Mastery or Guard Mastery(I cannot remember the name) will make little difference.

The difference between ascended and exotic gear is also little. But it is there. And the thing is… it is not always a straight up fight between you and me.

Let’s put it like this:

You have siege mastery and guard mastery and are therefor better at using siege and fighting guards.

I only have guard mastery. This makes me less in potential in the grand scheme of battle. (I may still be a better player, though unlikely , but not having siege mastery makes it so that you have more potential than I have)

What I propose is a system in which you’d have to choose between guard mastery and siege mastery. You just cannot have both. You may have unlocked more different options, and through earning ‘respec’ points, you may be more flexible. But you would not simply be stronger. Sure, the ability to respec in more different directions can be useful in niche situations, but I would not ever feel like I am worse than you. Since I have my own niche to shine in. (Slaying guards… ok, not so shiny a niche )

Ofcourse, in this regard, you may be able to spec into more than one such lines. But there should be a limit, and it should be reachable for casual players.

How does that change anything? Yeah you can unlock only one thing but how about somebody who has not unlocked it yet. Then it also says nothing about the skills.

I think the solution is to make it all more in reach. Maybe make it so then you can earn all points even in 4 hours of playing but they reset after one week.

Did you ever play Weinstein ET? There they have a system like that. You can ‘level up’. And it’s pretty easy leveling up. Just a few hours and your fully leveling up with your class but you will lose your points after some time.

Then you still have a benefit from playing but everything is easily in reach for everybody it stays interesting and you never have the problem that new players get behind to much.

We already have the normal char level as level. No need to add other types of level on top of that.

I am afraid that I haven’t played many different games.

My idea would change the game in that it wouldn’t take literally forever to max out your character.

Now don’t get me wrong: I wouldn’t want to see this idea happen in PvE. But if it comes, then I would much rather see it in a specialisation version than the current WxP version.

Unlocking shouldn’t take ages either. I would be fine with it taking about… say 30 hours to get all of the unlocks. And about 10 to get all of the points. The progression would lay more in specialising than in getting better. And unlocking more things to specialize could be done on a whim. (Oh let’s go for this! And then spend an hour unlocking it through… I don’t know what yet?)

As for the weekly reset… I think it may become tiresome to ‘prepare’ for the week? And it could be a bit weird to lose your progression? (But… didn’t I learn how to shoot a cannon properly last week?)

But I am all for ‘in reach’, because that is what is putting me off so much about the WxP system aswell as ascended gear… it is out of reach.

timmyf.1490:

Very true! I’ve just not seen a subclass proposal yet which adds substantial horizontal progression without adding extra grind or power creep that adds to the game in a way the current systems cannot support.

Im not sure I necessarily want a subclass system at all. Id rather play the mesmer that I have,but with more abilities. I would rather play a ranger with more abilities rather than the ability to shapeshift into a druid, for example.

I think finding and/or unlocking additional skills is good enough.

Cliff.8679:

timmyf.1490:

I’ve felt this for awhile, though I still don’t quite know how to phrase it. Wondering if others might have an opinion.

As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.

I’ve suggested zones without waypoints as a way around this. Does anybody else feel the same way? Or am I romanticizing the runs from towns to far-flung locations in GW1?

I had a discussion about this recently with some friends. It’s a bit offtopic, but yes. Waypoints are a fantastic convenience, but they have the side-effect of making the world feel a lot smaller and diminishing the feeling of exploration. One thing that this game completely lacks, which I’ve always actually kind of enjoyed in MMOs in a kind of masochistic way, is actual fear. It’s hard to be afraid in a new, unknown place when you know you can just respawn at the waypoint a minute back. I would love to see some experimentation with regions that don’t have waypoints.

I call that region “Orr” because more often than not there are tons of waypoints and all of them are contested

ColinJohanson.2394:

I think we have a lot of fun ideas in here for the journey unlock specific aspects of that mastery, but what if you first had to unlock the core “mastery” track, which then allowed you collect the smaller components? What kind of experience do you think would be compelling here as an over-all journey?

