Guild Wars 2

Fror.2163:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Ethics.4519:

>An idea is created, shared, and implemented well, on time.

Interesting this was missing form your list =)

As I mentioned in my last post, things go wrong, or maybe someone thought of a better way of doing it. Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t seem to realise this.

Not to mention they actually told us before the year was up that the precursor crafting would be pushed back.

And they did notify us in time, like 4-6 weeks before the end of the year, not 2 days.

On that, I really appreciate how they improved regarding communication. Now if they could improve on giving feedback about the fractured update, I’d be very grateful as well!

Unfortunately, ANet ‘promised’ that it would be in before the end of 2013. I mean, it wasn’t like the blog was a statement of intention, and it’s not like they said that things might be pushed back.

I think they could do a feedback thread after every update. Would be more useful that 10 different threads about the exact same thing.

Ethics.4519:

>An idea is created, shared, and implemented well, on time.

Interesting this was missing form your list =)

As I mentioned in my last post, things go wrong, or maybe someone thought of a better way of doing it. Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t seem to realise this.

Not to mention they actually told us before the year was up that the precursor crafting would be pushed back.

Ethics.4519:

Vol.7601:

Do I have to keep posting the disclaimer or are you guys going to conveniently ignore it?

•“As always, the content above is subject to change as we test and iterate on these systems.” *

That doesn’t really make it okay.

Why can’t THIS be the issue we have? It’s the face that they say all these things are coming, but then say they might, and they don’t. What’s the point of discussing them, when more often then not, it doesn’t happen.

Although my post was removed, I made some valid points about the overall feel the company gives off through posts, actions, and comments made which just makes the playerbase/customer feel let down. This whole “Here are a bunch of things we’re going to do in 2013” that don’t happen feels like just another item on the list. Not to mention the players repeatedly defending them with “Well, they didn’t give an actual deadline, and they said it was subject to change” is just sad.

> Something gets pushed it back to refine it and make sure it works properly, people complain about how promises weren’t kept.
> It gets rushed out of the door in order to meet the deadline so people don’t complain about how promises weren’t kept, people complain it’s been poorly implemented.

Not to mention that if they mention things might be pushed back, than people should accept that as a possibility, and not come with the torches and pitchforks about how they didn’t keep their ‘promises’ about implementing X, Y and Z.

You know, things can go wrong, or other ideas can pop up on how to improve something.

Adine.2184:

So what you want Heart so you can summon captain planet or something?

Either him or Bruce Willis.

LotuS.4378:

wow people still believe in AN ?

sad community.

I’d say it’s the people who stick around the forums just to post snarky little comments about how the game sucks are the ones who bring the community down, alongside those who attack every little critisism.

Kevan.8912:

tolunart.2095:

knives.6345:

This is the most ignored sentence in the announcement:

“As always, the content above is subject to change as we test and iterate on these systems.”

Just saying…

This is the internet. “We’re thinking we might try something like X in the future,” means “We absolutely guarantee that we will have X ready within a week.”

it’s not correct.
nobody (or at least, not the larger part of players) is really whining about what anet didn’t yet deliver because a delay.
people complain about what THEY DID against what was quite clearly a promise,
as they sold the game to thousands of people thanks of it, people like me that if knew about grinding for BiS (i stress it once again. some of you are trying to convince other people that ascend\infuse is not required, and it’s optional. and everybody knews they are mandatory) exotics and legendaries, would never buy the game.

You’re in the wrong thread, mate. The Manifesto one is over there somewhere.

The OP of this thread is about the blog-post where ANet outlined what they wanted to do in 2013, and how many of these ‘promises’ (read: intentions) they implemented.

From the Wiki:

All sigils that have a cooldown share the same cooldown timer; while the timer is active, no other sigil with a cooldown can trigger. For example, if you are using a Sigil of Fire (flame burst on critical) and a Sigil of Battle (might stacks on swap), you will have to wait after swapping weapons (Sigil of Battle activated) before the flame burst can trigger on critical.

• Sigils will enter cooldown even if you do not gain any benefit. For example, a Sigil of Purity will trigger and enter the 10s cooldown even when the wearer has no conditions.
• All things equal, the mainhand cooldown sigil will trigger before the offhand cooldown sigil.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Lot’s of really cool ideas here to. I really like the carpentry idea which you and others have mentioned in the past. In regard to the idea about bosses that learn. Do they learn within the world they reside in for example SoR or is it level based like in fractals or based on an item the group has (essentially gated)

Chris

Could vary?

