Guild Wars 2

Every game does the same thing and it makes me laugh.

• Game launches
• Currencies go in inventory or bank
• Community says, “Hey we need a wallet for currencies”
• Devs converse, someone at company is like, “Hey we are making a killing on people buying inventory and storage upgrades right now. Leave it as is for the moment, then we will do a 2 week sale on inventory and storage upgrades and then we will release a wallet as a QoL feature and the community will thank us.”
• Dev with suggestion gets promotion
• Designer introduces more currency doesn’t put it in wallet
• Community calls for currency to be put in wallet

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

@DaveGan: you could as well say: play 1000/x hours and you get your precursor for free.

I think getting tokens for doing anything in the game would be absolutely terrible. In a year from now every longterm player would have it without having actually earned it by active play towards it, but rather getting random tokens every few hours.

I think a precursor should be the exact opposite:

• you choose to work for it (a journey would be the best thing)
• it shouldn’t feel grindy (doing a huge set of specific tasks would be the optimum compared to mindless grind/doing the same thing over and over again)
• Legendaries should still be a rare sight (a Legendary should be a prestige object rather than a clone you see every 2 minutes when playing the game).

I’m not sure how common Mawdrey II is currently, but the task to craft one is pretty unique so far. It’s not too easy to craft one and you need to do quite a bit of interesting tasks in order to get the final ascended result.

My hope is that new Legendaries are created this way from Precursors you get while doing activities like Mawdrey and only activities so that people know how you got a Legendary when they see you with it. I think each Legendary should have its own unique quest involved with it. The issue I see with it is that I am sure an insane amount of money has been made for ArenaNet because people could buy their Legendaries with real money. I don’t want to see that income go away for ArenaNet. I do think it was a mistake not putting the Precursor Scavenger Hunt in the game though. All they would have had to do was make any Legendary made from a precursor in the Scavenger Hunt Account bound on acquire. That way, people that actually want to use a specific Legendary have a non-RNG way of acquiring the weapon without hurting the economy.

For the most part I have found this to be one of the most refreshing threads in a long while on any gaming forum. Community: Pat yourselves on the back but keep being civil in your request. Super proud to be a part of this community right now.

nightwulf.1986:

Piro.8762:

DanzBurG.8635:

Simply replying to a thread doesn’t mean you’re communicating with the community when all of your answers seem like they’re automated messages.

I have to agree with this statement. I think the “We won’t talk about it until it’s ready” policy is going to be Anet’s downfall. I’m not saying release an expansion pack tomorrow, but at least let us know you are working on something. I bought the game, I supported the game buying gems, but where is my money going? I want to look forward to something besides 1.5 hours of content every 2 weeks. You don’t have enough money? I’ll gladly give you guys more money, but just tell us what’s coming for GW2.

Relevant-
“Meelad Sadat, Head of PR at ArenaNet, jumped in to answer our question. He compared it to a movie, where if you know that there is only 10 minutes left in the movie it can clue you in to how and when the plot points are going to end instead of keeping the suspense. Therefore he didn’t want to say how many episodes are going to be left in the season, but did say that starting with the Halloween episode they are back on their two-week cadence up through Wintersday on December 16th before going on holiday break. As to what is going to happen after that, Meelad said that they will keep players informed of when there will or won’t be a patch, like how they announced the Halloween and start of each half of Season 2 well in advance.”

Other relevant quotes: “Bobby (Stein) stepped in to add that players are not going to have to wait long for some big reveals.” “Bobby, as well as Steven (Waller), didn’t want to reveal anything too spoiler for what is awaiting players, but they are excited for the moment later on when players can compare where things are compared to where they were when the story started.”

Notice a trend? They think keeping us in suspense is a good thing. You have to convince them it’s not. They want us to speculate about what’s coming in the future. That is apparently their end game. There is both positive and negative speculation going on here. Not just negative. You have to yell a whole lot louder to get through.

I don’t want to know how the story goes. I want suspense for the story line. The story telling this season has been the best story work ArenaNet has done for this game so far as a whole. There are pieces of the PS I thought were really good and pieces of S1 that I thought were engaging, but S2 has been fantastic thus far across the board. The content has been sorely lacking though

That’s why players are calling for a development roadmap. Not for story, but for what is coming int he future for the game. I want to know what’s coming because I want to know if I am going to feel like it’s worth it to keep this as my main game or not. I don’t want to keep sticking around playing the same old maps for another year. I want an expansion. If they aren’t doing that, that is 100% fine. That’s just not what I am looking for in the long term of this game. I want an expansion’s worth of new maps.

