Guild Wars 2

Lheimroo.2947:

Incidentally I think the idea of giving ascended gear stat-switching ability gives us a kind of metric for determining how difficult it ought to be to acquire.

Say, (for example), ascended can go with 12 stat combinations. Functionally the same thing can be achieved by multiple exotic sets, but that’d be far less convenient.

Add in a bit of a premium for that convenience and in principle ascended gear perhaps ought to be priced around 15-20 times the ‘effort’ required to get exotic gear.

I’m not talking about gold price on the TP; exotic gear value has taken a dive due to it being much less desirable now, and so freely available. I’m talking effort in terms of playtime to get the karma/dungeon/celestial/cultural sets.

I’m completely on the fence about making ascended sellable via TP. If the acquisition is tuned too high the prices will be astronomical and we grind gold while watching inflation push it continually out of our reach. If it’s too easy, ascended becomes a redundant brand of exotic. There is a certain convenience factor to that and it is seductive.. but darn it, I like the idea of gear attainable through gameplay only. And gameplay challenges more than through repetitive gameplay, but.. well, not everybody could beat Liadri even if you did put an ascended weapon on her.

Though if ascended remains a source of ‘vertical’ progression and not optional, all that goes out the window: it has to be easy.

I know that’d still devalue what people’ve already put into gearing up their characters, but I can’t think of a good solution that honors that effort while putting ascended in reach of the average 1-2 hour/day guy with multiple alts. That’s the reason why I think communication on the subject from Arenanet can’t come soon enough.

Yes, I know you’re communicating! I’m grateful. But getting a ‘game plan’ out to players is crucial, whatever ends up decided.

Many of you have mentioned this problem, so let’s discuss it some more. If the supply of ascended gear is made more accessible to the populous either through drop rates of items and mats, and/or sale ability of gear then is this something that is acceptable to early adopters?

Regarding:

‘Yes, I know you’re communicating! I’m grateful. But getting a ‘game plan’ out to players is crucial, whatever ends up decided’

There has been a clearly communicated game plan. Our focus is on Horizontal progression and I felt that Ascended was a necessary step. However as many have pointed out this gear was designed to sit between Exotic and Legendary and thus be a better bridge. Personally i feel like it could be made more accessible through playing different parts of the game. Once we have concluded the discussion on the tightening up of Vertical Progression we will move onto Horizontal discussion. Huzzah (-:

Thanks for your input and i hope that adds some more clarity.

Chris

The Lost Witch.7601:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I think it would be cool if we can get a proposal together for treatment of stat based evolution as it currently stands in the game and then concentrate on Horizontal progression ideation.

Chris

Awesome inspiring ideas from everyone. And while it would be great to have the best of everything, I feel that we have to be practical about this. So far the overall thoughts in the thread lean towards more horizontal progression and more accessible vertical progression. So while I really like some of the more elaborate plans to make stats less gear bound or introducing new gear systems… I tried to think up a proposal with the following in mind:

The fewer resources it takes to make vertical progression manageable, the more resources we have available for horizontal progression.

So without further ado:

Proposal for the treatment of stat based evolution.

In chronological order:

• (Early 2014) Announce a large increase of ascended gear sources.

• (Early 2014) Announce the end of stat based gear tiers. (Even if just for the forseeable future, 2 years?)

• (All over 2014) Use the time bought by vertical progression to come up with horizontal alternatives.

• (Mid-late 2014) Increase the amount of ascended gear sources dramatically. Everyone who plays about 8 unfocused hours a week will have multiple characters in ascended gear at the end of 2014.

• (2015) Final destination: ascended gear is just about two/three times as hard to get as exotic gear currently is, so we can afford to make different sets for different builds. By then there should be enough horizontal progression in place to keep us busy.

Interesting proposal(-:

Chris

barabajaga.7652:

All this thread seems to me ,that you (anet) have derailed so much from the original idea of the manifesto and what gw2 were suposed to be ,that you dont have any idea of what direction the game is going.

All since the introduction of ascended gear,you have craeted such a kittenstorm that now you are sinked to the knees in it and do not know wich direction to go.

What makes me angry about all this ,is that you got it right in Gw1,so i still can not understant how can you manage to screw it up so much,yeah sure Gw1 has its flaws and whatnot,but instead of improving on the idea of Gw1 to create Gw2 ,you just converted this game in to a massive grind ,and its not a grind for aestethics like Gw1
its a vertical grind for better gear (that was absolutley no needed ,exotics should have been the las tier of gear).

And you now what the worst part about all of this is?,well the game is no fun anymore
its just a massive grind.
People didnt want ascended gear,nor living story(another grind ,this time for achivements).

What people do want is ,new skills ,new traits ,new weapons for each professions,new wvw maps,new spvp modes,new zones new enemies new classes…..

Any way im just angry at what this game could have been ,and what it sadly have become,i dont know if you are stil on time to fix it but i hope you can come with a solution to all this mess .

I know that this i not a constructive post,but come on this all thread just reeks of the fact that anet have lost northwith the direction of the game.

It is a ‘discussion’, a chance for us all to talk about the game we are so passionate about. An opportunity for the community and developers to brainstorm, theory craft and ultimately evolve a pioneering game with. If it makes you uncomfortable then don’t be part of it. But don’t for one minute assume that we don’t have direction, of course we do. However we are a ‘live’ game with an amazing community and thus the CDI provides us all the opportunity to evolve the game in a much more informed and valuable manner. So please try not to confuse assumptions around lack of direction with the reality of community/developer collaboration.

Chris

Nike.2631:

Anyone here have a huge complaint against the idea of being able to buy Ascended Weapon/Armor Chests with some of our account-bound currencies?

Maybe~

Guild Commendations – 150 commendations, any stats
Badges of Honor – 800 badges, any stats
Dungeon Tokens – 1,000 w/ stat combinations matching the each dungeons’ existing flavors
Fractal Relics – 1,500 w/ stat combinations matching the current capacitors

((all quantities subject to change and offered only to inspire thought))

Good question. And morning/afternoon everyone. Just reading through all the new pages and great discussion. This is awesome.

Chris

The Lost Witch.7601:

Dev post recap:

Summaries (read these!):

A summary of the first 3 pages by Izzy. Big post!

General:

Izzy on fractal progression reset.

Will there be more vertical progression?

Dev questions and discussion requests:

What are some of your favorite progression systems of all time in others games?

The ideas of DiogoSilva. Discussion request.

Would ‘faction’ progression like in GW1 be grindy if it offered exclusive rewards?

Vertical Progression acquisition can be a pain but what if any elements do you like about Vertical Progression?

Lets keep coming up with some awesome Horizontal Progression systemic ideas and also reward ideas?

What if there was vertical progression in the Fractals with gear that increased in stats but when outside of the fractals defaulted back to BiS numbers?

Brainstorm statement: The idea of a statistical power creep is redundant.

What if certain pieces of ascended gear could be sold on the TP?

Request to get a proposal together for stat based evolution to make room for more horizontal progression brainstorming.

Devs responding to individual posts:

We like the idea of a skin wardrobe.

Why weapons are easier than armors.

A sense of personal progression through challenge.

Catching up with individual replies to the first 3 pages. 15 posts that continue on the next page!

Chris continued with many more replies on page 13 to 15.

Thanks so much for doing this. It isn’t easy! Virtual Hug.

Chris

Ok i am going to play GW2 for real now (-:

See you in the morning or maybe later.

