Guild Wars 2

If this is the case, I want Logan to get really angry at Jennah when he finds out and start screaming “GIMME BACK MY DAUGHTER!”

Also, Kas then needs to take the mesmer portal skills to a new level, perhaps due to losing her finger to one of Scarlet’s portals and begin opening… For lack of a better word… Tears into other worlds and possibilities.

Let’s not forget allowing Guardians, or at least Logan to start using guns and imbibing liquid spell tonics.

I think 4chan’s own Guild Wars 2 general put it: the most kitten ingly frustrating thing about Scarlet is not even her infinite resources, it’s how she brings everyone together.

In the personal story, our characters struggle to get all of the good guys, who do share a single goal, to work together. We beg, we plead, we threaten, we outright beat some sense into some, and at last, they finally and reluctantly agree.

Meanwhile, Scarlet goes up to this nebulous collection of badguys, each with their own vastly differing goals and ideologies and says “join my club, all the cool kids are doing it” and BAM! she has an army with hundreds of different groups lining up to join her.

Thinking about it, Trahearne ended up sort of bringing all those people together too. So maybe sylvari produce a powerful, narcotic pollen that’s highly addictive and makes everyone throw themselves at sylvari to avoid getting the shakes.

Edit: Wait, so “kitten ” is now censored too? Don’t they say harsher things in the game itself?

Ouimette.5902:

<Scarlet will die but probably become Ceara in her final moments.
<Destiny’s Edge 2.0 will lose one of it’s members(probably Kasmeer or Delaqua)
<New enemy will reveal itself. Since Scarlet is probably sane deep down. This new enemy is just downright evil or has a very egoistic agenda.
<The enemy is so strong that Tyria has to once again unite.

Something about all this made me throw up in my mouth a bit.

Enough of this half-baked living story stuff the developers insist on running as some “Grand epic” storyline. Please, just let us have normal GW1 style expansions, permanent content, bug fixes, and so forth.

Nike.2631:

So… what is the smallest piece of Cantha that would scratch that itch?

A bit of real estate to explore? Larger than a bread-box/fractal?

Do we need armor for it to “really be Cantha”?

All level 80 or new leveling path?

Separate campaign/personal story or just a visit?

Having been playing GW1 again, I can say Shing Jea Island and Istan are honestly large enough pieces of real estate that you can hold plenty of mini-expansion content within them. Especially when you factor in the new, 3D elements of the game that allows for greater vertical travel and underwater traversing.

Good points have been made on both sides. I really can’t say myself since I came into GW1 when it was already seven years old or so, while I came into GW2 from the beginning.

I will say that GW1 felt more meaningful and the impact you made on the world felt greater despite how static it actually was. Yes, even Prophecies in which you meandered about and only accomplished killing a Lich and no other task you got involved in (250 years and three post-searing Ascalon map Vaniquishes later and the charr STILL WON’T GET OFF MY LAWN! Also, the White Mantle IS STILL AROUND! How many times do I have to kill them?!) while GW2’s attempts to make our actions feel more valid in the world… Do not. Dynamic events and event chains are nice, but needing to do them every five minutes or else everything goes to hell starts to make it feel like we haven’t made a dent in things. It would be nice if completing some events more than a certain number of times a day locks the event for the remainder of that day. Or something. Not to mention the limited impact we seem to have on own own home instances besides adding resource nodes and some NPCs to them. NPCs who barely talk to us I might add.

On the note of AI, while GW1 was superior, I also will say I do not miss entire mobs of necromancers and mesmers who wipe out my party with multiple hex stacks. Also, Spark of the Titans. Seriously, @#$% those guys, they should have never existed.

Though I also concede that having more mobs that, indeed, do use a fair number of player skills, is also missed. Along with pure interrupts which can even penalize enemies with longer cooldowns or greater damage based on skill type.

I would like to toss in my hat that Elites as a whole need not only significant reworking, but also for the elite slot being in need of the option to place more standard utility slots. I mostly posted my suggestions since the OP did say “no reworking”, otherwise I could spend all day in this thread with suggestions on reworking existing elite skills. (so why can you dodge using Warrior Whirling axe without interrupting the skill, but thief Dagger Storm does cancel? And as mentioned before, the issue with elementalist elites all being unusable under water.)

As Deli’s pastebin goes, some of those ideas for elites are good, others, are not by any stretch of my imagination. (The Empowered Suffering and Repel trap come strongest to might.)

Dahkeus.8243:

Yea, I agree with this. If it was up to me, I would have done elites before healing skills since some classes are really pigeonholed into certain elites with almost every build (ex: Engineers and Supply Crate).

Not to mention elementalists can’t even use any of their elite skills in the water.

I have a few ideas/proposals for elite skills, but they’re only rough ideas:

Engineer: Rotary Cannon-
Summon a pair (ala conjured weapons so a friend can grab a gun too) of powerful, portable gatling guns which start slow but gain shorter cooldowns and activation times as it’s used. Also inflicts lots of cripple, vulnerability, bleed, weakness, and knockdown/knockback on foes, all topped with high damage.

