Guild Wars 2

Honestly, has anyone really expected something else?

They surely are in reddit now!!! Where else …

I hope, this patch makes more people realize now, that this game has reached by long already the point, where it needs a completely different approach of balancing, than only permanent Skill/Trait Changes…

That Skill/Trait Changes alone are no solution – this patch just shows perfectly that Anet seems to be so out of ideas with their own game, that they just only powercreep mostly all classes morte, in the hope, this will make “most” people just happy.

This Game is in an absolute toxic red alert state when it comes down to its Boons and Conditions especially.
Skill and Trait Changes there won’t solve this. Game Mechanic Changes and updating the Combat System will do – Skill & Trait Changes are made then AFTER to finetune the made changes on the gameplay mechanics, so that the made changes on the mechanics harmonize again with the skills and traits – motor and oil, motor and oil. Give the motor finally renewed oil and the game will run again, like freshly released 2012!!

And this will properly prepare the game for new E-Specs to come, Skill and Trait Changes only now will create only chaos, as long all other Combat System Mechanics get ignored constantly.
Taking a serious look over these outdated mechanics is inevitable sooner or later, but better sooner, than later, before its totally too late for this game, as we endure this mess already for 5 years now, when basically proper reworks would have been needed to be done already back when Anet changed the last time the Trait System – that would have been in the past the perfect moment to change more from the outdated mechanics together with them, but Anet did let this huge chance go by unused!!

The class needs at its very best a complete redesign.

Its mechanics are simply a fail design just from the start.
The only class, which can’t use by design racial skills – alone this is beyong beign ridiculous, because its stupid utility skill design around its stances doesn’t allow it for that to be possible, cause of the Stances deciding for you automatically, which Utilities you have to use, which is also a complete contrast against the whole game design of GW2 and it’s build diversity that should come with its Utility Skills for all classes, where the revenant by design is like the black sheep among white ones…

I feel myself proven about the fact, that the time is over for “Skill Number Change” patches and that this game finally needs proper game mechanic changes instead that will be significantly more impactful for the game to bring it back onto the right track, than such a laughable “give candy to 8 of 9 kids powercreep festivals” like this patch, which solves nothing and makes things even only much worser.

Lol, the patch notes for the balance patch…

no words

All classes except thief (naturally) get powercreeped to hell even more.

Mostly only nearly everywhere Skill Recharge Time Reductions by 5-10 seconds and pure DPS increasements through the whole bank – exept thief – naturally

This patch clearly proves, that skill number changes solve NOTHING, especially when 95% of the patch is nothing else bit “give candies to 8 out of 9 classes-powercreep galore” which is like putting only oil into the fire

However, …lets see what the devs have to say about that.
Funny thing is, they say in the patch notes, they did take looks on “underused” skills, and basically ignore all really totally not used/bad designed useless skills completely.

Things like mostly all the stuff people name in this thread
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Pick-the-most-useless-skill-trait/page/2#post6502867

@Lou

I also surely don’t say that the numbers are perfectly chosen out.
I present here only a “concept” that I think, will be for GW2 in the future the much better way to go for balancing this Games Combat System, specially with Elite Specializstions in mind, that alot more will be added in the future.

Rome wasn’t build in one day… ANet has changed with multiple Balance Patches also various Skills by now also multiple times, once buffed, then nerfed, then buffed again and so on. Nothing on this concept is set in stone – it services only the sole purpose of showing you, how a GW2 could look and work like under a for my opinion better overviewable and balanceable system with a drastically reduced amount of Boons and Conditions, while making each of the remaining ones more impactful within the Combat System.
Even the number 8 isn’t final for my concept here. I’d go also even with 9 or if it must be 10 on both sides.
Important is only, they need to get reduced, they need to get more impactful and much lesser spammy and they need to get balanced for a game, that will receive in the future multiple times new Elite Specializations from HoT on.

Like people surely have understood me by now good enough is, that this Game needs to update finally it’s outdated Combat System Mechanics – the game needs to be prepared for more additional Elite Specializations..
If ANet starts first on changing Gameplay Mechanics everytime they added first a new set of E-Specs, then it will be too late for this game.

About Regen – when access to this boon becomes harder and cooldowns longer before you can use it again, then such a powerful regeneration would be well balanced, especially when that boon could be also corrupted or be stolen before it reaches its maximum duration.
However, like said, nothign on this concept is set in stone and in the end it is the job and responsibility of ANet to finetune things.

About the Extra Health Effect – literally I ran out of ideas there and thought, this might become eventually handy for the game if there would be an effetc in a boon like Stability, to help you become a bit more tanky temporarely, becomign able to survive predictable burst attacks better.
Like you know, you will get attacked very soon with a powerful Rapidfire and you know, you can’t defend it, cause you are out of endurance and no block skil lready, but you have a Skil lwith Stability ready to go, then this effect could basically safe your butt, when you boost with it briefly your maximum health so that you can easier survive the burst damage, that eventually would have killed you, if you wouldn’t have had it at that moment.
Think of this effect as some kind of “airbag” when you know, you are very short before gettign a car crash ^^
That was basically the idea behind it. Shouldn’t it work like how I thought it would, then this is naturally open to be exchanged with something else.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Regen-Boon-Intensity-PLZ/first#post6501754

This plus these 8 reworked Conditions and the game would be sooo much more balanced than now and that without going deeper into details even with other needed changes on the Combat System

Cripple Reduces chance of dealing Critical Hits for 2,5% per Stack and receive Damage over time while moving. Higher Stacks increase the intensity of the Damage over time. Max 10 Stacks

Poison Reduces per Stack Power and Healing Intensity of the Target by 2,5%. Max 10 Stacks

Burning Deals amor ignoring constant same damage over time and increases per Stack the Damage a target receives from direct attacks or other damage dealing condition by +2%. Max 10 Stacks. Each Stack rises also additionally the chance of the Burning spreading over to adjacent not burning targets by +5% if the targets stand too close together longer than 2 seconds.

Chill Reduces Endurance Regeneration and Skill Cooldown Speed by 2,5% per Stack. Max 10 Stacks

Slow Decreases Attack Speed of the AA by 50% and reduces Movement Speed of the target per Stack by 3,3% per Stack. Max 10 Stacks

Bleeding Deals Damage with increased intensity per stack on Skill Activation and reduces per Stack the Durations of Boons on you by 2%. Max 10 Stacks

Blindness Decreases the Chance to hit targets by 66% and reduces by 2,5% per Stack the intensity of CC Effects on your Break Bar, should the CC attack actually hit somebody

Confusion Deactivates Friendly Fire, so that skills deal also partially damage to your nearby allies now, what makes spamming AoEs a riskier thing for your side (15%). Further Stacks increase the intensity of the friendly fire damage of allies by +1% per Stack to max 25% and you more vulnerable to CC SKills that affect your Break Bar by 20%. Max 10 Stacks

Immobilized = Removed from the game or reworked into class specific traits
Fear = Reworked into a Necromancer specific Trait
Taunt = Reworked into Class specific Traits or a Sigil/Rune Effect

Et voila, 14 conditions reduced down to 8 with the help of Dual Effects, that help making Conditions in themself more important and impactful, while the total overenriched amoutn of them gets reduced to a much more overviewable and better balanceable number that is 8 instead of 14!!

The reduction from 25 down to 10 Stacks makes boons as like conditions also easier to balance as you can go in 10% effectiveness steps basically, instead of splitting up the efficiency of a boon/condition into 25 efficiency parts.

Conditions and Boons need to become less spammy, getting longer durations, easier access to removals, but removals get now more specified to remove only conditions for that they are designed for, not anymore general condition removals, that basically remove everything, whatever you have. This will further increase the importance and impactfulness of them.

Only exception where Conditions will have no Stack Limit, will be PvE where the damaging conditions need to have no limit, so that everyone can contribute with their conditions to the DPS of the player crowds in big events, like we have it now since the last condition patch 2015.

If ANet would rebalance properly the Combat System, then we would also have a better working effective Regeneration Boon with the help of Dual Effect Attributes, with the help of a better Health System and with the help of the removal of the obsolete Gear Stat System and change instead to a class individual Stat Efficiency System that helps in better defining each Classes roles in this game in it’s Game Modes.

Boons need to get reduced same as much a Conditions, this pure overenrichment is just absolute poison for this games combat system.

Might, Regeneration, Protection, Swiftness, Fury, Stability, Vigor and Reflection, more isn’t needed.

Might = Increases Power and Condition Durations by 2% per Stack. Max 10 Stacks.
Regeneration = Regain Health and Endurance by 2% per Stack per Second. Max 10 Stacks
Protection = Decreases all incoming Damage by 3,3% and reduces Condition Durations you suffer on by 2% per Stack. Max 10 Stacks.
Fury = Increases Critical Hit Rate and increases CC Efficiency against Break Bars by 2% per Stack. Max 10 Stacks
Swiftness Increases Movement & Skill Recharge Speed by 33% for 3 seconds per Stack. Max 10 Stacks
Stability Renews your Break Bar by 2% per Stack per Second and increases your Health by 25% meanwhile. Max 10 Stacks
Vigor Increases your Attack Speed by 50% for 2 seconds per Stack and Dodges gain the Chance of 20% to cost no Endurance. Max 10 Stacks
Reflection Blocks incoming Attacks per Stack end reflects 5% Damage per Stack back to the origin. Max 5 Stacks.

8 Boons, that cover just everything, that GW2 has currently and needs.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Repeater
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Twisting_Fangs
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stab_

The most useless Skills in the whole Game as they require of you to abandon valuable Stat Points by forcefully equipping only one out of your two 1h Weapons, just so that you become even able to use these Skills based on what your Main hand Weapon is …

Nothing, absolutely nothing is more useless, than this garbage…Fluffs mentioned trait even has some kind of small usage compared to this junk here

These skilsl would be at leaset kind of interesting maybe to use, if it wouldnt be meaning automatically, that you lose alot of valuable Stat Points, which is another reason, why this idiotic Stat Gear Design has to get removed, because without it it would make sense as Thief to fight eventually with only 1 Weapon to play around with these kind of skills, if the Thief would get for the empty Hand then also two “Empty Hand Skills”, which would be kind of logical for Thieves to have – or when going further, basicayl all classes should have some kind “Empty Hand Skills”…

There are no more pointless Weapon Skilsl, than these 3, unless ANet fixes the Combat System of the Game by removing obsolete Gear Stats and giving all Classes basicalyl Empty Hand Skills so that Thieves, which decide to fight with only 1 Weapon in Hand don’t get by design the disadvantage of losing alot of Stat Points and having lesser SKilsl ready at use in Combat compared to somebody whos using either a 2H Weapon or two 1H ones.
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In regard of a useless trait, take this one here:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Revealed_Training – A trait, that is like felt 90% of all the time you play useless, unless you get into a short window of revealed, or enemies put some long lastign reveals on you, the only moment, where the trait becomes for a longer tiem useful for the time that you lose the ability to stealth and run around like a kill target on the silver platter that has lost its only effective defensive mechanism

oh oooh oh,h or take this one

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Keen_Observer – a trait, that becomes mostly useless immediately after you take just 1 hit from your foe … great trait design, really ….NOT

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Concealed_Defeat – Best way to tell your target – IM HERE, KILL ME OFF /facepalm

@ Mea:

What would be “unfair” about such a system, when clearly all Classes would have their very individual Strengths and Weaknesses as well in their Stats?
Don’t just reduce the concept down to only Vitality, because i used it just for the example.

While said Warrior could have its Strenths in Vitality over for example an Mesmer
The same mesmer could have there fore instead it’s strenghts compared to the Warrior in Precision or in Expertise or whatever else for an Attribute.
That has Anet to decide in the end, if they should make usage of that system.

