Guild Wars 2

Those not at Dry Top and Silver Wastes in vanila areas that have not been upgraded tend to lack any meaningful rewards.
Their primary reward would have been the Karma you gain, but as we all know, it currently has little value…

I totally agree with any new animation into the game, even if it’s just an RP/immersion flavor like being able to sit on chairs.

However I believe that we’ll sooner see a /facepalm animation, than having A-net investing any manpower improving any underwater aspect.

This and costume potions tab.
I already began deleting/destroying these things to make bank space!

I approve!

I feel like I was expecting a letter from Santa and just to find out I was on the naughty list…
No mail for me :_(

“Conditions in PVE” is a black spot in the game. One that we haven’t heard any plans of fixing it.

Did anyone expected them to stop?
I’ll create a dozen my self if there is a chance of putting it higher in their priority list.

If it is anything like the SW then:

• Free roaming trash mobs will still be dropping loot.
• It would only effect the mobs tied to events, where they them selfs drop nothing and the event it self gives you the appropriate rewards.

This would discourage over-scaling an event with zergs to get seas of loot.
The free roaming trash mobs aren’t zergable, so since they give loot they would still reward exploration, but at the same time could not be exploited.

I’m totally in for it!

• First Person Camera: When using the grenade kit it causes unbearable camera shaking.
• First Person Camera: When Zooming in to the character, whatever kit an engineer might wear will remain visible.
• First Person Camera: When Zooming out, it will cause the back item to appear, even if you wear a Kit.

Most of these were obviously found out while using the Grenade kit.

• Hear voice cues from human players all over the map.
• Loading screen get shrinked a bit.

These were verified from other comments here.

My wish is for the Character display page to change in ANY way so I wont have to be blinded by that white fond every time.
More information would be just a bonus.

The base lords don’t need to have many mechanics.
They just need to keep the enemy Zerg busy for when player reinforcements arrive.
To do that they need to scale with the enemy zerg, so they won’t fall in less that 30 seconds, but at the same time, they don’t need to do to much special skills, as the enemy players will be fighting other players at the same time.

Besides that, I’m ALL IN for mechanics. The game must be getting harder the further you push into enemy territory, so the matches wouldn’t be one sided. Having a few traps that would benefit more the faction they are closser to is a nice way to do that.

Bases with strategic advantages such as specific mechanics could present some strategic decisions to be made.

I DID test EotM for some hours before it’s release (though I think we were mostly stress testing), and at the time I loved how diverse and rich in mechanics the map was. While testing however nether did I nor ,most likely, anyone ales checked the map for exploits on the scale it’s being used now! We where mostly exited in the idea of exploring some new areas in years.

If I remember correctly, when we tested the map, we had a separate client and forum page for it. It’s been a long time, but I think we got in because my guild was in good terms with A-net or something, and handed over invitations to the guild members.

At the time, my criticism (among other minor mechanicky stuff) was the map not being part of the original 4 where we have 3 identical copy-pasted borderlands.
Now after having played it a bit more, I think it’s no-consequence nature makes players not taking the map seriously and simply use it as a farming zone, it’s labyrinthine nature makes it very hard to traverse, and it suffers pretty much from all the same problems the other maps have where there is little to no benefit to defend (or do anything ales on that map for that mater) and organize.
Sorry, but I couldn’t foresee how the map would end up in the few hours I invested on it.

Of course I’m one of those bizarre people who hate mindless Zerging from base to base, especially in WvW, and hoped that the new mechanics would encourage some people to play defensively.

I hope you like reading…
Here is mine.

• Are there going to be any new animations or emotes?
• The late areas and final fight of the original release where borderline unfinished, while the Personal Story had more lows than highs. Are there any plans to fix them?
• How many new maps actually are there?
• The story of HoT seems to follow exactly where the living world left off. Are there any plans to help new players follow/play the story so far, besides retrospective videos?
• The current PVE suffers greatly from a justified overuse of the Beserker stat combination (Glass Cannon). Are there any plans to promote diversity? If yes how are they planning to deal with the Light Armoured classes.
• There have been absolutely no mention of dungeons in the expansions. And the current ones kind of suffer. Are there any plans to introduce new dungeons or fix the old ones?
• How many stages will actually support the announced new PVP mode? Any plans for more PVP game modes in future patches?
• Is there any update on their engine? Will it run better on rigs with multiple cores?

zenleto.6179:

Azrael.4960:

oh come now, it’s obvious people want

1. Mounts.
2. Capes
3. Land spears.
4. A bazillion new maps
5. Quaggan/Tengu/Kodan/Skritt/Hylek playable races
6. Raids.
7. An end to zerkers.

(did I miss anything?)

Trinity. Or is that part of an end to zerkers?

Eliminating the zerker problem doesn’t necessary mean that the game will get the holy trinity.
If there is no mechanic for dedicated healing, and the enemy AI can’t get agroed by a single player, the trinity wouldn’t work no mater how much defense and Healing power a profession might have.
IMO the Zerker problem can be solved with Scenarios where being a Glass Cannon will work at your disadvantage, buy having enemies punishing overdamaging (instead of the current opposite system where they have timers), or putting players in hazardous situations that they can’t avoid by dodge-rolling.
The best way to do that is to have properly designed dungeons, but We haven’t heard about that in years.

What the guy missed is:
8. More emotes

And my personal input is:
9. Less item overload.

How about a compromise.

Lets see how many Mastery points a mastery will cost as Account-Bound. (lets say 100)
Then turn it Character-Bound and have it cost half of those points (50).
Then have every time an alt attempts to learn a mastery that another character already knows, it will cost half of the last time. (from 25 to 13 to 7 to 4 to 2 to 1 and stuck there.).
The total grind required will be almost the same. You might want to learn a different mastery to an alt, and have it be cheaper afterwards for your main that might not have that many points left.