How to Introduce Players to Mastery
This one seems clear to me – the Personal Story alerts. That way it pops up on their screen, and since it involves developing their character and evolving his/her particular journey that makes sense. This way even casual players who just log in every now and then will have a pop-up to get them started and alert them to the new system. Perhaps even a cut-scene introducing the new kind of Mastery to be obtained and who will be guiding their progress —a themed NPC that relates to the area of mastery, like the Assassin thief, or the Paladin guardian, or the Sorceror elementalist.

The Journey to Mastery
I can’t remember who said this, but each chunk of this journey should probably be able to be done in less than 2-3 hours so that even a casual player can feel a sense of accomplishment towards their goal. At each major waypoint along the journey to mastery you meet with the Master NPC, who unveils the new weapon/skill/skin you have obtained for your next step in mastery.

Steps of Mastery
New weapons (!!!!!!1!one!1!!) – if this comes first, it is immediately apparent to players that Mastery is worth pursuing, and it immediately offers fresh fun gameplay.

New skills – I would like to see at least one new skill for each slot related to mastery. Learn a heal, learn 3 utilities, and an Elite once you complete mastery. These skills should complement EXISTING aspects of the class so that they open new doors, and hopefully buff some of the potential areas of building which are currently under used.

Purpose of Skills – I think the two best things that could be done are to open new build options, and to make skills more dynamic. By dynamic, I mean that they make combat more fast-paced, feel more epic, and thus more fun. One easy way to do this is by adding lots more movement elements (particularly on the vertical, rather than just horizontal, planes). Leaps to enemies, ground-targeted leaps, leaps to allies to add defense, pushes, pulls… these are all really cool and work SO well with the dodge mechanic already in place because they encourage skillful and strategic play both in pve and pvp.

New Skins/Titles – The weapons and skills should all be obtainable in each step in a few hours, but then there can be a whole nother level of expressing Mastery which is more time intensive to unlock vanity items related to the mastery.

Mastery Content
The weapons and skills need to all be unlockable by a single player, and could be progressed through a combination of open world and instanced actions similar to Personal Story. After that, however, the idea of Mastery can be brought to bear on a lot of aspects of the game to freshen up other aspects of the game. Vanity skins/titles can be earned once Mastery has been demonstrated in various ways. Many of these suggestions have been made elsewhere, but a few of my favorites:

Mastery level dungeons – Kick up the difficulty, add new mechanics, and have players conquer every path of every dungeon. Or give currency rewards/account bound crafting items for completing Mastery level dungeons.

Mastery of Vanquishment – Vanquish idea, branded through Mastery to show your total domination of a zone/instance.

Mastery of Mechanics – Untie the mastery from specific content, and instead relate it to specific actions like successful dodges, cleansing conditions, killing certain types of mobs, interrupts, etc.

Mastery of World Bosses – Encourage people to do the events or world bosses which are sometimes missed. I think the “Expeditions” NPC in major cities to recruit people for events which are live/are going live is a great way to do that.

ColinJohanson.2394:

The global dominance is a really interesting concept, and something we played with a bit back in Gw1 with the luxons/kurzicks but never really pushed far enough to make into a compelling system. Some questions and challenges that immediately come to mind with this would include: How would players playing in an overflow map make a difference, or feel like their time is being well spent? How would this work if we pursued underflow servers? How would this work for worlds that have relatively medium/low populations, or for players who play at off hours (say Australians). ? How would new players understand, and be motivated by this system, and should they be? And most importantly: How would this result in unlocking an advanced profession or advanced horizontal progression for your character? [I get how a system like this could be used for more world bonus specific rewards which is really cool, but I don’t fully see the character specific journey which was my original question]

Hi Colin, I’ll respond in a list fashion:

How would players playing in an overflow map make a difference, or feel like their time is being well spent? — Treat this as you do the WvW system. Queue for the zone, and head to another zone in the mean time. There are many great zones to choose from. I highly, highly doubt every zone will be so populated that you cannot play in any zone. Keep in mind people will still be in other parts of the game such as sPvP, dungeons, WvW, etc. This is just to get some of the players out of LA and into the world.