Sorry, I don’t understand what exactly would be about this system unfair, when everyone would have their very own individual pros and cons and that on all Attributes. Please explain

@ zealex: GW1 compared to GW2 had no classical attributes (Stats) like Power, Vitality ect. at all.
In GW1 worked the Traitlines basically as “Stats” which you increased with the points you received and by putign points into them became automatically all skills stronger that belonged to that Attribute.

As an Elementalist in GW1 you basically were able to choose between 5 Attributes
Fire Magic, Earth Magic, Water Magic, Air Magic and Ether Attunement.
As said, no MMORPG classical Stats, all that was important there was that you raised the points in the Attributes you planned to use the most, so that you made your Skisl from the Attribute Line more powerful, with the maximum being to put into a Line around 20 or 21 if I remember right with the help of your equipment. Without equipment maximum points was like 16 or so with lvl 20 you were able to distribute into an Attribute Line, which in case of GW2 is now called a Traitline

With GW2 we would have to recosinder undr my system just only Power, Vitality, Toughness, Precision, Expertise, Healing Power ect. with having individual Efficiency Factors, which is also why I want them to go over to Dual Effects to reduce the amount of Stats, that need to be considered for this.
Because for example Vitality and Healing Power would work perfectly well together as just 1 Dual Effect Attribute.

No problem Thomas, no problem, I also don’t always understand everything, but that lies in the nature of me being no native English Speaker ^^

To your questions:

1) Yes, I would like to see Gear Stats getting removed.
They make GW2 in many aspects unflexible and more overcomplex than needed.
additionally would help their removal in making Classes through a new Health System easier to balance, if that new System relies on Class individual Efficiency Factors instead of on stiff unflexible Class Types that aren’t good to make each Classes individual strenths and weaknesses come up better in the Game.

In GW1 we had Attributes where you kinda put points directly into the Trait Lines and all of your Skills became automatically more powerful, so higher the points were in the increased Attribute.
Basically was GW1s Attribute System very similar to GW2s Trait System, just with the difference, that we have now in GW2 additionally to the Skilsl also passive effects (the Traits) that we unlock through adding more points into the Traitline, which was attributs in GW1.

Classical MMORPGs handle Stats basically like GW1 handled Attributes.
You rise a Level up, you gain Stat Points, and these you you then putthen individually as you like into your Attributes to make your Character stronger, together with some kind of option to reset everything.
GW1 had that too – pay 500 Gold (in GW1 was this nothing, very cheap) and you were able to reset your Setting so that you became eble to reallocate your points again to change your build.

The same thign do we have with Traits in GW2. We can reset them anytime we want out of combat.
Exactly the same way do I want, that this should get handled so with Stats as well.

You rise a Level Up, and you gain Stat Points then, which you can put in any Stat as you wish, like Power, Vitality, Precision, Toughness ect.
And if you think now, you want to reset that, then you should be able to do so anytime you want out of combat for some kind of small fee by talking to a NPC, which can reset for you your Stat Build.
With gaining Stats like this would it not be needed anymore to bind Stats to Gear and gear would be again like it was in GW2 – pure fashion.
—-

2) Yes, my proposed Efficiency Factor System naturally can work like this with all Stats.
Same as like a Warrior can have its own individual Vitality Efficiency Facor, as same as much will he have its own individual Power or Toughness Efficiency Factor.
Thats it why I say, that this kind of rebalanced system is much better and efficient in making all Strengths and Weaknesses of a each individual Class clearer for everyone.
Combine this then with the Trait System and it allows Anet also through Traits to make all Classes for specific Stats more effective, what is something, that Traits currently can’t/don’t do at all, as there could exist then Traits, which change the Efficiency Factors of specific Stats, or Skills and Upgrades could have an effect on that too.
—-

3) Your last point could be true, but also could not be that way. It depends upon what Anet does with the follow up rebalance of Skills, Traits and Upgrades.
However – it is right that making Strengths and Weaknesses of each individual Class clearer leads naturally also into stronger defined “Roles” for each Class and personally I’m always for stronger defined Class Roles, than lettign Classes become able to do too much things same as effectively as like all other Classes, because of there being no clear roles defined at all – we still play a MMO*R*PG, where each Class should have also defined roles to play in this game.
I don’t think that we will tend to single builds for Classes with Efficiency Factors, there have still Skills, Traits, Upgrades and now as well Elite Specializations to say a word or two as well, that are there to deliver build diversity to this game, which surely won’t be reduced suddenly to 1, just only due to Gear Stats being removed and exchanged to class individual Efficiency Factors for the Attributes.

Legendaries would become also cheaper, because they wouldn’t have their Stat Change function anymore needed to make them this way artificially extra special.
That function could then be replaced with somethign else maybe to make them visually extra special – Unlockings of Skill Skins instead to be able to change the look of your Skills.

I don’t think that turning from a 3 Type Base Health System to a Class Individual Attribute Efficiency System that removes tons of overcomplex Mechanics, like obsolete Gear Stats can be anyhow at all “more complex”, than what we have now with a system, that pidgeonholes Classes just into 3 Types and lets certain Classes suffer for being put together with Class X in the same Class Type, when basically all Classes would profitate much more from it, when they would get balanced more individually.

Individuality is it, that creates Balance and Diversity, not stiff unflexible structures that force certain values upon a Class, that are under the whole powercreep of the game lately in most cases either way too low or way too high for them.

PS:
Also with a more individualized Efficiency System can you improve much better the individual Strenghs and Weaknesses of each Class better imo

I want to discuss here options and concepts, on how ANet can improve and rework the Health System of GW2 properly, so that it is after the changes more in line with the current balance of Skills, Traits and the Class Mechanics.

Currently is GW2 still using it’s oudated Release Day Design, which is essentially this:

9 Classes = 3 Class Types split up into Scholar, Adventurer and Soldier Type due to the 3 Armor Types the game also has, which decide over it, how much “Base Health a Class will have at Max Level”, without including the improvements from the Stat Boosts you get currently from Gear.

This old system is designed around a game state where all the power creep, the condition changes, the additional boons and conditions from the last years, as also the Elite Specializations weren’t part of this Health System.
Too much has changed in the game in the last years, than to keep on using this outdated 2012er Health System.

Personally I strongly favor the concept idea of making Game Balance for GW2 alot easier and also alot lesser overenriched/complex and more multi character friendly again like GW1 was – by removing the obsolete pointless design of Gear Stats, so that Gear essentially becomes again what it was like in GW1 and how it should be – fashion only, which shouldn’t decide over it, if you win or lose a battle due to its provided Stats for your Attributes.
However, currently it is so, that the Stats from your Gear provide like over 50% of your final Max Health due to Vitality playing in this a huge role…

This automatically means, if Anet should ever have the guts to rebalance the Game with the help of a Health System Redesign and removes like I propose under my concept Gear Stats, that the Health System needs a redesign, if we don’t get more Health anymore from Vitality of our Gear that we have equipped.

I find it is the best for GW2, if finally all Classes would get individually balanced in their Max Health.

So how can it work alternatively?

The most simplest and better solved more individual way of Class Balancing in regard of Health Values would be following:

Every Character should receive through their Character Progression of raising their Levels automatically more Max Health. – so far, so good and so far are we already now as well.
The difference now should be, that each Class should receive individually strong more Max Health per Level Up and additionally on top of that should each Class have for all Attributes individually strong “Efficiency Multiplicators” which can help in better defining the strengths and weaknesses of all Classes.

Example:

A Warrior should have a stronger Vitality Efficiency, than for example now a Mesmer.
While a Warrior could have an Vitality Efficiency of 2,25, would have a Mesmer one of only 1,75 instead.
Means, if a Warrior Player puts Attribute Points into his Vitality, the Effect of his Vitality Value should be by the factor of 2,25 more effectful, than the Mesmer’s one of just only 1,75.

A Warrior with 1000 Vitality Points and an Efficiency Factor of 2,25 would have 225% of the effect from it’s Vitality Points, while a Mesmer would have only 175%.

Let’s say every Vitality Point increases your Maximum Health by base +20 HP.
A Warrior with his 225% Efficiency in Vitality would receive instead then 45 HP per Vitality Point.
A Mesmer instead would get just 35.
So a Warrior would have with this System *1000 Points then 45000 HP, while a Mesmer would have 35000 HP under this simple math example.

What do you guys think of GW2s outdated Health System?
Would really interest me to see other opinions, because currently I feel like I’m here in the forums most likely a lone person with the opinion, that the Health System needs a change under the current Game Balance.

Edit: Updated sentences after rereading them for better understanding xD

Hyper Cutter.9376:

Conditions are a viable source of damage, Orpheal. The sooner you and everyone else accept this truth, the happier you’ll be.

Sure, but they should not be more viable, than direct damage, therefore is condition damage in regard of its given braindead gameplay in GW2 just too effective and too simple to get it very powerful together with its spammy skill design that allows you to spam a foe with them to death way faster, than anyone is able to get rid of them and not all classes have on demand access to helpful boons like resistance, you may also not forget.
Resistance was basically only Anets cheap answer on the condition power creep they added to the game with the june 23rd patch from 2015, that they used to buy them time with this boon, because they knew it already back then, that giving this game its neccessary proper rebalancing that includes also all combat relevant mechanics would take them more time and ressources to do, which ANet didn’t had back then – so what was the answer for them aas counterplay to the sudden added massive condition powercreep that turned the whole game into chaos, just to please the PvE side, so that condition builds were from that day on able to contribute good enough on DPS – we add resistance, the middle finger boon for all condi builds – simple solution, quick solution, but far away from being the perfect solution that would have been to give the whole condition AND boon system at the same time a proper rebalance with the goal to reduce both sides…because Anet kept on adding over the years only more and more new boons and especially condition,s without thinking twice about it, that adding more and more effects to the game will automatically lead sooner or later only to more and more unbalanced class builds that become also only harder and harder to balance – thats why I’m saying, that the combat system with its lots of boons and conditions has already far surpassed the state of overenrichment.

The game has currently simply way too much boons and conditions, than are good for this game and its whole class balance. But simply only removing here n there now a boon and a condition wouldn’t be right.

Thats as task that naturaly has to come together with Skill and Trait Rebalances, AFTER the OCndition and Boon Systems have been reworked first and once that has been done, we all will clearly see then an impactful refreshing wind of change in the whole game balance of GW2 again, where players have lesser to check constantly again, how much and which boons/conditions are currently on them, we will get again then the impression, that boons and conditions are much lesser spammy in the whole gameplay, because it are simply again lesser of both and the whole skill resing of removing them, of corrupting them, of stealing them ect pp. will also become in return again more effective and skills and traits, that give you certain boons/conditions start to become also again more meaningful, if both boons and conditions become lesser spammy in GW2 again.

If we reach first this big change, then will GW2 be again a great step forward to become great again and more fun, like GW2 used to be within its first two years after release, while preparing the game at the same time better for the implementation of more Elite Specializations in the future, because the first set of them was thrown with HoT just into the cold water into a totally unprepared unbalanced state of GW2 so brief after the condition changes, that this simply couldn’ just result into something good at the end, if things just get rushed too fast, before polishing the game first and making needed preparations, before you add already again something totally new into the game that completely shakes up the hwole game balance – and all of that under the point, that the game is still using outdated mechanics from 2012, which were from begin on never designed around the fact, that thinmgs like Elite Specializations or additional Boons and Conditions would play ever a role for these old mechanics.

Thats why the game is currently so totally out of harmony, because the game mechanics aren’t going at the moment hand in hands just by design.

Its like as if you put oil (new game mechanis like E-Specs, new boons/conditions) into water (old GW2 2012er mechanics) and you expect from both fluids, that they fusionize, because they are both in the same vessel (game), but in fact you just realize, that the oil will swim on top of the water as it doesn’t work well with water due to both being two completely different substances.

