Guild Wars 2

While I love the new world bosses, the recent focus on these encounters is setting what I believe to be an unhealthy trend in the game.

The way players experience the game and the level of fun they can have is currently very different from server to server. It isn’t about how hard people are working or getting to have fun with friends, but rather about their access to the numbers needed to down this content and the size of their current server.

To make the situation worse, ArenaNet (despite having the best of intentions in doing so) is shining a light on things like world first kills and even using their twitter to promote efforts of a single server.

This creates an environment of haves and have nots that isnt healthy for the game – and can only have negative results – specifically bandwagonning and server desertions.

If ArenaNet plans to make these kind of events central to the future of the game (which I would fully support as long as everyone has the same access), then they need to move the focus (in PVE at least) away from a server-centric model and make it a global (or regional in this case) one. Give the guilds and players on Kaenig or IoJ the same experience as those on Blackgate or Tarnished Coast.

There are a lot of ways they could do this, but the most impactful (imo) would be to revamp the zone instancing system. When we port into a zone, give us a drop down menu similar to the one used in structured pvp. If we port into Bloodtide Coast, let us choose from a list of all of the current versions of that zone – with information like how many people are already there and how many from our guilds/friends lists are currently in the zone.

This would:

- let people choose the experience they want from that zone

- give guilds/allies the ability to organize events

- fix issues associated with underpopulated servers (which would be healthy for the future of the game) and

- eliminate the overflow problem completely.

- fix issues like people wanting to farm champions and people wanting to experience dynamic events in the same zone.

Most importantly, it would move the focus fully onto the players and the communities they want to build – through their friends and guild lists. I love this game and am enthusiastic about the future. My only worry is how much server populations currently impact a players experience – especially in large events like the marionette, worm and tequatl.

If the event is full at all times during the day on your server and you really dont want to play on overflows, the answer is simple – move to a less populated server.

People who insist on playing on the most populated servers, rather than spreading the population out, really have no room (literally) to complain about overflows in any part of the game. There are plenty of less populated server (mine included) who are downing the event consistently (and making progress on the worm) and who dont have bad overflow issues (and who desperately need the numbers).

As far as the money thing, it all balances out. Those of us really happy with the content will just spend more to make up for those who don’t.

Removing, or even limiting, guesting is not a viable option. Either would have a terrible effect on the community.

It would create haves and have-nots. Certain content would only be doable by a percentage of the population and the disparity between how the game plays between servers would grow as more and more people transfer to the same 3-4 servers.

What we need is a rework of the way overflows works – with a lot more transparency and player control. We should be able to choose the overflow (or underflow, which I think is just as important for low pop servers) we go to – possibly picking from a drop down list that shows the following:

1. how many people are on that overflow/the population cap (so 75 of 200, similar the way it works in spvp).

2. How many people from our friends list are on that server.

3. How many of our guildmates are on that server.

This would let people organize and run large scale activities with their guild or friends and it would let people on any server organize large scale community activities.

This one change would bring the community together in a way that could redefine how we play large events in the game.

Mimizu.7340:

i got shoved into an almost empty overflow as the event started, twice.

quickly failed both times.

i dont really want to try it a third time.

scaling has a threshold that random overflows cannot meet.

It’s much worse than that. Scaling has a threshold that some SERVERS cant meet – at least not after the content has been out for a few days.

Fights need to scale down to more reasonable numbers (and I firmly believe they can do so without sacrificing complexity or difficulty).

If Tequatl and the worm fight scaled down for groups of 30-35+, it would make a ton of people happy (I know my guild would be in MMO heaven).

I think they did a pretty good job with living story during this update and really look forward to the next three (the did a good job teasing that content in game this time).

As for new features, Im optimistic about the march features patch and that it will bring some of the new things you are looking for. I’m most excited about the possible new traits and skills progression system they’ve been talking about. Im less interested in seeing new professions at this time in lieue of new ways to build our current characters.

New weapons, new zones, new races – definitely all would be welcome.

Not interested in raising the level cap anytime soon (if ever). It means we can hop off the stat hamster wheel for a while. Like the gear stat plateau we have now – with the slight (but not gamechanging) progression offered by ascended gear.

Weve had plenty of doom and gloom posts on the forums. While I think they are important and something Anet should see as they develop content, I believe that we will see some pretty cool stuff – and soon – but not at the expense of the living story (which seems to be getting its sea legs steadier and steadier with each patch).

To the point of overflows and standing around waiting for bosses – those can be avoided pretty easily by simply selecting a server that isnt one of the 3-4 rushed by 90 percent of the population. Population spread is the single best solution to those issues.

This is a player created issue – resulting from people rushing the same 3-4 servers.

here is the answer to overflows -

Dont bandwagon on the same 3 servers as 90% of the population. There are servers where overflows are not that big of an issue – and who could use the extra help.

Instead of trying to flock to servers so you can zerg everything down, spread out and get into situations where numbers are more even and true server teams can form.

