Guild Wars 2

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

It’s one thing to have Colin talking about one thing, Ree talking about something else and editing making it confusing (which was clarified).

You mean, like…

“I went to the village and swung my sword. Then I swung it again – hey! I thought they were too busy grinding to get to the fun stuff, like in most villages, but ten minutes later they told me I was the best kitten sword swinger they’d seen in the last ten minutes. They remembered.”

Vayne.8563:

It’s another to say that Colin on one paragraph where he defines a word, means something different the second time he uses it. It’s not reasonable.

Yes. Let’s change the way people view combat. Instead of swinging swords and swinging them again – hey! – let’s dispense with the boring grind associated with subsequent sword swinging and make combat more dynamic and fun. Let’s have the players actively kiting and dodging and casting on the run. Won’t that be fun stuff, guys? Yes! Fun stuff indeed!

(And they threw in a heaping helping of red circles to make the dodging even more fun. I particularly enjoy dodging out of one red circle into another one. I find it quite stimulating. And innovative.)

Then, in a dramatic (and potentially confusing) turn of events, they took many (note: ‘many’ does not mean ‘all’) of the things we are going to use all this fun and innovative combat against and turned them into a boring grind, and while they were at it, they reduced a great deal (note: the phrase ’ a great deal’ does not mean ‘all’) of the other fun stuff to the (itsy bitsy teeny weeny but fortunately not yellow polka dot – yet!) chance of getting something cool (and fun) when the non-boring, non-grindy innovative combat is over. Or stuffed it into one box in a bajillion (note: imaginary number – see also: hyperbole – used for dramatic effect). Or made it so that getting it requires mass quantities of boring (but not necessarily combative!) grind.

So. Did they change the way people view combat? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Attempts to settle this would be, I suspect, in vain. Ahem. In the end, however, combat is still combat, it’s still swinging a sword, and it’s still swinging it again, over and over (and over and over) until the boring grind you’re combating is finally dead (at least until it remembers to respawn ten minutes – or less! – later), at which point you’re probably going to get some blues or greens that you probably can’t use anyway, or maybe even nothing at all, unless you’re one of the fortunate few who get precursors for killing rats.

Yes. Yes, it’s all so very clear. How was anyone ever confused by anything in the Manifesto?

Quoting it because it made my day.

Vayne.8563:

Tachenon.5270:

Vayne.8563:

There’s no reason in the world to suppose that in the beginning of the paragraph Colin meant one thing by grind and by the end of the paragraph he’d suddenly changed his definition of grind.

No? Someone around here claimed they blamed the, shall we say, manifest confusion on bad editing.

The video editing, that is to say, taking Colin’s bit and Ree’s bit and interposing them to make it more interesting/exciting. But both mentions of grind where in the same segment here. The same paragraph. There’s no confusion in the English language here.

It’s one thing to have Colin talking about one thing, Ree talking about something else and editing making it confusing (which was clarified). It’s another to say that Colin on one paragraph where he defines a word, means something different the second time he uses it. It’s not reasonable.

You’re the one who’s been unreasonable.
It’s very easy english, and you still refuse all logic.

You’re defending that they were intelligent and correct in their english usage, and we are uneducated for failing to understand their extremely organized speech – that was somehow poorly edited.
Let’s take a look at that “correctness”, shall we?

They don’t define “Grind” as “doing boring things to get to the fun stuff”.
They use “boring” + “Grind” + “to get to the fun stuff” in the same sentence, wich clearly indicates they are three different things – so “boring” is one thing, “Grind” is another, and “boring” + “Grind” + “to get to the fun stuff” is another thing entirely.

You don’t say “undry wet” or “huge big” or “stinks with bad smell” – as you’re placing words with somewhat similar meaning together.
Likewise you wouldn’t say “boring Grind to get to the fun stuff” if “Grind” meant “boring things to get to the fun stuff”.

This CLEARLY means that when they say “We simply don’t want players to Grind in GW2.” they do NOT mean “We simply don’t want players to grind to get to the fun stuff in GW2.”
It’s simple, it’s obvious.
Grind is grind, and it’s still Grind when they say it in this sentence.

Would you expect ANet to go “kitten , you’re right, we kittened up.”?
Ofcourse not. They choose what they believe to be the lesser evil – to say what they meant was something else.

But all of this is beside the point.
The game is a shadow of what it set out to be.

There is no feeling of hero. You feel more of a nobody than in most MMOs.
The dynamic events are mostly meaningless and rotate every 15-60 minutes.
The big bad events – elemental, dragon, shadow, etc – are extremely simplistic.
They took away skill hunting and didn’t add anything meaningful in its place.

GW2 has lost almost everything that made GW1 awesome.
And for what?

Mentalhead.5721:

As for me, I would like to see more weapon skills and more slot skills, but the main problem is balance. I would like if we could unlock them with skillpoints or simply by using a weapon, so that high level players wouldn’t have advantage over low level players in WvW.

The main problem isn’t balance.
The main problem is lack of depth in combat, and players ultimately getting bored with the lack of customizability.
You have so many skills and traits, and yet so few ways to combine them.

It’s the way it goes.

I’m sad about the whiteknighting.

Vayne has been furiously debating all sorts of meaningless things, when the point of the thread is discussing how GW2 is worlds apart from the game ANet set out to make.

One of the most important facts, was that ANet said they wanted GW2 to take everything we loved from GW1 and put it into a persistent world.

To be honest, I have to say that the ONLY things that remain from GW1 are:
- Lore
- Nomenclature for Professions, Skills, etc
- Waypoints

Everything else about Guild Wars 1 was replaced with features that resemble any other MMO, except Guild Wars 1.

