I am following this thread closely and I wanted to mention that a huge and important part of going for a fun Horizontal progression is to deal away with the grind. Guild Wars 2 has to shed its Grind Wars 2 and Buy Wars 2 titles.
In order to shed these perceptions and achieve a true horizontal progression, you need to do a few basic items I don’t see discussed here.
1. Make it easy/easier to gear your character(s). Getting rid of soul-bound items in sake of Account bound items is a long needed step.
2. Introduce a skin locker. You had this in Guild Wars 1. There should be something like this in Guild Wars 2. Currently, I have 0 motivation to buy any skin from the Cash Shop, primarily, cause I cannot get unlimited uses out of them.
3. Consolidate your gearing philosophy. Items should be available to all players where-ever they play. Mainly, ascended gear should be available, ALL OF IT, at the fractals vendor, at WvW for Badges of Honor, for Laurels at Laurel vendors, etc.
4. Consolidate your currency via a currency exchange shop. A place where you can change dungeon tokens for laurels, Fractal tokens for badges of Honor, etc.
5. You need to add new mechanics in game. You had these in Guild Wars 1. Enemies that were immune to physical damage, or immune to spells, or immune to cold, immune to burning, etc. This added great depth to the gameplay. Why is this gone?
TLDR: You still have a lot of work to do in the fundamentals of the game. These changes are QoL changes and game play mechanic changes.
My top three Horizontal changes:
1. Get Rid of soul-bound items. Everything should be account bound: dyes, legendaries, ascended gear, etc.
2. New, and difficult, areas. This should include the unlock of new skills.
3. Make all ascended gear available for purchase with Fractal Tokens, Laurels or Badges.
It would not work in the current scheme, but by far… Mistrust!
Hi All,
Here is the next evolution of the original Vertical Progression proposal based on a summary of our discussions:
Regarding Ascended Gear we would like to see more ways to earn it and in terms of drop rates, a higher percentage chance of acquiring them through this method.
A review of current RNG metrics.
The ability to change gear stats (Note there is still a lot of discussion about whether people want this or not)
The ability to build up to Ascended Gear through drops rather than just relying on RNG.
Ascended Gear mats dropping more equally across the game, for example WvW.
No more new Gear tiers that make the existing tiers obsolete.
Additional ways to earn Ascended Gear at accelerated for Alts.
Note this is the formulation of a proposal for discussion. Once the proposal is finalized it will be discussed internally. However there will be no promise of actions or schedule.
Chris
Bump. We are close to being able to move onto the ‘focused’ Horizontal Progression part of this conversation.
Does anyone have anymore comments on the proposal above based on our discussions?
Chris
Please consider/reconsider doing away with soul-binding in favor of account-binding. Soul-binding makes a bad vertical progression into an absolutely punishing progression for those of us who have many characters.
Thanks!
What would be the point ? You want to put all your gear in the bank before switching character, switch character, then go to bank get the gear back, equip it, then after finish playing put the gear back in bank ? And this, everytime you switch to an alt ? And then, while you log-in in a hurry, you discover your character naked, because you forgot the stuff on another character…
It certainly beats the current system.
I would not mind switching at the bank, I do that for harvesting tools. In my case, the real burden is the soul-binding status of different weapon sets, rings and trinkets, each with different stats. Soul-binding my ascended gear really limits my ability to make different builds with different stats. If all ascended gear was account bound, I could simply try the item on a more suited character.
And… There are other proposals being discussed.
However the fact remains that we are talking about the potential death of soul-binding, and that would be a HUGE, HUGE improvement.
Some other interesting ways we could midigate the pressure on alts is just make all ascended gear account bound it would remove some demand but it’s something we’ve discussed before.
For the love of the Six! Make this happen!!!!
This would totally motivate me to get one of each set (zerker, soldier, cleric, etc.)!!!
The rate at acquiring bloodstone dust is, in my opinion, too high.
I completely disagree.
I do not have nearly as much bloodstone as I do empyreal stars mats. I am almost exclusively a fractaler, and it is rare that I would find enough bloodstone dust.
Perhaps what is needed is a currency exchange shop, where your bloodstone can be turned into something other, or my empyreal stars can be turned into bloodstone dust.
Fix the targeting system.
The main problem with build diversity is that the gear that goes along with it has a very high cost. Make all soul-bound gear into account-bound, and Build Diversity becomes a 3s50c problem (the price to retrait).
Wow, I leave for the weekend and we are no up to 24 pages. GG. Here my thoughts on the issue. I think one of these should be put into place.
