Guild Wars 2

My Norn warrior, I used a mixture of Tier 1 and Tier 2, Braham’s shield and a Norn axe. And of course his elite skill is always bear form!^^

Two pictures of my main character since day one, a glorious Guardian of course! I love how the second one looks almost like a painting. swoon

I tried to go for a natural leather and furs look, I’m quite pleased with how Norn-like my mesmer turned out.^^

I love GW2 combat as well, I think the boon/condition/combo field system is brilliant in its streamlined fluidity. I agree that combat can be a bit faceroll in zergs, but then I rarely join those as I prefer small groups instead. I think it’s the combination of visuals, sound and animation that give each hit a feeling of .. impact, for lack of a better word.

Some months ago I’ve tried Tera a bit to see what it was about, but that impact was exactly what I found lacking from the combat system, it always felt like I was hitting plush animals turned evil with a wet cardboard +1 sword.

Factions, organisations, lore and unlocks:

I fell in love with GW2’s rich and detailed background, often going around in the game to discover hidden places, find books, gravestones and all those small things.
Discovering the lore of the world inspired me to purchase a copy of GW1 too, to learn more about past events!

It would be great to have characters be able to unlock things from specific factions or races. I think that for many players, cultural armour is so popular because it
really exemplifies a character’s choice of race. The recent uproar over that reskinned flame-kissed armour seemed to be mostly because people who played human characters, lost some of their uniqueness. While I personally didn’t mind its introduction at all (I’m always one for more choice!), I definitely saw why people were annoyed at it. and I found myself agreeing with the choice to remove it, even if it essentially took away options.

I’d love to see more ways to really personalize our characters, preferably tied in to the lore. Perhaps Norn characters could unlock a headdress (like those worn by the shamans in game) for each of the different Animal Spirits. Or town clothes tied to your character’s social standing for humans, such as noble, commoner, etc.
Maybe items of devotion to the Six. Or food items with appropriate stats, or specific dyes or skills. Maybe you could unlock a scruffy ‘street rat’ hairstyle, or a unique glow colour tied to a sylvari’s cycle of awakening. Things like the town clothes and aforementioned shaman headpieces are already in the game, too!

New weapons could also be introduced in this way. Perhaps gaining standing with the Norn would allow you to be taught to wield a double-handed greataxe, or maybe aligning yourself with the insidious Nightmare Court would allow you to be unlock a whip. Or maybe small cutscenes. I loved that Marjory book that you got as one of the living story rewards, perhaps use race-specific cutscenes or lore secrets as a reward.

Also, Karma is such an excellent idea which really could see some more use at max level. I think buying mats for Karma is a bit mundane, I’d rather see unique skins tied to specific locations.

As a last thing, I really like the wardrobe and armour-stats-in-sigil suggestions I read earlier. As a fashion-oriented player, that would make my playtime more enjoyable for sure.

All in all, I’ve really enjoyed this game so far. It’s kind of nice that I can actually try to help by offering my thoughts on how to make it even better. I bet all MMO’s have suggestion forums, but this CDI seems like the discussions are actually taken into account, going by the responses from the designers. :-)

I hope they will be added in the near future, we should be able to purchase clothing from say, a cultural karma vendor. I would totally enjoy running around completing different events, knowing that I would be rewarded by being able to dress up all my characters! grins

I don’t think Asura or Charr would stall the implementation of such things though. I mean shouldn’t town clothes be generally culturally restricted by default? I’ve seen different sets on all races’ NPC’s.

I actually never post here, but this initiative to brainstorm about character progression sounds quite interesting to participate in!

First I should explain a bit, since for me, character progression is a lot about dressing them up! A lot of my enjoyment of Guild Wars 2 comes from the creative aspect of the game: I will easily spend an hour to create a character’s looks. For me one of the most satisfying things in this game is coming up with the perfectly fitting character name, armour set and dye combination as well as prefered weapons and skills. The whole art style in combination with the gameplay just really clicks for me. But there’s definitely room for improvement.

I really like to see something with expansion of the skill and trait range, to further personalize a character. Especially unlocking skills (or skill skins) by doing something in addition to skill points. Perhaps a nice unlock method would be by defeating an enemy in a specific way: for example, if you defeat a certain champion by only using reflects, you would unlock a mesmer-specific skin. Of course, such things then could be different for other classes, according to their specialty.

Also karma still seems a bit unused, why not use that to unlock new town clothes? As someone who also enjoys roleplay, I’d like to see something happen with those. It’s a bit grating that the NPC’s have access to a plethora of awesome looking stuff while players don’t! So the art is already in the game for all races. I don’t know how implementing it for players would work from a game designer point of view, but from an outside perspective it seems like an easy adjustment to make, which will definitely please an aspect of the playerbase. There’s so much stuff both armour and town clothes wise, that looks to be already there but not available to us. Like those clothes, or for example the shaman outfits used by Norn. To me, adding that sounds like free happiness! ^^

On another note, I kind of like it that exotic gear is fairly easy to acquire and doesn’t become outdated if I don’t have much time to play. I think that the stat increase to Ascended is minor enough for me to not warrant getting it ASAP, though I agree that it’s seems to be a rrrreally lengthy and unnecessarily gated process.

I’m all in favour of skimpy armour, I think there’s nothing wrong with showing off a bit. Though it all depends on the character, sometimes it suits and sometimes it doesn’t. I have a variety of male and female characters, with both skimpy and non-skimpy favourite armour sets. I never felt restricted in getting the look I aim for on a particular character, I think there’s quite a good selection already. Except for medium armour that is, longcoats look great but some variety there wouldn’t hurt :-P.
In any case, more fashion options is always good!

I agree entirely!
Especially the first point, the cities are full of NPC’s wearing clothes that I’d like on my characters. The already available default town clothes are certainly nice, but a bit of variety wouldn’t hurt, especially for roleplayers. This game is full of great fashion style, please allow us to use it. :-P

I love this game as well, especially the fantastic art style, lore and ‘feel’ of the world.

In fact I like almost everything about GW2, with the notable exception of those horribly corny personal storylines – that emotionless garbage is such a contrast to the rich atmosphere presented throughout the rest of the world!

Combat-wise it feels quite different to other MMORPG’s I’ve played, refreshing. My main character is at 80 now, but I’m a long looooong way from running out of things to do. I’m the type of player that likes to explore everything, reading the quest text or books to slowly find out more about the world, so I can’t see myself losing interest anytime soon.^^

I totally agree!
In addition, it would be nice to be able to zoom in a bit more on your own character as well, since some details only stand out when close. It would be great if you could take a closeup screenshot of your character’s face without using the ‘get camera stuck behind wall for closer zoom’ trick :-P .

Oh, this isn’t a bug? Then I’d definitely like this ‘update’ to be reverted, it’s so inconvenient when you find things that could be used for your character and want to see how it looks. Actually, the look of a certain armour piece has inspired me to make another character more than once, to the point of grabbing a few new slots for gems.

One of the things I enjoy most in GW2 is customizing characters and armour – and how can you properly discuss fashion with friends when you can’t preview each others links? So yep, I’d love to see the preview function returned.

So much glorious Guardian fashion, I love it!

I present you, Gaebriel Riverlight: