Guild Wars 2

As I was coming up with ideas to answer the question of: Which ONE content/suggestion type would be best for the game in improving horizontal character progression? I started thinking about how player housing could interweave into other aspects of the game.

Then I thought: What better exercise for planning this than to write my own set of imaginary game update notes?

DISCLAIMER: Despite my tone or choice of words in this post, I am not a developer. If you didn’t gather that already.

Introducing…

They could make better use of the Heralds in every city by having them give cinematics of old/upcoming content. They where sort of supposed to do this but frankly they are not useful at all.

The new story so far video is Awesome! It leaves me excited to see whats in store! However, the cinematic should be available in game.

Most of my friends and guildies don’t really go on the website and haven’t seen the video. Lots of them, who missed earlier living story updates will never know what happened unless they go online and look up the video. most of them probably wont.

What if the cinematic was available by talking to a herald in any major city. This would give players an in-game opportunity to learn about the story. This is something Guild Wars really needs, since most story and lore has to be researched online.

Please bring this cinematic in-game! It would also let players look back and remember living stories years from now.

yes, please bring the cinematic into the game so new players can catch up on the living story.

She’s beautiful now. I like the tomboy look.

Playtime’s over.

I nearly soiled my armor.

’Looking into 2014 and back on the plot of the main story of 2013, many questions remain: why did Scarlet brings these groups together? What did she see when she looked into the eternal alchemy, and how did it change her? What is she trying to accomplish? Is she just nuts, or is there something far more sinister going on? How do each of these moments through 2013 tie together?

The answer to all of these questions await in our four upcoming releases in 2014: and lead to one final moment that will change the face of Tyria forever.’

The LS is a temporary storyline that leads to a permenant conclusion, which will change the face of Tyria forever. I suspect that conclusion and change is the ‘something big’.

Beldin.5498:

I would like to use a sword or greatsword on my necromancer that would do AoE melee damage, and not just single-target like dagger.

Indeed, I would like it to be viable to use a main hand with no offhand on my thief and have a full 5 abilities and not be kitten by the loss of offhand attributes. Bilbo Baggins only needed one sword.

But then I’m going to get hassled by Separatists?!

Healix.5819:

If Lion’s Arch was sieged, from a player’s point of view, the battle should seem too easy. Then suddenly from the other side, <…> destroys a section of the city (insert cinematic). <…> dies and the siege of Lion’s Arch ends in the player’s defeat. Where will you go now? Lion’s Arch was lost.

DR royal terrace!!!

I think it means we’ll have to take the long way around. :/

Best guild housing ever – Crimecraft. We got pole dancers :p

I would like to use a sword or greatsword on my necromancer that would do AoE melee damage, and not just single-target like dagger.

ColinJohanson.2394:

What sort of systems of horizontal progression unlocking would you like to see that’d accompany a system like extended class progression?

Skill quests for utility skills.

Maybe some skill ‘discovery’ via some general world exploration. IE, you pick up an environment weapon to use, and you ‘discover’ a skill that is now permanently added to your available skills.

Signet of capture for elites (might need to stick a skill name “being used” under the boss’s hp bar so we know he has it)

Npc ‘trainers’ with various tasks, quests, instanced missions to earn new weapon skill ‘sets’ IE, a norn trainer would require you to perform various feats of strength and skill, in addition to actually beating him before he would agree to train you in the new skill set. After the ‘initial’ stage, there would be training tasks and quests to earn the skill permanently as well as to learn how to use it. Edit: I should also add that these npcs would be in the world all the time, but not necessarily stationary. You could learn about them from talking to your trainer (when you buy books to unlock traits), from listening to snippets of conversation the npc’s have, or from talking to npcs in general, as these ‘trainers’ should be somewhat noteworthy – great warriors or some such. They should have a reasonable back story to support why you would want to seek them out to train with them.

I really look forward to early next year when the “death Star” (for want of a better term) is fully operational and we are really going to see what this platform can do. Without a shadow of a doubt is completely related to the support and feedback from the community.

