Guild Wars 2

bwillb.2165:

Erix.6987:

Agreed!

I’m honestly not sure why this wasn’t included on day one, considering it was not only successful in GW, but it was also very desired by the community.

It basically tosses PvE v. PvP balance tension right out the window.

I’m sure we would all love an official statement on why this was not added, and if it is ever going to be added or not.

Only reasons I can think of is that they were either lazy on the skill implementations or rushing to get the game released sooner. That feature should definitely be in.

I believe it was actually an intentional design decision. I don’t recall were exactly, but Anet stated this in some article/interview/blog before the game’s release (before the BWEs too, I think).

If I recall, the reasoning was that what players learn in PvE should apply to PvP. That you shouldn’t have to learn two different styles of fighting with the same setup of weapons and skills.

Personally, I disagree – I think this is a near impossible goal unless the AI is as good as at least above average players. Anet has this hubris about certain design aspects to the game, and they’ve convinced themselves they can solve the PvE/PvP dichotomy with enough “iteration”. Maybe somewhere in the vast multi-variable space of solutions it exists, but I doubt it.

In the meantime its just going to drive players away to have their gameplay effected by a fundamentally different part of the game getting re-balanced.

I’d support this if it was optional and if they let the female characters wear the male versions of their armors (obviously with slight modifications for body shape changes), then and only then would it be acceptable.

However, the sexism in a lot of the female versions of armor is too much already. Adding in something as terrible as high heels would make it worse, unless there was a credible option to have sensible shoes/boots alternative skins.

Currently, most of the less-bad sexist armors are only low level, and fairly bland (in terms of textures and detailing). Lack of “sexy” armor for females is not a problem – see most any high level set. For example, the tier 3 human medium – basically Vegas hooker uniform.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

omino.4302:

Any plans for more medium skins in future? those big coats are vile

I can’t speak for art, but if you wanna see an epic sweet big coat for LIGHT armor, the GW1 HoM light armor reward is pretty big and coat-y.

Too bad this is only available for male characters, and not female. The female version is the most wasp-waisted, uncomfortable looking corset thing in game. Perhaps you can mention this to the art team that the light greatcoat epic-ness needs to be more equally available?

ounkeo.9138:

There are different types of fitness. Look at people who do cross training which is more similar to what our toons would be subjected to. They are typically of the lean variety. Muscle yes, but very lean and generally small in size.

Those muscle bound beefcakes you see on TV and walking around are bulking up in the gym. The guys who participate in iron man competitions are typically leans because they are acclimatized for endurance. You only really bulk up doing heavy weights in a controlled setting.

If you read books on Special Forces/Special Operations, you will see that during long operations in the field, they usually come back much leaner, lighter than when they first started. If you look at pictures of special forces in the field for long periods of time, you see most of them are extremely slim and not bulky at all. See SAS, there are a lot of pics of them in the field.

Likewise look at female runners, lot of muscle, very cut, but very lean to the point of skinny.

The problem with this argument is that the females are skinny and the males are the beefcakes on TV you talk about. If the “they should all be lean” argument was the motivating factor behind Anet’s decision, it would apply equally to the male and female models, yes?

There are two main issues with the female models imo.

One – the legs are too skinny. The muscle bulk and definition on the upper torso is decent in many of the human and norn models, but their legs are like chopsticks in comparison. Yes, a few female athletes have skinny legs, but many have much leaner and muscular legs. And the calf definition is terrible. Anyone doing a lot of the acrobatic style combat most of our characters do need better defined calves.

Two – allow breast size selection. Breast sliders generally don’t work out well. What Anet needs to do is have a cup size selector (because different sized breasts don’t usually have the same shape – thus breast sliders tend to look weird outside of a narrow range)

Pretty simple, give us a deterministic path to unlock sPvP skins and buy other rewards. Either make the items available on the appropriate tier vendor (for a cost something like chest cost * rarity (function of probability of getting said item) * some markup for non-random, say 150%?) or make the crafting components buyable.