Learning through Multiple Encounters

Gating

Although, given the only programming I know is ‘Hello World!’ in C++, I can’t begin to imagine how much work something like that would take to implement.

DiogoSilva.7089:

And the best way to execute that idea, would be to take the chance to evolve or diversify the dynamic event system each release.

What I mean by this is, I don’t want simply 100 more events that play exactly the same way that old events already work.

Instead, I would like to see new kinds of events. More map-wide events (like scarlet’s), non-linear event chains, longer-lasting (= more permanent) event chains, more detailed and ambicious event chains, more challenging events with new strategies in order to beat them, more or new kinds of guild-driven events, and maybe even events to get materials for housing, etc.

And of course, event-specific rewards to make players more excited to go through as many different events as possible. Getting a shiny new sword from beating an evil knight in one event, and receiving a food buff as a meal offered by a man for us having saved their house in another event, are far more interesting than generic gold and karma only. This gets even more exciting when specific events can offer unique recipes, skins, etc. It makes players actively trying to hunt as many of them to see what they bestow.

Currently, because of the event reward system alone, there’s no incentives to search and hunt for new events.

What about events that evolve depending on how many times they’ve been done, with the rewards only being given out for actually beating the event at the top tier?

A suggestion as old as the forums themselves

Chris Whiteside.6102:

TheDaiBish.9735:

How specific are you looking for when we’re choosing our one?

Would ‘Expanding Ascended Gear’ count as one, for example, even though this could include:

• Giving different play modes the chance to Ascend Exotics (granted, this is Vertical) to not force people into crafting.
• Giving players the chance to unlock stats and upgrades on a single set of armour in a way unique to that play-mode.

Absolutely as long as the macro level design also included information about the more micro level of design you included in your post.

Chris

Thanking you.

Right…left…diagonal…

My one would probably have to be: Traits and Skill Progression.

Including, but not limited to:

On the Skills side of things:

and a note on providing a reason for new skills

How specific are you looking for when we’re choosing our one?

Would ‘Expanding Ascended Gear’ count as one, for example, even though this could include:

• Giving different play modes the chance to Ascend Exotics (granted, this is Vertical) to not force people into crafting.
• Giving players the chance to unlock stats and upgrades on a single set of armour in a way unique to that play-mode.

The Lost Witch.7601:

I bet the ‘limited’ amount of skins isn’t due to a lack of ideas. And coming up with concept design is probably not even a burden! Modeling them for the game, dealing with clipping issues, stuff like that… that’s probably the burdensome part.

I’d say this is all the more reason to allow players to design and submit models, as opposed to concept art, since players aren’t under the same time constraints as the devs.

Lorelei.3918:

1. Too many apologists. You can’t grow unless you acknowledge your shortcomings.

Kinda got sick of all the "Guild wars too is so awesum’ posts. We need some balance in the force.

Question: Are apologists those who defend even the most ridiculous of decisions, or those who simply defend decisions you don’t agree with?

There’s the other side of it as well. There are too many people who stick around to just make little comments that don’t help whatsoever.

Also, I’d say there are more posts critisising GW2 than posts saying what it does right.

Lorelei.3918:

2. PvE gameplay is too cut and dry, the lore is shallow and uninvolving. To qualify; even as a die hard pvper I liked raiding in wow because it was a large team effort and because the lore read like a novel, not like a series of random short stories.

Eh, although the story isn’t all that well written, for the most part they are all tied in with one another.

I’d also say it’s a failure if a game tells the story like any other media. Since games are interactive, they should tell the story while playing. Not make the player stop to watch a cut-scene or read a wall of text.

Although I do agree more could be done in the PvE aspect to encourage teamwork.

Lorelei.3918:

3. sPvP still plays like it did during launch. WvW players are still a poor and malnourished welfare class. If you care about these two modes of game play at all then this shouldn’t need any explanation.

Only played SPvP for a few games. Not really my thing.

You should explain the shortcomings, simply because your views on what needs improving may be different to someone else.

Personally, I feel WvW could use more sandbox elements (building forts of your own design instead of having them already built, not limited as to where you can build ect), along with more map variety (make a bank of maps, select from them at random, mist over the map).

Finally, rewards for winning, for example, Influence for the guilds that participated, bonus WXP. That sort of thing. I’m not a rewards driven guy, but I do recognise the winner should get something.