Or alternatively they could make it free to learn any mastery you’ve already learned once, but instead hide the trainer and/or have some special event to “win his trust” or something, to keep the Metroidvania challenge active!

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

BunjiKugashira.9754:

Ah right, for all those Altoholics crying: Let’s make everything account bound!

Ascended Armor = account bound
Armor/weapon skins = account bound
Dyes = account bound
Commander Title = account bound
WvW rank = account bound
Achievements = account bound
Currency = account bound

Does the game suffer from it? No.
/argument

The difference with those is that they aren’t such a big part of gameplay.

The clossest thing to be account bound an also be part of gameplay is the Ascended armour and it’s Stat combinations, and it actually DOES cause problems.
They are very hard, expensive and time consuming to make/find, thus they have this “account bound” status… BUT it’s also a big pain to swap them to other characters, as you have to remove them from yours, bank them up, withdraw them with the other character, change whatever runes need changing, ???, profit!
I would rather have cheaper-faster ascended items, for all of my characters, than having to swap the same gear around with 2 other characters whenever they need them!

Making things Character-Bound isn’t a disability.
It’s a trade-off!

I give up!
See you guys at the review scores!

How many alts do you people have?
I don’t want to be rude, but having 12 alts in any MMO is not exactingly normal.
My cousin was playing WoW from launch for more than 8 years continuously and still plays whenever a new expansion comes up, and he still only manage to level up and gear properly 6 of them!.. IN 8 YEARS!

You people having so many alts was the game’s fault at launch for not having enough end-game content. But if you start whining about every single progression mechanic becoming account-bound the game will never get it! The process of the game that will suffer the most and become the most grindy and mindless would be the process of making new characters!!!
Instead, making the Masteries Character bound would mean much less grind for the individual, and the option for more strategic decisions for the alts!

IMO, A-nets biggest mistake was to put the idea of account bound masteries in your heads so early in the first place!

You people do understand that turning some Masteries into Character-bound also mean that their respected required grinding would also be balanced down...

I have no intention to give us more grind!
That would be ridiculous!

I only ask to make the process of discovering the masteries to uncover the next area repeatable. I would understand if it was some trait that would only effect combat, or some other update that increases the magic-find (like the paragon points on Diablo3) or whatever… I wouldn’t want to grind for those ever again!
But in THIS, the mare process of unlocking the abilities to discover your new way could be GAMEPLAY, that would be a shame not to bee repeatable! Turning Masteries into a build would also give some more identity to a character!

…or at least some of them!

Watching the latest Point of Interest, I realized that Masteries are indeed a way to provide “Metroidvania” exploration to the world, as the community has speculated.
I love those games!
I play them over and over again!

However, making the Masteries account-bound instead of Character-bound kills any replayability this type of exploration might have. The joy of slowly unlocking the map, carefully choosing the right skill to learn next and investing on a different path than the last play-through, is half the fun in those games.
With Masteries being account-bound, this can be experienced only once! The only other way to re-experience this would be to create a new account!

I suggest 4 options!

1. Make all Masteries Character-bound, and reduce whatever grinding they might need by a third. (easy but flawed solution)
2. Seperate the map-progression Masteries from those that function as services, easter-egg (and the player could easily bypass the CB restriction by logging to an alt). The first type will require fewer Mastery points and would be character bound, while the second would be much more expensive, but will be included on all characters.
3. Seperate both the Mastery Currencies and Mastery Types! Explorable Mastery Currencies would be character bound and would only effect masteries that help you reach unreachable areas, While Convenience Mastery Currencies would be account bound, and would offer convenience and Easter eggs to all characters!
4. Have the mastery points be account-bound, but hide the mastery teachers instead.

Closing…
Please turn the Aspect skills of Dry Top into an early Mastery, and just have it be unlocked for existing players at expansion’s launch. It will be weird having a character encounter and by instinct use this weird foreign platforming art like a master, and yet he’ll have to train in order to jump on a mushroom.

silvermember.8941:

First world problem. Worrying about a product for a company you own no part of.

Why are you worried about the expansion not being X. You act like worrying about it is going to have an impact on X happening or not.

When I’ve bought the game, spend my spare time for 3 years playing it, bought prepaid cards and bothered to follow it’s lore, then I made some sort of investment on it.
It’s not as much about money, as it is about time. More like the investment you make when building something as a hobby and then fear that it might start coughing oil and die.

Arena-net are experts when it comes to making poorly thought decisions and abandoning promising ideas, so a thread like this might help pinpoint their weaker aspects before a Beta has even started!

I don’t know how it didn’t cross my mind until now…
The Ascended quality products got introduced into the game because they were harder than exotics to get, and as the trinkets, necklaces and earrings came to be, and so the laurels! A currency that the only way to gain access to enough of it, was by doing the daily quest for a month.

In the recent Log-in reward system upgrade, laurels are given for free…
All you have to do to get ascended stuff is log-in for a month and voila! You got your self an ascended.
Why would you even bother to hunt or buy an exotic trinket, if in a month an ascended will be given to you by doing nothing…

As we old gamers know, things can go wrong with a game, and usually the stuff we haven’t see or tried before it’s release end up being the weak links that make a game suck.

What aspect of HoT, mentioned or yet unmentioned, is your biggest worry?

