Guild Wars 2

Ansau.7326:

Shriketalon.1937:

The elementalist has sixty weapon skills. We have twenty four.

The engineer has twenty five class mechanic skills, not counting the ones for racial abilities. We got four.

You say nothing with this. First, just because other professions have more skills than mesmer, doesn’t mean we have to receive a ton while others don’t. What they won’t do is just add skills for mesmers, just like they did with the new healing skills and GM traits.

I was specifically addressing your statement that adding 20 skills to a profession is extreme. In particular, I was pointing out that adding skills to certain professions is different than adding them to others, because not all professions were created equal.

For a parallel, consider weapons. Warriors have four two handed options, three mainhand weapons, and five choices for offhands. Necromancers have one twohanded, and three mainhand and offhand choices. The Warrior’s weapon skill selection vastly eclipses the Necromancer’s choices. If a hypothetical update added four weapons for the Necro and only one for the Warrior….the Warrior doesn’t have much grounds to complain. They would still have more weapon options than the Necromancer, because the two professions were not equal out of the gate.

The Mesmer class mechanic is severely underdeveloped. Without the freedom to choose which skills we want, the Mesmer is choked by numerous required skills designed for vastly different playstyles without enough trait points to make them all viable. Conversely, several other class mechanics were designed through enormous skill lists to allow those professions to have their main mechanic support any given playstyle. The two methods are simply not equivalent, and helping one is not the same as boosting the other.

If there is to be an expansion, upgrade, or improvement to the weapon, utility, elite, and class mechanic skill selection across all professions in the next five years (and if there isn’t….that would be incredibly sad), it should include a long, hard look at underdeveloped mechanics and playstyles that just don’t have the skill selection necessary to accomplish their mission. Especially when it comes to professions that are underperforming across the board and simply can’t keep up in multiple avenues of play.

Swish.2463:

Some good ideas in there that Anet could have maybe used 4 years ago when they were still hammering out classes but idk how much they can do with them these days.

While i cant comment specifically on any one thing in there, i will ask if you considered all or any of this against the limitations of the Core combat and its various add ons. also against the balance and limitations of the other classes.

Aye, I’m sure this post has about as much chance of being integrated into the game as an all-Mesmer team competing in the tournament. But in the face of all the discord and discontent, I thought I’d go for the constructive criticism route. I appreciate your constructive criticism and indulgence towards this rambling idea.

And I did consider the limitations, actually. With one single exception, everything on my list of illusion mechanics is based upon something that the Mesmer is already supposed to do, or abilities that are already in the game. Phantasms are exactly the same theme as we have now, but with a little more focus on acting like hexes. Shatters are hopefully sufficient to have the shatter concept thrive after the transition. Facades are a reimagining of the “effect on clone death” builds that are possible only through traits, and the Mirages were born from the utility illusions already in our kitten nal.

The only thing that is really new would be Facades combined with A Touch Of Guile as a dedicated Zerg-buster mechanic. Since the Mesmer desperately needed one, it seemed like a reasonable way to go.

Curunen.8729:

I think while you have fantastic ideas on restructuring the class mechanic, you haven’t expands these idea to weapons as well. Meaning you should also be able to choose which weapon skills you want – whether to have clone summoning skills on weapons, phantasm skills, or even traited illusion summons (ie, deceptive evasion). I think all players should have the choice between:
- illusion or non-illusion focused class mechanic
- illusion or non-illusion focused weapon skills

Actually, under the system I propose, there wouldn’t be a single illusion summon on any Mesmer weapons. By consolidating the mechanic to the F1-F4 keys, the weapon bars are freed from their “one clone, one phantasm” obligation and can do a better job providing different playstyles.

The reason they put illusions on our weapon bars was because in days long past, we needed one skill slot for one effect. That was before sequence skills were integrated into the system beyond auto attacks (for example, Hornet’s Sting didn’t have a second skill in the early betas, and counterattack skills didn’t have their breakout ability either). If Shatter skills can sequence, their fuel source can be located on the same real estate as their big finish.

Ansau.7326:

When devs started developing gw2, they stated they wanted a more simplified profession/skill/trait game. Gw1 was fulled with tons of skills, which made the game pretty messy when balance patchs were coming. And that’s why gw2 has so much less skills per profession.

I don’t see them adding 20 new skills for a single profession…

The elementalist has sixty weapon skills. We have twenty four.

The engineer has twenty five class mechanic skills, not counting the ones for racial abilities. We got four.

Mesmers were never given the love and devotion they needed to flesh out multiple playstyles. Instead, we were tossed a half-baked mechanic bar that didn’t even fit multiple builds and told to make it work. I’m not asking for an expansion. I’m asking for the class to be given the effort it deserves. And if that means a few other classes like the Necromancer complain about their underdeveloped main mechanics…that’s a good thing. Because the current distribution simply isn’t fair.

Zaxares.5419:

I still think that killing an Elder Dragon mano-a-mano would seem unsatisfying and illogical though; like ants trying to kill an elephant. We still need something bigger than the heroes to finish the job, whether it be the Glory of Tyria, the new Asura Super-Golem based on a repaired and reactivated Marionette, or a group of 5 party members being imbued with the divine power of the Six Gods and being transformed into giant deific avatars to battle directly with Zhaitan.

Help, assistance, and force multipliers are perfectly fine, but we still need to make a difference.

The problem with the Battle for Arah design is that we were completely unnecessary. If you remove the players from the equation, the battle would play out exactly the same way, with the Glory of Tyria overwhelming Zhaitan and the rest of the Pact mopping up the place. We did nothing, we contributed nothing, and we simply weren’t necessary for victory.

It’s perfectly okay for future battles to go crazy. Empower us with the Spirits of the Wild so we’re forty foot astral projections of wolves and bears, have us control a city-sized golem where each player is an arm/leg/head, get swallowed by Bubbles and carve our way out through its innards Jabu-Jabu style, whatever.

But we have to matter. Heroes can be many things, be they strong or swift, smart or foolish, brave or fearful, virtuous or edgy, devout or faithless, charismatic or subtle. But they can’t be unnecessary. Heroes accomplish things, and we need to make a difference. In every single battle, there needs to be the possibility of defeat, the chance of ruin, the pressure of overwhelming opposition that leads one to believe that all is lost, yet the glimmer of hope for success remains. Because that’s where heroes live, dancing along the knife edge between despair and victory, the apex of the Hero’s Journey. That’s where we make a difference.

Zaxares.5419:

Also, I don’t want the Dragons and their minions to be ever-present throughout the world. We also need “downtime”, locations and towns and maps where we can relax and drink in the beauty of the world.

True, but the invasion mechanic could lead to just that sort of idea.

If you look at Sparkfly Fen, for example….it’s Risen. Risen EVERYWHERE. At a certain point halfway through map completion, fighting Risen really starts becoming a chore. But with the ability to repel dragon minions, we could actually reclaim this terrain and turn it back to the wonderful dinosaur-laden swamp of memory, just like it was in GW1.

Now, the exact details would be tricky. Ideally, a time frame of around four to five invasions per 24 hour period would be best, because that means an evening’s entertainment will likely only see one event, and it will feel completely option. Moreover, with so many maps, a redeemed zone would be untainted by Dragonspawn for days at a time, leaving plenty of opportunity to have respite and relaxation from the horde. And with six dragon’s hordes worth of minions on many different maps, there’s plenty of opportunity for different fighting styles, different tactics for each horde, different balances between waves of minions and large bosses or environmental attacks, etc.

That being said…

Rym.1469:

What if instead swarming maps mobs would swarm zones. I mean, let’s say they begin from Frostgorge and once succeed, go to Wayfarer, then Gendarran and Lornar’s Pass. That could feel more dangerous.

Arghore.8340:

And! If the route or even goal of the expansions would follow the lore of the Dragons, aka they are drawn to magical objects. So expansion in search of magical objects (no matter how small or powerful) could make sense. And in certain instances even be linked to the shipment of artefact by the Durmond Priory. Or just some ruin.

This is an incredibly cool idea I hadn’t even considered.

If each dragon has a different overall strategy, they can each encroach into Tyria using vastly different priorities and methods. The corruption could actually encircle the civilized world and ebb and flow like a real warzone, pushing in on multiple fronts and progressing like a battlefront.

It would also allow story features to be built into the design. For example, the Cleansing of Orr could be a very gradual thing, tweaking the Risen so that they fade over the course of the year, zone by zone. Artifacts and places of power become far more prominent as living elements of lore, and both the geography and history of Tyria become more important to day-to-day gaming.

Your idea is extremely nifty! Kudos.

Greetings and salutations!

As the second season of the Living Story gains momentum, we hurtle hellbent towards a battle with Guild Wars 2’s iconic enemies, the Elder Dragons. But all is not well in the land of Tyria. The last dragon battle was somewhat…lacking, to put it kindly, and the looming possibility of further draconic warfare merits some introspection and suggestions. In an attempt to help this process, I humbly submit the following array of constructive criticism over Ye Olde State Of Dragons in GW2.

There are five major problems with the state of dragons in the game that need to be considered. Firstly, we have the problem of looming threats, or complete lack thereof, the fact that the dragon minions just don’t seem to be doing much of anything. Secondly, we have the lack of character in the dragons themselves and the distinct possibility for boredom with fighting six different “ancient and unknowable” foes. Then we have the absence of variety of dragon minions (easily remedied with effort) and the corresponding lack of variation with the heroic forces that fight them (hard to fix, but well worth it). And finally, we have the elephant in the room….the battle for Arah.

My suggestions are far from perfect, but perhaps they’ll shed light on the potential pitfalls the Living Story may face in the coming months and offer advice to improve this epic journey. I sincerely hope in the future to experience a draconic foe that feels like this, rather than this.

Here we go!

Hello, hello!

I found a bit of a glitch in game, a small strut of rock that allows players to use the air aspect to reach the next phase of Dry Top. No hacks, no cheats, just a little bit of Tyrian geology lending a hand.

If it isn’t considered bad form, I thought I would share a few screenshots of what lies ahead. The zone is empty, of course, with neither NPCs nor events, but it is quite a magnificent stretch of sand. And something else.

The Bobblehead Laboratory.

Use the Bobblehead Laboratory!

Ms. McCoy, there is something in your posts which I feel needs to be addressed.

Angel McCoy.1832:

The whole “Commander” topic is another discussion entirely.

Bottom line is that, at the beginning of the Pact (almost 2 years ago in-game time), you were “The Commander.” After Zhaitan was killed, the Pact continued on and you went off into the world to do stuff. At that point, other commanders were brought on, and you become “A Commander.”

This never happened.

You never told that story. You did not write those scenes. Nowhere in the entire game of Guild Wars 2 does this ever take place, and therefore it is not the story you told.

