Guild Wars 2

The first is from the Legendary Sword – Bolt, combined with the Legendary Focus – The Minstrel (notice the little music notes in picture one’s glow).

The 2nd is the Legendary Greatsword Dawn, though I’ve NEVER seen it shine quite like that!

I see you’re playing the game on possibly the lowest graphical settings, so the muddiness of the glow may be intensifying its disturbing appearance.

Nike.2631:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Lots of ideas and discussion. I think it would be useful now to list your top three favorite ideas with either a link to your favorite description of that idea in the thread or a single sentence description of your own.

I feel a number of the ideas that have caught my eye and imagination spring from one underlying concept~

Make the world more aware of my choices.

1. More respect for Race. Its the very first thing you choose coming into the game. Add goals that are race specific, but also NPC dialogue that notices and responds to one of the essential facets of the character you have created. Small flourishes like the Hearts in each of the 5 starter zones sending out one letter if you are a native to that zone, and a different letter if you are one of the other four races passing through.

2. More respect for Personality. We have dialogue choices and the game tracks the last 100 of them. USE that information. Weave it into anything and everything it could influence. When we tell the game-world who we are, it should listen!

3. More Respect for Order. This is probably the single biggest decision in the game, with 15 different personal story missions dedicated to making sure we make an informed decision. Choosing your Order can and should be opening a doorway to a long and fascinating journey.

Without adding any changes to the core mechanics of combat, introducing entirely new features, or creating new assets (skills and traits), I’m in agreement that Nike’s three selections seem like the largest area of impact for horizontal progression that Arenanet could actually implement more quickly than the larger concepts.

I’ll be looking for the inevitable post when you return, stating you’ve found the spark again!

AkiSakura.1657:

I have about 27g right now. Max gold I’ve ever had on hand is about 600 gold.. when I bought Spark back in July. I have 3 legendary weapons, Sunrise, Dreamer, and Incinerator and then Vision of the Mists and Wintersbark for other expensive weapons.. I know where all my gold went, into pretty things.

And that, IMO, is how it should be. Horizontal progression to improve one’s appearance.

I’ll leave the debate against the various gold sinks and ways to spend gold to be parsed out amongst the handful of threads already discussing those aspects.

Aeonblade.8709:

Malchior.5042:

Aeonblade.8709:

That’s great and all for people who enjoy spreadsheets and math, I’m glad it’s there for people to make money if they want.

I just would rather…play the game to earn money. I wish they would acknowledge that group of people sometimes

Oh they have! Seriously, speedclearing dungeons or just playing in general can net lots of money as well. Not sure if you were around before there was gold on completion of dungeons. Also, even if someone doesn’t want to get deep into maximizing profit on the TP, ascended crafting has caused a rise in price on all goods. Anything found adventuring can be sold for an amount much higher than say, a year ago.

Speedclearing dungeons? See this is what I’m talking about. The game was supposed to focus on open world dynamic combat. I can speed clear dungeons twice as challenging and twice as fun in a trinity game. They need to update the reward structure for those of us who don’t have a desire to speedclear dungeons or flip the tp. I have no desire to run an instanced dungeon, in any game, ever again after WoW and Rift :p Especially since Rift was pretty much the pinnacle of dungeon design.

I guess I just feel like all areas of the game should yield equal rewards for time spent in them. Some nights I’m lucky to break even in WvW, which is why other nights I’ll have to farm just to have gold for consumables. Maybe I just need to change this game into a job as other MMORPG’s became for me, because playing your own way really doesn’t work if every mode of play has a different reward structure.

Good post though, made me think some more on it.

Choose to have fun and enjoy the game in whatever way is best for you.

Sadly, because of the notion introduced by EQ, WoW, and other MMOs of the time that Time Investment+Content Design should be directly proportional to Reward Received, Open World content for themepark MMOs probably won’t reach loot equality for quite a while. Also, the fact that an increasingly growing number of players are driven by the reward instead of the adventure or the experience doesn’t help this matter.

If WvW is your thing, play WvW. To all players, if you enjoy PvE, PvP, Dungeons, Fractals, etc…do what you enjoy doing!

Know this though, there will always be a way to maximize monetary gain, and some players will feel compelled to always pursue that method. If that method is not fun for you, then do not play it. The same applies in the real world (to a point). Does one pick the job with greater pay, or the job one enjoys more? The choice is yours.

• The goal is to introduce meaningful UNIQUE rewards to each area of content. Monetary divide will always be an issue, because both player skill and game content is constantly changing and evolving.

Aeonblade.8709:

That’s great and all for people who enjoy spreadsheets and math, I’m glad it’s there for people to make money if they want.

I just would rather…play the game to earn money. I wish they would acknowledge that group of people sometimes

Oh they have! Seriously, speedclearing dungeons or just playing in general can net lots of money as well. Not sure if you were around before there was gold on completion of dungeons. Also, even if someone doesn’t want to get deep into maximizing profit on the TP, ascended crafting has caused a rise in price on all goods. Anything found adventuring can be sold for an amount much higher than say, a year ago.

Dahkeus.8243:

TheDeparted.8013:

Dahkeus.8243:

Question to people with 500+ gold:

Wtf are you doing to get that much gold? Champ farming?

My account has about 600 hours of /played. 400+ of those have been spent leveling 3 toons to 80 and equipping ascended gear (trinkets) for them. The remaining 200ish hours I have spent studying patch notes and their impact on markets, finding trade lines I wanted to work with and markets to learn in and out, and played the TP game. I have Quip, Incinerator, T3 armor, and will make my Dreamer this weekend once I can get a kitten buy order to fill for The Lover. The BEST way to make money in this game is learning how gold/mat inflation work and which patches will impact varying investment opportunities. I feel like garbage spending an hour doing the FGS champ-train, making 8g when I could be making 80.