How would this work for worlds that have relatively medium/low populations, or for players who play at off hours (say Australians). ? — Are you able to tune event frequency per server? If so, thats something to explore and tweak overtime as you see the population ebb and flow of servers. But then again, this is an issue dealt with in WvW. How are you handling it there? If the answer is that you aren’t due to XYZ reasons, then the same applies here.

How would this work if we pursued underflow servers? — I honestly don’t know and is a very big ‘what if’ if you chose to go with underflow. I suppose you wouldn’t be able to. Its a trade off, but one that I think is OK because with the GD system you wouldn’t need underflow servers…many people should be out in the world at that point.

How would new players understand, and be motivated by this system, and should they be? — Utilize the scouting system. You put these scouts into the world to show us key points of interest in the local area. Expand that system further to show us some more of the events that contribute to the GD system.

How would this result in unlocking an advanced profession or advanced horizontal progression for your character? — As some other posters have suggested…have zone based skins that are unlocked by participating in many zone events. Also, as you continue to level at max level, via skill points, you can also open up a GUI that has a honeycomb, triangle, or some shape that has vexels or boxes or something that require skill points to be spent to work toward horizontal progression skins. So if Greatswords are in the upper right hand corner, you spend your skill points in that direction until you reach the unlockable Greatsword skins.

Aside from the last paragraph, most of these systems are already in game for you to expand on. BTW, I never played GW1, but it sounds like something I would have been interested in, especially with a system like this.

DiogoSilva.7089:

CONCEPT FOR OPEN-WORLD MINI-SCENARIOS

And now let me expand this idea further.

There would be many, many mini-scenarios to unlock, and players would get access to a tome (or a UI menu) that would register all of mini-scenarios completed. The entire Journey would not to simply do one of those, but all of them, unlocking many rewards along the way, and a final one for them all.

But how would the player get to know where to find those mini-scenarios, and what would players need to meet a specific condition to get the unique reward out of each mini-scenario?

Basically, as players do orders quests, follow the main storyline, or even talk to NPCs (to which players would be guided to, mostly through orders quests and main story too), players would unlock hints and fragments about hidden places, special powers, etc. Those hints and fragments would be automatically placed on the tome/ menu UI, and upon collecting all of them for a specific mini-scenario, they would be able to get the unique reward out of it, get a vague map marking to where those mini-dungeons could be found (players would still need to explore that zone of the map until they find the exact place), and they would be able to activate the required pre- dynamic events on-demand (until they got the unique reward – once so, they would lose the ability to start the pre-events on demand).

THE HERO’S JOURNEY

Each quest for each scenario would have the following gameplay and storyline plot structure:

Exposition

• Players would aknowledge the existence of a specific “quest” from anywhere within a story or orders mission, and be guided to several NPCs and locations where they would be able to collect hints, myths, fragments or relics by exploring the world (and specifically outposts, towns, temples, etc).
• Each hint, myth, etc would tell us a bit of Tyria’s lore, and introduce us to a mini-storyline. Also, the NPC’s dialogue would show us how the NPCs themselves feel or think about those hints, whispers and myths, making the world feel more lively.

Inciting Incident

• But not all of it would revolve around NPC talking or relic-finding, no. Somewhere through this journey, some (otherwise automatic) open-world events would be activated on demand. By this time, the mini-storyline would start to develop, an antagonist or a problem would be presented to us, and the story would get more interesting. Also, of course, battles.

Rising action

• Finally, the player has collected all the hints/ whispers/ myths/ relics/ fragments, and they have done some required events along the way! Their tome/ menu UI is now filled with new Tyrian lore! And not only that, but players would finally have a vague idea of where to go for the epic, challenging dynamic event chain!
• After exploring the map a bit on the location where it is expected to find that epic event, the player/s would start it on-demand, and a map-wide message would follow.
• The event itself would be a bit longer than normal, the story would get more intense/ dangerous/ intriguing (mostly through gameplay), and the path to the mini-scenario would open up at the end, with another map-wide message again.