And, long before Anet should consider looking at overflows/population limits, they have to figure out a way to even out populations and give support to lower pop servers.

Sarie.1630:

Loving the combination on the chart for an alliance between Centaur and Quaggan.

The Aquatic Equestrian Alliance maybe?

Shame that never worked out.

She was probably thinking about starting the world’s best water polo team.

To the point of this thread – Im really enjoying this update and feel like it is progressing the story well.

Regardless of where it goes, great job Anet making me feel invested in the story and getting me to care about the direction it takes. Very well done.

If fights scaled down to numbers that were reasonable on all servers, people from lower population servers wouldnt need to guest to higher population servers. With fights requiring 80-100 players, it makes sense that people want to be where the larger numbers are.

Bottom line, everyone playing the game is entitled to the same gaming experience. If ArenaNet scales fights based on the population of servers like Desolation (or Blackgate in NA) and doesn’t consider how it will look on lower population servers, then it is no surprise that people will be guesting to those larger servers (and have every right to do so).

This is exactly why these fights need to scale down to reasonable numbers. Some of us want the ongoing challenge and tough fights – and are even willing to spend weeks/months mastering a fight.

What we dont like spending weeks doing is praying 80-100 people on our server have the same desire day in and day out.

And with this one, it would be really easy to scale. All they have to do is remove the requirement of killing all 3 at the same time and let the timer extend slightly whenever one dies.

My feedback -

Events need to scale down to numbers that are realistic FOR EVERY SERVER. I worry that Anet is designing the game around servers like Blackgate and specialized guilds like TTS.

After a week, these fights die on 80% of the servers and players have to resort to guesting or playing with people other than their friends/guild members to even have a chance at the fight. I cant see how that is acceptable to them.

Simply scaling them down to 30+ (but retaining fight complexity) would alleviate the issue nicely.

Very much agree with the scaling issue.

Requiring huge numbers of players to even attempt the fights leads to bandwagonning, frustrated players on low population servers and situations where we end up having to do these events with people other than our friends (ie, rely on guilds like TTS, as great as they are) to even experience the content in a reasonable setting.

Anet needs to realize that most servers simply cannot consistently field these numbers and that continuing to take the game this direction without merging servers, looking at underflow mechanics or (hopefully) designing challenging content that scales down to reasonable numbers based on current populations (25-30 so that people can realistically organize groups on every server), will only end badly.

Scaling is a great mechanic, but it only works if it goes in both directions. Basing scaling solely on servers like Blackgate or TC does a huge disservice to a large number of players.

Designing fights requiring complex coordination is fine – designing fights requiring huge numbers is not.

Bugged on HOD right now.

ThiBash.5634:

Bubi.7942:

I do realize. And I’m sorry to say, but Teq shouldn’t be solod, killed by a party of 5, nor a guild of 20 for that matter. There is a baseline for this and that’s around 70-80 people.

What most people doesn’t seem to realize, is that the diffuculty in the Tequatl fight doesn’t come from the mechanics, or damages, or whatnot – it comes from the following question:

Can you organize 80+ people?

Yes, and I object to that. It means that if you have a large guild, you can get a lot of followers. The first 10 may have organisational skill, but the other 70 are just opertunistic followers. So I guess the skill lies in mindlessly following organized people?

100% this.

Even with Tequatl as it is now, people arent organizing 80 people. They are organizing those needed on Turrets, the defenders and one commander to help the zerg know where to stand.

The turrets currently scale fine – or close to it. You can defend each turret with 2 defenders – meaning 18 people needed for turrets. Beyond that, they can just grab 60+ random people to hit the boss.

That means the only reason 80+ are currently required is THE BOSS’S HEALTH POOL. One number! What we are asking is that the fight remain exactly as it is for large numbers, but that health pools scale down so that dps from smaller groups have a chance of beating it.

THE FIGHT WOULD NOT CHANGE FOR LARGER GROUPS AT ALL. It would just now be accessible for groups of 30+ (I agree that 10 people shouldnt be able to down it), meaning that organized guilds and groups could accomplish this fight.

If anything, the organization requirement for putting those 30 player groups together would be more rigid, because you couldnt afford to have even one person out of place. Chances are most smaller groups couldnt do it. Were just asking that the only reason we cant even try not be an arbitrary number that ends up restricting the fight to only the large servers or specialty guilds that require we play with strangers rather than our own guildmates.

I think everyone is making pretty decent points.

The reality is this fight simply isn’t fun or challenging on many servers because the population of this game is weighted onto a very small number of servers – due to a lot of different factors. The smaller servers are struggling and, unfortunately, fights like this suffer for it.

There is no perfect solution – either populations are addressed, the fight is altered (and future fights take smaller numbers into account) or things are left the same and the people out of luck remain simply out of luck. Im not willing to accept the third alternative without saying something, thus the noise in this thread about it.