Wednessday we will most likely see only another useless try of rebalancing Classes through just number changes on Skills and Traits, what will lead only to the fact, that they shift the meta builds around and that creates then just new OP builds which will replace the nerfed ones.

if you want to balance this game properly, then you don’t scratch in the surface of the very thick earth place, no you take it on from the ROOT thats deep underground.
The roots are the basics of this games Combat System, which aren’t well balanced anymore for all the skill and trait changes anet has done within the last 4 years plus additionally all the other mechanics they have either changed, like the effectiveness increase in Conditions, without rebalancing around this also the Boons and all the addtions they made, like new Boons/Conditions and Elite Specs, for what alot of Combat Mechanics weren’t balanced around, because ANetz is still using the very old basic combat mechanics from 2012, where all this stuff DIDN’T exist and where the Combat Mechanics were not balanced for all these things, that we have now currently in the game.

Anet can first get better balance through Skill and Trait Changes again – that are neccessary, if they get finally the guts to take it on with the games Combat System and to renew ands rebalance these outdated old mechanics, so that they fit again to all the gameplay mechanics and changes that Anet has done to the game within the last 4 years, so that Skills, Traits and all other Combat Mechanics that are important and go hand in hand for class balancing, are then again in better harmony with each other, so that skill and trait changes can be again more effective for each class.

Anet has to stop ignoring these aspects. You can’t balance a game like GW2, if you permanently do only nothing else, but Skill Number Changes.
Game Balance consist out of much more, than only Class Skills and Traits!!
Don’t know, how long it takes, until Anet finalyl realizes this fact!
Especially when they have shown us in the past already multiple times, that they HAVE the guts to make bigger changes in Game Balance by redesigning whole parts of Combat System mechanics with the multiple changes on the Trait System.

So why does it take so long for them to see in, that it is now time to take a long onto the other outdated Combat System Mechanics??
The only answer that I have for this and the only hope I have for that is, that ANet simply waits for this bigger change for the second Expansion, or maybe brief before the next expansion in one bigger Balance Patch, just like Anet did it with conditions brief a few weeks before the release of HoT – but that was in this case a terrible decision, because the previous change brought only chaos to GW2 and HoT was then just only oil put to the fire and made everything only worser, what wouldnt have ben the case, if Anet/NCSoft wouldnt have rushed it so much with HoT and would habe given the game first some time to make readjustments from the horrible Condition Changes that we have to endure now since 23rd june of 2015 – in four months for already nearly 2 years!!! without that Anet cared about it, what they have done to their game with these overpowered condition changes and how much that patch influenced the whole game to the bad side, rather than it was at all anyhow good for the game.

Conditions should influence the outcome of a battle, they shouldnt be more powerful in dealing damage, than power builds and basically replace them, because they are braindeadly easier to play than power builds and more rewarding for less risk and less effort to be done, to make them effective, due to having currently lesser attributes to spec to make them very powerful, than any power build has to do, due to the outdated single effect attribute system which is biased towards offensive builds and needs a complete redesignm, to help in rebalancign the game.

But thats a neccessary step, which can wait. the most important combat mechanics, which need to be quickly changed and overworked is the whole overenriched boon and condition system together with an overwork of the Health System, so that finalyl all class get better individually balanced, instead of getting pidgeonholed into one of 3 outdated unbalanced class types which don’t suit anymore to GW2’s current sate of the game with its Elite Specializations and tons of changes on Skills and Traits from the last years.

I wouldn’t be so penetrant on this topic, If I wouldn’t mean all this also very seriously!

Whatever they do, as long its only skill changes, then this patch will change nothing.
It will go like a droplet of water onto a burning hot stone …..pooooof, so meaningful will that patch be for the game.
This game has seen over the years enough skill number changes..and what have they brought GW2? Nothing.

What GW2 needs now is not Skill Changes. It needs Combat Mechanic Changes.
Starting with the most impactful ones that can really bring a wind of change to this game – a fresh one, that will revitalize GW2 and bring it back to its former glory it had within the first two years after release.

• Boon & Condition Reworks reducing on both sides their amounts from 14 to like 8 or 9 maximum.

• Base Health System Rework to a new System, which is balanced around individual Health Values for each Class, rather than pidgeonholing all classes into 3 outdated Class Types

Basically its more needed, than these 2 things (Upgrades, Attributes to name two same as important big parts of the whole Combat System and the Class Balance that comes from these mechanics that go hand in hand…)

But change just these 2 things for now… Redesigning the Boons/Conditions and reduce them in their total amount, while rebalancing all Classes based on an overall change in how Base Health is handled for all Classes and these two things will be for 100% sure far more effective in rebalancing the game, than like douzends of Skill Balance Patchs, which do nothing else than permanently changing only numbers of skills and traits.

Personally I’ve enough of simple Skill Changes, seriously, I can’t see this word anymore.
Permanent Skill Changes are the act of the of the uninspired.
Its something that very conservative people do only, which have no clues, how they should touch their game to bring it back onto the right track and which just hope, if they make just here and there every few months some skill number changes on traits and skills, that this alone will be enough to balance a game the size like GW2 that has way more mechanics that play a very important role in balancing the Classes as a whole, than only Skills.

I clearly say, after watching for 5 years now, what this kind of attitude brings to a game – no , this is not enough.

You need to have also the bravery to make neccessary steps – bigger changes, that are if needed – more impactful than just only skill changes to shake up a game like GW2 strong enough and to revitalize it with the changes, so that you can retain players better and make the game more fun again.
Especially for all of its game modes, PvE, as like Pvp and WvW, without that any of these modes suffers from the changes intended to effect only a specific mode, which is also why people demand since a long time, that skill balancing should be completely split among all game modes!

HALLELUJAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!

They have heard US!!

*oh wait, brain ticks in again …. skill changes…

hype train goes into FULL BRAKE

Under this basic principle of reducing the Upgrade Types to the least minimum amount of

• Sigils
• Materias
• Runes
• Gemstones/ Jewels
• Crests
• Infusions

- Can the old obsolete Upgrade Types be all removed
- Can be removed tons of obsolete recipes
- Can be reworked the whole Prefix Stuff, because Stats don’t define the Prefix anymore

Weapons are now defined by Sigil (Suffix) and Name + Materia (Prefix)
Example: Sigil of Fire + Materia of Summoning + Mythril Sword = Orpheal’s Summoning-Mythril Sword of Fire
(but better would be a Feature, that allows us to give Equipment unique own Names, like giving a ranger pet its name, so should we be able to give our crafted items unique names that should follow the same rules, like giving our Characters a name)

Armors are now defined by its Rune or it’s Gemstone (Suffix) and your Name (Prefix)
Example: Name + Rune of Shadows + Mythril Cloak = Orpheal’s Mythril Cloak of Shadows That kind of prefix will get all soulbound items now

Accessoires are now defined by either its Name+Crest (Prefix) and Infusion or Rune (Suffix) based on it, what you put into the weapon first – an Infusion or a Rune
Here it becomes a bit tricky due to intertwined prefixes that need to be put all in front first and intertwined Suffixes to be turned into prefixes as well, because there can be always only 1 Suffix
Example: Name+Crest of the Assassin + Brilliant Emerald + Rune of Shadows =
Orpheal’s Brilliant Assassin’s Crest Emerald of Shadows
German:
Orpheal’s brillianter Assassinenwappen-Smaragd der Schatten

Now I want to answer an important question, which many surely have on their lips ^^

How should Upgrades be receiveable undr my system, how to we get them, do they still drop ect.??

Many people in GW2 dislike it, that we get so overwhelmened with so many useless upgrades, that it is not funny anymore.
So what should we do with them, how can we make something useful out of those upgrades, that are not userful for us anymore.
This is, what I think we should do:

Under this concept, should all upgrades in this game be receiveable only through Crafting. Upgrades will completely stop coming from dropped loot of killed enemies.
Only exception: Rewarded Loot that you get from Loot Chests and these Rewards that give your Equipment that has Upgrades, will from this point on always reward you also with an Upgrade, that is appropriate to the quality and rarity of the item you are rewarded with.

Means, if I loot out of such a rewrd chest for example an exotic sword weapon, then this item will have also a superior sigil or materia bonded to it, that will have the same quality as like the weapon. so if the exotic weapon is of Level 60 quality, then also too the upgrade in it will be of lvl 60 quality.
Do I refine this exotic weapon with its upgrade now to Lvl 61, then I can turn this found weapon into an Ascended Weapon of Lvl 61 Quality and if i want to have with that Weapon its Quality Bonus, then I have to refine this weapon 19x more until it reaches quality lvl 80 to be maxed, what will unlock for the Weapon its Weapon Upgrade based Quality Bonus.

How do we refine a Weapon/Armor/Accessoire?

Very simple, you take your Weapon to a Weapon Smith and you say to the Smith, that he should refine your Weapon.
The NPC wil tell you then what you need to bring to the NPC, so that he can refine your weapon for you to increase it’s quality.
Here will come in now the material sink and item sink that can come in also handy to stabilize the economy to ensure, that items don’t lose too much value therefore that Stats get removed from gear and that Upgrades don’t drop in millions anymore.

The massive reduction in drops of low end upgrades will make sure that their worth will rise up – plus the additional sink of low end Upgrades to refine weapons to raise their quality will also help in making sure, that the value of low end Upgrades becomes better, because now you will NEED alot of low end Upgrades to be able to get better high end upgrades and refined weapons.
GW2 has currently worthlss low end upgrades, because the player absolutely doesn’t need them for anything. The moment your character outgrows them, you will never need them. thats the problem of the game currently and thats something, what needs to get changed.
When the amoutn of drops gets drastically reduced and when you suddenly need them in high amounts to be able to refine your weapons to make them better, then their value will automaticalyl become better and this will turn the situation of low end upgrades being worthless currently into low end upgrades receiving suddenly the potential to become the most valuable upgrades, that are always needed, so that you are able to refine your weak equipment into stronger equipment, be it the weapon, the armor or the accessoires.

The most simplest Concept I could come up with did I post basically already in the other Thread, but here is it again for this own discussion now:

Weapons
- 2 Upgrade Types: Sigils & new Materias
- Materias are created out of Infusions + Materials/ Loot Items (if Materia is no good term, then take “Essence”
- Sigils change actively all Combat Skills Relations – Example: Sigil of Fire = A Fire Explosion can happen after you use a Combat Skill, which deals AoE Damage
- Materias change passively all Combat Skill Relations – Example: Materia of Summoning = Your Summons passively regenerate Health for every Summon Skill in your Bar, that is currently reloading as long there is as least 1 Summon Skill that is reloading and your Protection Boons are increased by 10% while a summon of you is alive.

Armor Parts
- 2 Upgrade Types: Runes & Gemstones
- Rune Set with Bonus Effects are now reduced from 6 Parts to 4 Parts required for a Set and Runes can be put now also too into Accessoires. This will make it now possible to have up to 3 Rune Set Combos in your Build, if you put into your whole Equipment only Runes.
- Gemstones reworked to Extension and/or Improvement Effects
Example:

Minor > Major > Superior > Ascended
Emerald Jewel > Polished Emerald Jewel > Exquisite Emerald Jewel > Brilliant Emerald Jewel

Example Effect
Put in an Emerald Jewel into your Armor and it will increase the Duration of the first Boon you receive 5 seconds after the begin of a Battle by +x% based on its Rarity Grade.