Another super important fact, was how they actually point out how meaningless and inconsequential everything you do in most MMOs is.
And yet, almost everything rotates or resets every 15-60 minutes in GW2.

They mentioned how you don’t feel like a Hero because everything is doing what you do, etc.
And that’s exactly what happens in GW2.

They have lost alot of VISION.
I would like them to get it back.

The Personal Story is one of the clearest problems.

You’re supposed to be a Hero.
But what really happens, is that you’re constantly being babysitted by godlike NPCs.
They always do everything worth mentioning, but at the end of the story tell you how awesome you are and how they couldn’t have done it without you.

Towards the end of the story, it gets worse, with Trehearne being the clear “hero”, but still calling you a hero.
—-

Guild Wars 1 had depth in the gear and skill systems that Guild Wars 2 doesn’t.
To me, that’s unbelievable. How could they regress in something?

People are still on an on about this – amazing.

Guild Wars 2 set out to be different from other MMOs.
It set out to be like Guild Wars 1 – not just in looks, but in most aspects of gameplay.

Guild Wars 1 didn’t have – it didn’t NEED:
- gear treadmill
- lots of levels – the 20 levels were merely a tutorial. In Prophecies they weren’t, but quickly ANet went away with the slow paced leveling when introducing Factions, their most successful GW1 expansion.
- level requirement on gear and even content
- magic find
None of these are required in an MMO.
None of these were introduced to make Guild Wars 2 better.
They were introduced to try and lure specific kinds of players to the game.

What Guild Wars 1 gained from NOT having the above features, was 99% of the areas in Guild Wars 2 being areas worth going to, in order to obtain specific skins or skills from specific bosses.
The progression in Guild Wars 1 was all about acquiring new skills, and new skins – as well as experimenting with new builds.

There were all kinds of awesome challenges that people would tackle for the sake of the challenge itself.
The grinding barely felt like grinding, since you would often be trying new builds and interesting tactics to overcome daunting odds.

What changed for Guild Wars 2?
- They removed skill hunting – one of the most amazing features of Guild Wars 1.
- They added 60 unnecessary levels.
- They added unnecessary level requirements and tiers to gear – there were tiers in Guild Wars 1, but it only affected attribute requirements, making the item more easily available to builds that don’t invest in that attribute. Gear tiers in GW1 did not make the BASE item stronger – that’s something you see in games like WoW.
- They made boss fights all about telegraphed one-shots.

And you know what? In early development, GW2 was fairly close to what they promised.

However, somewhere along development, they started losing faith in their vision, and slowly began removing GW1 from GW2, and adding Diablo 3 and WoW instead.

That’s super unfair, Noobkaka.
In World of Warcraft, you have a depth of gameplay, both in PvE and PvP, specially in PvP, that wasn’t – and arguably still isn’t – found in any other MMO out there.

In terms of graphics, animations – eye candy – it doesn’t prevail, but that’s not what counts.

Most games that came after WoW – specially the so-called WoW-clones – tried to copy the “supposed” qualities from WoW – like catering to casuals, dungeon finders, etc – but those aren’t qualities. And thus the clones failed.

@Raine
Precicely.

joshc.3129:

Nurvus.2891:

I really like alot of things about Guild Wars 2.
I believe it managed to successfully stand out amidst the concept of MMO.
I particularly like the style of the world, art and UI.
I like the semi-targetless system and dodge.

Still, alot of it feels unpolished, but I won’t get into details here.
Instead, I want to voice my concerns on ANet’s current design philosophy, comparing to their claims in the Guild Wars 2 Manifesto Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35BPhT-KI1E

Everything ANet said in the Manifesto was spot on what I wanted to see in an MMO, but they seem to have gone the opposite direction on some of it.
a) “Guild Wars 2 takes everything you love about Guild Wars 1, and puts it into a persistent world.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35BPhT-KI1E#t=0m48s
I greatly disagree here. Apart from the world, Lore and nomenclature of game systems, most of GW1 is gone.
GW1 was greatly renowned for its extreme customizability.
You could effectively build your equipment exactly the way you wanted; you could play around with builds anytime; there was no gear treadmill and no one missed it.
There was very little randomness in combat.
There was no trash loot – everything was either useful for crafting, or for collectors.
Your superiority over someone else was mostly defined by your skill and strategy, not gear.
GW2 threw away alot of great, solid concepts from GW1 to – apparently – meet halfway with popular MMO standards.

b) “In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks – occasionally – that you need to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. I swung a sword, I swung a sword again, hey, I swung it again, that’s great. We just don’t want players to grind in GW2.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35BPhT-KI1E#t=1m26s
Isn’t that exactly what we do when we get to max level?
We repeat the same content endlessly for the sake of obtaining certain items.
In fact, isn’t the Magic Find stat proof that you intend players to grind?

c) “As a structure, the MMO has lost its ability to make the player feel like a hero. Everybody around you is doing the same thing you’re doing, the boss you just killed respawns 10 minutes later. It doesn’t care that I’m there.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35BPhT-KI1E#t=1m46s
Isn’t this precicely what happens throughout the whole game?
The same enemy, boss or event repeating every 5-20 minutes?
The process of retaking or defending a point should take longer, last longer and be alot more worthwhile.

Furthermore, the personal story makes you feel like something of a hero for a little while, but in the end the true Hero is Trehearne.
He’s the one who does everything worth mentioning, and then just tells you “he couldn’t have done it without you.”
I didn’t feel like a hero at all in the last half of the personal story.
—-

I think the game has a great potential and I hope ANet keeps up at full steam.