If PvE karma rewards worked the same way, players would be howling. If they went to buy their exotic sets and only had a random chance to get them (already see the fury over legendary precursor lottery grind). Or if you had to turn in dungeon tokens only to get a chance for the armor/weapon you wanted?

If sPvP is supposed to be about player skill, why is it one player who gets a lot of glory may not get the item he or she wants, and some other player with less glory to spend might just lucky? That’s hardly a reward system.

I get tons of X finishers. I have no desire to use them, ever. Other players may love them – and maybe they’re not getting enough to satisfy their desires, but getting other rewards they don’t want. Just let us choose. Sure, keep chests for rank rewards, tournaments, and even for those that like to gamble – just give the rest of us a deterministic path.

So, either make the items directly purchasable, or making all the crafting components purchasable. I keep getting mostly dust and barely any of the other components.

Also, side suggestion – make the PvP locker a true unlocking system, not a 1 per piece storage. Ie if you put an item into the locker, it is consumed and you can pull out as many (non-salvageable) copies as you like. You could remove the zero cost vendors as well, and just make the basic equipment, runes, amulets pre-unlocked in the locker.

Anet just needs to add an option for the “feminine” and “masculine” version of every armor for either sex, and for all races, not just asura. If the male version has a shirt and pants, let the females wear it as well, or choose the revealing skirt and hose if that’s their thing. And, I suppose, if you’re in to it, let the men wear the dresses as well.

So long as its equal. Unless it is, I can’t endorse any more chauvinistic armor designs, its bad enough as it is. Things may be better from GW1, but its like saying its the least bad flu of all the ones to get, its still bad.

I agree there should be a split, for all the reasons above. Basically, PvE and PvP have fundamentally different tactics. PvE difficulty comes mainly from upscaling mob health, damage, and generally “broken” skills (ie overpowered – as in you would never give such skills to players).

PvP is about being on a equal (character ability-wise) playing field, and skills designed to deal with overpowered mobs are poorly designed for PvP.

I suspect MF actually acts as a bonus to your loot table roll, rather than multiplying a chance directly. Eg imagine a D&D style loot table (very simplified example) randomly generating a value between 1-100%:

1-50% nothing
51-80% common loot
80-98% fine
98.1-99% masterwork
99.1-99.9% rare
100% exotic (ie 1 in a 1000 in this simplified example)

And the MF adds to the roll, say turning a 40% roll with X% MF into 51%. But I suspect its also not a linear bonus – the more MF the less the actual addition to the role (ie 100% MF does not add 100 to the roll, otherwise would always result in exotic).

MF is not a stat I care for, I’d prefer to kill mobs faster with other stats. But I just made a level 40 set with power/MF just because claws were cheap and put it on a secondary character. After 20 kills, I had a marked increase in masterwork and rares, and the whole next day’s daily gave me probably twice the total MW and rare’s I had gotten since the game released, with only a +5% MF. Could be because that character is on my second account, which atm I only do the dailies and then switch to my main account. (ie its definitely not hitting any DR)

I’m not the first to bring up these problems, but I think too much of the discussion centers around supply/demand , which I think is overly simplistic and while a problem, not the underlying problem. While I have a few partial suggestions, none of them are a solution in themselves (ie they are not complete suggestions, and thus I don’t really think belong in the suggestions forum). Mostly I’d like to know Anet’s thinking on these issues, and in a more detailed way than the usual hand-wavy explanations.

Fine Material Gating:
Most seem to agree that these materials are in undersupply in ratio to recipe needs of common materials. Even the non-node materials like leather and cloth can be farmed faster than the needed fine materials. (Personally, I haven’t had issues with leather and cloth, Imo their shortage relative to ore/wood is significantly due to players not salvaging enough – ie all that crap selling for vendor + 1 on the TP)

However, I think supply/demand for fine materials is more of a symptom rather than the underlying issue. Its that they are required for crafting progression in the first place. Which is linked into the “baked in” stat gear we’re forced to craft, instead of blank non-stat’d versions. It boggles my mind that Anet so quickly ignored/forgot the lesson of Nightfall with insignias and inscriptions. But the baked in stats are integral to the system behind the second problem…