Climax

• The mini-dungeon/ mini-scenario itself. Some skippable(?) cutscenes (yes, in the open world!). Story-relevant battle scenarios and boss fights, some lore revelations and plot twists, and some pathos.

Conclusion

• The NPCs involved in the mini-story would get their own stories reach an end. Normal players that joined for the ride would get a simple reward, but the players who were doing this whole quest from the beginning will get, in addition to the normal reward, THE unique reward. Another map-wide message again, this time announcing the names of those players, as they get bathed in light for all other players nearby to see. Their own role in this mini-story would end, too, and be bestowed with a new subclass tier/ mastery/ advancement.
• The tome/ menu UI would register this whole quest’s sequence, and store all Tyrian’s lore discovered.

The Never Ending Journey

• Still plenty more epic events and mini-scenarios to unlock! Many of them probably harder or more complex than the previous ones, and to be found in other zones. Many more stories to be told! Much of Tyria’s world to be yet discovered!
• And Anet can simply add more stories in new patches, making use of existing maps, meta living world stories or existing lore, or even when adding entire new zones to explore.

Morrigan.2809:

she seems very tom boy to me now

Caithe is rather masculine, and that’s not a bad thing at all. I like your new look a lot.

The mysterious ‘E’ has warned us recently that a war is coming, plus the rumours of a massive attack on Lions Arch, Tyria will burn.

Anyone else hoping that Lions Arch gets completely destroyed? Not like mad king destroyed the fountain, or the KarKa destroyed the Lighthouse, i mean full on death and destruction across the entire map.

Maybe thats why they were selling the infinity royal terrace passes because Lions Arch will be unusable soon and we will all be forced back into our home cities.

JayMack.8295:

Something tells me it isn’t Primordus or Destroyers. If you take the lines literally, people of Tyria know Primordus and the Destroyers exist – it wouldn’t be a ‘secret deep below’. It also isn’t a secret to us players, either. It may be related to Primordus and the destroyers, but I don’t think they’re the ‘secret’.

But when you look at where the destroyers first starting appearing (GW1 era in the dephs of the northern shiverpeaks) and where you can find them in GW2, it’s a huge advancement, and moreso than any of the other minions. You don’t find minions of kralkatorrik in Maguuma, nor do you find Jormags minions anywhere other than the shiverpeaks.

The only other spread that was on a larger impact was the Undead, which became a direct impact.

Primordus’s minions have been primarily underground, thus unseen to the majority of races. We only know about them since we have encountered them in various parts of Tyria.

One thing is known though, and that’s they cover more ground than any other known minion. I can find them on all parts of the Tyrian Continent. It’s really interesting if you think about how far they’ve moved without much resistance.

There’s a TARDIS under Tyria.

Mint Rain.6798:

Promote productivity. Some of you are already doing this but I encourage the rest of you to do it. That way, these threads stop getting so much overlook because of whining, and may actually get reviewed and tips even taken.

Right.

Here’s what I’d hope for in player housing, and think this would be a good basis for people to actually enjoy the option of it.

First. Give me an instanced house, so that it doesn’t take up in-game real estate like UO’s housing did. Allow me to drop a marker or something so people could be invited into my house, but it wouldn’t need to be tied to a specific location X other people might have assigned to them. In fact, it should be something which could be upgraded over time from simple small space to a mansion.

Secondly. Allow me some personalization, and something which makes achievement hunting worthwhile. For instance, for my slayer achievements I can have a trophy room showing them off in various stages of “neat” to “that’s awesome” depending on which of the four ranks I’ve completed. Or let me have a “workshop” which picks up increasingly notable tools or workbenches based on my crafting achievements. Let me get banners hung for some of the other achievements, such as a Vigil Banner if I have completed the personal story to the point I’m a full member.