I have to agree, they said they wanted to make a game not focused on grinding and we got just that, a game were we have to grind to get gear, which is really the only real reward in the game.

They said they got rid of the traditional side quests where a npc has a ! over their head because they usually follow, go kill a certain amount of enemies, go collect a certain amount of whatever or do the same action over and over again. What we got in it’s place was the Renown Hearts npc that make you do just that, go kill a certain amount of enemies, go collect a certain amount of whatever or do the same action over and over again. Only difference is instead of a ! over their head it’s a heart.

Dynamic events you complete will cause npcs to remember you and will change the game world for a few hours, a day, days or longer. Honestly when I heard that it sounded to far out there, it was like listening to Peter Molyneux talk about Fable. Dynamic events don’t change anything in the game world since they reset every 10 to 15 mins.

I can go on.

Exactly.
They went in the exact opposite direction compared to several of their initial intentions.

I prefer GW2 combat to GW1 combat, in concept.
Supposedly, everything should be better, right?
Yet it’s not – not everything.

PROS:
1 – Instead of auto-attack + 8 skills, you now have auto-attack + 9 skills + Profession Mechanic(s) (F1, etc).
You even get bundles, wich increase the number skills even further.
2 – The game is more responsive.
3 – You have the ability to dodge, wich adds a layer of skill and tactic.

CONS:
A – The game is built around kiting. This is a MAJOR flaw.
You benefit from being ranged and drawing circles around your enemy.
In PvE, this often means you never die to most enemies.
In PvP, this still means you have a great advantage.
The culprit in this, is precicely the ability to move while casting/attacking with NO downside whatsoever.

If using a skill while moving made you move X% slower while activating the skill, perhaps there wouldn’t be so much of a focus on Kiting.

If there were more uses to Endurance, like Parry (suggested in the Endurance 2.0 thread in my signature), Safe Roll, etc, perhaps there wouldn’t be so much of a focus on Kiting.

B – The way Attributes, Gear, Traits & Weapons interact pigeonholes you into specific builds.
This may be backed up by a desire to make the game balanced – but it lowers the fun for alot of players, and still isn’t balanced.

C – Some Attributes feel gimmicky, like Vitality and Healing Power.
Vitality is a filler. You don’t die slower. You just take longer to die. Yes, it’s different. However, you also take longer to heal…
Speaking of Healing, it is the only supportive skill type that requires a whole stat investment in order to work properly.
You can build whatever way you want, and use Protection, Blind, Weakness, Aegis, at full power.
Furthermore, they scale. Protection reduces damage by 33% whether it’s 100 or 10000.
But if you want to heal, you need to sacrifice a whole stat, and it doesn’t even scale.

D – Certain mechanics are gimmicky, like damage conditions being severely kitten in group content.
What’s the point of Combo Field: Fire plus Projectile/Whirl, if you’re going to be hindering each other’s contribution?
What’s the point of having 2-3 bleed builds in the same group?

E – Terrain advantage and somewhat realistic projectile behavior.
This was something really awesome about GW1.

You could really dodge fireballs by moving out of their way, and shooting a bow from higher ground meant more damage.

So, I don’t want this game to be GW1 on steroids.
I just think ANet dumped alot of the best things about GW1, and replaced them with alot of bad things from insert popular MMO.

Still we are discussing english and interpretation. What is the purpose of this? Are you trying to win the argument or something?
First you say no one said there wouldn’t be grinding in end game.
Now you say that I’m making up my own definition of what they meant by grinding.
What grinding is, doesn’t change.

Take off the tinted glasses for a little bit.
Colin Johanson: “When you look at the art in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s visually stunning. I’ve never seen anything like that before,’ and then when you play the combat in our game, you say ‘Wow, that’s incredible. I’ve never seen anything like that.’ In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. ‘I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again.’ That’s great. We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun. We want to change the way that people view combat.”

This is ALL he said. Right? I’m not missing anything.
You try to link everything together, making assumptions.
My english isn’t perfect, but it’s not that bad.

Colin didn’t say “We want to change the way that people view leveling.” wich I would completely agree with if he had, and it’s what you try to imply he meant.
What he DID say was “We want to change the way that people view combat.”
Combat.
Combat, leveling and content are distinct things.

Colin didn’t say “We don’t want players to grind to get to the fun stuff.”
He said “We don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2.”

When he says “No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun.” what do you think he meant?
Again, you probably think he meant “grinding to get to the fun stuff.”
No, he meant grinding. Period.
Grinding isn’t the same as grinding to get to the fun stuff.
Grinding is grinding.
Grinding to get to the fun stuff, is grinding PLUS waiting to get to the fun stuff.
Two different things.

Even if Colin himself said that he meant what you say he did, I still believe today’s ANet isn’t holding the same principles they did in the manifesto, and it worries me.

Almost everything ANet changed in GW2 from alpha to beta to launch was in the likeness of a certain popular MMO.

I hope it’s clarified.
—-

And now a question for you:
Do you feel like the game represents the design philosophy ANet shared in the Manifesto?
Because everyone I know doesn’t.
Certain aspects of the game are clearly in the right track, but none of them is just as they said they wanted it to be.

The game doesn’t care that you’re there.
You don’t feel like a hero.
The boss you killed respawns 10 minutes later.
Fighting is a grind in most of the game, specially end game – although bosses and certain DEs give you interesting fights.

A clear example of “grinding” is the fact that 95% of non-Boss enemies have a bland fighting style.
They have a health pool, and a dps.
Sometimes, they have a cheesy attack, like stun or pull.
You barely ever see enemies using condition removal, healing, boon removal, defensive skills, etc.
You can rush to 99% of enemies and just burst them down, meaning you do the same thing over and over again throughout nearly all of your encounters.

