Guild Wars 2

First we need Underflow.

ANET, plz STOP Insisting on using the flawed server concept. It does nothing but segregate players and kill your low level zones.

@GW1: I wanna play Monk, but I don’t want to heal, hurrr hurrrr

OMFG YOU KICKED ME! YOU ARE ENTITLED! OMFG!!!!!

BUT I DON’T WANT YO HEAL! I WANT TO PLAY FIRE MONK!!!! YOU ARE SUCH A HORRIBLE PERSON, END OF THE WORLD, OMFGBBQ!!!!!!1!!1!!!!ONE!!!!

It’s not like Karma is useful unless you’re going for a legendary.

Chrispy.5641:

Horizontal Progression and Hard Mode

- In my opinion, one of the best, easiest ways Anet could add a Hard Mode to the game…..

• Every Player can toggle their own Hard Mode in the Hero Panel.
• Enemies deal 25% more damage to players in Hard Mode.
• Players in Hard Mode deal 25% less damage to Enemies.
• Conditions Inflicted on Players last 25% longer, boons are 25% shorter in Duration.
• Conditions that Players in Hard Mode inflict on Enemies last 25% shorter.
• No other player is affected in any way, because the effects of Hard mode only affect the Players that toggled it. Even if you join an event with 50 other players, the event is more difficult for only you and any other player that toggled Hard Mode, that way, players that don’t want to do it don’t have to.
• If it does need to be more complex than this, add in special conditions enemies can inflict that only affect players in hard mode, (like conditions that lock a player’s ability to dodge, dropping endurance regen to 0, Reversing the effects of damage and healing for a short time, etc.)

- Players that Toggle Hard Mode can get better Rewards anywhere they play in the game……

• Enemies are 25% harder to kill, so you get 25% more Experience.
• 25% more Karma when completing events, 25% more World Experience. 25% more Gold. 25% more Tokens. 25% more of everything. (Shoot…., Anet, give us hard mode in PvP, that should be interesting…..)
• Magic Find should also be increased by atleast 25%.
• Add in Special Weapon and Armor skins that can only be unlocked while playing this mode.

How do we address Normal Mode players helping Hard Mode buddies?

Guardians use the same power Monks used in GW1.

Their prayers to protect their allies are manifest into physical form.

In the case of a Charr Guardian, it would be towards their warband.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Thanks so much for all of your contribution, passion and support.

Chris

ANET colors are red and white…

ANET is wishing us a Merry Christmas…

IT’S A SANTA NORN CONSPIRACY!

Josh Davis.6015:

Friendly neighborhood Grouch here (oxymoron?). Starting in early January I’ll be working more closely with the Skills and Balance team and with you all as well. While our Skills/Balance designers do read the forums quite often, they don’t have as much time to post and drive discussion – and that’s what I’ll be stepping in to help with.

There are a lot of valid concerns with the elementalist right now and we’re going to be working on addressing those points. Once everyone gets back from holiday vacation we’ll be posting up our proposed balance changes and we’ll go from there.

(Please don’t hurt me.)

Hi. Please pay extra care to the ranger forums as well, when re-balancing starts again.

This was hyped up to be the “big” balance patch, and many are disappointed at the overwhelming lack of relevant changes.

Marcello is a pretty funny character. I just wish his name was easier to remember :/

g e o.2589:

Kain Francois.4328:

Eh? But Destiny’s Edge usually have one from every race…

Right now, it’s 2 humans, 1 norn, and 1 charr… We need an asura, and sylvari.

They’re plant people, and another one is always stubborn

SCARLET!!!!!!

Leader of the new Destiny’s Edge!

UMAD?

How do I pronounce Marcello’s name?

Mar-chell-o?

What about Hard Mode dungeons, where resurrections are disabled? Wipe= Game Over.

Imagine Arah like that? It better dang have some awesome rewards…

Eh? But Destiny’s Edge usually have one from every race…

Right now, it’s 2 humans, 1 norn, and 1 charr… We need an asura, and sylvari.

The Lost Witch.7601:

Kain Francois.4328:

Nahh, just joking. Glad to see your morale is high. Hmmm… THAT’S IT!

I have another idea to throw at people… http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Morale_boost

What if slaying a champion increased our HP and Endurance regeneration by 2%, up to 10%, until we die or leave the map? Such a mechanic would be an awesome throwback to GW1 (Fan service!!!), and it would add an interesting sort of progression in open-world PvE.

