Guild Wars 2

korelg.7862:

I bought this pick using a bit less then 100g (in-game currency) how is this P2W? this thread is BAD and OP should feel BAD.

I do not know how much time you spend on gaming, but the most gold i ever had, i have now… 40g …if i would have saved up every little bit, then yes, i may have been able to buy this pick now. but i wouldn’t have had the chest panes, 18slot bags on all my characters to store the piles of materials i will need to some day craft up to ascended weapons. And i would not have been able to transmute some of my items.

But more important, it’s not about the gold, nor is it about the gems or real money, it is about the concept that there is an item in the shop that is better than any other item with the same function. And to make matter worse, it makes all the other picks also in the shop obsolete. It is a kind of vertical progression in a monetary item that due to that very nature is worse than Ascended items and gear being added.

And for somebody like myself, that has been playing GW since the GW1 beta’s, because of it’s somewhat casual nature, and thus me being able to put the game down for an extended period of time, while i dealt with IRL stuff. To me it has to do with the fact that ‘we’ are still scraping the poop (that hit the fan) from the ascended walls. And now the same thing comes along again, but to make matters worse, it’s in the store instead.

And it’s not just this thing, it’s for example also the part where i continuously hit 1 on my keyboard while i wait for my other skills to recharge. And then be reminded of how Colin so righteously put ‘i swing my sword, and i swing it again’. Now i just wrote a long post just above here, and as a long time player and fan, there is a lot of goodwill, and having met various devs at Gamescom there is also a reasonable amount of trust. Where GW and ANet and NCSoft are sliding slowly away though, is believe.

I have a lot of goodwill to not be deterred by making mistakes, i have a reasonable amount of trust that they want to make a good game and are capable of doing so. But as you keep making the similar mistakes, and keep breaking your word. The portion where I believe in GW2 still being the game to play. And ANet & NCSoft the parties worthy of me spending my money. That is slipping, i feel that it is because of how i feel about this whole situation. I feel disappointment.

Disappointment isn’t an emotion linked to loosing trust, anger is the response to loss in trust. A reasonable amount of goodwill can temper that anger non the less… But like said above, if there is no clear reason to believe that anything is learned from the mistakes made. Then there is no foundation to believe in it getting anything better in the future. And what you are left with is disappointment, disappointment due to the realisation that all the trust and goodwill wont matter.

Let’s put it this way:
- GW2 took a guestimate of 60.000.000 to create (sixty million)
- GW2 sold 2.000.000 (two million times)
- The box prices for standard was $60 or so.
- This means that right of the bat they made 100% ROI = aka. 120.000.000 (hundred twenty million)

- So now lets assume ANet has 100 people working.
- They all ‘cost’ (average) 75.000 a year including taxes.
- That means a yearly cost of 7.500.000 a year (seven million, five hundred thousand)
- Lets add to that 2.500.000 (two and a halve million) for server costs, and just to be on the save side…
- that is a total of 10.000.000 a year (ten million)

- This means that all players in GW2 have to spend 5 (five) a year.
- I myself, spend 1400 gems worth of bank slots (2x) and transmutation stones (3x) and have yet to spend the 400gems i got from my reward chest.
- Assuming these gems were paid for by somebody else, as i used gold.
- Which surmounts to roughly 17,50
- Which is more than 3x the amount needed to keep going…

Where is the need to put a pick into the shop that has a 20% chance on some item, a few months after you done a sale that sold the exact same item without the 20%.

@Mikuchan,
maybe because we are picketing the wrong sidewalk? Maybe it isn’t ANet we need to shake up, but NCSoft instead.

Just maybe they want a bunch of us to leave, so we hitch the ride next ride with Wildstar. Which would be just fine with them, they also publish that…

Maybe in a sense we should start to be smarter about this whole gaming business, and support the publishers/devs that do the right thing, instead of only looking at the dev’s.

I mean, I have been looking at this heartstone game. It looks pretty nifty for just a quick game now and then, but seeing it’s Blizzard. Well, I am reluctant to start a game which I already know will make me pay to have the best deck. Like, I may be crazy, but I’m not entirely stupid …

Maybe this ‘president’ that is created now isn’t really about the pick anymore, perhaps it’s the president that is created in regards to NCSoft games instead. If this is the way we can expect NCSoft games to turn out eventually, then it is clear that NCSoft games are not suitable for a certain part of the Western audience. Because now it is GW2, but in a year it will be Wildstar… and the year there after …

http://global.ncsoft.com/global/aboutus/visiongoals.aspx

Then again, I also do not see where this pick would align with any of the core values of NCSoft. Unless of course that whole page is just a bunch of marketing BS. The Pick sure as heck doesn’t seem to line up with anything that ANet ever said could even remotely possibly not even maybe see the light in GW. Unless of course, all that was said in the manifesto was how they wanted to be different from the rest, and now its just reality setting in…

Anyways, to me the whole thing is mostly disappointing, as it violates something that is easier lost then money, and harder to regain too. There isn’t even a monetary value to put on it, because of the very nature of the concept … it is the thing called ‘Trust’ … you can not buy it, as the very nature of buying trust would spell and cause distrust instead. You may be able to loose Trust on a silly little thing, you may have deemed irrelevant, and yet, moving entire mountain may not be enough to regain it. Quite simply because people have turned a blind eye to your efforts, as they no longer trust the motives behind them.

In essence the concept of ‘goodwill’ balances the concept of trust, doing trustworthy things will build up goodwill, and this makes it so that mistakes or errors don’t lead to ‘distrust’ automatically. Given of course the mistakes and errors are acknowledged and corrected. But there is a little catch behind this as well, we call it ‘learning from your mistakes’. See while you can redeem some of the trust and thus goodwill by doing the right thing after a mistake or error. If you keep on making the same mistakes, people start to loose trust as well. This Trust is perhaps even more important than the Trust that builds up goodwill. It’s also not the Trust in you doing the good thing, and keeping your word… It is the trust in the capability of earning trust. And somewhere it is somewhat strange that we don’t have a different word for this. Well maybe we have, it’s the very basis of where trust begins… it is ‘believe’. It is that thing that renders all efforts worthless, as people do not believe (in) you anymore to even be capable of producing what you say.

anyways, I’m drifting off, ‘goodwill, trust and believe’ things you do not want to take to lightly, and they cannot be bought, only earned. And once squandered you may not be able to redeem them…

So, remove the icon if it is clearly against some pre written and on purchase agreed upon regulation.

It’s not that ANet isn’t used to a kitten storm flaming up every now and then, heck, halve the time you wonder if they are deciding to do thing just to get us all fired up…

It’s not about the mistakes you make, it’s about accepting that you make mistakes and the actions you take to correct them

@Chemiclord
Do you know how ‘pirates of the carabien’ solved this issue? likely not, nor do Anet apparently
They had a special part of the board, designated to the review of the icons, which came along with a voting system. And a clear ‘approved/unacceptable’ button on it…
The system would obviously ‘flag’ obscene symbols, and they would simply not be approved.

And seeing there was also a final check when the ‘.gifs’ turned in (or w/e format it was) were put into the game, so even if there was nobody around to oppose to an icon, there was always that last person putting the stuff into the game.

I think it took me 3week to a month b4 my guild had it’s own flag, and it was worth the wait for sure!

And with a community check, there were as far as I know, hardly any guilds that put up obscene images. The reason being fairly simple, most guilds were looking for at least some decent reputation, even if they were the nastiest pirates around. And further more, due to the credit system put in place, there was no way to get these symbols into the game anyways. So why even try… still though 1% or so would, but due to the voting system in place, it was very unlikely that even one employee had to go through these images anyways…

Instead of focussing on what gives the most money for the least amount of work (aka slap 20% on some pick). Analyse what would add value to the players, and add value to the game, and make some part of that a thing in the cash shop.

Another example would be the state of the guild systems, now obviously there has to be put money (in the form of time) into these systems with no clear way to earn that money back. Well is that really true?! No it’s not!!

What about a custom Guild icon for 15-20$, I am sure there are a lot of guilds that would figure: “hmm I would like a custom guild icon, and even small guilds could chip in $2,- all to pay for one”. Then maybe also make some new back slot items, like the flag one. Or possibly even create an ‘unlock’ for some new guild stands.

Now I am unsure of how many guilds there are, but a great deal of the supporting systems for these things are already in the game. If it were to be clear that these things came alongside improvements (long asked for) to the guild system, how many guilds do you think would not mind at all to scrape some money together between their members and get these things. I would reckon more guilds would buy these things than it would cost to make the content that for which the request will not go away…

In this sense the ‘cash-shop’ become the ‘subscription’ of the past. Which had always been justified because without the subscription the game could not be online, due to server costs. (Which only became obsolete as a reason when servers started to come with boxes of cereal). But the idea that you can support a game by paying for the features in the game, that you as a consumer want in the game… that is not gone, at least not from the minds of the players (I am sure),

The thing is, it’s not in the mind of cash-shop analysts that have some economics as background and have no clue about the history of gaming, or even gaming as a concept of self expression and community. But maybe worse, it seems as though the developers of games do not see this either.

biggest example this sort of cash-shop would work, Devata’s comment on the amount of mini’s in the cash-shop. He doesn’t mind if there are a couple in there (the amount debatable), as long as there may be a way he can get them in the long run (aka. gems 4 gold), and as long as he would be more conscious of the fact that the few things that are in that shop, and possibly some items he may well or may not really need, but none the less are very ‘neat’. Pay for him and all other players to have a mini collecting sub game in the actual game.

Ok, so how to link these sort of rewards to the cash-shop, and use it to give people what they want. Both in the shop as well as in-game:

1. Armour.
The thing I wouldn’t mind with armour is the following: ANet would make a cultural inspired armour, that is an ‘put on armour’ item, for every race. Then for each of these armours they would make one of the pieces have an alternative look 2×. So the Norn armour has 2 other shoulder pieces, the Charr armour has 2 other gloves. And lets add to this, all the pieces have 1 different headgear item.

Then the players get to choose from these 2 items on completion of one of the event steps. And the whole armour would be an unlock in the cash-shop. At the end of the whole meta event you get to pick one headgear item from all 5 of the alternatives.

Now this would give the people buying the armours, a reward that goes with the armour they just bought, while the say ‘boots’ would give all other people a way to mix and match. With other armour items. Obviously this would need a serious pass through the armours and dealing with the large amount of ‘non mixable due to overlapping’ armour pieces. But that’s something that I think should be done anyways, there are some really bad overlapping issues (f/e the Sylvari T1 armour, totally blocking any other glove you put on, likely there are others)

The ‘event’ that would make sense in this regard would touch each and every race, and thus each and every racial area of the game. Due to the choice factor, there be different results for looks.

1B Armour + Weapons.
If a string of events would give out a whole armour set, or a weapon set, sell the a similar themed set in the shop. Aka. an armour set to complement the weapons or weapons to complement the armour.

2. Dyes.
Instead of selling a new set in the shop only, or some RNG set like they are now, ‘uch’ … Why not sell the set ‘as is’ and give everybody one RNG item that produces ‘one’ of this set, and make them tradable. The cash-shop colours would obviously be unlocked right away instead or be soul bound.

