Guild Wars 2

Pirlipat.2479:

Ceridwen.6703:

Snip

This is by far the best post I’ve read about the whole topic. I am sooo sick about this constant negativity, about this blaming-game, about the picking on people and so on.

I can cope with failure, but this constant moaning of a few after a fail is dragging down the moral of the whole map.

I agree, if you are unhappy with the performance of your map during your last event, explain what people can do to improve their performance, go to the trading post and buy a tray of food to help, explain how the warden that failed is supposed to be fought…..offer encouraging words for the next time the fight happens and remind people when that is so that they can prepare….

…but stop with the name calling and complaining…its childish and whenever I hear someone do it the only thought that goes through my head is how the person complaining must be a teenager because they obviously are not an adult. Say something constructive or useful or leave the map and cry in your guild-chat.

I actually wish for more hardcore content in the game to challenge myself. I do not see tequatl or the wurm as hardcore content…it is not…it is actually very easy content that was made into ANNOYING content that relies on 149 other random people to complete. The fact that ANET placed it in lower level areas in my opinion is a huge fail. These two events should be instanced or nerfed. They are stupid. You cannot put an event that requires well-geared, well-organized groups of players in an area that is frequented by level 50-65 medium geared players who most often are in those areas to mine the rich platinum and rich gold nodes (or finish their personal story).

ANET needs to give more hardcore content, but they need to give it an instance or put it in a level 80 zone. The problem with Teq and Wurm is not between hardcore players and casual players, the problem is between good players and bad players…and quite simply, someone who is only level 50 is not a good player yet….they might be super hardcore….but are definitely not good yet at their class. (Although arguably, probably still better than many bad players).

However, if someone happens to be in a level 50 zone and sees an event and joins it because they see the event pop up and think “this could be fun” it is not their fault, it is the fault of the developer who put the event in the level 50 zone where that player could see it and join it since they were already in the zone.

Harder content should give cosmetic or vanity rewards, but not better gear…because that starts a REALLY stupid trend of the good players getting better and better gear and then demanding harder and harder content because the previous content got too easy because they now have better gear…but they should definitely have something to show that the accomplished the feat.

I’m sorry, but I do not feel sorry for the people that are on a high population server and then complain when you are in overflow for events like Tequatl and the Wurm.

Your servers are the very targets for these events. There is a reason why only the high-pop servers are the ones that regularly defeat tequatl and the wurm. You have a higher pool of people from which to pull the ones that are dedicated enough to sit and work your way through it…and because of this, you get to enjoy these events long after the rest of our servers have quit doing them entirely.

Like someone above said, he is forced to guest to your server to do Tequatl…I’m forced to do the same if I want to do tequatl, my home server RARELY attempts it…and almost never succeeds.

If you and your guild want to do the wurm so badly, I personally invite you to come to Borlis Pass and do the wurm. On Monday at 1:00pm US central time there was about 30 people waiting for the wurm…you should be able to guest and come right in with your entire guild….or I am sure there are low-pop servers in europe that probably can say the same thing.

The problem is not overflows, the problem is events that are designed to require a full server map to do…which then forces the overflows. If the event was designed to scale properly for the people on the map and not require 150 people, you would see far less people guesting to the servers that can do the event, because EVERYONE could do the event on their home servers!

Risingashes.8694:

Josh: Love the Marri- despite the frustration caused by watching a group of baddies fail.

Can I suggest a more focused training program for the individual for a future patch?

You’d need to make it essentially mandatory, either by rewards or locking Legendaries, level 80 or something behind it.

Have something that specifically teaches dodges, something that specifically requires trait swapping, something that specifically teaches positioning.

I’d love some harder content, and if the only way to get it is ensuring the playerbase is competent then it’s really up to you guys to actively push it forwards systematically and not just hope people pick things up while being carried by others.

Its called Fractals. Thats where I learned the importance of dodging / trait swapping (and skill swapping for each boss), positioning, even weapon swapping for different abilities vs different foes, and at higher levels it is harder content.

However, because it’s hard and requires things like the above, most people don’t do it. I have a friend who is adamant that he does not need to change skills / armor / weapons/ etc no matter what he does in the game …some will never learn….I honestly hate doing dungeons or anything with him since typically he spends more time getting healed than doing damage to our opponent…those people will always exist in the game…and will always still try to do this content…and get frustrated when they fail. I’ve talked until I was blue to him about dodging and swapping skills and etc…he doesn’t care, his attitude is that he shouldn’t have to do that (“think” to play the game) so he wont.

The only thing we have had trouble with was the /cheer command, both me and several friends are not seeming to get that even though we have tried to cancel out of the cinematic and /cheer, we tried waiting until cinematic ended and /cheer, and we have tried it after going up to the chest…still haven’t gotten the acheive….anyone have ideas what we are doing wrong?

SirMoogie.9263:

I think going forward events like these should have their failure conditions moved to things players feel like they have more control over. They should also have a means of easily gauging progress toward learning the encounter. Timers are a poor means of communicating challenge as it feels like skill is not the determining factor in winning the encounter just DPS. Though this is just a feeling and not actually true, the Marionette offers a better mechanic for a challenging encounter that can fail through the minion waves. Under the hood it is still a DPS race vs a timer (as you must kill the energizing mobs before they reach the end of the lane). However, you as a player have more tools to control this failure (e.g., cripple, chill, immobilize, walls).