Chris

cesmode.4257:

StriderShinryu.6923:

Reesha.7901:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Ok another brainstorm idea.

What if certain pieces of ascended gear could be crafted and sold on the TP such as gloves and boots?

Chris

Yes please, or even better:
All pieces could be crafted and sold on the TP.
All pieces could change stats.
All pieces could be obtained outside crafting without relying on RNG.

Absolutely. Once again, no reason at all to restrict gathering of high tier gear to any one method of acquisition. Allow all pieces to be bought and sold. Allow all pieces to be traded for using a variety of the in game currencies that are already in place (dungeon tokens, karma, laurels, glory, etc.)

You do realize that even just one of these pieces will run well over 50 gold….Im thinking closer to 100. For one piece. If people have that much gold on hand, you might as well just buy your precursor as well while youre at it.

Whats interesting to think about is that if this went live and people started buying ascended gear off the TP, these are most likely going to be the people who have their legendaries already, and probably multiple legendariesalready because they have fat wallets in the real world and able to buy gems. Its amazing… people complain about legendaries being tradeable on the TP, but this would be acceptable?

Doing this would cause greater disparity between a RL richboy vs the normal joe, and the 24×7 farmer and the normal joe.

Yep this is definitely a valid concern. If the drop rate was higher though and it wasn’t just crafted then supply could be more deterministic in terms of demand.

Chris

Reesha.7901:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Reesha.7901:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Ok another brainstorm idea.

What if certain pieces of ascended gear could be crafted and sold on the TP such as gloves and boots?

Chris

Yes please, or even better:
All pieces could be crafted and sold on the TP.
All pieces could change stats.
All pieces could be obtained outside crafting without relying on RNG.

Personally and note this is not the opinion of Arena but I like the idea of uniquely skinned BiS items dropping in challenging content. My opinion as a player is that the current drop rates could be tweaked.

Chris

That will not remove the RNG factor…. Look at it this way:
Say you increased the drop rate on Tequatl. That means a higher change to get a weapon. But it is still RNG.
Some people will get several drops, others will get nothing, most will get items with the wrong stat combination. Please, please, please: No more RNG!

What if you could sell them? Thus complimentary to other forms of acquisition?

Chris

Once we have discussed more of the question I listed above I will put together a proposal that we can discuss and then move onto Horizontal brainstorming.

I am going to head in game and play for a kitten

ris

cesmode.4257:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Ok another brainstorm idea.

What if certain pieces of ascended gear could be crafted and sold on the TP such as gloves and boots?

Chris

I dislike this idea. Its similar to allowing legendaries to be tradeable on the TP. People with thick wallets to turn $$ into gems into gold can purchase their way to BiS…or people with loads of time to farm materials to sell can purchase BiS.

It solves nothing, unfortunately. For me it would be more of salt in an open wound than helping alleviate the problem.

Doesn’t it allow another avenue for players to work toward the gear if they don’t enjoy crafting? Initially prices may be prohibitive but i would see them dropping.

Chris

Reesha.7901:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Ok another brainstorm idea.

What if certain pieces of ascended gear could be crafted and sold on the TP such as gloves and boots?

Chris

Yes please, or even better:
All pieces could be crafted and sold on the TP.
All pieces could change stats.
All pieces could be obtained outside crafting without relying on RNG.

Personally and note this is not the opinion of Arena but I like the idea of uniquely skinned BiS items dropping in challenging content. My opinion as a player is that the current drop rates could be tweaked.

Chris

Barsimoprimo.2759:

The idea of having inter profession specializations is pretty intriguing and could really work. It’s also an excellent way to introduce new weapons and skills. It should require some sort of effort( not too much) to specialize and should happen at level 80.

I always loved hybrid class design in AD&D.

Chris

cesmode.4257:

Im simply amazed at the amount of people that are opposed to vertical progression being confined to FoTM. If you think about it, it is the only place ascended gear is required(currently). So why does a stat increase even need to exist outside of it?

If ascended stats were confined to fractals, then the rest of us who may not want to step foot into fractals would not need to worry about power creep or a treadmill in the open world.

Im very much in favor of this and again, Im amazed that people are against it.

Yep and kudos to you Cesmode for offering the counter argument.

Chris

I think it would be cool if we can get a proposal together for treatment of stat based evolution as it currently stands in the game and then concentrate on Horizontal progression ideation.

Chris

Palador.2170:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Here is a crazy brainstorm idea, not in anyway indicative of our direction.

What if there was vertical progression in the Fractals with gear that increased in stats but when outside of the fractals defaulted back to BiS numbers?

I am asking this because it is going to generate some left field conversation not because I think it is or isn’t a good idea.

Chris

This would be quite awful.

As people grow in power within the fractals, they would eventually reach a point where they can clear the lower level fractals easily enough and fast enough that it becomes the new way to farm. At that point, you get to pick one:

• Reduce rewards in the fractals, especially the lower level ones.
• Reduce the power players have earned in the fractals because some are using it in ways you don’t like.
• Make the fractals tougher to compensate.

All three of these will unfair to new players in the fractals, as well as unfair to the people that have earned their way up through honest play.

However…

Let’s add a new item slot to characters. Call it “Luck Charm” or something. We can come up with a few of them, but one version will be specific to the Fractals. It starts at level 0, and can be leveled up like AR. And as the party’s Fractal Luck goes up, there’s an increased chance of a rare fractal showing up. Or a rare variant of a normal fractal. Maybe these fractals will give better rewards than normal? Maybe they’re just fun? Maybe there’s a really REALLY rare one that gives a title if you see it ( and bonus points to ANet if they can disable screenshots in that fractal ).

There’s some horizontal progress for the fractals that I bet people would love.

Yep some good points and cool ideas here.

Chris

Ok another brainstorm idea.

What if certain pieces of ascended gear could be crafted and sold on the TP such as gloves and boots?

Chris

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Brainstorm statement.

I am assuming that you wouldn’t want a progression system in which new skills and traits superseded/replaced existing skills and traits.

Thus all progression must be complimentary, enhancing your current roles, perhaps creating new ones rather than just making you more powerful.

So therefore the idea of statistical power creep is redundant?

Chris

I am trying to see if we can just remove conversation around any form of statistical evolution in the CDI?

Chris

Brainstorm statement.

I am assuming that you wouldn’t want a progression system in which new skills and traits superseded/replaced existing skills and traits.

Thus all progression must be complimentary, enhancing your current roles, perhaps creating new ones rather than just making you more powerful.

So therefore the idea of statistical power creep is redundant?

Chris

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Randulf.7614:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Randulf.7614:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Here is a crazy brainstorm idea, not in anyway indicative of our direction.

What if there was vertical progression in the Fractals with gear that increased in stats but when outside of the fractals defaulted back to BiS numbers?

I am asking this because it is going to generate some left field conversation not because I think it is or isn’t a good idea.

Chris

For what purpose or benefit would said proposition bring? Currently Fractals works very well as it is because of how it is currently set up. How would the idea improve fractals? (ie can you expand a little more on the idea?)

Well let me be devil’s advocate then and give one example. Make it easier to play through earlier fractals when playing with lower level friends.

Chris

I dont see that as attractive to do though. The game has a fantastic feature in its scaling which maintains challenge at lower level content across the entire game, whether it is zones or dungeons.