MountainPanda.5831:

I don’t see what you mean little content, the living story had a whole lists and yea the new zones, new traits and far more rewarding to pvp now with rewards line. Getting tons of tome of knowledges, scrolls from pvp, superb commanders leading world bosses, events…ppl rezzing each other when down during world bosses fight. LFG tool is very impressive too…

Just saying the dev team here is doing better than creators of Skyrim, thats all.

I get your point, but Bethesda who made Skyrim did not make ESO. Not a big deal, because it isn’t your point, but ZeniMax Studios made ESO. ZeniMax is the parent company of Bethesda.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Alerno — Taking what you have (and everyone else has) put on the table I do wonder something. I want to ask, and hope nobody will bite my head off here.

You mention wanting to know there will be more to the game. The new and continuing episodes of the Living World count towards that, right? The fact that players know there’s a team working on new content and features, and that there are releases on a regular basis? I fully understand that may not fulfill every desire, but it does show a continuing commitment to “new stuff” for us players, wouldn’t you agree?

I would say an honest road map would be appreciated. Even if that road map doesn’t sit well with players, if it’s honest it’s good for all involved because it’s the truth of where the game is heading. For example, if the roadmap came out and looked like this:

Guild Wars 2: First Half of the Year 2015 Road Map

• January-February: Conclusion of Living Story Season 2.

• March: Feature Patch

• March 31st-May 8th: WvW Tournament

• May 12th-June 22nd: Season 3 Beginning

That would be good to see. I am not saying I would be happy to not see an expansion in there. I wouldn’t be, but I would appreciate the honesty of the direction of the game and the information that this is the path the game is taking. I would be happy that as developers, your goals are to have me login a few hours a week because that is the type of content you are designing for this game.

If an expansion is coming, tell players an expansion is coming. No hype. No details until it’s ready, but give players that want long term content a reason to login.

Gaile, I for one can say that I am not looking for story spoilers. I think the spirit of the OP’s post was more in line with what direction the game as a whole was heading in. Are we getting new dungeons? We don’t want to know the mechanics of the dungeon(s) or name etc. etc. but it would be nice to know what type of content is coming our way(if any).

Is the game headed toward an expansion or is it going to be living stories? Are we headed to new lands or staying in Tyria with a single map per release that is given to us one chunk at a time over the course of 8 weeks?

Are we ever getting new classes or races?

I like having things to look forward to while playing the content that exists. I could sit here and just hope that we are going to get even a fraction of the breadth of content we got in GW1 in GW2 or you all could lay out a road map for where we are headed.

Not a story roadmap, but a game roadmap.

I for one know I do not want to play for another 6 months hoping that something big and exciting might be coming, but I guess if nothing is coming then why tell anyone that or they might stop playing because there is nothing to look forward to for the long term.

I have no problem relegating GW2 to a secondary MMO that I hop into for 3-5 hours every two weeks. It’s a lovely game that I adore but one I am ready for an expansion with. Without knowing whether or not that is in the works, why continue spending the bulk of our time with it though?

Two paradoxical quotes from the same camp:

“This game is faceroll easy.”

“Zerker stats are all that matter.”

Hint: The first one is the only correct quote.

You just have to go with a name that is really obscure.

Becka Williams.4978:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

is it really fun if you have to kill Tequatl 40 times? Personally I would enjoy it much more to achieve something really challenging… if I’m good enough it would work on a few tries.

Killing Teq 40 times via standing there in one spot and doing afk damage… I don’t think you have earned that reward. Every labrat could do that.

Dude, I’ve already killed him 90 times, and not gotten a horde. Is that really fun?

And the issue compounds itself because after a while even if you do get it it’s not elation you feel but bittersweet relief. That isn’t a rewarding feeling. IDK. The issue this game suffers from that GW1 didn’t suffer from is that gold and gems are intrinsically tied together. ArenaNet’s income is tied to our reward system. It’s why I think if they ever do that scavenger hunt preccursor thing or some form of it, the precursors and subsequent legendaries from it should be account bound so as not to harm the economy.