1. All Ascended gear should be account bound. I accept that Ascended gear is here to stay. I am also accepting the fact that it will take a long while to acquire. However, for people who like build experimentation and or have multiple characters this is punitive. Making all Ascended gear account bound would go a long way to resolve this issue.
2. Ascended Gear and Fractals of the Mists.
Players should be able to acquire all fractal/agony related materials IN FRACTALS of the Mists. This should be acquired with Fractal Tokens.
Since ANET is unifying the tokens by allowing Pristines to be turned into regular relics I will limit my proposal to the later.
Fractal relics should be able to buy you: trinkets, amulets, ascended infusions, Agony infusions +1, Ascended armor, Ascended weapons, Ascended Materials and Fractal skins. The price for these can be set to be consistent with rings which take 10 pristine relics or (150 regular tokens). It does not have to be cheap, but it should really be sold there.
It has been a year and there have been no changes to the merchandise that can be purchased with relics in fractals.
I prefer with doing with the terrible implementation of Soulbinding, but either of these would greatly improve the game by allowing for build diversity and or various classes use. It will also give Anet a more cohesive philosophy in regards to their currency.
You know, the first game had body blocking, and it was an incredibly useful, strategic feature. Warriors could block choke points to prevent monsters getting to the back line, minion master necros could very effectively blockade areas, it just added a huge extra element to the game.
And monsters could body block you, which combined with internet latency made for some horrible, horrible situations. You used to get body blocked and all you could do was pray that /stuck would unstuck you on time.
No, thanks I will pass.
Same for me. Never got hit by any waves, ever. No Achievement.
The frustrating thing is that this game was/is on the verge of greatness. Yet, they do not make those final changes that will take them there. I am not going to list the things I think they should do as this is a thank you thread, so I will stay on topic.
Thanks for all the great an innovative things you guys have done.
Here is holding hope that 2014 will resolve some of the most glaring and dividing issues, so this game can realize all of its potential.
That is, unless you play with a team of pro players that make the challenging content seem smooth like butter.
This; and you don’t even need to be pro players. Coordinated, yes, pro, hardly.
“BiS” means Best in Slot, or top of the line. If you were given a quick and easy means of getting the best gear available, you take away the need to do content. In other words, you want a short cut to the end game.
You are really stuck in the model of other games as if there are no alternatives to that old, dated and tired model. There are!!!
Having the best in slot gear statistically (vertical progression) does not mean having the best looking gear possible (horizontal).
I played GW1 for over 10,000 hours. Never did I feel getting the Best In Slot Gear took away my need to do content. BiS gear in GW1 was practically given away for free. What it did however, was promote build diversity and experimentation. Going through the same content with totally different optimized builds was a great deal of fun.
Progressing vertically is not a substitute for good and challenging content. This game lacks the later, which is why vertical progression seems absurd. Stop defending Vertical progression as if it was the only way to play the game.
That’s not the system that was advertised, nor is it the game that the majority of us purchased. The game that was advertised was “BiS gear at lvl 80, for everyone, including casuals.” The game that the majority of us bought came under that promise.
THAT is the problem.
What? You don’t like the bait and switch?
honestly, I could maybe see making legendarys account bound.
but to make ascended account bound just seem like a bit much.
Why is it a bit much? There is only one thing that needs to be done: remove soulbinding from the game in favor of account bound. Done. No need to distinguish Legendary vs. Ascended vs. anything else.
And no, you can’t use high level Fractals as an argument for gearing.
…
Are you serious? Why not? Because it invalidates your statement? Fractals is the sole reason for Ascended armor to be honest. Limiting you to one character is by definition NOT Alt Friendly.
The problem is the things you can buy with relics has not been update in over a year. It needs an update, it needs purpose. Once you have stacks upon stacks for fractal and pristine relics what else are you going to do? What do you do when you have all of the rings, bags, shards, skill points you could possible want?
What I think is needed:
1. Simple 20 slot white bags (the sortable variety).
2. Safe bags 20 slots.
3. Trinkets
4. Amulets
5. Ascended ingredients (bloodstone dust, dragonite ore, etc.).
6. Fractal skins
7. Ascended Boxes
8. Fractal Tonic
I think these items can be added with a very hefty cost. It will give players who have nothing else to spend their relics on, something to do.
PS. I know the developers mentioned that changes are coming for the fractals currency, but it has been well over a year, fractals were just updated and nothing really changed in the currency. How long before any additional changes are made?