I made a decent income from playing the auction house in WoW, but in GW2, there seems to be a very very very narrow of margin at best for a very small number of items. Patches can shake things up…but even then, I’ve found a lot of trends to be counter-intuitive to the way the market responded with things in WoW. The crafting system in GW2 also pretty much kills any chance of crafting for a profit.

It’s not crafting that makes a profit. It’s raw materials.

The richest people in the game, and heck, even the general richer person with Golden title or 4-digit gold…they know how to use the Trading Post.

Some more than others, but in a global market where just about anything can be bought, sold, flipped, scammed, snatched, (pick a verb) for in-game currency…“sitting” on your gold (however low it may be) is going to keep it at a static value.

You’ve probably seen some of the posters referring to “liquid assets.” They have money in cloth, wood, metal, ectos, or whatever markets they’re investing in.

The GW 2 Trading Post is the closest to any actual Stock Market or Global shares in the Real World that I have ever seen in an MMO.

Yes, it can be intimidating, but plenty of players have written guides on how to play the TP, where to invest, and how to monitor trends throughout the week (people buy more on weekends, causing price drops in some markets and price hikes in others). Also, noticing seasonal trends (holidays, or upcoming LS events/requirements) and being quick on the draw with those trends can net very large profit gains.

Bottom line, don’t be afraid to dive in! The trading post is there for everyone to benefit!

First, absolutely fantastic post, Soa Cerri! I thoroughly enjoyed your use of vocabulary, player psychology, and compared that to your own experiences to deliver your points. Also, thanks for getting emotional, but not letting it detract from the overall flavor of your post.

My advice would be like the others, just take a break for now. Use the Developer Livestreams or the content preview posts on the official website to decide if a particular Living Story aspect interests you. If it does, sign on and play the content out slowly over a few days, not necessarily going gungho after the achievements (unless those are the sort of thing that drive you).

3k hours is almost an unhealthy amount of time (IMO) to have played the game for only 1.5 years. I believe my GW 1 character is somewhere around 4-5k hours, but that’s over the 4-5 years I actively played the game.

I just did the math, and not counting the few recent months since August, your 3k hours is 34% of a year’s time invested solely on GW 2! The exact math of 477 days and 2988 hours invested calculates 26% of the hours within the 477 days are logged into GW 2!.

If perhaps for the sake of your own health, take a break and find either some other game to play or some activity outside of gaming. You may find a similar spark as to the one you felt when you first started playing GW 2.

Take care, Soa!

Malchior

Indeed you can sir, but appearance goes a long way.

As you have witnessed by people quoting out their own opinions of your opinions…lists are not conducive to meaningful discussion. Lists of what’s good and what’s bad is seen as little more than nitpicking, without any attempt to offer meaningful discussion into critique or solutions.

The thing is, p2 CoF is so fast (not p1 speed, but still quick) that those groups wait longer to form a group than a regular balanced party would take to just run the dungeon. :P

Anyway, the answer is not only in reducing the prevalence/impact of Critical Damage (the true culprit), but also adding more meaning and depth to control or support.

I made a post about the snowball effect of critical damage down below.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Merged-1year-post-launch-How-Anet-feel-on-Trinity/page/4#post3422414

Just want to promote a post I originally made with regards to how we discuss/approach the ideas of everyone participating.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/14#post3418183

• Let’s look for CHARACTER progression, everyone. Things such as new zones, maps, gametypes, etc… progress the game as a whole, not the character. While I’m sure we all want these things, I feel Anet is aiming at character progression first, because it can be acted upon more quickly and with possibly fewer resources or costs.

With that said… my top 3 (with no links because there’s just been a flood of stuff)

• Add meaning to the existing Personality system (Charm, Dignity, Ferocity). One possible approach – Have choices affect a character’s appearance or features, especially in a character’s face. Introduce a toggle-box to use personality to determine personal look or not use it.

• Add meaning and character development based on the Order a player chooses in Personal story. Other players have gone into detail on what they would like to see. I just see it as having large potential to be built in any number of ways. One thing for certain…please do not just add a “Faction Standing” bar for us to work up incrementally (as has been done in other games, even GW 1). A faction bar or standing could enhance a more in-depth approach of fleshing out each order with Order-specific events, new Order rewards, and a further focus on highlighting the roles of the Orders in the Living Story.

• Improved skill mechanics (re-introduction of “Charge” skills that were dropped in development), New Utility skills, Ability to alter/upgrade/change weapon skills.

Best of luck, avaunt! Welcome to Guild Wars 2!

Yenn.9185:

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Aberrant.6749:

If they only want people with high AP who are you to deny them that?

Because having a lot of AP really makes any difference whatsoever..

Any difference or not, let them play with whoever they want.

Player with higher AP has a higher chance of being better than one who has lower AP simply because of having been in the game longer.

Slightly true. They have a higher chance of having more knowledge about gear, builds, and skills. This does not mean they can execute. In fact, sometimes the best number crunchers will be the worst team members, because they’ll criticize others, with no regard to team composition or morale.

Khisanth.2948:

Zalman.8719:

I used a splitter with my Jade GS and it gave back the the skin as an item and the GS I used the skin on.

That is not the same situation as the OP.

If you have transmute
Gas Mask / low level stats / rune
+
Exotic skin / exotic stat / no rune
into
Exotic skin / exotic stat / rune
then try to split that it(the resulting Exotic skin/exotic stat/rune from the low level item) will not give back the gas mask.

The above behavior sounds expected to me, but it does leave a question which hopefully the OP can answer.

OP – do you recall 3 different panel selections appearing when attempting the transmute of the low gas mask helm to the new level 80 exotic helm? If you do recall 3 selections, did you just accidentally select the wrong skin when attempting the transmute?