Mesmer: Doppelganger-
Create a friendly Phantasm version of any targeted enemy or friend. Duration shortens based on the power of the enemy, being ultimately ineffective against massive world bosses and certain dungeon foes. (This is why you would also be allowed to use it on even downed or defeated allies, so even if the boss can’t be duplicated, you can use a team mate)

Necromancer: Aura of the Lich-
For the duration of this skill, any pets and henchmen you or other necromancers nearby would summon are doubled. Any standing minions gain a long lasting regeneration, protection, retaliation, and fury buff.

Thief: Impossible Odds-
For the next five seconds, you gain retaliation, and reflect all conditions and projectiles back on your foes, as well as gaining Fury and Haste.

Also, interrupts. I don’t mean using CC to halt a skill cast, I mean honest, direct skill interrupts. Interrupts that lengthen cooldown times or have counter skills which make skills uninterruptable.

Along with everything else stated here.

I fear/think GW2 in general has a severe lack of replay value in general and these steps could go a long way to correcting that.

Another suggestion I’d like to pitch is the possibility of daily, rotating content quests linked to the PL. They’d basically be short/one-off quests which involve you doing some day-in-the-life/side-story quests involving instances, choices, and temporary changes to your home instance.
They would be broken down into three major categories, namely Racial, Order, and Pact and each category would unlock as you complete the respective story arcs.

Everyday, an NPC would appear in your home instance and you’d get a notice they’d like your help with something, racial ones would be your DE member, Order can be the racial liaison from your story (like Hiroki from the Vigil for humans who picked Vigil), and Pact could be Trahearne or someone else. You talk to them, go on a short, personal-story like adventure, and then it’s pretty much done.

The best part of such a system though is that more and different missions could be added over time, such as ones tying closer into your personal story choices or even your profession. You don’t even need voice acting, text boxes would work well enough.

And I went on a tangent.

Another rejected idea:
The Black Citadel has called on the player to assist in traveling up the Dragonbrand to seek out and assassinate the rogue Centurion Kurtz. You must must keep your mission secret from the legionnare assigned to help you and his crew.

Still more:

Cantha expansion: faced with insurmountable odds of new enemies, the player characters much become more than simply Closer to the Stars, but rise to become Exalted! This expansion will come with fully destructible and reshapable environments and the abilities to forge legendary weapons on the fly from some gold coins, iron ore, and your own hard glare.

This Spring, join NCsoft and Arenanet as we go where Guild Wars has never gone before! West of the Unending Ocean is a magical land of friendship and magic. In cooperation with Hasbro studios, Guild Wars 2 is proud to announce it’s first, full campaign expansion: Guild Wars 2: Equestria.

Featuring three new races (earth pony, unicorn, and pegasus), a whole new continent to explore, six new dungeons spanning the level ranges, new skills, new foes and challenges, and one familiar nightmare.

Work together with the Elements of Harmony guild to stop Scarlet Briar’s ultimate plot to ascend to the throne of princess in this non-stop, action-packed expansion to Guild wars 2!

(I couldn’t keep my face straight at all while typing any of this)

Mini-Expansion idea – Guild Wars 2: Revelations

“He who increases wisdom increases sorrow.”

Expanded Personal storyline which takes place after Zhaitan’s defeat. The Pact learns horrific new truths about The Elder Dragons and Trahearne’s death damages the bond which barely holds The Pact together.
The bond is completely shattered as you uncover shocking secrets your original Order has kept from the others which breaks The Pact.
As things grow darker in the world at large, you are called back home to assist your Destiny’s Edge mentor to discover new information about your race which could drastically change everything about the society.

Despite these terrible drawbacks and the burden of the new revelations, you learn that a handful of members of the three orders and Lionguard remain loyal to you and you alone to forge a new pact and Destiny’s Edge now raises your banner and rallies beneath it, and despite the terrible truths learned about your race or the dragons, the story would close with the knowledge that as many or as one, your resolve remains strong, and the whole world now quietly turns to you for guidance in the coming dark days.

Features would include:
-New Personal Story missions
-New functions of the home instance (repeatable missions, trophy setup, function upgrades ala the AC:II Villa/AC:III Homestead)
-Out of combat Parkour system to take jump puzzles to a new level! (and home instance races against the local, racial parkour champion!)
-Out of combat mounts and environmental weapon type mounts, the former to get around between waypoints faster, the latter, for fun in old and new events and renown hearts!
-Five new maps (each one tied to a specific race)
-New Elder Dragon minions
-Weapon proliferations and skills to match!
-New traits and trait options

That’s probably more than enough for an Eye of the North style expansion, really. The Parkour system is mostly just there because AC:I gave me such a love for that sort of thing and it would feel unbelievably fitting in GW2 if you ask me, even if would be insanely difficult.

Kolwin.4950:

I don’t think so. A Warrior with a staff… doesn’t make much sense

It makes perfect sense! Warriors and other non-magical classes just won’t use a staff like a magical staff, but as a quarterstaff. Scepters? They get used like batons or escrima sticks.

Focuses, admittedly, are a bit trickier. Maybe use them like brass knuckles? (though I would just like an all-profession, unarmed weapons fighting skillset to be introduced.)