This has happened repeatedly throughout Season 1, you refer to events and information that never actually transpire in the game. There are forum posts that detail how the Flame Legion were just using Scarlet to get their way, but there is no evidence for this in the game. Other posts describe how the dredge were inspired by multiple victories and motivated to keep serving as shock troops, but there isn’t a single NPC who says anything remotely justifying this. The krait were described as bitter and resentful after the Tower fell and struck LA in pursuit of vengeance, but there isn’t a single scene where that idea is conveyed.

If it isn’t in the game, it doesn’t exist. If it never makes it from your head to the page, it is never written.

The storyteller is responsible for conveying the entire narrative, and any holes in the tapestry are theirs to mend. It does not matter if you have the answers. It does not matter if you have it all properly arranged in your mind. It does not matter that you are a smart and clever thinker. All that matters is what you actually create in your medium. Art is judged by its results, not its intentions.

We never left the Pact. Anyone can claim we left to do our own thing, but there isn’t a single scene in the story that actually demonstrates this. It’s like leaving a gap between Chapter 8 and Chapter 10 and giving a brief synopsis of what was supposed to happen. That’s not storytelling, that’s telling that there should have been a story. And it’s all well and good to claim that there were priorities and time constraints, but maybe we didn’t need one or two of the hundred of lines of Scarlet’s “Mwahahahaha, I’m evil” rants or a scene or two of Marjory and Kasmeer making kissy faces, or a random interlude of Braham being a stereotypical moron. Maybe one of those scenes could have been spent actually moving the plot for the Player Characters.

You cannot ask us to pretend that you wrote the missing chapter of your novel. If it isn’t in the game, it does not exist. If it never happened in game, it did not happen.

Terazeal.1976:

My one wish is this: stop trying to tell character-based stories in an MMO; it just doesn’t work. Instead of putting the story in the form of a character or collection of characters one has to stick to in order to progress, rather tell a setting-based story built into the game world itself. This works far better in an open-world non-linear game in my opinion. Of course, there are still going to be some NPCs that are more important than others, leaders of factions and so forth, but making those, or any other specific characters, the sole focus and/or conduit of the story is a fool’s errand. A legion of small(but still well done) characters is always going to do a better job of fleshing out a world than a handful of titanic personalities.

Hmm. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately after the second or third page of this thread, and I’m coming to the same conclusion.

You’re absolutely right about a legion of characters concept. At its core, one big problem with the ending of the story was that our player character has absolutely zero reason to go to the Dead End bar. We killed a dragon. We lead the Pact. We have warbands or families, an entire college throwing us accolades or sagas written in our name (or a bunch of freeloaders hanging out in our shrub home, drinking our fermented nectar. Poor sylvari). I don’t mean to sound snobbish, but we “The Player Character” are slightly above this group of biconic misfits in the grand hierarchy of Tyria.

Doesn’t mean we can’t like them, but we could be visiting our old friend Faren, helping Ellen and Magnus rebuild, checking on the numerous refugees who tugged our heartstrings with their stories, or conferring with our Pact colleagues or racial mentors about the next course of action. Oh, who am I kidding, we’d all be hanging out with Job-o-tron, but that’s not the point…

The only narrative reason we’ve been following the biconics is because the writers like the biconics. They’re the only thing on TV, so all we get is their story. And that is not how it should be.

I think your idea is very good. A larger cast would allow us to meet more people, witness more narratives, encounter more examples of different facets of the races and peoples of Tyria. It allows different groups of characters to interact with each other so that they have interesting dialogue that touches on fresh parts of their character and doesn’t grow stale. And best of all, it means that everyone can find some characters they love, even if they don’t show up quite as much as they might like.

We should have an army of Job-o-trons. And also a lot of characters with the same character development method as Job-o-tron, too. But keep the army.

I’m tinkering with something along this idea, but it will take a while longer before its ready. Be back soon.

Chris.3290:

There needed to be explanation(s) as to the impotence of the pact and why the PC is not able to call down tanks, choppers, and massive air firepower against Scarlet’s forces.

Premise: The representatives of the three orders cannot agree on the next target. During this Trahearne stays devoted to his Wyld Hunt; the restoration of Orr, essentially shirking his duties as Marshall.
The Order of Whispers demands that Kralkatorrik be the first target; so that the order can hope to pursue it’s ancient feud with Palawa Joko. The other orders, feel differently and with the continued silence from the Marhsall, the orders go their separate ways.

This is an interesting idea, but I think it would be far better suited to have the argument between the five races.

The Pact could dispute which dragon to fight, but at the end of the day it’s just an academic exercise. Sure, the Priory may care a bit more about breaking Kralkatorric in order to secure the Tomb of Primeval Kings and the Order of Whispers may want the destroyers annihilated to secure an alliance with the Tengu, but at the end of the day they want the same thing. They’re just bickering about the order.

For the races, the choice is far more real. People are dying. Soldiers are being slaughtered on the Brand, homesteads are falling to the Icebrood, Destroyers are churning in the depths. The beleaguered races of Tyria are drowning under a multitude of threats, and some imbecilic salad with a shiny tree blade thinks they should contribute arms and equipment to go save other people on the opposite side of the continent! What a load of bullskritt!

Every single race has a good reason to say “No, my problem is more important than your problem”, and that’s exactly the nature of mortalkind. And this argument goes deep, unearthing racial biases, old grudges, lingering bigotry, and the ideals of each race pitted against one another. It’s the pure and uncut stuff of political thriller gold, but we won’t sink our teeth into it if the Pact keeps doing their G.I. Joe routine against every single threat.

I like your idea of a dispute and do think it would help, but we can go deeper!

cheshirefox.7026:

anyone else get an impression that Shriketalon is Elliot from flight of the phoenix?

……In that I’m looking at a wreck and saying it can be rebuilt…

…Or that my actual “experience” is just a facsimile of the real thing which calls my competence into question?

….Actually, both might work.

lakdav.3694:

Additionally:
I dont know how stories are written at Anet, or any other game developer company. However, through actually roleplaying, i came to learn that the best and most believable story comes out from interactions of different ideas.

One writer takes the side of one character/faction/area, and another writer takes the other side, through their interactions a genuine believable story is born.

What does that mean: Every relevant person should have someone in the writing team who specificly considers how that person would react to everything going around in the Living Story. Every writer must consider how their assigned characters or factions would react to both the Living Story, AND the reactions of the characters/factions of the other writer’s.
Not one writer writing one story, and another writing the next in line.

This is a very astute idea.

While it doesn’t seem like one character per writer would work due to simple logistics, they should definitely have a Great Big List Of Everybody Important which impacts the storytelling right from the concept phase. Nothing exists in a vacuum, and Tyria’s different organizations and nations are all influencing one another. Every plot should include notes about who cares, who ignores it, who tries to influence the outcome and who comes running in to save the day.

’Cause as previous posters have said, the Seraph should have been on that toxic tower like bees on a floral arrangement competition. The Norn should be leading great hunts and the Charr legions rolling out the big guns against the Molten Alliance, not rolling over and letting some random rag tag heroes handle it.

Every narrative action has an equally dramatic reaction.

mambastik.8735:

I said this in a previous Mantra discussion but it’s worth mentioning again. What we need is some kind of visual cue to know how many charges a Mantra has. I get you need a highly skilled player to micro-manage the Mantras, but seriously, no one wants to squint down at the subscript to see how many charges are left in the middle of a fight.

That’s easy. The skill icon itself.

Hang on, give me two seconds in a paint program…

…rough sketch, but it should get the point across. Should probably use a more contrasting value or something, but that’s another matter.

The core problem with mantras is that they have no unified role. The only thing they have in common is their penalty.

Arenanet seems to have decided that mantras should be the main support utility for the mesmer, but they disregard the fact that the original mantra skills had zero supportive capacity whatsoever. They used to be a single target damage spike, single target daze, self stability, and self cleanse. Now the latter have a pathetic AoE to share with the party, but it is still not a core support skillset.

Sure, traits can give them a supportive function, but that still encounters the problem of no unified purpose. Since the penalty is the sole thing mantras have in common, there is nothing traits can modify except the charge mechanic. You can’t have traits like “All allies effected by your mantra get X”, because only half the mantras can help your allies. Likewise, the way mantra healing works, the most boring mantra is a necessity due to its low skill recharge. Meanwhile, non-support mantras can’t get any direct trait support, since you cannot have mechanics like “deal enhanced damage with mantras”, and it’s ridiculously expensive to try to make the interrupt benefit from both interrupt traits and mantra enhancements.

To make mantras better, they need to take a step back and ask “what are these utilities supposed to accomplish”, then make them fulfill that purpose with everything they’ve got.

Shiren.9532:

1. Less focus on the B-iconics and more focus on the diverse roles performed by a number of heroes across Tyria. I think a core cast is unnecessary and restricts stories in Tyria. They come at an opportunity loss of other characters in Tyria (it’s a big world) and other stories I’d like to see told. I could enjoy them more if they had been more prominent individuals (to explain why they pop up all the time and justify why they are the focus of the story). As they are I think they weaken stories by making it about themselves instead of the world around them. If I go to Brisban I want to meet with sylvari, asura or Seraph dealing with the conflict there, not Marjory and the cast (even if she has a sister there). I don’t need them as middle men to connect me to every story, I reserve that suspension of disbelief for myself – not NPCs, I actually enjoy engaging directly with relevant NPCs, not surrogate characters doing it for me. Side bonus, if you dislike any of the five characters tough luck, they are always around. If the cast is bringing in new people and letting old ones go as the story evolves and it makes most sense to involve people, people you like or dislike will come and go.

I think this is a very good point.

Although some people really like the Scooby Gang, there is a conundrum with the player’s constant involvement. We don’t really have a reason to stick with them. The individual members of the gang may have befriended one another and banded together as a new guild, but this ain’t exactly our first rodeo. We done this skritt before, and the Player Character has hobnobbed around with far higher echelons of well-to-do hero types before. Sure, we may exchange Wintersday cards with the gang, but that doesn’t mean we’d stick with them.

Traveling around and meeting lots of different people would also improve the status of the player (currently a controversy over whether we should get development and stand center stage, or just be one of the crowd and an observer). If we’re a Wandering Hero, we can be both instrumental to success due to our involvement AND a bit of an enigma that allows players to project their own motivations and personality onto the character. We can’t do that if we’re told who we consider BFFs. Lots of additional characters would also help alleviate concerns over possible biases (and thank you for taking that to PMs/another thread, I appreciate that) by introducing loads of characters.