That isn’t a moon, it’s a space station… :o

Housing would have to be my boiled down choice. I realize that it might be considered in most games to be a waste of time to implement, but if done right, could branch out to be so much more. Crafting and finding blueprints/trophies among treasure troves would add so much depth to the game without adding anything vertical to it. If these housing areas, could be visited (outside unless made public) by all it could turn into a way to make the housing areas much more social and may even promote block parties.

The way housing is implemented currently (home instance) may be a lovely way to give us mining nodes, but does nothing to add personality to our characters. If you want to expand on the personalities of your characters, other than vanity gear this would, to me, be the best way to go about it.

I started playing on December 7th 2013 and have been thoroughly hooked since. I’ve kept a log of what I love about GW2 compared to my experiences with other MMOs; I played Anarchy Online a LOT and WoW a bit, plus a LOT of a lesser-known game called Eternal Lands.

So, without further ado:

• No-subscription model – it’s what made me buy this game in the first place; had it been subscription oriented I wouldn’t have purchased

• Resetting characters – you can reset and try new things so easily and quickly which is really pleasing and keeps you motivated to play – you haven’t the burden of “if I choose this path with my traits will I permanently ruin my chances of an effective char/build”

• Access to armor – decent lvl 80 armor is relatively accessible and not out of reach for all but the hardcores; though Ascended is there for those who want it!

• Alternative currencies (laurels, dungeon coins etc) enable you access to great items

• Lovely maps – from Avatar to Steampunk

• Graphics are good

• Plenty to do – every area has dynamic local and world events that one can participate in – daily/monthly tasks gives plenty of goals to work on and an easy stream of exp and rewards

• Very easy to travel around

• Very safe to travel around

• Skill points are not just a matter of leveling, you can obtain these through events on every map

• Interface is very easy to use and not confusing, though I wish there was an achievements shortcut especially for dailies/monthlies

• Norn starter area was well populated, not so much for Charr – probably the fact I’m in the EU playing on a US server :P

• Weapon skills are fun – another thing to unlock

• Weapon choices per class are great – lots of options e.g. Warrior ranged/Close Combat

• Server setup is excellent: home server is purely for PvP and WvW

• No traits until 11 makes sense – you don’t worry about the build of your char ’til you can use the environment!

• Dodge! A massive part of battles and very fun & satisfying; unique to GW2 as far as I’m aware

ColinJohanson.2394:

Reading through a lot of the comments on various class diversification (or just stronger trait/skill diversification) concepts, one of the things that seems to be missing is a discussion on how you’d actually earn/unlock these additional abilities to make it a progression system.

One of the goals of progression, in this case horizontal, is to create an extended sense of game play and thus = reward for playing it.

For example, we’ve added more skills to the game recently, but those simply unlock with skill points, which basically means -> play any part of the game that gives exp, or kill champs to get skill point books. That’s ok as systems of unlocking horizontal progression go for the extended class diversification, but game play wise it generally means find the easiest place to get XP/champ-loot and do it over and over again for a large % of players, since folks most often gravitate towards the path of least resistance.

What sort of systems of horizontal progression unlocking would you like to see that’d accompany a system like extended class progression?

This is a very tricky question. On one side it is important to have things easily accessible for people who have trouble dealing with hard content and on the other side if its easy to get its hard to value it properly. Personally I would mix ways to earn the skill up a bit kinda how we could get the Antitoxin Spray. Either using gold+250 spores or skill points.

What I am thinking is say we get a new utility that says grants you swiftness. There might be various ways to unlock it. Either straight out spend 25 skill points. Pay an NPC to teach it you for say 5g or spend some laurels say 5 of them or do a skill challenge to unlock it by say complete a particular hard jumping puzzle in a specific time frame etc..

The idea here is people can either choose skill or time to acquire the new skill. I would assume most people will go for the skill challenge but those who find it hard to overcome can trade in some time to skip the skill check so they’re not completely cut out.

Also :::: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Introducing-the-Chronomancer/2589129

thats the most fully realized suggestion for a new profession of any kind currently on th forums

I’d prefer something as important as skills to be rewarded independent of which race I play. I only play humans for various reasons, mostly related to character aesthetics.

Titles are not very rewarding by themselves and offer no extra game play. I can’t even see my own titles except in the achievement panel. As a little bonus reward sure, like Dungeon Master for example.