If this was an accidental selection, then yes, the splitter would not work, because the existence of the gas mask skin has been deleted. As such, the function of the accidental selection transmuted the rune from your old item, to your new item, while preserving the stats and skin of the new exotic helm. The Gas Mask, not being selected, is removed from the unique identifier within the item itself and would not be returned via a splitter.

Sorry you experienced this. Maybe support can provide assistance, but if it was an accident through your own behavior, I can’t be for sure

Good luck!

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Aberrant.6749:

If they only want people with high AP who are you to deny them that?

Because having a lot of AP really makes any difference whatsoever..

I believe that’s precisely the point Aberrant was trying to make.

Let them wallow in their stupidity and/or ignorance

There are plenty of other parties available with no assumed restrictions.

cesmode.4257:

Malchior: ty for the effort

Maths aside, its just something that Ive noticed over the past week or so since Ive had the pistols. I’ve noticed it on world bosses and dungeon bosses.

The most recent example was dwayna, over 14k in one unload. Ive never seen anywhere near that before, and Im using the same spec and have completed dwayna countless times.

I would expect it on world bosses that aren’t structures (structured bosses being the dragons or large meta events).

If you saw 14k on avatar of Dwayna in Malchor’s Leap, I’ll just assume there was a large group and she had 25 Vuln constantly…(back to napkin math)

25% of 4712=1178

1178+4712=5890

Using your original dmg reports of 8-9k turning into 11-14k…

25% of 8000=2000

10,000+the additional 5% damage gained from asc weapon stats as defined by Sins=10,500 at the high end.

We’re getting close to the mythical 11k, and I don’t know the armor value of Avatar of Dwayna, so despite it’s weirdness, it may be accurate. If you’re really curious, go test it out on some guards or mercenaries in WvW (provided u dont have guard or merc damage traits).

And to everyone turning this thread about numbers and peculiar differences into a WvW derail rant…there are PLENTY of WvW threads for you to rant within the WvW forums. Thanks.

It is not a measure of skill and can’t be used as such, and the amount of low IQ people I find around the game in groups that require this is the same as of those that don’t.

I believe you’ve answered your own question, OP.

The problem isn’t in the mechanic or even its design. It’s within the psychology of players. Arenanet can make statements regarding the design, intent, or use of AP, but it’s the choice of each individual on how to perceive it.

IMO, players who see anything as a restriction (whether it be AP, gear score, AR, or any sort of barrier of entry) just refuse to challenge themselves, and are content with their assumptions of skill level (or time-level, depending on your point of view).

Ok…here’s some VERY ROUGH napkin math…

• Damage Formula according to wiki

Base Inflicted Damage = Weapon strength x (Power multiplied by skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor) Perform the operation of (Power x skill-specific coefficient first. Unload’s co-efficient is 0.3 according to wiki.guildwars2.com

So…let’s input Unload into the formula. Not knowing your power or crit damage, I’m just going to use 2000 power and Crit Damage of +200% (being a thief, i imagine you’re maxed on crit dmg)

920-1080 x (4800) / 2200 -unload hits 8 times. 600 is the base of 1 projectile of unload with 2000 power.

• 2200 is a base value for a medium armor target. May not be accurate, pulled it from gwskills.net 2000 base for light armor, 2200 base for medium armor, 2600 base for heavy armor. I guess they used the PvP golem targets for reference. PvE mobs may have even less armor.

Calculating at max possible weapon range of 1080 – Base Damage= 2356

Crit dmg will be applied to the end of the base formula above

• Base Inflicted Damage x 2 = Actual Inflicted Damage, where Actual Inflicted Damage is the number evidenced in the combat flash and the combat log. (x 2 is used as an easy representation of 200% crit damage [150% base along with +50% through gear, food, traits, runes, etc…])

Actual Inflicted Damage= 4712

Using the above formula – the largest factors to improving your output of damage (separate from crit damage) are Power of skill/Armor. More Power almost serves as a point of “Armor Penetration” since the goal would be to reduce the disparity of values in the equation of Power/Armor. The other key factor would be the Power Co-efficient within the skill, but for the formulas listed above, I can see why Anet would keep these coefficients hidden.

I know 4712 is nothing near the numbers you recorded, but with the above formula above, perhaps you can calculate what the damage total differences should be between your exotic weapon (which hopefully you still have one to test) and your ascended weapon.

Just take the values from your character stats and base weapon damage of your ascended pistols and compare to stats and values of exotic pistols. Whatever value you use for enemy armor, keep it the same for each equation.

Khisanth.2948:

For weapons it’s not the stats, it’s the increase in weapon strength. On the other hand if you were using a condition build then it’s pretty ‘meh’ since weapon strength isn’t used for conditions.

If you are staring at numbers all day it might make a difference but in actual play it doesn’t feel any different.

The base dmg increase on the weapon dmg itself is only 80 I think (would have to check exact numbers). Of course, that 80 is tossed into some kind of invisible formula to calculate the delivered damage.

Gonna do some quick napkin math and then I’ll post some findings.

Onisuo.8607:

The people who waited in ques or begged guildmates to party/raid with for hours because they only wanted to play the damage role flocked to GW2 and are praising it for the lack of trinity.

I love trinity and I always will because its the core of roleplaying games, where people select a role and face challenges, not ping-pong dps omg zerker some dumb npc with one-shot abilities.

The core focus on DPS isn’t because roles don’t exist. It’s because functions such as control or support are not required for most of the content available in the game. Also, I’ll point to the imbalanced multiplier that is +X% critical damage existing on gear.

