Guild Wars 2

Morrigan.2809:

Chrispy.5641:
Let me ask you my original question. I reworded it a bit to be relevant to the current conversation. How is housing going to show off your progress to other players (not just yourself and friends) if it is instanced and 99.999% of all players will never see it or care about it (atleast everyone can see if you have a legendary or other skin)?
What you and others haven’t addressed yet is how a house is going to show everyone your progress in the game? Legendaries and other skins do that already. You can be lazy and say “add a new Title”, but, there’s got to be something more there than just a title.

I think you miss the main point of housing , which is a place to call home- or more elaborately an emotional connection to the world that shows your accomplishments.

This can be instanced because it still stratifies those needs, but you can do so much more- obviously.

The best idea I have seen is instanced neighborhoods, like the story instance- it can be anywhere.

You enter an instance and you are in a place- people can make as much as the system allows of their houses. you have slayer trophies on the walls- you have mini pets running around, you have event nodes…

I really liked some of the ideas where you can add chests and challenges to your house- or hey, expand crafting and make a tp industry of crafted furniture and decorations.

Same with farming etc- make it a whole new industry.

It is horizontal progression and many, many people will spend some time in-game doing it because it is something else.
the most important thing is that is it yours- not some npc’s.

If housing in GW2 could be like FFXIV’s(which to my knowledge is the neighbourhood style housing – semi instanced), then it would be wonderful..

I mean, imagine creating your place where you call home and being next to your friends home in the same instance. You could visit their home(hopefully they would have the option to white-list if preferred) and see their accomplishments even if they aren’t online.

It would be like GW1’s HoM but semi-instanced. It would be awesome!

Due to jumping puzzles and vistas being on the ends of jumping puzzles ANet will never add flying mounts. Would trivialize too much content.

Chrispy.5641:

videoboy.4162:

@Chrispy
Your idea is a very good one. I like it very much, it just isn’t in my personal Top 3.

Skin Locker and Housing, although, no one’s been able to explain very well how that’s related to Horizontal Progression in any way. Once someone makes a post that explains it then I’ll be a believer, but until then, its Weapon skills and Order/Faction Missions/Reputation. (This comment isn’t directed at you specifically, I just don’t see the point yet in either a skin locker or housing)

The skin locker one I can agree with I’m not overly fussed on it other than for living world meta’s people have unlocked.
As for your comments on housing I’ll address that later in the post.

Chrispy.5641:

Skin Locker and Housing, although, no one’s been able to explain very well how that’s related to Horizontal Progression in any way. Once someone makes a post that explains it then I’ll be a believer, but until then, its Weapon skills and Order/Faction Missions/Reputation. (This comment isn’t directed at you specifically, I just don’t see the point yet in either a skin locker or housing)

Firstly how would order missions effect all players? , as many may want to ignore them and have nothing to do with them. Exactly the same as housing.

Secondly if your progress is for all players it’s not progress it’s a requirement. Horizontal progression is about differentiation of your players and that means exclusion, some people won’t do x some can’t do y but will do z that’s what makes them different.

Housing I think housing is great for Horizontal progression, linked with other things.
Firstly it can be handled two ways:
1. everyone gets a house, that’s the base level so everyone feels they gained something.

2. The house is a progression in itself those with the money/achievement points/skill get a house. It’s placed as a reward for say completing something this could be
Easy: personal story
Medium: Personal story + 200g to buy the plot then you can build it up
Hard: Personal story + 200g + 5k AP
The idea in this method is that people have to work actively for it, they don’t just farm gold and get the house, they have to play actively.

Then the progression part: with armor +weapon + title you’re limited to showing off 9-10 (2h/1h) different items/ achievements at one time. With a house done right there’s no limit you can show off everything you have done.

Are you a creative person? designing the house to match your tastes may be your reward your amazing house is how you progressed.

Are you a master crafter? Hunting down the rare recipes for a particular item that only a few people can make for the house is your progression? Unlock a workshop/ upgrades to your house.

A collector? Fill your house to the brim with weapons,armors and statues. showing off all of this is how you progress. Unlock fancier cabinets/ racks the more of a collection you have.

A skilled player/hunter? The trophy’s that will be acquirable off certain bosses, or through certain achievements are how you show your progression. Unlock a creature for your house maybe?

PVPer? Rank trophy’s for each new rank range you enter, Trophy’s for tournaments you win. Maybe a Trophy for win streaks etc. or special unlocks, ie a dueling ring for your house after completing x.

