Guild Wars 2

Totally re-made my Sylvari Necro. Death Prophet from DotA 2 kind of inspired her look.

Helm – Temple Set
Shoulders – Exalted (hidden)
Robe – TA
Gloves – Profane
Leggings – T1 Cultural
Boots – T2 Cultural

Nick.6972:

Playing since the beta, still haven’t played Personal Story pass the level 10 or something.
If I wanted a story based game, I’d play something else.

This ^

The early, race specific levels are kind of cool though.

sorudo.9054:

a lower price on self-style hair kit, it should be 100gems max.
all you can do is change hair and beard styles, that’s hardly worth 250 gems.

That, or a permanent hair stylist for 2000 gems. Unbelievable that it goes for the price of a Legendary on the TP. I see no reason for such a basic service to be exclusive.

And on that note, I think we need a few more permanent, unlockable options.

- Extra Equipment pages. (600-800 gems each). Exactly what it sounds like, separate pages that would allow a character to have multiple armour, weapon and trinket sets equipped and swap between them when out of combat. One page for your WvW gear, another for the Dungeon set, and so on. It would also provide a nice bonus of allowing greater cosmetic freedom since the armour and weapons would be transmuted separately.

- Trait templates. (300-400 gems) These would go nicely along with the alternate equipment sets. Allows players to name and save each trait set up, and switch between ’em when out of combat.

- A mini slot. (150-250 gems). There’s so many of these kitten ed things, and even a title dedicated to collectors, but absolutely no proper system for managing them. This slot would fix that. Equip your miniature in it, and check a box whether you want it ‘auto summoned’ or not.

I do not see why the two activities could not have been more similar in rewards vs. time invested.

I kind of miss that old school RPG element of hunting down certain mobs for specific drops, or adventuring in an area for a particular resource. It should be such that, after you’ve made a fortune in adventuring then you can sit around and RP as some sort of maniacal Tyrian Gordon Gekko.

I’ve always believed that GW2 unnecessarily inflates the rarity of too many items. Instead of having lots and lots of short to medium term endgame goals, players are presented with massive, time-consuming, costly feats to achieve.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Let’s focus on this for a moment. If Anet Devs initially wanted Legendary crafting to take upwards of a year to do, whose problem is it if you decide to do it within a month?

If you’re unwilling to take the time to craft it normally, and want it right away, that would fall under “impatience”.

When I speak of crafting, I mean plain old 1-400 crafting. When I was a new player, it seemed like a monumental challenge.

Again, I’m not coming here as some ne’er do well, whiner or slacker. I have made more than enough gold for my needs. I have absolutely no interest in legendary weapons. just made a few ascended, bought thousands of gems for armour skins and transmutation with gold, and I am sitting on a few hundred coin with absolutely fugh-all to spend it on. I’m doing okay.

I simply voiced an opinion in support of another poster – we believe too much of this games content seems to revolve around trading. That’s it. No complaints about being unable to get what we want, no problems with you TP players (except perhaps, just the tiniest bit of jealousy ). Cheers.

I wouldn’t call it impatience. I’m sure you are aware that it is quite tedious to gather the required amounts of those things in a reasonable amount of time. Game design simultaneously necessitates and bolsters the TP.

Which as I said, is a big whoop for you lot. Not so much for the rest of us.

Lol. You have missed the entire point of my posts. Perhaps I have not made myself clear. Another poster mentioned that in an adventure game, one expects to achieve everything whilst adventuring. One expects trade to be a part of this experience, certainly, but not it’s core.

Seriously. Listen to yourselves. ‘Market forces’ should not be relevant to a discussion of video game activities.

But we’re straying from the topic at hand I think.

Do tell what items that you “need” to have. You don’t have to give a list. Just name one single item.

Vials of blood, bones and other assorted monster parts that are used in most types of crafting.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

The problem here is that the game already does this, but players just don’t want to do things to get rewarded. Everyone has the opportunity to run Arah for tokens to trade for unique armors. Everyone has the opportunity to do Tequatl or the Great Wurm for unique weapon boxes. Everyone has the opportunity to do SAB Tribulation mode for unique colored holo weapons.

I disagree. And I am tired, oh so tired of reading about entitlement. Let’s find some synonyms for that.

Anyway, I will give you Arah. The dragon’s deep weapon sets do have a bit of prestige to them. Teqatl and SAB on the other hand, the former has got horrifically low drop rates and the latter is unavailable right now.