Also, on the note of rangers using staffs, I’d half hope that the 1 and 2 skills are purely martial, staff fighting techniques, the 4 and 5 are more druidic magic stuff, and the 3rd weapon skill slot is a sort of magic-martialarts hybrid attack.

Edit: Also, as any magical classes using non-magical weapons goes, well, those weapons just become new magical focuses. Heck, elementalists already summon axes, shields, swords, hammers, and bows.

What’s this? The Cantha thread is NOT on the front page as a constant, pressing reminder to the developers?

A large influx of BEES oughta put a stop to that!

Bombsaway.7198:

Improving race skills is a dangerous thing to do. It will start to have players gravitate to one race over others. They are supposed to be fun and very situational. In general, they are supposed to be far less powerful than non-race skills. Otherwise, because every race can play every class, you would start to see everyone play the best racial skill race. That would be a disaster.

Perhaps, but at the moment, racial skills, with extremely few exceptions (radiation field and avatar of grenth I think) are so laughably weak, there’s the question of why they’re in the game at all?

ShiningSquirrel.3751:

Been asked before. Probably not due to the clipping issues.

Didn’t stop things in GW1 and in that case then remove charr from the game.

And give us Tengu.

Well let’s be fare here: the fact that we’re only allowed pre-made body builds sets shows that the devs have certain limitations that a character model must keep to.

I might even agree with the OP a if the game’s had body/build sliders like City of Heroes or a few other games do.

But it doesn’t.

Now admittedly, Star Wars: The Old Republic does have a “Fat” build for men and women, which is terribly offensive since only the male is fat, the woman is badonkadonk and with a side of Va-Vavoom! But none-the-less, compare and contrast the animations of TOR to the kind we end up with in GW2 and it becomes clear why a rotund man can work with TOR and it might be harder to make in GW2.

Frankly though, if we were ever given fat character models, I’d want fist fighting skills to become available as well so I can make my chubbuff Norn cage brawler! Who would proceed to spam the bodyslam attack on anyone he comes across in WvW!

Basically as the title topic asks: if you could, would you improve Racial Skills, if so, how would you do it? If not, why not?

I personally would, since the way I see it, as long as PvE provides decent challenge to players and they have fun, why not let racial skills be as crazy or powerful as normal skills? They can’t even be used in PvP anyway.

As for how, I cannot say for certain, partially because I know certain skills I would buff, I would want to also buff the regular profession skills similar to them.

Though the “form changing” elites (Norn Spirits, Asura battle suit, Avatar of Melandru) would get some definite slashes to the activation times of all their 1 skills, shortened cooldown on 2-5, and ultimately a lengthened duration. Also maybe a speed buff since they tend to feel weirdly slow.

I fear my mentioning of the Calender sort of sidetracks this thread. In the end, it’s a not a serious theory, but certainly a scary and cool one that just when we finally think we’ve felled the last Elder Dragon, our characters look up and see a horrible, cosmic dragon looming over us with a breath weapon that belongs on the Death Star.

Majic.4801:

H.P. Lovecraft called.

He wants his eldritch abomination back.

Part of the inspiration!

bwillb.2165:

What if the Star Elder Dragon is actually a fabulous Space Butterfly?

With wings made from beautiful nebula and a tiny pair of speedos with a butterfly on the groin! Say his name with love! PAPILLON! Oh, wait, that’s also pretty terrifying.

Zepher.7803:

That’s a Scary thought RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!!

Where can you run? You think Rata Sum can just float away into orbit? Much less even sustain a population enclosed entirely within?

Tanith.5264:

Are you implying that this Star Dragon is an intelligence vast, cool, and unsympathetic? Because if it is, our only hope is to pull a Calvin and catch a quick cold.

That will only work on it’s minions. Who will attack us in tripod fighting machines which will devastate entire zerg trains with its heat ray.

Now, as some of you recall, the developers recently tacked on five extra days to the Tyrian calender, claiming they had always been there and, similar to The Secret World event, Guild Wars Classic experienced periods of “Nameless Days”. The obvious reason is that someone forgot Wintersday in Tyria actually isn’t supposed to line up with our Christmas, yadda ya.

But I have a much more terrifying idea:

We don’t really know if the Elder Dragons we’ve seen the minions of so far are the only ones, in fact, it’s all but confirmed there are more out there. But what if one of them is REALLY out there? In space.

An Elder Dragon of the Stars so massive, it’s sheer existence has shifted Tyria’s orbital revolutions enough to add whole DAYS to the calender?

What if the Star Elder Dragon observes us from afar, examining us like one would watch microbe swarm and multiply in a drop of water?

What if the Star Elder Dragon draws closer and closer every year, and by the time we know he’s there to fight him, it’s too late, the entire star system Tyria resides in begins uncontrollably tumbling towards it?

I’ve been playing a bit of GW1 and wonder how much money Anet must be losing out on when their gem store is missing so much? So let’s have this thread dedicated to all ideas what would make us say to Anet “SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!”