In GW1, almost all enemy skills were the same skills available to players.
Exceptions being some mission bosses and a few hard mode enemies.
The simplest of enemies would regularly drop something you actually wanted.

In GW2, there is a great randomness in almost everything you do, making repeating the same activity almost mandatory to obtain results.
When it comes to fighting, it’s grinding.

Wow, okay. I’ll try to be more clear then.
I’ll try to be as organized as possible. English is not my native language.

When Colin DEFINES what grinding is, he doesn’t define “grinding” itself as “having to wait to get to the fun stuff”.

He defines “grinding” as “what you do” (while waiting) to get to the fun stuff.
This means “grinding” and “waiting to get to the fun stuff” are different things, that you do simultaneously in other games.
Then he even mocks grinding by giving an example: “I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again”.
He didn’t say “I killed an enemy. I killed another enemy. Hey! I killed another one.”
He specifically identifies the activity itself as grinding.
Finally, he says that grinding (“I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again”) is not what they want players to do in GW2.

You somehow interpreted that Colin meant grinding as waiting to get to the fun stuff, and that it’s not what they want you to do.
It’s good for you to try and see the best in things, but it’s bad if you lose track of reality.
Although this is an exaggeration, it’s not that different from when a woman (or man) who is victim of domestic abuse justifies the partner’s actions.
If you criticize ANet objectively and constructively, you will help them more than by defending them.

I’m just being objective regarding a matter I’m concerned about.
I linked the whole video, and whole sentences.
I didn’t grab single sentences out of context.
I’m not posting this 1 or 2 months after launch.
I’m posting it more than 7 months later.
What I see in the game today, and what they shared in the Manifesto, is fundamentally different, and that feeling as sunk into me throughout these long months of play.

And even if for some reason Colin DID mean what you say he did – I’m willing to assume he may not have used the exact words he intended, and that he meant what you say he did – dungeons are STILL all about GRINDING your way through the trash mobs until you reach the bosses (read: fun stuff).

GW1 had “trash” mobs, but they felt more like challenges than trash.
And you would almost always have an interesting task, such as escorting an NPC through those mobs, or reaching 3 levers that open the frost gate (prophecies) or a certain mission starts relatively easy, but beating one area gives the other areas its power, such that by the time 3 areas are beaten, the last area is very hard.

Currently, you just defeat the same kind of monsters over and over again as you dash between bosses.

1. First, Base HP doesn’t affect anything of my suggestion. Only Vitality itself would increase incoming Healing.
   Secondly, the rate at wich Vitality, Power and Malice affect healing would be about half (or less) than currently, such that, for example 100 power and 100 malice would be equivalent (or weaker) than 100 healing power.
   A pure healing build, would effectively be Power+Malice, and if you wanted alot of self-heal as well, Power+Malice+Vitality.
   Note that power, malice and vitality would affect healing as coefficients, just like healing power does now. They would NOT multiply healing. So power+malice+vitality would not provide exponential healing growth. They would provide linear growth.
   Everyone would have some more survivability, but you’d still need to slot healing skills to focus on healing.
   Just think about how healing power stat currently skews gameplay, and how vitality is just a filler stat.
2. The thing here is that there are alot of stat combinations that simply don’t do anything.
   Power + Crit + Crit damage scale exponentially, as they multiply each other.
   However, Power + Malice scale linearly.
   This creates a great unbalance.
   Assuming there is a point where they are balanced, berserker will be overpowered beyond that point, and underpowered before that point, since it’s the highest scaling combination in the game.
   Currently, we are pigeonholed into full direct damage with crits, or full condition damage.
   There is barely any point in mixing both unless you have skills that do extra damage per condition on target.
   And even those can be maximized in a group without requiring you to apply conditions yourself.
   Would be nice to see builds that focus around poison & physical damage, by utilizing power + malice. But that is barely viable due to the linear scaling and heavy condition removal.
3. Burn is too short, and Poison is too weak. They’re just blanket effects. No one focuses on them.
4. Not at all. The server already handles ALL stacks individually and separately.
   When a condition stacks duration, each stack is actually “queued” one after another.
   All I’m suggesting is that each player gets a separate queue.
   The number of stacks being handled won’t change.
5. By “rating” Attribute bonuses I mean power, condition damage, etc.
   Rating is something that decays as you level, such that you need more to obtain the same effect. Such is the case of Precision.
   But Power, Condition Damage, Healing Power also count as rating Attributes, because they indirectly decay as you gain more of that stat.
   If at first you have 100 power from gear+base & 25 power from Traits (25% bonus), later on you may have 1000 power from gear+base & 50 power from Traits (5% bonus).
   The trait bonus effectively became 1/5 as useful.
   By “percentual” trait bonuses, I mean those that retain their usefulness as you level.
   “Virtue Recharge Rate”, “Critical Damage %” and “Condition Duration” are just as good at level 11 as they are at 80.
   So all Trait lines should have bonuses that retain their usefulness.
   Better yet, they should have fun bonuses.
   Those Major Traits that give you “Power stat equal to X% of Toughness”, are perfect for Trait bonuses.

@Vayne
They specifically say:
“We just don’t want players to grind in GW2.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35BPhT-KI1E#t=1m40s

I’m not twisting their words.
I’m not quoting them out of context either.

We grind dynamic events. Cycles of dynamic events, even.
We grind dungeons.
We grind fractals.
We are encouraged to repeat tasks.