If higher fractal player was with me, I’d hope for us both to experience challenge. Otherwise the lower fractal player would feel carried (me) and the higher lvl fractal player would feel bored. The sense of achievemnt for us both would be gone. Remember, people are getting to higher fractals because they are skilled not because of their stats.

It would go against a fundamental ideal of the game you implemented.

Yep.

Really the point of the question was to see if anyone would want to see vertical style progression live anywhere in the game. The question is essentially a forcing function to get a more macro level question answered.

Chris

Randulf.7614:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Randulf.7614:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Here is a crazy brainstorm idea, not in anyway indicative of our direction.

What if there was vertical progression in the Fractals with gear that increased in stats but when outside of the fractals defaulted back to BiS numbers?

I am asking this because it is going to generate some left field conversation not because I think it is or isn’t a good idea.

Chris

For what purpose or benefit would said proposition bring? Currently Fractals works very well as it is because of how it is currently set up. How would the idea improve fractals? (ie can you expand a little more on the idea?)

Well let me be devil’s advocate then and give one example. Make it easier to play through earlier fractals when playing with lower level friends.

Chris

I dont see that as attractive to do though. The game has a fantastic feature in its scaling which maintains challenge at lower level content across the entire game, whether it is zones or dungeons.

If higher fractal player was with me, I’d hope for us both to experience challenge. Otherwise the lower fractal player would feel carried (me) and the higher lvl fractal player would feel bored. The sense of achievemnt for us both would be gone. Remember, people are getting to higher fractals because they are skilled not because of their stats.

It would go against a fundamental ideal of the game you implemented.

Yep.

Randulf.7614:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Here is a crazy brainstorm idea, not in anyway indicative of our direction.

What if there was vertical progression in the Fractals with gear that increased in stats but when outside of the fractals defaulted back to BiS numbers?

I am asking this because it is going to generate some left field conversation not because I think it is or isn’t a good idea.

Chris

For what purpose or benefit would said proposition bring? Currently Fractals works very well as it is because of how it is currently set up. How would the idea improve fractals? (ie can you expand a little more on the idea?)

Well let me be devil’s advocate then and give one example. Make it easier to play through earlier fractals when playing with lower level friends.

Chris

Savoy.6824:

In addition to including the orders we joined in the regular game, I would like to see the choices we make represented in game through titles and npc interactions. About 30% of the time weve been given choices in how to proceed with a task and no where have I witnessed an outcome of my choice other than in the immediate path that follows the choice. I think the choices are fist, crown and heart. I dont think we need a system as involved as mass effect or skyrim (though that would be cool) but it would be nice to see your character progress slowly towards the dark side if you will. Please can someone tell me if Im missing something. Do your choices ever show up in the game anywhere?

I think it would be a nice form of horizontal progression.

How would you like to see this system extended Savoy?

What would the activities be and what would the rewards look like? I assume you are thinking it would work with the Karma system?

Chris

DiogoSilva.7089:

BACK TO HORIZONTAL PROGRESSION

Playing with alts
Anet had some sort of strategy about using player’s alts as new sources of money sink, but that has clearly failed, and we’ve been getting changes towards the opposite direction lately. This is great, because the more incentives there are to play with alts, the more incentives there are for a portion of the playerbase to log more often into the game.

• Ascended gear discriminates the players who like to invest on multiple characters, as it demands from them a much higher money sink than from players that stick to a single character.
• Likewise for dyes.
• Likewise for several soul-bound items.
• Exploring the world is very repetitive the second time.

Solutions

• Make ascended gear significantly easier to get after the first copy is crafted/ obtained, similar to the acchievement’s skins. After getting the first copy, the player could get the ability to create as many duplicates as they would wish for their other characters.
• Make dyes account bound.
• Make most non-story soul-bound gear account-bound. If I just replaced my ascended trinkets for new ones, why can’t I equip the old ones to another character I have? The money sink is already done. I have already contributed positively to the game’s economy. :P Let me at the very least use it somewhere else.
• World exploration is very complex, and I won’t dwelve into it for being off-topic. But it would be nice if, at the very least, the WPs were account bound, so we could quickly go to our favourite area or help our friends in a specific dungeon without being restricted only to our main.

Some really cool ideas here Diogo.

Chris

VOLKON.1290:

Anyone remember skill books in GW1?

Great horizontal potential there if they come back.

Agreed.

Chris

Here is a crazy brainstorm idea, not in anyway indicative of our direction.

What if there was vertical progression in the Fractals with gear that increased in stats but when outside of the fractals defaulted back to BiS numbers?

I am asking this because it is going to generate some left field conversation not because I think it is or isn’t a good idea.

Chris

Septemptus.7164:

Chris Whiteside.6102

3373369

Solutions

• Separate the concept of (ascended) gear crafting from the concept of equipment stat customisation. Make it easy or easier to change stats, or at the very least, to craft new copies of the same gear with different stats.

There are some good ideas here which I would like to see us discussing as a group.

What do you all think about these ideas?

Chris

I have kinda a problem with this.
I know that there is or soon will be in gemstore an item that allows stat changing. (datamined)

So I kinda see it like this: We get extreamly money consuming armor and istead of making another copy of it we can do a one time stat change – so you just kinda created yourself a market for new item that was already datamined like 5 months ago.

It looks really bad for me.

I kinda would have a nice solution to back it up:
Make an item (gem shop item of corse) that will one time add another stat combo to an item.
How should it work.
I will craft berserker gear but I will think “wait on WvW I would use soldger” so I buy that new item and add soldger to the item and I will get list of 2 stats I can change on the item. I will then think, Carrion or Rabid could be also nice for come builds, so I will buy that new item 2 times and I will have ascended item that can choose stats from the list of 4. (or make them have choice ot 2 stats and add more to the list with gemstore item?)

That would be something I could place my money on and if it was only doable for ascneded those would be kinda (limited legendar like) and so they would have some meaning in making with the cost of them, because now they are way more like an eyesore.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I have read the posts. And I will specifically comment on them why I get to them in the order I am parsing through the thread. My point was for everyone to have a focused discussion around this. The point of the CDI is for us all to brainstorm not just Devs and single participants. I hope this makes sense.

Chris

It sure does.

Awesome (-:

Chris

Septemptus.7164:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Agreed. Let’s spend a little more time discussing and brainstorming the following questions:

Controversial: Vertical Progression acquisition can be a pain but what if any elements do you like about Vertical Progression?

Lets keep coming up with some awesome Horizontal Progression systemic ideas and also reward ideas?

Try to tie these ideas into the core foundation of GW2’s systems and mechanics please.

Chris

Sure, all is in this 3 posts. I hope you will look into it:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression/page/7#post3370576
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression/page/7#post3370577
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression/page/7#post3370619

Hi Septemptus,

I have read the posts. And I will specifically comment on them why I get to them in the order I am parsing through the thread. My point was for everyone to have a focused discussion around this. The point of the CDI is for us all to brainstorm not just Devs and single participants. I hope this makes sense.

Chris

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

Ascended Gear
So then why did we add ascended gear, well the reason is we wanted sometime between the transition and what we shipped with was very little time turns out global trading post has a lot more effect on this then we had original thought which made us need a non-tradable gear step. We still have some progression to smooth out around the rare -> exotic area as mostly you just jump from leveling greens to exotics and rare is really only used for salvaging into ecto. We have been spacing out adding each slot of ascended gear to make sure we don’t make our original mistake again and I’m sure we’ll need to continue to evaluate the time to gain this gear like we do all things.