Minor = Can be used from Level 1 to 20
Major = Can be used from Level 21 to 40
Superior = Can be used from Lvl 41 to 60
Ascended = Can be used from Level 61 to 80

If you want to use now highr end Upgrades, you first need to use low end Upgrades and “REFINE” them through a Jeweler to their next Rarity Grade by raising the Quality of the Upgrade, which is the required Level of an Item. The moment you refine the Quality of an Upgrade over its Rarity Grade Limit, it becomes the next higher Rarity Grade, until you have refined your Upgrade into Ascended Status

Accessoires
- 3 Upgrade Types – Crests, Runes & Infusions
- Armors and Weapons have no Infusion Slots anymore, all AR/Infusions needed should come from Accessoires to give Accessoires more importancy after the removal of Stats from gear, because currently are Accessoires nothing but only cheap boring Stat Boosters
- Infusions receive different Slot Types – Immunity Slots & Design Slots
Immunity Slots increase AR and the moment you put an Immunity infusion into the Slot, you gain Agony Resistance with it so more and so longer you suffer Agony, so higher will rise the Immunity Level automatically of the Infusion over time, until its Limit is reached and you need to refine it to turn it into a better Infusion that can reach a higher Immunity Level – stop with grinding millions of infusions and turning AR into a real part of Character Progression, that comes naturally from playing Fractals and getting hit with Agony. Limited to 2 per Equipment.
Design Slots unlock for your character either unique Aura Effects or Skill Skins with that you can change the Look of your Combat Skills. Limited to 1 per Equipment
- Crests add now instead of Stats new unique Combat related Extensions or Improvements.
Example: Crest of the Assassin added to an Accessoire would now increase the Efficienty of Fury for you if it should be an Improvement, or as an Exension Effect, it could lead to the additional effect, that you gain a chance of performing poisonous counterattacks, when you gain Fury as extended effect while you have Fury.

Quality Bonus
Raising the quality of an Item isn’t used only to brign the Upgrad to its next Rarity Grade. If a Upgrad reaches maximum Quality (Level Req 80 Ascended), then will each Upgrade in either a Weapon, Armor Part or Accessoire give the Character based on what Type of Upgrade it is the Character some kind of Special Bonus.

Weapon Upgrade = Each maxed Weapon Upgrade on your Character increases for that Weapon the Base Damage by +5%

Armor Upgrade = Each maxed Armor Upgrade on your Character raises its Base Defense Value by 10%. So an Equipnment that has normally 100 Defense, will have 110 with an maxed lvl 80 rec ascended Upgrade slotted in it.

Accessoire Upgrade = Each maxed Accessoire Upgrade on your Character will raise your maximum Boon Durations by 2,5%, so with 6 maxed accessoires = +15% longer Boons for you.

The basic spirit behind my idea, the ideal concept of Upgrades for GW2, that play a big role in generally balancing the game is “Reduction”, same as I stand for Reduction, when it comes to Conditions and Boons.

Reduction is the basic spirit also, why GW2 started as what it has started 2012 and why we have much lesser Skills in the Game, than in GW1, why we have no Dual Class System anymore, why we have no tons Hexes anymore, but Conditions instead. Theres a red line in this whole Game Design and it is Reduction, to ensure, that things get not too overcomplex or too overenriched like it is currently the case with Upgrades, where we have lots of useless ones, k*tten players can make no use of them, because we can#t salvage them, can’t stack them, can’t merge them, can’t sell them quickly.

The game has obsolete Upgrade type, that nobody needs, because in the end the only important Upgrade types currently that you need are superior Sigils, Superior Runes and eventually if you go for more Stats (urgh) exotic Gemstones, which is totally pointless, because Runes/Sigils with their effects are alot better and more useful and create Build Diversity, while just Stat Boosts from gemstones do this not.

Upgrade Types like Talismans, Signets, Medaillons are so useless, because you level in this game so quickly, you outgrow these weak upgrades so fast, that you never need them. also in time,s where players have countless amounts of instant Level Up Boosters, people have their Max Level Characters so quickly, that these weak Upgrades play for you never a role in the whole game. All what matters for players these days are only the high end Upgrades, because they are it in the end, which have some kind of value for the players, while all the weak rest is just cheap garbage that has no worth at all for anyone.

So under the spirit of reduction I think its best for GW2 to reduce the amount of Upgrade Types and to make sure, that each remaining Upgrade type receives its very own unique speciality for what these Upgrades should be good for.

Side Link: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Upgrades-Open-the-Way-for-Build-Saver/first#post6443467
Just as a reminder for myself.

I follow my own strong principl,e, that this Game would run much better balanced, if GW2 would receive finally a proper and universal rebalancing about its whole Combat System.

A very big part of Character Progression as like Combats are the Upgrades – so Sigils, Runes, Gemstones, Infusions ect. – and this part of the Combat System is something about GW2, which suffers currently on – how should I express it best – on overenrichment

The Game has way more Upgrades, than are neccessary. The game needs to be purified from all of these unneeded upgrades and upgrade types, which are mostly all those weak useless minor and major upgrades, that are useless, because the player can’t do anythign with them, not even salvage them right now, if they aren’t needed.

Another point, that would make Upgrades and Game Balance easier to handle for anet would be to remove all Stats from Gear, including Upgrades.
This would purify this game from so much obsolete things alone, that balancing the classes should become alot easier.

But first a small caption, because I will mention here some terms, which I want to describe first ,what is meant with them:

Combat Skill Relation; Actively – An Effect, which changes Effects of a Combat Skill directly when you use the Combat Skill.
Combat Skill Relation; Passively – An Effect, which is there, while a Combat Skill is reloading, or while it is active, or while you are using it passively in the background
Combat Relation; Passively – An Effect, that is there, while you do something like a Dodge Roll, a Block, switching Weapons, receiving Boons, getting/removing Conditions ect.
Combat Relation; Extension – Adds an Effect to an other Effect and extends with it the original Effect
Combat Relation; Improvement – Increases an Effect in its Efficiency/Duration
Combat Relation: Skin Unlock – Simply unlocking a Reskin for a Combat Skill, becasuse I want to see Infusions becoming more useful in the Game, other than being only AR Boosts or “Auras”

These kinds of terms can get mixed partwise into each other when you think about all kinds of possible mechanics that can be included into Upgrades to make them more interesting and fun for the overall Combat System
—-
Now I’ll answer first a question from an other Thread that lead to this one here.

“How would my concept stop the economy from tanking, if we remove Stats from Gear?”

With this question I think the questioner means, what kind of options ANet would have, to ensure, that things, that are now valuable, aren’t valuable anymore once this big change would make alot of things obsolete (and in fact easier for all players to handle and to overview), if Anet seriously would rebalance the Game, by removing all Stats from all Gear.

Truth is, if that would have, would lose alot of things value, but mostly only those things in the game, which are used alot by tons of players…so basically everythign in this game, that is currently “Meta” while everything, that is rarely used by hardly anyone most likely won’t be affected at all by this change.

The real question is more for me – why should Anet do something against a decreasing value of materials ect.
In the end the market and its prices will regulate itself still just through demand and offer. So why should ANet interfere into this, only because some meta builds and their required items to get them will eventually lose in value, because they arenät maybe so wanted anymore as like before, so that people are able to get specific “Stats” for their Builds.

Anet can, if they want find alot of new sinks for the affected items that eventually lose too much value. They can add always new crafting recipes for somethign that will require something that has lost alot of value due to the removal of Stats from Gear and that item will instantly sky rocket again with its value high, due to the hype of people wanting to get that new thing, especially if that new recipe is for some kind of super good looking skin that requires alot of said materials that people start to buy the market empty so that they don’t have to grind for the materials.

The quality of life, and fun aspects of being able to change your attributes anytime out of combat just overweight the little con, that eventuaklly might appear from removing Stats from gear, when that con can be solved anytiem through adding new sinks for the affected items that lost value to prevent the economy from tanking this way.
—-

With this being said so far, I will go on with the Concept and its discussion with the next posting.

oh sure, can do, when there is the interest for discussion of that in an own thread, even if I think the idea contributes to this topic as well, even if I take out a bit longer, but I just think – if you begin to change the way how upgrades should drop, then you can do the whole thing also directly properly and overwork the whole thing in one go to get rid of many problems with that as well – basically speaking, hitting two birds with one stone.

That concept of gameplay is it, what I have suggested here n there already several time,s when I was talking about improving the Fractal Gameplay with new additional "Fractal Modes "

Fractals have alot of unused potential that would make the Fractal Gameplay in GW2 alot more interesting.

Be it Heroic Fractals that let you replay either solo or as Group as other different characters their “Histories” like as if you read a book chapter per chapter and you replay their stories (beginning hopefully with Ghosts of Ascalon, followed maybe with Sea of Sorrows and the other GW2 novel book, because I’d love to replay the stories of the books in the game, because that would make the stories of the books alot more understandable and feelable, if you could actually replay the stories to see them just in the view of specific characters that played a role in these historic events)
Plus that could be used under a similar system like GW1s book stories to implement some interesting new rewards

Or what I#d love to see beign implmented with Fractals are special “Dungeon Crawlers” Unique Fractal Dungeons with their unique speciality, that these kind of Fractals are EVERYTIME YOU ENTER THEN – DIFFERENT cause of using a “No mans sky” similar technology which generates randomly the dungeon interiors ,its enemies ect. pp new right when you enter it.

Thing on some kind of awesome 100 floor tower dungeon crawler with like some epic boss enemies on every 10th floor, where everytime you enter it, these 100 floors expect the boos floors look everytime different, with different random generated enemies, which becomes more rewarding, so deeper you successfully can explore it, before your party gets completely wiped.

Or what id love to see is Mass Player Fractals where you are not just only 5 people, but you get thrown together with like 99 other random people which currently are doing the same fractal like you where you have to do then thigns, like fightign against the Marionette, or defending LionsArch against its 3 colored roboters from Scarlet or to be placed onto a random “Invasion Map”.. these kinds of old season 1 content would suit perfectly as Mass player Fractals to brign these thigns back into the game… or

another type of Fractal Mode could be Hunting Grounds which could be fractalds more designed around the target group pf MMORPG players, which love online games like Monster Hunter, Toukiden ect. where you are in huge maps hunting down huge monsters like big game hunters where you rise in a Hunter Rank so better the creatures are you hunted, so that you can join in to maps with far more dangerous creatures to hunt, which could be the kind of Fractals that could be awesome for solo as like group players to give these players some different kinmd of challenging content that must not be always attached to some kind of “story” but attracts simply more the “farmer” kind of players.

and im sure there could be even more interesting Fractal Modes, ANet just has to take the potentials only and make something out of it, instead of adding permanently only new Fractals, which are essentially always only the same stuff.

@Miellyn

I have to disagree on your last sentence. You can expand a game also through rebuilding it.
Rebuilding an existing mechanic in a game doesn’t mean, that you can’t add also something new to it while being on the process of rebuilding something.

Hmm, am personally not so firm yet with WoW, but the impression you get from the game so far is, that it continiously gets its expansions and personalyl I haven’t heard from WoW players yet, that they had to wait on something sevaral couple of months after an expansion, until something that should have been part of a previous expansion got added to the game.

Same with FF14..haven#t heard yet from that game a single time, that somethign from their expansions got cut out and delayed, just to be added then slowly in tiny steps later, like Anet does it with us currently with the second set of Legendary Weapons, or how they did it with Raids.

For me it is just clear, in a complete HoT, that would have fully delievered on day 1, would have been the complete set of legendary weapons, the legendary armors and the first 3 Raid “Wings” as 1 complete raid part right on release day. But all of this wasn#t the case, we had to wait multiple months to now 16 months after release and we are still far away from having everything in the game, that should have been part of HoT directly basically.

This makes you question yourself – what in hell has happened at ANet, that made them seemingly lose so much time/ressources, that they weren’t able to pull a complete HoT off at release date, if not just a rushed date being pressured by NCSOFT?