And to clarify, grinding becomes more apparent when all your effort is poorly rewarded, such that you must repeat the task.
If I want a certain item skin, I must do a certain Dungeon X times, a different path each time.

ANet doesn’t need White Knights, they need people to properly help them improve the game as much as possible.
If ANet gives in to the requests of fickle players who move to the newest MMO, they will get nowhere.

@Devata
With or without the ( ), what you posted has nothing to do with the differences between what ANet promised vs what they gave us.

@Siphaed
1) What I loved about GW1 is a matter of gaming concept.
Trash loot being a given in MMOs is utter nonsense. It just introduces coin into the game at no cost and hurts the economy.
Trash loot is called Trophies in GW2.
Trophies existed in GW1. They could be sold as trash to vendors.
However, there were collectors. So there was no item with the sole purpose of being vendored.
It is a silly concept that no game needs.

2) Grinding is not a matter of content.
It’s a matter of activity.
As an example, fights that require you to do more than bash enemy skulls, are a good thing.
The current combat system is built in a way that makes it very difficult for the game to not feel grindy.
A few professions break this mold due bundles, etc, but for the most part, it’s extremely repetitive combat, both from the character’s and encounter’s perspective.

3) Hypocritical?
I am criticizing the fact that the way dynamic events are balanced encourage grinding.
The fact there are “dynamic events with phat loots” is part of the problem.
I refuse to rotate/grind the “phat loot” DEs.

I want every activity to present itself as more than viable – to be attractive in terms of effort vs time vs investment vs risk vs reward.
Anything you do, if you do it well, should feel rewarding.

It’s still B2P.
2/10 for the effort.

Nothing so far fills the concept of Dervish or Ritualist properly.
Check my Expension Concepts thread in my Signature for details, although there are plenty suggestions out there.

Guild Wars 1 had Level 20.
People had fun in GW1 for 4 entire campaigns without level cap being increased.
What’s up with people so addicted to exponential stat growth?

Everyone is flaming the OP on his choice of words, when the thread title still holds its entire meaning.
There’s nothing Legendary about obtaining a Legendary.
There’s the rich, and there’s the lucky.
There’s no Legendary in that.

Factions was – to me – light years ahead of all other GW1 campaigns.
I started in Prophecies, but nothing really made me enjoy GW1 as much as Factions.
I remember deleting all characters from Prophecies and starting 1 character of each profession in Factions.
Assassin was a luft of fresh air.
Ritualist was awesome too.

Nightfall brought me my beloved Dervishes, Hero system and a change of scenery.
But nothing like Factions in terms of world and lore.

SSalp.6423:

Well great idea, but this would be A LOT of work not to mention balancing.

Any change worth working on will be alot of work.
If ANet focuses on bandaid changes the game will slowly crumble.
They must remain willing to make deep changes, as the game is still unstable.
It needs the foundations of its gameplay to be improved.

Another thing that should be done is adding a new Trait Type.
Currently we have Minor and Major.
Alot of Minor and even Major traits aren’t really useful.
Others are pretty mandatory for many builds.

So my suggestion is having Minor, Major and Superior.
Minor would be mostly flavorful.
Major would have some importance for build.
Superior would be the most important.

You’d obtain them at smaller intervals, like at 3-6-10 points invested for adept, 13-16-20 for master, 23-26-30 for grandmaster.

okay, zorro had black shirt color.
but not sure if he can count as bucaneer.
hmmm

I find it amazing that after 5 hours no one responded to a good thread like this.
Instead, people spam worthless threads all the time, and actually get replies.

The idea is very good and practical and I would surely use it myself (currently using fast-cast).

These are suggestions meant to make the Traits, the Attributes, and their interaction, feel more balanced, rewarding and offer a greater customizability.

Most of my suggestions have similar goals, as you can attest through the links in my Signature, specially those regarding Skill Variants and Endurance.

I will be referring to Condition Damage as Malice, and Critical Damage as Prowess.
Those were their names in earlier development stages.

A few things I would like to indicate before presenting my suggestion.

• The Attribute bonuses you obtain by investing in a Trait Line are extremely unbalanced.
  On one hand, we have the “rating” Attributes – such as Malice, Precision, Power, Vitality, Toughness and Healing Power – wich do not scale with Level or Gear, and as you improve, these bonuses become less important.
  Furthermore, they don’t really affect your gameplay besides providing numerical advantage.
  On the other hand, we have the “percentual” Attributes – such as Condition Duration, Prowess and Mechanic Recharge (Burst, Virtues, etc) – wich scale with Level and Gear, and as such remain useful no matter how much you improve.
  Furthermore, most of them affect your gameplay, by changing the frequency with wich you can/need to use certain Skills.
• Out of all means of Support, only Healing requires you to sacrifice an Attribute. You can fully support your teammates with Protection, Blind, Daze, Aegis, Weakness, Condition Removal, Condition Conversion, Stun, Knockback, Dodge, etc.
  But if you want to Heal, you must sacrifice an Attribute to get Healing Power.
  To make it worse, while all the aforementioned types of support scale with the incoming threat (Aegis blocks something regardless of whether it deals 100 or 10.000 damage), Healing does not.
• Vitality is another Attribute that doesn’t really give you much, specially in long fights.
  - You take just as much damage
  - You take longer to heal up (because you have more health)
  Toughness, by comparison, actually scales with incoming damage, and indirectly increases the effectiveness of incoming Healing – since you are reducing the incoming damage.
• The way offensive Attributes interact makes it so there are only a few really good combinations of gear.
  - Malice only interacts with Precision through specific Traits or Item Upgrades (Bleed on Crit).
  - There’s nearly no point in mixing Power with Malice, since it provides an additive increase in damage, while Power and Precision provide an exponential increase.
  - There’s absolutely no point in mixing Prowess with Malice
• Conditions that do not stack Intensity, such as Burn and Poison, don’t really feel like something you can focus on.
  This is mainly due to the fact that it only stacks in duration, and all players share the same condition.