That way everybody gets a new colour, if its one you don’t like so much, you can trade it for another. If you want them all, you can obviously buy them from the TP, or from the Shop.

3. Town clothes.
Similar to armour really, all of them are in the cashshop, for as far as I know, and seeing there isn’t ‘any’ piece in any shape or form, in the LS reward scheme, hardly anyone uses these clothes, and thus there is hardly any incentive to buy these items.

4. Weapons.
If there were to be 3 sets of weapons. And a string of events were to give you the choice of any of these (but just 1), for all 13 weapons. To then put these weapons into the shop as well. And actually make it possible to buy just 1 of them.

Now yes, on some level this is a ‘trick’, as it may ‘force’ you to buy another weapon just because you like a certain look (in hind sight) better than one you picked. But is that truly a bad thing? I see this more as a good thing, because without this we wouldn’t have ‘any’ weapon set available.

Even though some of these examples might not be the best, as I am just grabbing them out of some creative thinking space as I type this post. So please forgive me for that. But see what I am getting at…

The LS comes out every 2 weeks and runs for 4 weeks, with a 2 week overlap. Then there are a couple of 2week events that will likely see a return every year (Halloween, Wintersday, The Azuran’box’ and the ‘Windship’ people. (- of which these last 2 are my own guestimates). These all have their own ‘set’ of rewards that will more then likely stay the same. And that is just fine, to me at least). This means that for 8 weeks the rewards and events are pretty much ‘set’ in stone. Which leaves:
52w – 8w = 44w
44w / 2w = 22 events during the year that have to ‘give’ a reward at the end of the 2weeks.

Now lets go past all the items in game that may give ‘value’ to the player:

1. Headpiece
2. Shoulder piece
3. Gloves
4. Vest
5. Pants
6. Boots
7. Back-piece
8. ‘Snorkle’ (under water mouth piece)
9. Mini
10. Dagger(s)
11. Sword
12. Great Sword
13. Axe
14. Hammer
15. Great Hammer
16. Short Bow
17. Long Bow
18. Pistol
19. Rifle
20. Staff
21. Wand
22. Icon
23. Colours to dye (for)
24. Commemoration item (‘all I got was this lousy T-shirt’ item)
25. Mask.
26. ‘Fun’/Festive items
27. Town clothes x6
28. etc…

So clearly there is absolutely no reason what so ever to release a mini in some event more then 1x a year. Unless you want to create a couple of ‘styles’ that go with different themes, so you can please more people with the same item. And even then you could wonder why ‘giving people a choice’ wouldn’t be a better way to go about this… Why? Because:

Now lets see what ‘value’ for a player really is, at least in my views (and I will leave the actual content of the events out of that, it refers back to quality of the event more then the value of it, even though these are obviously linked.) :

Players value, customization and uniqueness

That’s it, simple as that. Why do they value this, because it gives them a sense of identity. And part of that is also, the option to change their looks, as they have the urge to change the spice of what they are looking at, so it keeps appealing to them. It also has to do with the ‘monkey rock’ and ‘hen house sticks’, natural tendency of human behaviour. The monkey rock is obviously the male incentive, and the ‘hen picking order’ is the female one. Related in this sense to the sticks in a hen house, where the higher order hens sit on the sticks higher in the hen house. The ‘special snowflake’ urge people have is related to this, because this gives people the feeling they have ‘their own rock’ / ‘stick’ to sit on, and as there is only ‘one’ of these, and they sit upon it, they are the highest ‘in rank’ in their own system of ranking. But biology and psychology aside.

If making money and creating value is giving players what they want, then obviously giving them varied reward every time. With a few fixed certainties during the year (on the fixed events). Is the way to go in my views…

But how to link this to the cash-shop? i’ll put this in the next post, as I fear yet again I’m close to passing the character limit

chemiclord.3978:

If you honestly believe that this company is simply looking for the path of least resistance and seeking quantity over quality no matter what, simply changing the system would NOT make the game better.

Assuming this is aimed at Devata and not me, I still bolded the IF.

Because this is where the question is really… And if you look at the game itself, you can hardly say it’s not made with quality in mind. Regardless of whether everything they envisioned works as intended and whether or not they had to revert to Q&D in certain areas of the game to make it work in the timeframe available to create everything. You can hardly say that quality was NOT one of the things they aimed for.

What you can ‘conclude’ to some point, is that ‘at’ some point decisions were made (and still seem to be made) that go against everything promised. That go against anything the long term player base has come to expect from ANet. And the question is largely who is responsible for these turns, but more important, with which motives/reasons behind it…

Seeing we are currently speaking about micro-transactions and the shop, ill stick to that and leave the whole Ascended debacle out of this. I will even leave out the picks, as they have threads of their own…

See what I wonder about the most is the following:
Why not go the extra mile to create value for the game, supported by features in the cash shop that are clearly linked to this added value

In this regard I already mentioned the hairstyles and barbershop. In a sense the shop ‘is’ a way to do Q&D development at this point. Create hairstyles with out the features to support it ‘in game’, and dump them in the cash-shop. Similar with minis, people want them, dump them in the cash shop. (even though various ones are also in the game, or can be earned by events A* .)

A* I want to elaborate a bit on this as well, while I think a mini can be a great end reward for a LS event chain, at some point it felt that every LS had a mini. When it was clear that people were going ‘meh another mini’, the next couple of events had a back-slot item. And not just one, various LS events in a row had this as a reward. To the point where people were going ‘meh’ another back-slot item. And I am fearing the worst for the ‘books’…

It feels as though there is nobody making an analysis of what players see as value, and the simple understanding that ‘a change in spice, makes one eat’ (freely translated saying from my own language). See the minis do have value to the player, as do back slot items. Same as people value pizza as one of the world’s great foods, but have pizza every time and sooner than later it’ll start coming out of your noose.

And it’s not like these are hard to grasp, difficult concepts. But the trouble is, there is this ‘gemshop’ department that sees that ‘item x’ sells good thus, MAKE MORE X! … that might work for a pizza shop, that sees different customers every day, but not for an cash shop that sees the same players every day (or in this regard, the event rewards that see the same players).

So let’s take a more analytical approach, and see what could be done and what is need for that to take place. in my next post, as I see this one is nearing that limit again

And in hind side you can somewhat conclude that ‘GW1’ was sort of the ‘settlers’ of the MMORPG movement of that time. Why the ‘settlers’ actual company never made an RPG remains a mystery to me. They now have a cash shop web based game, which I tried, but it (like any settlers after II:gold edition) couldn’t live up to that one great version of it. And a settlers MMORPG ‘now’ would not have had the same impact as one would have had shortly after the release of WoW.

The only ‘game’ company that ‘may’ be able to create a next true ‘WoW’. Sid Meyers: Civilisation Online. I have absolutely no real clue as to how an MMORPG of this gaming type could be come a reality. But it is the only ‘game’ that has a similar legacy as WoW did, years of games from another genre, but appealing enough to the general gaming community that any gamer will have at least heard of the name, and more then likely played one or more version of it, at one time in their gaming career. Due to the nature of Civ though, it is unlikely that this game can somehow be transferred into an MMO. Aka. there will likely not be another WoW ever… and we should be happy too as well! If ever a game turned a company into an evil entity set upon ways to take candy from a baby, it was WoW. $25,- pixel pony…

If you compare that to EVE’s equivalent monocle, and the definite uproar about them, to the point where people cancelling their subscriptions made the company revert back to their ways. You can see that the audience largely dictates what sort of things ‘they’ can pull off…

But I am drifting off topic now… so i’ll leave it at this..

It is not the system, ‘subscription, expansion, cashshop’ that determines the quality of the game. It’s the people behind it. Are they in it for the quick buck and as much of it as possible. Or are they in it to offer a value for money product…

chemiclord.3978:

The entire heart of your argument is that you want expansions. The “quick and dirty” is your excuse to rationalize it.

That just isn’t true, now I can’t speak of his/her preference for Q&D expansions, but in all the things discussed, to me one thing stands out:

The longing for value for money.

The question then becomes which system gives a company the best incentive to stick to ‘value for money’. As opposed to Q&D cash grab ways, like this new pick. That didn’t add any value to the game for anyone anywhere or what so ever. AND screws over a large portion of people that bought the original picks.

I for one prefer the cash shop model, as the best incentive. It keeps the company on their toes to supply that value for money in the short run, and the long run. While expansions totally remove the short term value goal (besides the most obnoxious bugs), and all effort is put in the next big thing. This also means there is a large ‘hit or miss’ risk involved, not only for the company but for the game as well. As opposed to a miss in a cash-shop item, which ‘IF!’ the company releases shop items from a value for money vision, is much easier to redeem yourself from…

And this is sort of where I left off when dinner called me…

See, the trouble isn’t the cash shop, the trouble is finding that balance where cash shop items don’t skew the game over to a point where it becomes unplayable. And avoid selling ‘power’ in which ever shape or form in the shop (aka. turning the cash shop into the only way to play the game).

And the trouble is that ‘economists’ try to utilize the traditional ways to handle a monopoly situation. It’s the Q&D financial managers that saw the millions of WoW and expected this golden flees to lie at the bottom of any MMO river of time. Because they don’t understand, nor are interested in the actual value that these games have for their consumers, they use all sorts of psychological tricks and traps to nickel and dime the money out of your pocket. And the problem is that a lot of consumers actually don’t care, or aren’t smart enough to see what is going on. And like any con(wo)man they don’t care about these people, all they care about is that golden flees.

And one of the things that ‘proofs’ that these people have no clue about video games, is the fact that many of them think they will produce the next WoW. WoW wasn’t just ‘an MMO’ game, WoW already had 3 strategy games and a huge following behind it before it became a 3D MMORPG world. Not only was it able to draw on this huge following, it also had (for its time) innovative features. It also came at a time, where subscription based gaming was the norm (due to server costs in the past), but at the same time consumer based computing and the internet took it’s true flight, and due to that and technological advances ‘servers came with a box of cereals’. Also due to its marketing ‘and’ art style, as well as a name with legacy, it appealed to a lot of new gamers. Who more then undoubtedly had at some point played a cracked WOW game, at least once in their lives. WoW was the actual golden flees, a one time deal that came to be due to a mix of circumstances of which Blizzard only controlled a few. It was the right thing at the right time, with the right amount of history behind it.
It wasn’t the art style, the gaming mechanics, or even the fact that it was an MMORPG (there were others around at the time as well), it was all the ‘luck’ of various circumstances coming together at that particular time.

@Devata, mainly a question about the mini’s you go on about. Forgoing the whole expansion as the solution. What would be acceptable to sell in regards to mini’s. I mean, these minis need to be made and at some point the code to govern them had to be created, as well as various systems and code and icon, artwork etc. to support them. So lets just assume you paid for all of this when you bought the game. Now obviously you would like to keep gathering them (and remember there is no expansion), what would you find acceptable in regards to mini’s? to ‘pay’ in order to see them expand the ‘mini collection game’…

- Put 10% of the minis in the gemshop?
- Put all the mini’s in the cash-shop as well as in the game?
- Offer a mini pet menagerie in the gemshop?
- Put ‘non-bound’ minis in an gemshop RNG item?
- Put ‘non-bound’ minis in ingame RNG items?
- Put 10% of the minis solely in the game? (and 10% in solely in the shop, with 80% in both)
- Put a 3 mini leash in the cash shop, so you can have 3 minis active instead of 1.