This isnt about anyone being lazy – and it definitely isnt about anyone wanting the fight be easier. Those are cop out arguments that distract from the actual point.

It is about wanting a fight/experience to be comparable across servers, with all of them gaining the same level of accessibility to the fight.

Currently, that isnt a possibility. As best I can tell, there are only three possible solutions – implement some kind of underflow server mechanic, break down and merge servers or design the fights in a way that they are possible given the current active population numbers on EVERY server. Again, we all want difficult fights, but difficult doesnt have to mean “requires more people.”

So, feel proud of yourself for having the people to do the fight if you have to, but it doesnt mean you are doing something more difficult that players on other servers cant accomplish- it just means you have enough bandwagoners and guesters to meet an arbitrary minimum required number.

That is the issue.

Bubi.7942:

I love the fact that people are hiding behind server population numbers just to cover up them being lazy to organize a fight properly.

For the 3rd or 4th time now: Whiteside Ridge is killing it on a regular basis (medium pop).

No one is hiding behind anything. I’ve killed Tequatl many times (have the title), have led aspects of the fight, and will continue to do so – just never on the one server I really want to kill him on.

On many servers, it is simply currently impossible to organize a force of sufficient size to attempt this fight – name call all you want, that doesn’t change. I’m happy that some servers can, but that doesn’t mean there is no issue here and that this is something that should be ignored. We either need a drastic fix for population issues or these fights need to be designed based around mechanics – not population (and I refuse to accept that the fights have to be designed with a base of 80+ instead of 30+ to offer a challenge for everyone).

Removing or lengthening the time limit would probably be a decent fix, but I still believe this fight should scale for smaller (but not really small) groups of players.

3 people at each turret (one on the turret + 2 defending) + 10 attacking the boss (meaning 28 minimum – say 30 as a nice round number) should be a viable group, imo. They would not have to remove any mechanics and a high level of coordination would still be required (in fact, it would require even more coordination than it does with large groups now).

Scaling is an important part of the game. It allows us to play with the people we want to play with – without worrying about leaving anyone behind (like we had to in other MMOs with raid style content) or having too many players and invalidating the fight difficulty. Creating arbitrary number restrictions is just as bad – creating an environment where content is out of reach (and even worse, not out of reach due to skill, but instead due to server choice/number restrictions, something this game is usually good about avoiding).

If the fight scaled from 30 instead of 80 (but retained the mechanics and complexity), you would see alot more attempts on the less populous servers. Many of those attempts would probably be failures – which most of us are okay with – but at least we would have the chance to organize and attempt the fight with our friends – something many of us simply cant do now because of the minimum numbers required on this fight.

It’s hard to understand how important this is if you dont play on a low tier server (and Im sure the detractors/proponents in this thread are split pretty well between those two). I think at least a handful of the developers should play on those servers more consistently to see the issues these kind of things create.

ChaosKirin.1328:

4. Wanting world bosses to scale to the number of people present is essentially asking them to be easier. If ten people are there, and ten people can take her down, there is almost no coordination necessary at all. There is nothing wrong with content that requires a lot of people.

It already scales to the number of people.

And everyone agrees 10 is too few.

Given the current populations, 25 or 30 sounds about right – and would make it an active event on most every server – while still allowing scaling for the mega-T1 servers out there.

Currently on Tequatl, fewer than 15 people have assigned roles that require coordination (turret operators, defenders and dpser). The need for the remainder is a result of the boss’s health and the number of adds that spawn – two things that can scale exponentially without taking complexity from the fight.

People are confusing “hard” and “requires a lot of people.” You can have one without having the other. Given the numbers we have across servers right now, I think these fights need a lower threshhold number wise (without sacrificing fight complexity).

To your last point – I would argue there is something wrong with it – with the huge disparities in server populations, these fights heavily favor players who chose the “right” server and leave the rest of us with an unsavory choice – either transfer, guest (to servers with people we dont know) or forego the content entirely.

Name.9625:

But my suggestion for Anet is to simple sort out the problem with the overflow caused by guesting. While i do guest fairly regularly as well, i still think this may be a problem. For events like Teq or Jormag, there should be a way to favour “native” accounts and put those into a map before guested accounts.
This way you could avoid the frustration that results from people being forced into an overflow constantly, while they´re playing on their homeserver. At the same time you would also encourage people to try this content more regularly on their homeservers as well.
I think it´s be an easy and affordable way to ensure that a larger part of the community gets access to the content without having to rewrite the entire content.

While I agree to a point, any system like this would bring issues as well. If they gave native server members preference or put any additional limits on guesting, then the disparity between high population and low population servers would become even more of an issue. The result would be a mass exodus transfer from low to high servers, creating even more problems.

In a perfect world, populations would be evenly split among all servers. That will never happen for alot of reasons. With that in mind, I think content has to be designed with EVERY player and server in mind – and the idea of 80+ as the baseline just doesn’t work (and causes serious frustration and a lack of fun) on the majority of servers.