Let me start by giving an example.
I Seriously worried abut:

1. Much of the actual “new” content ending up being stuff we’ve already seen in Living world. Especially in S2, we’ve experienced a lot of new map types and enemy variety, so… What if those great episodes where originally intended to be part of the expansion, but in order to reach the player demands for living world quality, they where cut-off and given early. The new content might end up being anticlimactic, and that bad live-gameplay actually scared me a lot by looking a LOT like Drytop and Silver Wastes.
2. There have been No mention of Dungeons! At all! Will there be any! Will they fix the old ones? Will they replace the old ones? Or will they abandon the concept all together? Personally, I’m all for replacing the old ones and adding some sign of progression, but I fear for the worst.
3. What balance changes are they planning for the existing problems? Will there be any core changes to the usefullness of the atributes in PVE? Will conditions and healing become a decent build? Will we stop being overflown with items of little value?
4. The adventure I saw in that bad live-gameplay reminded me a lot of a Classic MMO quest. Aren’t we supposed to get away from those?

Tell your’s people!
Perhaps A-net will hear them and put them to rest, or take them into account before it’s release release.

Tharomir.6985:

If the mastery system makes exploration like a Metroidvania game, I will preorder it.

Even if it did become like that, You’ll be able to play it only once!

Personally I’m all for making the Mastery system Character-bound instead of account-bound, and THEN design in a Metroidvania style.

My feedback:…

1. The thing was boring. If you have stuff to say, don’t open the gameplay footage just to have the character stand there.
2. The area it self looked more like Drytop and Sylverwastes! The trolls came directly from there, the biome could be any part of those 2 maps, I think the music was also from S2 living world instead of something new. PEOPLE WHERE EXPECTING TO SEE “HEART OF THORNS” IN THIS GAMEPLAY!
3. That crash (and I don’t mean the Airship it self). If you feel your build is unstable, give us a warning “We might experience crashes”.
4. From that crash, We took a glimpse of the Character Select screen… PLEASE TELL ME YOU ARE PLANNING TO REDESIGN THAT! I hate the current character select screen! Allow us at least to use a different, less white, background.
5. That Adventure looked like a classic MMO quest…

All classes are good. The advantages and Disadvantages in various cases are minor. Some are better at some stuff than others, but there is nothing defining.

What you should look into is the play-style that suits you. Also there is the complexity, as some classes are harder to master than others.
From easy to hard the list goes:
Warriors.
Elementalists
Thiefs
Rangers
Necros
Guardians
Engineers
Mesmers
Commandos

Depends on the Stuff we don’t know yet…

Like:

• The actual number of new maps.
• The price.
• Whether they’ll attempted to balance the non Zerker builds.
• How well they attempted to fix WvW…

The time between now and the Expansion’s release date would be the ideal time to do so.

1. There is a huge time window between now an the Expansion that needs to be filled with “something”.
2. They might want to avoid expanding the LW Story to much to avoid classing with the story the Expansion team has prepared.
3. The content is already there! All they have to do is enhance it, one piece of Orr and PS at a time, and make each enhanced piece of personal story replayable, ending the seasson with a fully remastered fight with Zaitan.
4. They got their voice actors back for the expansion (hopefully).
5. It’ll be finished just in time for the new players to arrive, and not get a bad impression.

• The current Personal Story is still underwhelming (also worse IMO than launch, with the “Greatest fear” Ark now missing)
• Orr is still the least fun “Biome” in the game.
• The fight with Zaitan is unfinished.

The only old content that has been confirmed to get some love from the expansion is the WvW, that will get new, hopefully non-copypasted, hopefully not mechanically broken, hopefully at least two of them, borderlands.

I only hope that the upcoming Living world until the expansion’s release date, will be tittled “Memories of Zaitan” and will focus on fixing and improving the above lacking aspects of the game.
If we are to expect new players, these bad parts of the old content make for some very bad first impressions.

I was sleeping during the reveal, but I’ve heard VisualWood mentioning that 3 new biomes were announced, without going into any specific.

Tell me it is not just 3 maps!

Brahmincorle.1264:

Kite.2510:

1. Keep beating that Horse until there is nothing left! The fact that so many people keep beating “the crater where the dead horse used to be” means that there’s truly some thing wrong with this game, and then perhaps they’ll take note!

Nah, some ppl just want to play tanks and healers in a game without tanks and healers.

You can’t play Tank and Healers even if they make the other attributes more relevant.
Since there are no mechanics for dedicated healers, that means that:

1. There can’t be any healers even with a maxed healing stat.
2. There can’t be any true tanks, since without dedicated healers, the Tanker will eventually leave his post to survive.
3. The enemy AI doesn’t support that anyway.

There CAN be a game with plenty of attributes without being a “Holy Trinity” game. It’s just that they haven’t given much thought on the idea (if any at all) and in the current game all attributes are irrelevant, with the exception of the pure DPSy ones.
See the links to my suggestions in my upper post. The only time I ever mentioned the holly trinity one time as an easter egg.

tigirius.9014:

Make bosses have a building crit damage resistance buff. Think about it why should CC suffer CC doesn’t kill bosses and Condi damage already has a limitation because it’s built poorly (max stacking), so fix the crit Zerker mentality by making bosses require coordination by giving them a significant buff against crit burst damage skills then parties would be required to have multiple build types and the Zerker build parties would be dead.

I’m with you, (in the Zerker hating Wagon at least) but the content of the game must be built around non-dps builds, and simple solutions like this will take the fun out of it.

I’ve made multiple suggestions for this in the past, going from scaling skills with less popular attributes, to introducing new attributes, to designing dungeons with specific builds in mind.
In the end I’ve understood 3 things.

1. The community here is very toxic. Most players who hate the current “holly Zerker” system have already left the game.
2. There is no easy or fast solution to something so game-changing. The upcoming expansion will be the best opportunity, and I’m prepared to quit my self if it’s not addressed then.
3. Keep beating that Horse until there is nothing left! The fact that so many people keep beating “the crater where the dead horse used to be” means that there’s truly some thing wrong with this game, and then perhaps they’ll take note!