Art Progression
Art progression! It’s horizontal why not do it more!!! Well we do this a lot all ready and a lot of it’s constraints comes down to costs. Every single piece of art we make is not liked by everyone and so the amount of art you have to make to give everyone a smooth art progression curve is very high. The cost of making some pieces of art is also very high (Armor especially) sense very pair of gloves = 10 pairs of gloves due to race/sex. We think art is a great horizontal progression system but not something that can stand 100% alone due to constraints of creation.

Grind
Alts

I group these together because I think they have some relation. Grind well I think grind is a kittene to fully describe because it really comes down to each person own personal feeling of I can only do x action so many times before its fun faction goes down and thus starts to feel grinding. For some this can be do something twice others 100 times, our goal with how to keep grind out of the game is the relation between time based and skill based gating. I think this is an area we are always trying to get a better sense on as we start to make things harder to add more challenge to the game sometimes we cross the time gate and skill gate too much and things feel more grindy then we intend. As for alts why I lump these up is I think often leveling up alts can feel grindy, our goals here are really about how we make things feel a little less grinding for some actions and we’ve been making a lot of steps with that combing WvW xp, adding tradable level up books, birthday gifts that level you up ect.. I think we are not done with the initiative to progressing alts being a bit more smooth and it’s something we will keep working on as we move forward.

Ascended creation time

We had a lot of discussion pre-releasing ascended armor to make sure the time to make ascended doesn’t blow out, We pull a lot of data and are watching how long it takes players and like we do with everything we will keep and eye on it but with anything with progression there are always a lot of tradeoffs when you make changes but we’re always looking at it.

Ok so that was a wall of text and clearly needs a cool story bro, but I wanted to get my thoughts out there before I head home for the day. Thanks everyone for posting we are reading it and maybe I’ll jump on after dinner if I get some free time.

Second part of Izzy’s page 7 Summary Bump

Chris

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

As chris said going to be hard to keep to a 3 page summary with this one but I’ll get started

Topics
*Fractal Resets
*Ascended Gear
*Horizontal Progression
*Vertical Progression
*Grind
*Art Progression
*Alts
*Gates
*Map progression
*Ascended creation time

There where a a lot more topics but I figured I’ll get a start before I head home

Fractal Resets
See my above post on this.

Ascended Gear
Horizontal Progression
Vertical Progression

I’m going to lump these three together and talk about all three. The goal of progression is for you to feel like your character is growing as you spend time in the game. It can also serve as a common system that the different playstyles of people can use as a common language to communicate their accomplishment between each other. For example saying I reached level 80 or have full ascended tells someone of your accomplishments but you could do that in many different ways.

Vertical progression
Some games choose vertical progression for this system and I think vertical progression has it’s place it’s a very strait forward system that has natural gating built in and makes you feel better when you get stronger and overcome those gates. The place where I feel it breaks down is when you start adding to a game. This changes the feeling of vertical progression as your accomplishments start to become a bit more of a moving target I think this problem hasn’t really be solved for vertical progression as most games just live with this downside and enjoy vertical progression for it’s easy of use and clear system the biggest solution I’ve liked is soft caps where the cost gets so high you effectively have a cap but it’s a little more grey you lose some of the clarity of vertical progression but you gain some constraints. In Guild Wars 2 we wanted from the start to try and solve this paradigm so we said let’s use vertical progression at the start as the gate can be a great tool to teach people slower and to grant access to different areas and build that sense of growth, but we found in GW1 that a max to that time allows for us to have a common end point for people and from there we grow horizontally.

Horizontal Progression
With horizontal progression, it has some tradeoffs it’s great for adding to as everything you add takes away a lot less from the things you made before. Making it a great system to add to it also keeps things fresh as it can add more choices and options. It’s weakness are mostly with clarity and gating, it always takes a lot more effect to explain what someone needs to do next with horizontal progression which means your often spending a lot of time and UI to tell people what to do to overcome this weakness while this can happen with vertical progression too it’s normally a bit simpler and easier sense it’s often more liner. Vertical progression naturally gets gateing built in and while you can add gating to horizontal progression it once again takes more UI and systems to explain why that gating matters you could easily add content that you can’t do unless you have this skill but how do you that content is there?

This is why for GW2 our goals from the start where using Vertical progression for teaching and clarity and then have a common understandable end point at that point switch to a more horizontal progression system which is easy to add too. We’ll still have to overcome some of the downsides with horizontal progression and it’s something we are contiung to work on.

Summary by Izzy Bump

Chris

Estriella Faerie.4029:

As was said before, and to clarify, putting ascended items as loot (like tequatl, …) is not a solution to make them more accessible. The drop rate is so low that you can’t expect to get your weapon that way (not even counting that you’re not choosing the stats you want, like with fractals chests).

So the only way to get ascended stuff at the moment is with crafting, which needs a ton of materials, not all available everywhere. That’s the accessibility of those materials which you should make easier, as it’s the only sure way to get your weapons. All the other chests possibilities are bonuses if you’re real lucky, not something you can count on.

Hi Estriella,

Please do try to keep up to date with the thread. I have mentioned a number of times that we are currently looking at drop rate balancing.

Thanks,

Chris

Wow well whilst I have read the entire thread already I have only just finished replying to page 1…. and that has taken two hours out of my day. Do not fear however, this thread will be open for a long time and as the pages go on their will be invariably be less for me to reply to as I will have covered large topics prior.

Note if i didn’t reply to you it could be because I am thinking on it. Please do me a favor all, try where possible to be concise with your theories, ideas, and observations. It will make all of our jobs easier.

I am going to head out and will either be back on tonight (Unlikely as my guild is doing TQ and WvW) or tomorrow morning.

Keep up the great work,

Chris

Morrigan.2809:

I came about this post of a several month s ago and what I really liked about it was the fact that it expanded on the current professions but added horizontal progression-without the idea of balancing classes nightmare please consider something like this:

I will just quote:
Warriors > Berserker —- Legionnaire —- Duellist
Guardians > Crusader —- Augmentor —- Patron
Necromancer > Occultist —- Visionary —- Witcher
Rangers > Hunter —- Strider —- Mystic
Thiefs > Rogue —- Infiltrator —- Saboteur
Engineers > Alchemist —- Artificer —- Pioneer
Mesmers > Chronomancer —- Fencer —- Bard
Elementalists > Runologist —- Sorcerer —- Arcanist
—-NEW CLASS – 3rd Soldier—-
Lancers > Dragoon —- Templar —- Partizan >
That way players can:
progress with their characters
individualize themself better and make them more unique
unlock alot of new skills, traits, weapons ect. just through progressing with their class specific Talents that define, into which direction you specialize your character

Yep we chat about this a lot (-: It get’s me excited as a player to.

Chris

Moshari.8570:

There is an idea that floats through the minds of many players of other MMO’s that you can only ever have one Main, and the rest are Alts. The reason for this is simple, in most MMO’s the gear progession is so steep that you can only ever afford to progress one character. When I started GW2, I really hoped this was different, I wanted to be able to enjoy EVERY class and EVERY race…to be able to switch and play through the different stories…and this was true, until Ascended came out.

The vertical progression has killed the game for me, I look at the time and money needed to outfit all of my characters and suddenly it is impossible.