Because I’m pressure sure, if there wouldnt have been pressure on releasing HoT fast, we would have seen a much later Release Date with an expansion that would have delivered then also from begin on a complete second set of legendary weapons, with legendary armors being completely part of it as Feature fully accessible and with the first 3 raid wings being included in HoT, so that there wouldnt have been the need to implement these through later patches, what would have lead then to the advantage that Anet would have had more time and resosurces for other meaningful changes and improvements to the game – especially the game balance, which suffers massively in this game since june 23rd of 2015 – 4 months just before HoT got release they made these devastating condition changes, which are unchanged, unbalanced until today – 1 year and 4 months later…

And as this whole thread shows – ANet has a massive problem with retaining players and the biggest reason for this, why many people leave MMOS like GW2 is the lack of Game Balance in the first place, not the lack of content.

Content is the Motor of a running MMORPG.
But Game Balance is the oil of the motor, that ensures, that the Motor will run also still good in many years later to come.
If the oil of the motor sucks, then the motor will inevitably stop running somewhen due to the damage the motor damages from working with bad oil, which is players leaving the game and not coming back, until ANet changes the oil out.

I hope this little metaphor is easy to understand
and thats exactly the case with ANet right now.. we have a perfect motor, yay, but a perfect motor, thats still running with horrible 5 year old thick and unflexible oil of very bad quality which is slowing the motor and its mechanics down – its ovedue to change it out with some fresh fluid oil, so that motor and its oil are in harmony again.

The whole Upgrade system needs based on the fact that it needs a proper rebalancing also a redesign in how all of its parts – be it Sigils, Gemstones, Runes of various types ect. are handled.

The whole problem could get solved by 1 big neccessary game balance change.

Remove the idiotic Stats on Gear and let Charactrs gain Stats automatically like in GW1 again from leveling up the character, allowing us to put manually our Attribute Points into the Stats as we like, together with the feature to be able to reset them whenever we want, or with a small Gold/Karma Fee like in GW1 out of combat.

Then can Anet redesign based on this all Upgrade Items properly based on this new system and reduce the amount of Upgrades to the least minimum needed types together with changing their functions where needed.

Add to this change then also the feature, that from then on all Upgrades should be destroyable into Materials that should be useable to craft out of them new Upgrades, and people get then finally also a use out of Upgrades they don’t need, by salvaging them into useful materials

From that point on we have then only:

Sigils = Weapon Upgrades with Combat Skill related active Effects
Materias = Weapon Upgrades with Combat related passive Effects

Runes = Armor Upgrades with Combat related active or passive Effects with Bonus Effect for using a complete Set

Gemstones = Armor Upgrades with Combat Skill related Extensions/Improvements

Crests = Accessoire Upgrades with Combat related passive Extensions/Improvements
Infusions = Accessoire Upgrades with AR Effect and Combat Skill related Reskin Unlocks

No more useless medaillons, talismans, signets ect. just only these Upgrade types which range then all in 4 types – Minor, Major and Superior & Ascended.
Each level in its range has 5% Efficienty of the Effect that the Upgrade has

Minor = Level 1-20
Major = Lvl 21-40
Superior = Lvl 41-60
Ascended = Level 61-80

Means for example, a Lvl 80 Ascended Upgrade will have its Effectiveness/Durations increased by 100%

So lets say I want to use an Ascended Crest of Sonic Winds that has a required Level of 80 to be used and I put that into my Lvl 80 requiring left Ascended Earing for example, which gives the Effect, that Swiftness receives the chance at Req 60 of 5% to turn into Super Speed, then will give me a Req 80 version of that Creast instead a 10% chance for this passive extensional effect for Swiftness

Add together with this change then finally Jeweler 500 and let it be the Crafting Job, whos able to create out of Superior Upgrades then as only Crafting Job out of these together with specific materials then Ascended Upgrades, so that Jeweler beacomes again a meaningful Crafting Job.

As no Stats coming from any gear anymore, all Runes and their Set Effects have to be rebalanced and rework, with the goal, that Balancing Classes after that change will be then easier, because the Runes itself will be then also simpler and not so overloaded anymore with varios effects and attribute increases that need to be considered, making it easier to use complete sets and having then also space for eventually some other runes to get mixed in, or some gemstones as a Rune Set would consists after that big change then out of 4 instead of 6 runes due to the removal of Stat Points from their effects.

Plus the game would become finalyl again a game, where player skilsl count 100% and bnut, what kind of gear & upgrades you use ….due to their stat boosts

flog.3485:

Orpheal.8263:

another one leaves the boat, again looses this game a big piece of its old spirit that can’t be simply replaced.

Bad days for GW2

Erm….the person leaving started at the same time as the person who is taking charge. Old spirit is still there

Horia might be his son, but hes not the same person, the same spirit as he might make different decisions as like his father.
Different people can always have different opinions what might lead to different decisions when different people are in charge for something.

Each personality is unique and can’t be simply replaced by someone else, even if that somebody is your own son.
All I wanted to say is basically, that the dev team loses again somebody, who was responsible for it, that the game did become even so great – for the game and us is he a great loss – so thats why bad days for GW2.

However, I also don’t want to say, that eventually some people will see/interprete this change as something positive, when I read some specific posts here xD
But I personally interprete it rather as something negative, cause I’m an old GW1 Veteran who started with the game 2005 and thus appreciate his works and for what Danial stood for in this game much more most likely, than maybe some GW2 newbies, which haven’t played GW1 and just know him and his works from GW2

@ Klowde…

An expansion has to deliver ON THE POINT, not first like 20% on release day and them slowly as snails the other 80% in tiny steps month after month later …

Thats not how expansions work. An expansion should deliver always its complete content onm release day on the point and that is it, what HoT dod absolutely not and why so many people are angry of this fact, that HoT did not deliver all of its announced content directly.

People don’t want to be spoon fed a hundred times with a small spoon, when they KNOW, they should get fed with just 1 big spoon instead and are satiated after that one then for a long time.
Or have you ever seen in similar big MMORPGs on the market the same behavious like ANet did with HoT ???

No, I can’t remember a single expansion in WoW or in FF14 for example, where their developers tried to do with their players the same idiotic method of delivering like only 20% of the content of its expansion and then adding very slowlsy the last 80% months later disguised as some kind of other patches.

They always delivered with their expansions completely, without leaving anything out, whatever got announced, was then also part of the expansion from begin on the expansion released – so they delivered in the eyes of the playerbase, what doesn’t change the fact that still for some people the content what they brought could jhave been disappointing, but they delivered and that completely.

HoT didn’t deliver complete, what made the bug infested thing even more so disappointing, because having access to LS3 was no sales point that got marketed as “Feature” of HoT…. that LS3 is just a story extension of HoT is nothing but just a cheap excuse nobody paid for.
That people can have access to LS3 only due to owning HoT is just a story telling technical given thing, because LS3 plays after what happens in HoT.
Would LS3 play now, before the happenings of HoT, then wouldn’t have people to own naturally HoT to have access to LS3 – just plain logic!!

Thats why I say it would have been alot better for HoTnot to add new Story with the expansion, but instead Anet should have focused with the expansion only on adding new Features, QoL and improving the existing Features, and bigger properly done Game Balance that take finally also a look onto all of the games Combat System mechanics to prepare the game properly on the new added Elite Specializations and those that will come in the future, cause the game was before HoT already in a state of total balance chaos due to the Condition Changes and ANet had nothing better to do, than to rush it with Hot, due to basically NCSOFt pointing their pressure pistol into their backs – saying, release it fast, we needz the MONEY, cause your gemstore is simply too weak!!!
Thats the truth, because would the gemstore work good enough, then we wouldn’t need basically any expansions at all.

For the game would it be better, if completely all new story content, would be added to the game only via Living World Patches, so that Anet can focus themself with Expansions completely on new Features, Qol, Balance and improvements of existign content – thats it for what freaking expansions ARE FOR mainly in the first place. adding new story is just secondary as you can always add new story, but the game has to run functionally wise first good, that has always top priority over adding new story!!!

Quality over Quantity.

another one leaves the boat, again looses this game a big piece of its old spirit that can’t be simply replaced.

Bad days for GW2

@ maddoctor:

Sure, you may have right with that. It wouldn’t be a wise decision to stop all story content updates for Living World to rebalance the games outdated combat system mechanics that aren’t in harmony with each other right now.

Thats why I say it would be better for Expansions to remove Story Progression from them completely, so that new story content will be added to the game only via Living World Patches, so that xpansions can be 100% focused on adding new Features, Balance and reworking old content, that needs improvements as also adding more quality of life to the game where needed to make GW2 more comfortable again.

Anet absolutely shouldn’t rush it with the second expansion, so I agree with you that it would be at the current state of the game the very best and most wisest ddecision to put the works on the second expansion for a longer while on ice.

This would allow the dev teams to focus then their man power onto 2 big projects:

Project Team 1 = Living Story = Ensures, that the Story progression doesn’t stop and that the current Livign Story Season finds its end without any big story droughts in between

Project Team 2 = Game Rebalance & Gemstore

This team, which would consist then out of the peopel who are currently responsible for the gemstore and those that worked so far on the next expansion concentrate themself then first to bring the needed Game Balance changes and rework the neccessary combat system mechanics that I have listed up here step by step, as that will make sure, that the combat in GW2 will make more fun again, that will lead to many playrs who quitted coming back again, from what the gemstore will also profitate again, because people become most likely again willing to spent money in it so that the weak gemstore will revitalize too and can make sure to better finance the game again, eventualy even so good again, that changing to a hybrid payment model with optional premium accounts can be totally wiped off of the table as possible solution to stop the permanent fall of GW2.

And once they have given this game after some long time its neccessary proper rebalances and updated all of its neccessary for that combat system mechanics so that they harmonize again with each other – then and only then is this game ready for it’s next expansion that will add more new elite specs.

HoT got released way too early, when the game was totally unprepared and still under chaos from the condition changes.
This must not happen again with the next expansion!! Ever
Thats like going into the bath tube, without having let in the water for bathing first…

Now they are in the situation, where they can make first the neccessary preparations for the game, before they release the next expansion and they wait with it “until it’s ready”™

Rushed expansions help nobody and just create only more problems, than they solve!!

infusions dont need to be used outside of Fractals for more Character Progression in for of Power increases, just to make more usage of their potential…

Infusions could be used outside of Fractals for example to bind somehow “Skill Skins” to your equipment that you use by fusing the Skill Skin into the Infusion that you put intio your equipment.

Or they could be used as part of a Build Template System to bind your "builds2 into the Infusions to unlock this way Slots in the Build Template System to be able to quickly change out of combat to your various infused builds that you have saved up in your equipment.
With something like this it owuld mean that you could save up to maximum 16 Builds if you use two 2h weapons (6 Accessoires, 6 Armor Parts, 2 Weapons with max 2 Slots = 16 Slots max for saving up Builds through Infusions)

You see, if you just want, theres easy ways to give Infusions more meaningfulness, without that it needs to be done automatically through more power increases.

Make then infusions receiveable also through other means, than just only through Fractals and you take away also the need to play fractals to get them, if you have no interest in Fractals, whie making it also possible to work on your Infusion progression outside of Fractals, so that people can get more AR also outside of Fractals, if you want to take some break from Fractals, but want to improve your AR fpor the next time you go into a Fractal.

The Infusion System could be so much more, than it is right now….

I call tell you the reason what can anet do to solve this retention problem.

Balance finally properly their game and with balance properly the Game I mean – do more than just only some number changes on skills and traits.