I do know I am tired of talking about the RNG in this game though. I am hoping for some real action with it. I feel like for a lot of the updates we take 1 step forward and 2 steps back. Sometimes it’s all roses but most of the time it isn’t. We get a great content patch like Pavilion 2.0 where the fights are more fun, but the rewards are way scaled back(The first Pavilion was rewarding). I feel like they found a cool way to do the Silverwastes, but then they pretty much got rid of creature drops and therefore our Magic Find became useless and it was another case of a step forward and 2 steps back and it’s all because real life income is tied up with the game economy.

My favorite rewards in the game are the Fractal weapons. They visually indicate a weapon you can only get by playing that is not trade-able. The RNG on the fractal weapons is awful though and you guys have never introduced a token system for them. Rewards should go down this path more though. Those kind of rewards don’t keep me from buying stuff on the gem shop either. I have tons of BL weapons and tons of armor sets.

This is an RPG though. We still want to be rewarded with things in game for playing the game. Earning gold and spending it on the gem shop isn’t a reward. It’s a gold sink. There has to be a balance. I get that. It’s just that the balance isn’t in favor of playing the game at the moment. A big part of the issue I have with the game is we get constant updates to the gem shop and big gaps in content updates.

If you read between the lines you can see what this “earnings report” is really about:

I thought I had a similar issue with Dry Top. I don’t care much for Jumping Puzzles and a lot of that map is exactly that. I don’t think that is the issue though. I think the issue is variety. This game as a whole is many things and there are maps that encompass so much more than what these two new, but shallow(albeit well-designed, gorgeous)maps are.

The older maps have mini-dungeons, dungeons, jumping puzzles, completion rewards, hearts, story, etc. These new maps lack a lot of that and also lack the size of older maps. They seem to be “lite-maps” with a theme and I think that hurts them overall.

I think a really good idea would be rewards for clearing them. Sure, they won’t add to map completion, but what about adding rewards for completing them? I don’t think that can hurt replayability.

I like this map a lot because it doesn’t put the onus on the players to all be in one place. It makes the map work together in separate locations. But it isn’t by any means a complete map when compared to the original maps. Also, only getting one portion of a new map every two weeks is rough, especially when the new portions aren’t as feature rich as older maps were at release.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Does-magicfind-booster-work-on-bandit-chests

Here is another prime example of mechanics not making sense or being poorly explained or implemented. It’s really convoluted. I don’t think the system should be changed but rather it should be explained better. Players deserve to know how the game they are playing functions. What are the rules? If I don’t understand, how do I get the most benefit out of what I am doing?

I have another example John of what is to me, bad RNG or rather poorly explained RNG. In the new zone bags are handed out for completing events. This in and of itself is fine. The problem is that bags aren’t covered by the Magic Find we have worked so hard to increase. The mobs also don’t really drop a whole lot of loot. Are the bags in the new map affected by Magic Find? If not, I think it would be a good thing to have those bags in particular affected by our magic find to still have it be viable as a mechanic of the game. If it’s not, then what is my impetus to keep replaying this new awesome zone? Why would I do so when there are other regions that would be more rewarding?

I think keeping the loot as bags for completing the events there is a good thing, but I also think having the bags there be affected by Magic Find would keep players coming back and I know I want too. It is one of only 3 new maps we have received since this game came out over 2 years ago.

Players want to be rewarded and feel rewarded at the same time. It’s one thing that you guys only put one waypoint in the new zone. It’s quite another when we can’t sell to the merchants there and only buy from them. It’s also disconcerting when you give us a new currency to use but don’t include said currency in the wallet.

There are all these little things that can add up quickly to feel like a major annoyance in what is in my opinion the best release in a long time sans these minor issues. Please consider letting all the bags in this new zone be affected by Magic Find and if they are, please make it more apparent that it is the case in game.

I figured the in a few days part of the post meant this week. Any more than 3 days would be next work week and that is what could have been said. Oh well. Anyone get a weapon yet? Seems odd to be told the work is done and that means they have to know when the weapons are headed out. Why not just say next week then?Unless of course Curtis is working this weekend and they get passed out then, in which case, thank you!

Konig Des Todes.2086:

At release, there were a lot of hints that Jormag would be the second dragon fought.

But either things changed, or they had no real plan.

During season 1, Scott McGough told us that each storyline (season?) will go back and forth between a dragon plot and a ‘break from dragons.’

@Asgar: that’s not what the OP is asking. The OP is asking from a design standpoint, not lore/story. Or so it seems to me, at least.

Yeah that’s correct about the design standpoint. I feel like it was definitely going to happen a different way when the initial trailer was released. Really just wanted insight as to why it changed and why it changed so drastically. I also have a feeling that Scarlet and the LS were never intended way back then. It would be really interesting to see how drastic things have been altered since back then.