Horizontal progression is infinitely preferable in my opinion and I feel that GW2 still has a ton of potential in this aspect. Right now, there are very few armor sets, and even fewer vanity sets outside of the gem-store. This needs to change. Give us some really amazing armor sets (particularly sets that could be mixed-matched) WITHIN the game to work towards…give us cosmetic things to work towards and I bet you would satisfy everyone within the game. Those that want to grind towards things, can grind towards that awesome glowing armor, while those casual players will not be left behind. How about new pets for rangers (Rockdog for instance), that they could work towards…it could have the same stats as other pets (like black-widow vs jungle spider), but look cool….give Thieves a cool new hood or mask they could work towards,

The potential for horizontal progession is infinite! You could keep putting more and more “looks” and other “cosmetic” items into the game, giving people more and more things to work towards, while at the same time, not alienating anyone who needs to take a month off from the game, or the casual players. You could keep everyone happy.

As for how to “fix” the current Ascended issue: Give us more ways of obtaining it. Start throwing Ascended weapons and armor into dungeons, fractals, make it not account bound so that we can make sets for guildmates, let us buy it with pristine fractals…get it out there so that everyone can have it….it’s ugly…so you can still do this while adding horizontal progression with better “looks” to apply to it.

Make money in the Gem store with transmutation stones, un-transmutation stones, upgrades to banks, etc….I am all for ANET making money…its the only way to pay for new content in the game…but start giving us some cool cosmetic upgrades outside of the gemstore (I would have gladly done the tower another 50 times for Kasmeer’s staff…putting it in the gemstore actually made me not want it).

Hi Moshari,

I think we could do more to get a better balance between cool looking ‘new’ armor in the gem store and earning it through the game itself.

Chris

Belenwyn.8674:

I my eyes a big concern of players with ascended gear is the restricted accessibility and the time. I am a passionate craftsman. I can easily craft one set within a month. But equipping three or four characters with one or one character with multiple sets is a very large project. Maybe it would be much easier to wait for the legendary versions.

Many people do not like crafting but they are forced to it to obtain ascended gear in a reliable way. It the same situation as in other MMOs where you are confronted with only one way to the best gear. It would help a lot if you could introduce several ways to the goal like (time gated) tokens dungeons, fractals or even WvW. If it is needed you can introduce time gates in all ways. But the more reliable ways we get offered the faster and easier we can work toward multiple set we like to have.

Another concern many people have is the future of vertical progression. They worry about infusions. Will there be another round of progression based on infusions like rare or exotic versions. Will the players be forced at the end to go for ascended gear to catch up?

Note I don’t expect my team to work on weekends, I am replying because I have the time but this is a question for Izzy. Who will probably reply Monday (-:

Chris

PopeUrban.2578:

Vertical Progression
This is a hot button issue. People are fairly well adjusted to the idea of ascended now, but simply taking the easy road and adding another and another 5% stat hike down the line is going to result in new and returning player alienation.

Gates, not Grinds
Vertical progression needs to be handled in terms of gates, not grinds. A good example is the way fractal levels, hearts, and waypoints are handled. You don’t theoretically need to grind 31 to gt to 32, or 32 to get to 33, etc. and you don’t need to collect 4 milliong whatevers to unlock a waypoint. You need to prove your ability to pass the prerequisite, and you need to do that one time. Doing a thing, even if it’s difficult, costly, or time consuming to first time is often fun. In terms of gated content, it isn’t about the equipment and stats as much as it is about accomplishing something. Putting laundry lists of “a stack of this and 200 or that, and five of these” in place of some sort of questing, boss fight, or other content diminshes that sense of accomplishment. Getting one of each of five things, all from different places/methods, and combining them to get the “key” for the sixth thing is fun.

You already did it better once
If we’re going to progress characters, it needs to be meaningful, fun, and content driven. The EOTN systems and guild wars 1’s mission systems were very good at this. You could earn skills by progressing thematically through content related to those skills. You could unlock a “boss dungeon” by defeating several other dungeons. You could access later fights by doing easier ones. The goal of these methods of advancement didn’t just boil down to “do one thing” or “Collect currency” as much as it encouraged you to go out and complete a variety of content. In these systems my advancement wasn’t ever measured by the numbers on my character sheet as much as it was measured by all the things I had access to, and a lot of those things were placed in a strict vertical acquisition heirarchy despite not adding mechanical power to the character.

Horizontal Progression
Horizontal progression is a term that should really read “customization and options” as that’s what we are really saying when we talk about it. The main problem with horizontal progression is that so many of the trait and skill systems are extremely high impact per choice, leaving little room to have a skill or rune set or whatever “for fun” because taking that one “fun” thing can seriously cripple your overall effectiveness.

Despite having a smaller skill bar, GW1 did a slightly better job of this. A large number of builds had around five or six “key” skills, and two or three “optional” skills. With the GW2 system, there’s very little wiggle room due to the limitation on slot types. You can’t take a fun but lackluster skill because it takes up all or 1/3 of your options. When looking at Horizontal Progression we need to look at low impact but useful customization hand in hand with high impact things like traits and mainline skills.

Adventuring Ranks
Skill points are vastly underutilized. Take a look at the WvW ranking system and envision a version of that, only for general PvE. Allow players to “rank up” passive buffs to acquire effects like those found on consumables. “favored enemy” bonuses, minor stat buffs. Conditional bonuses when in certain areas, and other things that help to individualize characters.

Teamwork!
What if there were a way to customize the effects of your combos with other players? What if there were more ways for characters to meaningfully interact in combat? What if these were highly customizable, both visually and mechanically?

Weapon skill customization and collection
What if there were several cosmetic versions of each weapon skill, and you could learn them via skill capture, looting, or some other method? Mechanically they would always work the same, but let’s pretend you could get unique or rare versions of these skills with altered effects, character animations, shouts, projectiles, etc. This could be an entire new and fun subset of horizontal progression.

What if it were possible to add over time slot-limited skills to weapons? Use the weapon slots like the heal and elite slots to make it easier to balance, but how about it?

My Home Town and/or Guild Hall
You know where vertical progression is awesome? When you’re building something massive. Adding content to allow players to upgrade, improve, and customize things like these adds an entire new subset of potential shinies to acquire, none of which upset the power balance of player skills.

Some great points. Pope.

Chris

FeveredDreamer.2693:

For more than a year now (since Ascended gear first came out) the discussion over vertical vs. horizontal progression has been going back and forth among the player base both here on the forums and on varied sites devoted to GW2. Throughout these discussions there has been a great deal of conjecture from either side about what the game’s “vision” is, how GW2 has veered away from its pre-launch mission statement and what where the game is headed in the future. It would be seriously awesome to read here, from the game’s developers where we as a players can expect GW2 to go in the future. While I understand that the CDI isn’t intended to discuss what is currently in development, it shouldn’t be a problem to express to players what the game’s general direction is intended to be.

On launch GW2 offered something very different from what currently populates the MMO genre. It may have been a far step away from GW1, but it was also a far step away from most of what the industry offers as “the norm”. Gradually over time, and suddenly with the introduction of ascended gear that has changed. Please note that I am not attempting to state that ascended gear is impossible to earn by any measure, or that it is even particularly difficult, it is however sharply limiting in some of the things that were once GW2’s greatest strengths when contrasted with other MMOs.