Best of all, though, it would allow far more perspectives on Tyria. There are a wide variety of cultural archetypes that don’t currently see much representation in actual character development. We don’t have a very devout human character, nor a skald from the Norn focusing on the power of legend or a shaman who communes with the spirits. We could have conversations between a Firstborn and a Soundless over the ethics of sylvari culture, or three sided science bickering between the Asuran colleges even in the middle of a firefight. It would also be nice if the Orders had more character involvement, perhaps bringing characters like Laranthir of the Wild, Doern Velazquez, and Crusader Hiroki back into the spotlight to be the face of their order’s involvement.

The more characters we meet, the more Tyria comes alive AND the more the different characters can play off of one another to open up further personal development. ’Tis a win-win, except for the poor writer in charge of compiling them all and the voice acting budget. But sometimes quality is worth the cost.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

No offense is meant, but there is one final thing which comes to mind. Being able to view a piece, unravel its problems, and state them in an entertaining manner . . . does not make it necessarily to follow the person has creative talent enough to make something.

…
…
…
*puts away my “totally epic” fanfiction of Mr. Sparkles/Scruffy/Her-o-tron/M.O.X. combining into one giant golem and punching out Primordius while shouting totally-not-stolen-from-Transformers/Power Rangers/Gundam catch phrases *

Gagaru.6132:

What would have worked for me is the PC being a member of the Pact, and we could all work with the idea that all the PCs are Pact members who do various Important Jobs. That ship has sailed. It might be a disappointment to destroy the Pact, but I feel it’s a bandage that has to be ripped off to focus on other aspects of the story.

That would work very well indeed. In fact, it might work out that way with the Pact destroyed. With the sense of authority gone, all that is left is the player’s status as a veteran of the Orrian War. It’s easy to write in mentions of the PC’s veteran status without worrying about them throwing around orders. More importantly, it fits the idea of a new player/old player dichotomy: one just showed up, the other is a seasoned hero from past conflicts.

Zaxares.5419:

In order for that sense of drama and effort to be retained, we really need to address the issue of players turning the Living Story into “the next farm pit”. Yes, it was exciting and thrilling to try to get to 1200 civilian rescues… the first time. And maybe the next 5 times. But after that, players start going off and doing their own things.

Honestly, I think that’s alright. The second time you see a magician perform a magnificent feat of prestidigitation, it isn’t going to dazzle you like the first time and you might see through the illusion. The fourth time you watch a film, you may start drifting off and musing about the background effects or watching the extras for bloopers.

If the first time they tell the story is absolutely fantastic, I would consider that a victory. It could be even better if it remained amazing, but that is icing on an otherwise wonderful chocolate cookie cake.

kimeekat.2548:

And I’d like to address Shrike’s brief analysis of the Mari fight (because it’s my favorite XD). To say that “we ran up and tested it for her. And then it never showed up again” makes it sound like we had a choice or didn’t succeed in destroying the Marionette.

Sorry about the brevity of that point, I was rather tired at the time and wanted to get that post out before the work week.

To elaborate, the problem with the Marionette scenario is that we basically did exactly as Scarlet requested, on her terms, with no rhyme or reason to dance to the beat of her drum. She had a random UFO floating in the middle of nowhere and a giant “Stand Here To Fight The Giant Robot” sign painted in oil, which attracted us like Wile-e Coyote to a flightless bird convention.

No one said “So, newly-appointed Captain Kiel, how about giving that airship a test run by nuking that giant floating platform?” Neither did anyone ask “why do we have to go underneath the giant platform that’s accomplishing nothing?” And worst of all, even if you defeat the Marionette…..no one wants to do anything about the giant howling portal UFO hovering above it. We clustered around the treasure chest, got depressed at the number of greens and blues, and called it a day.

It was a fun battle, to be sure, but it served no narrative purpose whatsoever apart from introducing Taimi (who is adorable, so that’s a point in the win column, but could have been introduced anywhere). If the Marionette did not exist, the narrative itself wouldn’t have changed in the slightest. Thus, it seemed like the best example of “good gameplay, bad story”, since the gameplay trumped the “Scarlet Invades Random Sector X” month.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Great post! Though we did a CDI to discuss Living World and covered many of these topics and concerns in there as well, I think it’s always good to stop and brainstorm and give feedback on how to improve the living world experience.

BobbyStein.2315:

I’d like to echo Colin’s sentiments. Thanks to the OP and everyone else for posting your constructive feedback here.

Thank you both for your consideration and kind words. I have always been impressed by Arenanet’s commitment to making their game better, and I hope there is some shard of wisdom amidst my many ramblings that can help in some way.

BobbyStein.2315:

Part of the development process is prioritization, so I’d like to know what you feel are the highest impact items you think would improve our storytelling delivery. What are your top three requests?

Well, if I had to distill it down from the fifteen and flesh them out….

….ask and you shall receive.

Tom Gore.4035:

True, but if we are talking about storytelling “plotholes”, what could be more immersion-breaking than lifting the player on a pedestal, with 2 million other players? That would be one helluva crowded pedestal. This is a problem with MMOs and while I agree with you that ANet dug this “personal story” hole for themselves, I think it’s good that they are now steering a bit off that course – or at least I hope so. In my opinion, in MMOs the players should always be just that – a side character who helps the heroes get the job done. Otherwise it makes absolutely no sense having 2 million “main characters” in the story.

Hmm, perhaps there is a compromise to be made. I think you make a very fair point, but there is still something to be said for letting the player feel like a mover and shaker of the world.

If they focused less on a single group of characters such as the current Scooby Gang and let the player meet and interact with many heroes in many smaller stories, they could combine it with a few Personal Story missions that allow the main characters to get their time in the spotlight. A journey home would be an excellent start, returning the player to their city of origin as a triumphant hero, and all the horrible guilt-tripped jobs that entails. Likewise, more Order storylines would be an interesting way to delve into new tales. The Living Story could spend its time allowing Tyria to grow and thrive, and a few segments of Personal Story per year could let the player keep center stage in their own saga.

panzer.6034:

I’m no video game developer but i’ve run tabletop rpgs (like D&D) for years and the one huge lesson i’ve learned as a gamemaster/storyteller is related to that #1 point: you can’t beat around the bush trying to lead your players along with subtle hints and obscure clues with the promise of a shocking reveal down the line. It simply needs to be interesting and engaging right off the bat. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of handing out tiny morsels of info or foreshadowing without giving enough to really allow the players to infer anything relevant because you, as the writer/gamemaster, are the only one who sees the bigger picture and knows it all leads to something big.

Well said. One should never take the audience’s attention for granted, and the initial hook should be baited with the juiciest intrigue possible. Tyria is full of amazing story potential, and any new tale is directly competing with all those exciting possibilities for the players’ attention. Hook ’em early, and reel ’em in.

iplayBANJO.9543:

You wouldn’t, by chance, happen to be a writer in need of a job would you?

I’m actually a geologist. Stories are just my passionate hobby in all their forms, be it reading books, paging through webcomics, listening to short story podcasts, engaging in tabletop RPGs, or binge watching television series. It just seemed like a better thing to use as a constructive criticism avenue than “Shriketalon Reviews Tyrian Geology. Today’s Episode: Southsun Cove’s Travertine Deposits.”

But thank you for the compliment.

Cormac.3871:

You guys do know that Lord of the Rings broke a lot of these rules. Just setting forth a set of things that you think make for interesting story telling doesn’t necessarily mean that anything that doesn’t adhere to them will be bad.

These narrative lessons are more what you’d call guidelines than actual rules.

There are many different kinds of stories, and a golden rule for one may be a preposterous pyrite for another. For example, Lord of the Rings faced the heroes off against an Ancient Doom sort of opponent, an opponent who is more metaphor than flesh and blood, the living embodiment of doom for their entire world. The struggle against The End is not necessarily meant to have a human component to the harbinger of ragnarok. But by choosing to make the corruption of Scarlet’s mind a key component of the plot, Arenanet chose a more personable sort of antagonist and must be reviewed accordingly. A more metaphysical opponent such as Sauron requires a different set of standards, as do living hurricanes such as the Elder Dragons. There are many different paths to brilliant characterization, for all that is gold does not glitter, and not all who wander are lost.

What I don’t understand is how someone can look at the Inspiration trait line, the “make phantasms awesome to provide the entire phantasm playstyle” traitline, the traitline with not one, but TWO shatter based grandmaster traits….

…and the first thing that comes to mind is “Interrupt healer!”

Who do we have to hypnotize to get a single Phantasm grandmaster trait in the entire Mesmer lineup?

Thank you for the kind words and constructive criticism thus far, it is appreciated.

Tom Gore.4035:

#14

You do have dialogue with the NPCs. It just isn’t voiced.

Indeed, but the problem is the weight we hold in the story. With so much of the narrative driven by those cutscenes of dialogue, our character’s silence sequesters us away from being a driving force behind the action. Right now, characters keep referring to us as a part of the team and an honored friend, but the bulk of the story content’s cutscenes treat us as a common flunkie on the side bench.

For Dwayna’s delightful derriere’s sake, Frostbite has more spoken dialogue than we do! We’re not even in Snarf territory, and if we weren’t paying customers I’d but us front and center on the “dies horribly in the first act” category of minions.

Freeelancer.2860:

Nicely put and made with allot of care, OP. +1

However, there are several things I disagree with. For example I’d like that player character is moved back completely and serve as a witness (or a grunt) to the events, especially considering the complexities and effort of making PC into one of the main protagonists, but I’m sure my opinion is in minority (and even devs stated they’ll strive to improve communication between PC and NPCs), so instead I’d be content if ANet put more time in exploring the ways to improve that part of LS… and fast… because those scenes in Aftermath made me literary sweat from awkwardness (partly from implementation partly because of feeling they were forced)..

Perhaps, perhaps. However, we’re currently caught up in a weird situation where we are included as a valued member of the Scooby Gang, constantly interacting with them throughout the latter half of the Season. This is a very odd dynamic for a silent character with no major story impetus, and further highlights our lack of voice.

If they had a much broader cast and we bounced around from tale to tale, silence would suit us just fine. But to be “good friends” with five companions to the point of being included in their little guild without getting a single word in edgewise is very jarring.

DarcShriek.5829:

I disagree with point #13. Not entirely though. You see, game designers are constantly trying to push the boundaries of what a game is and where is the game space. Personally, I think articles on an official site is well within limits, as long as players are made aware of this.

To clarify point #13, the articles such as What Scarlet Saw aren’t the bone I am particularly picking here. I’m more irritated with things like this thread. The short version is that it is Angel McCoy giving the entire list of reasons why every race in Scarlet’s alliance works for her and continues to do so. While I don’t think that all of them fit (and I’d really like to see an explanation for how Scarlet found krait obelisks in the first place), it is a decent attempt to explain the motivations of each factions and what they get out of the entire endeavor. I would normally have kudos for such an effort, but there’s one major problem.