I have stated this many times…and Agree wholeheartedly, Timers have no place in a “living” world. Does Tequatl have a dinner appointment? Do the Wurms have a hot date that they absolutely must get to? Live or Die should depend on factors of the fight, not whether an arbitrary clock counts down….that is also why I love the marionette. On one fight we had over the weekend, we were able to get through 2 complete rotations of all 5 lanes…it was AMAZING defense coupled with really crappy offense (since we lost even after all 5 lanes went in twice)….we were all seriously cheering the defense part though since that was the furthest I (and everyone else there) had ever seen the defense last. The fight was lost because we were just concentrating on the defense….and in total the fight lasted over 1/2 hour….if we had a timer it would have been lost much earlier. It was still an awesome fight because WE determined the outcome, not an arbitrary number of minutes.

Part of the problem with Teq and the Wurm is the utter lack of progress if you are not doing well. People who know the battle know that the majority of Teq’s HP’s come off really quickly after you get rid of the 1st 1/4. It is the same with the wurm, once those first bombs (or debuffs) go down, it goes down quickly….but until you get that part done right, it is frustratingly slow…which discourages people.

People with both of those events pointed out that after a week, they can still only get it down to about 95% or 85% of health even after multiple tries…and they called the events “impossible”

For future events like these I think the devs should reverse how they look at damage. Make the first 50% go fast, and then let the baddy develop resistances as the battle goes on so that the fight gets harder and harder, rather than easier and easier…this provides the psychological effect of positive re-enforcement for the fight.

People would have a sense that they are accomplishing something….“We got him down to 50% on our first try!” which would make them try harder the next try “We’ll get him next time.”

Rather than “we barely scratched him after 15 minutes” and the inevitable “this is impossible since we barely hurt him”.

Psychologically, people are more open to trying again if they see actual progress.

In my opinion, the Marrionette is in a perfect place. I have actually used it as a “teaching moment” to talk to players about builds and changing things based on the fight (explaining to players that I actually carry every single weapon on my guardian and why I do that as well as several different types of armor). I’ve also used the time to explain the different fights for newer players and how to defeat each warden (rather than just saying “go read dulfy and come back when you are ready” as many people seem to think is the right thing to say.

I dont have a commander tag (I play all of my alts and don’t know which one to put it on), but I was actually treated as a commander in one of our attempts (no one with a commander tag was there) and we got 4-5 chains down and were 4-5 platforms on the final warden 2 times before we failed….I considered that a victory even though it was a loss, and everyone else was doing a good job of congratulating people on the close attempt….

Was it frustrating to lose because 1 platform failed twice….yes it was, but at the same time I knew we could do it…and the majority of the same people stuck around over the next 2 hours to try again (some left, changed their specs / weapons and came back)….and we succeeded on the next attempt! We had no TS, no organization or strategy outside of mapchat. I really did feel like people learned something from the fight and the advice of more veteran players. (I had so many direct questions I could barely keep up with answers).

Now Teq and Wurm on the other hand I think are completely wrong for the open world and wrong for the majority of the player base….they cannot be accomplished by a group of players who just get together and talk over the strategy in the map chat….those require experience with the fight…multiple experiences with the fight in order to learn…and that is something the “average” player will not have without doing the fight multiple times.

I use a casual friend as a gauge. I can convince him to try the marrionette, and with some instruction he usually does pretty well (about 50% of the time dead on the platform)…but he does well enough to want to try again. He will not go near either Tequatl or the Wurm after his first two attempts at those.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Why not take the initiative and gather people from your server to do the event? If you just want to show up to elite content, expecting to join an organized group, then you need to wait for that group to come.

If no one wants to lead or coordinate on your server, it’s not Anet’s fault, but the players themselves.

I see this comment a lot. And every time I do I want to see the person who made the comment do exactly that….just go out to Lion’s arch and organize a group of 150 players to do ANYTHING! (heck, I helped run a couple temple runs and it is like herding cats to get people to go to the same place in the same order…much less do an organized event like tequatl) HERDING CATS I TELL YOU!

It is so easy to go to your local area and organizing a group to do tequatl…it’s so easy! That statement seriously makes me laugh! LOL.

Youre not elite for having done tequatl (I’ve done him about 20 times now…I AM NOT ELITE), you just happen to have a guild (like TTS which I am a part of) or a server that gets enough people to do tequatl….there is nothing Elite about the fight….stop being condescending of others who have legitimate concerns over the lack of people that do this content on a regular basis on all but the highest population servers.

To the original poster. Most of the non-high pop servers stopped doing Tequatl over a month ago…the only way to do a tequatl kill if you are on one of these servers is by joining TTS or guesting to a high-pop server and waiting. Come to the fight about an hour before hand so that you can recieve instructions (“first timers—stand here and hit one so that you can be Elite also doing this Elite content” is our most common suggestion). TTS takes all comers so you would be welcome with them.

Tommyknocker.6089:

I’ve never failed it because of the time limit and I am in PVT gear.

I have however watched it fail many times due to some players not knowing the mechanism of the fight or when to dodge. IMO The time limit is arbitrary in this case.

I’m confused…how could you have never failed it due to time-limit when no one has succeeded in it yet? That would imply that it has ALWAYS been failed due to the time-limit. Or are you talking about the Caledon wurm and not the three headed one?

digiowl.9620:

I reminded myself that if i ignore the platforms for a moment the event is as i have suggested Tequatl should be worked.

Meaning that the success or failure of the event depends on the performance of the players, not some timer ticking down in the background…(snipped)

…Tequatl could have been reworked to something similar related to the cannon on the beach. And i am sure that other world bosses could be reworked in some similar fashion, thus removing the need for the arbitrary time limit.

I agree whole-heartedly that Tequatl and other world bosses should never be designed with Timers…When a timer fails, you just want to yell at ANET. When WE fail, we think of how we could have done better.