• It’d be impossible to remove Berserker or Assassin’s gear out of the game entirely, and for all the traits and what not to be redesigned. I honestly propose Anet to assign a new kind of “armored” buff or whatever to all bosses (maybe all mobs in general for instances) that would allow the mob to reduce bonus crit damage by a flat percent (monster only buff, separate from Protection in its current form). The idea would be – Glass Cannons are only reduced in power for the one area of the game where they pretty much eliminate the need for other builds (Instances/Fractals/Speedclearing).

• The proper use of Vulnerability Stacking would allow the +X% crit damage builds/gear to reach adequate levels of damage again, but never at the amount that builds can get today with +200% crit damage and 25 Vuln.

The stat margins are accurate except when accounting critical damage into the mix.

Because crit damage is a multiplier, it’s calculating the base damage of your hit with the improved ascended stats. Do you have ascended armor on as well? An additional 3k damage on just a weapon improvement seems high to me.

I’d be interested in your base numbers and recorded damage on target for just the auto-attack, instead of a multi-hit attack like Unload.

Hahaha! You would show up just to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Chris!

Merry Christmas everyone, devs and players!

To everyone, I know we’re discussing all types of horizontal progression and content, but it would seem a large number of people are confusing game progression with character progression.

Perhaps a good discussion point would be to discuss the differences between the two.

Game Progression

• New events, content, and gametypes are game progression, such that it expands the game’s horizons and choice of gameplay to players. Also, if one’s idea is to take an existing area of the game (like dungeons) and modify it in some way for rewards, difficulty, whatever…that too is game progression, not character progression.

Character Progression

• Elements like adding more meaning to the existing character personality system, improved skill mechanics including new skills and/or weapons, and continuing aesthetically pleasing and prestigious rewards…these are elements of character progression. They directly affect either the performance/behavior of the character or affect the appearance of the character.

Given the original focus of the Vertical Progression thread on “character” (mostly in terms of balance and time of acquisition with Ascended gear), I feel we would all benefit more from exploring elements of Horizontal Character progression first, since I believe we can all say we either have an emotional attachment or some similar kind of investment in each of our characters.

We can throw out the most amazing, detailed, and slightly crazy ideas for new game content and ideas of game progression, but let’s not kid ourselves, we don’t know Arenanet’s resources and limitations. Let’s start on character progression and let those ideas build into more grandiose visions of new content and systems.

Thanks all for considering this approach and Merry Christmas to everyone!

cheese.4739:

Malchior.5042:

Soilder.3607:

ahuba.6430:

welcome to “hard counter wars 2”

This is actually a very true statement. This game has some unfair hard counters. Warriors apecced for mass cd removal vs a cd necro is just one example.

If they’re Specced, that means they built their build in such a way to cover one of their obvious weaknesses.

That’s soft-counter. Hard-counter is when they AREN’T specced, and can utilize an individual setup to be at an advantage against ANY OTHER setup. The instances of these in GW 2 are very few.

Actually I’d define a hard counter as “a build that will very reliably win against another build” or maybe “a class for which most viable builds reliably win against most viable builds of another class”.

A general (non-hard) counter is a way to deal with a greater variety of foes but not necessarily win every fight with them.

Example: lots of cleanse, healing and vitality is a counter to condition builds, but overall immunity is a hard counter. The condition-only build is either rendered useless in the face of this opponent, or needs to change in a major way.

Somewhat Related Proper My Own Opinion Time: Diamond Skin is barely a general counter to condition-heavy builds, but it is a hard counter to entirely condition builds. If a necromancer can’t get through an elementalist’s DS, they can deal with it by speccing for a little power and timing their condi-bursts to hit between the ele’s health top-ups.

True on every regard, good sir.

As for how does a condi necro break through Diamond Skin – Life Blast Marks 3 & 4 on staff have decent base damage as well.

Soilder.3607:

ahuba.6430:

welcome to “hard counter wars 2”

This is actually a very true statement. This game has some unfair hard counters. Warriors apecced for mass cd removal vs a cd necro is just one example.

If they’re Specced, that means they built their build in such a way to cover one of their obvious weaknesses.

That’s soft-counter. Hard-counter is when they AREN’T specced, and can utilize an individual setup to be at an advantage against ANY OTHER setup. The instances of these in GW 2 are very few.

You mean this perma-stability, OP?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Last_Stand

Read the notes, here’s what your fears are hitting.

You an engineer? Back items dont show up if kits are equipped.

My post from page 2 on the original Vertical progression page, before we got the guidance questions.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Vertical/page/2#post3368755

Jaxs.5830:

Boonprot.6274:

Jaxs.5830:

Our guild decided to not bother with the testing after we saw the spreadsheet. Giving account names of people is all that should matter, why do we need to provide email addresses when an email address is linked to each account?

Many of us use game specific email addresses for login that we do not use for any other purpose and sharing that with guildies is an un-necessary security risk.

Do what a lot of people did, create a separate acct just for EotM testing.

That was discussed, but why should you have to. Account has a linked email that they have access too. Why should everyone have to create a special email, why should we have to then fill it all into the spreadsheet.

Because they’re creating new accounts for people, which comes with the Mists test client. As part of the processes they have in place, it’s a requirement to link an email to a game client, just like it’s a requirement to link your Live email to your Live client.

It’s good both you and your guild are aware of the security risks of passing out your Live email, so just make a new one from gmail or something, just for Mists testing. It really is quite an opportunity you and your guild are missing.

The policies can be questioned sure, but there’s no time to change policies for a process that’s already active. They can look into that for any future public tests.

Azure Prower.8701:

For me. The game isn’t immersive at all. Sure it may have been for the first zone of the game. But that quickly disappeared in a combination of load screens, instanced zones, abrupt and instant way point travel, Lion’s Arch being the go-to city for every thing, etc.

After getting eight characters to level 80. To me it seems the game has dwindled into a check list of dailies, monthlies, current living world and gear grind.