None of those cultural trends are part of the story Anet wrote. There is no discussion among Flame Legionnaires about why they are sticking with the band, Krait dialogue about a transformative experience, or anything else but blind obedience. It does not matter if the author knows the answer to a major plot hole. If they fail to address it in the story, that hole forms a massive blemish in the grand tale’s tapestry regardless of intent or introspection. As written, none of the alliances present any compelling reason why they stick with Scarlet Briar until the end, and the story they delivered is worse off as a result.

The mark of a brilliant artist is not the ideas they conceive in their minds. Everyone has ideas, many of them amazing and magnificent. An artist excels at their craft by incarnating those ideas in the reality we all share, creating art that expresses those brilliant concepts and sharing them with others. It does not matter if the writers have good ideas, they have to make them part of the story for them to have any merit.

Words unwritten tell no tales.

Raziel.4216:

Racial representation is another research subject.

….That is what I was implying. When someone makes a statement such as “men don’t need more game heroes”, that statement excludes groups such as minority males, gay males, and males who don’t fit the “grizzled adult alpha male” standard for reasons of age, personality, or disability.

If someone were to say “grizzled alpha males don’t need more game heroes”, that is a completely different story. One must be careful about overly broad exclusionary statements. Hence the disagreement.

Kit.3986:

There are tons of other underrepresented groups in media as well, and they do, to me, take more precedence on the basis that they aren’t on equal footing with what’s already out there for the (yes) privileged group of people who have just about everything catered specifically to them.

And how many of those underrepresented people have a Y chromosome?

Remember, friend, I wasn’t disagreeing with you about representing other groups of people. The exact line I took issue with was “Men don’t need more game heroes.” That’s a dangerously broad statement that frames everything from a single perspective, gender, and decides that everything that falls into one side of the category is unnecessary. Yet there are tons of male characters that don’t fit into the standard Grizzled Strong Alpha Male archetype that would be left out in the cold by such a wideranged dismissal of an entire gender.

When writing a good narrative, one must be careful about broad declarations such as these, for they may well end up sacrificing the very ideal they claim to cherish.

Kit.3986:

(Males don’t -need- more game heroes… there are countless, countless, countless of them)

I fundamentally disagree.

Everyone needs heroes, well written characters that exemplify virtuous traits. The vast majority of heroes in video games may be male, but how many of them are actually well written? The proper answer to a genre that is skewed in a certain direct is not an equally skewed backlash, it is ascension. It is rising above the current model and creating a greater work with well written characters from many archetypes to make the best story possible.

We need good female heroes. We need good male heroes. We need good heroes of various ages, ethnicities, vocations, and personality types. And we will never, ever reach a point when we do not need heroes.

tmakinen.1048:

So, please be positive. The best way to make a contribution is to describe an existing or a new character you would like to see in the story — and who just happens to be male, in contrast to making ‘maleness’ the only relevant criterion.

A very fine point. On that note…

I would like a good father figure archetype. Wise, supportive, and deeply committed to the care and wellbeing of all he holds dear. Someone who sees violence as a last resort and can say more in a single sentence of quiet advice than most can say in a lifetime. A GW2 version of Atticus Finch, if that’s not too tall an order.

I would like to see a well written married couple. Not a couple in the middle of romance, not a courting pair caught up in infatuation, but a husband and wife who have been married for years and treat it like it ain’t no thing. The kind of pair with tons of in-jokes and quirky mannerisms who fit together like two pieces of a puzzle, not because their romance was written in the stars, but because they’ve worked kitten their relationship and care deeply about one another. The kind of couple who take on the world together and win.

I would like to see an Asuran Peacemaker officer action hero who talks like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Because there is nothing wrong with silly characters, and sometimes the story needs a two foot titan with a laser minigun proclaiming “Come with me if you want to live.” And other lines (NSFW), of course.

I’d like to see a Kodan denmother sort of figure, a wise old matron looking after her now-grown cubs. The kind of lady who doesn’t seek out trouble, but when something threatens her family she tends to beat them to death with their own skulls. And yes, that’s a female character. No reason more of both can’t be added.

I want an incredibly dapper gentleman. The kind who takes up the right and proper pursuit for a chap of noble bearing: traveling to distant lands, meeting exciting new creatures, and then killing them and mounting their heads on his manor wall. Always enthusiastic, ever fearless, and ready for a spot of daring-do! The kind of character who loves nothing more than an afternoon of slaughtering dragon minions and drinking tea.

I also think the story would benefit from a fish-out-of-water sort of character, gender nonspecific. A Tengu born and raised within the Domain of Winds, for example, who has no understanding whatsoever of the rest of Tyria’s culture or mannerisms. Or perhaps a Largos far from home trying to grow accustomed to an environment that isn’t following the “stab first and ask questions later” ruleset.

And finally, I want Palawa Joko back. Because he is amazing.

Greetings and salutations.

With Season 1 of the Living Story drawing to a close, it seems appropriate to offer review and reflection of everything that has come thus far. Sadly, there is much to consider, as the brand new path trod by Anet has many missteps and mishaps along the way.

Rather than talk about individual flaws, I thought it might be best to take a stab at the overall writing style of the Living Story and the narrative flaws it continues to exhibit. Plot holes come and go, individual complaints will always remain, but the best way to help Season 2 is to consider the pitfalls of Season 1 from a writing and gaming perspective. And so, I thought I would offer up a bit of constructive criticism in silly infographic format.

For your consideration, Fifteen Lessons From Fifteen Months of Scarlet Briar.

DevonCarver.5370:

While I appreciate the discussion around the dolyak issue, it wasn’t my intention to refocus the discussion there so much as provide an example of a point.

To pivot from that discussion, however, would WvW be better or worse off if we removed dolyaks entirely and went with the setup we use in EotM or something similar?

What about a lattice system, similar to that used in Planetside??

Combine the Sentry Points and the Ruins mechanic into a series of small zones of control that dot the entire map. When someone captures a Supply Camp, it will automatically provide supplies to nearby structures if they are connected by a series of small zones of control, which use the current Ruins mechanic. In order to cut off a Keep and lay siege, an attacker must literally sever its supply chains by surrounding the keep and blockading its territory.

This opens up a lot more room for small scale skirmishes around a major objective and for defenders to help in small ways by breaking the siege and establishing a supply chain. Likewise, a zerg attacking a heavily defended area will actually need to establish a major foothold rather than relying on a single havoc squad performing the current supply chain dance. This change would mix very well with more Zones of Control (such as towers with additional gates blocking access to valleys, etc), and more elaborate keep mechanics.

I’ve included a crude example of a lattice below, though it uses an outdated map.

Way back in beta, the greatsword used to be a single target weapon designed around creating distance. As Anet shifted it to perform an AoE based role, a lot of its old mechanics became a liability. Improving it would actually be fairly easy…

1) Make the autoattack hit foes nearby your target rather than using the unreliable two-guys-between-you-and-foe mechanic. Same damage output, much cleaner use. The animation already has the sizzling energy anyway. Remove the damage by distance bonus and give it a decent default rate.

2) Rather than bounce, Mirror Blade should fly out and back, like Path of Scars, striking all foes in its path. It should create a clone at your target like normal, and grant you might for each foe struck when it returns and you “catch” it.

3) Give Mind Stab a real AoE radius. 240 should probably suffice. Stab the blade into the ground and create a rippling curtain of multiple phantom blades.

Berzerker and IWave are lovely as is.

This would result in a practial and reliable AoE weapon. The autoattack would be good for blasting into a pack of foes, Mirror Blade would be a fantastic opener to tag mobs and grant reliable might no matter the distance, and Mind Stab would reliably hit multiple things.

Add a mainhand pistol to fulfill the role of “single target ranged power weapon” and it’s all good.

Proposal Overview
Pets don’t have to always be NPCs. When brainstorming ways to allow the pet mechanic to handle situation where clumsy NPCs die horribly and hold the Ranger back, consider the ways you can design things that look like pets and sound like pets, but aren’t necessarily standard NPCs.

Proposal Functionality
Karka hatchlings have a kamikaze attack that turns them into a debuff on the target by latching on. While latched, the player literally has a karka nom-nom-nomming their skull.

Warhorn skill #4 has a particle effect of hawks swarming the foe. These hawks aren’t your NPC Hawk Pet, but they look just as cool.

Grawl hunters have a skill that deploys a rabbit as bait, then a wurm eats the rabbit and hits everything nearby. This skill looks big and complex, but really it’s just a normal attack with a lot of style.

To improve pets, you can introduce categories of pets that aren’t actual NPCs and don’t obey normal NPC restrictions. Latcher pets could have an F2 skill that commands them to run up and grapple the opponent, disappearing as an NPC and reappearing instantly as a latched-on-target debuff (if you call it “Go For The Eyes”, you will win a thousand internets from hamster loving rangers everywhere). Some pets could provide a buff instead of attacking (the critical eye of a bird increases allied precision in a wide zone, the strength of a bonsaiheart grants everyone a measure of toughness, etc), with their F2 skill being the only attack.

Some pets might not be NPCs at all. You could simply have one category of pets that gives you small animal skills. For instance, equipping the Hawk category could offer you three different skills (F1 commands a hawk to swoop and attack, F2 summons a pair to repeatedly harass the target up to 1800 units away, F3 calls a bird to daze the target) all theme around the long ranged role, but none of them actually involve an NPC and all its weaknesses. Beastmaster-esque skills would allow the Ranger to remain the Pet Class without worrying about whether your pet mechanics could fit 100% of the game’s content.

Associated Risks
You might have to make miniature giant space hamsters as a Hall of Monuments pet. You may be sued for this. It will be worth it.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Sorry I think you misunderstand. My point is we have multiple members of staff who participate in the CDI as well many others who read the threads. Thus my request for us to be more efficient in the manner in which we communicate will lead to the CDI having a higher value impact on the game as a whole due to freeing up more time for both discussion and work.

In terms of efficiency, I echo the sentiment of several posters above on improving the technical aspects of the forum. If we could upvote posts, sort conversations based on their original subject, and filter content by relevant section the CDI process would be incredibly smooth and helpful.

In the meantime, however, I suggest you use the foundation of the CDI threads to help weave the discussion. In particular…

1) Start out with a “state of the game” sort of post that presents the current viewpoint of the developers on the broad topic. Tell us about what you hope to achieve, what worries you, what you found surprising or amazing, any little details that let us see behind the curtain and understand more about the topic from your side of the table. We love that stuff and eat it up like candy.

2) Give us problems to solve. Broad discussions are nice, but it would behoove you tremendously to place a few restraints and allow creativity to flourish within them. This will give you targeted feedback to help you with things you’ve identified as problem areas, rather than an entire thread worth of discordant essays.