What was the impetus behind the dragons waking up in the order they are waking up in? We fought Zhaitan who was one of the dragons introduced to us when this game was being marketed and that makes sense. Why have one dragon fight(Zhaitan)and then move on to Scarlet for a season with no dragon fight and then move on to a dragon that wasn’t one of the dragons in the teaser trailer for GW2?

Don’t get me wrong, I really like the Mordrem, and I bet Mordremoth will look crazy cool, but it strikes me as odd that we were shown this amazing trailer with these dragons that were set up to be what we were after and then we get two straight villains that have nothing to do with that. Teasing something that isn’t going to be a part of the journey strikes me as odd is all.

So the real questions are; Did this stuff change over time? Was there a story before that ended up changing a hundred times before we arrived where we are now? I would love a glimpse at what this story was going to be when the first trailer was shown to us. I would find that fascinating. Any light you can shed on this(devs in the know)would be great even if it’s only a crumb or two.

Randulf.7614:

Jewellery can be obtained with laurels.

The difference in stats between exotic and ascended is 2-3 stat points per piece. Better off just eating food – the stat difference on ascended wont make any difference at all and if you don’t enjoy crafting it wont make you feel like you are missing anything.

If you feel really brave…you can get ascended armour from completing some of the more difficult collections..

^ This is a good point. The difference in Ascended stats on jewelry over exotic jewelry is a fairly big jump. The jump for armor not so much. Just get the ascended jewelry and get the armor drops as they come.

1.) Accessibility(No gear requirements) 100% Skill-based.

2.) Challenging

3.) Rewarding (Unique Armor and Weapon sets NOT better stats)

DiogoSilva.7089:

After Belinda’s spirit enchanted the Katana sword, if Rytlock ever comes with new abilities out of this, then we know which kind of profession is coming out. :P Both Belinda and Rytlock are warriors, one’s a ghost and the other disappeared after fighting ghosts. Also, Katana is a japanese weapon, Ritualists are usually blind-folded, Ritualist is from Cantha, and we’re getting Cantha-ish content from the Zephyr Bazaar.

Too much coincidence? Or are we getting an heavy-armored, greatsword-wielding ritualist class in the future?

SPOILER******

One could make the argument that because he is blind-folded in that picture(just like Kormir) and it comes after our character seeing a reference to the realm of torment and seeing a statue of Abaddon, we are getting a third heavy class in the form of a Paragon. I don’t believe that for a second, but if we are making wild assumptions I am game to throw one around using the same logic. :P

I actually hope you are right because I love that class, but I really don’t think so.

Or don’t worry about it. I have multiple characters that do all the content in only exotic armor. The only thing you need that armor for is well, nothing.

I think the more likely thing for it to be is that one of Abaddon’s demons renders him blind just like they did with Kormir. The statue of Abaddon seems to me to be foreshadowing rather than “scholarly dudes think it looks cool in their library”.

On a personal level I think Abaddon is dead, or rather should be. I know because I killed him and that blind girl that did nothing to help me in the Real of Torment besides being a full-size minipet the whole way ascended to take his place as The Goddess of Truth. I would be severely disappointed to have that ret-conned, but it would make sense if Rytlock ran into a few of his demons in the You-Dub.

lordhelmos.7623:

The blind-folded Rylock raises some interesting questions. Maybe we will see a new class in the future that has something to do with Rytlock’s story.

I doubt it. If anything I think it has to do with something more like this: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Kormir

Excerpt: " It was during this war that she was captured at Gandara, where The Hunger, one of Abaddon’s demons, rendered her blind."

It’s nice to mix it up and have a solid map rotation when farming so you don’t burn out. Coil farms are good. One day do event train farming. Throw in some pilates, 32 oz. of water and some squats. Then do a 3 Guard/2Mes. SE p1. all reflects. Southsun skelk, I hear you drop vicious and powerful! Let’s talk!

After that I just put Eye of the Tiger on.

The drop mechanics for loot in this area really decreases my desire to play the newest level 80 zone for the long term. Especially if I wanted to make a Legendary. Shouldn’t the newest zone promote all types of players to want to play it? It really feels like a WvW training wheels zone over a zone that is the new hotness for drops. Also, why in the heck aren’t the bandit crests going in my wallet? You know, the wallet they made for currencies?

I hope they don’t rebuild it. I’d like to see the money donated at the Pavilion to be used for portals into zones the populace can’t get to yet. I’d call the funding proposal, “The Expansion”.

Let me get this straight: There was a Pavilion Event where if I give them money, the event starts faster and LA gets rebuilt. Well, that was supposedly a reputable person to give money to and LA isn’t rebuilt and they made off with my gold! Now you think I am going to give money to a bandit? Yeah? No.

So when the dragons return to the dream the gods wake up or return and vice versa? It’s a very yin and yang thing to me.

I really think the Abaddon Statue and Antikytheria on the ceiling are foreshadowing of bad things to happen at the Priory. Nothing good will come of having that statue there.

Everything was top-notch. This was head and shoulders above past stuff. The library was amazing. The Lair was handled fantastically. I am really thrilled how the story is being handled. This update and last update I finally feel like Jory and Kas are being handled properly. Their relationship was so ham-fisted before. Now, they are two characters in a story. The cut scene with Belinda and the sword was so good. Seriously. Pat yourselves on the back for that one. If this is the direction this story is taking I am all about it.

Keep up the top-notch work!

I was going to try and play devil’s advocate with this thread but I can’t. The logic here is too strong. You designed a nice wallet. Use the wallet.

Wowsers. The new map is really something special. The events chain together really nicely. Thanks so much for all the hard work on it. The NPC dialog is great, the music is wonderful, and everything is wonderful. Thanks so much!

Proposal

Procedurally Generated Raiding

There are some games now that are implementing procedurally generated content. What that means is the game is created to create content. You never see the same thing twice is really what it does. With a game like GW2 not using the trinity and therefore not having raiding in a traditional sense, why not turn the whole thing over on its head?

I think that the bosses should remain a constant(i.e. – not procedurally generated) in raids, but why not have a big pool of bosses to draw from to keep it from feeling static? Let’s say there are 7 big boss fights in a raid, but a 20 boss pool to draw from?

The trash fights could be the part that is procedural. You never know what kinds of enemies you will fight in any given room. I also really loved the idea of patrols in raids. I think really what I would like to see most from raiding is that it doesn’t become this consume and throwaway content.

One area I think the development team could improve in is improving upon existing permanent content in the game to keep it fresh. We haven’t really gotten a lot of new permanent content in this game from a traditional MMO standpoint. With Procedural Generation, the raid would truly be dynamic. Every time you go in it would be different. Fights would happen in different places with patrols and boss pools would mean not knowing what you were up against until you got there.

MrPersons.1560:

It gets discussed almost as much as mounts, but while I would like capes and think they would be cool, they would clip with armor, especially Charr. I am partial to either.

This point isn’t valid in my humble opinion because nothing says that Charr can’t have a different style of cape that works well with them. I hear this argument a lot about capes not being put in and I think it would be safe to say there are tons of different ways they could do a cape that worked for Charr.

The reason we aren’t going to get capes is because they use backpieces as rewards so much. For a lot of people, a cape would be the final backpiece they would ever wear. For others that isn’t the case; but for the people who only want a cape, backpieces would no longer be a valid reward. They already would have the only thing they would ever want to wear.

guardian.6489:

Dalanor.5387:

guardian.6489:

hybrid.5027:

The problem is Necromancer isn’t even good at condition damage in pve compared to warrior or engineer. They need a significant buff in that department on the pve side at least.

Aren’t they the meta Condi-bomb in WvW?

It’s completely different to nuke down a player with 10-20k hp than to deal effective DPS on a boss with a few million hp.

True but I thought that killed Condi-damage in PvE in general not just for Nercomancers. Unless I missed something. the only time you use Condi-damage in PvE is at triple trouble and in that case Nercomancers are probably one of the best professions for the role.

Skill splits would fix this. I am tired of builds not being viable in PvE because of PvP. One of the reasons I hated leveling my Necro that I wanted to play a pure condi spec in PvE was because of all the “yellow” items that don’t take condis. Those hearts that required destroying yellow items took the longest and it was frustrating. I learned quickly that there was really only 1 way to play in PvE and that was just straight DPS.

I am glad that “if” raids make there way into GW2 they will most likely have split mechanics as far as how many players a single player can apply buffs to over the 5 player cap that is in the game now. The reluctance to do skill splits and the exclusion of build templates in this game are two of my biggest gripes. Raids seem like they will just add to that frustration in being a “4th format”.