My suggestions

1. Remove Healing Power from the game, and to compensate…
   - Make Vitality (in addition to its current effect) also work as a weaker form of Healing Power for incoming Healing
   - Make Power and Malice (in addition to their current effect) also work as a weaker form of Healing Power for outgoing Healing
   The purpose is keeping a somewhat similar ability to heal, without forcing you to sacrifice an attribute for it.
2. Give all Skills a coefficient for both Power and Malice.
   - Conditions get a 100% Malice coefficient, and a low Power coefficient (25% or so)
   - Single-hit Skills get a 100% Power coefficient, and a low Malice coefficient (25% or so)
   - Multi-hit and periodic damage Skills get a fairly even coefficient for both Power and Malice
   This results in alot more builds, and a greater amount of Equipment variety.
3. Make Prowess % modify damage from your conditions
4. Make Precision % modify damage from Burn and Poison
5. Make each player own one stack of Burn and Poison.
   This means 5 players results in a potential of 5 stacks of Burn and 5 stacks of Poison.
   Obviously, the healing reduction from Poison would not stack.
   This makes Burn – and Combo Field: Fire – less useless.
6. Replace the “rating” Attribute bonuses in Trait Lines with interesting bonuses like those found in some Traits, such as X% of Toughness converted to Power.

Please discuss.

You have to consider the possibility that it’s actually intentional.
It’s a bucaneer’s shirt, so to speak.
It kind of makes sense to be white (though sometimes they are red too).

sternenstaub.8763:

Anet is so afraid of balancing too many skills like they did in GW1.
But variety will balance itself also, as you will get more and more counters to a special system. Of course in the end, this might get skills on all classes to look more and more the same, which would realy be a problem.
Still I prefer to have the system more like GW1 with a lot of variance. Especially to choose different kind of weapon skills on the same weapon. Just make it so, that you can just change your number 2 to another number 2 and not to one of 10 other skills.

To be honest, at the moment that should be the least of their concerns.

Currently, the trait system doesn’t offer true customizability.
You either go super tanky and ignore offensive traits, in wich case you can use whatever weapon you want; or you are pigeonholed into a couple trait setups.

That is highly destructive to the game’s longevity, in the long run.

By having skill variants, at least you can open up alot more builds.

I also made a suggestion on how I think stats should change to make the game more fun.
Just check the threads in my Signature!

Please have a little sense.
Free trial for a game that is almost free?

You buy once and play forever.
Games with any sort of free trials are usually subcription based.

If GW2 was to have a permanent free trial, it should be extremely limited:
- 1 character slot.
- Only have access to starter zone (no capital, nothing)
- No form of communication or trading with other players whatsoever.
Exception: if a player whispers you, you can reply
- Level 20 max.
- You can NOT upgrade your account from trial to normal account. So whatever you gain in trial account is NEVER carried over if you decide to get the game.
What this means is that Bots would have NO way to use trial accounts to influence the game.

This seems harsh, but dealing with bots for the players who pay/paid, is more important than giving players a free trial.

That being said, I think all MMOs should have a free software to create characters. that can later be imported to the game during character creation.
This application would be sort of a showroom, where you can test some skills, check environments, play with character creator, and thus get a feel of the game, without actually playing the game.

Mist Y.5214:

Why not just add more skills to the game?

Because one thing is balancing skill A with variants 1, 2 and 3.
You know you can only use one of them, as they are mutually exclusive, because they are the same skill.

Another thing is balancing 3 skills and the interactions between them.
You can use 1, 2 or all 3 simultaneously, as they aren’t mutually exclusive, because they are not the same skill.

Cool, Conncept. Added your ideas to the OP.
Also added 2 new ideas:
Enemy and Omni (insert type) finishers.

Enemy finisher does not use the normal combo initiators, and instead uses the enemy combo fields as your own, uses enemy combo mark on you as combo essence, and combo essence on enemy as combo mark.

Omni finisher benefits from both 1 friendly plus 1 enemy combo initiator.

Well, if you check my idea in Expansion Concepts, you’ll know what I meant.

But I’ll give a quick glimpse here:
I suggested that weapons have Subtypes – sword would have sword, katana and scimitar; greatsword would have greatsword, nodachi and falchion.
Subtypes would be considered the same Weapon – they are still Swords and Greatswords.
What distinguishes them is that they start off with a unique set of skills.
However, once you unlock all skills that weapon starts with (in that hand), you can use all the skills you unlocked for that type with that weapon.

So, if you unlocked all 5 skills of Greatsword, 3 of Nodachi and 5 of Falchion, you can pick skills from the 13 you unlocked if you have a Greatsword or Falchion equipped.
But if you have Nodachi equipped, you must first unlock its remaining 2 skills before you can use the other 10 skills with it.

This would be your example of ""simply by using a weapon".

Then I also suggested spreading weapon masters throughout the world, wich would present challenges you must complete with a specific weapon type (without swapping).
Each weapon master would have 1 skill for each class (and perhaps 1 skill per element for Elementalists).

Oh, that makes sense.
Yeah that’d be cool.

Wouldn’t be easy to implement.

Donari, I didn’t play Tribes, but I played Neverwinter Nights, wich had the same system.

Since it’s a client-side function, it can be quite instantaneous and highly responsive, much like the chat box when you press Enter.