3) Split things up when necessary. Several of the CDIs have become hung up on certain issues (subclasses vs. order quests vs. stat swapping all in the same discussion thread), which muddies the waters and prevents clear discourse. When you identify a really good potential topic that requires more investigation, slice it off from the general CDI and create a new thread within a CDI subforum for that particular discussion. The combination of general threads with broad topics and subthreads with specific ideas will be far more organized than a single thread trying to hold twelve different conversations at once.

BobbyStein.2315:

gidorah.4960:

BobbyStein.2315:

You’ll have to wait and see how we integrated story into the release. I think it works pretty well but I’m biased. I am looking forward to the feedback we receive next week.

you also thought scarlet was a good villain.

I also know the entire plot a year in advance.

No matter how clever the third novel may be, the trilogy fails if the first book falls flat.

If there is one lesson learned from the fourteen months devoted to Scarlet Briar, for the love of Melandru’s Magnificent Melons let it be this: blighted roots make withered branches and rotten fruit. It doesn’t matter how sweet the desert may be if we have to slog through a burnt appetizer and a poisoned main course to reach it.

You may see a grand mystery culminating in the ultimate reveal, but that is not what we see. We see a plot that has gone on for thirteen months without even bothering to present a grand plan or proper pacing. We see a villain with zero reasoning for her almighty resources with fingers in every pie “because she’s so clever and has hidden powers”. We see an obsession with one single sylvari that eclipses anything else in all of Tyria, so much so that her random antics demand an entire year’s worth of devotion, and you can’t be bothered to tell us why until the end. Oh, sure, I’m sure it seems like a fantastic trail of bread crumbs for one who knows the secret behind the curtain…

…But all we see is “keep going to discover the reason you should care.”

Too late. The ship has sailed. An engine cannot run on fumes, nor can a story be strung along on the promise of eventually revealing its plot hole filler for over a year. We’re tired. We’re bored. We’re waiting for something that feels like a story of Guild Wars, not a spinoff series about a certain writer’s pet villain.

Please, for the love of Tyria, know this: it doesn’t matter how good the finale may be. The journey must equal the destination.

It’s the simplest of fixes.

When a group of players begins fighting around the Marionette and fails to destroy all five reactors, the increase to the Aethercannon Power Level failure meter should be proportional to the number of platforms that failed.

Five platforms win: chain is severed.
Four wins, one loss: 0% bar increase.
Three wins, two losses: 25% of the current increase.
Two wins, three losses: 50% of the current increase.
One win, four losses: 75% of the current increase.
Five platforms lose: current increase.

Voila, the marionette fight is now PUG friendly. Arenanet claims they want individuals to feel heroic, but the greatest threat to that feeling is doing everything right and slaying your boss, only to watch someone else fail due to poor skill or simple bad luck and nullify your contribution. With this change, everyone is making a difference, even if your triumph simply means your phase doesn’t increase the failure bar.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We don’t teach it well enough and therefore it is obfuscated to the point that players have already invested heavily in a particular role making experimentation in diversification less appealing (for a multitude of reasons).

Recently however we have been working kitten balance and situational role parity and bit by bit in game you can see player’s experimenting much more. This is a very good sign and will afford us a stronger foundation to build our content on moving forward.

I am very glad to hear you are investigating situational roles more thoroughly, however there is one thing I would add to your previous point.

The problem is not teaching the system, it’s challenging the players. Most of the content in this game consists of very crude opponents, mindless melee monsters who stroll towards the player or imbecilic ranged enemies who stand still while someone bashes them in the face. Likewise, most monsters have one single cooldown skill, a rather pathetic lack of resources.

Bless your hearts, Anet, you are great designers but you’ve never been good at making monsters. The best challenge you ever gave us in GW1 was porting hero builds directly onto new enemies, and even then someone else did all the legwork. You designed a magnificently mobile and skill savvy system, but your monsters cannot handle it. Players don’t need to change builds because there’s nothing out there hammering them into switching strategies. “Kite + pew pew” or “Apply Hundred Blades Directly To The Forehead” work in 95% of content, which means no one needs to be flexible. And 4% of the remaining content can be zerged without ever facing any risk, since the scaled up monsters are still reliant on largely single target attacks.

Give monsters more skills. Give them the ability to attack while moving (or make their autoattacks move them slightly, much like a ranger sword attack). Give them the power to kite. Give scaled up monsters scaled outward skills capable of harming a zerg. Make us pay attention to what’s in front of us, and maybe we’ll have to adapt strategies once in a while. It wouldn’t hurt if you gave us quality of life improvements like Build Slots or the ability for ascended gear to learn new statistics by absorbing exotic gear, but it all starts with the enemies.

Strong metal must be forged in the blazing inferno. Turn up the heat, and we’ll grow stronger and more flexible in turn.

Orpheal.8263:

Traits currently are only good as mechanism for changing passive character effects and specificskill effects, Traits don’t work as an unlock mechanism and they shouldn’t do this also.
…
The Trait System currently changes, how effects of skills change. But they don#t decide over it, if a Warrior for example is able to use now Halberds or not.
A TALENT on the other hand could decide over this. A character that hasn’t learned the talent to wield Halberds, and has 0 experience with wieldign this kind of weapon, should not be able to use them at all.

Let me start by addressing this.

No. This is unnecessary and counterproductive. A Profession can either wield a weapon or not. You do not need to “earn” the right to wield a profession’s weapon set. All Anet has to do in order to add the Halberd into the game is create the weapon and skills, do an extremely lengthy balance process, then release it in an update that says “Halberds have been added to the game. Warriors, Guardians, and Necromancers can use them. Have fun.” It won’t provide much immersion, but no one will care, they’ll be too busy hitting monsters with halberds. Creating a talent system to unlock the right to use your class mechanics would be a complete waste of developer time and a mindless grind for the player.

Likewise, consider your class mechanic example. Some mechanics do need more flexibility, to be sure. But at the end of the day, that can be accomplished in one of two ways: by broadening a class mechanic that’s too narrow, or adding abilities that add onto them via utilities. The former could be done by giving a class like the Necromancer or Mesmer the ability to choose what Death Shroud or Metamagic skills they equip instead of forcing them to a default. For an example of the latter, a warrior could use Battle Rage as an elite or utility in order to enter a berserk state that consumes adrenaline and only ends if it reaches zero. Likewise, he could gain the ability to summon soldiers to his command to form a legion. None of those require a brand new system, because they can find a way to flourish as part of the utility bar. It doesn’t need a brand new system.

And that’s the core problem with subclasses. We don’t need them.

I fully understand and appreciate that you enjoy the notion of progressing through a profession, climbing up the ladder to distinguish yourself in a field. And yes, I’ve enjoyed many games with such a method, be it the Final Fantasy games with the different jobs to collect and upgrade, and the different party combinations they create. But those games are designed around vertical progression. You get better at your subclass, you get +5 to your poison strike attack or you gain the Catch ability so your beastmaster can nab desertpedes and send them after rajiformes.

That’s just not how this game works. Most of us are leveled up. We’ve been there, done that, got the cake. We have reached the point where we assume we have our class abilities, and the notion of “earning” the right to use a weapon is downright absurd for someone who’s killed an elder dragon. Trying to add in more vertical progression into something as basic as class mechanics or weapon skills is going to be greeted with major annoyance because people expect to be done with the whole “leveling” thing.

You want subclasses, so you are attempting to create a reason why subclasses must exist. Unfortunately, there is none. We have active abilities in the form of weapons, utilities, and class mechanics. We have passive boosts in the form of traits. These perfectly cover everything a profession is meant to do in theory, and when one falters in practice it should be addressed by upgrading it directly. If a class doesn’t have weapons, that profession should get more weapons without any strings attached. If a class mechanic is too narrow, it should be broadened in a balanced and fun manner to preserve previous styles wall allowing for new forms of playstyle expression. And if a particular style has the skills to match it but falls flat on the numbers, that’s a job for the trait system to handle. These are all the mechanics we need for an elegant character system in the game.

Less is more. The designers can accomplish more with an elegant system which is easier to balance, simpler to fine tune, and more streamlined for adding content. Subclasses bring nothing to the table, only another way to overbalance the system when piled atop what we already possess.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

So, if the world’s a mess enough for “one errant weed” to stir up this much trouble? I blame great-great grandpa Tobias and all the others like him who did things like, oh, free the king of the dead and leave him in power to take over lands with a power vacuum in them?

So the annoyance of dealing with Scarlet Briar is exactly the kind of feeling Palawa Joko endures as he watches heroes rampage around the map? Much as I dislike the weed……I could dig that.

All hyperbole aside, what I don’t like about Briar is the sheer amount of time her story has taken with so little gained. We’ve been fighting one single villain for twelve months with no main plan, no ultimate threat, and no justification why this psychopath causing mayhem is more worthy of our attention than centaurs butchering innocent villagers, jotun murdering homesteaders in their beds, or krait dragging citizens down into enslavement. Sure, the cookie crumbs of chaos crystals and ley lines help point to something bigger….but the Ascalon Settlement is on fire and Caledon is under siege. Tyria is not a tranquil world, but all we’ve done in this living story is fought Scarlet and her minions. Well, that, and playing in a magical box and going to the beach to see Faren in a speedo. That was worth it.

If it honestly takes over a year to slay one single mad sylvari, we’re never going to get anywhere. I would very much enjoy a game that depicts the battle against Kralkatorric, the war against Jormag, the ground pount with Primordius, the high seas showdown with The-Elder-Dragon-Formerly-Known-As-Bubbles, the return of the Mursaat and their invasion of Tyria, the conquest of Palawa Joko and his awakened horde, the piercing of the Mists to find the realms of the gods, the revelation of Cantha’s long lost fate, the discovery of the Pale Tree’s Origin, the opening of the Dominion of Winds, the pact with the Largos, the bond with the Kodan, the awakening of Dhuum, the threat of civil war, the restoration of the Orrian nation…

If this last year was a trial run to figure out how to design two week content, that’s acceptable. The actual mechanics have dramatically improved and the updates become crisper, sharper, more coherent every set. But if this is the kind of storytelling that will continue throughout this game’s cycle, then we’re never going to see what’s beyond that horizon.

Orpheal.8263:

Our Characters need to develop themself further over time, visually as like skillfully and mechanically and this goal can be only reached with redesigning the Trait System, adding Sub Classes and splitting the Trait System up into 3 seperate different Systems constisting out of Traits, Abilities, and Talents.

This would make Character Customization broader and give ANet also alot more options for overall Character Progression, vertically as like horizontally.

If I may, there isn’t anything about your post that demonstrates why we need subclasses themselves.