I mean, I am not against a cash shop, as I said earlier when the costumes came out as part of mini-expansion content in GW1 I bought a lot of them. I thought it to be a great way to stimulate ANet to make more ‘ftp’ content for all, being paid by those who (like in my case) didn’t see a problem throwing them some money for a costume. And I only stopped doing so when every tid-bit of new content came with a costume.

Similar with the ‘barbershop’ example, I wouldn’t mind buying hair unlocks to ‘repay’ ANet the time to put in the barbershops and make changing your hairstyle (the base ones) for gold available to all. What I would expect though, is that a new batch of new styles, would come with say 1(to 3) style(s) for each race for everybody, besides the new cash shop unlock.

Similar to minis, I think there is a middle ground in the cash shop items to support a feature in and on itself. The thing is that the balance between ‘value and money’ is entirely skewed. More then likely because the cash shop is handled by some hardly creative money grabbing economist, who’s idea to making money is to seduce people to spend more money on things than there is value in it. I mean, the 20% slap on the pick is by all means a clear example of trying to get more money out of a feature that has already seen it’s value return by the sales of the other picks.

That I think is also why the community (and humans in general) didn’t see that much trouble in the endless picks, there was no real added bonus (mainly convenience) the feature’s development was paid for by those using it. And we all (conscious or not) realized that part of the profits return would see its way back into the game, in the form of more content for us all. The upheaval about the pick is because now all those people that bought these picks are screwed over by a ‘better’ pick, and there was no actual added value to the game. 3 lines of code somewhere and some text, plus one model. Result all pick made obsolete, and we all know that it will lead to the other being so as well, for no extra ‘work’ or added value to the game. (now sure some of that money ‘may’ go back into the game, but there is no way to see the connection between it, and also where is the value, I mean the value to the game itself? there is none, it just screws people over that don’t have the pick)!

While there are a lot of ways to trick people into spending money, there is one thing we share even with our ape family relatives. That is a VERY STRONG feeling of ‘FAIRNESS’. And that is what is behind the feeling of ‘cash grabbing’ cash-shops. No added value, or absurd prices for items that are basically 1x created and infinitely reproduced for no extra costs. Not sure if I said it in this discussion, but would you pay 8$ for a song in w/e online-service you prefer? Or what about an App. for your mobile phone?

dinner time I have to continue this later on

Guest to another server may well be the only way to solve this quickly, else do other stuff and come back later i guess?

I would like to add something to the idea that there are games that have an actual fully ‘open world’ … There is NO game that has this! Absolutely none that I know off! Not even single player ones…

What there is though, is carefully crafted ways, to hide that you cross a boundary. And if your computer is somewhat oldish, you will almost always notice where this happens due to even the slightest hiccup or lag spike. (and yes my computer tends to lack behind as my financial situation does too) …

Does this mean that making the game ‘load screen gated’ is the Q&D way of doing things? I don’t know … What I do know is that the ‘open world lie’ uses a lot of Q&D solutions to make you think that you are in an open entirely open world.

They use low quality textures and a lot of recycling of these textures to reduce loading times by as much as possible, they use ‘sub sections’ which are basically really tiny maps that load ultimately fast and a trigger in this space to start loading up the next big area (like caves, or mountain tops, or small valleys, etc.). While you are in this tiny map you feel like you are in the ‘open’ world, but you are not, and once you pass 1/3 in the programming will assume you will move on, dumps the previous assets and starts loading the map you are about to enter.

So which is the Q&D here? I am not sure, but I am sure that truly open world games are a big myth. And it’s basically a design decision to do it one way or the other, which then has implications for the rest of your game. (as reply 1 to this issue explained a bit more about as to how this choice pans out for GW2)

In that regards, I think in any place that there is a hidden wall they at least tried to fix it in a way that you don’t hurt your nose. This is most obvious in water maps, where a current will push you back. In other places it’s usually steep hills, obvious gates or other things.

And for the maps being instances they are (in my views) very well designed and of very high visual standard. As opposed to some of the ‘truly open world’ (cough) worlds I been on…

The AI is somewhat agree upon, it seems as though every creature is controlled by the same AI and displays the same behaviour. I personally hope they will have a chance to diversify this, as it feels like a clear programming feature that could benefit a lot more games than just GW2.

And in this regard I am looking more at NCSoft in general. Having a large database of AI for creature behaviour could benefit all games made by NCSoft, and reduce the workload of any game in this respect, even if it were just as a point of reference/solutions for entirely new programming…

Another place I sometimes feel Q&D is used, is in the Store items. I elaborated on that in the thread you made about that, in the example of the hairstyles.

I view just putting those in the Store is a Q&D solution, where as creating a barbershop and having people change their hair for gold, to ‘then’ add the hairstyles as an unlock to the barbershop in the store would have been the better solution, and more value adding to the game as a whole.

Some other features in this regard (aka store items) seem to have this same feel to them, to me at least…

So Q&D, yes in some areas, but in general I think Anet strives for a high quality in their game and thus Q&D isn’t always on the front of their solutions. In my views of course

Just wanted to mention the following about hearts (that I posted into various threads already).

These heart events should reset every month and be part of the monthly completion. The hearts were meant to get people into places where events happened, while the events would then lead you to other event-locations. And as such they would guide you through the game. ‘But’ because hearts are a onetime deal, people do not frequent these locations, do not encounter the ‘lead in’ events that sprout from these locations and are thus left to roam the area looking for any event that is taking place, more then often being ‘the same’ as always. As opposed to events that only start at heart locations and never fire off, which in turn mean their follow ups never fire off, which in turn means that there is a whole lot of content that a whole lot of people never saw!

A monthly heart reset, and making them part of the monthly completion list, would get more people into these locations and as such bring them into contact with more events.

That said though, I did a thread recently with the request to ‘reinvent the quest’, and with that I did mean the more traditional quest, where you go on a certain mission that takes you places and has certain NPC involved in clear roles. And I repeated this suggestion in the vertical progression thread.

I think there is space for these in the GW2 world, and the quests would fit in really well with the 3 orders. Or even other organisations and or ‘things’, they could be a great addition to add more to the background story of the world, or serve as specific goals (f/e the quest for a legendary).

While I do not expect the traditional ‘quest’ to return, as a bunch of characters linked together with a ! or ? above their heads. The ‘quest’ as a storytelling facet (mainly the Personal story is ‘the main quest’ in gw2), may well return.

Lastly I do agree that sometimes ANet is a tad to stubborn in regards to being different for the sake of being different. And yes, this lead to great things and not so great things (based a lot on personal preference), in the end though I think we should embrace this more then shun from it. As shunning from it would mean we would not be playing GW2, but instead we would be playing WoW2 backed by GW2 lore…

In this regard it is also worth it to find the right angle to address issues, I wouldn’t like the holy trinity to return, but I do somewhat agree that the current roles aren’t at all that clear. Which can be fine in a sense, as long as each profession can fullfill this roll in an equal manner. I think the horizontal and vertical progression CDI’s gave them enough feedback to find their own way in this.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Don’t get me wrong I LOVE the CDI but you are correct, for example the last CDI took up a huge amount of my free time during the holiday period. Whilst that isn’t ideal, it pales in comparison to my concern about not being able to give a discussion the attention it is due.

So far I think i have done an ok job with this, but I know I could do a lot better.

It really does boil down to time. Also it helps that I have a very patient wife!

Chris

While I generally do not like people promoting their own ideas to much, it may be worth it to take a good look at the (somewhat cut up) suggestion I made above here to ‘cut up’ the CDI process in a running ‘agenda’ thread on the CDI-topic and a CDI sub-forum discussing the ‘agenda points’ in separate threads.

Doing so will make the discussions less chaotic, and you can address the actual topic at hand, doing the discussion and everybody in it justice, as opposed to being somewhat forced to pick out one person to quote and reply to, while unintended giving the impression that you ‘ignore’ others that raised the same things, or entirely different things all together (and thus again giving the unintended impression that you favour one topic over the other)… which both I am sure are unintended, because the simple fact that you put so much time into this, and even took upon you to undertake show that you care for any ones input. But simple don’t have the time (nor would anyone for that matter) to respond to every single thing…

Or rather, in the current setup, as with a more divided up discussion you could take it one ‘agenda point’ at a time, and respond to the issue at hand instead of a certain person. Which I think would lead to more people feeling their issue gets the attention it deserves.

It may still turn out to be to much for a single guy to handle, but I think that if the discussion is more structured into issues, that various other Anet employees be more inclined/encouraged to participate as they do not have to address their views on the whole topic, but merely a certain issue. And with doing so, would not give the unintended reaction that picking out a certain issue means they value all others less.

It would also, give you an overview of which issues are not yet being addressed by yourself or others, as they would lack the ‘anet’ sign of activity. Meaning you can actively keep track of where to put some of your effort to make people feel heard.

No confirmation about this is needed at this moment though

And I do hope somebody (hopefully multiple) that are a part of the community will read over this suggestion and give their opinion. It’s hard to be critical about your own thoughts, and having another pair of eyes and minds go over it may well help it improve.

ps. tnx for keeping the thread open so that the less frequent board contributors can have a chance to chip in their 2ct. Ultimately the CDI-thread-duration will need to find the right balance similar to the in game updates, as to catering to the hard-core and the more casual (but equally emotionally invested) players/contributors.

I think a 2 weekend minimum warrants at least enough opportunity to those mainly having the weekends for these kinds of things. Given that the process will crystalize into a clear ‘workflow’ and summaries reducing the time needed to invest in threads.

But also setting some minimum time to run these threads may make it easier for you to plan your time around them, as well as make them part of some in office time to discuss results (even intermediate ones).

skipping all other replies, and just focussing on 1to3/3

I can follow you most of the way, but I would like to point out the following things:

1. You say focus on expansions, which may well be a good alternative, but then you also point at a negative. For as long as the expansion is due, any other update will not see the light of day. There would be no LS, no new hairstyles, no w/e intermediate update, because all dev’s focus would be on the expansion. Also, bug fixes would still have no priority. not saying one is better than the other, but are you willing to accept this trade off, waiting 1 to 1.5y for anything new.

2. You say that ‘a barbershop’ would be a better way to facilitate the hairstyles. And yes I agree with that. BUT! Adding the barbershop, and giving people a way to change their hairstyle for ‘gold’ (aka gold sink), to then offer the unlock of hairstyles in the Shop. THAT would be the correct way (in my views) to have added value of the Shop translate into the game.

You introduce an in game feature that is accessible to all, and include a SHOP feature to go along side it. In fact, if the prices for these unlocks were anything but acceptable, I would even buy this unlock…

And currently I have yet to spend any real money in the Shop simply because I think the prices (for one time created, no reproduction costs) are just way to silly. Would you pay 10$ for a song in w/e song service you prefer on the internet, NO you wouldn’t. And thus I refuse to pay 10$ for a one time created, reproduced unlimited for no extra cost, assortment of pixels.