My point however, is just about regular loot. I’m not whining that I haven’t gotten a precursor drop, I just believe (a) there is too much junk, so much that Anet had to invent uses for some of it e.g. Ascended crafting and (b) there aren’t enough solid, consistent rewards. I agree that the difficult content should reward unique, prestigious items, but there is a massive gap between the basic stuff that can be earned, and the really nice things that we have to buy.

linuxotaku.4731:

When you sell unwanted drops and get a better price for them than you would otherwise have — that is how your experience is enriched. When you go to buy something you need, and can actually find it on the TP (despite the fact that it hasn’t dropped for months, e.g. snowflakes) — that is how your experience is enriched.

The sheer volume of crap I loot, salvage and sell daily is one issue I have with the game design. Having to earn gold and straight up buy everything, is another. There’s too many things we ‘need’ on the one hand, and too few opportunities to get them through good, old-fashioned adventuring.

linuxotaku.4731:

The only reason people who play TP would hurt you is if you expected players to sell you items cheaper than the items are worth, or if you measure your worth by comparison to the richest person around, or if you fall for schemes to manipulate prices. (The last one is the only one where I’d agree: I’d be fine with proposals intended to make that harder … though per JS’ comments, most attempts at market manipulation aren’t successful, a few are.)

I’m not bothered with the TP players. Like the OP, I am a little annoyed that I lack the patience and insight to succeed in this field, but moreso it’s the system itself that bums me out. I do not like having to buy everything.

I never got into GW1 at all, but had to look up these dungeons that veteran players praise so highly. Must say that I am impressed, nothing beats an actual play through of course, but the sheer size of ’em says a lot.

Lol, not sure if serious but I can see where the OP is coming from. I spent a LOT of time clicking and clicking and clicking, over and over and fughing over again. Salvaging, selling and using my essences of luck. Eventually gets to the point where any additional effort to manage the piles of crap I have to sift through becomes almost unbearable.

phys.7689:

TP lovers are still missing the point. Its not about inflation and money sharing its about the game at endgame, basically becomes a gold wars game. Content takes a back seat to making gold, because in general content doesnt get you to your end game goals very fast.

People who didnt buy the game to play the TP think this is a bad design.
If you get invited to play basketball, you expect to play basketball
If you buy an action game you expect primary way to progress is through action
you buy an adventure game, you expect primary way to progress is through adventure

^ Yeah, this really needed to be said.

I understand that many of you in this sub forum truly enjoy trading, and the basic economics that are at play here. But the average player is kind of miffed that so much of the game revolves around this system. We would rather have the game reward players in a way that enriches everyone’s in-game experience.

Seven level 80 characters, 86% is the most I’ve completed.

This thread kind of motivated me to try again, but I gave up after about two minutes of putting slime into containers for some deranged little Asura in Brisban Wildlands, and went back to dungeon runs.

Yeah, they probably had bad experiences with level 80 PUGs. Lots of players seem to completely zone out when they join groups. They don’t communicate and expect everyone in the party to rush through the dungeon at their pace. Then they get hostile in the chat or ragequit if anything doesn’t go exactly as they like.

I’ve seen one instance of a lvl 80 being kicked from a lowbie party, but it was mainly due to his behaviour. Three friends were goofing around in AC story, while me and the lvl 80 guard were pugged. I just went along with it, they were pretty chill guys after all, but the guard started to lose it after two wipes; ordering everyone around and not really getting into the spirit of the run. He got silently booted after about ten minutes.

Hah, posts like this remind me of an old joke.

So there’s this old guy driving home from the pub one evening, when his wife phones him.

‘Honey, where are you? Be careful on the roads tonight, I just saw a report on the news about a maniac driving on the wrong side of the highway’

To which he replies

‘Not just one, there’s kittening hundreds of ‘em!’

Immersion depends on the individual, it is not something that we need game designers to create for us (Although of course, some games make it easier to feel like a part of the world than others, and GW2 is not among them). With a bit of imagination and the right attitude. however, this can be achieved.

I’m kind of on the fence as far as immersion goes. No interest in RP or anything, but I do get a kick out of making little in-jokes from time to time. Sometimes I’ll type ‘God-kitten it!’ in chat and the forum readers get a chuckle out of it.

Yeah, I’m all for this. Players have been asking for variations of this (additional gear pages, extra outfit slots that work for armour, unlimited transmutation on specific skins) for quite some time now. Hopefully now that the wardrobe has been introduced ANet will add some approximation of this feature as a gem store unlockable.

It’s hard to say at this point. As is, it honestly doesn’t feel like much has changed, so technically I don’t see myself playing any less.