I want the huge epic fights the same as everyone, but I dont want them for just a percentage of the population (eg, only those who chose the “right” server).

ChaosKirin.1328:

What I’m getting from this thread is that everyone wants something different.

I suppose that no one is //right.// The fact is, though, that Teq is a hard world boss. If you don’t want a hard boss, go do easier content.

There are people who like doing harder content – Teq is for them. Not you.

If you are a completionist, you’re going to have to start liking harder content.

AGAIN. You do not have to be in a guild to beat Teq. Heck, log on with me tonight on Jade Quarry. 5pm server time. If you want to do the content, be there two hours early. That’s a small price to pay for playing the harder content. JQ also does Teq at 12pm server time, IIRC, and they usually beat her then, ’cuz when I log on around 3 server time, the land in Splintered coast is all sunshine and rainbows.

Blackgate does Teq every time she spawns, too.

For those people who are insistent that they cannot get to Tequatl to take her down, you are just making excuses. Make the effort, and you’ll get a kill on most nights.

I like harder content. So I am looking forward to this new wurm being difficult. It’s not for some people, and I accept that, too. You don’t have to do it if you don’t like to coordinate the harder stuff. There are champions and elites around the map that you can feel free to engage.

Because that’s exactly what you want.

World bosses SHOULD be hard. They’re world bosses. The people who used to walk over the dragons and want that back thoroughly confuse me. You have your easy content elsewhere… Leave some hard content for people who want it.

Youre missing the point. The counterargument many are presenting here has nothing to do with the difficulty – and no one really makes that argument. Most people want these fights to be difficult.

The issue is the arbitrary number requirements that tilt the fight in favor of large population servers (and, subsequently, encourage bandwagonning and overguesting to those servers).

In the current environment, requiring 80+ semi-coordinated players means that only a couple of servers have the capabilities to do the fight – and everyone else is out of luck unless they guest or join a secondary guild (of strangers) dedicated to forcing overflows and downing the fight.

20 or 30 players should be the baseline – and it should scale from there. This would allow organized guilds to better plan events to tackle the fights and make it more accessible on every server – not just Blackgate or Desolation.

Again, it isnt about difficulty (we all want that). It is about accessibility to all with the current server population numbers/fluctuations taken into account.

The problem isnt the complexity of the Tequatl fight (we need more complex world fights that require coordination).

The problem is the arbitrary large number requirements associated with that fight.

World bosses – even complex ones – should scale from 25 players and up, not 80. Not everyone plays on Blackgate – and not everyone enjoys having to join a secondary guild just so they can experience what should be reasonably accessible on every server.

They should be designed so that the average mid sized guild can tackle them (with maybe some help from a few stragglers and pugs). These bosses would be an awesome alternative to raiding – but requiring 80+ semi-coordinated players is unrealistic with current server pve populations.

My prediction for Tuesday is you will see a flood of players guesting to servers like Blackgate, Desolation and Jade Quarry. As much as I despise the idea, I may even have to be one of them.

My plea to the developers is simple – look at the populations of all servers when designing these fights. We know from other games that difficult, fun, complex 25 man content is very possible. Moving the required number of players down from 80 to 25 and then scaling from that point would solve this issue nicely.

phys.7689:

Blaeys.3102:

I wouldnt mind seeing them fully remove crit damage as a stat on gear and allow us to replace it with a defensive or support stat.

Currently, most dungeons and bosses are trivialized by the huge numbers going out. Wearing full zerker gear makes most fights WAY too easy – it requires almost no skill and isnt fun for many of us. Its hard to argue against that when there are videos of groups killing legendary dungeon bosses in just a few seconds (that shouldnt be mathematically possible, imo).

Balancing zerker (or even removing the concept of zerker gear from the game) with other sets will allow them to better balance fights around more than just health pools.

I also agree with many that I would like to see this be more than just a change to zerker – but also a change to the way fights work to encourage more build diversity. However, I think the first (and simplest) step needs to be bringing zerker in line with other gear sets in PVE.

what is skill? taking longer to do the same thing? stats have little to do with the content difficulty, its more about the encounters themselves.

Basically, if a team can take down a boss in 1 minute, halving the dmg, that team would still take down the boss in 2 minutes. The truth is what makes these speed clear groups clear fast isnt 1 stat, its knowing stacking, proper use of buffs/active defesnses, and dealing with poor enemy AI. Essentially knowing how to maximize their own dmg, and knowing how and what the enemy will do. The enemy falls for it everytime.

You are right to a degree. However, I contend that longer fights (in some situations) are good for the game. Killing a boss too fast means the boss doesnt have time to put out the consistent damage or cycle mechanics that require mitigation, support, etc. Now, I do lay some of this on boss design – but before they can design a boss that requires those things, we have to be sure that every group (even those hyper efficient at dealing damage) will see those mechanics enough times to actually matter. Requiring players to focus on more than just pure dps adds depth to the game.