Skill Aesthetic Progression is a good idea. Allowing players to unlock intricate and magnificent animation options is a beautiful way to let players feel accomplished and to distinguish their character from others.

New weapons are definitely needed. Many classes simply don’t have enough weapons under their belt to fit the different roles in the game. Everyone should have reliable means of achieving concepts like AoE, direct offense, condition offense, defense, control, and support, but many classes were given the short end of the stick.

And finally, the trait system is not very well implemented because the format should not be the same across classes. Everyone is forced to use the Five Line Thirty Point method, no matter how foolish it is for different groups. A warrior is nothing like an engineer, so why are they required to use the same upgrade method?

But that doesn’t mean you need Subclasses.

If a class needs more weapons, give them more weapons. If a class needs a broader class mechanic, broaden the class mechanic. If the trait system isn’t up to snuff, improve the trait system. And if you want to provide skill aesthetic customization, implement systems that allow animations to be unlocked by story progress, Order choice, PvP rank, WvW winnings, difficult achievements, and other facets of existing gameplay.

Subclasses do not bring anything unique to the table. We already have active skills in the form of Weapons, Utilities, Elites, Heals, and Class Mechanics, along with passive effects handled by Traits. The system isn’t perfect, but it does theoretically cover everything a player needs to do. Anything you list as a possible subclass is either going to be a passive effect (your Duelist warrior has less armor but gains adrenaline faster!) or an active skill (instead of Death Shroud, your Necromancer gains Cloak of Doom!). The system already accounts for both of them.

If you believe the current system has lacks polish (an opinion I share) than improving the present mechanics makes a better outcome than adding another layer for the sake of a shiny name pasted onto the existing flaws.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

We also used to assist the extreme religious fanatics known as the White Mantle, take sides in a civil war we had no stake in, take part in the extermination of refugees who weren’t human just because they were in the way, and help unleash doom on the world twice over thinking we were saving it.

I believe that’s known as “leaving humanity’s mark on history”.

Chrispy.5641:

Shriketalon.1937:

….Ultra Powerful Awesome Combo Sweep Snip of Awesomness!

Last question before I go and enjoy my holiday as well like everyone else is doing. Why is crafting different stat combinations as an endgame goal a bad thing? There’s Progression in that, and it is one of the many ways I’ve been playing through the endgame since a week after launch.

I’ve made 6 armor sets, and currently, I am working on a set of Shaman’s Armor. I am going to combine that with Settler’s Trinkets and see how that works on my character.

edit : and its not like that’s going to be a very effective armor set. It might not be. I just want to see what it does!

That’s a very fair question.

Let me clarify one thing: I don’t think Ascended Gear should automatically gain every single stat combination out of the box. That would be a rather extreme leap. Instead, the way I picture it is that you unlock each combination through crafting/dungeons/WvW/etc, and your ascended gear can transform into anything you’ve learned.

You are absolutely correct that gaining new stat combinations is a good end game activity. The current problem is that each new combination is equally expensive to the transition from Exotic level gear to Ascended. Likewise, every new combination you make for one character is a suit of Ascended gear you could have given to an alt. This is an extremely inflexible system.

Vertical Progression should be like climbing a mountain. It should require tremendous effort, but when you haul yourself up to the peak of Everest, you are truly on top of the world. Horizontal Progression should be like a vast plain, allowing you to travel in every direction to expand where you like. But right now, Horizontal Progression is like twenty Everests, each one demanding the exact same effort.

By making each increment of horizontal stat progression easier as long as you have already achieved Ascended status, the game can be far more flexible and allow more experimentation.

Chrispy.5641:

Legendary Weapons are special to the people who spent hundreds more hours than us to get them. And they also cost more than it would cost to just buy every possible stat combination with Ascended weapons. It eats up alot of inventory space, but, it doesn’t make you any worse of a player because you have 15 weapons to their one. At that point, again, asking for switchable stats is just a matter of convenience than progression.

And it sounds like the point I made way, way, back a post or two ago was just proved with your comments. Legendary weapons, even though not everyone has them, it is obviously affecting just about every player in the game, their attitude towards it, etc. Housing isn’t going to have that effect on anyone other than the one player who built the house, and his friends.

Convenience and progress are one and the same when we’re talking about extreme inconvenience choking horizontal progression.

Right now, the game expects you to construct a new ascended gear set every single time you want to switch roles and maintain best-in-slot effectiveness. It demands you choose between armoring up an alt and providing flexibility for your main. It makes vertical progression easier than horizontal progression, since a single new stat combination requires the same amount of resources as the grand transformation from one tier up to another.

We’re buried by inconvenience, and progress means chipping down those walls.

As for legendaries, yes, they are special to those who built them. That’s why they are so very, very shiny. They have glowing auras and mystical footsteps and other cool effects to show the world just how nifty they are. That is their benefit, and it is perfectly fine.

But what you aren’t recognizing is the difference between quality of life and prestige. Stat swapping is a quality of life issue. It means practical horizontal progression that provides realistic versatility, rather than thinking you should spend 36 days and thousands of materials every single time you want to use a different build. If other people have an improved quality of life, your quality of life is not diminished in any way, shape, or form. Prestige is different. Prestige is a way to show off and feel special, and that’s why legendaries have unique aesthetics. They look awesome and allow the player to feel proud of themselves without being mechanically superior to other items, preserving game balance while allowing that prestige to flourish.

Mechanical upgrades and improved quality of life should not be tied to prestige, because it holds the developers back from making a better game. Everyone will benefit if Ascended Gear can learn stat combinations and swap between them. It means every player in the game with ascended equipment (legendary owners included) gains more build flexibility and hauls less duplicate items around. It also means the developers can design content more freely, content in the knowledge that they can make direct damage less useful or require high survivability and not exclude people.

Quality of life improvements make the game better for everyone. End of story.

Chrispy.5641:

(5) Currently Legendaries being able to Switch stats is what makes them so rare and exclusive items. It is currently beyond Endgame. It is the the end of the endgame. Are you really trying to suggest that we stomp all over Legendaries and allow anyone to do that from the start (and no, I don’t own a legendary)

Legendary weapons are not special.

They are a cosmetic item for the player to show off, nothing more. They do not deserve special treatment. Their owners are not a higher class of citizen with more rights and privileges. What makes them rare and exclusive is the obscene amount of money (and only money if you use the TP) required to obtain the item, and the unique aura, footprint, or skill effects that come with them.

Everyone would benefit from the ability to “absorb” stat combinations onto ascended gear. The only exception would be someone who has a legendary for every single usable weapon for every single one of their characters, and quite frankly, and even they would benefit from the swapping on armor and trinkets.

If one requires other people to be worse off in order to feel like they have accomplished something, they will never find peace. If we have to make the game worse and reduce quality of life in order for a few people to pat themselves on the back and think they are special, then we squander any chance of progress.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I think that’s oversimplifying the matter. From what I can see, the Aetherblades are her suicide soldiers because Mai Trin screwed up and tipped her hand too early. The Molten Alliance was formed, but we don’t know anything about how it came to be. It could have been her beating them around until they agreed . . . or it could have been her demonstrating something for them and some of both sides saying “you know she has a point”. The Toxic Alliance is probably the oddest one but the presence of holy relics makes it hard to say how they’d react.

You are correct that we don’t know the whole story, but unfortunately the current selection of rational options don’t fit any of the xenophobic factions. If the Flame Legion were willing to be rational enough to say “if we make an exception and don’t sacrifice this particular person on a burning altar, we’d benefit from a deal”….they wouldn’t be the zealots we know and love to hate. Their singleminded extremism is their defining feature, else they would have rationally concluded that they could get by much better by joining the other legions in a unified nation, or at the very least team up with the renegades to gain more furpower. We have seen dredge working with outsiders in Sorrow’s Embrace, but it’s worth noting that this was seen as a betrayal of their society and led to a mass rebellion. That’s because the dredge are defined by their paranoia of being enslaved once again, and subjugation would never be acceptable.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Of course, we are comparing Scarlet’s whole arc so far to lore in which another xenophobic race of fanatics listened to outsiders who were exceedingly powerful and thus marched across all the human kingdoms setting fire to everything along the way until the equivalent of a nuclear bomb was set off to turn them back. Or the case in which two warring societies would not stop fighting each other long enough to handle a very serious threat trying to snuff them both out. Or where an entire nation was converted into shock troops for a religious fanatic who didn’t care if any of her human allies lived so long as her god was unleashed on the world.

So it’s not like this sort of thing hasn’t happened before . . .

And each time it occurred in the past, it made sense for the cultures in question.

The Flame Legion used the Titans just as much as the Titans used the Flame Legion. One got the rampant destruction of the continent, and the other gained dominance over the other legions. Since the power of the Titans gave the Charr an edge in war, their society accepted their worship under the main mantra of their species: victory at any cost.

The Kurzick and Luxon conflict had been raging for centuries when we arrived. Sure, there was a malevolent spirit of a regicidal murderer rampaging around the capital city, but that was far away from their present concerns. And remember, both sides dropped their war the instant the afflicted appeared in the Eternal Grove and Gyala Hatchery. From then on, they fought side by side to fulfill their ancestral duties and helped slay Shiro. Then went back to killing each other, of course, ‘cause that’s how they roll.

And finally, Kourna was a militaristic nation with a leader who just happened to have a little more love for a six eyed god of madness than is healthy. Since the Varesh was already Warmarshal, the armies followed her commands. Do recall that there was quite a bit of propaganda flowing about throughout Nightfall, with Kourna claiming that Istan launched an unprovoked attack and using that excuse to pursue “fugitives” into Vabbi. Also recall that as Varesh’s devotion became more fanatical and she sacrificed more and more to appease her god, even her most trusted soldiers withdrew and rebelled against her.

The Kourna example is probably the closest to what we’ve seen play out several times through this arc, with leaders striking a deal with a malevolent entity and using their own people as pawns in exchange. The core difference? Abaddon was a god, and Scarlet Briar is a plant who’s good with a wrench. That is the problem with this story, granting one single individual so much power, influence, trickery, or resources that she can bend not one, but multiple xenophobic societies to her will simply because the plot demands it.

We used to fight ancient liches unleashing titanic doom upon the world, murderous spirits hellbent on clawing his way back to the land of the living, a fallen deity and his armies of darkness, and legions of dragonspawn consuming the world. Now it takes us over a year to kill an upstart vegetable. How heroic.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

She has real, obvious flaws to her which might not matter in game mechanics or such but are incredibly problematic for someone wanting to be as feared as she seems to desire. She’s capricious, she’s dismissive of anyone not seen as her intellectual equal (which is to say, everyone else), and puts a lot of value on spectacle over substance.

I believe the problem people have is that her flaws have absolutely no repercussions.