I think the best way to add more progression would be to add advanced classes not a level cap raise. Basically it would give you the choice to go down one of two paths for any given profession or just to remain as a vanilla class.

For example a Ranger at level 80 could choose to become a Druid or a Hunter or just remain a Ranger and progression to utilities, weapon sets and traits could have their own progression from there.

Proposal

Temple of Kormir Construction Raid in Straits of Devastation.

Implementation

The Temple of Kormir is built in the open world and has a Temple Event attached to it that has its own unique mechanics like the other Temple Events except that instead of a Risen Priest of Kormir(for obvious reasons)there is a fight with several smaller dragons.

The Instanced Raid portion is about the construction of the Temple. When players have captured the Temple, the raid is open for anyone to enter. I’m no game designer so I won’t presume to know the structure or pacing of the raid, but it would be an interesting way to have more content built into the world and have a raid tied into it in a believable way.

I got my first one with 16 shields I purchased and got the shield precursor after throwing 12 in. I used all Rivet Walls. That was February of 2013. I don’t forge anymore though because you can throw level 80s in and get sub 80s out. It didn’t used to be that way. I have never gotten a precursor out of the forge with gold weapons. It’s always been with named exotics. I have gotten one as a drop, one out of a chest in CoF and the rest were forged(5).

That was one of the nice things about GW1 that I miss. They added pets with every stand alone game and with the expansion. They added the menagerie which was great. We haven’t had a new pet since Southsun. It’s a bummer.

John,

Are the candy wrappers the last of it? RNG wrappers out of ToT bags to RNG a chance to win an item? A lottery ticket for another lottery ticket? It’s awful.

I’d like to see a Reward Track system for Raids with the same type of “filling bar” rewards that happen in Pvp but for Raids. I like when progression can take a while but you are rewarded along the way. It reinforces why you are doing it without feeling that you are putting in more effort than you are getting out of it and it leaves the RNG to mob drops. I would couple this system with the system that is in the Fractals where you get a chest at the end.

The only system I think I would like from older game’s systems is the “Raid Wing” system where there are multiple wings to a Raid and you don’t feel forced to do the entire thing in one sitting. I think this naturally goes with how GW2 is setup. Most of the dungeons are 4 “wings”(paths).

As far as mechanics go Chris, I think I would like platforming sections but the camera really needs some love in tight spots. I’ve given it some thought since my last post and I don’t think I would waiver on this. There are JPs I would love to do if it weren’t for the camera zooming out and back in really quickly because of walls etc. It doesn’t make for a good platforming experience and I would hate for a Raid to be marred by that when I think that really cool things could come out of a Raid that had a Jumping Puzzle only wing with a boss fight or two.

I think Jumping Puzzle Raids(if the camera issues were addressed) would be a great idea actually if we are classifying a Raid as “challenging content”. I have quite a few guildies whose favorite thing are the JPs. It would give people not traditionally into raiding a raid of their own and if it were light on combat but had it, it may get some people on the fence about raiding into raiding proper. It would also fit the game.

I think more content like the laser trap in Crucible of Eternity should be things seen more in Raids. Also, I remember when the game was still being developed you guys had looked into dungeons being more dynamic with the way things were triggered and it would open up different paths etc. Would there be a way to do that with the way specific rooms were designed? Maybe certain rooms could be designed where if one group in a raid wipes in a room the next group to enter that room has different mobs to fight so that it’s always different? For example, I take a raid group in and we wipe in Room “B” and your raid group was the next group in the raid and you would get a different set of mobs in Room “B” than if my group had defeated Room “B”. Is that something that would be viable?

munkiman.3068:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Evening All,

Relics of Orr podcast about the CDI below:

http://www.relicsoforr.com/?p=3403

‘In this special episode we chat with guest host Soren of Gaiscíoch about the Raiding CDI and how Guild Wars 2 could create unique raids.’

Chris

P.S: Thanks Relics of Orr and Soren for your feedback.

Jumping/platforming. Some have mentioned (as well as the RoO podcast) having platforming as a type of mechanic. However, platforming in this game is extremely frustrating. This being entirely due to the game having one of the worst cameras of any game i think i’ve ever played. It’s actually fairly frustrating in the few guild missions that require it.

I have to agree with this sentiment on platforming in GW2. The camera issues need to be addressed before I want to see it in challenging content —i.e. Raids--. There is a ton of content in the game I won’t go back and do(Certain tight-corridor(ed) content)because it is frustrating having to fight the camera.