I love the idea that Tequatl could be changed in a simple way to make the fight more doable… get rid of the timer, and instead add HP to the cannon in the middle. If Tequatl or his minions do enough damage to the cannon, he leaves having been satisfied that they destroyed something that we created to hurt him. As long as we defend the cannon, the event gives us more time to hurt Tequatl. I think that alone would change the whole battle for the better.

Him leaving because of a timer just doesnt make sense. Does he have a dinner to go to? Wife waiting at home? Was he just hopping out for a bite to eat? Timer’s REALLY destroy the perception that this is a living world.

One more comment on the WURM: Is it so hard to create an instance doorway (perhaps to an underground labyrinth) that has a 15 minute timer on it?…anyone that joins during that 5-10-15 minute timer (similar to how you did the Scarlett invasions) goes into the INSTANCE with the super hard / Wurm event…this would immediately get rid of AFK’rs (if you’re AFK you cant JOIN the instance), it immediately allows for large groups to do this themselves (everyone line up where the doorway forms and all run in), it free’s up server resources (the instances can be hosted anywhere…even on a low-pop server if it has more capacity to handle the event). I see nothing but positives to this kind of “open world” yet “instanced” content for those that want HARD content.

It doesnt even automatically exclude anyone, since anyone can join during that timer of the open doorway…until the instance is full, then it starts another one (overflow for the one instance).

I want to throw my hat into this ring as well. I love the marrionette, it is a beautiful fight and very well designed for the open world. I truly wish this was staying instead of the wurm or Tequatl

I saw her on the Champ train in frostgorge….I think she map-chatted that she had a pre-cursor drop…Dusk I believe…she was going to sell it on the TP.

Waiting, Abaddon is.

Mordacreux.6491:

Dissapointment..nothing more to say

Wow, it’s been out for what? 30 minutes…I’d hate to be an ANET dev…players are harsh! Dissapointed before the events even begin!

Nothing Ninja about it, its in the patch notes.

my screen on the otherhand would become a slideshow with more than 3 Embers out as soon as they started spamming their lava fonts.

Dont get me wrong, I loved them, and I used them whenever I could (I have 250 on each of my characters), but they did indeed cause performance issues on some machines.

They did cause a lot of lag though, whenever you had 20-30 embers launching lava fonts all at the same time my screen would crawl. but yeah, we used them on more than tequatl…I was just saying that this will drastically change that battle since they were relied upon to get the DPS needed to take down Teq.

no it says “item” that summons pets….not ability. Ranger and necro are abilities not items. This mainly nerfs Ogre pet whistle as well as Fire elemental powder. Both of which have been used lately by everyone for everything…but especially for tequatl kills.

Astralporing.1957:

To mitigate performance issues, items that summon pets now have a 30-minute cooldown.

lol, they nerfed ember spawn. Wondered how long will it take them

I was going to post the same thing! NOW I wonder how many servers will continue to kill Tequatl…lol…it was just made a TON harder.

Since all i wear and weild are exotics, I use a 20 slot exotic box from FOTM as my last bag. Everything I take off / change (armor / weapons) automatically goes there and since I so rarely find exotic items…it usually remains empty of new stuff until I run out of space in all my other 20 slot bags.

Lonami.2987:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

cesmode.4257:

ColinJohanson.2394:

A lot of the ideas boiled down into variations of one of these two options, and really both have a lot of cool concepts and ideas. Can folks think of anything else that’s a bit more outside the box for something bigger?

I had suggested several times about Global Dominance system. Similar to WvW…we as players and as a server, complete events across the entire map of Tyria and receive passive bonuses based on the % of the map that we control as players. So if we leave entire zones(say the lesser traveled zones) to be completely occupied by centaurs, for example, we won’t be receiving maximum benefits. And you can use most of the existing dynamic events to accomplish this. There are many DEs that take over way points and camps that we as players can complete and push enemy NPCs back…thus acquiring a larger portion of the world…

Just catching up now. I really do like this idea, always have. I see this as a base system that would be applied to content across the board that would impact many features and mechanics, not just Horizontal Progression. I bet this idea comes up in many more CDIs as it has already done in the past.

Chris

You might like this idea: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1lz4yy/what_if_we_got_a_release_revamping_orr_would_you/

Between other things there, I suggest some kind of “World vs Risen” system, where we fight across various zones (The 3 from Ruins of Orr) against the risen, with supply lines and other mechanics to reflect a real conflict, just like WvW but against the AI of Zhaitan’s minions.

My biggest problem with systems like this is that if you provide bonus’s for servers that keep the most area’s clear, you are now incentivising people to play on the most populous servers (more people means they can keep more area’s clear)…which only exasporates the problems seen on popular servers already (over-flows, waiting to do things, etc). Look at WvW.

So before implementing something like this….think about how it would affect a less-populated server, and how it would affect a more-populated server….and think about what you are trying to accomplish…if you are trying to fill servers, this would get people to jump to more-populated servers until they are full…leaving less populated as ghost towns…if you are trying to even out the servers, you need to do something completely different than this. Perhaps scaling the “invasions” to the population of the server….so they are easier to clear on low-pop servers than they are on high-pops, requiring about the same percentage of players to keep clear regardless of server population.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

Quick update. I will be afk for 2 days for family celebrations.

Let’s continue to here the communities top 3 lists and discuss ideas and then on the 1st Jan we can put some proposals together and dive into the specifics.

Chris

Have a Happy new year!

Because those poor guys building the new asura gates in lions arch (in the eastern ward) have been laboring for over a year with absolutely no progress to show!!

Seriously though, I love exploring…I love having a VAST world to walk around in. I’m not the type of person that sits in one zone…I leveled additional characters of each race just so that I would be forced to walk around in every zone of the game. I loved when they released Southsun and spent hours exploring it (even with the danger). I love seeing new things and new places.