Finishers:

Noir Monologue Finisher (Credit goes to a 4chan anonymous for this) -
When this finisher is equipped, your character will stand over your fallen opponent’s body, the screen will fade to monochrome will grainy film effects, draws a gun from nowhere and fires point blank. Color will then return but your race/gender actor will give one of a small selection of Noir-esque voice overs such as:
“In the end, I was standing, they weren’t.”
“And that’s just how it is in this world.”
“They didn’t make a pretty corpse. No one does.”

Curbstomp Finisher -
For the brawler in all of us! When you use this finisher, your character begins to wind themselves up physically before finishing off a fallen opponent with a small selection of visceral melee means! Such as:
A full body slam
Ground pound
Hard stomp
Flying elbow drop

Count Down Finisher! -
A complement to the above, when using this finisher, you drop next to your opponent and begin slapping the ground to count them down until they drop and you sweep your arms to announce their defeat. After which, phantom bells will ring twice to announce your victory.

Armor Skins -

Gwen’s Finery: A light armor skin based off Gwen’s default dress from Eye of the North. http://wiki.guildwars.com/images/d/df/Gwen_%28Eye_of_the_North%29.jpg (It’s gonna be tricky to figure out how to make a male and charr variant)

Anton’s Robes: A medium Armor Skin based off of Anton’s default Ebon Vanguard uniform from Eye of the North. http://wiki.guildwars.com/images/c/c3/Anton.jpg (The back swords could be made into a separate back piece skin)

Morghan’s Plate: A heavy armor set styled off of the legendary General Morghan of the Kournan Army. http://wiki.guildwars.com/images/c/cf/General_Morgahn_Kournan_armor.jpg (I would have gone with Koss, but even if the Koss armor looks nothing like his armor, figured it would be best to use someone a bit less known)

As I understand, the ultimate goal is to give all weapons to all classes, though something I’d like to pitch first is the possibility of allowing one-handed mainhand weapons to have a full, five weapon skill slots of their own, this could open new options in combat and open up new player concepts!

For example, the mainhand sword could gain:

(warrior)
4. Guarded – Block the next incoming attack, if you are attacked, you gain retaliation for three seconds, if you are not attacked you gain three seconds of protection instead

5. Deft Strike – You evade for half a second and strike your foe, afflicting them with bleeding and cripple.

(Thief)
4. Riposting Shadows – Block and attack and shadow step to your foe’s backside gaining one second of stealth

5. Insurmountable Odds – Block the next three incoming attacks, for each time you block, you lose one condition and gain the following boons in order: retaliation, protection, and regeneration, each for five seconds

Actually, those two might work better for a thief’s off-hand sword.

These are just examples and not final ideas, but in the end it was meant to give some ideas.

Healix.5819:

ArenaNet knew this would be data mined and they would never allow this type of news to be introduced this way.

This is either a test to judge reactions, or a joke.

If this is was a litmus test, I think the paper just got scorched to the fingers holding it and the vial of acid just blew up in a nuclear-esque blast that took out the entire country and spread fallout throughout the planet.

Yes, these two things should NOT be mixed together. Or they better kitten well explain why they would.

Perhaps that’s been one of the issues with this game, the devs never really explain why the do anything.

God, I miss City of Heroes where there was almost a 24/7 line to the developers. It was like Roosevelt’s fireside chats.

Devata.6589:

Then again maybe thats indeed not the goal of Ncsoft and will they like you say just try to squeeze out the last money and then move on.

If thats the case however I do wonder how ArenaNet looks at it. Don’t they see it? Do they see it but ignore it? I mean, they had this great expansion based model with GW1, they should see how the micro-transaction focus hurts this game.

The unfortunate likelihood in there is that Anet would know about it… And are powerless to do anything. In business, contracts can mean your bosses can deflect murder charges onto you if you signed in agreement*, and if NCsoft/Nexxon tell Arenanet “bleed out” all Arenanet would be allowed to say is “how big of a mess do you want?”

*Hyperbole

killcannon.2576:

Chrispy.5641:

So Wait! I’m not understanding why this is a bad thing?

It’s more or less a sub service.

The casuals feel if there is a sub service then people actually willing to pay a sub get a leg up.

The blah blah blah f2p’s feel like it causes their whole argument of “Subs are dead!! Long live b2p and f2p!!” to blow up in their face.

The GW1 lifers feel like it’s just another stab in the back because it’s not the exact same thing as a game in the dirt for five years, and they think they own the rights to what should be called GW, not the developers.

The gem buyers are gonna cry because “But we already bought gems…where’s mine.We’re not as special anymore!”

To the actual MMO crowd? It is a good thing.

Let me try to explain this to you as best as I can:

This is bad because, as pointed out before, paid VIP is subscription based, violating the “no subscription” aspect of the game. Half of this game’s appeal is being free, and that anything can be gained with some time. I’ve heard countless times people say: “even if you don’t like GW2 or get bored, you can always come back later and enjoy the same thing everyone else is.”

And whether the arguments of people threatening to leave over VIP status are valid or not, that does not change this turning a considerable amount of players against the game. It’s bad publicity, bad for marketing, “you pay for this game in subscription form” is NOT an advertising feature for box or digital releases.