It would also give players a good reason to slay champions outside farming, and during events like Claw of Jormag.

The mechanic could also be expanded during world events, where players buff themselves to take down bigger foes without being OHKOed.

While I am not sure if it would be worth the effort to kill some champions for the buff (in GW1 a main reason to kill enemies in this manner was to get rid of a death penalty which could be much more impactful than just a 10% boost)….

… the idea of a temporary progression is an interesting one. (Progression that will be taken away when you die/leave the map/do something else)

Edit: Oh right! Merry Christmas!

It could also boost magic find, or something. Something of that nature would certainly promote people to hop off the champ train in FGS and farm mobs, without actually nerfing the train.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I haven’t been able to contribute in this thread because of family engagements (Wife’s Birthday, Preparation for Christmas Day etc). I intend to discuss my personal favorite ideas on the 27th.

We have plenty of time on the thread and it seems that most everyone are enjoying themselves and I am sure we will see some more focused proposals soon.

Chris

Thank you for your contributions so far. And a special thanks to all the organizers as well. This thread truly brings out the heart of the GW fanbase!

Although, Chris, I thought ANET was made of cyborgs, who exist only as a red name on a forum? BACK TO WORK!

Nahh, just joking. Glad to see your morale is high. Hmmm… THAT’S IT!

I have another idea to throw at people… http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Morale_boost

What if slaying a champion increased our HP and Endurance regeneration by 2%, up to 10%, until we die or leave the map? Such a mechanic would be an awesome throwback to GW1 (Fan service!!!), and it would add an interesting sort of progression in open-world PvE.

It would also give players a good reason to slay champions outside farming, and during events like Claw of Jormag.

The mechanic could also be expanded during world events, where players buff themselves to take down bigger foes without being OHKOed.

Could be retconned somewhere in the offices at ANET. Who knows?

On the subject of Voiced Events
Players don’t care about voiceovers for events. And they certainly don’t care about them for dungeons.

In fact, players HATE voiceovers for dungeons, because a character has to speak for 10 god danged minutes about crap we don’t care about. It’s like in modern FPS games when your allies give you some useless information you don’t care, while waiting 20 minutes for the door to open. BLAH BLAH BLAH!

I know this post is a little less constructive, but I want to point out that voice overs do NOT provide more “immersion”. They are a stalling mechanism which halt player progress. Personally, I believe that is NOT fun!

BRING ON THE VOICELESS EVENTS!

Nike.2631:

Kain Francois.4328:

4 great lulz…

Hobo-Sacks
Because they ARE relevant to Horizontal Progression!

I cannot progress my back horizontally on my engineer. PLEEEEAAAAASE REMOVE THEM!

Quote for great justice, because it is kinda frustrating.

I am BEGGING ANET to PLEASE REMOVE THE STUPID HOBOSACK!

Nobody likes them! NOBODY! NOBODY!

It’s been more than a YEAR, and engineers STILL cant use backpacks? The same item type with skins being given out EVERY living story?

It’s not fair to lock us out of an entire part of the game. IT’S NOT FAIR! :’(

4 great lulz…

Hobo-Sacks
Because they ARE relevant to Horizontal Progression!

I cannot progress my back horizontally on my engineer. PLEEEEAAAAASE REMOVE THEM!

Ludovicus.7980:

It wasn’t Abaddon just awakening. His armies were preparing for the invasion for centuries.

So were the dragons. Especially Primordus.

Actually… I can see Sons of Svanir riding Centaurs, since Scarlet pairs unlikely alliances anyways.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Nightfall_%28event%29

So… It seems just by Abaddon merely awakening, the entire world goes to hell as the dimensions themselves begin to twist, and teeth emerge from the grounds.

This is all done while Abaddon is still sealed, as opposed to the Dragons who are limited to physically corrupting only the lands around them.

Are Nightfall and Abaddon STRONGER than the Dragons? I would argue his corruption is much more so.

Spiuk.8421:

Kain Francois.4328:

If Kormir wields Abaddon’s power, then maybe she could redeem herself as a character if she commands over his demon army and titans. What a twist that could be!

Scarlet is more interesting.

Kormir’s army of redeemed margonites seem to disagree with you.

Just call it Jorlag.

We already have something which functions exactly like faction, called “Karma”.

The problem is the fact most karma rewards are either incredibly niche, pointless, or just plain bad.