Conski Deshan.2057:

2. The house is a progression in itself those with the money/achievement points/skill get a house. It’s placed as a reward for say completing something this could be
Easy: personal story
Medium: Personal story + 200g to buy the plot then you can build it up
Hard: Personal story + 200g + 5k AP
The idea in this method is that people have to work actively for it, they don’t just farm gold and get the house, they have to play actively.

Nothing should require gold to do. That is my biggest complaint right now about GW2 is that it seems EVERYTHING requires gold…and this only encourages gold farming…by just “playing the game” I never amassed more than 200 gold in an entire year of GW2. I didn’t get above that number until I actively began farming for gold…I HATE THAT!

Instead of 200G, it should be a personal quest, or perhaps get a certain amount of materials (500 each of all woods for example). That way, if people want to farm gold to buy the materials, Okay…but if you don’t want to farm gold, then you have another option as well.

Someone else said earlier, Horizontal progression should be all about options…it should allow multiple ways to do everything, that way players never feel like they have to do a single thing to accomplish a goal.

There is a group of 5-6 Asura gates being built in Lions Arch (opposite side of the main platform from the current Asura gates)…these were one of the first things I saw when I was a new player in Lions arch…and it got me REALLY excited for GW2….since it looked like the goal was to open those gates eventually (maybe one at a time) to lead to new areas, new things to explore, new things to do. It showed progress in a forward direction from the start (they wouldn’t have to shoe-horn in additional gates, they were already being built!)…

Those poor workers have been hammering on those for over a year now! (I’m Just saying, if I was one of those workers, I would be getting a little frustrated with the lack of anything tangible to show for my efforts).

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

1.)
2.) Spirit Dancer Mode:
In short: you toggle the Spirit Dancer Mode and from then on hidden demons, evil spirits and other evils appear in the world. Sometimes they are the ancestors of living creatures and join them in battle. They only aggro Spirit Dancers and heroes have to fight both: demons and normal creatures.
A version of a hardmode system in the open world, for people who have progressed past maximal level and world completion.
(https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/15#post3420201)
.

I really like this idea and think it could be accomplished with the current game system. We already have similar things with the “heart” items only appearing to players that haven’t completed that heart yet. This would utilize that same subsystem toggling on “hard mode” for those that want it, while everyone else doesn’t see / interact with the “spirits”.

I would like to add….that even though there is no trinity, I would love to see dungeon mechanics that take advantages of certain class strengths / weaknesses.

For instance, a dungeon that actually has 3 paths that are dictated by who is in the group….there is a direct fight path…where you fight your way through, but there also is a way to go over a ledge utilizing either a mesmers or a thieves teleport to then open a door….while the third path might have an area necessary for invisibility to cross (utilizing the thief, ele, or Mesmer invis).

All three paths would have equal loot, but it would give more meaning to the different classes…and all three paths are do-able by the entire party if they have just one person of the “special ability” class to get past the obstacle….

1) Skin locker particularly for Gem purchased or living story skins that cannot be gotten anymore…

2)Quests to gain things rather than relying on TP, crafting, or store. Give me an epic quest to get a set of ascended armor or weapon…or a legendary….it doesn’t have to be easy, but it should be able to be done by the average player (legendary might be more).

3) More Character customization (skins to go after that can be mixed-matched, maybe effects-like dyes (glowing dye), things like that…the ability to upgrade items like the fractal capacitor would go along with this (the last upgrade is purely cosmetic).

Septemptus.7164:

Ken DeBoer.9268:

2 – I would love to see Meta award skins be listed in the achievement pane for you to use more than once (I won’t be greedy and ask for all skins)

+1, We really need that.

I also want to throw my vote towards that and also add in, I think Gem-store skins should be added to this list since you “purchased” the skin.

Basically, any skin that cannot be purchased on the trading post should be able to be placed into the achievement panel to use more than once.

I agree with many of the ideas thrown out here….particularly

I would love to see more specialized skills to add more utility to the various classes…like healing specialized skills, or crowd control specialized skills, that give the ability to “specialize” a class to a particularly type of class….this would give a sub-class feel to a class without the subclass….or, just make a subclass for each class to give that specialized feel….people who don’t like the subclass can still stay with the main and be the “jack of all trades” type.

I really like the idea that anything in horizontal progression should require some sort of quest, or personal achievement to unlock. You want personal housing? Maybe you have to gather the materials to make it first…you want to be able to dye your weapon….maybe you need to learn that secret from the secret order of weapons-dyers. You want a new skin locker? Put on a fashion show for the locals and they will buy you a closet! Want a new Ranger Pet? Go out and hunt it…or learn to tame that special pet by an ogre….

I just like the idea of having to do something to get something…rather than the feeling that is out there right now that in order to get something you need to farm gold. I hate farming for gold, but I would love to have an epic quest to unlock something special for my character….

Just remember that anything that has to be “done” to unlock something should be able to be stopped / started over time to cater to the casual users as well (not require someone to put in 4 hours in a single shot for instance).

Myst Dawnbringer.9138:

Ettins screaming for MORE BEER!

I hear the same thing….followed by “BEER HERE!”

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

Yes, a new thread would be beneficial to focus discussion.

Nike.2631:

Estriella Faerie.4029:

Hope this answer your question.

((Solemn nod))

Thank you. It does.

Based on what you’ve told me, I think I’m going to have to start radiating my
‘pitchforks and torches’ buff, because if people were reaching those higher levels by skillful, coordinated play those achievements CANNOT be simply erased or forgotten.