• Alts:
  Increasing the range of GW2’s gear ladder makes it harder for people to play multiple characters and sufficiently gear them out.
• Build diversity:
  Where previously players had the flexibility to play different builds and gear sets in the different parts of the game (WvW, Open World, Dungeons/Fractals) now build diversity is much more sharply limited based not only on the gear one has to carry but the challenge of getting that gear. It is more costly for players to experiment with builds over time and dramatic class changes have a more negative impact on players due to invested time.
• Value of old content:
  As the rewards systems of the game change and become more vertical, old content becomes (as in most other MMOs) much less rewarding. Dungeons officially offer nothing but gold and armor skins (that you have to waste transmutation stones on) at this point.

One of the standard arguments against the above is that the vertical progression is shallow and ultimately optional. “You don’t ‘need’ ascended gear” after all, but if it isn’t necessary, why is it around? Once stats start getting raised through gear grind either old content has to be made more difficult, or old content becomes trivial to run either of which seems a poor choice.

I could complain about ascended gear and vertical progression until I’m blue in the face, but in an attempt to be constructive a few suggestions:

• Gear could have swappable stats (like legendaries)
  This would at very least place less confinement on horizontal progression by allowing players to try out differing builds without having the character defined purely by their gear.
• Gear could cap out at ascended with things like infusions being account unlocks
  This might help to limit the impact on those with alts, while still offering the opportunity for vertical progression.

There will always be some new MMO to offer players the hottest new gear ladder, but I think the genre can and should offer more than that. An MMO shouldn’t have to be your life for players to be on an even scale.

Hi Dreamer,

I agree and our current direction and reason for the CDI is because we are focused on drilling further into awesome Horizontal progression.

Chris

Evee.2714:

I talked about Ascended gear in my last post so now how’s abouts some horizontal progression ideas?.

A large part of horizontal progression is cosmetic: particularly armor and weapons as it stands now. Players work to obtain the looks they want for their character, after some time they may get bored of the look and want a new one. This is fine and great, but why does this wonderful system have to be limited to armor?

How about new animations, particle effects for casting/attacking, in-combat quips, hairstyles, tatoos, (visible) jewelry, or even alternate skills?

A long time ago, while Guild Wars 2 was still in development the idea of profession specific skill challenges was touted around. Ultimately the idea was scrapped for the (much better) current universal approach, but what if profession challenges made their way into the game in another form?

Example: A Thief challenge to climb a trap riddled tower, without being able to actually walk. A puzzle built specifically for shadowsteps. The reward? Unique attack/skill particle effects like shadow refuge but are sick of seeming the same ol’ house? How about a cloak of shadow of the area instead? Sick of that mediocre -woosh- effect when you slash and stab? How about something a little more…red? ;P

The possibilities are endless here as to what the challenges could be and what their rewards could entail, but the core idea remains. A challenge tailored to a single profession, with a reward to match.

Moving on we can look at the (currently) under utilized personality system, currently you make a choice at character creation and as you speak with certain NPC’s sometimes you are given a choice as to what to say and there’s some bar in your hero panel that shows which choices you pick most often or something. What if personality went further than that though? What if it affected the way or characters look and act? What if a honor bound human would never say “I can outrun a centaur!” but instead opted for a simple and somewhat self dignified “I will outrun you!”? This would be a great way to personalize our chracters even further in a manner that would be.. refreshing.

I could go on and on about more ideas for horizontal progression, and even more ways to improve the acessibility of the current vertical progression system but this post is getting long and I’d liek to see what people have to say about what I said.

With that said if anyone dev or not wants to speak with me about this topic or Guild Wars 2 in general you can find me in-game, live on the relic of orr podcast, or on twitter. Jsut remember keep it civil and look forwards toward making Guild Wars 2 the best game it can be, not back at past mistakes or whatever; I’m horrible at being deep.

Agreed. Let’s spend a little more time discussing and brainstorming the following questions:

Controversial: Vertical Progression acquisition can be a pain but what if any elements do you like about Vertical Progression?

Lets keep coming up with some awesome Horizontal Progression systemic ideas and also reward ideas?

Try to tie these ideas into the core foundation of GW2’s systems and mechanics please.

Chris

Naus the Gobbo.5172:

Progression depends on each individual player.
I am in favour of vanity progression.

Transformation items are my favourite. Endless cat tonic, watchknight, molten berserker, you name it.
Items like that are what motivates me, not statistical progression.

I am also crazy about vanity items I can spawn in the world. Chairs to sit on, bonfires, banners, finishers.
Just something for me to spawn and perhaps interact with.

If dyes were account bound then I would collect them. As it stands now I only get a few cheap ones for alts.

Also, use up what you already have in the game. There are a ton of skins, but because of the terrible transmutation system we stick to one skin and one skin only.

Imagine if we could unlock skins and endlessly switch between all of them. I would go out of my way to collect as many as possible – even buying those in the gem store.

Hi Naus,

That would be cool (-:

Chris

Evee.2714:

Greeting and salutations citizens of tyria, my name is Eveenus though most of my friends call me E.V.

This time around Arenanet has asked for our opinions and thoughts on the matter of vertical and horizontal progression in Guild Wars 2, and by association the reward system.

I’m going to start this off very blunt by saying I did not like the implementation of Ascended gear (and how it currently exists within the game), and am probably one of the most vocal people against it you will find. I feel it goes against the beginning philosophy of Guild Wars (or at least the one that was publicized).

With that out of the way I will not be advocating for the removal of ascended gear, which I have no doubt some people would enjoy. It is in the game and all we can do now is look forward as to how to improve not only it’s implementation but also the way rewards as a whole work in Guild Wars 2. Oh I should also probably also mention I will not be covering vertical progression beyond ascended gear, there are plenty of other people that will no doubt touch on it and I personally do not want to see any more implemented into Guild Wars 2.

Now to the nitty gritty and to begin by looking at the current and how it can be improved to better facilitate all players.

As it stands Ascended Gear as whole has many ways of being acquired laurels, fractals, rng, guild missions, gathering, gold, and cold hard cash (witch translates into gems then gold). However Ascended gear is acquired as individial pieces, and each individual piece has a very limited avenue of acquisition.

Armor and weapons can be crafted which in practice means they are acquired with gold either buy getting it and buying what you need or going out and getting what you need yourself hence losing the opportunity to get gold. The most conservative measure for armor on one character is roughly 400 gold in the current market (which is flooded right now so I would expect a rise soon and that is AFTER reaching 500 in the appropiate skill). This is fine, it’s an avenue for those with lots of gold (or money) to get what they want without a time restriction. However, for the more average player this is a lofty goal which is quite frankly, ridiculous to expect them to achieve in any sort of timely manner. My suggestion, add other avenues that are strictly about the time invested, no influence from the market at all. Currently there are three ways to do this pristine fractal relics, laurels, and guild commendations. I say why pick one? Have a general idea for how long each piece should take and just go with it for all of them. For the sake of an example let’s say a full set of armor should take 20 days to get (going by the time gated materials this seems a close number to what would be appropiate). that would be 20 laurels, 20 pristine fractal relics, or 12-14 guild commendations.

This would allow those that do not enjoy crafting or more importantly farming gold for extended periods of time an enjoyable avenue of acquiring their gear. While still giving those who do enjoy acquiring gold for their rewards or skipping time gating to acquire it their way. Oh this would also mean that those ascended pieces that are currently only available through time gated or RNG means (rings, necklaces, acessories) should probably be available through means of gold. Ascended level jewelcrafting should handle that nicely though.