WvW? Similar do x trophies like the season 1 achievements, then challenge trophies for say capping a tower with less than 5 players or the like. Progress could also unlock an old orb of power for your house or depending on how housing is implemented one of the keep towers as an upgrade.

Dungeon master? themed items/upgrades from both full completions and some buy-able with dungeon tokens.

Fractal Master? themed items again, maybe a private portal so you don’t have to go to La? each of the challenge achievements could award some item.

Complete these new order quests/challenges people want? It can award stuff for the house as well, with no loss to the other content, it only adds.

Don’t like any of the above? then you don’t have to do anything with your house.

Complain because other people wanted it but you don’t gain from it , or it’s not your cup of tea? Grow up everything is not going to appeal to everyone.

The house is more about the visualization of your progress to yourself and to those you know, depending on implementation it’s growth and expansion can be progress in itself. Showing off to passers by can still be done with weapons and armors but most of the time you won’t get a second glance.

In Order Panel ( like guild panel) you can see your progress, avaiable missions, and also order can sshow you notification about world events like „Tequatls is going rampage! Vigil, our time is now!”. It would encourage players to join world events, and also, it can gives opportunity to add more achievements. Ex. You can get trophy from tequatl and give it to Almorra, so you then get special title that you represented your order fighting the dragons. Later you can see for example Tequatl tooth/scale in her office.

This system can also be influenced by living world – good option for foreshadowing. Example, Vigil discover secret new camp of Aetherblades – go destroy them. Order of Whisperers are spying Atherblades and forcing them to talk about their plans. Priory would like to try to use new magical weapon and discover something about „Do not touch” things. At the end of mission everyone get some info/foreshadowing about future living story, ex. Scarlets plan for new alliance.

Reaching the highest rank should be very diffcult, take some time and it should not be influenced by item shop. Rank of player should be seen by the other people (ex. ranking board or somethig like this) and to be able to unlock the rarest, the best looking skins, maybe crafting material to ascended/legendary items, or event it would give you opportunity to find a better solution to find precursor (scavanger hunt?).

It’ would be good idea to add separate order chat window for players, so it would be easier to gather people together for order missions, help others reaching higher rank, etc.

Well, this is my suggestion, I give many examples how I would see system like this. To sum up benefits:

-more achievements, rewards, unique skins, etc
-sense of progression (ranking system) and gives prestige (hard to get titles, skins, rank itself, etc).
-option to foreshadow living story and maybe see it differently from the order perspective.
-new dynamic events
-new story hidden in events, players can form a bound with NPCs, to feel that they are part of the world, NPCs to react differently depends on your rank, etc.
-way to introduce some story of the areas and races live there and their conflicts.

And one of the most important thing, you can feel as part of community, like in guild. Some players have problem with joining guild and playing with the other people (lack of time, then one day you find out you are kicked or noone is active in guild). This way there is always a group of people waiting for you, sharing the same goals and having fun.

I always see people running around in the various maps. But then since I don’t craft, play TP, do dungeons or fractals, stand around in LA, do champ trains or world bosses, and spend only a bit of time in wvw for a change of enemy I’m more likely to see people.

How long do you guys spend in the open world before giving up?

I’ve been thinking for a while that after all this time the server populations have probably really started to gather like-minded players. Maybe some servers just don’t have a lot of people running around the maps because the players there don’t like to. There are lots of things to do. Just a thought.

Ronah.2869:

So instead of quests we have heart quests + Vistas, Pois and Skill points

In case you missed it: hearts were implemented as a guide to event-hubs since test-players had no idea where to go in the beginning. They were overwhelmed by the freedom of a dynamic world.

My Top 3 would be:

1) New missions to expand personal story and lore (missions for the Orders, etc).

2) Housing and related additions to crafting and loot systems

3) Influence system to allow Guilds to directly control/influence specific areas/outposts in PvE. For instance, allow Guilds to control outposts conquered during events and build/repair defenses against assault from PvE mobs (e.g., by intentionally triggering new chain of events), set new merchants, build crafting areas, grant PvE bonuses to players in the area etc. This would require a revamp of some events chain, for example in Harathi Hinterlands.

exactly what Morrigan says, giving each professions new weapons would make professions even more unique. You want a Warrior/Elementalist? Give the Elementalist a mainhand sword (+ offhand sword). Now you have a sword wielding Elementalist (= Battlemage) who has very unique new sword skills instead of having a warrior/ele who has warrior sword skills.