In my MMO experience, there is no joy greater than exceeding Developer expectations. When a encounter is introduced amid fanfare of “this fight is so tough only a full party of the best geared, most skillful players can hope to triumph” I IMEDIATELY start thinking about how to pull it off with, oh let’s say half the expected number of players.

Bring. It. On.

To me that sort of thing is the best kind of test of manhood for the hardcore gamer. Who cares about beating an encounter that’s designed to be beaten. I don’t measure my awesome by winning what’s meant to be won, I measure it be how many times I achieve the impossible. Or at least what the Devs thought was impossible .

And how the Devs respond to that is crucial test of their chops too. If they can suck it up and go “Wow, that is amazing. Well done. We’ll step up our game next time and give you a chance to really shine!” You’re looking at a game you hope thrives for years. And if they get huffy that you didn’t bow down and follow the precise script as they intend it, that you leveraged your abilities in a way they just plain forgot about, you’re looking at a game that is on its way down.

While I see the necessity of a new scale for a new system (the fractals the old ranks were earned in simply do not exist anymore, don’t be fooled that the new and old ones share a numbering scheme), and I regret that the changes mean no one else will ever again have the opportunity to test themselves in that fashion, purely horizontal recognition of that skill and effort can be achieved. Achieved gracefully even.

I don’t think the Guildwars Devs are being huffy – signs are they just wanted to add something more rich and engaging rather than being cranky people trampled their expectations, but completely ignoring the prowess that was on display is wrong.

I will be thinking more on this.

Thank you for this.

I still remember my first successful Chained Guardian Tome timed perfectly with another guardian where at the end the whole party was still left standing…it was a huge accomplishment (we had many previous failures) and I was so proud! Later it became second-hand, I even did it with PUG’s (you first or me?)…the timing was everything. The highest I ever did was 71 (I then got a full-time job again and didn’t have time to run fractals), but I was EXTREMELY proud of accomplishing it…it felt good to not only succeed on the high level fractals, but then stuff below 50 actually became much easier…I used to joke with friends that I was going to go do a “relaxing 38” or an “easy 28”. 48’s could still be a challenge with a bad PUG, but everything else could be mitigated (I solo’d the Shaman once on a 28 with a bad PUG that kept dying the first time the elems came out).

Even if you didn’t get over 50…getting up to 49 still required some skill to do it well (particularly since ANET kept changing fractals so one time a technique might work, but the next it would not…or they would bug out).

I have never been so disappointed in a game as when they re-set me down to 30 and didn’t even acknowledge that we were losing something…not a single word, they would just close threads, or merge them…but never comment or discuss, or even explain why they did it. That hurt and single-handedly almost destroyed all faith I had in this game.

So thank you…

I would like to throw out there, that if you plan on making ascended gear have some sort of stat-swapping on it (particularly ascended armor), you really should make an announcement IN THE GAME as well as on the boards here.

Why? Because if you do not, and it takes months to implement (which it probably will, coding doesn’t happen overnight), and people make multiple sets for their individual character (a soldiers, a berserker, an invaders….etc)….they will be seriously Kittened off unless of course you combined the stat-swapping with making them account bound so that these people who already made multiple sets could then give the extra sets to their ALTS (or make ALTS for them to use).

my additions in bold

Dosvidaniya.3260:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

Here is the next evolution of the original Vertical Progression proposal based on a summary of our discussions:
…
Note this is the formulation of a proposal for discussion. Once the proposal is finalized it will be discussed internally. However there will be no promise of actions or schedule.

Chris

• Degradation of progress.
  • No more new Gear tiers that make the existing tiers obsolete.
    I would add that this also applies to progress such as fractal levels, things like that

• Skin degradation.
  • Help alleviate the cost of transmutation. Players are stuck with a splitter and crystal or making an entirely new set in order to transmute. Consider a skin locker system so that we can use the skins the artists of this game have designed without losing massive investments to do it.
    I think this definitely needs to be addressed, particularly for skins achieved or gotten from living story / gem store…many of these can never be gotten again and I shouldn’t have to create a whole new ascended backpiece / whatever just to use a different skin so that I don’t lose the original one

I’m in favor of all the items listed. Alleviating the downsides to vertical progression is a good thing.

Another thought for dealing with ALTS and ascended items:

What if, after you make an item with a set of stats, those “unlock” for all of your ascended items. So I make an ascended Berzerker Heavy armor and an ascended Carrion greatsword. My armor now gains carrion as an option to change to, and my greatsword gains berserker as an option. Now I make an ascended rampagers scepter, after it is created, it has the options of berserker, carrion and rampagers. Next I make a set of ascended light clerics gear, all your ascendeds now have Clerics, Rampagers, Carrion, and Berzerker that can be chosen from.

This would keep TP prices high, because it requires you to actually make the inscriptions and items for each.

Those that want Legendary capabilities would have to craft a minimum of 17 ascended items (which would actually cost way more than a legendary to craft…so it would keep legendaries “exclusivity”)

This helps people who want to experiment with build diversity, (they could simply make a different weapon instead of a whole new set of armor / weapons), and while it doesn’t really help people who have a lot of ALTS, it gives more meaning to crafting those additional ascended items…so while it doesn’t help the cost of the items, it does make them functionally more useful with each additional one you make.

This could also be account bound, so even drops add / can use the abilities of others (I get a Carrion drop with the above example and it automatically gains Berzerker, clerics, and rampagers, but nothing extra…while if I got an assassins drop, it would then add Assassins to the list of “unlocked” stat combos.)

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

Here is the next evolution of the original Vertical Progression proposal based on a summary of our discussions:

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.

A review of current RNG metrics.

The ability to change gear stats (Note there is still a lot of discussion about whether people want this or not)

The ability to build up to Ascended Gear through drops rather than just relying on RNG.