The personal story was some what enjoyable until you reach Trehearne. Then it becomes a chore and uninteresting. The story doesn’t engage the player at all. The living story is about the same.

The world completion after the first character is another mundane check list. If it wasn’t for the heart quests. I’d probably do it on more than one character. The heart quests are full of uninspired kill x amount of enemies or interact with x amount of objects over and over. Then you look at how many heart quests you have to complete for world completion. That’s how many times you have to repeat the same tasks over and over.

World vs. World was fun for the first six months. But with little change to spice it up other than minor enhancements. It has lost its luster. Especially when the thrill of excitement of open world PVP is curved by who can enmass a larger zerg. SPvP is in the same boat with lack of change from a king of the hill(s) format.

The only thing left in this game that has me interested in is the jumping puzzles. Unpredictable whether you or your friends are going to make that next jump or not can leave you guessing and add to the thrill of this skill based challenge. This is really the only thing that makes Guild Wars 2 unique and it does it well.

I’m sorry sir, but that’s usually a consequence of getting 8 characters to max level. You’ve done it all, you’ve seen it all. Also, it’s disappointing the design of further exploration, achievements, and choices is broken down into “checklists.” It’s somewhat a consequence of the limited tech to deliver Living Story, along with the ability to pin achievements to the player’s event UI. It’s always there as a reminder of “what needs to get done today.”

Might I suggest just roaming around some of the lesser visited zones like Iron Marches, Fireheart Rise, or Snowden Drifts? It sounds like you’ve enjoyed the game otherwise you wouldn’t have leveled 8 characters to level 80. Me personally, I only have 1 level 80, with alts ranging anywhere from 60 to 20. My 80 does have World Completion and a Legendary, so I can say I’ve somewhat “seen it all” like you have.

Except still, I can find new dialogue lines or dynamic events, or NPC interactions that I’ve never seen before. Just yesterday I found a new Modus Sceleris event I had never even seen, where the enemy shapeshifted into a rat (like Yanonka, the guild bounty).

If you love Guild Wars 2 and want to continue to find neat things during the holidays, I’d advise to take delight in the little touches, the art, and the atmosphere. Find those hidden secrets, and rare events that you may not have experienced yet. Heck, you could even go crazy and turn off your UI if you want to be truly immersive.

Basically, get lost in the world! I hope it turns out well for you!

Malchior Devenholm

Distracting Shot

The number one skill of reflex in Guild Wars 1. Not only did you have to notice the enemy skill being used, but since D-Shot is a projectile, you had to use smart positioning, cancel cast, and close-range to ensure you nailed that 0.5s Guardian cast from the Prot monk.

Man, those were good times…

Ah that’s neat. It’s certainly just numbers for now. They probably coded it that way to offer room for further expansion of the account-bound system as a whole at some point in the future.

themenaceofseventhdimension.2075:

guys, ok, so I have been snooping around all of the parts of our forums, and almost every thread I see goes about sidetracking into the typical sense:

Devs! You are a failure!

This is almost too stupid of a thing for me to comprehend. I am guessing those of you who stay in GW2 even after saying those things like something about the game right? Then act like you are appreciative and nothing more. If you think about the entire forums as a giant home where we are relatives of each other, it is almost like half of us are kindergardeners, while the next 25% of us are actually appreciative people, and the next 25% are just major trolls. So here’s what I am saying. It seems more and more like Gw2 is going to become a chaotic place in the future for the forums. The forums are where we get in contact with each other the easiest, and where brilliant ideas can be used.

I feel like this forum will actually get dirty if it continues to become a topic place of arguing against the devs.

@Players. If you are going to argue, do talk in a mannered voice, and give strong but calm reasons to back yourselves up. And don’t start a rant about something which can be addressed calmly.

@Devs. If you do something that might anger or confuse the players, give us a reason of why you did it. It doesn’t take much to start a thread and tell us what’s going on on the other side in terms of trying to manage the forums. If there is a policy at the other side which limits your contact with us as players by 80% or more, then that is no game. It’s just downright sad to see in the nicest way possible.

So my proposal. Maybe we should really have a chat get together maybe every month to see how we are doing on things, and what each of us(players and devs) have to propose to the community. Of course, this does not mean you devs have to come to this sort of chat with the nervous mind of being forced to share developments secrets. It just could be a way to talk to each other friendly. That, in my own opinion, is the path to success and happiness for both sides. I am being dead serious on this matter.

Thank you sir for creating this thread. I could go into a very long detailed post about the proper way to give constructive criticism and feedback, but I’ll just leave it at this.

We all should be criticizing and providing feedback on the systems and if they feel fun to us. There is nothing to gain with criticizing a person (especially a developer).

What leads you to believe luck is still being tracked, good sir? Is it the flashes they added that appear over your character on each consumption?

That’s likely just tied to each individual item, not account-bound luck tracking as a whole.

VOLKON.1290:

Just real quick here…

Subclasses are a horrible idea. Absolutely horrible. The moment you begin to add too much specialization is the moment people start demanding that specialization for things that never required it in the first place. Someone will sit down somewhere with a calculator and convince themselves that the numbers indicate that with these certain professions and these certain subclasses you can clear a dungeon eighteen seconds faster, therefore no one else is acceptable.

Horrible, horrible idea for the long term health of the game.

This^^^ 100 times this. 1000 times this!

Unless captured in original design, subclasses and specialization classes add too much complexity to what was already a fully functional, well-established, and accurate system (the current profession system). Guild Wars 2 has done the absolute unthinkable of most MMOs, by removing race and/or world faction from the equation of class choice, and it has shown its strength in the variety of characters we’ve seen in LA or created for ourselves.