Discovery System isn’t discovery:
Don’t get me wrong, the concept is great, but the implementation is meh. Like several of Anet’s attempts to boldly innovate, it got iterated down to something overly simple and not too different from the MMO mainstream. Discovery has a very basic pattern:

Tier X subcomponent A + Tier X subcomponent B + Tier X Fine Material = Tier X component w/ +stats of fine material

Its not discovery, its pretty routine. Its actually tedious and more annoying to have to drag 3-4 items over to “discover” something than to repeatedly hit the craft button in another MMO. Its grind that has been dressed up, and the dressing actually makes the grind worse.

So, what we have is a crafting system mechanistically like most other themepark MMOs, but with a side system, discovery, which actually makes the grind worse, not better as intended.

I don’t claim to have the solution, though I have some general ideas of the direction. Discovery, it seems to me, should be a mini-game that represents/simulates the character learning things, not the player applying a rather simple formula. The mini-game doesn’t need to be complex itself, but should have some element which is dynamic enough to make it interesting from “discovery” to “discovery” and not repetitively formulaic as it is now. Of course, figuring out what a good mini-game is the reason, in theory, I pay Anet money for their product.

There are other elements, which can be introduced a bit at a time, that could really let Anet turn what is a pretty meh MMO crafting system into something more interesting. Like blank stat items and insignias as upgrades. A blueprint system that let you craft any lower level crafted skin as a higher level armor. Eg seeker blueprint + higher tier subcomps = higher tier seeker armor – but maybe integrate this into whatever discover mini-game might be created. Or allowing the crafting of salvage kits and gathering tools (these are not actually gold sinks, since they add more value to the economy than they remove).

In short, bandaging the current system with supply/demand tweaks won’t help. If there are not the resources to give crafting a real makeover, focus on the rest of the game and leave the economy to go as all themepark economies go – a place to sell loot. (insert pun about salvaging the system…)

Definitely make them account bound and re-stackable back to their original max. If I have 4 copper pickaxes from one toon, and 10 on another, it’d be great to able to pass them along as 14 pickaxes to a lower level alt.

While it shouldn’t be a high priority to add, I also agree. Its a bit jarring to go to character selection and suddenly see the ugly headwear I currently have hidden. Plus, I find I tend to strongly identify my characters by their hair.

I think you are missing a core part of the OP’s argument.

Say there are friends A, B, C, D, and E. They’re played MMOs together in the past and want to run dungeons together. However, being human, they all have different preferences in what dungeon set look they like. A likes the Ascalonian, B likes Caud, C likes the Twilight set, etc.

However much grind it takes to get a set, they’ll have to do it 5 times over, each getting a full set of tokens for 4 dungeons they don’t want sets from. The only alternative is for the friends not to run the dungeons together – but its what they like to do. So, likely, they move on to another game.

Keeping the DR system secret is just Security through Obscurity, which really doesn’t work. The people that want to exploit and not enjoy the game are going to test and probe the system and likely figure out a pretty good model of what you’re doing, and figure out an optimal strategy against it anyway, if possible.

Now, I’m not saying detail it in full publicly, but the more informed eyes on your system, the more likely some honest players will report to you a potential loophole, which I guarantee exploiters won’t.

You might want to do something like have a dungeon’s window, which tells you what reward you can expect if you complete a dungeon in the next hour or so.

I doubt the devs will go for a single currency, but I could see a hybrid system. A dungeon could reward both its specific token plus a new generic dungeon token. Dungeon sets would cost a few dungeon specific tokens plus a larger amount of the generic tokens.

For example, a weapon that costs 300 of a specific dungeon token would instead cost say 60 dungeon specific tokens and 240 generic tokens. These are just example numbers, could weight it differently. Would also require a forced conversion of all old tokens into the appropriate split of specific/generic tokens (with my example, it would be 100 current = 20 specific and 80 generic, but again, just as an illustrative example).