Ascended Gear mats dropping more equally across the game, for example WvW.

No more new Gear tiers that make the existing tiers obsolete.

Additional ways to earn Ascended Gear at accelerated for Alts.

Note this is the formulation of a proposal for discussion. Once the proposal is finalized it will be discussed internally. However there will be no promise of actions or schedule.

Chris

I have heard Izzy say that he time-gated materials for ascendeds in order to keep the prices high in the TP.

I also worry that if you grant too many ways of gaining ascended gear without a way of choosing the stats on it will end up just like the fractal’s rings problems…where people who ran a ton of fractals literally have a hundred rings sitting in their bank accounts with stats that they do not use…only now we would also have armor and weapons sitting in bank accounts collecting dust. I don’t think we need Ascended to drop frequently as much as we need a way to make ascended more ALT friendly as well as make it more useful when it does drop. Face it, someone with one character has an easy time equipping them with ascended gear no matter how casual a player they are.

I think all of these problems could be solved with some simple but creative solutions. These are my ideas.

1: Ascended drops: Should either allow you to choose their stats when they drop…or have a way of changing their stats (helps build diversity), or have choosable stats similar to legendarys (or even in a more limited capacity limited to the basic craftable stat combos)…if any of those things happened you would have far less useless drops of ascended gear…or gear that cannot be used.

2: TP prices, Build diversity, and ALTS: Once you have successfully crafted one set of armor, you gain the ability in your other crafting disciplines on your account to craft “armor boxes” of any stat…so that subsequent sets of armor whether they be light, medium or heavy are more easily crafted…this will keep the costs of the T7 materials high since it will still be required (especially for your first set), but will still allow people to experiment with builds or ALTS. The downside of crafting as a single set means you might need to make more than one box if you mix and match your stats (which again would be fixed if it had a way to change stats).

3: Non-armor ascendeds: The ideal solution would be a way of tapering off the cost of materials as you create these. SO your first weapon costs a lot, second one costs slightly less, third less again, etc etc….this also would keep TP prices high, but allow players to make a ton of weapons. This seems hard to do though…a second easier solution would be to make them account bound again with a way to change stats…that way weapons can be traded between characters of the same account and select stats based on the new characters needs.

Nike.2631:

Suggestion for small correction to Ascended Weapons crafting Recipes:

2-Handed weapons remain unchanged. They fill 5 skill slots and effectively require 500 dragonite ore, empyreal shards, and bloodstone dust.

Off-hand Only weapons (e.g. focus or torch) replace the Vision Crystal with a Lesser Vision Crystal. They fill 2 skill slots and require 200 dragonite ore, empyreal shards, and bloodstone dust.

Main-hand weapons replace the Vision Crystal with a new “Medium Vision Crystal”. They fill 3 skill slots and the new crystal is made with 300 dragonite ore, empyreal shards, and bloodstone dust.

This brings parity to the effort required to craft 2-h weapons vs. 1-h/off-hand builds. Using a main hand weapon in an off-hand slot is slightly overpriced using a 100-mats-per-skill-slot model, but its still far more forgiving than the 1,000 mats it takes now.

Last step in a perfect world would be to refund the excess 200 (for main hand) or 300 (off-hand) of each combined material via mail. These could be returned in their 100:1 forms (ingots, stars, and bricks).

If the system can track ‘chest’ weapons vs. crafted weapons they could be excluded, though there is a case to be made that a chest should always grant 1 weapon and the appropriate ‘left over’ mats to prevent chests always being converted into 2-h weapons…

+1 to this.

Guitarzero.8316:

Honestly i’d be happy if all the skins i’ve earned (especially from achievements) would go into my achievements tab (similar to the zenith stuff)…

i currently have all my bank slots full because i’m too afraid to use the skin on only one of my 8 characters…it seems a bit cruel to have a cool back slot item but only for one character. Not very alt friendly

I agree that this needs to be addressed. I HATE the idea that I might lose some of the awesome skins that I earned in LS, but even with 8 alts, I have run out of characters to put things on…and I still have a ton of skins in my bank (mostly soulbound onto things for one of my characters). There needs to be some kind of skin-library for anything that was gotten through the living story or gem-store so that these skins aren’t lost when you want to change your looks.

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.

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.

It makes sense that if Ascended is supposed to be part way between exotic and legendary, then it should have some of the same characteristics. I do agree that perhaps Legendary’s should keep some of their exclusivity, which is why I proposed a system of either adding some stat-changing to a piece of ascended (through a quest or item), or giving them limited stat-change capabilitys (like giving them only the original crafted stats (I think there were 5), while legendary’s would keep the full set of 17).

Right now ascended is ridiculously hard to build (and with the time-gating, actually take longer to build than a legendary), they don’t have the looks of a legendary, and their stat increase really doesn’t justify all the work and gold-sink they require. With limited stat-change abilities they would at least be “worth it” for players to go for in leiu of a legendary…until they go for their legendary.

VOLKON.1290:

Nike.2631:

I remain (strongly) opposed to the ability to change their stats. It wasn’t necessary for Exotics and if access improves it won’t be necessary for Ascended.

If Ascended are supposed to occupy your time between a full exotic load-out and getting a Legendary, then amassing one set and being done forever puts them way, way, WAY closer to the Exotic side of that sequence of play. If we add some means to purchase them, filling out your Ascended tier one-&-only-once could easily end up taking less time than amassing 2-3 sets of exotics does…

The entire tier becomes fully self-defeating at that point.