Then there’s the fact that giving perks to people who are now willing or able to pay extra that may go beyond anything you can get in standard gameplay creates a financial wall of haves and have-nots. God, help Anet if such a thing extended to PVP.

Finally, there’s what this says about the Arenanet developers. Do you know why politicians will stand by bad ideas? Or better yet, stick by things that have worked well in the past and continue to work? Because it tells people that you can at least stick by what you’ve said.

Thus far, Arenanet has backed down from it’s manifesto, said they’ve been reinterpreting it, or that it’s just no longer valid. This struck many players as a sign Arenanet cannot stick by it’s word. VIP subscription status tells the existing playerbase Arenanet is willing to backflip on one of its core principles in their own interests. Once more, this is bad for marketing.

But I suppose if the larger, “True MMO crowd” you speak of flocks to this game because they can pay monthly for it, then any potential losses should shore itself up, right?

Malediktus.9250:

Please bring this. Any prestige stuff is instant buy for me.

Please, tell me you are being sarcastic.

I truly hope this is a joke or just something they considered and never implemented/never will.

Otherwise, I think all my hope for Guild Wars 2 to improve is gone.

>Save specified chat tab
It’s weird how a game that does encourage roleplay does not allow us to document our conversations.

Welp, not dragon related, but I came up with a short little romp of a Living Story mini-arc called…
It’s Tough to be a God
You are called to your home instance by your racial DE member, on your arrival, you are treated to a strange sight and a cut scene.
The local law enforcement has a large number of Flame Legion Charr and Grawl, all of them presenting no stance of hostility, but upon seeing you, they begin bowing and praising you.
After some confusion, the Charr Shaman explains that with Gaheron’s fall and Scarlet’s failed promises, many of the Flame Legion felt lost and some of the high shamans went into a retreat to seek guidance. What he saw was a vision that you would lead his people to greatness.
Hilarity proceeds to ensue as you try to shake these believers in various ways and end up only reinforcing their belief in you (like trying to pad them off to Trahearne only for them to beat him up ‘confirming’ he is not godly). Of course, you also find yourself occasionally helping them too.

The Charr Shaman eventually pulls you aside and explains he knows you’re not a god, but he’s tired of his people and family getting butchered in droves and also wants some safety. Thus he concocted the idea of making you their new patron god because he feels his congregation of Flame Legion can aid you in your menial, daily tasks or help around your home instance while he trusts you can protect them. You also find out he can’t explain the grawl following you, he just accepted it.

After some shenanigans, Gaheron loyalists attack the cult, kidnapping some members including children to sacrifice. Being a nice person, you’re obligated to stop this. A sound thrashing to the Flame Legion proper later, one Shaman has stolen away one of the cultists during the fight and plans to sacrifice the child.

Things become truly screwy though as this short story ends with the child pleading for you to protect them and fending off his would-be murderer with a divine magical expulsion, and the revelation that ALL of the Grawl who now worship you all had the same vision.

Each member of DE will offer their own explanation which they acknowledge falls short of satisfactory. (Though maybe Logan does joke about petitioning Jennah to start opening shrines dedicated to you) The question remains if maybe the cultist cub themself has a latent makings of a god, if it was a psychosomatic magical effect, or maybe, just maybe, you’re becoming more than anyone ever imagined?

So, I’ve been thinking lately about how this game works, and one question that’s come up in my mind is: should offhand be necessary for one-handed weapons?

I mean, say I wanted to play a swordsman who doesn’t use greatswords, but doesn’t dual wield or use shields or anything. I lose out on two skill, possibly three, depending on how you count the thief’s combo skills.

Some might say that’s just something I’d have to accept as the consequence of choosing character concept over gameplay efficiency.

But what about the possibility of one handed weapons having a four and five skill slot all of their own that changes with the addition of a new weapon?

Would this damage the game at all? Open up new build ideas? Could it work?

I’m not trying to make a suggestion, but I am more asking what people’s thoughts are on the idea of “go with an offhand or go home” in this game?

Jeff, something I would like to suggest, since we’re on the topic is perhaps consider some form of “dynamic respawn rates”, basically having respawn times adjust based on players in the immediate area, so if there’s just one person in an area or doing an event, enemies respawn maybe as low as once every ever, say 300 seconds (5 minutes), while if you have, say, two full parties, respawn rates can drop to as low as every 45 seconds.

Numbers would require adjustment since I am not a number guy in any respect, but something to give you a picture. What do you think? What does everyone else think?

One thing I will never get about this community is why everyone seems to think that adding mounts will instantly make it WoW, or that the people who request it are WoW players.

I have never played WoW, and yet I would still enjoy mounts, if only to see what kind of interesting things every race would have for mounts or even full vehicles, I would like for something faster than just the usual swiftness boon but something I can still enjoy the scenery with, I would like them for character concepts, and most of all, I would like them for diversity, to give players even more freedom of different means of exploring, or even open up the idea of mounted races.

I would also like to seriously ask: would anyone in this thread honestly leave GW2 if mounts were added? And what is this absolute hatred of the idea? Is it solely because WoW had mounts, thus making them bad? (In which case, we better get rid of swords and magic since those are in WoW too) Or is there an actual reason?