What I do want to spend money on? Items that increase the game content, and come as a clear feature to this content to supply Anet with a return on the investment to make this content. At a reasonable price…

It is why I bought (almost) all the costumes that Anet put out in GW1, and I only stopped doing so when these updates became so frequent that it was clear the updates were no longer coming for the updates, but for the costume sales…

2 in short If done ‘right’ the gem-shop can be an excellent way to improve the game and generate sales. Even from the most conscious consumers out there (which would be me f/e).

and just so you don’t think I am a free rider, I purchased all 3 books instead of spending money in the in game shop, and yes I did get somebody else to spend money, as I did buy 2 storage panes for gold

SO I personally think it’s not the gemshop that is to blame, and you might not either, but it’s the focus on the gemshop first, instead of content first. That makes us end up with somewhat worthless conditions on both ends. As a conscious consumer I do not mind spending my money, if I see the added value of the features created with that money (even if the money comes in after the investment).

I have given various respectful posts a +1 so that I do not have to repeat every single thing I agree with here.

I do want to post some things here though:
1. This item is unacceptable, it sets a bad precedent, and I fear the worst for the future of GW2 if this is not corrected.

2. The thing that ‘hurt’ me most is that it tells me not to spend money on any! unlimited tools, nor spend any gold on it. As I can now be certain the next one may well offer me an advantage that is worth it even more.

3. And I also thinks that Anet deserves this issue to be raised. As it brings me to the reason why this whole issue is most disappointing to me. After the kitten storm Ascended gear brought on, who on earth would think it would be a great idea to do the same thing in the Store! … really ?!?!?! … now I already knew Anet is a hardhead in learning from their mistakes, I been with GW since the GW1 beta’s (yes those with skill gems and the skill amulet), and on most cases Anet needed to hit the same stone at least 3 times before there was so much poop hitting the fan that there was nothing else to do but clean up… but after all these years you would figure them to learn from this as well…

This is the most disappointing to me about this whole situation, I can back Anet up in regards to finding the right balance for the LS in regards to temporarily and persistent content, I can back them up in regards to the CDI’s trying to get the game forward. But there is no way to back them up in regards to making the same mistakes twice or even trice, and continuing to do so. I am all for experimenting and finding new ways to improve gaming, I am also for an in game shop as opposed to a subscription, I am all for the gem-exchange giving people a way to spend their gold on shop items (which mostly give no real advantage or a questionable one). But here I draw the line!

And the uproar about Ascended gear should have made it very clear as to where the community stands on these kind of subjects. Putting the same thing into the shop, that is just, how to find the least offensive word , dumb I guess? and as a long time GW player I would expect better from Anet by now, really disappointing :’(

Now addressing these people themselves. While I can see how a discussion on how to discuss may feel like ‘work’, having a good simple and easy procedural way to go about these CDI discussions is one of the ways to deal with the issues you put forth…

You are less likely to join in on an already lengthy discussion, that is addressing all sorts of things (aka chaos), making your own posts feel like they are being ignored, because the discussion of more vocal others is dominating the ‘issue’ at hand (aka. you post a suggestion about story/lore progression, which feels like it’s being ignored, because the current discussion in the thread is largely about skill progression). And you may also feel somewhat ignored by the dev’s (unjustified in my views => ) who may only have some lunch time available and end up talking to people that happen to be on the forum at that particular time, joining in on the discussion at hand (aka. the skill progression one running, see example in () just above here).

I feel your ‘complaints’ to this thread are justified (as they are on topic), but at the same time I feel they are not entirely fair. To address a few in no particular order:

- I don’t want to talk about, how to talk about things. Understandable sure, but if we come to a good simple structure for these discussions, you will be much more likely to find your way ‘to the fun part’.

- I feel discussion is dominated by a few, understandable just critique, but if we don’t find a way to guide the discussion in a more appropriate format, how will we combat this? Being able to bring this up in this discussion clearly shows this discussion is trying to do you justice.

- I feel like being steered away from the main things, very true! But at the same time, this discussion helps us all to come to a format that may well make sure that we stay ‘on issue’ better. It might make the discussion less chaotic, more easily pinpoint and discuss certain things, and thus, supply a more readily suggestion and with that a possibly faster adaptation of the solution and implementation in the game.

- I don’t like discussing procedural stuff, fair enough, but I like it! So why should your preference be leading, aren’t you just saying you don’t like it when other people dictate the discussion for you? So, your solution is to have yourself dominate what is discussed instead?!? (not meant in an offensive way, but merely mirroring how you seem to contradict yourselves)

- Anet should do this, and not the community | we should see Anet do something with our comments: if you hang around this forum long enough you should know how that will pan out. And this discussion in particular lets the community come up with a way to go about these discussions, and thus be accepted as the way to do this more readily. Also, the feedback from this discussion will more then likely be implemented directly for the next CDI, while any suggestions on the game will likely take a 3months (if not more) implementation cycle.

! So yes! Your comments are justifiable and if this thread wouldn’t have been here, you wouldn’t have been able to voice them. This in itself justifies this thread. More over, the whole idea of this thread is to come to the best procedure that will benefit us all in this discussion, it may not be what you like to discuss right now, but it does give you the opportunity to contribute to how you (and all of us) will discuss things in the future. And resolve the issues you also seem to be having with the way things are going now…

While you may not have the answers to these things, or does not like to discuss this sort of ‘workflow’ discussions. There are others that may well do, and giving them the opportunity to solve these issues for you, should be worth it. In this respect I am reminded of the roles in innovation processes, there are those that see the troubles and those that solve them. More then often these are not the same people, but you need both of them. So this was not an attack on the issues you raised, as I think they are justified! But at the same time, if these are issues for you, give others the opportunity to deal with them, so we can all benefit in the end (this last mainly to the unfair comment that this whole thread shouldn’t be here, which I think just isn’t true)

Making the CDI ‘stick out’ :
I would suggest making a ‘special sticky’ status on the forum for the CDI main thread. The colour of the sticky could be ‘gold’ (mid-dark orange) and ‘sticky’ on top of the Main-GW2 forum, but below the line of the sticky reds.

That way it is right there in everybody’s faces, and nobody would be able to miss it. As the first post clearly describes the topic and goal of the thread, that should clear things up, a link in this post to the latest summary in this main thread, would shoot people forward to a place to easily pick up.
Post2 would obviously hold the ‘agenda’ of the CDI and supply links to the sub-forum threads, as well as the latest summary in that thread.

People can clearly see (straight up in post 2) if their issue is already being discussed in the form of a sub-forum, and if not can bring it up in the main CDI thread. If so, they can follow the link(s – either to the last summary if there is one, or to the thread itself).

! Reading some of the posts in between here. The way described here would also ‘split up’ the community in smaller ‘task groups’, warranting less likeliness of the same people dominating the discussion, as they would have to dominate ‘all’ issues.

!! It will also be more likely for a specific comment on a specific issue (currently lost in the violence of ‘One thread to rule them all’) to be noticed and be judged on it’s value. As that specific comment will be ‘on issue’, and add to the discussion on the narrow scope of the running thread.

!!! ANet devs may be more comfortable to discuss a single topic at hand, as opposed to giving their opinion on the CDI as a whole. They would feel less pressured to do everybody justice and reply to each and every thing mentioned in this ‘currently one thread’, as now they can ‘just’ have to do the narrow discussion justice by giving a reply that benefits this narrow topic.

!!!! The same applies to the community members, when there is a clear way to navigate to the issue of interest to this community member, they only have to talk to people that have the same issue on their minds. They don’t have to feel overwhelmed by the whole ‘meta-discussion’, and as these discussions are narrow and on topic, can feel like their post contributes to the CDI making progress, instead of fearing (justifiably) that their post will be lost in the fray.

as it must certainly look, if you are just reading my long contributions, and more then likely skip the short comments made in between, which deal with something that should be addressed (and thus I did , but might be better ‘at home’) in a sub-forum of it’s own hope this illustrates their points and clarifies how my lengthy suggestion to format the CDI process would deal with this…

Main CDI thread (in general forum)
0. starts (1st post) with a description of the topic, and some procedural info. The 2nd post is reserved for an overview of the ‘agenda’ with links to the various threads.
1. A community brainstorm on the issues, within the topic at hand will produce an ‘CDI-issue-Agenda’. It is this agenda that fills the 2nd post, and new input will be updated there.
2. The ‘summary’ every 3 pages can still be done in this thread, a link in the opening post (1st) can link to the latest summary in the thread as a whole, so people can skip the discussion and go straight to the last summary. Although this ‘summary’ is obviously also the 2nd post.
3. If entirely new topic are brought up in this running CDI thread, they should be added to the ‘agenda’ in the 2nd post and get their own thread in the CDI-sub-forum.
4. Once a sub-forum reaches a summary ‘milestone’ the 2nd post should include a link to the summary post of the specific issue thread.

Sub-forum CDI, topic discussions
1. As topics are brought up in the community brainstorm, corresponding threads should be made in the CDI sub-forum. The actual discussion on this specific topic can commence here. Staying on topic is the main focus of these threads.
2. but if issues are brought up that derail the discussion, they may warrant their own discussion. The community should embrace these and forward the poster to the main CDI thread, and post the issue there. So it can be added to the overview agenda, and get it’s own thread in the sub-forum.
3. These ‘issue’ threads in the sub-forum, should have a first post detailing which issue is to be discussed as part of the whole topic at hand in the CDI at the time. This post should also include a link to the latest summary of that thread (when/if reached). Assuming a summary at any given point reflects the whole discussion prior to it, instead of just the 3 pages in between summaries. else links to all summaries may well be a better way.

This would lead to the following ‘tasks’:
For Chris:
- Open up the main CDI thread, post 1 (description of the CDI topic), reserve post 2 for the agenda.
- Open up the sub-forum CDI threads, post 1, and links to summaries if reached.

For the community (including Anet Staff) :
- Bring up issues in the main CDI thread
- Discuss issues within the CDI sub-forum.
- Supply threads with summaries.
- Notify Chris when a summary is reached in a sub-forum discussion, I would suggest doing this through the main CDI thread

! This would mean that Chris, in general, would only have to pay attention to the main CDI thread, and adjust post2 with links to new sub-forums and make corresponding new threads in the sub-forums. And add a link to the 1st post there to last summary page in that thread. Adding links to these summaries in post2 of the main CDI thread may also help the process along.

Archiving the CDI
I am not sure how well links are preserved when issues get archived. But having an archive of CDI topics would be nice. If, in this archive the CDI-topic threads would have a ‘sticky’ status, and it is set up as suggested above, then all the discussion topics could just be archived along side it. The stickies supply the agenda with links to the specific issues, so even if the ‘archive’ becomes a visual mess, it is still easy to navigate.

Perhaps the 1st post in each sub-forum issue thread should have a link back to the CDI-main topic agenda. Warranting even better navigation, also during the CDI process as people may drop into the CDI sub-forum and not realize there is a main-agenda thread in the ‘general GW2 sub-forum’.