I can’t possibly disagree more with this opinion. If accessibility becomes to easy you will soon enough find a new problem where some players have all the ascended gear they want. As a result they’ll begin to demand more progression past ascended. If you keep accessibility a long term thing but add flexibility to the stats you can alleviate that to some degree. If the stats are on items (inscriptions) that can be replaced and these are crafted items that can be traded you open up further uses for materials, new markets, expanded crafting options and more means of horizontal progression by simply being able to add new stat combinations on inscriptions

I worry about faster not always being better.

I agree with VOLKON. Plus, people already HATE the looks of ascended…giving them more utility (with stat-change) would not stop people from going after other types of armor for the looks…heck I went out and bought (with Karma) some of the “Dark” set of armor (greens) just for the looks to apply to my exotic set I crafted…..and I have changed my “looks” at least 5 times as I got bored with the previous…working on a new “look” right now…ANET makes a lot off of me in transmutation stones.

If I could keep the same armor and work on “horizontal” progression of new builds / different looks" rather than grinding the gold to buy yet another set for the additional stats…I would be an extremely HAPPY player.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

VOLKON.1290:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

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

Possibly, or in lieu of that a means to add flexibility to the gear to allow for stat changes without needing to create a whole new set (see my inscription idea as an example).

Someone creates a whole set of berserker ascended and finds themselves getting rolled still (as glass cannons do) in WvW may have buyers remorse when that PVT set starts looking mighty tempting…

Yep thanks Volk for adding Stat changes to the proposal.

’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?

The ability to change gear stats.

The ability to potentially use tokens from encounters (allowing users to work toward acquisition of Ascended Gear) that would otherwise only offer RNG chances on Ascended Gear, allowing users to work toward the items (courtesy of Nike and others)’

Note this is the formulation of a proposal for discussion.

Chris

Yes yes yes! I am actually okay with Ascended being “hard to get” if it had more utility to it to justify the “hard to get”. I do not want it to be as common as exotics, or what was the point of putting it in the game??

What I would like to see:

Account bound (as it is now), Hard to get initially (just like it is now actually…no change on that aspect), but then subsequently easier to get (making your first set of armor opens up a “armor box” that can be made for 1/4 the materials, this opens on all of your other crafting disciplines…so Tailor, Leatherwork, if you already created your first set on Armorsmith)…this would allow people with “Alts” an easier way to outfit them….Keep the equipment “rare” but easier for a single player to outfit multiple characters.

Make infusions and runes swappable (I am even okay if this was done with a gem-store item…after-all ANET needs to make money)

Give the ascended gear either “limited” stat swapping or full stat swapping like legendaries…or a way (a quest for instance) that would allow you to Add a stat for stat swapping.

This would make ascended gear retain its rarity (not hurting players who already spent a ton making theirs) while still allowing people to gear up ALTS (its the same player after-all who already paid the price)…while giving the ascended gear enough utility to make it worth the cost of creating a set.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

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

The problem would still be runes / infusions placed into the ascended gear. If you made a way to transfer those easily…then yes.

I have 8 alts, right now each has 2-3 sets of armor for different things. I have been only getting the “celestial” accessories and amulets because I used these characters for fractals and I had to infuse these in order to do fractals…if I was going to infuse them…I decided to use the infusions that did both STAT + AR to gain an additional bonus. I would love to be able to get different accessories like I do with my armor and swap it out when needed…but went with celestial because of the infusion limitation.

Armor has now thrown another wrench in it, since now armor can have infusions, and I will need this for higher level fractals…I would like to have multiple sets again, and have these multiple sets on multiple characters (so I can grab a Mesmer when needed, or theif, etc)…but how do I move the infusions? I cannot…and grinding for that many infusions is again, even more ridiculous when you are dealing with ALTS.

Like TUB said, anything you need to do for ONE character (getting PVT armor for WvW, Zerker for dungeons, PPT for situations that need more toughness, etc) is X times greater if you play your additional characters (like TUB, I hate the term “alts” since I play them all)

This needs to be taken into consideration when implementing new things into the game. Right now ascendeds is out of reach for most players that play tons of characters…it requires you to play a “Main” and only outfit that single character…which to me…already limits my horizontal progression within the game (leveling and playing and learning my alts has kept me in the game since launch).

Tub.4560:

Timegating and buying out of it
While I’m sitting behind a 230 day timegate, looking at an immense bill for crafting materials, other players just built their second legendary for their single character and still have gold left. Those can just ignore the timegate and buy out of it.

So last week on Tuesday, the first people said “alright, full ascended armor, I’m done.” The same people will say come january “hey, there’s nothing to do any more, game’s getting boring”. Arenanet will listen, will add more grind progression, and I’ll have to follow even though I’m not through with the previous patches’ grind.

Timegating is a good way to make sure that newly introduced goals and content will keep the players busy for a while. But for that to work, it has to apply equally to everyone.
….

Going forward, I’d like to propose five new design principles that every future content is checked against:

1. For all forms of progression that are infinite, progress should be awarded account wide
2. For all forms of progression that are very expensive or time consuming, the bulk of the costs should be shared between all characters.
3. For all forms of progression with timegating, the amount of time required should be the same for all accounts, independently of the number of characters or any other decision regarding playing style.
4. All one-time rewards should be available account wide.
5. All all gem shop items should be available account wide.

I agree with TUB, as someone who has a lot of ALTS and really enjoys playing them…ascended gear is ridiculous….it would at least be worthwhile to get if it had selectable stats similar to Legendary…and face it, people went for legendaries when they had fixed stats and the same stats as exotic…people will still go for them if Ascendeds had selectable stats like they do…their looks is why people went for legendaries….and to brag that they had one…the selectable stats has almost thrown them over the top.

