Guild Wars 2 has a very intuitive interface, and with the introduction of the wardrobe and its various systems (finishers, mini pets, etc), the implications of storage, customization, and itemization are massive.
With the introduction of ascended equipment and account bound legendary weapons, gathering, collecting, and storing gear has become incredibly bulky. Switching ascended equipment across characters through the bank is an effective yet time consuming, clunky process that becomes more of a problem with the more gear players collect.
The solution is the wardrobe’s UI and associated features, and its ability to manipulate item slots (such as skin changing, miniatures, etc.).
This system would store all of the players collected ascended gear not in terms of physical items, but by statistical representation of the items based on the slot it belongs to, through a right click option: Ascend
Ascension of items will be available based on a few criteria:
- Level 80
- 500 crafting level in discipline for armor/weapons
- Unlocked ascended crafting weapon/armor piece through crafting/fractal
- Unlocked ascended jewelry item through purchase/fractal
Ascended Armor and Weapons
Now, instead of crafting a physical ascended item, players will craft consumable versions of ascended gear that will be stored in the interface and available on an account wide basis:
- Ascended [insert slot type] Mote
Once consumed, this will give the player the option to right click > ascend their exotic gear based on the ascended stats that they have available. For example, if a player crafts a set of Ascended Zojja’s (berserker) equipment, he can right click his current armor to upgrade it’s stats to that of ascended quality, as well as unlock the ability to add infusions. As players craft more ascended items with varying stats, their access in the “ascension” tab will broaden.
One of the major issues with this system is the fact that upgrade components are tied to gear, rather than skins. A way to circumvent this problem is adding acquired runes and sigils in a fashion similar to PvP build rune selection exclusively to ascended gear, and only for runes/sigils that are unlocked on the account.
Another solution is to allow the ascended gear to take on the upgrade components of whatever is currently attached to the gear upon “ascending” the equipment. For example, if my exotic gear contains scholar runes when I choose to ascend it, the new ascended quality gear will also take on the scholar runes. Problems with this method occur when choosing to ascend between different stat archetypes.
Ascended Jewelry
Since obtaining this gear is very different from obtaining ascended armor/weapons, ascended jewelry will be unlocked based on purchase, as it is now. The only difference will be that at lv80, jewel/accessory slots become used more as a place holder for stat items than physical items:
Click on Amulet slot > Choose ascended amulet > choose infusion.
In summary, this system is one that is on the brink of implementation. Having ascended items as physical equipment is the last barrier to account wide, horizontal progression. Implementing a wardrobe style stat-selection system will alleviate the burden of gear switching, and make using multiple characters as easy as changing gear.
Final notes
I’m aware of the potential hazards and the holes in my outline, and will address some here:
- More menus: ANet has been trying to venture away from burden players with systems explanations. However, as this is strictly an endgame interface, I feel as through players will be well enough acquainted with the game’s UI to effectively navigate the changes.
- Upgrade components: I know I mentioned this in the thread, but I want to talk about it because I think this will be one of the severe hurdles to implementation. I’m doubtful that this system would be designed to store upgrade component changes within the sub menus upon choosing equipment. I’ve made some suggestions on how upgrade components would be handled, but I would like to hear some better ideas. It seems to be the major drawback. This includes Runes, Sigils, Infusions, and upgrading infusions.
I would love to hear some other suggestions/feedback on how players would alleviate the burden of switching 6-16 pieces of gear across characters every time they want to bring an alt to a fractal, or wear ascended gear.
Thanks for reading, and I hope that people with better ideas than mine can use this as a spring board for discussion about making account bound items more accessible.