Just playing off of the title —> skill acquisition idea, a title should instead be rewarded for collecting all the various skills and not the other way around.

Immanuel.1560:

I have seen that people have been talking in here about skills and how to unlock them.

My suggestion to this is to let those skills be rewards from Racial Titles . When character have achieved some specific Racial Title, it will give skills as reward. They are somehow related to the title, or to what requirements you have to do to get the title.

Benjamin made that racial title table, and I modified it bit in here adding more detailed information to connect the title to unlocking skill mechanism:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/41#post3459941

Lets take the requirements from that table and see what kind of skills you could open by achieving these titles.

1. Complete all jumping puzzles with specific race / Racial mini title 1
- Reward from this title are leaping skills, long range skills, and long range evade skills.

2. Use any Racial skills 1000 times (cumulative) with specific race / Racial mini title 2
- Reward from this title are Racial elite skills which gives condition damage to a single foe and support to nearby allies

3. Complete Personal Story with a specific race / Racial mini title 3
- Reward from this title are Racial elite skills which gives DPS and AoE damage to foes

4. Defeat 1000 players being other race than you in PvP / Racial mini title 4
- Reward from this title are single damage skills with high DPS

5. Complete 1000 successfull events in WvW with a specific race / Racial mini title 5
- Reward from this title are skills with single condition damage skills with high DPS

6. Complete all Dungeons with a Specific Race / Racial mini title 6
- Reward from this title are AoE supporting skills and AoE healing skills and Single high DPS skills

7. Obtain max Fractail level with a specific race / Racial mini title 7
- Reward form this title are single target supporting skills and single target healing skills, AoE high DPS and Condition damage Skills

8. Complete 3000 successfull Group Events in PvE with a specific race / Racial mini title 8
- Reward from this title are AoE supporting skills, AoE Healing skills and AoE Condition damage skills.

9. Complete All World Boss Events Successfull 20 times with a specific race / Racial mini title 9
- Reward from this title are Long Range High DPS skills and AoE supporting skills

10. Complete ”Been There Done That” with a specific Race
- Reward from this title are long term Running skills

11. Obtain all racial Master Titles / GRAND TITLE
Reward from this are Elite skill High AoE support, High AoE Condition damage, High AoE DPS and High AoE Healing skills same time.

Of course, this can be included into a vertical progression too, but it brings a different way into the unlocking skills system which would diversify the skill acquisition making it a horizontal progression valid option. Titles are optional.

The Racial Titles as Nike said, they are long term goals due to their nature, so adding skill unlocks to various tiers in a specific title for each title will make it really interesting goal for many players expanding the pool of skills.

How would you address the fact that many people do not play PvP in any way, and thus are locked out of skills under the system you proposed?

Edit : And there are Some people who only play WvW, should they be forced to play PvE content and do Jumping puzzles in order to unlock new skills as well?

It doesn’t actually pertain to the current CDI discussion, which is why I’m making a separate thread. I also hope it will be more widely read than if I added to the 40+ pages of current discussion anyway.

My hypothesis is that the current set up for the Collaborative Development Initiative is not conducive to its intended purpose.

There’s Too Much To Discuss In One Thread

• Right now, the CDI is one massive, meandering, beast of a discussion.
• This is problematic in the sense that people cannot keep up with threads of this size.
• Summaries are quickly buried (special thanks to Lost Witch for making her summary threads, which was a huge help in this!) and they are extremely time-consuming, even when splitting the workload. I’ve spent a great deal of time doing the partial summaries instead of participating, and avoiding the thread when I wasn’t summarizing, for the most part.
• So many voices crying out to be heard! It can often be hard for the developers to keep up with so many ideas, and this results in frustration on both sides (I think).
• Swept along by the current of the thread- I think many people abandon ideas that seem less popular in order to try to be heard discussing ideas the developers show interest in. Because, ultimately, the point is to interact with the developers to effect change. (Or is it affect? I cannot keep those two straight in my head, but I’m pretty sure it’s effect.)
  Along this line, many of these very generalized threads have been taken over by one or two ideas, leaving others feeling “steam-rolled” or ignored.