The moment when people realized that HoT put just only much more oil into the fire and made the already totally out of control game balance just alot more horrible, that is the moment where tons of players shortly after release decided to quit the game…

Alot of people hoped, that HoT would be the Expansion with the included Balance Patch, that would bring the game back onto the right track after the horrible balance changs that came with the 23rd June patch of 2015 which changed so massively the game to the worse
Once people realized, that HoT made everything just only incredibly worser in regard of balance (Rev is crap, no acces to racial skills), together with the bad map design (Tangled Depths), together with the tons of bugs (Hearts & Minds) and the massive disappointment that HoT as a half baked half hearted half complete expansion was, where great parts that should have been part of it, aren’t in the game until today (Legendary armors, complete set of 2nd legendary weapons) lead simply quickly to the point that people shortly after release quit with the game again….because alot of people that did, already quit with the game a long time ago before the release of HoT and hoped, that HoT would make them play actively again.

Someone who has quit the game already or made a longer break from it, will quicker quit it again, if an expansion just is unable to DELIVER, or in fact just disappoints on the whole line from begin on and ends up as something, that isn’t absolutely worth its money as product or in its way it got release to be worthy to be called an expansion at all (my opinion)

There had Anet made already much better “Feature Packs” before HoT, that if they would have had new story content with some new maps, would have been much worthier to be called an expansion, than HoT.

They have changed multiple times the trait system, they showed us that they also don’t fear to change the conditions.
So whats the problem for them to make finally the needed next step to look over for once not only just skill and trait numbers but to make a proper actualization of the whole cobmat system, so that all smaller parts of its and their mechanics will harmonize again better with each other, because the game is still using 90% of the outdated 2012er game design combat system, which doesn’t fitanymore to all the changes to the skills and the trait system ANet did over the years plus the fact that we have now Elite Specs, that were never considered to exist in the 2012er combat system design.

A proper complete game Balance Redesign, that includes:

• All Conditions & Boons with the goal to reduce them as much as possible
• All Upgrades with the goal to reduce them as much as possible (some would make sense better as Masteries, because they are useless as Upgrades)
• Change of the Health System to a Class Individual System, with the goal to individually balance each Class for itself better, instead of pidgeonholing them all into 3 bad outdated Class Types
• Removal of Gear Stats, change to Leveling based Character Progression, this will massively help in making Balance alot easier and would remove also tons of unneccessary Stat Grind, so that GW2 would return again to its old former spirit that GW1 had, where not the Gear counts that you use, but your Player Skills!!!
• Attribute Redesign to Dual Effects, with the goal to equalize them, so that offensive, defensive and supportive Attributs are all equally effective. No playstyle should have advantages over others, because one playstyle has better Attribute Synergies, than the others – somethign that can be solved only with an Attribute Redesign to Dual Effects, which can be used to implement so new useful defensive and supportive Attribute Effects that would make the Combat System also more interesting and could also help to balance Classes better and certain Builds of them

Yes, these points require alot of time and ressources, but so longer Anet waits on it to actualize their combat system to make its mechanics harmonize with each other better again, so worser will become the overall game balance and just only permanently changing skill and trait numbers here and there alone won’t solve anything!!
It will just postpone maybe the problems only, or shifts the problem over from one class to an other one and people talk again about “the flavor of the month class”, but not that the game gets finally again overall better balanced to the point, that the game makes again more fun in all Game Modes, so that people who quit GW2 feel incentivized to return again and stay actively.

the whole silly infusion system needs in my honest opinion a complete redesign.

Infusions could have so much more potential for this game, if Anet would just make more out of the concept of them and wouldnt waste their mechanic as being only a 1 sided feature whose meaningfulness is just only reduced down to Fractals basicaly

Especialyl is the Infusion system like it is right now way too much of an idiotic grind whose whole intention it was from begind on only to work as a massive Gold Sink, but not to work as a part of the game, that should create in first place FUN or should work as a feature, that brings this game anyhow forward and improves it

Seriously, for what do we need to have like 15+ versions of one and the same infiusuons which just stack in AR intensity by just +1 each higher version.

fgractals would make in the game way more fun, if fractals would be much lesser about infusion Grind and much more about funny content actually and especially more DIVERSIVE fractal types, than proving always only fractals of the same type, when they could exist also intersting heroic fractals, that work similar like the Bonus Mission Pack from GW1, or interesting Mass Fractals that bring alot of people together for the moment where lots of fractal players join in at the moment into the same fractal instance (the only way I do see how ANet could bring back the Marionett Battle, or the Lions Arch battle back from Season 1 as “Mass Player Fractals” which aren’’t just played by only 5 people

Anet does always so, as if Fractals would be as content so important for them and the game, but if you just look deeper, then you realize that anet hasn#t done within the last years very much at all to improve the Fractal Content in regard of gameplay depth.
All that they did only was improving the rewards, but giving the Fractal Gameplay also more depth?? Why should they…

For me is this alot of just yet wasted potential and I just hope, that anet will take soon also a look onmto fractals, how they can make this game content more depthful…because rewards aren’t just everything… more depthful alternative Fractal “Modes” and different Fractal Types are it with that Anet would give fractals more depth.

Id suggest this suggestion, if Guild Wars 2 would even have REAL books in the game, that functionally even work like what you would EXPECT from reading a book.

Anet should learn in regard about this more from offline RPGs…..
Its really disappointing, when you know that ANet was in regard of this topic even better than they are now with GW2 with GW1 because there you had books in GW1, that gave you a bit better the impression, that you really read with your character a book, because a book like window popped up there, where you were able to change the book sites, as if you really read a book in your hands…

What do we have here in GW2 compared to this?
Just boring text garbage with eventually a a little portrait of your character popping up maybe…
But when you read a book in GW2 , you never have the impression, that your charactr really reads right now a book that he7she holds in the moment in his/her hands, where you change the pages as you read its content.

Tak for edxample Elder Scrolls Skyrim.. when you take up there in the game a book with your charactr, you really get the impression as if your charactr is actually readign the book, as the book appears in fronmt of you, openeed up and you can change the pages as you read the book – page for page, eventually with ilustrations and pictures in between.

A bookshelf as part of player hounsing, where you can place in the books that you collected and discovered or bouhght somewhere on your journey, would be only an awesome feature, if reading books itself in Guild Wars 2 becomes an eeven more awesome feature, that isn’t immersion breaking, like it is right now

thats no reason to replace it it least with an other animation …. but just removign it with no replacement is just lazy and cheap. Point!

So higher the fractal level, so more rewarding does the fractals become and the chances rise, that you receive ascended rewards and you earn golden fractal weapon skins more oftenly..

Better don’t rush it with legendaries…. they costs tons of gold and materials and are in the end not better than any crafted ascended weapon, just with the difference, that you can change stats with legendaries while outside of combat and that they are visually more bling bling…

Don’t know what your goals are in the game, but if you are a fashion crazy person, then be prepared to grind your butt off for tens of thousands of hours just to be able to buy all the skins, the colors, the gear, the materials ect. that you need.

and the only tip I can give you, before you burnout on this grind wave of a game just for some pixels – just enjoy first the game and its real content, than to spent only time with the thought, how you can make effectively the most gold and how you should use it in the game….

Because just having lots of gold in the game makes you not happy, it creates no fun for you, while explorign the game, being part of its content naturally does, while you waste not time and thoughts on just the point, that you need to farm gold, because if you play the game only to farm gold, then you will burnout on this game quickly and everything will become quicker boring for you, when the only goal you have is practically only – making gold.

I guess you are in the 1k to 3k AP range maybe and you play GW2 now for like say max 4-6 months, right???
Thats what I guess on someone saying from himself that the account is “relatively new” who has 300G and farms around Silverwaste.
As someone new like this, I think you should focus yourself more on the story content, more on other classes (unless you are already fixated onto only those 2 you have, cause you don’t like the rest) because legendaries don’t run away from you.

If you enjoy first the real content of the game, instead of power farming for gold just to get a legendary quickly and being burned out after that then, you’ll see, that that way you will have alot more fun with the game, because if you just play it normally, without powerfarmign for gold just to get some skins quicker, you will make gold just by normally playing the game and once ypou have done most of the real content that this game provies, then you wikll realize in the end, that you will have from just normally playing the game most likely already more than enough gold, materials ect. to be able to craft your legendary, without that you had to constantly farm and grind for something over and over and over, like in a map like Silverwastes… because you wil lrealize, if you farm this map constantly that it would come out of your ears and eyes very quickly, as doing the event chains thre nonstop, becomes extremely boring very quickly, despite making gold there being very effective

But the game has just to offer more, than just olny silver waste gold farm ^^
Just take it as advise from someone who has burned out itself without realizing it directly – the burnout hammer hits you always first, once your done with your goal and you begin to realize, what the **** you have done with yourself.

keept it for the case you decide to go for high level fractals ect. because your 300 Gold will melt like ice in the sun the moment you use the money up for materials ect. to create ascended gear…

300 Gold are in this gold grind game NOTHING, its just a droplet of water on a burning hot stone going poof instantly the moment you invest your gold on anything thats related on fashion or endgame content, bringing you quickly back to reality, that you are poor again in an eyeslash….

its a normality based from the expansion design anet has decided to go for… and all the living story content, that requires to own HoT to have access to the new maps, like Healix said it …

In my opinion an absolutel terrible decisipon, that will hurt the game only on the long run, because this terrible decision splits the whole player base between expansion owners and non expansion owners….

Way better would it be for the whole game, if all players, regardless of the expansions should have access to all new story content and maps..
The expansions in GW2 should be only just bigger Feature Packs, Story Content should be completely excluded out from the expansion – therefore exist Living Story patches to continue the Story Content for everyone, without that players get excluded from having access to new maps.

Would have Anet gone for this way better game decision to exlude new Story Content from expansions, then they would have also no reason at all to make access to new maps to overcomplicated just to isolate them from the whole rest of the game so much.

The only isusre for 100% sure was it only, that I guess, NCSOFT and the whole marketing department of anet/NCSoftb totally had something agaisnt this way better game design, because then they would have had not the option to advertise the expansion with the new story content and the expansion would have lost for a huge target group of players surely alot of attractivity to be bought, if the expansion wouldnt have added new story content and instead would have worked only as a qualitative bigger and better Feature Pack only instead.

player Exlusion is never an intelligent and good wax of designing a game, it creates a
n obsoltete 2 class system and a kind of discrimination that should never exist in a game.
Games that willingly split the player base by giving only those full accecs to new maps, which buy the xpansion, will always suffer from the fact, that these new maps will die out quicker, as if anet would give their full player base right from the begin full access to all new maps, regardless if you own now the latest expansion, or not.
Thats the way how I do see that.

its no must, that expnasions have to bring new story content, just to count as expansion, if you have the better alternative to concentrate all new added story content as a whole onto Living Story Patches, so that you can concentrate yourself on your expansions to bring the game further on first line with improved features and added quality of life mechanics ect.

New story content is for a expansion not neccessary and never should be for an expansion its main focus for its sale.
The main focus of an expansion should be always its features and improvements that it adds to the current game.

Wintersday
Halloween
Lunar New Year
Aprils Fools Day
Dragon Bash
Super Adventure Box
Bazaar of the Four Winds
Queens Gauntlet

Thats the festivals that we have seen by now so far, with Winterday, Halloween repating every yearl, while all the others came in later and didn’t got repeated since the first time from that moment on every year, but had shorter or longer breaks after their first time.

The game is missing for my taste some festivals… for example

- Easter
- Spring Break (Summer Festival as GW Version)

At least id like to see these two finding their way into the game for something new, if anet runs out of ideas or simply doesn’t want to repeat the repeatt of the repeat for the xth time, especially if these new kinds of festivals could be used to revive also some older content ..

I#d so freakingm love to see a revival of Southsun Cove, because this map seriously needs some redesign and reworks to make the map more interesting or to give simply people more reasons to go visit that map more constantly – a spring break similar summer festival on that map surely would be a good thign for the map so that the map gets for some extended time more attractivity to be visited, other than just for world boss karka queen farming when it spawns …

That list won’t work for that, cause its simply more needed than such simple changes. but however its your opinion and for that this list is ok naturally as opinions naturally can be different.