The one thing I’ve been looking forward to has proved to be a let-down though. The wardrobe changes have done more harm than good (increased transmutation cost for lowbies, wonky item naming), and I’m still not able to switch around my characters skins for free, essentially the only feature I want out of a wardrobe..

I’m with the OP on this. To my mind the issue isn’t simply paying for cosmetics, it’s the ‘pay-per-use’ mechanic that grinds my gears.

A player can spend cash on two different gem store skins, and still incur the cost of additional transmutation charges every time he switches between them. Is there any other game that does this? That’s a major dis-incentive to change your character’s look at all. The ‘wardrobe’ we have now is fine for those who don’t intend to switch their looks up frequently, but those of us who were expecting a system that would allow us to do this freely are pretty disappointed.

What we need is a high-cost unlock that allows us to store multiple skins and swap between them freely. The operative word, ladies and gentlemen, is freely. I suspect this is in the works though. We’ve got extra bag slots, bank tabs and even stack expanders. The next logical step should allow for multiple pages of gear (best case scenario) or at least skins.

The very best PUGs I have run with are made up of top or mid tier DPS classes, while the absolute worst were motley crews of mid-low tier DPS. I’m guessing this has been most other players’ experience as well, hence the ‘bans’.

Ranger can be quite good situationally, especially with the right build, but the pets make them a bit of a liability. Necro and Engy don’t bring anything to a party that another class could not do better.

I’ve always been very curious about this. Not from an elitist ‘zomg u not zerker !!!1! /kick’ perspective, I have no interest in doing that, but I would like a comparative idea of how efficient my build and playstyle is in dungeons.

If posts in the forums, and actual participation in hard content (Tequatl for example) are any indication of what the GW2 population wants, then your suggestions would be bad for this game.

I also can’t imagine anyone fighting Ginva and thinking to themselves ‘This fight is cool, but it should be harder!’. That guy already takes way too long as is.

Yeah, the population seems to have decreased quite a bit on Darkhaven. Pretty much everyone in my last guild switched servers, and while I was trying to get my IRL friends (who’re all on the same server) to jump ship with me the free transfer period ended, so I’m stuck here for a while. A lot of the guilds that were around when I joined last year have disbanded as well.

I think the destruction of LA has a contributed to this empty feeling as well. The Vigil sanctuary is never quite as active as LA was, and I find myself doing most of my ‘business’ in other areas.

Transmutation is fine, I wouldn’t expect them to do away with a source of income. We just need tabs, pages or some other system of creating looks through transmutation, saving them, and applying them freely when out of combat.

Manually changing out individual bits of gear with transmutation charges (with no means of saving the finished look) as as demonstrated in the wardrobe preview is not particularly appealing.

Agreed. The thread I linked to actually shows a way for the devs to make more money by selling us unlockable gear pages.

I just want to be able to hot-swap my looks like in every other god-kittened game. Transmute two or three sets of armour and switch between ’em freely and as often as I like. Got mah fingers crossed for the next three days.

Also, THIS needs to be a thing. Seriously. It’s been a year. Any word on anything along these lines being in the works?

Ykfox.3825:

Am I the only one who’d rather ANet just design some new armors, and actually incorporate them into the game via content rather than the gem store?

/pipedream

No, you’re definitely not the only one. I’d love to see some more in-game armour, and incentives for players to do open world PvE in order to get them.

arisravenstar.6043:

I like the reputation idea in theory, but how many people would actually make use of the reputation system rather than just transmuting the armors between characters?

They’d probably have to make an more or less identical set, minus the race restrictions, and available from different vendors. Perhaps some ‘ambassador’ type NPCs who hang around in the main city.

I never thought of it that way. You do make a good point. However, it’s because there’s not really a whole lot going on in GW2. We just want more stuff to do, basically. Ever notice how this game’s main forum is mainly players complaining or coming up with ideas and suggestions, rather than discussing the game itself?

No.

Terrible idea. Repair canisters and revive orbs are gem store only, not everyone can afford to buy gems.

Your suggestions don’t add value, only tedium. Few players want the game’s difficulty increased, especially with the paltry rewards we get as is. Armour and weapons lose value as soon as they’re equipped (binding), your suggestion would only be viable if gear could be sold on the TP even after use.

Also, the very best items in game are already crafted in a sense (the Mystic Forge is a crafting tool, and in many cases a lot simpler than the 8 disciplines).

What I would like to see are better looking crafted weapons (Why are all races making Quaggan themed weapons by default?), and a few more options for craftable armour.