A thread where everyone can post what they wish from the next expansion pack.
Please don’t bother here with little stuff (ex. balance of a certain profession skill), as they can easily be done with a patch or two. Only big stuff allowed!

I know that HoT has not been officially confirmed as an expansion yet, but all clues are pointing to it, and we can safely say that 95% likely it is! (and I can’t even begin to imagine the reaction of the community if it isn’t)

Let me start:
(/takes a big breath)

At least 8 new maps! Seeing how it took an entire season to make just two of them, I’ll try to be realistic and not ask for much. Eight areas means 2 or 3 new zones, which are good if you think how the game started with 4 for leveling and an incomplete for end-level (/coughOrrcough).

World V World overhaul! With 3 of the 4 main maps being identical, and all of them being exploited to zerg fests, an overhaul that would encourage strategic attack and defending would be the most welcome!

Fix the original Personal Story! If it’s a let down for many new players coming to the game, this should be the ideal time to fix it! I would suggest more cinematic camera angles with no art background for the talking cutscenes, and a few video cutscenes added to better introduce the characters and enhance the important moments. Those would involve calling back the character voice actors, and seeing that our characters haven’t got a new line since launch, i think this would be the perfect time!

Intro Cinematic! I don’t expect anything on Blizzard’s level of quality, but I can’t deny that cinematics like these help you get invested much better to the world and conflict of the game. In the world of movies they say “Show! Don’t tell!”. (In the world of games they say “Play. Don’t show!” but given the limits of the engine of an MMO, A-net should ignore that rule.)

New weapon type! The clever thing to do would be to make amphibious weapons, and allow spears out of water, and daggers underwater, wile allowing professions with no access to those, to have access to other existing types they should had. (Maces for engees)

PVE rebalance! I’m obviously asking to fix the zerker gear problem, where it’s so much more useful than the other stat combinations that it’s making them absolute. In an expansion people are expecting great changes in the gameplay, so it will be perfect chance to slip this among them.

NO NEW LEVEL CAP! No new level cap…

Good Job!
You’ve come a long way!

Randulf.7614:

Yes i liked step 4 as an idea, altho having thee type of infusion for one dungeon seems iver the top. Grinding out a gear piece to do a dungeon has always baffled me as a chicken and egg appeoach to gaming.

This “grind” will ensure that no amateurs will attempt raiding. Also, dungeons need to be grindable in order to stay populated. Besides, only the infusion aspect of the ascended gear is actually required from the dungeon, and the gear it self can be aquired from other content.

As for the 5 player hard dungeons, I suggested the built variety it self to work as the unofficial block in content since it’s not hard to make an exotic build build combination, and what the game is currently lacking is content to support players having more builds than dps in PVE.
Teaching them to know the strength and weaknesses of the different builds will help them to get ready for the Raid content.

In Vanilla WoW, Fire, Frost and Poison resistances where a thing, and they where use as an entry point for the raid, with one set of them (molten core) requiring fire resistance, another (Anqi Raj) requiring poison, and the last (Naxxramas) requiring frost.
Nowdays, they’ve got rid of the individual resistances, and it’s all about the item value you are wearing. But since in GW2 the values of all tier of items remains the same (there are no exotics stronger than other exotics) and instead focuses on providing different stat combinations, I’ve compromised for a system that make use of both of those aspects.

Randulf.7614:

Norhing wrong with the rest of it, except its all a bit run of the mill. Which is what the raid cdi was set up to work ideas away from. I like some of your mechanics ideas though

I’ve thought of the raid content as something that require co-ordinations between players, and not something that can be zerged with. I’ve just thrown the most cheesy ones up front to get on with them.

Randulf.7614:

Kudos for putting time and thought into it though.

And getting a negative “something” by the mods for bumping it…

While I’m all in for meaningful achievements who challenge you to try new things, the newly announced “Log-in rewards” appear as a skinner-box technique that someone would expect from a Freemium mobile game.

I know that A-net are trying to make us keep coming back with the patches, and I accepted their “Log-in with each patch” approach to do so… but THIS is a bit to obvious, makes them look desperate, and IMO will generally hurt greatly the image of the game to outsiders. After all loging in is not something to justify a reward.

Besides that, not all of us can log-in every day so not to break the chain, ether because of work, being away from home (it’s not something you can do from your cell phone) or simply don’t feel like playing today.

The Biggest advantage GW2 has over paying MMOs is that you can stop any time without fearing of wasting the subscription you’ve paid, take some time off playing other games, and then just as easily jump back after a break to see what’s new.
Forcing us to get into the game every day will only cause us to burn out and downright quit it at some point.

What do you people think?

What I would suggest:

1. Write a theme for each race and faction! There have been some attempts for it in the launch race trailer, but you can hardly distinguish the tracks from each other, as all follow the same epic style.
   Here is a hint on how to make a theme memorable, so when someone hears a few notes, he can immediately remember that this is the theme of the Norn, or the Pact, ect.
2. Make the music in each Capital play each race’s theme in a strong and memorable way, and on the camp’s of the various races, make it play a simpler version of it or other music of the same style. Some nice tavern music for Norn inns. Some Magical and mysterious for Sylvari camps.
   When was the last time you remembered the current theme of Hoelbrak?
   Also make sure that each race’s music has a completely different style. Use Dark Celtic Music for the Norn, and modify the music of Divinity’s Reach to be stronger (perhaps with some vocals) and to include a strong but simple (hum-able) theme. Treat similarly the rest of the Capitals.
3. Then make a weaker less epic version of those musics for important towns of those races: a sinister faster version for combat event’s in each race’s area, a festive version for gathering event’s in each race’s area. Make the last two uninteruptable by the generic multiple enemy combat music.
   That way, whenever you hear a faction’s theme, you’ll immediately think of them.
4. Then make some “Cave” music. Some “Fort” music. Some theme for non friendly factions.