Azure Prower.8701:

TheDaiBish.9735:

And now you’re getting somewhere on the constructive front.

How would the jumping puzzles be ‘uniquely’ designed? How would the encounters from GW1 be worked into GW2? How would the lore be presented?

Any thing that is not a re-skin as you were referring to.
The remains of Glint’s cave. The city of where the doppelganger was fought. See how they stood the sands of time.

But if you’re referring to story lore. Lol. It’ll probably be bad as always. No one is really expecting much out of the story aspect of Guild Wars 2 any more. Trehearne and Scarlet saw to that.

Putting aside the fact I think they used Scarlett and not established lore as a good thing, the Crystal Desert has lore left, mainly the spear made from Kralky’s spine, and Glint’s child. These could be addressed.

I don’t think it’s a case of the need to borrow designers.

I’d say it’s more a case they’re limited by time to model armour to each race.

Not to mention I personally don’t like the aesthetic of armour from Aion and Vindictus.

Azure Prower.8701:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Azure Prower.8701:

TheDaiBish.9735:

It was more an example of how the Crystal Desert would be the same content as we have now, just with a different paint job.

The exact thing you’ve said you’ve grown tired of.

Different paint job != stale paint job.

So basically, if the Crystal Desert was exactly like, say, Frostgorge Sound, just in a different setting, it would be OK?

With uniquely designed jumping puzzles, other puzzle gimmicks, lore and encounters reminiscent of the Crystal Desert from Guild Wars 1. Sure.

And now you’re getting somewhere on the constructive front.

How would the jumping puzzles be ‘uniquely’ designed? How would the encounters from GW1 be worked into GW2? How would the lore be presented?

Azure Prower.8701:

TheDaiBish.9735:

It was more an example of how the Crystal Desert would be the same content as we have now, just with a different paint job.

The exact thing you’ve said you’ve grown tired of.

Different paint job != stale paint job.

So basically, if the Crystal Desert was exactly like, say, Frostgorge Sound, just in a different setting, it would be OK?

Azure Prower.8701:

TheDaiBish.9735:

You got exploration now (unless you have 100% map completion, all jumping puzzles and mini-dungeons done ect). The only thing different would be the setting.

Well , I’ve done every thing you mentioned. So what now?

It was more an example of how the Crystal Desert would be the same content as we have now, just with a different paint job.

The exact thing you’ve said you’ve grown tired of.

Azure Prower.8701:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Azure Prower.8701:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Azure Prower.8701:

The old content is stale. The new content is just the old content slapped on with some stale paint.

So what would you define as new content?

The entirety of Crystal Desert.

Other than setting, what would be new about the Crystal Desert?

A new place to explore.

You got exploration now (unless you have 100% map completion, all jumping puzzles and mini-dungeons done ect). The only thing different would be the setting.

Azure Prower.8701:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Azure Prower.8701:

The old content is stale. The new content is just the old content slapped on with some stale paint.

So what would you define as new content?

The entirety of Crystal Desert.

Other than setting, what would be new about the Crystal Desert?

Azure Prower.8701:

The old content is stale. The new content is just the old content slapped on with some stale paint.

So what would you define as new content?

Question: Why not log in for the content you enjoy?

It’s structured differently, that’s why.

In GW, you could only have X amount of people in your party, and when you went into a map, that map would be created only for you.

However, in GW2, the maps are open-world, as in they populate everyone. The negatives to adding a hard-mode to the open-world would be splitting up the population moreso than it’s already have (WvW, Dungeons, SPvP, Servers ect), thus it becomes less an MMO, and more a Co-op game.

Not to mention:

a) all mobs would have to be retooled, have pathing added to groups and have their AI improved immensely.
b) they’d have to reprogram the game as to create personal instances for you and your party (which in turn increases things like server load).

However, vanquishing and hardmode in the form of Gambits (see Queen’s Jubilee Gauntlet) in dungeons. I could see that being a thing.

Also, an alternative to your taking longer to your suggestions:

• turn the map icons off. This gets rid of all map icons aside from waypoints.
• vanquishing in the form of vanquishing other things, such as species, or DE’s. Collect a book, go around completing events / killing one of each species, hand in completed book for reward.

Ben K.7329:

Hmm. Different variants of weapon skills unlocked by training quests with certain race NPCs.

Actually, I like that thought quite a lot. Some quests – like those – don’t have the problem of not changing anything about the world, because they’re innately supposed to affect one character (or party).