This game need bigger, more powerful and well thought out changes to effectively be able to retain its players and to stabilizie its incomings again…

To stabilizie its incomings first, it is absolutely neccessary that Anet moves away from their stubborn gemstore/frre account only payment model. An optional subscription is is essential, if Anet wants to work against the constant growing fix costs of GW2 and to ensure, that the gemstore can lose some of its pressure that weights currently only on it, when it is clearly too weak to be responsible for everything.
The gemstore is more a burden for this game, than it is a blessing, as long it has to do the job of finanncing this game completely alone!.

Once this is solved, Anet has to work massively on this games BALANCE finally, because the second greates reason why people leave Guild Wars 2 and never come back its its current total terrible game balance that we have to endure since 23. June of 2015.

The simplest thing on the milestone list of balance improvements that Anet could do right now and that would bring efficiently GW2 forward alot would be by now first to completelya rework the Condition and boon System of GW2, reducing both sides to a least minimum and rebalancing the new system then on the skills and traits of the Classes and its Elite Specializations.

Then after that has been done as next step, redesign the Health System to individualize it for each Class and rework after that then the Upgrade System of Sigils, Runes and Gemstones from GW2 based on the last made Balance Changes, so that this part of the combat system will harmonize then with the new Condition and Boon System again.

if these steps have been done, then the game will be also ready for adding more new Elite-Specializations. If Anet adds now with another expansion more Elite-Specs, before they modernize and actualize the games combat systems to equal balanced terms, then they will ruin this game with them….

These balance changes are essentially needed, not only to retain tons of lost players that quit permanently with GW2 due to its horrible balance state, but also to give the game the needed foundation that is required to be able at all to add in the future more elite specializations, without that hell breaks out again anew every single time they do add new Elite Specs, just because the game was in a state of complete unpreparedness when they added like, like the game was when they released HoT, because Anet rushed it with HoT and didn’t care at all about it, if the expansion basically puts just only oil into the fire, because all about what they cared for in that moment was only, that cash comes into the purses ….

PS: hmm, the posting I refer to seems to have been gotten deleted ..
Should have quoted it >.<

Part 2:

Feature Part
- Build Templates System implemented
- Legendary Accessoires added/Skill Skins for more Character Individuality
- Crafting System Redesign
- Jeweler/Chef finally equalized with all otherv Crafting Jobs
- Missing Content finally added like Bar Brawls and Polymok
- DirectX11 Support at least finally
- More better Graphic Shaders Support, like the ingame support of certain well known third party programs that make GW2 look better
- Official Game Controler Support (Make officially GW2 playable with Xbox360/1 Controlers for example, or bring GW2 officially out for PS4/X1 with free online access if you have a PC game account so that you can play the game also via current nextgen consoles if you want – god id love to play GW2 from my PS4 on my big TV cause I’m much more skilled with games with a controler in hands, than with keyboard and mouse)
- Implementation of Tengus/ redesigned Largos as playable new races
- Implementation of more Elite Specs with new Weapon Types (Polearms, Greataxe, Whip/Chainsickles, Claws/Gloves, Throwing Weapons (Big Boomerangs/Shurikens/Chakrams), Magic Orbs/Tomes and Crossbows to make the game more interesting and diversive
- Implementation of Fishing/Digging/Gardening
- Player Housing (from Guild Halls to Player Housing is really now no far fetch…)
- Return of more nostalgia from GW1 in form of new Elite Endcontent that is the return of – The Underworld with the Fissure of Woe for the beginning which is a 10-20 men Raid Zone, that truly works like a raid and that is not like what we have now just a silly 10 people dungeons 2.0, cause ANet has no plan of what raids are really and designes due to this practically dungeons 2.0 “raids” where you follow just a chain of bosses to be defeated… raids are more than only – defeat boss, defeat boss, defeat boss, get rewards, rinse and repeat…

Especially should be raids balanced for all classes, and not like it is right now, where all raids are only playable with very specific meta class build compositions if you want to do them efficiently, because hardcore players….
Raids need to be reowrked to provide different Modes
Beginner, Normal and Hard.

Beginner = people can test them out, mechanics and enemies are weaker than normal so that people can get used to the raid and do some trainign in that mode, until they think they are ready for higher difficulty modes – decreased rewards
Achievements only doable here, so that people that are doing content only for achievements don’t interfere with people that want to do raids for efficience and rewards that don’t care for achievements

Normal = Just like now, but without time ticking down so that there is no idotic DPS pressure in the whole thing. rewards like now

Hard = Time Pressure, enemies and mechanics strogner and more punishing than normal, so that positioning and constant high DPS ect. becomes more important, increased rewards compared to normal.

if anet would brign this kind of ultimate expansion, that amazes me by bringing us the absolute unexpected things, which would truly bring this game forward, I guess then i’d instantly be in again actively, because then I’d have again fun with this game, because the game would be again greatly better balanced, if all combat system mechanics would get their needed overworks to receive again better harmonization between each other, while providing finally the features, that people are waiting for ages on, like Build Templates, like Player Housing, like Direct X11 Support

I expect nothing about I’ve written here from Anet, just saying that these kinds of changes would lead to it, that I become again an active player, because I’m sick of the absurd fashion grind the game received in last years like that 10000 units of x for 1 item skin for a holiday…

I’m especially sick of the absurd game balance that this game has since the condition system change and the rushed in Elite specs that Anet added, before they made any needed corrections from the condition change patch – the specializations literally got thrown into the burning fire, like oil to make it burn “HoTer” and thats what made for me the final nail to the coffin to become inactive, because I see in Anet no intentions right now, that they have any plans on fixing the mess, that they self created with the rushed in E-Specs and the Condition changes anytime “soon”™

I have no expectations on GW2 anymore, just only hopes and concepts under which circumstances ANet would be able to make me become an active player again, because as long the game stays in certain points as it is right now, its sure, that even if I’d return, I’d be quickly annoyed of the game again and become inactive again, because there is nothing in this game currently, that flashes and amazes me so much, that I feel in myself the intention again to become an active player.
I currently even force myself to make a long break to say the truth, just so that I don’t am bored of the game again right after like 1-3 days,just because I#ve gone through all the new content to end up immidietely again standing in frotn of tons of fashion grind walls, tons of ridiculous RNG mechanis and annoying absurd time gated things that exist only to artificially slow me down and to annoy me, instead of beign there to let me have fun with the game – thats the paradox game design, that just * me off more and more with MMORPgs, that devs spent more and more time with dumb mechanics that exist only to annoy and slow down their players, than to create fun whats the sole reason for why I play a game – to have fun and not to waste time with idiotic time gates and absurd RNG mechanics and fashion grind, just becausethey seem not to know better methods n how they can make their players do something in the game entertaining, that just takes long enough time without feeling like a grind and without added needless time gates in which the player needs to do nothing, but just waiting a day, before they can continue on workign on something – thats just plain stupid game design and needs to get removed and should have never been implemented in the game at first place at all

Anet could truly amaze me only right now, if they show us for once, that they can deliver something truly epic and big – something that really nobody would ever expect from them and that would be basically right now the ultimate Balance Changes Update as part of the next expansion together with lots of massive quality of life improvements that are way too long overdue and features that would improve already existing things of the game and which people want from Anet to get delivered since day 1 and on which we wait now for 4 years

Balance Part:

- Rework of the Health System to a more Class individual based System instead of the 2012er outdated Class Type System that pidgeonholes all classes into just 3 types, from what all classes suffer alot , because game has already outgrown long time ago the base health values of the 2012er health system by far with the current game balance state!!!
- Complete rework of Condition and Boon System together with a reduction of both
- Complete Rebalance of the whole Upgrade System (Sigils, Runes, Gemstones)
- Removal from all Gear Stats, all Stats shouuld automatically increase from Character Leveling and should be freely distributable/resetable by the player any time out of combat just like the GW1 Attribute System was
- Merging Attributes and changing them to Dual Effects to equalize them all and make them all same as valuable for offensive, defensive as like supportive play styles, without that anythign of them overadvantages one play stayle over an other one, lik it is right now, where just only offensive play styles are worth it to be played, because the others are comparec to it underpowered, cause the defensive and supportive attributes just have no attribute synergies or simple seem to be bugged and don’t work, like Toughness, which feels even with very high numbers, like it reduces way too uneffectively at all any incoming damage and you still die in like 2 hits, if a high offensive build attacks, you, when in fact both builds should equalize each other to be balanced as you should have a much harder time to deal damage against a high defensive player, even with an offensive build, as like if you fight agaisnt a low defensive build which should take naturally significantly more damage from you.

I wish GW2 would follow finally the model of Blade & Soul, then it would go upwards again with Guild Wars 2 in every kind of way because that model would stabilize the incomes of Guild Wars 2 so much, that ANet will get again for everything more budget money to be able to improve this game where it is needed due to being able to hire more people to quicken their development processes.
Plus that model would take pressure away from the gemstore and anet could finalyl focus more on real issues of the game to be fixed, than instead focusing too much on the gemstore, just so that the game is able to survive..because the gemstore only model is way too weak for this game by now …

The game has already outgrown in regards of its fix costs a long time ago the gemstore only model, than the gemstore is able to generate incomes, especially due to more and more people leavign GW2 in masses whenever Anet makes its next ridiculous absurd and terrible design decision either, or make something, that massively disappoints alot of players, like underdelivering massively with half hearted, rushed and super unfinished products like HoT that they call an expansion, what players from other games like FF14 wouldn’t even call in their dreams just a worthy patch for their money they pay monthly

Aside from its payment model that needs a change and the problem that ANet has with retaining bettr players is, that the game has due to its many terrible design decisions of the past right now so many problems with Game Balance alone, that essentially Anet would have to completely redesign the whole Combat System just to fix the mess they created with the change of the Condition System and the way to fast rushed in Elite Specializations that were just more oil to the fire, when it would have been best for the game balance to fix first the changes made on the conditino system, before adding Elite Specs into the game at a moment, where the game balance was already totally out of control.

It would have been much better for GW2, if Anet would have waited with Revs and the E-Specs for the second expansion.

HoT should have rather brought instead only features, that would brign the game further.
Would have HoT brought instead of Revs and Elite Specs instead as new Features the implementation of Build Templates, Player Housing (way too similar as feature with Guild Halls, so totally not understandable why they didn’t put here 1+1 together and added PH as well together with the same GH system) and a rework of the Crafting System together with the implementation of Legendary Acessoires/Skill Skins, Ascended Upgrades/500 Jewler/Chef and msaybe eventually some good stuff like Fishing/Digging/Gardening instead, then these things would have brought GW2 further and would have made the game better, instead of causing just only much more Game Balance Chaos like the rushed in Rev and Elite-Specs did just only because NCSoft wanted to see Anet to cash in with HoT quickly, because of the weak Gemstore performing not good enough to do the job alone to finance the game and they and NCSoft needed the sales of Hot so badly, that they didn#t wanted to give HoT just the time that it would have needed to become a proper and good designed real expansion that would have been worth its money to be called an expansion.

Stand The Wall.6987:

Orpheal.8263:

sigh

sigh is right lol. you cant expect me to read that massive run on sentence of a paragraph. my mind would explode! show some mercy

LMAO ^^, sorry, I was so in my mind and was sortatign there, what I wanted to say, that I have even lost myself into it and totally forgot to make some paragraphs to make the whole thing easier to read lol

Should be better now hehe

Example for the “Basic Talents” that every Class should have and should learn through obtaining "Talent Points that the player should be able to obtain via exchanging a specific amount if “Skill Points” into a Talent Point. That way receives the game also a new sink for Skill Points with the amount of required Skill Points becoming higher and higher, so higher your Talent Level rises through used up Talent Points for either learning Basic Talents or Class Talents.