Plus they need a title track for karma spent…

No Grentches in GW2? Screw the dragons!

I’ll make my own Grentch, with blackjack! And hookers!

New Dailies: Zaishen Quests
I know most players will cringe when I say dailies… But Zaishen Quests from GW1 were an exception. Each day there would be a bounty to slay a particular boss, or clear a particular mission/dungeon, and we would be rewarded with Zaishen coins.

Zaishen Coins were great because they allowed us to purchase ultra-rare item skins, toys, and larger equipment bags.

Unlike GW2, we could repeat them on each character we had; a character time-gate as opposed to an account time-gate. Kinda like the way GW2 use to be.

I don’t see why such a system can’t work for Gw2 either, in order to get players back into more obscure zones.

Earendil Starsailor.4675:

@Kain Francois:

Great list, as long as by RNG you don’t mean via black lion chests. I made a similar point in my post (rare, unique drops that are only available on a certain map). Love the idea of the underflow server.

By RNG, we need rare loot we can sell. Preferably NOT limited by time-gated either.

I don’t see anything wrong with more BL keys dropping from challenging content, either. It would be good for ANET’s profits, since it gives people a taste, to buy more from the gem store.

A Win-Win situation? Perhaps.

Replay Value

So what if a player unlocks an aesthetic? Back in the days of GW1, aesthetics were only as good as the journey they accompanied; they could only be enjoyed if there were content to play through. Be it vanquishing, elite missions, or skill capturing.

Looking back at GW1, there were many goals to achieve after beating the game: Vanquishing, Elite dungeons, Skill Capturing, and Missiong Completion.

What GW2 needs are chhallenges in a similar vein to those things. FoTM and WVW are a start, but here’s my suggestion:

Non-Linear ELITE dungeons.
— UW and FoW for example. They let us complete objectives in any order we want, with lots of backtracking and events.

— Wipe = Boot. Dungeons SHOULD be difficut and challenging, and they SHOULD punish players for losing. This process of trial and error to clear a difficult dungeon is called “horizontal progression”, and it is why UW and FoW were loved so much. I cannot emphasize enough how learning to clear difficult content is itself a form a horizontal progression.

— Likewise, rewards SHOULD reward good players, and SHOULD be worthwhile!

Vanquishing/Area Completion
— Unfortunately map completion wasn’t enough for most players. So what if you turned up the scale? What if we had an “Event” title track attached to clearing EVERY event chain in a zone? As in, what if rather than farming a single event, the title track required players to hunt and clear every single event chain in a zone?

— To keep players coming back, what if repeats rewarded BL Keys, or a shot at ultra-rare skins?

Open-World Dungeons similar to the Tower of Nightmares
— Tower of Nightmares was a remarkable experiment. Why not create a new endgame zone similar to it? An Open World dungeon where you collect key pieces to open a chest at the end, containing a chance at ultra-rare loot, karma, and tokens for a NEW set of armor?

— Warp us back to the start after opening the chest. That way people must redo the dungeon, and help others, instead of camping level 3.

We Need MORE RNG Loot!!!
— I’m going to play devil’s advocate.. We need MORE RNG loot! And NOT accountbound either! We need SELLABLE loot worth 400g! The fact is, in GW1, people loved to run Shards of Orr and Slavers’ Exile because there were high money incentives at the end of it: The chance at a Bone Dragon Staff or Voltiac Spear, both some of the most valuable items in the entire game. The reason we’re not seeing Tequatl run much is because we cannot sell the exclusive items he drops. Allow players to sell their ultra-rare loot, and I predict you will see a significant increase in Tequatl clearing.

Underflow Servers
— I miss the days of release, when I could explore Dredgehaunt Cliffs and call out events for people to join. These days, those maps are abandoned, and it’s not necessarially a gameplay issue either. Fact is, you have too many servers. When I go into Fields of Ruin, there are only 2 other players in that area. However, you also have 24 servers… If you were to move them all into the same map, this would be 48 players instead. Is it fair to divide 48 players into only 2 players each map?

— Developing an underflow server would be beneficial for newbies entering the game, to experience GW2 as it was meant to be experienced when we played it at launch.

— High level players do not do events because they are not rewarding. The events are not rewarding because not enough people are joining. You can break this catch-22 by adding people back to the zone, with an Underflow server.