Now, once you press V, it brings up a semi-transparent menu, saying something like:
E: Exploration
S: Social
F: Feelings
C: Combat

That kind of stuff.

Then when you press F, it can say:
C: Cry
G: Laugh

Wich means, whether you memorize or not, the information is right in front of you.

Wich is quite the opposite of what happens now – right now you must find out what works and what doesn’t by typing, and typing alot.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Or how about dealing a killing blow with a cold attack, which freezes the enemy, and allows that enemy to be shattered by the next follow up attack, which then flings sharp projectiles in all directions to nearby enemies for extra damage (and maybe cause bleeding).

This is actually a pretty good idea – at least the “fatality” part.
The flying projectiles might be overkill…

However, I’m not sure if it clashes with any “age rating” GW2 is trying to maintain, though.

Adeodatus.7625:

Wonderful Idea, continue to allow the previous system to still be used of course for those who would wish to do so.

Ofcourse.
It’d be awesome if ANet implemented this in GW2.

It somewhat amazes me that this system isn’t in most MMOs, to be honest.

Exactly, Okuza.
Guild Wars 1 didn’t need gear tiers to hook players for a very long time.
It saddens me that ANet changed their mentality in GW2 regarding progression.

@Ronah
I don’t fully agree with the concept of selling expansions through Gems.
My thinking behind this, is that it would allow alot of players to not pay anything.

In my opinion, Expansions should either:
a) be a boxed purchase
b) be a digital transaction

Small content updates (like Campaigns) could be micro-transactions.
These micro-transactions could be tradeable items, that once used by a player, initiate a quest that leads to unlocking the new content

This way, a player might actually obtain it through in-game currency BUT it would require another player to have bought an extra from ANet for REAL money.

Another way for ANet to legitimately make money, would be if this item unlocks the content for the character that uses it.
And then, if you use it again on the same character, it unlocks for the whole account.
This might not be necessary, though, and the content could be unlocked account-wide the first time.

As much as I would like to play for free, we must realize ANet needs to make money out of something.

Swagg.9236:

Naughty.4102:

All i have to say is OMG yes! I don’t care if they follow your outline / guide…. But i would love to see a ritualist class again. It was my main and favorite in GW1

As much as I’d love the Ritualist to return to Tyria in GW2, something inside of me doesn’t want to leave my favorite profession (flavor-wise) in the hands of the people that created the travesty that is the GW2 Warrior and Ranger; the people that created Life Force and only used it to activate a single skill; the people who said “Let’s bring back the Assassin—but instead of using chain skills or some sort of responsible, thought-oriented spam limiter, let’s just let them use all of their Weapon Skills whenever they want!” I mean, the thought of those people designing the GW2 Ritualist just makes me twitch. So here I am. Doing this.

And even with all that in mind, once again, as much as I’d love to see the Ritualist come to GW2, the current state of GW2 is pretty poor on so many fronts to put the situation nicely and ANet should really get their butt in gear to re-evaluate GW2 across the board before even dreaming of adding more professions.

I’m just putting these things here so I can have them ready—or maybe better put: I just wish that I could be part of the creation process. I don’t dislike the people responsible for the creation and balance of the current classes, but I just wish that they had done a better job. However, since most of my balance ideas wash away with most petitions written in the forums, I’ve taken to designing the entire Ritualist profession myself. I think of this whole thread as a GW2 version of going mad. Ah, well.

I completely agree with you, and I love the concepts behind your idea.
I made a much less detailed suggestion in my Expansion Concepts thread (link in my sig) regarding Dervish and Ritualist, as well as adding Paragon concepts into the Guardian gameplay (since supposedly Paragon practice was assimilated by Guardian), and Assassin concepts to Thief.

The only things I think you should add to your suggestion are:
- “Ashes” skills should have more presence. They should either change Weapon Skill functions (at least the auto-attack); or change F skill functions (at least 1).
They should also have passive effect while held, and the usual effect when dropped.
The second press of the Ash skill would Drop them.
- Multiple spells that interact with the Spirits, just like in GW1.
Examples:
a) “Deal X damage, and also lowers cooldown on your other Weapon Skills by Y seconds/Y% of base, if a Spirit is within (distance).” (Since there’s no mana).
b) “Deal X damage, plus an additional Y per Spirit within (distance).”

Not saying I agree entirely with the way weapon skills are done by ANet, but for the sake of consistency, some Spirits should be tied to Weapons.
Like 2 Spirits for 2handed weapons, and 1 spirit per hand for 1handed weapons.
There would also be Spirits available as Utility (and maybe even Healing).

A skill that would be interesting, would be one that binds a player to a Binding Ritual, preventing him from moving outside of a certain radius of the ritual. Like a gigantic Ring of Warding (Guardian Hammer 5th skill).
It could actually display spectral chains linking the player to the ritual.
It might spawn something damageable at the ritual location, like the spot where the chains meet the ground, that if destroyed ends the effect.

Well, I’ve thought about it and a short duration like Burn would be more appropriate.

As for your movement switching idea – awesome. It’d make the game more skill based, too.
Perhaps the ideal name for it would be Panic or Jinx.

Perhaps this might be a stacking Condition.
Each time someone attempts to apply a Boon to a unit affected by Forsaken, it removes 1 stack of Forsaken instead.
So 5 stacks of forsaken = 5 boons are “absorbed”.
The duration/damage would be smaller than Bleed, ofcourse.

Editing original post.

Check the “Expansion Concepts” link in my sig for hopes and dreams regarding expansions.