What I can imagine happening: adding new utility skills for specific professions, which have a certain flair. Combining it with one of Nike’s suggestions: a battlemaster who still knows certain fighting techniques from the old days teaches the players his skills (requirement: certain tasks / challenges to unlock).

Example: Warriors and Elementalists can unlock a utility skill called “XY” which shares the characteristics of warrior skills and elementalist skills.

@ people who want more skills (me included): Currently professions have about 70 skills (here: Guardian, included underwater skills). To develop that number of skills the devs needed literally years…

… and then guys come along and demand 40 new skills per profession. Seriously? How can this be feasible in any way? I’d love 40 new skills per profession, but I think more realistic would be a new weapon (3-5 skills) per profession and maybe 1-5 utility skills… and I assume this takes quite a while to design and balance.

I enjoy playing GW2. I’ve enjoyed playing since BWE. So I’ll continue to enjoy playing it until I don’t. Simple as that. So I’m excited simply that GW2 will continue to be free, continue to have a really great community, and continue to get updates often. Bring on 2014.

Morrigan.2809:

I can’t see your system adding anything to be honest

… it is a system that grows your character and makes it more unique and gives you varied and interesting ways to play that character- to differentiate from your other characters and from those around you so that everyone does not end up the same or every class end up playing the same.

I agree, an Elementalist shouldn’t feel like a Ranger but an highly developed unique Elementalist imho.

Jaymee.1560:

Again, I am not using this thread as a way to defend female players, it’s a simple question.

Why is it that most guys think only guys play MMOs?

It’s an innocent question… Lets not all jump on Jaymee butt for it.

To answer the question, I don’t. I one time found myself in a full group of players, and all four of them felt the need to talk about how they were “Actual Girls”. I never revealed who I was, I just stood silent listening to their conversation about the same topic you are. I didn’t find that insulting, I just didn’t see the point in them having to identify themselves to me or anyone else when they are all playing on a game over the internet, thousands of miles away.

To me, I don’t care if you are a purple polka dotted gorilla with 6 arms from Saturn. You can still play the game, and do it in an intelligent, respectful way, right?

LOL I just saw this heading and thought oh yea, it is. Since I am a farmer living out in the sticks with not much happening in life, so I spend a lot of my free time playing computer games for fun.

I don’t think Hard mode is really a great progression feature. I think new content could be more fun than that.
I want to see my character’s progression. things that show he’s been around & done certain things. Scars on his body, maybe part of his body got cursed or marked, new tattoos, a home with unique layout & items in it, special armor fx, special custom attack animations, an idle animation that represents his personality, medals/capes/decorations, relationships with npcs that show in the game.

Basically:
My progression should be visible in game, not in the UI. Making numbers go up is the height for boredom. Having my character covered in medals, in a cool pose, with battle damage, scars, his hand branded by an elder dragon wielding a hammer with customized look & unique fx that represent my character? That’s fun.

I tried 5 times. Then I got my daily complete and realised “why am I doing this when I can just throw sigils in for the daily instead?”

chemiclord.3978:

And how long do you think that would last before people started flooding the forums screaming that other players are making their events harder because they are engaging Hard Mode for themselves and thus dealing less and taking more damage?

Over/Under line set at 3 seconds after the patch notes are released.

I have to agree to this.
Hard mode won’t help the game one bit.

GW2 should have areas designed to be hardcore for those who needs a challenge and fractals is one of the areas. For some dungeons are (at least 50% of them).

Adding more of those areas will help hardcore players, but they will always scream for more, thats the reality.

As for me horizontal progression should be about many things that you can do on level 80. Working towards something that will show that you spend time actually playing (not gold wise because I’m sick of farming).

So quantity and variety of things to do. Many nonfarmable achievements/activities or those that should be divided in time. That is what I feel as most important for the game. Also rewards that are cool, because lately all the cool stuff is kinda gem bound.
I have problems with thinking about very good looking rewards what didn’t come from gemstore or black lion chests.

Last time it was around election I think that we had those cool looking items like Desert Rose and crystal themed back pieces (I don’t mean that we have to get back pieces, but something cool). The way ascended armors look is kinda terrible and it costs fortune, last updates gave us rather strange items than good looking (but some might not agree). We also have way too many special minipets and too little real rewards like armors (aside from achievement armors which shoulders always look terrible on norns – they are too big).