Forgive my 4channisms but…
>realistic handguns
you also realize that realistic swords, realistic bows and arrows, practically one-shotted people in all but fullplate, right? And yet how do games handle that? By not making their swords very realistic in terms of killing power. (Or the justification of dealing with non-realistic enemies, like demons, who preceivably could just shrug off being repeatedly slashed from shoulder to hip; a dozen times, in which case I think realistic guns are still fine)

So in the end, what does this mean? Don’t do realistic mounts! Just like how everything about GW2 isn’t realistic, it’s meant to feel more like the illustrations to an epic storybook. All that’s missing is for killing blows against enemies to result in some exaggerated, fitting death animation.

finally, as you said, mounts don’t have to be big. make the charr mount a motorcycle and make it sleek enough to conceivably ride around in cities. You just gotta think a bit about how these things need to be done.

@Equinox
Uhhh… Okay, that’s a fairly unique look at things. Nevermind that guns in Skyrim could mechanically bows and arrows or crossbows with a reskin and maybe a few odd benefits and drawbacks here or there.

And as Bane, it’s really as bane pointed out, it’s all how to handle things.

For example, if we had mounts cosmetic speed boosts four out of combat only, then we’d get dismounted if we take too many hits. On the flipside, if we give it combat abilities, it becomes like an environmental weapon along the lines of the Asura Battlesuit.

Really, the trickiest part with mounts is all in aesthetics and figuring how you want to do them. Also, strafing. TOR and City got around this by giving mounts that either could reasonably strafe (due to being animals that could turn on a dime or because the vehicle hovered). But it probably would seem silly to be riding a charr chugger and for that thing to turn on a dime to drive sideways like the usual sidestep (no pun intended) of avoiding strafing animations.

Because it would make for an epic campaign story in which we believe we’re simply liberating Cantha from a racist and insane Emperor whose ideals of purity have divided even the human populations of Cantha into half a dozen subgroups and helping the Tengu reclaim their ancestral homes. And then we learn the Emperor of Cantha has been possessed by the will of the Deep Sea Dragon and our best way to defeat him involves summoning Shiro Tagachi back from the dead in a semi-faustian bargain.

The final mission/story dungeon involves sieging the Imperial Palace in Kaineng backed by the soul of Shiro Tagachi himself who, with each Imperial Loyalist/Deep Sea Dragon corrupted we kill, they are turned into an afflicted or Shiro’ken, as we get closer to the Emperor himself. Any concerns we have about about the fact that we’re undoing everything done to stop the Affliction is, literally, blasted away when the Deep Sea Dragon tears open the roof of the Palace to support his avatar while our weapons become infused with Shiro’s spirit in an epic clash to free Cantha and slay the Deep Sea Dragon.

reposting an old suggestion I had made for Guild Halls:

Another thought might be that we could establish Guild Halls in the Mists themselves.

Then they sort of become like floating islands, but masses of land on their own. A battle between two guilds and their halls basically results in, practically, two worlds colliding.

Basically, they could become “unstable” fracatals which can be altered by guild masters and shift around such that they even sometimes bump into eachother or connect to some location in Tyria proper. (Part of a later aspect of this suggestion)

Also, themes I want to pitch:
-Charr base
-Asuran lab
-Human manor/fort
-Norn lodge
-Sylvari glen
-Whispers Hideout
-Priory Archive
-Vigil Bastion
-Pact Citadel
-Lionguard Outpost
-Airship
-Sea Ship

Nick.6972:

Since Tyria is steam punk styled, maybe they should make Kaineng and Cantha even more modern.
Skyscrapers, TVs, trains, etc.

So in otherwords, you want Kaineng City to have become Republic City from Avatar: The Legend of Korra? Actually, that does sound kind of cool. Will we get unarmed “weapon” combat and elementalists will be able to become The Avatar?

Though it makes me wonder how angry the charr might to find out that an isolated human nation managed to develop more refined versions of their technology in a shorter period of time.

Also, if they do bring back Cantha, would anyone else want a Fractals rematch with Shiro? You know, just to see how the fight would go in GW2 mechanics. (also, to get his swords. Again.)

I too would suggest mounts as mostly cosmetic, but I also feel there is some potential in making them environmental weapons. I mean how cool would it be to ride with the Seraph Cavalry against the Centaur, race a Charr Chugger through Ascalon’s winding hills, or take command of an Asura Mobile Siege Platforms, or ride with some Sylvari through the Maguuma on the backs of Timber Wolves.

Frankly though, I also wouldn’t mind seeing just horses and models for such things in-game to add some atmosphere. I’m a bit of a lore nerd so I’d love to know what each race does for mounted cavalry and what other implements of war they might have. It’s kind of annoying how many MMOs have these armies in their lore which never use their vehicles or at least we never see them make use of them.

I hate to bump my own thread, but I realize I forgot to mention or ask for any input from everyone else or their thoughts or opinions on the subject.

Do any of you have any suggestions to improve this suggestion? would you prefer something like this over the present Living Story, or at least feel it would be an excellent supplement to it?