Also, VOLKON’s point about wanting to add “specialization” to everything rings true. For players who have no idea how design process works, they’ll see specialization in one system and then beg and plead for it to just be “slapped on” to other systems, with no clue of the time, cost, technical or engine limits, and actual effect it would have on the game.

Don’t change the system that’s been proven to work fantastically. Instead, build on the current system and improve its depth. I’ve said it before – new utility skills, new traits, new skill mechanics (Charge Skills, Toggle Skills), and ultimately, revamped weapon skills utilizing said new mechanics.

I can go into further detail sometime later, but for the love of the six gods, do not add [insert crazy subclass name here] to either the existing profession system or the trait system.

zoombi.1498:

maybe buygate can pay them to change policy?

Not even being a member of Blackgate, it’s posts like this that bait people into a shouting match, which does nothing but hurt the thread and leave both shouters out of air.

My response from a similar thread.

This is simply an attempt by Anet to reduce workload on CC (Customer Care) team because quite frankly, they’re sick and tired of all of the trash, toxic postings, and outright abusive behavior that those threads devolve into. Most of them can start with good intentions, but they’ve typically turned into the most abusive areas evidenced on the forums.
That said, I’m not in agreement with the decision to outright close any thread that derails, gets troll-baited, etc…it sounds way too easy to get a player’s thread with an opposing view to your own, closed. There are certainly people out there who would do such a thing (hell, they even do it now).
IMO, CC team can’t just strip away the matchup forums without replacing it with some alternative.

Jaxs.5830:

TeamBattleAxe.3901:

They’re also closing down the matchup forums.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Upcoming-Forum-Changes-to-WvW-Match-ups-Sub-forum

Another strong indication that WvW is more of an inconvenience than it is anything else to ANET.

That it not indicative to the gametype at all.

This is simply an attempt by Anet to reduce workload on CC (Customer Care) team because quite frankly, they’re sick and tired of all of the trash, toxic postings, and outright abusive behavior that those threads devolve into. Most of them can start with good intentions, but they’ve typically turned into the most abusive areas evidenced on the forums.

That said, I’m not in agreement with the decision to outright close any thread that derails, gets troll-baited, etc…it sounds way too easy to get a player’s thread with an opposing view to your own, closed. There are certainly people out there who would do such a thing (hell, they even do it now).

IMO, CC team can’t just strip away the matchup forums without replacing it with some alternative.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

This is my last day at work before the holiday season and I am going to be very busy!

Once I am on vacation I will have more time to respond and engage.

I am therefore going to postpone the focused discussion on Horizontal Progression until tomorrow. I will catch up post page 36 today (or at least try).

Meanwhile I have a question. This thread is BIG. Would the folks who have already commented on Horizontal want a new thread which is just based on Horizontal or should we just carry on with this thread?

Regarding my reminders from you about comments on some kind of reward for the Fractal reset, I am still thinking about feelings around it.

Chris

Hi Chris,

I definitely feel a separate thread would be the best way to go. For the handful of players (including myself) who posted about Horizontal Progression before the first half was directed to Ascended Gear, would it be considered reasonable to just encourage original posters to copy/paste their horizontal ideas from this thread into the other one? This might save you or any Anet moderation some time with regards to preserving ideas that originated in this thread for discussion in the other thread.

Thanks, and I can’t wait to get this Horizontal Train rolling!

Malchior Devenholm

Apps? See the API section of the forums where the community has grabbed the reigns and done the work on their own!

Shongaqu.5279:

…Continued form above…

TLDR : I would like to see a horizontal progression system in the game that focuses on investing us in the world of Tyria; a system that allows us to build something beyond our character’s stats and appearance. I would like to see a system that rewards gameplay with expanded options to generate world content for yourself and other players.

It’s like I told you before, Shongaqu. The concept is solid, the design is solid, the impact is genius…

…but it’s completely re-writing systems already fully functional and working well, while at the same time trying to create new systems with entirely new behaviors not utilized in the game.

It’d be a massive undertaking, likely completely impossible given time restraints, tech, budget, etc…

It’d be much easier, more efficient, and engaging if it were its own game built from the ground up (which you should totally do BTW )

Septemptus.7164:

Malchior.5042:

Septemptus.7164:

Malediktus.9250:

Changing stats should stay legendary exclusive. Otherwise there is no reason to go for legendary if you dont like the skin.

Stats could go for ascended.
Legendaries were supposed to be accomplishment or cash farm as we see now, there is nothing exclusive in them anymore.

Yes there is, stat-changing :P

They specifically added that functionality to give legendaries a little more of a meaning, even with their skins being completely awesome.

But you could make ascended to have like 2 or 3 stats possible (chooseable on soulbinding) and legendaries would always have everything.

Now THERE’S an idea!

It still faces the potential of singling people out based on their choices (New player or rather, just ignorant player doesn’t know Berserker’s and Soldier’s is all you ever need), but I feel it’s more reasonable then doing a copy/paste of the currently Legendary functionality to Ascended Gear.

Septemptus.7164:

Malediktus.9250:

Changing stats should stay legendary exclusive. Otherwise there is no reason to go for legendary if you dont like the skin.

Stats could go for ascended.
Legendaries were supposed to be accomplishment or cash farm as we see now, there is nothing exclusive in them anymore.

Yes there is, stat-changing :P

They specifically added that functionality to give legendaries a little more of a meaning, even with their skins being completely awesome.

Adding the same hot-swap stat change functionality to ascended would REALLY remove exclusivity and meaning from Legendaries.

100% agreed with RNG being the worst way to go. If it’s a necessary evil of marketing/business/or game structure, so be it. However, for top of tier loot/rewards, I’m sure a majority of players would rather have a concrete goal to work towards.