Keep in mind im talking about legendary bosses that die in seconds, not minutes, to these groups.

I wouldnt mind seeing them fully remove crit damage as a stat on gear and allow us to replace it with a defensive or support stat.

Currently, most dungeons and bosses are trivialized by the huge numbers going out. Wearing full zerker gear makes most fights WAY too easy – it requires almost no skill and isnt fun for many of us. Its hard to argue against that when there are videos of groups killing legendary dungeon bosses in just a few seconds (that shouldnt be mathematically possible, imo).

Balancing zerker (or even removing the concept of zerker gear from the game) with other sets will allow them to better balance fights around more than just health pools.

I also agree with many that I would like to see this be more than just a change to zerker – but also a change to the way fights work to encourage more build diversity. However, I think the first (and simplest) step needs to be bringing zerker in line with other gear sets in PVE.

I know from guild activities and temple/karka queen runs that my server (in the lower 1/3) can get 30+ organized (or at least semi-organized) people together often enough to make it possible/fun.

Eighty is definitely beyond our reach 99 out of 100 nights, though.

This is something that desperately needs to be addressed before they add any new fights using the current Tequatl model (in terms of scale/number requirements) into the game. I worry that design decisions for these fights are being made solely using numbers from the top tier servers – and that guesting is used as the reason for disregarding the rest.

If you look at the actual mechanics of Tequatl, they shouldn’t really require large numbers. Six people on turrets, a few defending and the rest hitting the boss. The number requirement is based around two things – the boss’s health pool and the number of adds attacking turrets, both of which should be easy to scale down.

I don’t see why the event cannot scale down for smaller groups – say 30 (six on turrets, 3 defending each turret and the rest dpsing the boss). The 80+ requirement is arbitrary (primarily based on boss health pool and number of adds attacking turrets) to make the fight artificially feel more epic.

Scaling from 30 up instead of 80 up (but still require coordination) would alleviate concerns, allow guilds to more easily organize (making for a great guild “raid” event) and, potentially, stop everyone from bandwagoning/relying on overflows to down these kind of fights. The fight would still feel the same with those huge groups, but now the content would be more accesible (yet still challenging) for guild raid sized groups.

I understand this isn’t an issue on higher populated servers – that is part of the problem. There shouldn’t be such a huge disparity based on the server you choose. Just as importantly, requiring such large numbers almost guarantees overflows, meaning that guilds are probably not going to be able to play together for these events. Additionally, scaling lower would give the events a longer lifecycle on every server.

The idea and intent with Tequatl was good – and definitely a step in the right direction. It needs to be polished though – with a mind toward ALL players – not just those on T1 servers.

I really hope these are things the devs thought about in designing the new encounter.

The new content teased today looks amazing and I cannot wait.

My biggest concern, however, is that the new encounter will follow the Tequatl model in requiring 80+ semi-coordinated players to down. The problem is, not everyone plays on the same server – and many servers just dont have the continual flow of people at these events.

This forces players to guest or join secondary guilds that ensure huge numbers of players on overflows. Both of these options take us away from the players we want to play alongside (most notably our guildmates). Additionally, it creates overflow issues on larger servers, meaning they cant play alongside their guildmates either.

I like the level of coordination required in these large fights, but would like to see it done in fights that can still be done by 20+ players (still requiring coordination).

They could still make them challenging and require communication/coordination. Its the number requirement that makes them unenjoyable on smaller servers. Not everyone plays on Blackgate.

(Tequatl should also scale down for smaller groups to alleviate this issue, imo)

Anything that allows more diversity and choice in how people build their toons is good, in my opinion.

I do think pure zerker damage could use toning down just a little – probably by reducing the efficacy of crit damage.

I wouldnt mind seeing a meta where everyone does decent damage through a primary stat – whether it be power or condition damage (and this stat should be the same regardless of armor prefix chosen) – where the utility of precision is more important than its actual damage multiplier (ie, the specials that proc from traits are the main reason we should take precision), and where the third stat is more balanced/specialized – eg, toughness or vit for survivability, ability to get in close and control mobs, healing power/boon duration for support, and crit damage for those who only want to do damage (albeit less crit damage than what pure zerkers can do now to encourage more diversity).

I do find the dev’s comments promising – I really want to play a more control focused build in PVE without feeling like im hurting the group.

I support anything that adds depth and more choice to how we can play. This game (in PVE at least) currently leans a little to far to the “dps trumps all” side of the scale.

I never want to play a trinity game again, but do find the dps meta boring and welcome anything they do to get us away from it.

Chrispy.5641:

Blaeys.3102:

ColinJohanson.2394:

Zone.1275:

ColinJohanson.2394:

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

I think special dynamic events could be one way. Currently some dynamic events open up special vendors to buy little knick knacks. For example, if in Brisban Wildlands there was a special dynamic event chain where you help the Skritt King in some way and after the events are over you can buy a new skill from him with skill points.