I didn’t mind it in Dry Top as much because it’s open enough, but I don’t see Raids being as wide open as that. Open spaces don’t lend themselves to feeling a sense of danger.

A lot of the suggestions are still just about adding things to GW2 that exist in raids in other games and putting them into this game. That stuff doesn’t need to be here. That content is in other games, it’s fun, but we have all been there before a thousand times. GW2 doesn’t have the Trinity. Let’s not just make it 10-24 man dungeons. We can do that with Event Trains. I can go farm Coil or Zho’Qafa Catacombs for that. Tequatl and The Wurm fit that bill.

Proposal

Dynamic Event Raid Portal(D.E.R.P)

• After 5 Events are simultaneously completed around Tyria(with their own rewards)a kitten . <—- (won’t let me put acronym for Dynamic Event Raid Portal here) is opened. The 5 events allow for the firing of 5 massive, ancient lasers that open a sky walk to Melandru’s Moon, Tyria’s Satellite.

I don’t presume to go any farther than that though. I am no writer. I just think you couldn’t make anything crazier or cooler than having a raid on a moon of Tyria. I also think having in game events for those that don’t like to raid, but like to event farm is a cool way to open up the raid for a few hours. And if you think about it, it means the raid would always be open. You kill two birds with one stone, you create 5 events for people to do and you add a raid. Everyone wins.

This is a totally selfish aside but here are a couple suggestions:

• I want to get in fights with smaller dragons. You know, 3 times longer than a drake and as tall as a Jotun. I see them flying around(in my imagination)and never get to fight them.

• Setting is totally important. Find places that you know for a fact we are never going to go to (Isle of Janthir, Ring of Fire Islands, Crystal Desert) and put a Raid there. It doesn’t have to be underground like some old-school hipster Raid. Put in the open.

• I have heard it said we will never meet Isgarren. Fine. But Raids need to be set in places like(notice I said like) the Wizard’s Tower. Places that are important to the lore. I don’t want throwaway characters that I have never had a reason to care about. Raids should be in locations and about people of great importance like Livia, Evennia, Marriner, Dougal Keane, Snaff, Glint…(I could keep going). Locations should matter.

• I don’t think we should get a big story around a raid but rather the location and people the raid is about just setting a mood of importance. For example, you make the raid about what happened to Rytlock and everyone will care about it. Or we have to go to the Underworld to get Tybalt. People will care about it. make it about a character and a setting that no one has any connection to and it’s just another instance.

• The greater legacy of the GW Franchise is important. Tie a Raid into the lore of the franchise. A raid about the founding of Ebonhawk. A raid about what happened to Livia. Saul D’Allessio. There is so much unfinished business when it comes to the setting of this game. Things don’t exactly have to get answered in the Raid, but the raid could be a setup for telling those untold stories in future Living World or expansion content.

What about some mechanics to let guilds compete in a Raid? 2-5 guilds can pick to compete against each other for checkpoint times, overall time, fewest deaths etc. There would be a countdown timer to start. Each of the guilds is running their own instance of the Raid, but an announcer tells each guild where the other guilds are in terms of their run. Each guild gets the reward for beating the Raid, but bonus rewards can be won for the things I mentioned above. This would be great too because if you finish first you get your bonus rewards and get to end the instance and not have to wait for the others to finish.

• This would be great for streaming as well and would be a lot of fun if you could access the Raids from the guild hall.

• There should obviously be a place to enter the Raids from the game world as well, but I think this would offer a nice way for guilds to compete indirectly in a PvE setting.

• The best guilds could have their emblem and name displayed in the Raid.

Iason Evan.3806:

Let’s spend a few pages of this CDI getting away from traditional notions of what Raids are and spend some time coming up with things that have never been done.

What’s wrong with traditional raid design?
I’m not saying raids in GW2 should be exactly like in other games, but most of the core principles of raiding are pretty universal in my opinion. And combining those universal principles with the unique combat system of GW2 is enough uniqueness and difference to me.
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And they won’t be simply by virtue of no trinity in this game. That’s why I want to see something different for raids in this game. If I wanted to do a traditional 2005-2009 designed raid I would never have left those other games for this one. Raids in those games make sense being “endgame” because the level cap always gets raised and the new gear becomes the new BiS. We have our BiS cap. It’s Ascended. Ascended will always be BiS at level 80 because level 80 will always be the cap.

There are myriad ways to earn Ascended Gear already. Raids don’t have to include Ascended gear as a gate to entry because any subsequent raid added after the initial raid or wave of raids will both have Ascended as their BiS.