Then there’s the area of the game that lacks any true way of ascended acquisition through itself. WvW, Arguably the game type that having Ascended gear matters the most. I’m not much of a WvW’er but I feel this should be said. Please make all Ascended reasonably obtainable with Badges of Honor or from rank and season chest (or even all of them!)

If this is implemented I think it would be a boon to the current state of affairs. Ascended gear was said to be implemented to serve to purpose of something for players to aim toward after exoctics but to be much less daunting than a legendary, which some do not even want (including myself but that is personal taste). Right now however, ascended armor in particular is too much of a lofty task for some (including myself) because of it’s single avenue of acquisition that is very very very (am I making my point?) steep. Steep enough that I could actually get a legendary in a similar timeframe to ascended armor/weapons. Obviously, not really filling it’s inteded role there.

Personally I agree with you. i think Ascended Gear should be more accessible from an acquisition standpoint. Sadly i can’t go into anymore detail than this suffice to say we are looking at this issue.

Chris

Deified.7520:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Felbryn.5462:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

The two main areas for discussion will be Horizontal and Vertical progression, however please understand that the commentary and ideation we are really looking for regarding vertical is around its accessibility in game.

I’m not sure I understand this bit; could you clarify?

Basically:

• How easy it is to attain the Ascended gear?
• Is the balance of acquisition of Ascended out of whack between different game-modes (i.e. Easier in PvE than WvW, easier in the open world than it’s intended game mode [Fractals])?

Couldn’t have said it better myself DaiBish. Thanks.

Chris

In terms of collection in WvW and PvE I think its in a pretty good position. However, obtaining in different routes does take a bit longer I felt. I also understand why. This game is very easy in most parts of it. If you increased the drop rate the item would lose its significance because it would be too easy to get. So I feel like you need to increase the difficulty in more ascended gaining areas while also increasing the drop rate. I don’t want to have to do a really hard event 100 times to get one ascended piece.

Yep this is a good point.

Chris

Savoy.6824:

Now, jumping right into horizontal progression. Can the ArenaNet designers begin to design a game that incorporates the orders that we joined in our personal story. The designers may already be doing this to some degree, but it is my opinion that it is lightly used.

You may recall that in the first Guild Wars there were two factions. I believe they were called the Luxons and the Kurzacks. In that game it was possible to compete quest for a particular faction. Doing so resulted in rewards such as special armor and weapons. I would like to see the orders work in a similar fashion (or if no one likes the orders, then create some new factions for us to be a part of. I just pick the orders because there already in the game and I like that incorporates the personal story back into the game)

Also, I believe it would be great if completing quest didnt stop at skin and title rewards. If npc’s in the world could react to you based on which order you joined that would be cool as well. Have npc’s sell you cheaper food based on the order your in. For example, the vigil could sell you cheaper food that has power at its base, where the order of whispers could sell you items that deal with vigor or stealth. Discount food has already been done in game. The dragon bash festival introduced food that could be bought with candy (which is basically another currency when you get down to it) The food had buffs similar to that of food that was already in the game it just didnt last as long. Please dont stop at just food, Im just using this as an example.

Maybe put some animosity between some of the orders and provide us with some conflict we can participate in. Thats all Ive come up with for now. Anyone else have any ideas?

Would this kind of ‘Faction’ progression outside of how NPC’s perceive you in the world allow you access to exclusive Faction based rewards? Would this be grindy?

I like the base idea a lot and obviously it is something we could build in and thus am keen to hear the thoughts of everyone in regard to this?

Chris

DiogoSilva.7089:

HORIZONTAL PROGRESSION
The flaws with its execution in GW2

Skill/ Build Progression
What is skill/ build progression? It’s about getting new tools to improve or customize our builds.

• It is crippled by some of the systems set in place for vertical progression, like stats being tied to gear, which in turn is tied to huge money and time sinks.
• It is further restricted by how trait allocation works, and the lack of build templates.
• Non-profession skills are very underwhelming. Although this is done on purpose for the sake of balance, when they aren’t worth using, they do not serve their purpose to enhance world immersion, as they are left unused, nor do they add any form of horizontal progression, because no build will be created around them.
• Skill hunting is generic and lacks the charm GW1’s elite skill hunting had.
• The skill system is generally very restrictive, with few weapons per profession, very few utility slots tied to high cooldowns, and an elite skill system that isn’t acchieving the epic feel it was meant to acchieve.

Solutions

• Separate the concept of (ascended) gear crafting from the concept of equipment stat customisation. Make it easy or easier to change stats, or at the very least, to craft new copies of the same gear with different stats.
• Add an universal build template system, and allows us to change traits on the fly (while not in battle, dungeons, etc). Creating and saving builds should be free. Loading/ changing them could still require a small money sink, if Anet feels it needs to be there.
• Revise how non-profession skills should be balanced. Instead of making them bad on purpose, make them decent but only fill a certain niche/ tied heavily to a specific area or situation. In theory, the new spray skill does that, but it’s a poor skill even for its intended purpose.
• It’s probably too late for a better skill hunting system, but perhaps that can still exist for something other than skill collection. More on that later.
• Anet is already adding new skills to professions, so this area is already covered.

I’ll talk about skins next.

There are some good ideas here which I would like to see us discussing as a group.

What do you all think about these ideas?

Chris

Aeonblade.8709:

On the topic of vertical progression:

Vertical progression is a necessary part of the RPG genre. Since the dawn of the genre itself, the name of the game has been progressing your character in the game world to become more powerful. Taking this part out of the game defeats the purpose of the genre imo.

That being said, I can understand the frustration some people would have in dealing with said progression. I only get to play maybe 1 or 2 hours a day most days, so I can understand that frustration more than others.

However, without vertical progression, we run into the doldrums of development like we are currently trapped in. Interest in the game has waned considerably, most of the first wave of players have moved on to other games because of a lack of things to do in game. I think this stems not so much from a lack of things to do, but from feeling a lack of actually earning anything. The game does nothing after you hit 80 and get your initial set of exotics to make you feel like you are gaining anything, power or otherwise.

I’m not advocating a WoW style gear grind that takes months and months to catch up to the current tier with. What I’m advocating is the inclusion of real character progression beyond cosmetic. A level 80 character should have a means of continuing to gain power, otherwise playing beyond getting the character to 80 has lost it’s point and meaning.

Personally, I would like to see the inclusion of more ways to make our characters seem like they are growing. Right now, my Guardian hasn’t changed at all in 6 months, and I log in less and less as a side effect of this. My friends list is empty. Most of the guild I am in has moved on.

I don’t want people to have to grind for the gear upgrades the way cosmetic upgrades are already a huge grind in the game. I think gear should be easily obtainable, but there needs to be a way to show character progression at level 80. Ideally, gear will be easier and less painful to get than the pretty cosmetic stuff everyone wants, but it would go a long way in keeping RPG fans invested in the game beyond the initial 6months to 1year mark.

I would like to add I think the top tier gear (currently Ascended, this topic of discussion) should be obtainable from any avenue in game that the person enjoys. Be it champ trains, world completion, jump puzzles, WvW, Fractals, whatever. It shouldn’t feel like a grind and it should come naturally. You can leave the grind to cosmetic progression like it currently is. But right now there is a complete disconnect from the point of 1-79 and level 80.

Hi Aeonblade,

Your points are certainly very interesting and well made and I agree with some of the goals behind them. I think we have a robust system for rewarding players and delivering content now and I think we need to drill more into horizontal progression from a systemic acquisition standpoint and gain some of the benefits of vertical progression from a skill/trait/proffesion progression stand point.