Proposed Solutions

• Make a CDI forum. Please. It’s time. Only developers (maybe community moderators?) can start topics in this forum. A subforum will be a generalized idea, like what we’ve been doing thus far with the threads themselves. So, for example, we’d have an open subforum called CDI: Character Progression- Horizontal Discussion, and one discussion created with the same title, more or less. That’s where we start from. Maybe sticky the master thread, if necessary.
• When you (meaning developers) see a more specific topic being discussed at length or a developed idea that you find interesting and potentially doable in GW2, start a new topic for discussion on that.
  It would look something like this, on the top of the forum:

Guild Wars 2>Forums>Collaborative Development Initiative>CDI: Character Progression- Horizontal>CDI: Skill Acquisition Methods (Horizontal)

• Edit the first post in the master thread with a link to the topic “CDI: Skill Acquisition Methods” (or “CDI: Sub-Classes”) and your first post of the master thread becomes the summary, like magic.
• The master thread becomes the place for people to go, “Hey, is there any interest in this and do the developers think it is worth discussing, or is this something that doesn’t have potential to go anywhere?” or “Is this something that applies to this general topic?”
• Eventually the sub-forum becomes read-only, like the living story.

In conclusion:

• The meaty discussion can take place in appropriate topics, and developers can see for themselves which ideas the community feels strongly about at a glance.
• Focused discussions can emerge and evolve more naturally.
• Developers can go to topics that apply to their areas of expertise and more easily get a feel for what is being suggested and how they might shape those discussions.
• The community has a more distinct image of what is and is not possible, and so we know where to focus our energy. (I don’t know about anyone else, but it does take me some time and energy to formulate, edit, format and finalize my contributions to the thread. I would rather not be chasing fairy tales, personally.)

And voila! Everyone is happier- at least in theory.

I’d love to hear back from my fellow CDI-ers, good or bad, so long as it’s constructive.

Xae Isareth.1364:

And Teq isn’t even a complicated boss. The strategy is essentially spam poison cleanse on a spot, have every attacker stack and nuke the dragon, everyone else splits up and defends turrets. Split up into 3 groups for defend phases.

That’s nowhere near the difficulty of mechanics you usually see in a raid in MMOs. Its actually basically impossible to make difficult content in the open world, because simply not everyone can do difficult content, and open world content is for everyone. That’s a clear contradiction right there.

That’s completely understandable. Mechanics been understood hours after the release. What I’m trying to say is that if new skills acquisition is going to be based of those hardcore bosses that require a big amount of people to complete, a huge amount of casual players is going to feel left behind.
If those kind of fights are going to be the only way to acquire a specific skill, they need to scale down with amount of people present. Now I’m not saying scale down Teq. Don’t! Completely leave him alone as he is now. But basing skill acquisition on world bosses is kind of a hit and miss. Because it is not equal opportunity for all. Your skill makes no difference when 70 other people have no idea what they’re doing, leaving you completely dependent on a group of strangers. And that also ties down to how populated servers are at given times.

@Colin

Communication
As far as communication to players, I think you could stick with your current system and send a short message through in-game mail, telling players to go speak to their Trainer. The Trainers could then relay the info.

Disclaimer
Before I address Skill Acquisition, I want to mention the one thing that I really find to be a negative with this game: almost everything is too easy to acquire, especially if you have money. We need to add in more things that require work/skill.

Skill Acquisition
Depending on the level of the skill involved, there should be different ways to earn them, with increasing difficulty.

Low Level – These would be the easiest to acquire. You could do something as simple as purchase them from the Trainer, earn them from the simpler jumping puzzles, certain hearts, or complete simple Quests/Challenges. (These would be the only ones available to purchase)

Mid Level – Earned through completing the lower level dungeons, mid level Champions, mid level jumping puzzles, and higher level Dynamic events.

High Level – Earned through the hardest Jumping Puzzles, Dungeons, Quests/Challenges, Dragons, and entire Temple Events.

Special Skills – Skills of varying difficulty could also be earned though Guild Missions or other gameplay modes done as an entire Guild party. These would be some of the skills earned through the other means, so as not to exclude smaller guilds.

All Levels – Place several “hidden” NPCs throughout the world that require differing levels of skill to locate. Perhaps located in mini-dungeons or side paths of jumping puzzles. They could offer special, cosmetic versions of skills.