Note this is where a lot of the work could be sunk into it, and while it would be a daunting list it would probably take about as much time as a full month of Living Story update work.

Third. Allow me to use some crafting materials and skills to improve things. Let there be an “artisan” NPC or somesuch I can go to and hand over . . . say . . . 1 gold and 50 Bolts of Silk and my bedroom will have drapes I can have made to a dye channel or two I currently own. (Make use of that dye collection!) In this case, going back to the artisan would let you remake it without needing to spend on the curtains being made again. Get the picture? Allow me some real customization in a modular manner of furniture.

Fourth. Take the whole journal idea from the personal story record and tie it to a writing desk or something. Now add entries for Living Story chapters where at least one achievement was completed (to measure if the player actually took part and thus the character would know). If the meta achievement was completed, a second page is added with, say, hidden text. Be it plot related (notes on Scarlet’s ramblings, recounting about the Nightmare Chamber contents) or just plain funny (complaints about Hobo-Tron, commentary about how the Labyrinthine Cliffs were very dangerous to navigate….)

Fifth. Get the idea of “PvE Locker” for skins and make use of it. There’s a closet or chest somewhere in the house where you can go and pull out weapon skins you’ve stored there. Add a salvage option from non-basic kits where you can “Convert to blueprint” or something similar and you can store them in your house to remove later and apply to a weapon which you really like the stats of but is godawful in appearance (Orrian stuff, for instance). Heck, break this off into “part two” of a month of Living Story where you introduce housing.

Lastly. All these things? Don’t initially tie anything to the Gem Store other than cosmetic options. I know it’s tempting to sell upgrades to the home through it but unless the change doesn’t add function, don’t do it.

Mythx.9847:

I am not really savvy on the background of Anet and where there roots are, but I have noticed that many companies seem to support “censorship” of certain conversations from taking place. I understand having rules that surround the use of clean words, but I think one of the most important parts to a successful business is criticized feedback. I am not sure where the line is drawn and how well Anet moderators handle this, but I would like to see more companies start allowing more “freedom of expression” within there products/services.

There’s a difference between constructive criticism and criticism. In my experience, the moderators aren’t quashing all negative feedback – they’re keeping the discussion civilized and removing posts that can have a bad impact on the game or players (accusations that players are scammers, exploit details, etc.)

ANet has an interest in the forums being a friendly place where most folks feel comfortable participating in the discussions. More feedback from more of the playerbase is definitely of more value than allowing an angry subset of the playerbase to rant unrestricted. I read the Battle.net forums, but I don’t post there because of the unfettered nastiness. I’d rather the moderation be a little too strict (yes, I’ve had posts moderated) than the forums turn into a free-for-all brawl.

The CDIs are so much more useful than the suggestions forum that it makes sense to get rid of it, honestly. The CDIs are focussed, solve problems, and don’t give you the impression that no-one’s paying attention.

I think dispersing Suggestions to the relevant forums makes perfect sense and support the change 100%. This is expected to be accompanied by more dev interaction in those forums, which will be awesome if it works out (please make them feel welcome!).

I also like the idea of splitting the profession forums into PvP and PvE sections, because they have totally separate builds and objectives, but if keeping them together makes it easier for the devs to participate, then I’m okay with that too.

Just the fact that we can now post suggestions in each subforum is great.
The suggestion subforum was just so huge, such a mess that nobody would read it, was just “hey I throw a suggestion here and I’m going away”.
So just for that, it’s cool. Other than that, I haven’t yet noticed any difference.

Also when I saw the announcement, I had hoped for improvements to the forum long asked such as search option functional and a “mark all read” button

CreativeAnarchy.6324:

Threads were moved into suggestion when they were a suggestion so that is what that sub was for. If it was supposed to be a discussion, then phrasing it in a suggestion isn’t a very good way to start a thread.

Asking “would changing X improve the game” would get you moved to the suggestions forum. The mods were trigger happy, to say the least.