Yes, she is capricious, maniacal, self absorbed, and a generally narcissistic sociopath. Yet at the same time, vast armies across the world are bending over backwards to give her troops and resources, with the only two motivations being “she gives us nice stuff” and “if we don’t become her suicide soldiers, she’ll be mean to us”.

If the Flame Legion wanted her power, they would have taken it by force and burnt her at the stake. If the Dredge wanted her technology, they would have driven her from their tunnels and reverse engineered it, for they would rather die than be enslaved again. If the Aetherblades needed an extra edge, they would have conned her into believing she was in charge and assassinated her. If the Krait found she held their sacred obelisks, they would launch a holy crusade to seize their holy relics from the dirty heretic’s clutches. That is how xenophobic factions work, but every kooky alliance story has spent its time chipping away at their lore and diminishing what these hate-filled factions are supposed to represent.

And thus, everyone obeys Scarlet ‘cause "she’s just that smart", resulting in an entire year’s time spent fighting a single Sylvari without even knowing what she’s planning. It’s been a complete waste of time, waste of lore, and a waste of perfectly good villainous factions bending over backwards to cater to one maniac who’s long overdue for a good dose of gasoline and matches.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

DiogoSilva.7089:

• As race discrimination is an important issue, consider a proposal to make all racial skills unlocked to all races, but gated by territory-context “quests” (hearts and dynamic events).

This is a terrible idea.

Racial skills add to uniquness and make my race choice matter. I don’t play a sylvari to watch it summon charr warband or draw hidden pistol. I play a sylvari so even in burned ashford plains i can bring the power of nature into the fight!

What about option C, skills that are mechanically equivalent but look unique?

As a sylvari, you summon a pair of fern hounds or a druid spirit. As a charr, two warband mates come to fight or a siege weapon is deployed. As a norn, a pair of bears or a mighty wolf spirit head your call. As a human, hounds of balthazar or an angel of dwayna appear at your side. As an asura, a dynamic golem-mite duo or a massive war golem emerge from prefabricated deployment.

All of the above skills can be 100% mechanically the same: you summon a pair of small creatures or one big support creature. But they can all be “reskinned” to look unique and provide flavor for your race.

This would allow everyone to have a pool of common skills to achieve basic objectives like Remove Conditions, Evade Backwards, Inflict Damage, Snare Foe, and AoE Attack without worrying about picking a specific race to get a specific goodie. Likewise, a wider pool of elites can cover skill transformations, summons, and brief moments of invulnerability or a brief-yet-powerful attack without any of them being favored.

Heck, you could even let individual racial choices be important. A human who chooses Melandru would get the ability to summon Watchers instead of Hounds of Balthazar, but they do the same thing from a balance perspective. This would allow some of the meaningless choices to actually feel a bit more important.

I would like to see the illusion mechanic restructured to allow more flexibility.

It’s rather absurd that phantasms and shatters are considered two different playstyles (so sayeth Jon Peters), but every single mesmer is required to take both skill types (especially since we only have enough traits to make one style competitive at a time). It would be much better to find a way to allow shatter mesmers to only take shatter skills, phantasm mesmers to only bring phantasms and manipulate them with more skill, and deception/punishment mesmers to get their own skills that cater to effect-on-clone-death styles. Likewise, it would allow broader illusions such as AoE mirages.

Shattering is a good concept, but it deserves better. Shatter mesmers should be able to customize which shatter skills they take, allowing skills like Crippling Anguish, Panic, Arcane Languor, and Mirage Cloak (torment+crippling, fear, weakness+direct damage, and stealth respectively).

Phantasms are great, but they could use more manipulation after firing to allow long term mesmer offense to be more skill based. Likewise, with so many weapon skills devoted to “create fragile NPC who deals damage”, consolidating damage dealing phantasms into fewer skills would allow more “living hex” types. Examples include a phantom that maintains crippling on the target, one that keeps confusion on the enemy with 100% uptime, or a slow moving phantasm that inflicts massive spike damage (ala Liadri the Concealing Darkness).

Finally, it would be nice for other playstyles to get their time to shine with illusion mechanics that cater directly to their methods. Clone-effect-on-death is currently based 100% on traits and no tangible skill support, but they could get illusions with real AI that actually act like human beings. Likewise, broader illusions like mirages and disguises could allow more flexibility, such as AoE attacks or skill transformations.

The way the mesmer is structured causes it to fight against itself. We could be so much more if we weren’t squandering resources trying to force everyone to bring two contradictory playstyle skills and keeping us from deciding which abilities we want to use.

Jaken.6801:

I heard peaople appealing for a branching class developement. Greatly discribed by the player Orpheos.

I am against this kind of direction, even though i love this concept in other games.

Guild Wars 2 in it`s core allready allows this multi class developement along the lines, thanks to it`s trait and skill limitations.
If i want to play another class direction, i just change how i set these up.

A branching tree which limits my choices does not make any sense with the current system in place.

Guhracie.3419:

I still cannot believe that we’re even discussing character progression without addressing broken class mechanics that impede progression. It’s like fixing the roof while the foundation crumbles beneath you.

I agree with both of these gentlemen/ladies/nondescript-individuals-of-worth.

It’s more of a discussion for another thread, but the simple fact is the core class customization in Guild Wars 2 is a good idea, it just doesn’t have enough love. Many classes don’t have enough weapon sets to fill multiple roles with half their weapon bar, and many of their class mechanics are far too pidgeonholed.

Mesmers should be able to select which skills go on their F1-4 keys instead of having one playstyle constantly occupying that real estate. Necromancers should get a selection of death shroud skills or have them conform to their chosen weapon, rather than having a system that only favors point blank power builds. Rangers could use more exotic pet styles that allow them to fit more scenarios (such as pets that use the “latching” mechanic like karka hatchlings, or aerial pets that just buff participants and can’t be attacked in turn). And everyone, everyone needs more weapons, from melee items for Engineers to practical ranged weapons for Guardians and far more offhand choices for Thieves.

The system we have will be enough if it gets the tender love and care it deserves. Adding another layer of customization is pointless while the current one requires more attention.

But that is a discussion for another thread on another day.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Note I ‘Look’ like a DPS war because i use a great sword (greatsaw) and a Longbow (Arthropoda). I like you believe that Horizontal Progression should be about role differentiation, however I feel like this system is already very core to the game but that we could do a better job of teaching how it works to a broader audience.

The problem here is that the Vertical Progression is ripping this very core straight out of the game. We all know how it works. To switch roles, you change traits, weapons, and armor/accessories. Everyone is clear about how role differentiation works and how stats and traits influence skills.

The problem is that it is way too expensive to switch roles.

I cannot afford to snap my fingers and get a new set of ascended armor, rings, amulet, trinkets, back piece, and weapons every single time I want to switch stats. It just ain’t happening. With the way the system is set up, I have to spend months assembling Best-In-Slot gear for one character running one build for one single role. If I want to start using a condition build instead of my current power setup, that’s fourteen to sixteen different items I have to make or purchase from scratch to fill armor, accessories, and weapons. Not to mention, every single time I work on achieving a new build, that’s resources I could spend gearing up an alt.

Making Vertical Progression expensive is fine. Moving from Exotic to Ascended should feel like a serious challenge. The core flaw, however, is that it is equally expensive to go from P/V/T to P/Pre/Crit with a single tier as it is to get your very first weapon of that tier. This system discourages diversity, chokes off the ability to switch roles, hinders gearing up alts, and is generally a royal pain in the posterior to manage anything besides one set, one build, one role play.

Horizontal Progression is being strangled. You don’t need to teach us how it works, you need to give us quality of life improvements to let us breathe freely once we’ve achieved a given tier.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Ok another brainstorm idea.

What if certain pieces of ascended gear could be crafted and sold on the TP such as gloves and boots?

Chris

It doesn’t help the obscene price of time or resources required to simply switch statistics.

It should not cost as much to progress one step Horizontally as it does Vertically. But right now, switching from Berserkers to Carrion will cost just as much as progressing from Exotic to Ascended, regardless of whether ascended items are bought and sold.

You need to make it easier to change builds for ascended gear to stop choking horizontal progression. Either allow ascended items to switch stats (thus making them a huge quality of life increase, not just a stat boost), or allow players to collect stats in some way. Please note, collecting stats should be in game, not in the gem store. An item to unlock ALL the stats could be sold for gems, but you should not cut off decent quality of life improvements while simultaneously making it harder to achieve them in game. It’s rude.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Lets keep coming up with some awesome Horizontal Progression systemic ideas and also reward ideas?

Hmm……how about a Reputation System?

You keep trying to balance drop rates individually, but that results in people farming whatever turns out to be the best possible route to wealth. Meanwhile, adding block buffs doesn’t do anything for the out-of-the-way zones since people congregate in the optimal areas. But you could design a system where rewards were done from a top-down method and scattered across the world to encourage mobility. Like so…

Remove the champion reward boxes (don’t panic!), remove the world boss bonus chests (stay with me!), and remove the PvE Monthly Reward (hold on, don’t go anywhere!). In its place, add Reputation.

Reputation is a series of monthly meta achievements corresponding to the different factions. Each meta achievement has 100 tiers with a chest of goodies per tier, and is fed by a series of different activities for that zone. The individual achievements are logarithmic, becoming less rewarding over time. Reputation resets every month, though there is a permanent achievement reward for maxing it out. For example…

Seraph Reputation
-Slay Bandit champions.
-Slay Centaur champions.
-Slay Ettin champions.
-Slay Underworld and Demon champions.
-Complete unique events in Queensdale, Kessex, Gendarran, and Harathi Hinterlands.
-Complete unique group events in human territory.
-Defeat miscellaneous champion threats (anything not considered a racial foe) in human territory.
-Defeat the Shadow Behemoth.
-Defeat Ulgoth, champion of the Modniir.
-Explore unique jumping puzzles in human territory.

Every time you complete one of the minor achievements, you receive a tic on the Reputation track and a choice between several different bonus chests (for basic crafting components, rare components, ascended components, random valuables, etc). The requirements themselves go up over time. Initially you must defeat one champion for a single tic, but soon it becomes two, then three, etc. Likewise, the same event cannot be farmed over and over again since it demands unique events, and the world bosses stop providing the reward after a few tics.

Other Reputation tracks include the Sentinels, Wolfborn, Peacemakers, Wardens, Lionguard, and the Pact (unlocked through the personal story to make people stop skipping it), thus covering 100% of Tyria and the various Flame Legion/Branded/Inquest/Nightmare Court/Krait/Icebrood/Destroyer/Sons of Svanir/Risen threats encountered across the world.