Morrigan.2809:

LittleLepton.8915:

Vol.7601:

Southsun is brutal. If you don’t know how to dodge you will probably die from one mob.

I have to mist form / arcane shield / every invuln I have in my kitten nal to get to Karka queen alive..

Yup Karka Queen is better than Teq for a hard fight imo

and then of coure you also have regular Karkas- they eat Risen for breakfast

Ew, no wonder they’re angry!

RedCobra.7693:

ColinJohanson.2394:

VOLKON.1290:

You could even throw out in the PvE world random Champions that enter the world from one side, simply walk across and out the other if they’re not defeated. It would be up to the players to recognize, band together and defeat this champion to get an unlock that way. Don’t announce it, just have it happen.

So an open question: If you don’t announce it, how do players who want to progress their character down these new paths of exciting character progression know what to do it, or how to progress? We’ve seen if the path of progression isn’t relatively clear, most our every-day casual players won’t bother doing it, which isn’t a system that buys us much game play over-all.

And if the champion isn’t available, how do we message to players that the system of progression to advance their character isn’t available at this time? I think you can get away with no real messaging around something like a rare skin, but if it’s a system that expands your characters profession diversity it needs much clearer communication.

These are the kind of questions I ask the designers coming up with the systems we’ll use in the future, so it’s a fun opportunity for you guys as well

This is the main issue i have with the game, you shove everything into the players screen as playing, you leave nothing to discovery, no adventure and no experience, this sort of tactic makes the world feel bland and small, i know that if i run down queensdale im just gonna run into 1 or 2 champs and a few npcs and thats it, wheres the secrets, the adventure

Agreed. Not for everyone, however the search for Final Rest (even if it was a bug), was one of the most fun experiences i’ve had in GW2. Moar of that plox I do find that it’s a mixed bag of “too much information” versus “practically none”. There’s never really been an MMO i’ve played that really got that sort of thing balanced. It’s either a ton of hand holding or literally no guidance.

Only my two cents.
About subclass system. I think we could have a subclass system without any subclasses: skills, traits, wear is enough to diversify our characters.
We need more weapon skills, slot skills and elite skills, more weapons and maybe another trait tab but we don’t need a subclass system. If, finally, developers think it is necessary i would like we can change to any of the unlocked subclasses without any penality and as fast as possible. I agree with the build saving many people have talked before in the thread.
About how to obtain new skills. I think the way Eye of the North Alliance skills (Asura, Norn, Vanguard and Deldrimor) were obtained it is the way to do it. In GW1 we have Lightbringer, Sunspear, Luxon, Kurcick, Asura, Deldrimor, Vanguard and Norn skills which are obtained through personal story or secondary quest. I think Vigil, Order of Secrets and Durman Priory could be this GW2 alliances and skills could be attached to the title. I also agree with the idea of Legendary Masters posted by Nike could be a way to show us the new skills and weapons for every profession.
PvP and WvW players could skip this process buying the skills at a merchant buying with glory or honor badgets in adition to the skill points.
Just one more. If Alliances/Factions are taken into the foreground, i would mark that i would like to be aligned with all of them like in GW1 that you can have Luxon and Kurcick skills and armors with the same character. I miss my elementalist/ritualist wearing a longbow with his mix of elementalist/ritualist/asura/kurcick/sunspear skills.

ColinJohanson.2394:

- Collect skins: Purchase them for currencies (which becomes play the fastest way to earn currency X), get them as rare drops (play fastest way to kill mob/content type X), or purchase them off the trading post. (Play the fastest way to earn gold)

- Skills: Collect skill points. (Which becomes play the fastest way to earn XP, or skill points.)

- Achievement Horizontal Rewards: These are things like achievement point skin unlocks, titles, etc. This is more just sort of play everything that gives achievement points, since very little of it is repeatable.

- Legendary: This one doesn’t really have a totally clear path to acquisition other than earn crazy amounts of gold, which goes back to play the fastest way to earn gold. (note legendary is only horizontal if you already have ascended)

- WxP Abilities: Complete objectives worth points in WvW. (Complete objectives as fast as possible, find a group to help you do this. Of all the above this is basically just telling you to play WvW, and though it is as some degenerate aspects is probably the least so)

- PvP Skin Locker & PvP Ranks: Play PvP. (This is basically just play PvP since the latest release.)