I don’t care about the lore at all, there’s just too much silliness in the game to take things like that seriously. I do like dressing my ’toons up though, it would be great if all armour sets were available to everyone.

Not as a free-for-all, mind you. There should be some fairly rigorous grinding for some form of reputation points in order to make that stuff available. That way when you see a Human or Sylvari in Asuran gear it’s like ‘kitten , that guy is hardcore.’

I’ve been fortunate not to have made any horrible decisions so far, but spending 200+ gold to craft level and outfit a necro is one decision I regret. He looks cool as hell, but isn’t very much fun to play at all.

korelg.7862:

race restrictions on armor are pointless, still thinking inside the current system, there should be a way to get a race’s aproval, so lets say you complete certain achievements and that certain race will accept you in their ranks so you now can wear their special clothes.

a pretty simple system and an extra goal for completionists

Yeah, some sort of reputation system would be amazing. Maybe a combination of map completion and dynamic events around that race’s home city for tokens to ‘unlock’ the vendors.

Apart from the work required to modify each race’s armour for everyone else – which I am certain would be minimal – it’s a win-win. We get more cosmetic options and a proper incentive to do event chains and explore the world.

Xenon.4537:

Everyone knows the implications of cultural armor and how it works. The fact that only human players can wear human cultural armor is part of the game mechanics. The mechanics were designed to give each race an exclusive and distinct visual aesthetic.

It seems like a very dated and unnecessary mechanic, one that was introduced simply because of difficulties encountered in the beta stage. Strange that the clothing is off limits but the weapons aren’t. Here’s hoping this restriction is lifted someday, and soon.

I had an experience like the OP’s in an SE P3 – No stacking, no skipping, and no exploits. We killed everything in that dungeon. Literally. Didn’t leave one single dredge blockade standing, not one. We took the long path down to the bridge and I even heard a few lines of NPC dialogue I did not know existed. It was glorious.

Of course that kind of dungeon run is like taking the scenic route home from work, or preparing a three-course home cooked dinner for a loved one. It’s absolutely brilliant once in a while, but you sure as hell aren’t going to do it every day.

Open world loot is horrible, but temple events in Orr and most dungeons give decent rewards.

With an effective Magic Find of around 180%, using food and an Ascended Trinket, I typically get one rare per dungeon path, sometimes as many as three (It feels just about on par with the rate we get ectos from salvaging). I get quite a few cores and lodestones from champion bags as well.

There is entirely too much junk though. The endless clicketty-click-clicking of sale and salvaging is a real chore.

Got a few keys during the Personal Story quests for my alts, the chests contained mostly junk but there were a few low-value but neat items (Tiger Charr backpack, Makeover kits and Transmutation crystals). Afterward I bought a set of ten keys afterward and didn’t get anything even remotely worthwhile out of the chests. Not worth the cost, imo. Who is buying these things? The chances of getting good loot are low they might as well have keys drop as often as the chests do.

Agreed. It’s simple enough to either check the websites and guest accordingly, or just do the events but the bottom line is that the pre-events don’t really add any value to your playtime.

I’m guessing that this is some sort of necessary control mechanism on ANet’s side though. Can’t have any and everyone running these dungeons willy nilly, exchanging tokens for Rares and flooding the market with ectos.

‘Communist gameplay’. Lol. That tickled me.

g e o.2589:

Just keep your inventory clogged up with armor of different skins and you won’t have to pay to change.

We were kinda expectin’ the wardrobe would solve that problem.

I’m still holding out hope that we can at least pay to unlock some approximation of cosmetic tabs/pages. Wouldn’t expect to get away from the transmutation entirely, but having two or three looks to switch between instantly (and freely) would make a hell of a difference.

Treebeard The Swift.9620:

Actually i’m quite concerned about the impact on the market too. No more buying jormags breath x2 or any other exotic you like the look of. Buy one, arm 8 chars with the same skin after the one purchase. going to be a bit of a surplus of some items on the tp.

I wondered about this as well, I suspect there’ll be a MASSIVE spike in mid-high tier exotic weapon prices following the patch.

Yeah, I can see where you’re coming from with this. Ideally I think this should have been applied to actual skins only, and I’m not really in favour of turning everything into a skin. Some things should be earned – Legendaries and Dungeon gear in particular.

However, I’m still going to make use of the system. I’ve wanted to equip my Mesmer with Lyss for months now but the cost was too prohibitive. Now that I can not only give it to him but have my Thief wield it as well, its a definite buy.