— Ultimately, the community is the core of any MMO. Without players, your maps are nothing more than empty space. Please bring life back to open world PvE. Please give us underflow servers!!!

If Kormir wields Abaddon’s power, then maybe she could redeem herself as a character if she commands over his demon army and titans. What a twist that could be!

Our range is fine for pve, and I will be kitten ed as hell if they nerf our wand damage.

Guardian is balanced by having slow-moving projectiles.

Zhed kills centaurs all the time. Four legs.

An open letter to Arena Net:
As a dedicated fan of the Guild Wars franchise for 7 years, I’ve spent more than 50 hours a week dedicated to your game, much more than most other activities. It would not be an exaggeration to say Guild Wars was a large part in my upbringing, and even my experience as part of the Test Krewe has taught me many valueable lessons about the industry and life.

Although we’ve had a few “tsundere” love-hate moments over silly things in the past, present, and future to come, regardless, I want to give ArenaNet and its team a heart-felt “thank you” for providing such an amazing experience in my life.

However, the ArenaNet I grew to love established itself upon concepts like Horizontal progression through aesthetics, titles, build-making, and most importantly- depth.

For example, although the max level was 20, players like me were over-joyed by the introduction of heroes, AI companions whom in addition to customizing their appearance, we could customize their builds. I’ve spent THOUSANDS of hours theory-crafting and building unique teams to support one and other. With 1000 different skills to choose from, and 8 different characters to customize at once, there are ENDLESS possibilities of what teams I could make! Every day, I would always come up with a new strategy with my pal, Dunkoro. Please do not underestimate team customization as a form of Horizontal progression!

For others, horizontal progression took form of Skill Capturing, Mission Completion, Cartography, and Mapping. Imagine the thrill of players as they traveled across every reach of Tyia, engaging in epic boss fights, and expanding their collection of skills after emerging victorious? Or how about the sense of accomplishment after rising up to the challenge of Vanquishing Elona?

For others who preferred an even bigger challenge, there were dungeons for players to conquer, and elite missions to chase. Players have fond memories about the Underworld and Fissure of Woe, and that is because they tested players to the limits of skill, rewarding them graciously at the end. Eventually, players developed specialized builds and strategies to more easily clear these dungeons, but keep in mind learning those strategies are itself a form of progression.

Remember, Guild Wars 1 NEVER relied on randomized dungeons like Fractals does in GW2, yet players LOVED the elite zones! The entire point of player skill progression was learning a dungeon and clearing it more and more efficiently each time, as opposed to GW2’s fractals of the mists

Truly, Guild Wars 1 was the pinnacle of horizontal progression. Each individual action taken by a player felt like they had meaning, even if it didn’t directly boost a number on the screen. The loss of such values in GW2 was a saddening blow to us veteran fans of Arena Net.

However, since this is a CDI, perhaps we could discuss implementing such things which made GW1 great, into GW2?

For one, players want skill capturing back. I understand that may require an overhaul to the way the game works, but know what? Go for it.

Skill capturing, if implemented, would require three things:
- A LARGE batch of new skills to acquire
- Unique items dropped by bosses (Think: GW1 greens)
- UNDERFLOW servers!

Imagine a skill capturing system where Champions all over the world rewarded players with skills to cap, and with a chance at rare items? However, for such a thing to be successful, we NEED underflow! 2 players in each map spread across 24 servers are 48 players who could be doing the same event!

And what about reintroducing the Underworld and Fissure of Woe as NON-LINEAR dungeons? What made them so remembered fondly over the other elite dungeons are because they give the player agency to complete quests in any order they liked. Because of this, it gave players room simply to explore and farm, or come up with the best possible order of events to speed clear the dungeon.

Anyways, I don’t have a magical solution, but I do want to point out why us die-hard fans came to love you so much. I cannot emphasize enough how important Horizontal progression means to fans of Guild Wars 1.

I hold your game in a very special place in my heart, so please do not disappoint!

Warriors were actually nerfed this patch. But Rangers still aren’t fixed.

miriya.8496:

Kain Francois.4328:

My bet is that its coming from a female writer…because, well…. Scarlet.

Really? Really? Never mind that the vast majority of these ~stereotypical females~ in media being lamented here are created and designed by men who present women as one-dimensional, skin-flashing walking hormone bags.

No seriously, real talk here. Why would you even assume as much? “Because Scarlet” doesn’t mean a thing.