Sorry Ronah, I’m only a fan of a Hard Mode in instances, not in the open world. (As a side note, I feel like Hearts are the absolute worst part of this game and am shocked that anybody would WANT to repeat them.)

It would be a big mistake though to fragment the playerbase. As much as I love the idea of new maps, it would just split a server in two. New zones? Yes, absolutely! But make these main content for ALL playertypes.

much ado about nothing

Please include the many posts about the engineer hobo-sacks as well. Just a minor thing, but a thing nonetheless.

Exotics still work just fine… >.>

Simple – Those of you who enjoy the game; express it!

I’ve played so many MMORPGs I’ve lost count; and while some were great, none compelled me more than Guild Wars 2.
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Arena Net: I thank you for bringing us Guild Wars 2, the best MMORPG I have ever seen and played!
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
I’m a new player who has probably only scratched the surface of what you can do in the game and it has already proved to be astonishing!

From the compelling Story telling, amazing graphics, to the great Gameplay, PvP etc.; Guild Wars 2 trully has everything needed to be the top of it’s class.

Once again: Thank you!

Feeling the same? Don’t be shy, show it!

Nike.2631:

Kain Francois.4328:

4 great lulz…

Hobo-Sacks
Because they ARE relevant to Horizontal Progression!

I cannot progress my back horizontally on my engineer. PLEEEEAAAAASE REMOVE THEM!

Quote for great justice, because it is kinda frustrating.

I am BEGGING ANET to PLEASE REMOVE THE STUPID HOBOSACK!

Nobody likes them! NOBODY! NOBODY!

It’s been more than a YEAR, and engineers STILL cant use backpacks? The same item type with skins being given out EVERY living story?

It’s not fair to lock us out of an entire part of the game. IT’S NOT FAIR! :’(

Soooooo…. sitting in one spot flipping on TP is ok because….? While champ train is not ok because….? By reasoning in most of this thread by the NERF people, if YOU don’t like TP flipping then no one should profit from it. Right? Let’s nerf that. Let’s make sure that no one can buy anything unless they buy gems from ANet. That’s the answer right there…… OMG I’m a genious.

/endsarscam

Morrigan.2809:

Yargesh.4965:

Morrigan.2809:

Yargesh.4965:

Morrigan.2809:

freedom…

Can’t really blame a game for real life choices now can you.

not sure how you got from here to there so let me elaborate a bit.

When the game launched there was a lot more freedom of play than there is now- you could run around and just be silly, you could wear whatever gear you wished and no one told you class xyz are useless because they are not warriors.

We did not have check lists and achievement grind- max stat gear was easy to get and then you could concentrate on having fun or running around naked in circles if that was what you wanted.

In dungeons everyone watched the cut scenes and speed runs didn’t exist yet.
Also people thought you had to be level 30-35 to do a dungeon not level 80
We had dance parties in La before patch went live because we were so excited.

now you can very well say that you can still have all that- and you can and I do.
the thing is that was the norm back then and now I have to ignore large parts of the game and the community to have the same.

So yes, I miss freedom and it has nothing to do with real life.

Ah, sounded like you had wound up in jail. Thanks for the clarification.

mwhahahaa ;D that made my day!

Merry Christmas

cesmode.4257:

So how do they break it all up, promite build diversity in open world content, and make it so that 20-50 people can participate in a non mindless non #1 mashing fashion?

Step 1: Provide an option to reduce/eliminate particle blur so people can actually see the boss.
Step 2: Separate PvP and PvE for balance purposes, and adjust support to provide benefits comparable to the benefits offered to glass cannons.
Step 3: Replace boss AI with the AI used for the profession dummies in the Heart of the Mists. Tweak numbers so that a “Warrior” boss (for example), hits harder than player warriors, uses CC to set up big hits, etc.
Step 3.5: Give bosses more than the “three moves” which is currently the state of champions. Leave the big hit w/ tell as part of the rotation, but use a random number generator to determine which move is coming next. It’s way too easy now to know what’s coming. Between moves have the boss use its “auto-attack,” which does significant damage.
Step 4: Replace Defiant with CC immunity that falls off with time, rather than requiring 20 randoms to use CC to drop off stacks.
Step 5: Instead of World Boss AoE targeting specific locations, have it target a player in the biggest concentration of players.

That’s where I’d start, with the understanding that there’d be more to do.