There’s alot of stuff I’d like ANet to introduce with expansions.
Mostly, I’d like them to eventually explore Cantha and Elona.
In my opinion, they should introduce them simultaneously, rather than making it a tiered progression like EKalimdor/Azeroth → Outland → Northrend

Well I don’t suggest removal – that’s handled by boon removal.
I just suggested it prevents applying boons.

Your counter-suggestion isn’t bad per se, but somewhat functions as a temporary boon removal.

I think my suggestion offers more skill based gameplay, because just like poison blocks healing, forsaken blocks boons – forcing the enemy to play differently (condition removal, etc).

Your suggestion would just make players not suffer much from applying boons at the wrong time, since forsaken would wear off and nothing bad really happened.

Dutchares.6084:

Problem with this some classes like the guardian are realy depended on boons.
Removing them they are just realy weak warriors.
You will nerf them to much.

Small enough duration would make this condition reasonable.
Furthermore, removing conditions on yourself would solve it.

I’m just saying it’d be an interesting new mechanic.

There might even be abilities that give you a powerful bonus but inflict forsaken on yourself.

Sirendor.1394:

Yeah I see that Nurvus, but considering you could actually select all these effects, what would stop you from making for example a guardian that has a different condition on each skill and that has maxed out condition damage? I guess it wouldn’t be bad to have that choise, but it might make some builds completely overpowered.

I’ve never seen a build on Burning actually able to compete, let alone be overpowered.
And I don’t see any damage condition other than Burning being available to a Guardian.

I feel your consern regarding recycling old content.

It feels like you didn’t bother reading my suggestion.
If you don’t read my suggestion and just say “no, bad idea”, don’t expect me to take you seriously.

I’m not asking for a reskin of GW1.
GW2 threw away alot of the stuff that made GW1 great and replaced it with bad stuff that resembles a certain popular MMO.
It feels like the team that is designing GW2 isn’t the same that designed GW1.

The mount system I’m suggesting is something unlike anything you’ve seen in other MMOs.
—-

Apart from Engineer, there are no fresh professions in GW2 comparing to GW1.
Nothing. Nada.

ANet IS using stuff from GW1 in GW2.
The problem is WHAT and HOW.

What fresh new classes would you suggest for GW2?

Dervish and Ritualist would bring a COMPLETELY different gameplay from the current classes.
You would know, if you played GW1.

GreenNekoHaunt.8527:

Removing content? It was never suggested to remove content. The suggestion was to allow utility skills on the elite skill slot.

And everyplayer would use a non-Elite skill in the Elite slot because most Elite skills are simply awful, wich would be the same as removing content (elite skills).

The answer, as said by the one you quoted, is to fix the usefulness/gameplay of Elite skills, not to give players the means to ignore them.

Animag.7634:

One-handed weapons are more expensive than two-handed weapons, considering you need two of them

So in your idea, if ANet made 2-handed weapons more expensive than 2x 1-handed weapons combined, it’d be okay for 2-handed weapons to be outright better?
What logic is that?

The answer is never to justify unbalance.
Fix the prices and fix the power balance.

Another idea is slowly advancing towards various areas – both Cantha and Elona – while introducing a new area to GW2.

It allows ANet to build a momentum, towards a epic fights on each continent, rather than making each continent a different Tier.

@Sirendor
It’s not just the bonus, it’s also the penalty.
Losing/gaining the ability to move while using the skill, changing the direction of the skill, the skill producing a larger/smaller AoE, harder/easier to avoid, added Combo Field, added Finisher, you name it.

There are alot more mechanics you can fiddle with than you give credit for.

You can refer to my #5 suggestion for Whirling Wrath for a “creative idea” outside anything you presented.

@Mentalhead
Another Weapon Skill slot would be nice, but I’d rather have yet another idea I presented – more weapon skills per weapon/profession, and the ability to customize weapon slots like we do utility/elite slots.

I’ve presented this idea in my Expansion Concepts thread (check my signature).

Well, you kind of answered yourself.

First, Sprint wouldn’t stack with any other movement speed bonuses – be it Signets, Swiftness or otherwise.
Sprint would be faster than Swiftness, like 50% bonus instead of 33%, but should end up providing a similar average travel speed when compared to Swiftness+Dodge spam.

Second, with Sprint available, you’d see less Utility Slots being occupied by Swiftness skills, leading to more tactical fights.

What do you think about my Stat suggestion (Link in my Sig).

@GuardianOMS.8067

I’ll quote the part you either didn’t read or disregarded.
It pertains to your argument regarding “obtuse” naming rules.

Nurvus.2891:

Despite all the talk and arguments presented in this thread, at the end of the day, every single player knows what kind of character names will NEVER be considered insulting or offensive – names that actually make sense belonging to a character.
Call it “RP names”, call it what you want, but you know exactly wich ones will never get you into trouble.

That’s why all the shocked and surprised behavior towards naming bans feel extremely fake and hypocritical.

Because when you choose ANY OTHER kind of name – any name that isn’t obviously safe – you do it knowingly.
Whether it is conscious or subconscious, it’s effectively trying to act smart and find a way to bend the naming rules without breaking them – trying to get away with something that isn’t right, but – in your idea – isn’t wrong enough to warrant a ban.

Fortunately, bending naming rules is not acceptable either, and should always remain bannable.

Now, a little in your favor, some names – like Mildread – don’t obey to what I said above.
They are names that actually feel harmless to 99% of the population, except the few that belong to a country or ethnicity that interprets that name in a different manner.

In that regard, I agree banning is harsh.
You should simply be brought to character select screen and prompted to change your name – not warned, forced.

Because obviously “Mildread” wouldn’t be bannable by default – someone probably reported it, and action was taken.
That action – in that particular situation – was harsh.