Not having a suggestions forum to move posts to? For some reason, I see them sitting in their chairs, twitching with moderation withdrawal.

Note to self: do not run minion master build in orr.

I find that building for condition damage (and obviously survival) is the way to go. Conditions aren’t mitigated by armor or toughness and you can dish em out and then kite away while they eat away at your enemies.

Leveled my thief with conditions and it was EZ-mode using dodge-trops, caltrops, and D/D #3. Just mad stacks of bleeds and stealth away.

Obviously, different mechanics for guardian; never got mine past 45 due to boredom. But I’d think that if you can keep burns rolling you’ve got a shot. Maybe swap scepter to mace?

Just wanted to say keep on with the updates! I’m really enjoying this thread, and also picking up useful builds for my Guardian, who has been sitting at 17 for a while now (like you, I tried a couple of times but never “got” it).

I, too, have a newfound appreciation for condition stacking (even though Necromancer is my main and favourite class, for some reason, condition did always seem never to pan out how I wanted it to when I built for it so ended up going mostly power, which seemed stupid). Started a condition Ranger last weekend and have her up to level 28 and breezing through most content. So am re-equipping my Necromancer to enhance her already impressive condi abilities, and may just take that route with the Guardian and spec for fire damage.

Bring on conditions!

Yeah, I specced my Necro out in a hybrid of Rampager and Beserker (mostly Beserker), which does okay for damage, but she feels very squishy now (despite having a second health bar when she goes into Shroud). I’d love to see then remove the condition cap as well – or at least raise it to double or treble what it currently stands at. It pains me to see another Necro at a group event or similar and know that we’re basically going to be useless now.

Once I get my Ranger to a level where I start bothering what she’s wearing, I’ll be going Rampager’s for sure, but I had never considered building any conditions considerations into a Guardian. It’s something that I’m definitely going to take a look at, maybe this weekend.

Morrigan.2809:

Very impressive!
I agree and my Necro is probably my favourite character to play – I adore her.

I play axe/warhorn. scepter/dagger + wells on her and I love how when she twirls her little hand death happens

I play a little against the grain, axe/dagger and staff, or axe/dagger and sceptre dagger. I weaken with axe and my little army goes marching in. Managed to kill all the final mobs in the Reaper of Grenth mission without aggroing the boss using them, so I could deal with him without adds! And I love the staff, when the shadow scythe appears on it.

If I was ever going to try for a 0-80 with no deaths challenge, I’d take a necro without question.

I once tried to Fraps myself defeating Retribution on an lvl 50 with all 50 Rare gear, but forgot that you only get a couple of minutes record time on the free version.

Everytime I was up in the heights #vista looking down at the world, I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be great if I could be able to parachute down from here!

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I’m not sure which gathering tool would work best for silk and gossamer, but other than that and wool, everything else would work with existing game tools. This would help increase the quantities of cloth in the game, and give us a guaranteed means of acquisition.

Leather would probably require more work, as well as the addition of a ‘skinning’ means of gathering. I don’t want to see skinning implemented in the same way as WoW though. My thought was of using a nomadic herder npc, which we help him ‘skin’ animals that he’s already working on, rather than killing and skinning them ourselves (could get kind of gory). Since I don’t know precisely how Anet’s system is set up, I’m not sure what their capabilities are, which makes it a little more difficult to brainstorm this idea more fully.

There is some precedent for sickles cracking into non-vegetables (clams, coral) so continuing to use the sickles for silk and gossamer probably wouldn’t be too off. Needing orichalcum sickles to harvest gossamer might be a bit weird, but maybe it’s that only orichalcum can maintain an edge sharp enough to recover the gossamer without ruining it or something like that.

Hides could be done simply through being an automatic drop off certain creatures – gathering them could simply be a matter of hunting the relevant creatures.

I just started my 10th screenshot folder, each containing 999 pictures roughly. I take screenshots of everything, crop them, chop them, paint them, post them…

Yeah, I love the graphics in this game.