Apart from the problems some people have with the game’s content (simple dungeon mechanics, Living Story etc.), I find that the B2P business model requires a company to frustrate players into making purchases by restricting basic game amenities and quality of life features. Features that a lot of players have come to expect for free (or at least, less money). GW2 is also uncomfortably straddling the line between F2P and Subscription models. A lot of us feel ‘entitled’ to a bit more because we actually spent money on the game.

In addition, the game’s foundation is it’s economy. Everything in GW2 is about money, whether it’s cash for gems, gold or tokens. There’s been a study that shows simply thinking about money tends to put people in a worse mood. So, there’s that too.

Nike.2631:

Well, this change is going to let me get a ton of unused skins out of inventory into a specialized storage, allow my to duplicate my Infinite Light repeatedly at a trivial cost compared to building a second one, Let me use gem store outfits on multiple characters without buying the packs repeatedly, and does a lot of that by converting a low value resource (transmutation stones) into a high value resource (charges).

It doesn’t have to bend over and kiss the players toes/slash ANet’s wrists on RMTs to still be a huge improvement over the current status quo.

I’ll take it as offered. Thanks.

Yeah. I’ll admit that a few of the benefits you outlined will apply in my case. Which is …..nice, I guess? I just feel like a very basic, core function is glaringly absent.

It’s like having a cutting-edge smartphone that is unable to send text messages. Or a microwave that you can’t make popcorn with.

Yup I did, in my very first dungeon run. Literally, everything. As a classically bad ranger I was hopping around with naught but my bow and a leaf covering my behind. Ran out of coin for repairs too, had to have a friend send me some. The run itself took around three hours. Good times.

Silberfisch.3046:

But I think this system is to some degree still pointed at people who don’t change their looks often. Because it takes away the edge off of either loosing expensive stats on an ascended piece of equipment or loosing an expensive skin like infinite light when they wish to switch to something else.

And that’s the inherent flaw in its design, the main purpose of an in-game wardrobe is to facilitate changing your look freely, and often.

Re: 1) A ‘charge to unlock. system still allows long term revenue. It would take the average player months to collect just the skins they want. Then you have to take into account players rolling alts, maybe they’d want completely different looks for them too and hunt down new skins. In addition, there’s new weapon skins released just about every month and armour every 8 – 12 weeks (rough estimate)

Re: 2) I disagree with this as well, players who don’t wish to change their looks often aren’t the target of this system anyway. They can still use the limited transmutation charge if they want, while players who would spend the extra for an unlock appear to be losing out because it isn’t offered.

Based on the previews though, I think unlockable cosmetic tabs would be an ideal solution to this.

I was really expecting something more along the lines of unlockable armor pages. We spend gems to unlock pretty much everything else, I’m actually a bit puzzled as to why this hasn’t been done yet.

Anyway, we would get just the first one for free, and then spend gems to unlock additional pages. The transmutation and skin system would have been exactly the same, but you’d be able to switch your look and/or armor, weapon and trinket stats instantly when not in combat. To my mind, this would have generated additional gem sales and still maintained a bit of a gold sink because we would still need multiple sets of gear. On the upside players get better options for build diversity – there’d be a page for dungeon gear, WvW etc. and would be able to equip different looks for each set.

If I were to include a locker at all, it would be for gem store skins only.

It’s an issue because it is inconvenient. Pretty much every other MMO has a system in place that allows players to store cosmetic looks/armor stats on tabs and switch between them instantly.

I agree we’re jumping the gun here, as it hasn’t been implemented yet – but that fact that this wasn’t mentioned in the preview is troubling.

That was in response to the post before mine. Scroll back up, it’ll make sense.

Yeah, you’re missing the point here. Yes, this update will add a lot of neat options for customization. However, based on the preview it fails as a true wardrobe.

The way wardrobe systems typically work is that they allow players to hot-swap their characters’ looks with ease (usually a single click). For example, in League of Legends each Champion skin you unlock has its own page, before the battle you just click and choose the one you want. In other MMOs (e.g Lord of the Rings Online and Rift), the wardrobe is really just a series of tabs or pages that store armor combinations. You can then click and choose the one you want, instantly changing that character’s look.

Using the bank was always inconvenient because you have to (a) Get to a banker and (b) Manually change each item individually. Bags are bit easier, but you still have to go through point (b). This relative inconvenience causes most players to just choose a look and stick with it.

I have absolutely no problem with ‘paying’ to unlock wardrobe tabs. Even at a few hundred gems per tab/per character. I believe most players feel the same way. But if this is not an option at all, then a lot of us will be missing out on the kind of freedom we were hoping for.