So… bring back (some types of) quests?

I mentioned in a previous post, there’s nothing inherently wrong with the traditional type of ‘quest’. When it’s used for personal progression, that’s great. Immersion-wise, it makes sense that that person would give that task to everyone who proves worthy ect. It’s just when they’re used for the ‘kill x threat that are just roaming around’ is when DE’s become the better tool.

It doesn’t even need to be quests all of the time (although I like the connotation of a quest to get Elite skills). It could be something like some of the skill point challenges. They could be tailored to the theme of that profession (Warrior fights, Guardian protects, Necro does a ritual to summon some fel beast ect).

Not only that, I think locking the skills behind a task that is engaging and gives the basics on how to use that skill adds more to the longevity of the game than simply UI > Unlock.

Chrispy.5641:

Then 1) why did you even try to explain how housing would work if you don’t want to discuss it?

You asked how is housing related to HP. I gave an example how it could be. I don’t need to have a vested interest in housing to give an example, do I?

2), If you mean all the Living World Skins, and the Gem Store Skins, so that way we don’t have to waste bank space, then I fully support it. If you mean some cheap, easily obtainable karma or crafted armor, I do not support.

Chrispy.5641:

I have 6 Armor sets for one of my characters (Berserker, Cleric, Magi, Rampager, Soldier, Rabid, + some Celestial and Apothecary), All have a different look. How is a Skin locker going to benefit me, if all my bank space is wasted anyways? Why should I be punished with zero bank space because I actually diversify my builds when every other player only wears Beserker’s armor and refuses to diversify? What actual benefit will any player see from being able to change their look on the fly, Other than Vanity? (These are questions that you need to answer beyond a reasonable doubt, otherwise, there will be plenty of nonbelievers. Not just me)

Well, firstly, since there isn’t a definite way yet as to how the wardrobe system would work, how can anyone answer beyond reasonable doubt.

Likewise, because there isn’t a concrete system, you can’t say that it wouldn’t be useful to you, or it would punish you, or whatever, when in fact the system that gets implemented may very well benefit you.

Say for example, a wardrobe template system and a build template system were merged together? The wardrobe templates would actually be able to store gear and not simply skins, and you’d be able to tie a build (traits and skills) to that set of gear.

nexxe.7081:

Ronah.2869:

Don’t get your hopes too high man, this is just a catch so people don’t leave the forums. They didn’t need this CDI if they would have replied to the suggestions people have made over the time in the suggestion forum
Everything that has been suggested in here in these CDI threads can be found hundreds of times in Suggestions but they invented this CDI when people lost hope that they ever read any suggestions.

It is just a move they made to keep people calm down and not spread some bad marketing about the game. It is just a psychological manipulation of the vocal community because the others are not interested in the future of the game: they play or quit playing depending on likes and dislikes but don’t forge their opinion on hopes

CDI is actually more productive. It’s consolidated into one thread, instead of having literally hundreds of pages of threads to sift through.

Not to mention the CDI’s are focused on one topic, as opposed to every area of the game.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Skin Locker

If you only had one unlocked when you log in, then by the end of your play session you have 3, then you’ve progressed, so to speak.

What I’d like to see when this happens: Milestones. It probably takes forever to complete a collection, so I’d give players certain rewards for completing milestones.

This way progression doesn’t feel endless (like it does now for Legendaries – at least to me personally).

And the title for when you unlock everything would be ‘Got Nothing To Wear’. :P

Chrispy.5641:

How is Vanity going to benefit/affect ALL the Players in the game when its released? half of the community wants housing, and the other half doesn’t care about it, and wants nothing to do with it.

How do you get past that? Not a single person on this thread has been able to get past that issue.

Well, the question I was responding to was how do these systems relate to HP. That’s what my answers were based on. Not how they affect other people.

Housing, personally, I don’t care about.

A wardrobe system is incredibly beneficial to most players though.

Even if a player doesn’t use it now because they have one look and they stick with that one look, in the future another set of armour / weapons may come out that they may like, and so they’ll want to keep them.

Chrispy.5641:

Skin Locker and Housing, although, no one’s been able to explain very well how that’s related to Horizontal Progression in any way.

It’s kind of like a record, if you will.

Skin Locker

If you only had one unlocked when you log in, then by the end of your play session you have 3, then you’ve progressed, so to speak.

Housing

You start with a plain house.