This all assuming the links are preserved! when topics are archived

Reading over the summery on this page. I was somewhat struck by the last sentence:
“Bump. Looks like we are close to moving onto the next topics!”

Then when reading over the comments made there after, and realizing I got to posting my comments 2h after this summary, I nearly missed contributing to this CDI again. So what is the thing here, I hardly visit the forums during the week, you know like ‘RL’ stuff getting in the way. And if topics only run for like 5days, you will only get the feedback of the most active, most present people. Basically those that make you wonder if they even have time to actually play GW2 :P (said jokingly, and maybe even a bit jealously, I wish I still had the time to play both GW2 and be on the forums that much) … This then also ties in with the responses made about getting an isolated CDI feedback community. If topics run for a short amount of time, there will only be feedback from those that frequent the forums, hence I would like to suggest:

- Keep the CDI thread running for a period of time that includes at least two weekends

If the topic needs a longer period, than that is just fine, but if the topic seems not to need that much time, closing it early may exclude a lot of people that have a live next to GW2 (not meant as an offence, as you know what I mean). But may well be as emotionally invested in the game as any other player.

Related to this is the ‘conclusion’ reached, that there should be just 1 CDI thread, and ‘no’ CDI sub-forum. I am not too sure if this is a good idea… The CDI process may well need both (ill get the details in a few).

Now I see how one big thread and over 50pages can deter anyone from diving into a topic, and how summaries may give readers somewhat of an overview, yet leave no room for nuance and details. Now I thought about a system like Reddit (I think it is), where people respond ‘to a post’ instead of ‘to a thread’, which in ways can divide a thread into several sub discussions. This is a step forward, but, it will also mean that there may well be whole discussions on the same topics, running side by side. Nothing warrants that each discussion line is just about one aspect of a certain topic. Making the discussion, in essence, even harder to follow…

So what does a CDI thread need? Well it largely depends on the scope of the topic at hand. Yes that is an open door, but it’s not less true… So the broader the topic, the more likely the discussion will be hard to follow, summaries will end up less specific. And even more dangerous, summaries may lead to ‘pre-conclusion’ on issues, where (in my views) these are all feedback threads and conclusions are meant to be drawn in ANet staff meetings. Broad topics will also lead to very long threads, discouraging those that get in late, or those that just do not have the time to keep up with it.

Yet, there is something to say about keeping at least some broadness to topic formulation. If you make a topic to narrow and specific, the discussion will be over very soon, people are less likely to come up with interesting things, or even be ridiculed within the thread for bringing something up that ‘from the scope of the discussion’ is totally ‘out of the box’.

Aka. the feedback as a whole benefits from a broad topic, while the process of discussion (and keeping up) benefits a lot if there is a narrow scope.

Now if this were to be something like an IRL meeting, there would be a clear agenda of what to discuss, these topics would be set by a chairmen, and we would all work off these topics one by one (leaving one person with the daunting task of writing it all down, the poor soul). With the internet though, and the actual process of feedback, where you want a somewhat broad topic and receive responses ‘out of the box’ to determine the discussion, that is somewhat impossible. ‘Or is it?’

This leads me to ‘conclude’ that the process of the CDI should be ‘cut up’, not in time, as we now have the benefit of the internet and a forum structure to discuss all topics ‘basically at the same time’. But ‘cut up’ in a sense that we should have a discussion running on the ‘issues’ within the topic at hand. And a sub-forum that has threads running on these specific topics. The main thread could also ‘house’ a copy of the in-discussion summaries, and would stay open to include specific topic that come up, or that a new person may bring up. This would give the CDI process the following structure:

this post was cut, as it was getting to long, see next post by ‘me’

@Etien, even though it’s a bit weird to agree with oneself :P … I will still want to say that I think doing this heart reset is one of the most promising ways to get areas more populated.

Like, I am a bit of a casual player, and recently decided to somewhat work on my 100% map completion. Running through some maps I haven’t set foot in months was really fun. Running into events I never seen b4 or running into ones I had already forgotten.

Only thing that was a bit disappointing, is that I could hardly get 5ppl together for group events. Why is that, because there isn’t really something to get people into these places (other then alt-ing). If the hearts would reset, and it would be part of the monthly, people (the pve’ers) will do these, and while doing so run into events, which are usually also part of the monthly.

And doing hearts will get you into event heavier places, which in turn will make it more likely that you experience all the states of all events…

Hope this will be possible, it will get people out and give pve’ers purpose to actually go out. Meet ppl, meet alts. etc…

Feedback on this issues put forth:

1. No! A limit on the amount of text will just frustrate people that have a detailed thing to say, and will just use multiple posts to say their thing… hopefully the community will learn to bullitpoint/tldr their feedback, besides giving the lengthy insight as to why they pose these points. Learning to write good feedback is just that, a learning process.

2. I would suggest taking on the ‘discussion’ format. Meaning that we should alternate the party that puts forth a CDI topic. So one time Anet, one time the community, and so on.

The community can do an CDI-issue-suggestion thread, followed up by a vote/poll, to then work the first 3 from 1st to 3rd. Then likely we should do another suggestion thread, and vote again. Mainly to give new things a chance as they may pop up.

Letting Anet set the next CDI topic will give us the time to set this up…

3.a. I would prefer not to have another place to discuss these issues, like a whole different forum (like http://gw2CDI.forum.com or w/e). Keeping it here on this forum will mean that the community can easily find these topics and contribute, without having to go elsewhere.

3.b. A different forum section, I would support, as a single topic may well spawn different side topics that, keeping everything to one thread my well make a mess. Splitting these topics off of the main discussion, in a new thread, and keeping that in the same forum section will keep the whole together.

@Electro, which could be justified if these ‘cultural’ armours were available to all the races, came from a racial attaché, and would be earned by representing a certain race and ‘quest’ for racial points.

To me, what would be a good start, is if the Sylvari armours (all) would actually mix and match properly. But currently the ‘dungeon’ armour does not mix well with at least tier2 of the cultural armour, because the chest piece totally overlaps the gloves. this could be solved by adding the sleeves of this tiers’ armour to the gloves of this tier.

Another matter related to medium armour, also plagues the cultural armour, mainly all have that longcoat design to them. Meaning I currently run the ‘ninja’ pants and vest to get another feel to my Sylvari.

So yeah, make sure the armours are better designed to mix and match, and add more pieces to the mix. Even a Toxic head/shoulder/gloves setup, that is designed well to mix and match would already increase options…

@lunacrous , ok while I think that is a bit overreacted let me ask you this:

Is the warrior level ok though? I mean, if all professions would be at the Warrior Tier could that be the goal to aim for? Or is the warrior overpowered?

Will you be looking into the medium armour class more specifically when it comes to WvW compatibility?

mainly because now that the monk is gone from GW2, there is no definitive reason to form front/mid/back-lines, meaning that various skills for the midline classes that seem to be designed for such a gameplay, don’t seem to be relative for the gameplay format that arose

DarksunG.9537:

No, it’s not. Lighting is one the things this game is fantastic at.

Nah it’s not, just read the message just above yours.. there is a lot wrong with ‘lighting’ mainly the shaders and highlighters in some odd ways…

This thread is a ‘follow-up’ of the thread here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Is-Tyria-over-lit

In this thread it turned out that the issue I seem to be having. Which is a regular immersion disconnect due to some subtle weirdness that triggers a subconscious disconnect from feeling immersed.

- It turned out to be not so much about the lighting, but all about the shading. My initial thoughts of maybe Tyria being over lit were not due to over lighting, but due to ‘own shadows’ (so the shadow an object casts on itself, aka. the shadow side of an object) having so little contrast with the lighted side, that it’s as if these objects have no shadow side at all.

- Also, some objects don’t even have an ‘own shadow’, nor do they cast a shadow. This seems to also be the case inside of places: inside caves, inside buildings etc.

- Lastly, the ‘highlights’ on characters are not in tune with the lighting side. Which means that highlight can show up on the side that f/e tree shadows dictate should be the shadow side of the character. (aka. the shadow of the tree is pointing to the right, when standing a bit in front of the tree, and at the same time the highlights on the character are on that same right side).

These are all very subtle things, I mean, in general you won’t be paying conscious attention to where the light comes from, and which side is the shadow side of things. Which is why I had a hard time figuring this out, at first I couldn’t really understand why I was snapped out of immersion every now and then, as there seemed to be no clear causes for it. But on a subconscious level, my brain obviously registers that ‘thing aren’t quite right’, and ‘snap’ I’m back in my room in front (/behind) of my computer instead of ‘on Tyria fighting dragons’.

Having pinpointed this I hope ArenaNet will want to look into:
- The contrast of ‘own shadows’ and ‘cast shadows’ compared to the surroundings. if shadowy areas would be like 15-20% or so darker then they are now, they would already contrast a lot more, and would reduce the ‘crisp’ or ‘unnatural’ feel to them by a large margin. I’m not going for ‘realistic’ here, I’m going for that threshold that makes the world more believable to the subconscious so that I don’t pop out of immersion every time.

- If maybe something can be done to give ‘textured objects’ (basically meaning ‘no’ artefacts but illusionary objects that just consist of a texture) a shadow, or shadow side. And if something can be done about lighting inside of structures, in regards to casting shadows.

- If ‘just maybe’ the highlighting engine has gotten ‘left and right’ mixed up, or if it refers back to the ‘shadow side’ to show highlights instead of the opposite side. I mean it would be an honest mistake if this were the case, but it would make a world of difference in regards to which parts get highlighted.

To some this may all seem like ‘fishing’ for criticism (especially since it took me so long to figure out what it was, and thus it not being some obvious reason that can easily be dealt with), but really, if you make such a good looking game, it will only be the little things that can throw you off. And if something can be done about it, or there is some little mistake made somewhere, that if fixed would increase the quality of the game, then I think it is worth it to bring it up. Especially if it is something that is immersion breaking on the subconscious level.

Ok, couple of things in response:
- While I think the nights could be darker, I would not advocate a pitch black night, a 15-20% darkening would already do a lot to improve the atmosphere, while making sure that things closer up are still viewable enough to not be a huge strain on the eyesight. But at the same time it will mean that feature lighting in the distance will be popping up a bit more, as to be expected.

=> Related to this, is that this thread was not supposed to be about the night lighting. It was about me trying to find out why I have a certain disconnect in regards to immersion during playing GW2. And seeing I could not figure out any obvious reasons, it had to be something more subtle. Which is what prompted me to look at the art-style f/e, and also the lighting.

A first test in a certain area of the game, led me to think that it was actually over lighting that was causing the disconnect, and prompted me to make this thread. As it turned out though, it wasn’t that things were over lit, it was that a lot of artefacts in the game are ‘under shadowed’.