Pennry.9215:

All I could think was “so this instance makes us play a button-mashing fighting game?” ‘Cause that’s exactly what that music made me think of.

Me too, I was actually rather reminded of BlazBlue or Guilty Gear, and suddenly it all makes sense. Scarlet Briar is actually Terumi/Hazama in drag. The epic climax will be him getting sick of the optimistic themes of the Guild Wars 2 universe and open a portal to the BlazBlue universe and flood Tyria with Siether.

Does this also mean Norn are going to get Tager and Potempkin themed armors? Do elementalists get greatswords next update and the wind attunement 5 skill is RIDE THE LIGHTNING! And maybe the water attunement involves spammable Ice Cars?

part 3
The final one is not entirely essential, and might even be too complicated, but basically goes…
Pact Lieutenant: (“Your orders today, commander?”)
Basically a flavor NPC who does not ask you to do missions, but each day he presents you with a list of options on where The Pact should go, send reinforcements to, or supplies. You tell them what to do, and they forward your orders to the rest of The Pact.
If we really want to get crazy, we could have it set up with WvW-like world effecting statistics. Mostly minor ones. But at the end of each day, it could be tallied up who voted for which choices, and the choice with the most votes results in the next day’s events seeing some minor changes, such as supply shipment focus buffs various Order/Pact NPCs in the location you sent them to. Reinforcements will have more allied NPCs to back up players during events. While theoretically exploitable, isn’t it half the fun to imagine server wide votes on where players want The Pact the most?

In conclusion, these things could provide repeatedable content which could always be revisted and fairly easily expanded on, help pull players back into the narrative of GW2’s world, and help players feel more significant. And with the world at large it could help keep maintain a sense of changing and living world without the same strain needing to rapidly produce the Living Story could cause, allowing more focus on quality.

Some additional things to note as possible choices include…

Continuity: Naturally, certain NPCs (such as the Order or Pact ones) should not show up until you’ve reached a certain point in your personal story. Also, when you do reach certain points, off-hand, text-only handwaves can help keep players understand why, even though they’re a Pact commander, why they’re still taking orders from Almorra Soulflame of The Vigil. (Namely: Because she doesn’t care if you’re the freakin’ Khan-Ur. You signed up with the Vigil, you’re still under her orders when operating on Vigil business.)

Using the home instance: I highly recommend the NPCs for the PSE (Personal story expansion) appear and rotate around the players home instance. This would help add further utility to it without requiring living story achievement completions (which can be missed and even lost forever), as well as give players more reasons to visit it regularly.

Familiar Faces: Remember those Order NPCs who helped you join your order, the ones that were all your race? Perhaps this could be a chance for them to reappear. Like Hiroki hanging around Salma. Not only that but a Charr player’s warband could also get back in on the action outside of elite racial skills, and in general this could be an elegant way to keep some old and familiar faces relevant to the players.

Part 2
Personal Story Expansion: (Hey! You’re not finished yet!)

These would be fairly short, one up to three-shot adventures you could do daily (or even weekly if the content needs to be stretched out) which involve a rotation of different NPCs representing different tiers of your story, namely racial (the NPC will be a member of Destiny’s Edge), Order (the original Order you chose), and Pact. And each NPC will give you one quest from a small rotation pool of them (which, as always, could be expanded later as time goes on)

The racial ones could all be fairly generic, like Zojja mentions a new college is trying to start up and they want your expertise, or Logan wants help dealing with some bandits, or Rytlock wants to investigate an AWOL soldier, etc. As time and development go on, perhaps ones related specifically to your personal story choices could be added (like followups on your flame shaman father, who rescued you from the White Mantle as a baby, etc.)

Order and Pact quests could all be fairly generic, thankfully, mostly relating to things like: “Hey, the Order of Whispers needs you to infiltrate this place.” or “Commander, we would appreciate of help assessing Jormag’s forces”

These things could go a long way to helping us reconnect with our personal story.

So one of the issues some people have with the Living Story is the sense of a one and done deal. not only that, but I can only imagine it can get tiresome for the Dev team to have to work on new material every two weeks, even with four whole teams working at a time. So here’s my suggestion for Rotating Content.

What is Rotating Content? As it sounds, it’s content that will not always be there but reappear in time, working much like festivals or the daily activities rotation in Lion’s Arch. As for what kind of things can become rotating content, here’s a list of ideas:

Seasonal Events: (It’s the time of the season for lovely)
Every three months or so, dynamic and event chains are swapped out for a different set in various zones. These events can be related to the season, like the Flame Legion gets more aggressive in the Summer, striking as far as even Kryta and unleashing new plots along with their aggression.

Or just a general sort of event chain which could be the logical conclusion of various zone events being done or undone. Like Harathi Hinterlands getting overrun with a surge of Centaur reinforcements, making the zone events all about trying to get folks (re)establishing a foothold. (next rotation we get the default event chains, then we get a season where the Centaur of Harathi are driven into caves and so forth and must operate as insurgents)

This could help add a nice spice of variety to regular event chains and dynamic events, give a sense of the changing seasons with some, and as devs decide to add more or more needs to be added, they can go ahead, or just reuse the cycle of seasons once the initial batch is finished.