This is the same argument for all the complainers. People have this feeling that because they paid for this game, they should be entitled to getting the game to cater to their particular style of play. It’s ok to want things your way. Heck, I wish I could have Eternity, but you don’t see me complaining that it’s too hard to get.
I think you are mixing our concerns for the game we ALL love, for complaints without a base. We have listed many reasons why these concerns are valid. We have a different point of view and a different vision for the game: One that requires less pointless grind.
Some of you seem to be perfectly content with the grind. That is fine, but do not trivialize our concerns as invalid. They are valid, they have a base. The failure of the reader to understand the points does not make the point invalid.
As a person who plays 5 characters and all are max level, I think this game is very alt friendly. Even though Ascended gear takes time to make, I find no issue in that. I plan on playing this game for years. I don’t have an issue if I take the next 12 months building my Ascended gear for these characters. What else am I going to do?
And therefore, no one else should? Right? Right??
I fractal, a lot, It would be nice if I could go into my FOTM 49’s with any character. I am currently only able to go with one character.
Prior to the changes to fractals I was able to take any character I wanted. The ascended gear (which played a part in the changes to FOTM), and its soul-bound nature, has totally forced me into playing a single character in high level fractals. I do not find that particularly fair.
Very few, if any, are asking for it to be easy or quick.
My feelings exactly. I have accepted the fact that ascended armor is here to stay. I have accepted the fact that without money, it will take a considerable amount to time to gear all my characters the way I like them (and had them).
What I am asking for is to make this game Alt-Friendly by making items which are currently soulbound into account bound.
I am not asking for legendaries to be unsellable.
I am not asking for less grind than anyone else.
In fact I will probably be motivated to make more legendaries and create additional armor sets so I can test various builds.
The current system is punish altoholics and it pigeon holes players into a build. What if that build changes?
My proposed solution is just one of many, allowing ascended armor to have selectable stats would be another, even if this comes at the expense of a gem shop item.
I do not understand how could anyone be against this idea.
Like many aspects of the game, there’s a terribly confused game design vision going on that can’t decide which way it wants to go. Ascended gear is really the epitome of the confusion because it marks the start of Anet being unsure what audience it is designing the game for, and trying to make it a jack of all trades while simultaneously making it a master of none.
Exactly!
Make soul-bound into account-bound and you begin to equalize this in-congruent system they have and develop a cohesive gear philosophy.
Sorry about that: Soulbinding made your weapon 20% more powerful.
I meant to say that, to me, that was a reasonable trade of. Do I want to lose the ability to pass this weapon to another character or perhaps sell it in the market?
Do I really want to have that extra 20% on THIS character?
That choice, to me, made sense. Right now, in GW2, equipping a weapon and soulbinding it gains you nothing.
You can enjoy this game normally with just Exotics.
Go and do Fractal level 50 with just exotics and post your video doing so. The choice should be to play without the BiS. As in “Here I am doing FOTM 50 in all white gear!”
Having BiS right now, is not a matter of choice, it is trusted upon us, after we already had BiS (exoctic) gear.
And you’re still not dealing with the issue of having to acquire said gear repeatedly, for a lot of different characters.
That is not Alt Friendly.
I feel that GW1 was a lot more alt friendly, but that is just me.
I didn’t play GW1, did they do account bound only items instead of soulbound?
GW1 had a mixed mechanic. Armor was soulbound to the character, but it was super, super cheap to get BiS gear. Once you had level 20 armor, you were done. The quest turned into a quest of not looking like a scrub.
For weapons they had something called customization. Weapons can be passed from one character to the next however customizing the weapon to a character would “soulbind” it to said character, and that weapon would do an additional 20% damage. 20% extra damage was the price of making the weapon soulbound. IN GW2 is simply a penalty.
(edited by Asia Skyly.7198)
I feel that GW1 was a lot more alt friendly, but that is just me.
I think the argument falls in the Entitlement category. Some players feel that they should be able to get all the BiS gear quickly and easily. Because Ascended gear takes time and effort to craft, you get the push back from players who don’t want to expend the time and effort.
I find it interesting that the same people who argue how best in slot gear should be hard to get, ALSO argue that once obtained, I should not be able to share it among my characters. That is inconsistent to me. If I spent the time to make the gear, the same gear you put in one character, the same time you spent making said gear, why can’t I put it or move it between ALL of my characters?
My argument is not so much that I am against the whole ascended gear grind (I am), it is emphasized by the fact that once I grind it in one character, once I put the “time and effort” I have to do it all over again for the next character. That is punitive to those of us who play multiple characters.