All those will offer some nice variety to the music you hear to each map.
It IS however a lot to ask for…
I’m not expecting to see these changes before an expansion, but for the time being, please write some Town, Fort/Base and Cave music along with some “Combat Event” music to break the ice…. And fix that bug!

Gaile Gray.6029:

Kite.2510:

Is there a chance that you add more music variety to the old world?
There are many zone that could greatly benefit from some “musical enhancements”.

Kite — it might be helpful if you could give specific areas that you feel would benefit? I’m not sure where the “old world” would be in reference to your post.

Thank you.

For starters!
Make the currently playing music stop when you zone to another area or instance. If you want to play a specific music in an area to built atmosphere, don’t wait until the last track ends to play it.
I want to believe that this is a bug and wasn’t on purpose.
Most of my bellow suggestions might have already be implemented, and I hadn’t noticed it because of this.

The biggest problem with the music is that it isn’t very memorable, and the reason I believe for that, is that it plays through the entire continent (not just zones) non stop, the same 2-3 simple tracks. Almost all MMOs are doing it, but they have ways to break the ice.
Lets take WoW for instance… Each zone there has a theme of 4-5 short tracks that loop in random order. Yet they break the ice with various tricks.

1. When you go to a village or an inn in the area the music changes to a “town theme” or a “Tavern theme”.
2. When you go to an area of the map where something weird/different is happening, the music changes (caves, hunted houses, mysterious altars, corrupted lands, enemy bases). They made specific mini tracks for that.
3. A theme stays on a single map. Rarely they recycle it for more than one map.
4. Themes stand out. You’ll never confuse the Ashenvale forest music for Elwynn Forest despite both being foresty areas. However it is possible to swap the Maguma jungle Music with parts of Kryta music, and people not figuring out that something is wrong, especially since that is already happening because of the above bug.
5. Capital Cities have always VERY distinct music. The kind you could sing after only hearing it a few times. Since players Visit the Capital cities as ofen as they visit a random inn, it’s a good opportunity to add some unique music there.
6. Maps are small! They might just feel smaller because of the existence of Mounts, but once you gain a few levels you are sure to move on on another map.

The reason the new area music have been liked so much I believe is because:

• The music is very different from JS, and that makes it slightly more memorable than the generic epic music he wrote for the game.
• It leaves an impression of “mystery” and “unknown”, which is fresh compare to the music someone would expect from a desert canion area. Also it’s mysterious theme can also double as “the theme of Modremoth”.
• It’s New.
• In silver wastes, for the majority of the map, you are facing an army of enemies, initiating the “combat” music kicks in and unintentionally creates the said break that I mentioned above.
• There is much more variety in the living story music as well, making attempts to use the music to enhance a scene rather than just letting it play.

To be continue in the next post

There are many important emotes missing… /Facepalm /Kiss /flirt /Joke are just some of them.

The community in this forum is kind of Toxic.
I totally agree with WP that the attributes need an overhaul, and I made suggestions my self for that in the past.

What ALSO needs an overhaul is the PVE it self, so it will actually require build diversity, instead of having everything being do-able by Zerkers.
I made suggestions on that as well!
Quite recently in fact!
Feel free to dig it! I am dyslexic and writing large posts like these is to painful to let them get buried with no answers. :_(

1) Mods ARE allowed as long as they don’t give you an edge against other players.
I think the mod you mention is allowed.

2) All the content is end game content. The game emphasizes cosmetic rewards over stats, though the highest tier of stat combinations, are hard to acquire.
The dungeons are underplayed and are mostly grinded for gold.
Usually players spend their time in the latest area added to the game (every 2 weeks we get a patch), and grind the latest gear added.
To be safe don’t ignore your daylly quests. They offer some of the best rewards!
From the gear you get, the Berserker stat combination (Zerker for sort) is currently overpowered as it offers the maximum amount of damage and minimum amount of defense, and players are forming zergs with it (groups that mindlessly go and beat whatever boss to a pulp.

3. GW2 is the best MMO for exploration. You can find hiden events, hiden mini dungeons, and hidden jumping puzzles who’ll test your jumping skills to the max.

4. Each class can use many weapons but not all of them. the fewer the weapons each class can use, the more mechanics they have to compensate for that. Engineers and Ellementalist can’t even weapon swap, but the mechanics of each allow them to have the largest amounts of skills available at any given time. The class that can hold the most weapons is the warrior.

5. If you mean Armour and Magic class, the clossest thing is the Guardian that is some sort of Paladin. However you can as easily give daggers to an Elementalist and have very fast magic melee attackers.

6. The Initial Personal Story has the most voice acting, but it was badly delivered.
Seasson 1 was very experimental content, and the story isn’t playable. You’ll have to read it somewhere. 80% of that content was temporary, and we’ve kittened a lot to change it.
Seasson 2 story is playable, as long as you logged in the month it was added. If not, you’ll have buy it from the cash-store, but thankfully it’s cheap.
The story became much better in terms of characters and phasing in later patches, but your own character is no longer voiced.

7. You’ll eventually have to buy some bank space! The one give is very little. You can buy the gems with gold, but the exchange ration is currenly very high. You’ll win some gems every time you complete an achievement milestone, but they’ll be few.
Your best bet is to buy a portion of gems once, to expand once or twice your bank.
The rest of the Gem-store content is pure convenience. Never sells stats.
The other thing I would suggest you to buy is some of those infinite gathering tools, but they aren’t as mandatory.