I see where the OP is coming from. I’ll do all the dungeon paths eventually, just because its content, may even repeat the ones I like or have friends who want to repeat them. But I care for very few of the dungeon reward skins – like 1 light set, maybe 2 of the mediums, and only 1 heavy – and just a couple of the weapons. So, for me, most of the tokens I earn will be useless.

I have completed maps and not gotten the stones, but a different random consumable available in the gem store. I guess I am the lucky winner of some obscure bug.

As of saturday, the bug still seemed in effect. However, sunday I managed to get my 100k all in one zone (Harathi Hinterlands) without any instance change. It took about 3.5 hours of playing plus one little trick.

I started at 6pm eastern with my daily not yet started, played for ~1.75 hours to get the daily, took a short break at keyboard staying logged in and waited for 8pm eastern to roll by (the daily reset) then played for another ~2 hours finishing a second daily (with a short meal break, again at the computer). Went from a little ways into level 37 to just shy of level 41 to get the full 100k. The 2 dailies accounted for about 1/3 of the xp, the rest came from events, hearts and exploration (the zone was mostly undiscovered when I started).

A couple of issues with the Heritage light armor:

The female Heritage Pants (actually a dress…) severely clips with weapons/offhands (first image). Moving the sheathed weapons further out will probably clip with the hands – I think the only fix for this is to reduce the volume of skirt itself – it is pretty big in the first place, makes the waist look too narrow imo anyway (sorry to offend the corset and hoop dress crowd). A more radical solution is just give the females the pants the men get

In a much more specialized case, both the Heritage Masque and Baroque Mask have severe clipping issues with the shortest of the female human hair styles (second two images). In fact, I think this short hair style has issues with a lot of head pieces that only partially cover the face. At least for the Heritage Masque, I think a possible fix is to flip it left to right, since the hairstyle leaves the other side of the face more uncovered (if such a specialized fix is possible).

I’ll just throw in one very minor art request which isn’t a priority at all, but is there a chance we could have our hide head-piece/shoulders preference carry through to the character select screen?

Two commodities out of how many is not representative. If anything, the ore prices show the economy is significantly messed up when lowest tier of ore is the most expensive – probably because most people are farming in higher level areas, but may not be only now starting to craft. Let’s face it, most crafting demand is just for the purpose of grinding up to 400 to make end game items, mostly just for yourself and friends.

Take a look at any of the goods produced from these ores, they barely sell above their vendor price.

What is up with all the sky-can-fall-at-any-moment inflation hawks? Have you looked at the trade house prices? The GW2 economy is nowhere near inflation, it is under severe deflationary pressure (both an oversupply of goods and under supply of currency).

And when we talk about inflation, you have to ignore the few super high priced, rare items when the vast majority of goods are selling barely above their artificial lower limit.

Economists don’t look at the latest auction price of a Picasso and claim an economy is suffering inflation. You have to look at the broad base of goods being traded.

Sparkie.3465:

It also sounds like you’re trying to make it easier to get the max-level transmute stones. I’m pretty sure that they want you to spend some real money to get that privilege. Thus this would likely undercut the whole purpose of the max-level transmute stones as a funding mechanism. Less funding for Anet -> less skins for the future to transmute onto stuff.

On my walk home, I figured out what you meant by this. I was focused on the gem store costs, which with my example numbers would have kept the level 80 transmutation costs the same, slightly increased the costs for 60-79, and lowered the costs for lower level items.

But what you’re saying, outside of the gem store, the current in game sources of basic stones would be giving you 75% of a fine stone. This is true, but then I was only giving an example set of numbers. While I’d like it to be as fine grained as possible, you could imagine a slightly less linear progression.

Again, say 1 fine stone = 8 pebbles. It might cost 1 pebble for items level 1-19, 2 pebbles for 20-39, 3 pebbles for 40-59, 4 for 60-79, and then 8 for level 80.

nachtnebel.9168:

I think waypoint (and repair) costs are fine, every MMO needs gold sinks to keep the eco healthy.

Wait, what healthy economy? You mean the incredibly deflated economy that currently exists? Where ~95-8% of items on the trade house are valued at vendor price + a few coppers at best? (and that only because the vendors are propping up the minimum price) A little coin inflationary pressure would be good I think.