10 Basic Talents.

• Unlock Ability to use Waypoints = 1 TP Cost
• + 25% Movement Speed = 2 TP Cost
• Unlock Build Templates = 4 TP Cost
• Fall Damage Reduction 25% + Class Specific Fall Skill unlocked = 8 TP Cost
• Unlocks Racial Skills (Those require now no Skill Points anymore, with this you instantly unlock all Racial Skills) = 16 TP Cost
• Unlock your Break Bar, making it harder now to CC you, unless you get hit by some coordinated Enemy CC Spikes = 32 TP Cost
• Instant Weapon Changing = 64 TP Cost
• Increases Jump Height by +25% = 128 TP Cost
• Unlocks + 1 additional equippable Weapon Slot 256 TP Cost
• Unlocks another +1 additional Weapon Slot 512 TP Cost

As Thief would you have then for example these additional Thief Talents to unlock:

• Unlocks 6 new Dodge Styles (Dash, Bounce, Lotus, Warp, Shadow, Smoke) as F3 (Yes, still thinking its best to merge DD into Core Thief to give us a real E-Spec) = 1 TP Cost
• Increase Endurance Bar by +1 = 2 TP Cost
• Unlock Staff & Offhand Sword as new Core Weapons and gain new Physical Skills = 4 TP Cost
• Unlock +1 Steal Skill Slot = 8 TP Cost
• Attacks from Stealth are now 100 always Critical = 16TP Cost (Remove the Trait for this)
• Gain on Weapon Changes random Venom Effects = 32 TP Cost
• Physical Conditions are 25% less effective on you (Poison,Cripple,Blindness,Vulnerability,Bleeding,Weakness) = 64 TP Cost
• Hard CC Skills are now 25% less effective against your Break Bar = 128 TP Cost
• +50% Endurance Regeneration = 256 TP Cost
• When you gain Swiftness it turns into Super Speed with 10% Chance instead and Critical Hits let you gain for 3 seconds Quickness every 10s. = 512 TP Cost

I think you should change the title line, as your post is clearly a suggestion….

Personally I have to disagree with that suggestion in regard of making “a traitline” out of utility effects.

A much better suggestion would it be in regard of increasing build diversity to do these things:

• 1) Increase the amount of actively useable Traitlines for all Classes from 3 to 4 and increase the total amount of chooseable Traitlines for all Classes from 5 to 7. This will lead to more Build Diversity and will make up also for more creative builds due to more synergies between the now 4 active traitlines at the same time, while you can choose now between 7 instead of just only 5 traitlines, thus you have more choice options than before.

• 2) Remove all kinds of passive Utility Traits from their current Traitlines and rework those Utility Traits and Effects into a complete new “Talent System” that will work similar like the Mastery System, just with the difference, that you learn here certain Basic Talents that all Classes will share, like +25% Movement Speed, while there are also class specific Talents there, which are based on the various class different gameplay Elements, like the F-Skills and their mechanics.

• 3) After having done 1 & 2, replace the created Trait Gaps with complete new Traits, that are like all Traits should be – based on Weapon Skills, Combat Mechanics like Dodging, Blocking, Boons & Conditions, Cooldowns, Weapon Changes, amount of equippabl Weapons ect. pp

GW2 needs in regard of character progression finally a clear split between active and passive effects and both should be handled with own different progression systems.

Traits should stand for all active Gameplay Effects while

Talents should stand for all passive Gameplay Mechanics, stuff the class comes with basically naturally born with, effects, that are always there, and which define the specifics of each individual class, while you use Traits to finetuning your combat style in regard of the weapon skilsl you use and how your characters acts in combat – thats what I undrstand under a trait system, how it should functionize best for GW2.

GW2 has had from begin on always the big problem, that the devs never seem to have had a clue, what they actually wanted the Trait System to be – thus we had with it already multiple redesign tries…

resitance is no argument, therefore have way too less classes access to it and therefore does it also not long enough ….

You need as one of the few classes that can use ressistance a good understanding of the class also first to get used to it to be able to find the perfect timing in combat with the class to make out of the short duration of it the best result in regard of its uptime, that the effect is actually there, when you need it the most, while theres also no enemy in the near, which could steal or remove or corrupt you the resistance away, before the ebola kittentail of conditions hits you hard.

there is a way how you can brign direct damage as well directly from 100 to 0, its called BLOCKING and it works exactly like resistance does for conditions, just with the difference, that blocking skills can’t be stopped/corrupted/removed7interrupted, which makes blocking attacks compared to Resistance superior, which is a weak damage mitigation effect due to the chance, that you can remove it or turn it into a condition for your foe or steal it.

Answer: More unbalanced crap that is more terrible, than it is right now already.

Solution: Instead of directly buffing Might for mentioned duration reductions, it would be much wiser and better for the overall game balance, if ANet would finally do this game something good by actually redesigning the complete set of all Boons and Conditions with the intentional goal behind that change to reduce both sides then to a maximum of 8.

Make in fact all remaining Boons and Conditions under their new design alot more impactful/meaningful, while the Classes get according to the made changes on Boons and Conditions rebalanced in their Skills and Traits so that the Class Designs fit again to the new mechanics of the new Boon/Condition System, followed by a Game Balance Design Change of all Upgrades fitting to the new Boon/Condition System, finished by lastly a greater Game Balance Update, that changes the Attribute System to Dual Effects to equalize finally all combat system related Play Styles (Offensive, Defensive, Supportive).

Anet seems to fear, if they equalize the combat system for all playstales to be equally viable, that this will lead to the return of “the holy trinity” and such classic roles like “Tanks”, “Healers” & “Offenders” (DDs), otherwise I can’t explain it to myself, why this game favors in its whole gameplay permanently the damage dealing over everything else, and why all kinds of defensive/supportive playstyles seem to be underpowered against an offensive played character.

Maybe this is due to stats like Toughness being useless and not really decreasing good enough incoming damage, same as healing power being in itself useless, without any other defensive stat like a high vitality, which is for me a reason to say, that this game needs finaly dual effect attributes with for example Healing Power being merged with Vitality. This would give both attributes in that simple way more impact, if you can improve both effects through just one attribute.

Change lastly the attribute system to the way it worked in GW1, where you gain Attributes through leveling up your character and where you can change them out like you want out of combat any tiem, instead of binding stat points to gear, and the game becomes this way also again much more multi character friendly and loses alot of stupid gear grind and becomes again like GW1 a game, where Fashion and the looks of your character stand in the front and not gear grind ….

Thats just my vision of the perfect Guild Wars 2 Combat and Quality of Life Experience that I’d love to see become real.
But I think this will never happen anymore within GW2… there its more likely to see a GW3 getting announced, than ANet showing up some real intentions to actually realy improve GW2s combat system instead of making permanently only number changes on skilsl and traits, while ignoring all the rest of the game sigh

This is what i want to have in this game with “Skill Skins”

Skill Skins, that provide all kinds of Skill Effect Changes from simple recolored versions, to more customized changed effects, like stuff for all the various Minions in the ga<me as for example that changes completely the look of a skill to a more customized alternative design….

You have enough iof the borign uggly necromancer minion design that we have sicne release day?
Buy now your “Necromancer Minion Style Pack 1” in the gemstore and unlock a new pack of several different Necromancer relevant minion skill skins which let you change out under the new Option Menu “Skill Skins” under Glider Skins the way how you make your minios of your Necromancer look like, when you summon them, beginning with these 3 Skill Skins Sets under the NMSP1

- Classical Set – Changes your GW2 Minion Skill Skins to a more GW1 based Classical Design

Blood Fiend = Hopping Vampire
Shadow Fiend =Skelleton Sorcerer
Bone Fiend = Skelleton Archer
Bone Minions = Hellhounds
Flesh Wurm = Banshee
Flesh Golem = Bone Dragon/Bone Shark (and by the way fix Flesh Golem finally to let it change into Bone Shark or somethign else fitting when going underwater, instead of losing the summon…)
Shambling Horror = Raging Cadaver
Jagged Horror = Smite Crawler
Locust Swarm => Bat Swarm (changes also Skill Names on display and the Icon of the Skill to show alos that the person uses a Skill Skin)

- Demonic Set

Blood Fiend = Succubus
Shadow Fiend = Shadow Imp
Bone Fiend = Incubus
Bone Minions = Shadow Beasts
Flesh Wurm = Gaki
Flesh Golem = Aaxte
Shambling Horror = Mist Vaettir
Jagged Horror = Spectral Vaettir
Locust Swarm = Will’ O’ Wisps

and lastly

- Undead Set

Blood Fiend = Flesh Reaver
Shadow Fiend = Bloated Zombie
Bone Fiend = Draugr
Bone Minions = Grasping Ghouls
Flesh Wurm = Chained Soul
Flesh Golem = Necrid Horseman
Shambling Horror =Pest Rats
Jagged Horror = Wraith
Locust Swarm = Vampiric Swarm

Just think of the potential behind this.. this would truly help in making our charactrs more individual, if we could have more influence on the visual skins of our skills, while the effects ect. stay the same, just changing the looks of the skills and Anet would gain another great source of money income from the gemstore with stuff like that.
And this was just an example for 1 class, thereres 8 others with same as much potential.

Or theres a third way like I suggested it..
Drastically reduce the income of T-Stones (must not be just 1 one infinite stone for tones of gems/money) and make therefore their changings of the equipment infinitely, thus giving the player for every individual equipment item more comfort, without forcing the player like it is now the case for every single individual item (skin) to use each single time a T-Stone when you want to change the skin.

My suggestion basically takes the best of all 3 skin type/gemstore people stereotypes and brings them all basically into the golden middle!!

Anet should focus themself rather more on adding useful and worthful items to sell in the gemstore, whicht feel not to the player like wasting money on stuff with buying them, if you can actually get these things also for free ingame with the effort of exploring just a map within some minutes, which is far lesser effort, than earning the gold/real money it costs to buy this garbage from the gemstore.

Theres other stuff, which stands also by far in no good cost relationship for what you get out of these items compared to again the efforts that are needed to earn these things ingame, which are in a complete opposite to how flooded the game is with T-Stones – yes I’m speaking about Black Lion Chest Keys.
I’m dead sure for 100%, that far more people would constantly buy these, if they wouldn’t be way too overexpensive for what you get out of these.

Woudl thy cost for example only half as much like they do now, then I’m pretty sure that the sales of them would rise over the massively increased quantity of key buys, so that anet would make with them far more income, than they will ever make from keeping on sellign these obsolete T-Stones, while people get day per day flodded with free ones from just normally playing the game, while you see gettign a key dropped from normally playing the game maybe eventually just only once every 1 to 2 thousand hours of playtime so rare like they are to get compared to the T-Stones about which you quickly have after like say 1000 hours of playing the game already more of those stones, than you ever will need as a casual player – especially if you quickly have found your style that you will want to keep how your character should look like, without having the interest at to to be the kind of fashionisty, that changes his/her character look like on a daily basis which would be the only type pf person, who would bring something like a single item infinite version of a T-Stone more than my suggested golden middle of an idea, that should make each individual skin for the game per T-Stone infinitely changeable at will with just the goal behind to drasticalyl reduce the need for T-Stones together with their income, so that actually buying them from the gemstore becomes again more meaningful, once the offer of them starts to decrease again, instead o rising only daily because of thousands over thousands of players earnign them each day faster, than they will ever use them up, because there actually also exist no other sink for them, than to use them for changing skins.

Because in fact this would be the only other alternative way out of the problem, if Anet would add in fact more sinks for T-Stones to make them actually more worthful again to the player and to give players more reasons to buy them from the gemstore to get them in vast amounts quicker, than you can get them from normally playing the game to speed up the progress for you to be able to make useage of this new alternative T-Stone sink.