Morrigan.2809:

@ Chris
Honestly all I want to know is if I can stop worrying about content becoming so hard I can’t do it without Ascended, and if the tiers will stop now and I never have to worry about it

I have never had even 40 g, playing since betas- yes I know :P

atm I am laboriously crafting Eye of Rodgort- even that is making me do things I don’t want to do since I need money to buy bloods.( I made Lidless eye in about 3 weeks)
Saving up for Vision of the Mists already for another character

Mostly I love running DE’s out in the open world- it is really fun for me- it is what I enjoy doing.
It leaves me completely broke- I love seeing the world and discovering things, it gives me great joy, just no gold.
I also love making and playing and gearing more characters.

Ascended might as well be on the moon as far as I am concerned because I play this game for fun- and I have had a lot of fun.

I stopped having any interest whatsoever in crafting because even though I loved it – I simply can’t afford it.

I am picking between my own goals and the goals the game hands to me that feels very arbitrary to be honest and not fun at all

Not to speak for Chris, but I’ll just offer a player’s perspective on the necessity of Ascended Gear for content.

• Ascended Gear is only required for higher tier Fractals, and even then, we are not talking about the new Ascended armor. This is only referring to rings, accessories, and weapons, as those are currently the only pieces that can accept Infusions. Also, the incremental +X design of infusions now means it’d be possible (although highly unlikely) to acquire the desired amount of AR for a given scale, even without having all ascended accessories + Ascended Weapon.

• Anyone who says otherwise (ascended required for wvw, ascended required for tequatl or large-scale encounters, etc…) is simply referring to the ability to perform at maximum efficiency (which not counting critical damage%, is only 5% better than full exotic).

• It is my understanding as a player that Anet never did intend and never will intend Ascended Gear to be a requirement for any other open PvE content. If new instances are developed cough Elite Areas, FoW, UW, etc… cough in the future, I’d say Ascended Gear may be a requirement there, if Arenanet chooses to use Agony as a mechanic in these areas.

That’s the only element I could see Ascended being somewhat of a requirement in the distant future.

Kyven.7514:

And for those of us who have tiny guilds that aren’t large enough to get guild commendations? We’d be screwed. I do not want to have to join a large guild just for guild commendations. And people who don’t like fracs? Screwed. Dungeons I wouldn’t mind so much but I know a few people who wouldn’t want to run dungeons just for gear.

Hence why Chris initially said drop-rates would be improved and hopefully more resources to get the drop would be added. Personally, IMO, I don’t know why anyone who is an avid PvEr would need Ascended Gear (or even feel compelled to go for it) if they don’t participate in the current elements of PvE “endgame” (man I hate that term)

VOLKON.1290:

Malchior.5042:

Sorry VOLKON. I really enjoyed the proposal at first, with all of your details, but there are few things I hate more in MMOs than gates or requirements that aren’t established by the game design, but are initially perceived and ultimately accepted by the players themselves! Such one-dimensional thinking from players is what usually inhibits change, experimentation, and flexibility, and further leads these players to cookie-cutter meta builds that require minimal skill to execute.

Hey. You took an idea, muddled it around and came up with your opinions on the idea.

Never apologize for that. That’s how things get done.

Thanks for being so understanding, sir. Your proposal immediately re-ignited an idea a friend of mine detailed, most elements of which were the same. I tried to put that into the current game in the way you described and was pleased with most of the outcomes, until I decided to play devil’s advocate as the min/maxer who hates carrying 10+ insignias in his bags or kicks n00bs out of group for not having the same.

It’s attacking each other ideas in a constructive manner that can truly get us somewhere with this initiative!

Also Chris

Is it fair to say that regarding Ascended Gear we would like to see more ways to earn it and in terms of drop rates, a higher percentage chance of acquiring them through this method?

Chris

Yes. That’s a good start. I’d be much more accepting of the design someone proposed above where a player would need X number of dungeon tokens (maybe individual dungeons, maybe combined dungeons) + Y number of Guild Commendations, + Z number of Fractal Relics as a reasonable means of Ascended Gear acquisition for PvE players.

It touches every single aspect of “end-game” (just to assign a term…not that I approve of said term) PvE content currently available in Guild Wars 2 that virtually ANY player can complete regardless of skill level. It’s just a time investment, but it’s one that works towards a goal, which is always better than RNG.

VOLKON.1290:

…(edited for character length)

I have a piece of Knights armor. I craft a Berserker inscription. I use a transmutation stone to replace the Knights inscription with the Berserker inscription on the armor, changing it to Berserker armor. Knights inscription goes >poof<.

What do we get…

1. Flexibility with our ascended gear stats, saving time over multiple sets for a single character.
2. ANet doesn’t lose out on T-stones, possibly sees an increase in their use.
3. We still have a sink for ascended and T6 items in the crafting of the insignias, and the crafting professions already make these.
4. I become famous.

Simple, elegant and solves and/or prevents many problems.

If stat swapping were to be considered, this would be the way I expect to see it occur.

Much like Nike, I shudder at the fact of getting just 1 ascended weapon and then being able to have all 17+whatever future stat combos available on that character by hot-swapping the stats. I’m sure Anet has metrics on how many people already have a full set of ascended gear, or even just one piece of Ascended armor after just this first week of release.

The idea of using the existing tech of hot-swapping stat combos in the manner that Legendaries do so now seems like it would greatly trivialize the effort required to obtain an ascended piece of gear. Trivializing effort=trivializing time, which although the implementation was poor and slightly rushed, even Chris has stated the original design purpose of Ascended Gear was to serve as a bridge to Legendaries.

I like the concept of VOLKON’s proposal, but I honestly don’t think the playerbase will grasp onto the necessity to keep it limited as such, and not be hot-swap like Legendaries. Also, for the min/maxers who like to have everything available at a moment’s notice, it would seem clunky to have 3, 5, or 10 different Ascended Insignias in your inventory, just to swap stats as deemed beneficial for the encounter (Fractal Instabilities anyone?).