I think the costs need to be lowered some, and there be a clear cost structure. In-zone teleports should be significantly lowered and scale a lot more with distance. its ridiculous that the cost to go to the nearest WP is nearly the same as the WP across the map, just over in the next zone. Combined with a zone wide event announcement system, you’d probably get more people showing up at events.

Between zones, I can understand a decent cost to the higher level areas, but anything under level 40 should be cheap, regardless of distance.

Sparkie – First, how am I trying to make it easier to get max level stones? The gem cost would be the same for level 80 items and the basic stones would be removed from the store since you would just buy bundles of “pebbles”.

Second – how are people (well, the two examples so far in this thread) getting so many basic transmutation stones? I’ve only gotten 3 for any city complete and 3 for Shaemoor, but not other zones – is it I’m not getting very lucky on the “here’s your random store consumable” rolls? And why would you let that many accumulate under the proposed system (note, as I said in the beginning, my numbers don’t have to be the exact new system, just something graded).

Kylania – I too craft my armor when needed. But, loot vs crafted really isn’t the issue. Crafted gets you a new suit every 5 levels, though sometimes with not good stat distributions in the first part of a new tier. My main issue is a lot of the mid-level 40-60 gear I find ugly, and I have a relatively few stones. Of course, I’m probably not in the mainstream, since I like more realistic sets (eg I find the Krytan weapon set the best looking overall – except the focus, that’s awful). But everyone has their own tastes and allowing more options by grading the stone cost by level ranges would I think actually promote stone sales. Unless of course its just the case I’m unlucky and everyone else is sitting on hoards of them, thus no one is bothering to buy the basic stones at all…

@Weirwynn – I’ve only gotten transmutation stones for city map completion, 3 per city, so that would be 15 at most. Other maps give me random stuff. Head piece I consider optional, shoulder’s not so much, so that’s maybe 3 sets of armor.

Also not sure I buy this new armor only every 10 levels argument. I get tons of incremental upgrades via drops – not every last one needs to be transmuted, but I would be more willing to spend on stones if they were made more fair to lower level items.

Also, its not an issue of being a reward, rather whether players feel like they are getting value for their money.

I third this. For all the good effort Anet has put into karma, dungeon tokens, etc – the random map rewards really stick out as bad. Given they are one time rewards, there should be more choice involved. I don’t think the game needs to be burdened with more token types, but maybe a choice between whatever random crap is rolled up and karma or even a few store gems – honestly, the way to get people to buy from the store is not given them a random sampler of boosts from it, which they may not want. Rather get them to make that first purchase itself, even if the gems were partially given (the first hit is free )

While transmutation is not the ideal appearance system(*), I have one suggestion to make it better, or at least better with non-80 items. Very early on, there were many different grades of transmutation stones (tin, iron, etc) for different level items – I can understand wanting to simplify, but I think just 2 types inhibits the basic stone use for anything lower than say 60-79 items.

I’d suggest a new type of stone to replace both current ones, call it a pebble for the sake of clarity, doesn’t have to be the real name. Basically, 1 Fine Stone = 8 pebbles, or Basic = 6 or 7 (just as an example). Sell the pebbles for the equivalent cost of the fine stones, eg 40 (5 × 8 ) for 200 gems.

It would take 8 pebbles to transmute a level 80 item, 7 for a 70-79, 6 for 60-69,…, 1 for 1-19 (I doubt many people want to transmute 1-10, but hey). It wouldn’t change the economics of the fine stones at all, but I bet it would encourage a lot more transmutation at the lower levels. Plus, those that aren’t rushing to 80 can feel like they are getting an appropriately weighted value on stones. It doesn’t have to be these exact numbers, but something graded (even slightly non-linear) I think would be a big improvement.

(*) – honestly, the best appearance system would be an appearance tab, like in EQ2 or SWG. It’d basically be another “town clothes” type slot, only for combat appearance. You could still monetize it by say requiring stone to flag a piece of equipment before it can go into the appearance slots.