So a question for this, how would we message well to newer players how a system like this would work? One of the challenges of events is simply: they may not be running when you’re in an area. Is it ok to make people stand around waiting for an event to happen so they can get a specific thing from that event? How would they know what to do if the event wasn’t currently active, what form of messaging could help them understand the state of the world – while still being immersive and not requiring them to use a 3rd party app to progress?

One way to do this would be to use the heart/karma system you have in place instead of dynamic events.

This would tie in with your desire to get more people into the open game world (non-instanced).

When a player hits level 80, a series of new hearts open around the game world. As you release new skills, traits and even weapon/armor skins, you add new hearts.

When the player fills the heart, a new vendor appears that “sells” the new skills/traits for skill points and new armor/weapon skins for karma (we need new places to use karma anyway).

You could even tie the hearts, loosely, into current and past living story steps (eg, a heart quest in Diessa related to rebuilding/defending the hatchery that was attacked during Flame and Frost).

I like this idea, except for the level 80 part. If the content is in a lower level zone, then people at or above that level should have access to it with little exception.

Also maybe color the hearts a different color so all players know that that heart is the one that teaches a new skill, because that is probably what they are going to go for first anyways.

That is fair – and agree about not limited to lvl 80.

I think another way to get people to them would be to have the profession trainers in various cities have dialogue options that point them to the hearts associated with specific skills/traits.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Zone.1275:

ColinJohanson.2394:

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

I think special dynamic events could be one way. Currently some dynamic events open up special vendors to buy little knick knacks. For example, if in Brisban Wildlands there was a special dynamic event chain where you help the Skritt King in some way and after the events are over you can buy a new skill from him with skill points.

So a question for this, how would we message well to newer players how a system like this would work? One of the challenges of events is simply: they may not be running when you’re in an area. Is it ok to make people stand around waiting for an event to happen so they can get a specific thing from that event? How would they know what to do if the event wasn’t currently active, what form of messaging could help them understand the state of the world – while still being immersive and not requiring them to use a 3rd party app to progress?

One way to do this would be to use the heart/karma system you have in place instead of dynamic events.

This would tie in with your desire to get more people into the open game world (non-instanced).

When a player hits level 80, a series of new hearts open around the game world. As you release new skills, traits and even weapon/armor skins, you add new hearts.

When the player fills the heart, a new vendor appears that sells the new skills/traits for skill points and new armor/weapon skins for karma (we need new places to use karma anyway). To help people find them, current profession trainers could have dialogue options that point the way to the different hearts associated with specific new skills.

You could even tie the hearts, loosely, into current and past living story steps (eg, a heart quest in Diessa related to rebuilding/defending the hatchery that was attacked during Flame and Frost).

Here is my thought on sub classes. I think the same thing could be accomplished through more focused, borderline OP traits, as defined below.

Add another tier to existing trait trees without adding additional trait points. That way, players can choose to specialize by placing 40 points into a single trait tree (but would never have enough points to put 40 into two trait trees).

Then you assign highly specialized traits to the last box that “define” the role the player wants to play. As an example, the engineer alchemy trait line could be the “medic line,” with traits like the following to choose from at the “specialist” level: “Turret Network: When healing turret is used, all turrets in a 1200 radius mirror the heal used.”; “Infused bandages: all bandages dropped by the engineer heal for 300% more;” ; “Sympathic Elixers: Using an elixer grants the effect to all party members within a 600 radius.”

The inventions trait line would be the “control” line, with traits like “Forceful Blasts: all knockbacks apply an additional 1 second daze affect and remove 3 stacks of defiant,”; “Sticky Elixers: Thrown elixers apply cripple and remove 4 stacks of defiant,” ; “Polarized Turrets: when more than one turret is dropped within 1200 radius of one another, they create a periodic static wall (or field if 3 are dropped) that has a chance to daze targets and remove 2 stacks of defiant.”

This would allow people to specialize in a role while still keeping existing builds viable (eg, the balanced build), which would effectively be the same thing as sub classes.

The problem (and potential solution) is the scaling on the event. While some servers have the numbers and coordination to handle an 80+ player fight, many do not.

Allow this event (and future ones like it) to scale down to 20 players and you will start to see guilds running them regularly (and most likely, enjoying the hell out of them) – even guesting to low pop servers to do them from time to time.

This would have a positive impact on the global population instead of the negative impact requiring such large numbers currently has (manifested primarily in so many bandwaggoning to servers like Blackgate).

I love this game, but feel the Tequatl population requirement was the single biggest mistake they made in 2013. They had the opportunity to give us something close enough to raids to make organized guild groups happy and instead turned it into yet another reason to flock to the highest populated servers.

Vol.7601:

Please read over the exact blog post again.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/looking-ahead-guild-wars-2-in-2013/

• “As always, the content above is subject to change as we test and iterate on these systems.” *

This is the blogpost that should be discussed – not a wiki page that just includes the small subset of items that are still to be implemented (the wiki page is labeled “future” because it doesnt include anything that has been implemented yet).