Not everyone plays the way I described above, but many of the systems above encourage you to want to play the fastest way possible to earn the rewards, sometimes at the cost of not playing the way you’d find the most fun. The upside of Gw2 is you can play the things you enjoy most and still be rewarded for them in most cases, even if it’s not at the fastest rate. The downside is because almost everything can earn you most of the same rewards, this becomes a matter of choosing to do the things you enjoy the most, but getting rewarded slower because of it.

First, my opinion is going to differ greatly from any of the previous voices concerns/suggestions.

• To be honest, Colin, I can’t believe I’m saying this…but it seems as if everything has been made TOO rewarding. That, or the fact of acquisition anywhere or ability to buy just about anything on the TP has removed a lot of the value of diversifying the content one plays at any given time.

• This behavior I see as a consequence of the initial Pay-to-Play model of MMOs of old, as well as the original design and time/experience curves of those games as well. Going on the player mentality of often taking the path of least resistance, I feel there is no one solution or one progression system that would be both meaningful to existing players and easy to message to new players, that wouldn’t be subject to the existing MMO mentality of “path of least resistance.”

• If the path of least resistance is going to be what the player desires, I say give that path more branches, so players are encouraged to branch out, try something new, and explore if they want to maximize profit gain/time spent. Only then, will new systems gain their maximum value potential.

• I’m gonna get some serious hate, but introduce Diminishing Returns on champion loot on a per-zone basis. If a person farms Queensdale for more than an hour, no more champion bags from Queensdale for that day. If said person loves champion farming, they’ll have to go to another zone. This first step will show how repetitive play is punished. It’s still possible, but players have to explore new zones, form new champ farms, etc…

• With that in place, add improved incentive for playing a variety of content. Players like maximizing time, and just about every human on earth likes to “get a good deal” or save time/money. Along with daily achievements, add hourly bonuses (not necessarily achievements) that can be messaged by the event panel/LW panel area. Only one bonus would be active at a time on all servers, and would rotate either every hour or every few hours. It might pigeonhole players, but honestly, if people are farming Queensdale, what’s the difference in just moving them around?

• Something like… “50% bonus xp for completing events in Fireheart Rise.” – 60 min
• “50% bonus Karma from events in Mount Maelstrom.” – 60 min
• The Call to War! “50% bonus WvW experience!” – 60 min

• Systems that continue to improve on existing content and spread players out across the world will give Arenanet more time to develop complex new systems for Horizontal Progression. I’ll have to detail more about what I would like to see for new systems at a later time, but for now, I’d say new story arcs that add meaning to Order choices and reward with skills/traits sounds like the most appealing and unique suggestion thus far.

ColinJohanson.2394:

What other systems would excite you that don’t fall into the “sitting in front of your keyboard” pressing buttons options? Keep in mind they need to be easy to learn so we can teach them to new players, accessible, and not overly complex/tedious, and hopefully not something with a path of least resistance that leads to degenerate game play.

I think it’s worth remembering some of our existing ‘general’ measures of progress may still be appropriate and sensible even if they’re a bit degenerate presently.

Assume for a moment we have expanded on the concept of a personal space within our neighborhood or perhaps have a nook in a guildhall we can call our own. A place that can serve as a showcase of our accomplishments, but also a testament to our particular tastes.

We might have a very outdoorsy and heroic set of activities that liberates a famous painter who now feels indebted to us and becomes available as a vendor in our neighborhood who can provide us with hi-res account-bound pieces of the game’s concept art as paintings we can hang in our showcase area…

…Its not unreasonable that those paintings would still have to be paid for with gold coin. Maybe quite a few gold coins.

The pure Trading Post baron doesn’t have access to the vendor, but the pure adventurer may have to do a bit of scrimping and saving to get the painting he wants even after liberating the painter.

The final piece that’s actually on display shows your aptitude in both realms, and further, reveals your taste through what images you’ve chosen to display in a limited amount of space.

Skill points, gold, & karma still reflect a lot of time spent in the world and could be part of the unlocking process. With new ways to use those currencies, the pleasure of amassing them is renewed.