- Thus, I should really make a new thread that addresses the correct issue!
Now I did look into changing the gamma on my screen, but currently that option is ‘greyed out’ and it is said to use the gamma setting that is set to go with the software that is running. Meaning obviously, that the gamma I run, is the gamma that GW2 sets. And yes, as soon as I get in game I will have a look at my options there.

tl&dr, this thread is not about darker night, although I wouldn’t mind them at all. Nor is it about the game being ‘over lit’. Maybe I should just make a new thread addressing the correct issue… :P

@Raine, well I see your point, but if you played GW2 you will have noticed that a lot of the mechanics are gated in a vertical way, vertical being ‘as you level up’. Now it isn’t said that the skills you get later are also the ones being stronger, it’s just that they are gated in the vertical sense of character level to provide each level with some sort of progression.

@Dynnen, he was the first to use the word and explain the concept to these ppl, in such a way that it was usable as a means to convey a gameplay element. Because obviously counters and counter play have been around for years. Just in gaming theory there may not have been a clear word and a clear definition + requirements for them.

And yeah, that was a bit meh, but again, you may want to realize their target audience, which I think they view as gamers that have never thought about actual gaming mechanics. So they more then often take real bare bone and clear examples of mechanics so they can explain them…

Without that context I can see why you would cringe sometimes (even I do :P ) at some of the things they pose. On the other hand, due to the basic attitude they make often mixed up things somewhat clear, or in regards to ‘gaming theory’, pluck something apart so that one can better understand the parts of the mechanics and how they work together, or not.

Still it’s by no means the governing institute of game design, if you were to read through the thread you will notice that I switched ‘words’ at some point. Because what they call ‘perfect imbalance’ is better defined by using ‘Asymmetric’. Anyways, you got to understand what I am on about, which was the reason to use the vids

Muhah! We did it, Even though we failed in 1 lane for the first go, then we failed in lane 1 & 2 … then we ALL rally in 3 and kicked that mariscarlet in the barings and she came tumbling down.

Most important ‘coordination’ a tag in all lanes and well distributed players, then one person giving boss details and directions (mainly when to back up lanes and from which lanes).

As I understand the wurm content, that isn’t to hard either, mainly need to get them all to the last ‘phaze’ then split up and kill them all. Now hardest is to get ppl to stop fighting, but I am sure that once players realize they have nothing to gain and all to loose for doing so, this even won’t take to much coordination either… On a full map it may even be enough to just split up in 3 groups

@Gibson, well its not really just about night, it’s as if my mind registers something isn’t quite right and then that kills immersion somehow.

And I’m not sure why I didn’t try different maps, but after what Inculpatus said about different maps being different, I thought I would check different maps. And here I did indeed notice that the lighting (overall) was different…. :/

But! I also noticed that, if that wasn’kitten what it may well be. And indeed it has to do with lighting, and may well be why I linked it to being ‘over lit’ on the other map:
the lack of contrast in ‘own’ shadows , and in some cases a total lack of shadows on things.

It’s just that it’s not due to places being over lit, its due to shadow being ‘under dark’, if that makes sense :P … the contrast between a lit portion of things, and the ‘own shadow’ portion of the same thing, is sometimes non existent, which lead me to conclude the place if over lit, while in fact there just aren’t enough shadows in places, or places that my brain says should be dark due to the direction of light, aren’t dark at all… this then makes everything look so crisp, and brakes my immersion.

Ohw and other thing I noticed (on high settings) is that the ‘highlights’ are sometimes on the side the ‘light source’ dictates I should be dark. This is especially weird if you are standing in front of a tree, with a shadow to the right, while at the same time having highlights on the right side of your character.

Also, a lot of inside places don’t even cast a shadow…

So yes, I appear to be wrong, Tyria isn’t over lit (during the day at least, the night could be darker still). But there is still something wrong with the lighting, or rather the shaders, causing things not to cast their own shadow upon themselves (or with no noticeable difference) while trees on the ground f/e do cast clear shadows.

While I do not register this consciously most of the time, my subconscious does notice there is something wrong, and snaps me out of immersion.

====

Tnx for your input all I think I now truly found what subtle thing it is that feels so odd about the worlds sometimes … now how to describe it properly to suggest improvement.

In order to turn part of this forum into a request for buffs, instead of nerfs, and actually getting an update that has some buffs instead of nerfs. A request to list any profession/ weapon/ skill that you think is ‘low tier’ or plain ‘worthless’.

Because lets face it, nerfing the kitten out of anything that is even somewhat remotely viable is no fun at all, it just leads to ‘more diversity’ because everything is evenly ‘low tier or evenly worthless’. While instead we should all have viable, good options to play with!

this request is based upon the 5 tier system of: ‘godmode’ / ‘strong’ / ‘medium’ / ‘low’ / ‘worthless’ tier divide. I am merely looking for the ‘low’ and ‘worthless’ as those are the tiers that most deserve a buff, so they move into the ‘medium’ to ‘strong’ categories, and thus lead to more viable playstyles

Hmmm, guess you can’t have it all… I was hoping for some more discussion on this topic, but I guess the ‘nerf/buff’ game is just more interesting.

This does make me wonder though (and one of the reasons why I made this thread), seeing GW2 is an Asymmetric game with a goal to thus be ‘perfectly imbalanced’. If you check the calls for ‘balance’, wouldn’t people rather have a ‘symmetric’ game?

Or if not, and we accept GW2 as it is, what should change or be added to make sure the ‘perfect imbalance’ state is reached? Going over this I personally think GW2 needs:
- More skills
- More counters
- Better balance/symmetric between the non-Asymmetric parts.
- And/Or, a faster changing meta, with more regular updates.

- The ‘acceptable power level’ should be more clear, so that it is easier to determine if something is actually ‘unbalanced’.
- There should be more buffs of the ‘low tier’ and ‘worthless tier’ profession option, instead of the emphasis of nerf’ing anything that is slightly optimal.

Anything else?

Then again, you agree with me that the world is overly bright ^^ :P :p

posed as a question, instead of a statement to allow for discussion

This OP has been changed because the reason for this thread turned out to be invalid, there was actually another issue related to lighting, that was causing my issues
I have made a new thread here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Please-take-a-look-at-the-shaders-lighting/first#post3546439
to discuss the actual issue.

I have been plagued by a certain ‘disconnect’ from the world of Tyria for a while now, and have tried to find out exactly why that is. Not being able to find anything tangible, like f/e not having any real problem with huge norn and quaggan backpacks (although, yeah no, also in places without them I have this feel).

This personal quest lead me to the lighting on Tyria, now I already thought that nights should be a lot darker to allow for a better nightly atmosphere, but seeing I couldn’t find anything else that may be causing this disconnect, I wondered if it may be due to the lighting overall.

Ok, couple of things in response:
– While I think the nights could be darker, I would not advocate a pitch black night, a 15-20% darkening would already do a lot to improve the atmosphere, while making sure that things closer up are still viewable enough to not be a huge strain on the eyesight. But at the same time it will mean that feature lighting in the distance will be popping up a bit more, as to be expected.

=> Related to this, is that this thread was not supposed to be about the night lighting. It was about me trying to find out why I have a certain disconnect in regards to immersion during playing GW2. And seeing I could not figure out any obvious reasons, it had to be something more subtle. Which is what prompted me to look at the art-style f/e, and also the lighting.

A first test in a certain area of the game, led me to think that it was actually over lighting that was causing the disconnect, and prompted me to make this thread. As it turned out though, it wasn’t that things were over lit, it was that a lot of artefacts in the game are ‘under shadowed’.

- Thus, I should really make a new thread that addresses the correct issue!
Now I did look into changing the gamma on my screen, but currently that option is ‘greyed out’ and it is said to use the gamma setting that is set to go with the software that is running. Meaning obviously, that the gamma I run, is the gamma that GW2 sets. And yes, as soon as I get in game I will have a look at my options there.

tl&dr, this thread is not about darker night, although I wouldn’t mind them at all. Nor is it about the game being ‘over lit’. Maybe I should just make a new thread addressing the correct issue… :P

I like big events that take a lot of people to coordinate to succeed. While my own contribution might be limited, it still feels like I am part of a bigger thing and how my contribution ‘in the end’ was part of the success (or failure) of the whole.

Would I want all content to be like this, no! Do I wish for less lag and particle spam, yes! … but those do not mean I wouldn’t want this kind of content. Which I think can be hugely bonding and fulfilling, when everything falls into place, everybody has found its place, and the whole becomes more then the sum of its parts. Yes please, I think that is epic!

Do I see the reasons for other people not liking it, yes I do! … do I think that they too should be honoured, yes I do!

I hope that season 2, will bring us more diversity in how the story is conveyed. ArenaNet should know by now which kinds of ways there are available to them, to bring us content. And they should try to mix those ways up, and make sure that not all that content is needed to complete the meta-event. So that a player has choices in how to complete it, instead of feel forced to do what ever there is to be done.

And even if it turns out that this biweekly content doesn’t have a format you like, that the next biweekly content will have. And the same applies to the balance between temporarily content and permanent content. To please a diverse crowd (and lets face it any MMO will have a diverse crowd) the only way to please all, is to make sure your content is diverse!

This doesn’t mean all the content needs to be as diverse all the time, but it means that if you do something that is entirely temporarily, that the next time, you do something that is permanent. Even better would be a temporarily string of events that leave permanent content, or permanent content that has temporal events woven into it. Same with zerg vs. team vs. solo vs. instanced vs. open world.

I personally liked ‘flame and frost’ a lot, due to its many open world things, while at the same time ending with a dungeon like epic battle. In a similar fashion I think the tower was designed well, it took either an organized little group or a zerg to get up (I tried solo, with the emphasis on tried), while having all these instances in it that called for solo or small groups, ending with a team fight that could be solo’ed. It had a bit of all in it…

Less successful (in my views) was the event in divinity. It just called for zerging the spawning bosses, or solo’ing the ring. While a ‘no team’-content this time, wasn’t really an issue. And the solo fights were nice and challenging. The zerg fights could have been made a lot more interesting by having the bosses all spawn at once, and for any boss that isn’t slain, they march upon the center with a bunch of adds. – yes this calls for a large group of people, but they will have to split up, and for any boss that isn’t slain, you get a ‘last stand’ fight in the center. on fail, it should despawn all the bosses and leave the adds running around and make the waypoint contested. Leaving no choice but to all re-enter and retake the place… rinse and repeat…

But, and I said this in other threads also, I feel we should give ArenaNet the freedom to experiment, and based upon their efforts give honest and open feedback (instead of screaming ‘fail’ at everything that ‘you’ personally didn’t like). Only if we tell them the good and the bad, will they be able to better themselves, and lets face it, the only ones who will eventually benefit from this, are ‘we’.

Rhyse.8179:

It sounds like everyone is complaining about the overflow system and not the event.

I think that you are correct about this, even though some people put some other arguments in there as well, but you can clearly wonder if these would even be an issue if the overflow system would function better. Personally I think these other things wouldn’t even be brought up…

As a casual player, not being in a large guild, and having a ranger main… I have a huge problem with instanced big events. Mainly that if these events were instanced the chances of me being part of them are reduced considerably. But that is not the only thing…

Where I see people complaint about the organizational part of these events, I personally think they are not a problem, but the main challenge. We all have a main stake in making the event work, mainly the loot at the end, this means we all have a good motivational trigger to work together. Or we should have, and personally I think that that is the best thing about these big challenges, can groups of random people band together for a common cause or mutual thread. It is the birthplace of true heroes and leaders … WvW is a continuous battle of this kind, and the success of the zerg depends (in large) on how well people work together, it works there, so why wouldn’t it work on world bosses.