8. As said in 6…
You have access only to seasson 2, and only the episodes you had logged in at the time are free, in terms of story.
The maps, dungeons, alterations to the world and classes, and general improvements and additions are there for everyone though. You’ll be only missing the story part.
I suggest you complete the existing lackluster personal story. Read the events of Seasson 1, and buy the past episodes of Seasson 2 to come in to terms to what’s going on. It’ll take you some time, that’s for sure!

9. You came in without knowing that?!
There are no traditional quests or quest givers.
There are event’s that happen in the world, (appear in orange text in the oper right corner bellow your story text) and they pretty much change the world. The hearts in the world are pretty much chores you do in low level areas when there is no events going on. Also the event’s scale with the players, and your character scale with the level of the area, so no event is a push-over.

10. Leveling has no curve beyond lvl 20. As much as it takes you to get from lvl 20-21, multiply it by 60, and woala!

Step 6:
Future dungeons shouldn’t require to take place in the same area as their lower tier.
For example:
The fight with Mordremoth should be considered a hard or raid tier of TA, but it should take place in the Meguma Wastes.
Instead of becoming Fractals, have the Atherblade and Molten Facility become the Normal or Hard versions of CM and SE respectively. (And replace the fractal with something other that takes place before the events of GW2 to keep with the theme and avoid players whining)
The existing Ether path of TA should be classified as Hard tier.
As the Living Story continues, more chances appear for future dungeons, but they shouldn’t be bound to that one location. The players then can adapt and change their names, and for example start to refer to TA as Toxic Dungeons or something.

Step 7:
Super Hard Raid dungeons should be considered optional with simple/skippable Stories.
Example 1: The priory goes to Arah to take Zaitan’s tail with a group of 20 players, just to find that Zaitan is alive though gravely wounded, and the players decide to fight the wounded Zaitan hand to hand instead of letting him bleed out.
Example 2: A guild can initiate an instanced fight with Tequatl, where an Armored Tequatl will fight against 40 players.

Hints for Raid content:
Raids should require 10-20 players. More should be optional guild content.
Raids should be completable only once a week.
Raid bosses should be an exception and allow twice the number of conditions.
The raid mechanics should encourage players to spread, and gather on key moments to share they support skills.
Raids require good communication, so some sort voice chat or awesome commander command system are necessary in the game.
The areas must always be big, and with flat terrain.
All raid content should be instanced.

Example of Raid trash mobs mechanics:

• Force them to stay away from each other so they won’t heal them selfs, but each will require about 10 players to fall.
• Mechanics similar to guild puzzles where a few players will have to stand out of combat and make use of some of the map’s mechanic to support the players fighting the battle is a good idea, but make it harder, involving combat and in the end be the player’s skill in combat that decide the outcome.

Example of Raid boss mechanics:

• A classic Raid boss mechanic is having it spawn a ton of trashmobs. It’s cheap but it’s solid. Use it when you run out of ideas.
• Most MMO’s involve some kind of Tank, and have the boss going nut’s if there isn’t something to melee in frond of him. In GW2 that mechanic shouldn’t normally work, but A-net can let it work on a single boss as an exception/homage, by offering some sort of “Healing Laser” enviromental weapon on the map for two players to pic, and have the boss description say “going nuts if there is nothing to hit in frond of him”.
• Have the boss Jump around Grabbing players, and if holds them for to long, the player become defeated, unless the remaining players manage to overcome it’s steady defiance and interrupt him.
• Have the boss revive defeated players as his own Mobs and also attempt to stomp downed players unless interrupted.
• Have the boss Swallow players and transfer them in (a seperate area) his stomach.
  There the players will build a certain condition that will eventually kill them unless they get out. But they have to intentionally take turns staying inside in order to do dps or block the boss from gaining a certain strong boon.
• Have a boss whose about to die break the arena where the players stand and the players deal the last bits of damage to the boss while in the air before they hit the ground/water.
• Have a boss keep moving to one direction while a few players will use some map mechanic to slow him down and others will try to damage him while on the move.
• Have the players use a mechanic to “grab on to” an underwater boss in order to keep up and follow it.

These are the ones I can come up.
Feel free to add your suggestions.

As we haven’t had any significant dungeon update in the recent patches, I’ve decided to give A-net my suggestion of how would I had designed the Dungeon content given the existing game mechanics.

Step 1:
Make each dungeon represent a difficulty setting.
Story Dungeon = Easy
Dungeon 1 (path 1) = Normal
Dungeon 2 (path 2) = Hard
Dungeon 3 (path 3) = Raid
Dungeon 4 (path 4) = Occasional Super hard Raid for S&M players/guilds who complain about the game being easy and is not intended by the devs to be completed for at least a few months.

Step2:
Put an unofficial block in the access of each tier of dungeons.
Accessing a hard dungeon should suggest that participating players are having built specific stat combinations and wear at least full exotic gear, gatherable from completing lower tier dungeons among other sources.
Accessing a raid should suggest that participating players have gathered specific “special stats” from completing hard dungeons and require at least ascended gear.
These requirements will discurage but not prohibit players from participating in a higher tier dungeon before their time.
More details in the following steps

Step3:
Make each of the harder dungeons represent a desired build by the players, and don’t make certain bosses in them require different builds.
There should NOT be a dps dungeon of hard difficulty as players them selfs will always try to bend the rules of the dungeon and have a couple of party member with DPS builds to end it a few minutes faster.

• Example 1: A certain path of a dungeon having enemies/bosses with very high toughness who like to go out of reach after every few seconds.
  This dungeon is suggested for condition builds, and Parties with Condition builds should be able to complete it in minutes.
• Example 2: A certain path of a dungeon requiring players to split into groups of 2 or 1, and have each one face enemies who have high damage but low defense. Alternatively have enemies who do massive amounts of aoe damage around them for ever percentage of health milestone lost, thus punishing players who drain their health fast and have low defense.
  This dungeon is suggested for survivability builds, and Parties with Survivability builds should be able to complete it in minutes.