(edited by Asia Skyly.7198)
Do away with Soulbound items in favor of account bound items, and you have a point.
And destroy plenty of markets in the process?
No.
Can you please list the markets that will be destroyed? I do not think any markets will suffer for this, consistent change. For everyone one out there that would argue that X legendary will be passed between characters, I can list someone who argues that they did NOT get a legendary because of the Soulbound status. I can also point to the many of us who would have multiple legendaries if you could move them around between your characters.
This mentality that soulbinding is a required is antiquated. In GW1, souldbinding had a HUGE benefit. Here? None. It is a limitation with no upside. Get rid of it.
That game died, man.
The new CDI starts tomorrow, it will discuss Horizontal vs. Vertical progression. I think that might be an opportunity for those of us who love the franchise to argue for the idea of the game we love, and the game we bought under the premise of a horizontal progression.
THIS game we have? Many of us think they did a bait and switch.
This new CDI is our chance to fight against the current state of the game and take it in a brand new, and original, direction.
Do away with Soulbound items in favor of account bound items, and you have a point.
Usually if you have a ton of pristine relics, that means you have a LOT of fractal relics. So the question become, what do we do with more of something for which we already had no use?
Wait… an MMO has time sinks? Why wasn’t I told about this!
This is an old and tired mentality. Just because it was this way, does not mean it has to be this way. There is a better choice, one without treadmills and time sinks. One where you play for fun.
Some people are still OK with the gear treadmills, others, are here because the initial promise that there would be none of that.
Fractals level 40+ requires ascended gear for the agony infusions. The current situation forces a person like me, who likes all 8 classes equally, to chose a primary or “main” to progress through the higher fractal levels.
The whole thing is completely out of control. Their only real choice is to make ascended gear into something where you can pick your stats. If/when they release legendary armor… Can you even begin to comprehend what would go into making a character with a full legendary set? What will be the monetary cost? What will be the TIME cost?
I am not sure why they are taking the game in this direction, but from where I stand, I see them driving this bus down a cliff.
I play 8 characters, I had them all set in exotics prior to the ascended gear introduction. Can you imagine the nightmare of trying to gear all these characters with ascended weapons and armor? That is without any consideration to multiple armor sets.
Whatever joy my altoholic heart felt switching classes at the spurt of the moment has been killed. I am now forced to play a “main” in places like high level fractals.
Fortunately things like Fractals < 31 and dungeons have not changed, so I can still go there with whatever character I like.
15.
That said, I don’t see a lot of value in this, unless they are going to consolidate the currency somehow.
I am still waiting, patiently, for the day we can use our tokens for new items: Ascended crafting materials, Ascended trinkets, Ascended armor, Fractals Skins, a new 20 slot white bag, etc.
There are not a lot of uses for pristine relics, and very limited uses for fractal relics.
Yet every other skill is 1-10, these new ones seem a tad excessive. After all, are they elite?
I humbly request for the developers to play Harpies/Cliffside/Dredge/Molten combo at 43. Fun!
So this is why I got demolished by elementals (Was using the potion of Elemental Slaying at Grawl)!
Life steal food helps a lot.
There are several posts about this in the Bugs section.
For us, we go around it by killing Horrik. This somehow reset the fight. Not sure it will work for you, but it is something to try.
Something along these lines happened to me too. I disconnected, my entire party was at the 3rd fractal. Upon my reconnect and rejoin, the entire party got kicked back to LA.
We experienced this bug before. Our solution was to kill Horrick. This seems to reset him and she went back to normal. Took us a good 30 minutes before we figured this out.
We were at the third fractal, Aetherblade Retreat, when I, the party leader, disconnected. Upon reconnecting, I spawned dead in LA, right in front of the Fractal portal. Upon pressing Yes to rejoin my group I was instead portaled into a new instance of the Fractal lobby, and my entire party got kicked.
This is/should be a bug. I should be able to rejoin my party as long as I do not change character or travel to a new zone.
I suspect that being in front of the portal to FOTM counted as a new zone.
I have been on those shoes. The solution is still a personal choice. There is no need to change anything. There is no need to complain about a problem that ultimately is all about self restrain.
Whether or not you hunt for achievement points is a personal decision. A cap, of any kind, is unnecessary. In fact they should add more dailies.
We are not talking about people getting bored. We are talking about the daily time required if someone is to go for all achievement points. This has been increasing over time and some people would like this to stop.
But you CAN stop. Just do not do them.