With those two approaches detailed, I honestly can’t say I can think of a clean way to add stat-swapping to Ascended armor that wouldn’t either…

• 1. Greatly trivialize the time and effort taken to obtain multiple Ascended combos for different builds. Also, if you have an Ascended coat with Legendary-like hot-swap functionality, what do you do with the 2nd coat the drops for you?

• 2. Cause a new level of dependency on a player to be flexible not by the ability to play certain builds or react accordingly, but have the items required to execute said builds or playstyles at the maximum efficiency.

Example – “Ok guys, it’s Fractal Scale 50 and we’re about to fight the Grawl Shaman in Volcano. Everyone got Cleric’s or Soldier’s insignias to swap out of Berserker’s?” "Players 1-4 respond yes. Player 5 responds, “Uh…I’ve been doing Apothecary gear the whole time.” “Leader – WTF? You told us you were Soldier’s! We ALL used our Cleric’s/Soldier’s insignias to swap! You mean you don’t have any insignias to swap?! Player 5 gets kicked from group”

Where some players may have been denied a group before starting (which is bad in and of itself, but at least no false expectations were set), NOW a new dependency is set where players are expected to have each insignia available to perform any build possible at the highest effectiveness, even if the content doesn’t dictate it necessary or the requested build/statset is unfamiliar to the player.

(Sorry VOLKON. I really enjoyed the proposal at first, with all of your details, but there are few things I hate more in MMOs than gates or requirements that aren’t established by the game design, but are initially perceived and ultimately accepted by the players themselves! Such one-dimensional thinking from players is what usually inhibits change, experimentation, and flexibility, and further leads these players to cookie-cutter meta builds that require minimal skill to execute.)

(Just saw the ascended gear request…spent an hour writing this. I’ll detail my thoughts on Ascended Gear later)

Horizontal Progression Goal – New skills or skill mechanics

Long Term Vision

• The introduction of the new healing skills are a decent start towards improving flexibility, which is one of my biggest proponents and measurements of Horizontal Progression. The long-term vision of mine has been the addition of say 1-3 new weapons, where each class would at least be able to wield one of the three. Of course with new weapons comes new 1-5 skills, each of which would have their own flavor of design dependent both on the weapon and the class that uses it. I’m aware it would require tons of new items, animations, art, everything and the kitchen sink to implement, but I do hope once the game is 2, 3, even 4 years old, we would be playing with some brand new skillsets to introduce new styles of play and new skill mechanics.

Middle Vision

• With healing skills now available, I’m sure a decent amount of the community is hopeful for the addition of new utility or elite skills. Most utility skills across the classes – save for the extra unique ones like Engi Weapon Kits, Mesmer Portal, or Shadowsteps and Blinks – most of the skills can decently fit into only one of the following expectations: Power Builds, Condi Builds, Support Builds, Stunbreakers, and Staple Skills.
• The existence of skills for hybrid purposes is very few, with boons and boon stacking comprising a majority of the selection. In the future, I would like more skills that can potentially meet two expectations, to further allow compression of the skill bar, and prevent the need of “staple skills” across each profession. I’m sure the various posters here could identify which utility skills they seem to bring for every build they use on a given profession, just because other skills are too one-dimensional.

Short Term Vision

• That brings me to my short-term vision, and that’s additional ways to make our current skills not necessarily more impactful, but more engaging, active, or fun. The animation and art team has done a phenomenal job with making combat exciting, and kudos to the combat designers for making the best combat system in an MMO I’ve ever played. There is still room for growth, though.

• During pre-release, the idea of “charge” skills, abilities that increased in intensity the longer a key was pressed, was originally in the design. At some point, it was removed (likely for time or tech constraints, but that’s none of my business and that’s in the past). With a solid game now, and the LW teams parsed out to create new environments and content, I’d like a revisit to the concept of charge skills.

• Forgive me for using an outside reference, but just on a whim, I picked up the new Neverwinter MMO on Steam recently. The Ranger Class within the game had a Split Shot skill that began with something like a 90 degree cone on activation, and could be fired straight like that. The skill fired 5 projectiles in this cone, and like a Shortbow Ranger’s Poison Volley, each projectile could hit multiple targets (Piercing and unique recognition of each projectile). Covering such a wide arc, the strength of the AoE was actually quite weak, because the projectiles would fan out and hit multiple foes unless in point-blank range of the target.

• The true power and flexibility of the skill came when the skill was held down and channeled, the arc narrowed all the way to 0 degrees to hit a single target! A player could choose the width of the arc based on how long the key was pressed and release the key to shoot the 5 arrows in a 60 degree, 50 degree, etc…all the way down to 0 degrees for a straight line shot, which was incredibly powerful! Decreasing one’s firing arc to only cover the effective range necessary, meant the player could maximize damage potential through careful planning, position, and field awareness, and even adapt his/her approach for multiple enemies, all within one encounter! One skill served as a multi-functional tool for the player to recognize the situation at hand and rewarded smart play and positioning! (Did I mention the Ranger learns this skill at level 2? )

• It’s the flawless design of that Spread Shot skill I experienced in Neverwinter that opened me back up to the sheer possibility of effects that could be utilized with giving improved “charged skill” functionality to already existing skills in the game across each profession.

• In closing, I’ll offer this. A player who can be flexible, adapt, play multiple builds and professions, is a player that is constantly being challenged by the game to become a more skillful player. That’s how I see it. Thanks everyone for your time, and I hope we continue to produce more ideas for Horizontal Progression.

Sincerely,
Malchior Devenholm

Also, note the “upcoming.” They created this kit long ago, I think even something like a year before release, for fansites to have official elements and art to design with.