Step 4:
Raids should require a certain type of agony similar to the fractals.
Completing the Hard tier of a dungeon should give you access to an ascended version of the dungeon’s gear, that can be infused with a certain type of Agony resistance.
For example:
Ghostly Agony for AC raid content.
Twisted Agony for CM raid content.
Toxic Agony for TA raid content.
Blinding Agony for SE raid content.
Flaming Agony for CoF raid content.
Freezing Agony for HotW raid content.
Arcane Agony for CoE raid content.
Deadly Agony for Arah raid content.
Most of the “Special agony” and ascended gear you get from hard tier dungeons will be Account Bound, but certain items (trinkets for example) will be able to be transfered to other players on the friend list, but not being sold on the TP. The reason for that, is so it would be easier for players to invite friends who are newer and didn’t have the time yet to gather the required raid gear.

Step 5:
Existing multipath dungeons should be considered a single dungeon of Normal difficulty. The twist is that this dungeon’s path will change randomly with each playthrough. Bosses, Paths, mechanics and scenarios should be randomly selected upon starting the dungeon (and stick to each character so he can’t re-roll to a different path for 15 minutes) but at the same time should be twicked so all combinations should take a similar time to complete and give similar rewards. No specific builds should be required.

continue to the next post

My list…

Dear Santa!

• Fix WvW zerging.
• Fix/enhance/retouch/rebuild/whatever the original Personal Story. I have a hard time commending the game to friends and get them invested. And by that, I mean:
  • add cutscenes
  • Introduce the new characters better (perhaps also give them drawn portraits)
  • make choices matter beyond the next instance (for example take a different NPC as some sort of “helper” tied to your character).
  • and fix the Zaitan fight.
  • give voice acting to ALL of your character’s conversations.
  • Replace the current “talking cut-scenes” with others similar to The Witcher or Dragon Age with dramatic camera angles (I mention the Witcher cause it was made at the time by a small studio in foreign engine, proving that it’s possible)
• Fix Orr. Use the recent experience from the living world.
• Add Moving platforms to your engine. It would benefit greatly:
  • Jumping puzzles
  • set-piece moments
  • functioning ships, airships and elevators.
• Structure the content around build variety and not just zerkers (event’s with time limits and HP bucket enemies).
• Add a repayable season 1.
• Find where the player characters voice actors are hidden to add more lines and dialogue to both old an new content.
• Impliment future inovations to old content.
• Retouch/Rework and add new Dungeons.

Is there a chance that you add more music variety to the old world?
There are many zone that could greatly benefit from some “musical enhancements”.

Loved this JP.
Though I don’t understand what’s the meaning behind that Final Skrit hole we can’t use…

Combatter.5123:

So many of the foes we face in PvE tend to have low damage output and a high health/armour pool. Fights with these foes tends to be somewhat long and boring and also encourage people to run full damage builds (e.g. Berserker). Could we mix things up a bit have some foes that produce a very high damage output but with a lower health pool?

THIS!
+1
Asking it for years!…

But zerkers lack health and defence so if they were to get hit with immense damage, they would be downed quickly. Unless you mean in a group event type situation in which case the scaling should serve to give the foes more health/armour anyway.

That’s one of the reasons I want this!
We NEED build variety, and the current content doesn’t support this!
I love how the Mordren dogs for example need to be blinded to be dealt with effectively (though I would like a better “tell” animation for their attack.
And the big mordrens have lots of difference an require actual conditions.
Other more obvious way to promote difference build is to make the enemies do more damage while at the same time being faster to fall, so you won’t miss the absence of dps.

The other is the obvious. Less HP bucket mobs and bosses.

Donari.5237:

Keep in mind that you could always change it up before by picking the relevant dialogues in various interactions with NPCs. You didn’t start at 100% one of the three, and there were personality types based on mixes of the qualities. Check http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Personality for the list.

So I like the first part about customized lines based on personality even though that would a be a lot of voice acting to get in all the permutations, but would prefer not to give up the previous flexibility as you suggest in the second part.

A-net them selfs got rid of that mechanic and its no longer visible in the hero panel. I can logically asume that they no longer track that stat and they use the bandwith and server space of something more meaningfull.

Also, if you get to choose your answers every time, the whole personality choice is meaningless.

On the other hand, making it a permanent choice at the begining with a chance to change it later on in a realistic maner (instead of using a “black lion brain damage hammer”), would make your character feel much more alive and be lighter for the game.

How to change your Personality mid-game!
While doing the Personal story ark “Forming the Pact”, there are a few instances where the character faces his/her worst fears (choice made in “A Light in the Darkness” instance). After that part is completed, Trahearne finds the character alone in fort trinity pondering.
The player then get the option to change his character’s Personality.
The character says one of the three phrases:
-“I’ve realized that the world is not always black and white…”
-“I’m tired of acting tough all the time…”
-“Up until now I’ve never been serous about anything…”
Followed by one of the other three Phrases:
-“I’ve decided to work for the right causes from now on!”
-“From now on I’ll be letting my might do the talking!”
-“I think I’m going to laid back and try to enjoy my life from now on!”

If the player want’s to change his character’s personality again, he’ll have to re-complete the episode.
__________________________________________________________________

All these suggestions are made under two assumptions.

1. The character voice actors are still available, and since we haven’t heard a new character line in 3 years.
2. The above lines will be talked by every race, no same line will be used by two players in a group/zerg in a 2 minute span, and having many players around will drastically decrease the frequency of an individual character’s spocken line.

If anyone has any idea for a line for a player’s personality, please add it in the comments!