True, they did not get everything in they planned to (thus the disclaimer), but its obvious they are making progress and working to make them all a reality as quickly as possible (cant think of a reason they would be delaying any of these items that doesn’t sound like a crazy conspiracy theory).

To clarify further, the blog post is not an advertisement – its the developers allowing some insight into their future plans, with the understanding that we are smart enough to know that timelines change and move. Would people rather they didnt say anything about future plans? If we want some transparency, then we have to understand that not everything can be written in stone (common sense).

A good, active (and, most important – friendly) guild is the best remedy for boredom in this game.

That is the best advice I can give on this topic.

Lots of people like Scarlet (and the living story),

we are just a little afraid to say so on these forums ( ).

I think a short term solution would be to do away with the RNG elements of guild missions and just let guilds choose the bounty targets, puzzle, challenge and rush they want to do each week (treks should remain the same).

This would allow smaller guilds to choose the easier bounty targets, puzzles, challenges and rushes – and allow all guilds to see every mission without having to wait until the one’s they haven’t seen pop up randomly (it took us forever to kill 2-Mult because we never got it as a target).

As an example, a group of 8-10 people could do a challenge like Southsun Crab Toss, Deep Trouble, Branded for Termination or Skritt Sentry Defense, but if they get unlucky and draw Save our Supplies or Blightwater Shatterstrike, they will most likely fail. Letting them pick the challenge fixes that issue and means they don’t waste (valuable for smaller guilds) influence on something they have almost no chance of beating.

The other thing they could easily (possibly) do is create two tiers for the puzzles and rushes, with Tier One only requiring 8 people to complete (and awarding half the guild merits) and Tier Two still requiring 15 (and awarding the current number of guild merits) in order for the guild to get credit.

What we really need are new rewards to buy with commendations and new missions, though. I would love to see content/themes from past Living Story steps revisited as guild missions – eg, Zephyr Sanctum as new guild puzzle or rush, bosses from Queen’s Gauntlet as new bounties, defending Cragstead/Nolan North Hatchery as new guild challenges, etc.

Like others, Im not a fan of leaderboards for a dungeon.

One of the things I love about GW2 is that PVE has always been a cooperative experience where players are encouraged to be inclusive, leaving the truly competitive side of the game to WvW and sPvP.

I like the idea of non-gear/stat based progression through the acquisition of new skills and traits. The problem is Anet has dug themselves into a hole with the skill point inflation. When most players have 50+ and a fair number have 1000+ skill points, the idea of new skills is still enticing, but the idea that they are part of the progression plan doesn’t work. There needs to be another element (no matter how easy) to the acquisition of new skills and traits (such as the collection model from GW1.

Regarding equipment based progression, I think there are a few things that could change, specifically related to the acquisition of new legendary weapons/armors in the future (understanding that the current legendaries are what they are and probably shouldnt change) -

1. Reduce the influence of the trading post on legendary acquisition. It isnt legendary if someone can just buy it (or the precursor) on the TP. The Trading Post is the single biggest factor hurting character progression through acquisition in this game (because it essentially invalidates the idea of item progression).

2. Create a fun way to obtain the precursor that isnt dependent upon RNG or the TP – a series of herculean tasks specific to the precursor you are making. This would include all of the current requirements (map completion, T6 mat collection for gifts, specific dungeon tokens, etc). This should also now include dragonite ore and empyreal fragments, imo.

3. Use achievement points to gate acquisition. Simply require people to buy something with a token they get in their 20/40/60K/etc achievement point box before they can create one of this new class of legendary weapons.

4. The final step in crafting the legendary should feel legendary. There should be difficult single player instances (specific to the type of legendary they are making) that players have to beat before they can craft the legendary. For example, if you want a legendary flaming sword (name TBD), you should have to enter this final instance, work your way to the “legendary forge of (insert weapon name)” defeat the forgemaster and then dip your precursor (and other mats) into the legendary forge to finish making the weapon.

Keeping in mind that current legendaries would remain unchanged (giving everyone reasonable access to a legendary) a new system like this would give players something to strive for – and a way to progress their character without providing an unfair advantage – long term.

My impression was the Fractured sub forum was for the living story content (eg, the story step and the achievements), which ended yesterday.

I would post any bug reports in the bug report forum and any gameplay posts in the dungeon sub forums.

Beyond that, I wouldnt read to much into developers not posting in a particular thread – doesnt mean they arent reading or are ignoring any issues – just means there is nothing they can add to conversation by replying in the forums at this time (which is understandable).

Not a bug.

People can take the waypoint even if the rest of the group is still in combat in Toypocalypse, meaning they can waypoint well before the inactivity timer becomes an issue.

If they sold a mini game arena starter kit (just like the one for custom sPvP except for minigames we could invite people to), I would buy it.

Love the idea of hosting a “minigame” night with my guild.