Yo bro, don’t misquote me.

spoj.9672:

I can assure you everyone I play with just avoids it because of the unskippable cutscenes, stupid puzzle mechanics and poor reward for time. Not because its too hard.

Pretty much this. Even the end chests they hyped up, are pretty stupid.

Why couldn’t they split this between PvP/PvE?

With so many damage nerfs, hammer is now kinda useless in dungeons, especially since this is a game where developers make bosses immune to its mechanics (Defiant).

Not to mention, that nerf to burst mastery REALLY hurt Warrior as a whole.

This isn’t the first thread about him.

He’s getting famous!

f2 skills shouldn’t be an issue, even with delayed responsiveness.

Jaguar and Raven f2 skills are an example of good skills. They require LITTLE animation, and they simply work.

The key term here is LITTLE animation. For something as unresponsive as pet f2, there is no reason why we should be having things like a 2s wolf howl.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I play a PVT AOE Heal shout War. I have played this role fora long period of time and have never played a DPS War. On top of this I am also easily able to hold agro and support my group. My DPS is terrible but I keep my team alive while they run around destroying everything (-:

Chris

Maybe you’re just testing us, but I’ll give it a shot anyways..

There is a massive dispiarity in the efficiency of offensive roles and defensive roles in GW2. In fact, most people who claim to run PVT “Tank” in GW2 dungeons are usually kicked and laughed at.

Firstly, let me make a distinction: There is nothing wrong with running survivability.

Sets like Valkyrie and Knights are actually common sets welcome into most groups. Their ability to provide offense while also providing defense is what makes them so great, and they hold a comfy place in most players’ hearts. To a limited extent, Rabid (Condi, Prec Tough) is also a decent set with survivability

Their efficiency lies in two key factors: Critical Damage, and Precision. The former is key to damage, while the latter is necessary to trigger many traits and sigils.

However, PVT is a set which provides neither of those. You’re saying it is within your own game’s mechanics to provide a support role instead, so mind clarifying?

Could you explain to me how you’re magically able to “hold” enemy agro and prevent their attacks from hitting other members? Against things like Archdiviner, Subject Alpha, and the Bloomhunger, where their attacks are mostly AoE, your claim really doesn’t make sense.

I suppose you can “hold” the Butcher’s agro in HoTW P1, but since his attacks are melee AoE, what purpose does “tanking” serve if it doesn’t actually prevent damage against allies?

What support does a PVT provide that someone more offensive cannot?

As for shout healing, granted, it’s not a bad build. However, healing only 3k HP every 20 seconds really isn’t something to boast about either, especially in a game where bosses hit for 5k HP. What exactly does this mitigate?

Chris, with all the best regards for the well-being of this game, I would like to run Arah P4 with you, and see if your claims are true.

Even as a bug, Longbow was still inferior to other weapons. Sad, but true.

On the time-gated content/rewards + Laurels!

I’ll let Extra Creditz do the talking:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQtFo_E_Ea0

Is the goal to be good design, or to be habituate design?

Vertical Progression and its compatibility with Horizontal progression:

As we have seen with the success of Achievement Points and Magic Find Luck, the most well-recieved vertical progression in this game, are those which do not impact our combat stats.

Perhaps introduce something like permanent reduced waypoint costs?

Looking back at GW1, it featured cool title tracks such as Lightbringer, which helped us fight against Margonites exclusively in the endgame zones. Perhaps a similar mechanic as well, where the more Icebrood we kill, the higher the kitten track?

Scarlet being an elder dragon would actually be a cool twist. I wouldn’t mind having a sentient elder dragon as an up-close antagonist, though they better not mess it up.

++++Coolness for the Power Rangers SNES music. Gawd, I LOVED that game!!!

Some exec calling the shots really seems to like hobosacks…

Actually, I’m somewhat optimistic for 2014.

Yes, it’s true the Scarlet Arc sucked, but it seems they’re finally starting to piece things together.

Tower of Nightmares left me impressed, and I’d like to see some new endgame content with a similar design.

But first, we need underflow!

Spirits are a great mechanic done horribly wrong though. That 10 second effect recharge for something only alive 10 seconds is awful.

Send me a mail ingame. Kain Francois

Tarnished Coast if you like role-playing. Also has nice champ-train population.

I remember it was officially confirmed Engineers WILL get hammers at some point.

I can’t decide whether to get Mjolnir or Juggernaut for my Sylvari Engineer! Q_Q