Chris

VOLKON.1290:

One of the huge draws for me to GW2, and one I still love today, is the flattened progression system. I’ve played enough games that were based around the vertical type with the gear treadmill involved, with WoW being a major one, and believe it or not they have far FAR less endgame then we have here in GW2 with the horizontal style. Really… what do you do for endgame in the WoW model? You either raid or prepare for raiding, that’s really it. So, from the heart and most emphatically, please let the ascended tier be the final tier of gear. We don’t need higher and it will be so incredibly much easier to create new content based on a known and expected level of power while keeping that new content accessible to all.

That last part… that’s the most important. Accessible to all. You shouldn’t be forced down a narrow road of required content in order to progress to further content later. You don’t need the WoW style of gimmickry where you toss a new raid every now and then and watch the lemmings run along to the next expansion while you suck the sub fees out of them. You’ve proven that already. Keep ascended max, keep content tuned to exotics and the sky is the limit for what you can create while simultaneously making sure the vast, vast majority of players will be able to experience it all. NEVER sacrifice accessibility!

So, progression. Horizontal rules. I’d like to see more and varied options towards that horizontal… a growing choice of ascended (and exotic) skins for example. Cosmetic things that maybe go a little beyond just an achievement and a title, but I’m not exactly sure what. Well… I have an idea, remember the statues in the Hall of Monuments? Of course, that would require a housing type of setting, but it would be great to have a place of our own to progress with our accomplishments as opposed to a power grind. Imagine a fireplace/hearth carved out of one of Jormag’s teeth that you can craft after defeating him? A lovely couch made of genuine naga hide? That type of progression, showy instead of powerful, would go a long way.

Of course, this is all my opinion, others will vary. I like the path we’re on progression-wise and the potential that is available using this path can be endless. (And yes… housing could really benefit the whole thing… but that’s a topic for another CDI…)

Edit: Just saw the later post – regarding speed, exotics are (now) fine but may have been a little to quick originally. If you speed up the rate of ascended progress you’ll need to more quickly offer alternative skins and the like to shoot for. Some people will push the speed to it’s maximum allowable, and they’ll be the loudest ones shouting that there’s nothing left to do while the rest of us cruise along at our own pace.

Hi Volkon,

‘So, progression. Horizontal rules. I’d like to see more and varied options towards that horizontal… a growing choice of ascended (and exotic) skins’ I agree.

Chris

Zyphent.2967:

I’ll leave the Ascended Stuff for others to argue about, I’m content with it now that its all in the game as is.

Whatever happened to vertical cosmetic progression is what I’m wondering?

The Fractal Capacitor is a brilliant example of this, its a backpiece I can get and wear, then as I do more and more fractals, I can gradually upgrade its appearance cosmetically. I’d LOVE to see more of this. The Halloween 2012 backpiece had this as well.

Also, Titles are a cosmetic progression reward that is severely underutilized. What about Title tracks that I could progress through?
Example: As it currently stands each world of Super Adventure Box has its own title, and I don’t need all the achieves in World 1 to get the title for World 2. But what if doing all the achievements in one world just Progressed my Super Adventure Box title track up one level? Then I could have a form of progression with titles! Note: Some work like this already in a way, like the Hall of Monuments titles. Why dont more?

Now that ascended is in the game, I’d love to see vertical progression take the form of upgrading stuff I currently have cosmetically. ANet seems to have been doing this early on in the games life.

Hi Zyphent,

Regarding gear that your can evolve aesthetically: I really like this to and this is something I will be chatting more about with the folks at work.

Chris

Ursan.7846:

I feel like, “vertical” progression in form of skills and titles, even with a slight power-creep associated with it, is ultimately good and better than progression via gear.

In GW1, newly introduced skill were clearly superior to old ones (i.e EotN skills are much more widely used overall than Prophesies skills.) while titles increased character’s power levels. It can be debated that, while they aren’t gear, these progression method were “vertical” in the sense that they made clearing content easier.

But these “vertical” progression methods (I put them in quotations because I know people will disagree with categorizing skills/titles as vertical progression) are much more welcoming than progression through gear. In gear progression, there’s an inherent sense of abandoning your previous progress and replacing it with something new. Whereas in skills and titles, progress just builds up, and you have none of that feeling, which I hypothesize is one of the reasons why GW1’s “vertical” progression was much more welcomed by both people who do like vertical progression (Your character undoubtedly gets stronger, often much more significantly than simple stat boosts, as you grind out titles and obtain new skills) and people who like horizontal progression (skill/title progression does not feel like traditional vertical progression.)

So in conclusion, I welcome in the future if the game introduced more potential progression through those two methods: skills and titles.

Hi Ursan,

I agree that Skills and traits are a very viable and exciting form of progression. We are moving in this direction already and will continue to build on this core foundation of the game.

Chris

Deified.7520:

Part 3:
There’s a lot of other games that have really good horizontal progression. One of which is Skyrim. Some may not agree, however since the game scales to your level for the most part is is very much like horizontal progression. Look at the skill system. There is no just skill point you get each level. In order to unlock skills you actually have to find the in the world. Some require you to do special actions such as joining a faction or doing a quest.

Look a Guild Wars 1. To get a new skill not only did you have to be a certain point in the story, but also needed to know how to kill him. Most bosses had specific strategies.

Most popular RPGs in the world never had a skill system that was just level up and you get a point for a new skill. They usually had another gate.

Also if WvWers (all skills should be auto unlocked for spvpers) want, they can just buy skills with a combination of badges of honor and skill points.

Right now the endgame for horizontal progression of karma/gold/skillpoints/achievements is getting old fast. I’m seeing more people get burnt out faster. You either need to find drains for the karma/gold/skillpoints or split them up so its not so easily obtained to make them more meaningful.

Currently the game has more the enough horizontal progression dealing with crafting and collection. It has moderate to good horizontal progression for dungeon gear looks and WvW gear looks. Now its time to start introducing some new ways of horizontal progression.

Hi Deified.

The Tokens idea is interesting and I am sure you are noting that with our Mega Boss update Tequatl players can earn Ascended Weapons with Unique skins (Sunless) and that we will be moving forward with that paradigm. The idea of more challenging zone meta events was raised in the Living World CDI and a good idea. More to follow on that. I also agree that there is a huge amount of awesome progression to be found in guilds. ‘It has moderate to good horizontal progression for dungeon gear looks and WvW gear looks. Now it’s time to start introducing some new ways of horizontal progression.’ I agree.

Chris

The Fractal progression reset conversation is something I am still thinking about so please bear with me.

Regarding ascended mats and ascended gear drop balancing across WvW and Fractals: We are in the process of looking at the numbers and acquisition accessibility.

Will there be more vertical progression? Our focus currently (outside of Ascended Gear) is very much Horizontal and along the same lines of many ideas that you guys and girls have put forward. I will give more detail on this when I have caught up on the thread and I can answer Collaborators directly (-:

Morning All,

Amazing contribution so far and lots of it. I am up to date on the thread but am going to respond a number of pages at a time with the hope that I get fully caught up in terms of discussion by Monday.

I will try to respond personally to folks on the first 3 pages. Note if I don’t respond to you in person it is likely I have discussed this in a previous persons post.

Chris

Right I am going to log of for a bit. I will be jumping in to the discussion tomorrow. Have a good night all.

Chris