Seems like a reasonable thing to do to me – and would fit with the story (making progress could include installing a final waypoint).

Do people anywhere actually care who is at the top of the leaderboards?

It is time to improve upon/add to guild missions. Many guilds have beaten every mission available and are starting to struggle to maintain interest.

Improvements I would love to see -

- remove the RNG completely and let us select which missions we want to do (with the exception of guild treks – those should remain the same, for obvious reasons).

- new rewards – these should include both permanent (weapon/armor skins) and consumable (boosters, banners, etc) items to encourage continued participation in missions.

- new bounties and challenges. They could even align with the living story and keep some small piece of every past story relevant, like so:

New Bounties:

- Canach
- Subdirector Null
- Horrik (or Mai Trin)
- Vevina from TA Up Up
- The six bosses from The Crown Pavilion
- Select bosses from Queen’s Jubilee
- Toxic Hybrid

New Challenges:

- Defending LA against an Aetherblade assault
- Sabotaging a Consortium shipment of Karka leaving Southsun
- Closing X number of scarlet portals (in place of the zone invasions no one does anymore)
- Destroying a mega toxic stalk
- Protect/save baby devourers wandering away from the North Nolan Hatchery
- Defend Cragstead from an Icebrood attack

Just a few thoughts. The potential is practically limitless.

Guild missions are my favorite part of the game, currently, but they will get stale if we dont see constant improvements and additions. Additionally, they seem like the ideal place to keep old LS steps “alive” moving forward.

For the record, not all players agree with the OP, so the blanket statement “your fans are horrified…” is inaccurate. People need to stop talking like everyone in the game feels this way (most I talk to in game are still having a lot of fun).

While not mindblowing, I think the Scarlet storyline offers some entertainment value and I happily play through each step as it comes out. I am excited for what they come up with next (and dont care if it is about the elder dragons or not).

I don’t think traditional server merges are the answer (and would create as many issues as they solve), but I do think they need to get creative and come up with some way to make WvW fun again for everyone.

The idea of teams or alliances of servers with more maps (with people basically guesting to alliance servers to support on those maps) seems like it would be the obvious solution. Done properly, it could potentially fix multiple issues, including number imbalances and long queues on the more popular servers. I sincerely hope they are considering this.

rfdarko.4639:

VOLKON.1290:

rfdarko.4639:

Why didn’t they just open up 50+ with the new challenges, instead of needlessly deleting the only meaningful character progression that exists above level 80? To people saying getting above 50 is an exploit – I’m sure that if it was a serious issue it wouldn’t have taken them nearly a year to simply make it impossible to open higher than a 49.

If someone was at 50, wasn’t their progression done? There’s no more “up” after that, isn’t that true?

So isn’t this going from “no more progression” to “progression with added challenges”?

It’s deleting the progression I’ve already achieved, when they could have left it well alone. If they opened up new character levels I don’t think they would push everyone back to 60.

If they left it alone, then players new to the game would have to (presumably) work harder than you did to get to the level you achieved under the older system. Do you really want to be lvl 50 in a system where everyone has to wonder “did they really earn it or get it before the new system was implemented?”

I keep coming back to the point that all people are losing is a number that only they could see. It isn’t like everyone went around looking at everyone’s fractal level.

In exchange, we are getting a new system that (hopefully) adds new challenges and includes a meaningful progression system, versus one driven primarily by AR gear and rez orbs.

What people are “losing” is a number that no one else in the game can see. It isnt like it came with a title or people could click on you and see your fractal rank.

We arent losing potential rewards or public esteem of any kind – just a number that only the player could see. You could literally take a piece of tape, write your old fractal level on it and adhere it to your computer screen and it would mean the same thing.

On the flip side, those players (along with everyone else) are getting a lot – new fractal maps, new rewards, etc. The loss of an arbitrary number (again, that only the player can see – that is most important) seems extremely trivial (yes, my personal fractal level is well above 30 as I write this).

The issue isn’t about balance or which servers are matched against which.

The issue is that most content (pretty much all – in both WvW and PVE – including the new map they showcased last week) is designed (and probably rightfully so) around having large numbers of people on the map almost all the time. It’s more fun to play with other people – and large EPIC battles is what WvW is supposed to be about.

Sadly, this isnt happening on many servers. Due to a number of factors, primarily bandwagonning to large servers, the population on these servers simply doesn’t fit with a tenant of the game’s core design.

With that in mind, better matchmaking wont fix the issue. It requires a more drastic move. The three viable solutions Ive seen floated are 1. merge lower population server, 2. truly incentivize players to move to lower population servers (meaning simply – bribe them. pay them through gems or really significant rewards to move), or 3. uncouple WvW from servers and come up with some other way to determine who is on each of the three teams facing each other each week. There is no guarantee that 2 (incentives) would work, so I would opt for 1 or 3.

Anything else doesn’t address the core issue, which again isnt balance, but whether or not people on lower population servers can have as much fun (as often) as people on high population servers.