My point is that you should be able to level on any content in this game that you want. That doesn’t mean I don’t think there shouldn’t be tiered raid scaling. There should be. If I want to make a 4th Ranger or 3rd Necro and I want to level in the new Raid content, I should be able to and I shouldn’t be a detriment to my team by having gear matter. Raiding at the highest level should be about skill, not gear. Raiding for leveling should be about skill as well, not gear.

So many of us have these set in stone notions of what a raid is and seem to not want to diverge from those ideas. I think that is a silly road to wander down. We have a chance here to make raiding in GW2 be something special and unique and not a cookie cutter thing that has been done in dozens of MMOs in the exact same fashion.

Why should hard content mean you need the best gear? It shouldn’t. Hard content should be about the skill needed to complete it. Why should hard content have a barrier for entry? It shouldn’t. I would argue that PvP is the hardest content int he game and you are able to do that at level 1. I think Raids should follow the same path.

I think a lot of the discussions so far have been really cookie cutter and not outside the box. I understand wanting to take raiding that you love and just plop it wholesale into GW2. Let’s brainstorm though.

• Make raiding gear uniform—when you start the raid you get to pick gear at a vendor from various stat selections—

• Players can side kick up to 80 in Raids so that anyone can do them at whatever level. The level cap in this game isn’t going anywhere so why do Raids need to be considered only playable by level 80 characters?

• Have Raids where groups of players fight each other at the end. If only one group is playing it defaults to NPCs.

• I’d like to see a Raid where players get to be the boss. If no player is available then it’s an NPC. You could have a gauntlet-style-defense-point-raid where a group of players are 5 different bosses sequentially fighting against another group of players trying to complete the Raid.

• Can we make Control classes mean something more in Raids? Support? Maybe doing DPS to a Raid Boss in a certain situation isn’t even possible. You have to do other things in order to bring the boss down.

Let’s spend a few pages of this CDI getting away from traditional notions of what Raids are and spend some time coming up with things that have never been done.

I really would be a fan picking out stat combos for your character prior to entering a raid. I never PUG. Period. I am in a guild that started in 2007 and has been playing the GW franchise since GW1 launched so LFG-Tool-gear-pinging is a thing I don’t have to suffer. If gear checks are as rampant as people say they are for dungeons in this game, think about how it’s gonna be for raids. The dungeons in this game are not hard by any stretch of the imagination at this point in the game’s lifespan. It’s gonna be terrible for the raids starting out if people want exact stat combos.

Make it so you have a few different stat combos to choose from before you start the raid(Heck, I’d like this choice for my private Arena).

I also think having the ability to save builds to templates prior to raids coming out is a must.

Build balance is already an issue in this game without skill splits and three formats(WvW, PvP, PvE). Throwing Raids in the mix is adding a fourth format. Putting in a certain amount of uniformity to Raids is a good idea to help keep them balanced. I don’t want to see skills change for general PvE to certain things because Raid balance demands they do. Specific stat combos for Raids can help prevent that and promote Raid balance at the same time.

Proposal

Groupvs.GroupvsGroup Raids

Why not make the raids the Competitive or have a lone competitive raid among however many raids that could be implemented? A GvGvG raid. There could be three paths. Every team fights mobs raid style in their own path. The first team to beat their boss gets a chest and then the raid moves on to phase 2. The group that won has a different role than the groups that lost the boss portion of the raid. They take on aspects and skills of bosses designed by ArenaNet and the two groups that lost fight them. If the team that won Phase #1 can win in Boss Form they are rewarded again and the raid is over. If the other two teams that lost the initial fight can win they are both rewarded. That way, all three teams could technically win or only 1 team. It also would offer interesting mechanics.

Proposal #2

What if raids were designed so that gear was uniform like in PvP? You could pick from various stats like in PvP but it was all the same pool of items. This goes for raids outside of my competitive idea. That way it’s still skill based but a new player doesn’t have to worry about not being geared properly. If the progression is cosmetic then it doesn’t matter. This also helps to balance raids without the need for skill splits to make the content difficult yet fair.

Thank you for changing this! It’s really appreciated that it happened so quickly. Much thanks!

Lodius.5392:

Why Lodius?:
I already have Meteorlogicus. I just want to help out someone who may not ever save enough to build their own Legendary weapon.

Also, you stand to make a nice chunk of change from this. Let’s not forget that tidbit.