Also, we are 2-3 days into these events, and people have yet to totally familiarise with the best ways to tackle this, maybe not as a group strategy, but on a personal level. What is expected of ‘me’ to do here, what should I focus on where and when, and how does that influence the total outcome. Having patient and well explaining organized people around helps a bit, mainly, as people get familiar with the content, and start to figure out their part in the whole, it becomes more important to look at what the whole is doing. Aka, at first people are concerned about what to do themselves, as they figured that out, they become concerned about what the whole is doing.

tl&dr
Now, I see the problem already organized groups face, and it is made up of ‘having the patience’ to hoard the masses. And a big part is the overflow system, if the overflow functioned better, they would have an easier way to guide the masses. And I can only agree with that notion. Putting this kind of content in an instance wouldn’t solve one thing, except for shielding off this content for any player that isn’t a big enough organized group to take it on. sad face for a big group of the players

So yes, this is largely about the overflow system, because if it were to function better/easier, so that large already organized groups have an easier time to stick together, they would have an easier time managing themselves and the crowd.

last notion, while I understand the frustration of lag, there is a double sided edge here. In order to better understand the engine and why and where it is causing lag, Anet will need to set up situations that stress the system to it’s max. Only by trying to figure out where it all goes ‘belly up’ are they able to figure out where to fix issues and improve stability and lag-causing issues.

yes it’s no fun, I know all about that from first hand experience, but I do not see it as a reason to not do this kind of content. As it is only by doing this kind of content that lets them see where things go bad, and not only that, it also lets them see how to better design content to work around the issues. F/e the 5 lanes may be there for this exact reason, as well as the platforms. The same reason may well be around the 3 heads, having to be killed around the same time. Aka. split up the player so there are less of them around, meaning less stress on the individual computer system…

If you don’t allow yourself to make mistakes, then there is no fundament for learning, and getting it all right the first time, well wouldn’t every game studio want to achieve that. And if you are any bit of gamer, name me 1 game that got everything right all the time. There is none…

I have also already been pondering about this topic, and my fingers are somewhat itching to contribute. But if Malchior be a part of this, all my be in vane, teehee (thought idd never find a familiar name in this overcrowded new forum :P )

Keeping my fingers crossed for tomorrow, gives me a whole weekend to dive into this

Which ones are you thinking off? As far as I can see all of them could become lvl80+ content. Even if for new players or alts these paths are included in the personal story, with the scaling system there is no reason why lvl80 players could not be called to a specific cause?

@MaxPatato, i’m not to sure if you checked the ranger skills recently, but we are already an offshoot of the Elementalist. :P Mostly apparent in our traps, spirits and various elementally inspired skills. But mostly in the spirits… What about, mountain spirit, forest spirit, bog/marsh spirit, jungle spirit, desert spirit. For various of those the actual functionality wouldn’t even have to change (but right now we have ‘fire, water, stone, air’ spirits, can you get more Elementaly)

As far as the staff goes, I would prefer a mix between Druid and True Beastmaster – feel (instead of the ‘boy and his dog’-feel the ranger has now). The ranger already has enough melee weapons, but only 1 true long ranged weapon. It could benefit from skills like:

- Wave of thorns. (send out a cone of thorns bleeding foes)
- Grasping roots. (knock down due to roots popping up)
- Eagles Roar. (call upon an eagle to attack foe, like #4 warhorn, but bigger bird)
Or
- Beastly roar. (call upon a pet creature native to the area, to fight along side you for X time)
- Cleansing pollen/bloom (area that sets flowers a bloom, cleansing conditions)
- Insect Swarm (dot damage to foe)
- Vine Wall or ‘of Brambles’ of Thorn Wall (wall that blocks magic or ranged, or gives bleeding and/or crippled)
- If there’d be any ‘melee range’ attack, I would opt for ‘pole kick’ a knockback kick using the staff as a pole to gain momentum and some reach.

I mean with this setup:

1. Thorn wave
2. Cleansing Pollen
3. Wall of Brambles
4. Pole Kick
5. Eagles Roar
   With associated ‘recharge times’ for these # skills.

You could have an interesting weapon that would be interesting for the ranger, and make the ranger interesting. While staying within the theme of the Ranger. Being a nature magic inclined profession, that is mid-armoured (thus geared to ‘protect’ light armour), it is also a highly mobile character, which it retains with pole kick. And it is associated with beast mastery, which the #5 skill conveys (and seeing the #5 skill is a high impact skill on a longer cool down, it not too often that one will call upon this eagle)

The weapon would also work thematically well with spirits, also the healing one and the healing well, it would well with spike trap, frost trap and muddy terrain, it would also work well with a pet, or even the signets. Thus basically it would go well with all the ranger skills. And for WvW it would be a nice combo with the long bow, being a ranged fighter that can switch between support and damage.

Some more ideas to get people to ‘replay’ sections (some of these I think I already mentioned somewhere, but ill mention them here again).

1. Link the current Dolyaks trails to production areas and on the end point to availability of items in cities and towns. And make sure that in cities and towns the vendors express when they start running low on supplies.

f/e. The traders all have a listing of stock, for all items, these vendors can all call their children, wife, associate, whom/ever when their stocks run low to pick up more. Then when supplies haven’t come into town for while the stock will supposedly be empty or nearly empty. and the vendor(s) could express their concerns and ask players to check for their supplier.

This roughly outlined system would send players out into the world to run Dolyaks, and possibly some will get distracted by event taking place, or people asking for help.

2. Make the hearts ‘refresh’ every month, doing a heart event will give it a green’heart’ symbol, and the first time doing a heart will count for map completion. At the end of each month though, all ‘inner’ hearts will be reset. The ‘complete X heart events’ can then be added to the monthly completion list, and/or can cycle with other monthly achievements (f/e the events one).

3. Reduce the amount of waypoints considerably. While it may seem like a hinderance it will mean that more people will be traversing on foot and thus be more likely to run into events or hear the calls of people in need. I would even advocate removing waypoints entirely in favour of mounts. While it will more then likely kitten when people ride by on their mounts ignoring content, and helping you, at least there will be people passing by, where now, due to the waypoint system there is nobody ever going to pass by. (and lets face it, a large part of the population will more then likely be riding around just to find people in need, or wouldn’t mind at all to come and help a fellow player out).

4. Make sure that Living story updates include multiple maps, and or, contain linked quests that take them through multiple maps (although the waypoint system may well make this less effective, still though, having quests that take people to various places on the map will increase the amount of players on these maps, and as long as a small portion is easily distracted by event popping up, they will stick around for while)

5. Instead of dropping specific loot in a certain area, I have been thinking about additions to the crafting system that in essence do the same thing. See certain creatures drop very specific ‘crap’ (aka the grey items). What now, if some of these grey items would actually be ‘gold crafting trophies’. And these trophies would be linked to very specific creatures (see just a tad below for what these would do), that would mean that players wouldn’t be farming an area for a specific weapon to drop, but for a specific item to craft with.

crafting trophies : these ‘gold variant’ of ‘grey junk’, would give a certain crafted weapon(s) or even armor a specific look. Easiest I think to give an example, is say you slay a Troll, then this troll would give a ‘troll skull’ trophy. Then you could take this trophy and add it to any ‘staff recipe’ in the assembly stage. and the result would be a ‘Troll skull staff’. Obviously all sorts of trophies, linked to all sorts of areas and specific enemies, could be added to all sorts of weapons and armour to create very specific looks for these crafted items. And this can be done because currently, for as far as I have seen, all assembly stage crafting only takes up 3 slots in the crafting discovery system.

Personally I think that the ‘reset hearts and add them to the monthly (and perhaps also daily)’ achievement system will be one of the best ways to get people into area’s they have already done. It will also heartly (pun intended) demand any resources from the Anet team, while at the same time add monthly replay value of every area, and add to the monthly achievements. It almost feels like a no brainer to me…

I especially agree about the ‘reward part’ the OP mentioned, it seems as though, if you don’t tag a foe, you weren’t there … even if you actually made the fight a win by keeping everybody in the fight.

Now apparently when you ‘hit’ a foe your name gets added to the loot distribution list. Consequently the ‘table’ registers every ‘hit’ you do to establish your contribution. So what needs to happen is that each player gets a ‘supported by’ list (with say a 30sec cleanse), if a foe is hit by any player, the ‘supported by’ list gets added to the loot distribution list, and this list uses the fight registry to calculate your contribution and distribute loot accordingly.

Then I also agree a lot with the res-speed linked to healing power, part of this speed should be linked to the healing power spec.

5. already hinted at by Anet, but merely as a possible option, and more then likely come up in the CDI thread
Introduce specialisations/sub-professions available after reaching level80. (unfortunately I was to late to be part of the entire CDI discussion, but I will assume that the following points were discussed in the CDI thread) These sub-professions:
- Should be at least a choice of 3 different ones.
- Should be easily switchable.
- Should include an equal number of themed utility skills for all sub-professions
- Should be balanced against all other skills, aka. the difference should be thematic or option increasing, and not be more powerful by default.
- Could easily consist of 2 tiers with 3 skills per tier. (or 3 / 2)

Other ways to include skills in a vertical progression fashion.
- link skills to the orders, and a specific order quest(s)
- link skills to dungeon completion
- link skills to quest completion within the personal story, most noticeably would be some of the racial skills. Obviously addition of some specific racial quests and a racial loyalty system could make these skills (and possibly emissary racial armour) available to all players.
- While more of a horizontal progression, adding in more profession related skills to weapons currently not available to a profession would be a way to include more skills. If these were un-lockable by spending skill points, as achieved by suggestion 1 & 2 above, these would at the same time become part of vertical progression.

I would say there are a lot of ways to include more skill and/or more vertical skill progression into GW2.

I thank you before hand for having the respect to give me the opportunity to contribute to the vertical progression CDI even though it is already closed (which is also why I limited this to just skills), and I hope I will at least contributed with some new ideas or ways to increase vertical skill progression that have not yet been mentioned. And or at least present ideas in a vertical progressive way…

Unfortunatly I joined the CDI vertical progression discussions way to late. I know they are now closed and that the information will be examined and in say 3 to 6months from now we will be seeing the results from these discussions (though some aspects may well see the light of day earlier than that I am sure ).

Now I have a few ideas for a more extended way to include vertical SKILL progression, which I just wouldn’t like to see missing from the options available to Anet to include vertical progression as a whole, hence this ‘errata’ to the discussion :P
If we can keep this discussion solely about this idea or alternatives/improvements to parts of it, we can avoid having to repeat the whole CDI discussion. Which, I am sure, will be appreciated by everyone .. so here it goes ..

1a. Add specific themed basic skills to all weapons (pertaining to that weapon), that are the same for all professions. These basic skills could be ‘discovered’ in a similar fashion as the weapon-skills are now.