I would even be okay with spending the time to outfit all of my alts if there was a way to add stats as someone suggested (so not truly selectable like a legendary, a more limited selectability where you can add some additional builds to the single piece of armor either through a gem-store purchase or a mystic forge recipe)…or perhaps Ascendeds only have the 5 “basic” stat combos available, while legendaries have them all.

Even if you made Ascended more accessible via trading post, or greater drops, the fact that the infusions are non-removable and the fact that they will be prohibitively expensive (unless you made them as common as exotics, which would be silly)…it still means you are locking someone into a particular build from the infusion standpoint.

Nike.2631:

Beside the annoyance of having to seek out specific professions for that ‘perfect’ synergy-move for whatever farm you’re optimizing, I really tend to think that under all the whistles and bells it’s just recreating something we already have: skills like “On my mark” and the active portion of Signet of Vampirism.

Maybe that itch could be better scratched by adding a little more visibility or variety to the Fields & Finishers system we already have?

Basically, that was what I was proposing, but with more interesting effects…rather than just the “steal health” or “heal party” that currently happens, make them actively DO something visibly…like create a shield, or a wall, or a mystic karka that suddenly rolls on your enemies.

I didn’t explain it very well I guess, I was thinking not in terms of X skill specifically works with Y skill so that you would have to “seek out someone with the appropriate skill” I was thinking more in terms of X skill would work with A-Z skills of the other classes to create a unique effect….utilizing the system of blast finishers we have today….but expanded.

I really like the idea of adding some sort of special “synergy” skills that could be used with other classes for devastating combos. This would be more “long term” thinking since I am sure it will be hell to code as well as implement with balance in mind…but it would be definitely something that would be cool to see in the game.

Skills that when combined with other class skills, cause bigger effects (similar to blast finishers, but with more dramatic effects…like a guardian puts down a shield skill, and if an elementalist casts their “fire skill” skill on top of it, it would create a “fire shield” that is visible and does something unique. Or a warrior places their “destruction skill” and the elementals uses their “fire skills” it creates a “fiery blast” or destruction combined with shield creates a shield that last for some time and then explodes….each class could have some unique skills (make them elites) that when thrown down with another class’s creates something unique…and these could stack, so a destruction on top of a shield, with fire, would create a fiery shield that then explodes….these would be nice horizontal progression ideas to throw into the game.

We need to think of things in terms of what can be feasibly implemented within the game framework. That means there is no drastic re-writing of the game. The engine is built the way it is right now. Asking for things like “get rid of all skills” or “eliminate stats on weapons” is just simply beyond the scope for anything that can be done at this point…that would have to be looked at for GW3.

That said, and Since Chris asked about Vertical progression and how it could be implemented into the game:

How about “silo’d” vertical progression? In WvW as well as in PvP already there is a vertical progression system that allows players to progress in those areas while not affecting their PVE environment (or each other). A lot of people (myself included) do not want to see vertical progression within the game…however, I don’t think too many of us would be opposed to a vertical progression system tied to a silo…for instance, a new land (northern shiverpeaks?) that perhaps is a constant PVE battleground, trying to win back the lands from Jormag. It could have its own skills that aid in that battle (similar to WvW skills) that could be leveled while in that area…but cease to function back in the “regular” world.

Or as someone else suggested once….how about an “infinite” dungeon similar to Fractals but different in the aspect that it is simply a dungeon that scales based on the amount of people that enter it during a general time that it is open (like the tower in nightmare)…I know a lot of guilds enjoyed taking on the tower together….maybe this could be tied to Commander badges…so that only Squads could enter the dungeon together…giving people a raid-like experience, but more open in the way that GW2 is…and since it is scalable (unlike most raids) a group as small kitten could enter….or a group as large as 100…and rewards could scale with the dungeon (more champs = more champ chests).

One more thought as far as ascended goes. There needs to be a way to get infusions out of ascended equipment. To put a single Agony+stat infusion into an infusion slot it takes 100 T6 mats + 250 passion fruit or Karka shells + 20 mystic coins + 50 philosophers stones…now what happens if I want to change the stats on my weapon, if I transmute this weapon, I LOSE THE INFUSION, same goes if I change my Beta fractal capacitor into a Fractal capacitor…oh, I want to infuse my ring to add the additional new slot….again, you LOSE the infusion.

This is another loss of vertical progression….working your butt off to earn either the gold or farm the materials for one of those infusions is REALLY difficult with current drop rates….and now you completely lose these if you do anything with the item…and this goes for all ascended items. There needs to be a way to remove infusions from ascended items…I would gladly pay for a gem-store item that would allow this…this is yet another thing that makes me dread ever having to change stats with an ascended anything.

cesmode.4257:

Comparing the two progression systems, I think in GW2, horizontal would have been the way to go. It would have been less of a headache for you(Im sure you have jokes in the office about our ascended gear rants), and I truly think you would have a more positive player base. You may have the few people that gripe about lack of VP, but these peopel did not do their research on the game before buying and should play a game like WoW.

I think GW2 is more about the adventure, more about discovery and exploration, about discovery of items, skills, lore… Sadly it has become more about the collection of materials…which is not fun.

Agree whole-heartedly. We need more of the adventure, discovery and exploration…less of the grind / champ farming to get our ascended / legendary….there is no sense of AWE in getting a legendary right now…it is farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm….whoo hoo! finally got it. Give me a massive quest / story / month-long journey any-day! Ascended is even worse…it is a grind of farming and you don’t even have the cool looks or changeable stats of the legendary…you finally get it just in time for the latest balance patch to come out and completely nerf your build with your character so that you need to use a different one anyways with potentially different armor / weapons! Or you want to enjoy WvW this weekend instead of PVE….oh crap…I still only have exotic for that…oh well…grind grind grind grind some more for my second set of armor / weapon.