Well thank the five, When I see words like “We understand not everyone will appreciate these changes” I am immediately reminded of another dev saying something similar about Scarlet. Which seemed to translate to: “Your criticism and concerns are vaguely heard but ultimately ignored.”

JonPeters.5630:

Almost 500 replies already so obviously you will excuse us for not addressing them all. Also keep in mind it’s now the weekend. I’ll try and get on for enough time sometime this weekend to address the bigger points of discussion but until then please keep the responses as civil as they have generally been thus far. We appreciate all of your assign for this stuff and are working hard to make the right decisions. I can say that many of the concerns brought up were at the heart of discussions when making these changes already so we are aware of a lot of the implications. This is an aggressive list of changes but we wanted to share them so that we could confirm what the highest risk changes were and try to discuss some reasoning. I don’t expect everyone to appreciate or understand the nuances of all of that reasoning, but I do have faith that you will be passionate about it so try and remember to look at all sides of the issues. It is called balance after all.

Thanks all and keep them coming. I can promise I will read every post in this thread. Have a great weekend.

Jon

So in otherwords there’s nothing we can say to sway any of these changes? May I then ask why even bother posting these notes so early? Wouldn’t it have been easier on the development team to just post this the day of the patch and then wave it off with “what’s done is done”?

It honestly feels like arenanet will not accept or hear any actual concerns and critiques and only listen to praises.

I would like to voice my concern about the reduction of vigor boon times on thief, mostly because it is a class that sort of depends on dodging regularly and often to avoid getting squished.

But is it really girl power or feminism when all the female characters tend to be extremely shallow (save for Queen Jennah, she’s cool, just we need to see her work more, maybe the next time the Queen’s pavillion gauntlet opens, she decides to throw herself in as the final boss and kitten), poorly written, and often times, done up as fetish bait?

Kiel and Jennah are “Mah pure waifu”. (Even if Jennah probably puts up this front on purpose, from what I’ve seen, the woman is actually a nasty schemer and as deadly as her own court)
Scarlet is… I’d say jailbait in personality, and somewhat in looks, mostly the pig tails.
Rox is for furries
Kashmeer is “Mah Dark Waifu”

Admittedly, not sure about the new one. Either way, I won’t call it girl power until the girls are decently written with explored personalities.

I will admit/point out that because of how Sylvari gender and sex concepts work, Scarlet just as easily could have been a man and just as annoying and poorly implemented as the female version.

With limited resources I would focus on:
1. Adding personal touches to the Home Instances: For example, trophies of your victories from your Personal story, quest completions, etc. scattered about and a rotation of guest NPCs from your personal story.
2. Adding at least one new utility/heal/elite skill to each profession for each tier.
3. Along with adjusting the traits of each profession plus adding new ones to accommodate these new skills.
4. New Armor, weapon, and town clothes. You CAN find them as a very rare drop, or you can buy them at the Gemstore! Also a Gem Store Exclusive: Civilian Transmutation Stone! (Feeling shoddy at those formal gatherings? Or maybe feeling a little vulnerable in the alleys of Lion’s Arch without your platemail? With this stone you can transmute any armor of any class into wearable townclothes! Armor or Dress up TODAY!)
5. Also, all town clothes are now account bound (though default ones racially restricted) and are collectables that can be stored in the new “wardrobe” tab of your bank)

With more resources I would also add:
6. Seasonal Events! The Flame Legion plan to amplify the summer heat to stroke out the Black Citadel! Bandits are using the covering fog of autumn to launch an attack! Winter unleashes the full wrath of the Sons of Svanir and Icebrood in the Snowden Drifts! All this and more as a handful of dynamic events are added or substitute others and rotate every three months!
7. Weapon proliferations (and the trait support to go with it), rangers gain rifles, thieves can use offhand swords, longbow guardians, hammer engies, and more. At least one new weapon will be given to each profession!
8. New weapons! (And the trait support) All professions can now learn Unarmed combat, in addition, the 4 and 5 weapon unarmed skills are based on your race to give a racial weapon to compliment your profession based fighting techniques! In addition, Tyrians have learned to use spears on land, spears can now be used in melee (and ranged) by warrior, guardian, thief, mesmer, necro, and ranger. Finally, bringing back and old favorite from Guild Wars 1: The Return of scythes for Necro, Guardian, and probably someone else!

bumping this thread because Guild Halls are always relevant.

Another thought might be that we could establish Guild Halls in the Mists themselves.

Then they sort of become like floating islands, but masses of land on their own. A battle between two guilds and their halls basically results in, practically, two worlds colliding.

Basically, they could become “unstable” fracatals which can be altered by guild masters and shift around such that they even sometimes bump into eachother or connect to some location in Tyria proper. (Part of a later aspect of this suggestion)

Also, themes I want to pitch:
-Charr base
-Asuran lab
-Human manor/fort
-Norn lodge
-Sylvari glen
-Whispers Hideout
-Priory Archive
-Vigil Bastion
-Pact Citadel
-Lionguard Outpost
-Airship
-Sea Ship