Upon creating a new character, one of the final choices you get to make is your character’s initial Personality. “Dignity”, “Ferocity” or “Charm”.
It was a mechanic at launch that didn’t offer anything significant to the game, and soon later A-net gave up on it, as seen by the removal of the personality meters on the Hero panel.

IMO such a choice is Fantastic for this game , but it was just underutilized.
This personality option shouldn’t have been displayed in bars and numbers, but instead as a single, unchangeable decision. Then, depending on the chosen personality, have the character’s one-liners during gameplay, along with certain Dialogues on Personal and Living story being chosen by default, but have the same results.
When on Dignity, the character will talk like a do-gooter.
When on Ferocity, the character will talk more mean, insulting and war-hungry.
When on Charm, the character will talk with a cool and laid back approach, saying one liners (most of the current ones) and jokes, along with a flirty attitude.
This could greatly enrich you bond with your character, and it will make him feel less generic.

Examples of Dignity dialogue:

• Initiating combat:
  • You leave me no choice!
  • If we must!
  • So be it!
  • You will not turn back, will you?
  • You won’t get away with this!
  • You don’t belong in this world.
• Being targeted by many enemies:
  • There are to many of them!
• Facing Hard enemy/boss:
  • Be careful everyone!
  • This one is tough!
• Defeating an enemy:
  • It didn’t have to end this way.
  • … sorry.
  • May you find rest.
  • It was the only way.
  • It was a good fight.
  • The world is better without you.
• Group/big event/dungeon completed:
  • We made it! Somehow…
• Reviving a Downed ally:
  • Get up solder!
  • It’s not as bad as it looks
  • Can you walk?
• Answering with Dignity on an NPC.
  • Please think about it…

Examples of Ferocity dialogue:

• Initiating combat:
  • Get lost punk!
  • You have a death Wish?
  • You are just an obstacle!
  • I was waiting for another fight!
  • Give me all you’ve got!
  • This one is mine!
• Being targeted by many enemies:
  • I can take them! All of them!
• Facing Hard enemy/boss:
  • A worthy opponent!
• Defeating the Enemy:
  • Disappointed…
  • Is that all?!
  • I was hoping you’ll last longer.
  • HA! That was a nice Fight!
  • Whose next!
• Group/big event/dungeon completed:
  • Ha! That was Fun!…
• Reviving a Downed ally:
  • On your feet maggot!!
  • You better not be playing dead. You hear?!
  • Stand up and fight!
• Answering with Ferocity on an NPC.
  • Think Again!

Examples of Charm dialogue:

• Initiating combat:
  • Oh! How cute!
  • Learn your place!
  • What did “I” ever do to you?!
  • Haven’t your parents teach you any manners?!
  • They never learn…
  • You?! Attacking Me?!
• Being targeted by many enemies:
  • I thought they where fewer!
• Facing Hard enemy/boss:
  • I think we’ve just angered him…
• Defeating an enemy:
  • Learn the hard way!
  • NEXT! (still in combat)
  • Marvelous!
  • Brilliantly Executed!
  • Done with stile!
  • Excellent!
  • Are we done here?
• Group/big event/dungeon completed:
  • Another job well done!
• Reviving a Downed ally:
  • Slept well?
  • And I was about to give you a healing boot to the head!
• Answering with Charm on an NPC.
  • Please… For me!?…

Zaklex.6308:

Kite.2510:

~Snip~

My intention was to Buff (double) the rewards small groups are getting, and nerf the rewards that more than 20 player groups (stop being increased after intense enemy tagging)

I have a suggestion for you, before you thought of this idea…did you do an event with say 5 players and tally your rewards, then do the exact same event with 20 players and tally your rewards? IF you did, and you’re talking about the rewards from the event…were they any different? IF you’re talking about the drops from mobs in the event(which have nothing to do with the event rewards by the way), then you should be getting more drops from the mobs in the event with 20 players than the one with 5 because there are more mobs to begin with when there are those 20 players vs the 5. Now tell me there’s an issue after reading the above statement.

Keep in mind, event rewards(which are rewards, and not loot), are different from mob loot(which are not rewards)…they’re mutually exclusive. One does affect the other, nor should the mob loot be capped, because not all mobs are associated with events.

I’m strictly speaking about loot rewards (with the exception of bandit chest’s in SW that are lootable by everyone)
The event may give whatever the hell it wants. I would have a problem with that, since everyone would get the same.
When it comes to looting mobs however, I want to close the gap of loot you get when you are on a small or a big group!

Astralporing.1957:

Vargamonth.2047:

Looking at some answers, I’m not sure if everybody has grasped the purpose of the thread.
OP is not trying to nerf farming at all, just put an end to the unfair mechanic where the scaling system, trying to balance the event for a large amount of people, ends up generating more loot sources and makes the event more profitable than if a lower amount of players would be taking part on it.

He may be thinking about it, but what he asked for is a nerf to drops. The end result of implementing his suggestion would be far less drops total in the game. And his suggestion to that? “We’ll assume Anet will fix that later”.
No, thank you very much.

He is not interested in trying to propose a system that woule be more “fair” (whatever that means, on those forums “fair” ended up being an extremely subjective term), but not hurt the community as a whole. He just seems interested (in the interest of “fairness”) to bring everyone’s drop rates down to a level he himself describes as unsatisfying. And when pressed further, says that maybe those poor drops will be then improved by Anet (and then, maybe not), but he doesn’t seem to be that much interested in pursuing that thought.

It’s quite clear, that he had seen that there is a problem, but is unwilling to put an effort into understanding it better, preferring to shoot for a highly superficial “solution” that sounds simple and clear. Which, unfortunately (as most simple solutions happen to be), is not so simple and doesn’t actually solve anything.

My intention was to Buff (double) the rewards small groups are getting, and nerf the rewards of more than 20 player groups (stop being increased after intense enemy tagging)