With this system, the key to getting excellent rewards is to do things you haven’t done yet. It favors diversity rather than repetition, providing benefits for people who go off the beaten path. It also allows people to approach rewards at their own pace. You can spend an afternoon slaughtering champions and be well rewarded for your efforts, but you can’t farm champions for several hours every day the entire month and expect a consistent reward stream. The Wolfborn stop being impressed when you bring in the 274th Icebrood Quaggan head. On the other hand, you can just wander around and explore while still being rewarded for completing the new activities and new events you find through random wandering. Likewise, you can max out different Reputation tracks throughout the month in different ways, so you never feel too burdened by tedium.

Play Your Way suddenly becomes absolutely true and forms the backbone for rewards.

Malediktus.9250:

I think the game needs more statistical character progression. More item tiers, higher level cap, more traits. Ascended is not very useful. 5% extra stats is not worth the effort, I suggest making it 20%.

Arbitrary number increases are just an illusion.

If you’re fighting a Level 80 Icebrood Wolf with 100,000 HP and your Ascended Greatsword that deals 1000 damage per hit, then one year later fighting a Level 120 Icebrood Wolf Lord with 1,000,000 HP with an Epic Greatsword that deals 10,000 damage per hit……absolutely nothing has changed. The only difference is the amonut of time it takes to get to that Epic Greatsword to “earn” the right to access the content.

If they add Level 90, nothing will change. We’ll advance to level 90, break previous builds and make new ones, fight Level 90 monsters that use the same AI and mechanics, and grind for new gear. Then someone will get bored and ask for them to spice things up by increasing the cap to 100. Rinse, repeat.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Lets keep coming up with some awesome Horizontal Progression systemic ideas and also reward ideas?

Well, since Evee already brought up the skill customization most adeptly, I’ll throw Home Instance Improvement into the mix.

You have the code for "if X condition is met, item Y appears in the home instance* as demonstrated by the quartz node. This is a gold mine for rewarding achievements and activities in a more vibrant manner. Use several buildings or locations within each home instance as designated spots to transform based on the player’s completed objectives.

For instance, a hunting lodge area might reflect the Slayer achievements. If I gain Drake Slayer, a mounted broodmother’s head is added to the wall as a trophy. The community achievements could by the tavern growing and improving with new furnishings and new products. When you implement the skin wardrobe, an Armory might contain copies of all the weapons and armor the player owns, thus allowing a collector to view they massive armament ensemble stretching from wall to wall.

It can also serve as an economic incentive. You might construct a garden to let players plant different harvesting nodes, but the amount of space each one takes up is directly related to their rarity. Thus, I could add lots of Herbal Seedlings or Gummo Saplings, but only one Ghost Pepper or Mithril Node for a block of space.

And finally, it could be an excellent way to sell convenience in a simple format. With a “Return to my Home Instance” and “Leave my Home Instance” button that functions just like the Heart of the Mists trigger, you could allow players to use their home as a hub for their activities without losing their current adventuring location. Meanwhile, you add Merchant, Repair, Trade Post, and Grocer (sells all unlocked karma food bundles) to the gem store, giving people a permanent service access for a nice price. Oh, and sell an Unlimited Total Makeover Contract in the store there as well, because if you’re willing to give people an unlimited contract selling for the price of a legendary via holiday-only RNG, you might as well use the same tech to pay rent.

The simple problem with the current system is that Horizontal Progression is just as expensive and resource-intensive as Vertical Progression. If I want to switch from ascended Power/Precision/CritDamage to ascended Power/Precision/Toughness, the game requires me to build a completely new item from the ground up for the exact same amount of resources I spent going from exotic to ascended. This means that every time more ascended gear is added in, it becomes harder to gear up more builds and more alts. In other words, the current Vertical Progression is strangling Horizontal Progression.

Many posters have already offered good solutions, but I’ll embellish just a bit.

1) Use the Legendaries-switch-stats tech you already possess to let Ascended gear swap stats.

Earning your first Ascended armor set should be a significant investment. Earning your third armor set to allow you to run more than one build should not be so. For the love of Melandru’s Magnificent Melons, give Ascended gear stat swapping by default, or allow it to “absorb” stats from cheaper, more widely distributed items to gain more stat combinations. Anything less makes horizontal progression simply intolerable.

2) Give us lvl 500 Jeweler, and let us make Legendary accessories that swap stats.

You’ve left this crafting discipline in the dust ever since fractals first appeared and it became obsolete. Give it some well deserved revenge. Let Jewelers break down ascended trinkets into something like Chaos Diamonds, and convert bundles of every gemstone and these diamonds into Legendary Trinket equipment. This should not be as significant a grind as armor and weapons since they have no inherent stat increase over current best-in-slot gear, but it will allow far more flexibility if Jewelers can create kaleidoscopic rings, amulets, accessories, and back pieces.

3) When you separate PvP stats from skins, apply this change across all content.

We used to have twenty to thirty different skin options for maximum stat weaponry, now there are two. We used to have eight dungeon armors, WvW armor, karma armor, crafted sets, and random drops with different appearances, now there is one. I realize this is probably lovely for your transmutation crystal sales, but I’m a little tired of getting fleeced giving you money to solve a problem you created. Split skins and stats completely and use the PvP locker to create aesthetic storage space, and millions will cheer your name.

Horizontal Progression should not demand the same resources as Vertical Progression. Changing stats should be far easier than climbing upwards to another tier of power. Horizontal progress is all about flexibility and expansion, thus the system of acquiring it should be just as adaptable and verdant.

Random infographics added for inspiration.

Pyroatheist.9031:

Mimic gets its strength from an incredibly low cooldown and a dual functionality. Using the skill basically turns you into a mobile shield for 4.5 seconds every 20 (if traited). You reflect all projectiles, you block everything else. It’s the single most incredible defensive skill that mesmers have, and it can produce some impressive results when used properly.

In that case, wouldn’t it be easier to remove the entire mimicry angle? The entire premise of having a major defensive skill require being hit by a projectile before it begins blocking other attacks is rather absurd. Instead, we could simply have…

Mirage Cloak: gain distortion.

Exact same defensive function, no absurdity, works everywhere with the push of a button. Later on, they can revise the entire “mimicry” angle to allow the Mesmer to imitate an opponent by either stealing one of their utility skills or gaining a phantom version of the enemy’s weapon bar. An elite skill that transforms you into a foe would be amazing, but it’s a concept for another day.

Nike.2631:

Please take this as encouragement, but also thoughtful review.

You know the maxim ‘success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration’?

A lot of this is 1% work. Top level goals are exciting, but they’re also comparatively easy. My own experience is that really good ideas carry closer to a 3% : 97% ratio and while I think most of these are really good ideas, they still prompt at least 30 times as much work to make them happen as they take to come up with..

Believe me, I agree with you 100%. Implementation trumps inspiration every time. Anyone can dream of something beautiful, but it is the skill to create that beauty and share it with others that really matters. Nothing you see here will miraculously fix the Living Story. Only the skilled hands of talented craftsman can make that happen.

But that’s not my goal here. My aim is something more specific. I’m not here to do a big post saying “drop what you’re doing and hire me to tell you what to do”, because that would be extremely arrogant and absurdly silly. Instead, I’m trying to prove a point. When they started the Living Story, they decided that it wouldn’t touch any of the Personal Story events or characters, wouldn’t interact with the dragon slaying timeline, would draw a big box around their current material marked “Nothing Changes Here”. My point is that this decision had good intentions, but it was a colossal disaster. It is the reason we can’t have nice things.

My goal is not to claim that my meager capabilities are better than Anet’s storytellers. It is to remind those storytellers that the world of Tyria evokes joy in its playerbase, that their love of Guild Wars is based upon its magnificent history and wondrous mysteries. It is to prove that Tyria is better than this thing we slog through today, that the writers of Anet have a beautiful and vibrant world that already lives and breathes and yearns to dance upon the storyteller’s parchment. My goal is to use their lore and their world building to create a reminder that there are still god realms and gargoyles, undead empires and druid mysteries, lost continents and new alliances, places on the map labelled Here There Be Dragons!

I don’t want them to tell my story. My story would be absurd. I want them to keep telling the wonderful stories I have been enjoying since the last day dawned upon the kingdom of Ascalon and a naive little monk set out to save the kingdom, the story of a world called Tyria.
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And speaking of Tyria…

The following are more campaign possibilities to demonstrate the system’s longevity. It isn’t organized into specific years, but instead presents four possible standard campaigns to fit withing the normal season. The second section is a demonstration about how the season concept can be altered to fit different stories, allowing interludes, transition, or escalation of a conflict that avoids solving a given problem in a mere five months. It isn’t a fleshed out schedule, but I could go over the previous ones and break down specific details of what they could mechanically implement if you’d like.

Warning: vast amounts of conjecture ahead.

My apologies for my long absence from the thread. Visiting relatives and a return to work and all that. Though it has given me the chance to do some writing…

jsduke.6537:

PS should have limited it’s scope to the area where the character starts their journey, with perhaps some brief forays out into the wider world. The Human PS should have been about Queen Jenna’s tenuous grasp of power in Divinity’s Reach. The Sylvari PS should have been about dealing with the Nightmare Court and Caithe’s ties to their leadership. The Norn PS should have been about… Norn stuff… ale or something… That way PS could have developed the NPCs and lore of the respective races and left Zhaitan for the first “dragon campaign” to kick off the start of the Living World content. That’s the fix it needs. That’s the fix that works.

As several others have already pointed out, the concept of merging the Personal and Living Stories was not meant to diminish the Personal, only enliven the Living. By returning to the original premise of Guild Wars 2, the game can give the Living Story a meaningful exploration of the world and all its wonders.

But I would also like you to consider that my plan can also make room for what you describe. It would be quite easy to have a Personal Story September of something of that effect, where one month per year is devoted to adding an excellently told, meaningful story specifically about the player. For example, one year may devote an entire month to presenting everyone with a good story based on their race, while another could be based on their Order or Profession.

In this way, we get the best of both worlds. Everyone can band together for campaigns to save the world, but also develop personal ties to NPCs and experience meaningful choices about who they are as individual heroes.

PopeUrban.2578:

I’m not convinced of the longevity of the specifics of plot, but I agree on two core points of all this:.

This is a fair concern. My posts so far have been very focused on the dragons, since they are an immediate threat that will continue to plague all of Tyria until they go away. There are plenty of other stories to tell after they are slain, of course, though I haven’t demonstrated them. But I suppose I will have to do a bit better to prove that and demonstrate what sort of storytelling Tyria can unveil once the dragons are slain.

Qawsada.4251:

One suggestion, you would really put the other three years you suggested in your OP. Those are extremely wonderful and it shouldn’t be buried in the forum.

An excellent idea, will do that as soon as possible. Though there will soon be a little more than three years…

I’ll be back soon.