1b. Let the player unlock the specific profession weapon skills by spending skill points, and offer the choice to slot these skills instead of the basic skills.
-!- by inserting skills at the front of the vertical progression system, the whole of vertical progression is increased, the power-feel curve is increased as the player moves from basic skills to profession skills; this part may also offer a bit of horizontal progression, as with basic skills on weapon, all weapons could be available to all professions at the basic level, while still be restricted for the profession specific skills; added bonus is that once this system is in place, expansion of profession skills for weapons is fairly easy, and seeing this system would need a ‘set #X skill to profession skill’-coding it will help realize 2.

2. Add 2 more skills to weapon slots #2 and #4 and let the player both unlock and choose between these skills.
-!- The #2 and #4 skill slots are the slots that are most suitable for choice skills, these slots do not mess up the Thief profession, and will also mean that 2 handed weapons and 1 handed / offhanded weapons will not start to differ in skill choices. Added bonus is that a choice system needed to make this suggestion a reality also helps in realizing suggestion 1. And of course balancing these skills for Anet is still fairly easy (the whole of options isn’t increased dramatically, and the now 3 skills can be balanced against themselves), while at the same time it will increase the amount of choices we as players have to play these weapons, yet not to such an extend that it skews competitive play.

3. this covers the current progression, added here to see the whole overview of vertical skill progression in the game, including the suggestions
While you can argue about whether you like the slot unlocking and gated skill tree, it is a way to foster vertical progression. By putting both 1 & 2 into the game, the competition for skill points, especially at the first halve of the game, increases, making choices more meaning full and harder. This in my view increases the depth of the system.

4. Put skill unlocks and availability in the trait system by adding skills to each ‘lane’ for the 20pt and 30pt unlock. Make these skills specific for the trait category (power, etc.) and only available for choice as utility skills if the points are spend in this ‘lane’.
-!- The trait unlocks are part of the current vertical progression system, and while you can unlock all weapon and utility skills by doing skill challenges, these trait skills will only unlock when you are able to spend the spend the points. This means that skill progress (how ever small) is on going at least until lvl60. Added bonus to this way of acquiring skills is that the amount of extra skills available to each player is only increased by the already balanced number of trait points that can be spend. Also, the choice on how to spend these points is further complicated (made deeper) by the skills that are now part of it.

@Vox, tnx for those articles, even though they are not strictly about RPG’s, if you read between the lines they surely clear up a lot. One thing that struck me most, is that some of our miscommunication may well be because we use different definitions for similar concepts. This is also because ‘extra credits’ introduced ‘perfect imbalance’ as a concept to me, opposing ‘full balance’. When, if you read the use full articles you linked, the author there uses ‘Symmetrical and Asymmetrical’ for these concepts.
If you were to read my posts, and everywhere I used ‘perfect balance/full balance’ or ‘perfect imbalance’ and check if you can substitute them with ‘Symmetrical or Asymmetrical’ instead. I think in most cases you will find that doing so makes it more clear what I am getting at.

Or in other words. It appeared to me that, in a sense, I view ‘full balance’ as a ‘symmetrical game’, and view ‘perfect imbalanced’ games as an ‘Asymmetrical game’.

@Red Arachnid, the above also applies to your reply, because when I speak of a ‘hybrid’ I seem to have actually meant a more ‘symmetrical or a more asymmetric’ game. Now obviously there is only ‘Symmetrical’ games, and any game that is not symmetrical is ‘Asymmetric’, but beyond a shadow of a doubt one can argue the grade of Asymmetricality (lol, if that is even a word).

The concepts of ‘symmetrical and asymmetrical’ I think are better than ‘full balance and Perfect imbalance’; mainly because the symmetrical ones are better explained on a sliding scale. A game can be more or less Asymmetrical but still be balanced, while ‘imbalance’ almost always leads to the assumption that the game is unfair.
I may change all the posts I made here to replace these concepts in the text, when I have a bit more time.

I agree on these pointers when speaking of balance in a more detailed fashion of balance. And yes, these concepts should certainly be part of the notion of balance as far as the balance forum goes. For now though, my intention was to look at GW2 and professiondesign and balance in a more general sense, and whether the game offers the needed mechanics for the game it is.

This mainly means figuring out where on the ‘Asymmetric scale’ GW2 resides, whether or not GW2 offers enough valid play styles and linked to this the amount of choices the player has in these (the variety within professions), and ofcourse whether or not these playstyles are ‘fair’ (in the sense of the definition given to fairness, in the articles Vox linked).

A part of this are indeed the ‘pitfalls’ of Asymmetric games, being the ‘Dominance’ and ‘Hardcounter (or R/P/S)’ pitfalls. And I think (after reading those articles) that perhaps included should be the ‘Godmode’ and ‘Worthless’ tiers for article 3 mainly. And for the balance community specifically, the notion mentioned in article 3, that instead of asking for nerfs for very strong abilities, it may be better to ask for buffs of low tier options instead. And/or where applicable, that asking for some (or more) way(s) to counter a specific ability will lead to more viable game play, and more enjoyment on both sides of the issue. Mainly, if there are counters, then a nerf may not be needed at all, and the addition of the counters increased the options of action/response on both sides of the issue.

@Vox, lol, well I can see where you are probably right on RPS, but, that doesn’t negate the negative effect in ‘less then Perfect Imbalanced’ games, where an RPS like effect appears. See RPS is a fun game due to it’s choice. Games are fun due to their play. When the outcome of play is set due to it’s choice, it ceases to be fun to play it.

I will read the article tomorrow, right now I’m gonna play some actual GW2, instead of the GW2 forum game … tnx, for more input though

The main question I can’t seem to entirely figure out (also more then likely because of the complexity of the details), is if there could be a hybrid. And what the rule set and requirements of such a hybrid would be. Why?

Because the ‘full balance’ game obviously has the issue of choice linked to it, in it’s bare essence there is none. There is just the illusion of choice, you will more then likely not choose a sniper rifle in a close quarters fight, or choose the shot gun in the open field. On the other hand, this game format is ALL about skill, seeing that all the options are available to all the players ‘may the best player win’ !

The ‘perfect imbalanced’ game though, has a high risk of running into a fixed outcome problem, and as such no real choice either. If a>b>c>d>a then the right choice entirely depends on what your opponent choose, whose correctness of choice entirely depends on your choice. But once you choose, there is no way back, and ultimately no need to fight. The bright side is though, that in a perfect imbalanced game you can have a lot of diversity and in a sense ‘real choices’ (even though that choice can pre-fix the outcome). Also, fights between B&D and A&C often turn out into a game based on skill, because both don’t have the defining counter against the other that fixes the outcome.

I wonder if well designed counterplay vs. uniqueness can create a fully balanced game, that still feels like it’s being a ‘perfect imbalanced’ game. Or whether that would just mean I still have a ‘perfect imbalanced’ game, which is just well balanced in it’s imbalance. :S

It would mean that all professions would be say 80% the same, with access to the same options and skills, and that each profession has a 20% reliance on a unique feature that other professions do not. These other professions though, would all have a counter against the uniqueness of the other professions.

Hmm I think that would indeed just be the definition of a well designed ‘Perfect Imbalanced’ game. Especially if you give each class a limited amount of space to take these counters, meaning one would have to choose. Meaning you will negate the special abilities in some cases, and in others you would not, leaving a large part of the outcome still set after the choice has been made.

In which case you should ponder how one can make ‘full balanced’ play that ultimately has no real choice, besides the choice between ‘short-bow/pistol/throwing axe’ and particle effects, interesting enough for that choice to matter enough to the player.

Giving them a limited space for the options, may be a good place to start. Picking 2 out of 8 weapons that are all equal to each other but perform differently. And are geared to putting out 2/3 of the DPS, then taking 3 choice skills to do 1/3 of the damage. Where the balance is achieved in a set of synergetic options, that are reinforced by mutual exclusiveness of the different sets in something like a trait system. Meaning that ultimately the choice for those doesn’t really matter, and it will just be the way in which the options are conveyed to the player. and the ‘choice’ is sort of forced upon the player due to the fact that they cannot gear towards all sets. It’s best to gear for one set, and ones you do so, you will likely take at least 2 of the set if not 3, meaning you will be balanced against any other player taking a different set.

If one writes it down like that, it almost already reads like the GW2 skill system, with the difference that in GW2 now, the sets are inherently different, and that weapons within professions, let alone between professions, are not at all balanced this way.

And of course there is the audience RPG’s are geared towards, making an RPG a full balance game with high to total symmetry. Sure it would totally go with ‘play how you want to play’, but on the other hand, as all professions are symmetric and there is no ‘real choice’, how well would that go over with the players?

@Vox, I will pick out this part mainly because (in my views) it isn’t right

@Arghore
I think maybe the word Fairness might be a more clear way to describe the concept in the Perfect Imbalance video. Like it might make more sense to say; a Perfectly Balanced system is Fair, a Perfectly Imbalanced system is intentionally Unfair.

‘Full balance’ games are games where all the options are equal in strength, and often the game is symmetrical. All sides have access to all the options, and no option is inherently worse then the other, but they may well differ a lot in function (f/e the shotgun and the sniper in a shooter). As such the game is fair. The design of the map usually dictates the best option, or has a best location for a certain option…

‘Perfect Imbalanced’ games are games where not all the options are equal in strength, and often the game is a-symmetrical. Every side has access to a limited set of options, and some options are inherently worse then others, they can also differ a lot in function. BUT! every side also has the availability of counters (be it passive or active) against the options it usually doesn’t have itself. As such the game is fair.

The deviation from the ‘jedi curve’ is not to create unfairness, it is to create imbalance between each option (sometimes even between each colour of Magic), and while the example in the video showed a card deviate in positive ways, you will often also find cards that deviate in a negative way. The whole deck that is released for a certain colour then ‘could’ be considered balanced. Because else the decks released would cause an unfair and totally unbalanced game, and more then likely all hell would break loose in the Magic world…

Rock/Paper/Scissors is the bare bone of a ‘perfect imbalanced’ game, at least how I understood it from the ‘extra credit’ video. Now obviously R/P/S is not an online game format, and as such the ‘perfect imbalanced’ game has evolved to a more complex system. But, as @Vargamonth above here clearly described, a ‘perfect imbalanced’ game can suffer from the inherent problem of R/P/S, mainly, after you picked (in a game your class, and build – or in RPS either of them), the outcome is set. Now in RPS the game is over once you open your hands. And ‘perfect imbalanced’ games CAN (not saying its always the case) feel a lot like that when playing, aka. once it is clear which team has which builds, compared to the builds of the other teams, no matter how one plays the outcome is set.

Now personally I do not always think this is the case, execution of the skillset also plays a part, but given equal skills and equal execution: the outcome of a ‘Perfect Imbalanced’ game relies heavily on the skills and counters in play, and thus playing will in 99% of the times played, give the same outcome…

Depending on the complexity of the ‘Imbalanced’ variant and the skill of the players, the timeframe it takes to ‘calculate’ the best builds can differ. But when the meta is established then yes, the only thing that the Dev team can do is to rebalance the skills to let a new meta arise.