You go punch something / someone in the face, wreck it’s day, and you get an achievement for it. As well as the achievement, you get one of it’s teeth to put on display in your house. It’s basically a more visual form of titles.

Rather than an actual progression system, they’re tools and groundwork to help show progression made on the cosmetic side of things, and can easily be added to in the future.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Dominus,

I don’t think the idea is ‘Just’ a Wardrobe. I think it is supporting functionality to an existing system (Skin Collection) that I would like to see expanded upon (Personal Opinion).

I think a lot of play could also come out of Wardrobe functionality. However I wanted to keep my list to 3 macro ideas and I believe Wardrobe would potentially compliment/support them.

Chris

What about if the wardrobe also had another system built in, where you could store your favourite mix and match armour and weapon skins in, as well as their dye channels? Kind of like a template so you don’t have to individually withdraw skins to get your look?

For example:

Template 1 might have the Vigil Boots, Trousers and Helm, and the Orr Karma Shoulders, Chest and Gloves with Red and Black Dye.
Template 2 might have the CoF Boots, Trousers and Chest, and the Hellfire Gloves, Helm and Shoulders, with Black Dye.

videoboy.4162:

I think if they can sort out the legal stuff that comes with it (ownership and copyrighting, for example) this would be a great idea. Even better if the modelling could be done by the player.

A couple of other positives I could see coming out of this are:

• Quality – Since players aren’t under the same constraints as the devs, they can make an armour set fit specifically for the races (eg, Charr clipping issues)
• Variety

I’m not entirely sure about this, but I think that if a player’s design was chosen, they were given a free copy of said design. [/quote]

Or, if implemented into GW2, maybe some gems?

Personally, I don’t think any designs of the players should go into the gem-store, and if they were given straight into the player, it might spoil part of the fun of unlocking it.

Or, give the player an option: x amount of gems of an immediate set of armour.

videoboy.4162:

@ Marcus

You know what I’d really like? A while back, I saw another poster (in an entirely different thread) mention that he’d played MMOs that let their players download kits. The kits allowed the players to design their own armor and weapons, then submit then to the Game Devs. Apparently, this worked out very well, because it allowed the players to become more invested in the game, while saving the game itself money on designs.
Also, before I bought Augur Stones earlier today, my main had 500 SP.

I think if they can sort out the legal stuff that comes with it (ownership and copyrighting, for example) this would be a great idea. Even better if the modelling could be done by the player.

A couple of other positives I could see coming out of this are:

• Quality – Since players aren’t under the same constraints as the devs, they can make an armour set fit specifically for the races (eg, Charr clipping issues)
• Variety

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I think this is one of the biggest challenges, to create meaningful content in the existing zones which doesn’t involve / doesn’t feel grind(y).

I also think that Anet misses a lot of opportunities for content. The new healing skills… you simply unlock them for a few skillpoints. My main has more than 100 skillpoints. Why not just create 8 new npcs with small dialogues and (non grindy) tasks to unlock the ability to buy the new skill with skillpoints?

All the UI unlocks are missed opportunities imho, when not earned through interesting gameplay with a lore explanation. What if we get new weapons unlocked for our professions without any task, any explanation, any challenge? I’d be disappointed for sure.

I think GW1 had a few good missions in Factions to unlock some skills, for example, having to survive 2 minutes while using them skills.

Maybe there’s a skill that exploits a certain aspect (for example, Knockdown), and in order to learn the skill, they have to use it X amount of times.

Nike.2631:

Nike.2631:

Maybe a “CDI Contest”, where instead of limiting things to a first, second, and third place winner, every player who suggests a Rune that is adopted into the game would get a set of 6 or 12 of them as the prize. With players sometimes wondering what the benefits of contributing to a CDI are, maybe a little in-game loot would inspire them

TheDaiBish.9735:

Why stop at runes?

• Skills
• Traits
• Armour and Weapon Sets
• DE’s
• Fractals
• World Boss revamps

It’d certainly give me something to do on the quiet days in work :P

Its not really a question of where to stop, but where to start. Runes have a lot of advantages over those other game-aspects.

• They are tightly formatted (easy to lay out correctly)
• Their effects are mostly formulaic (easy to check for correctness)
• They reach across professions unless specifically designed to only key to certain tags.
• There is no presumption of symmetry – introducing new weapons or new skills there’s an expectation you’d do so in sets of 8, but with runes you can add them individually.
• They take the form of loot, making them easy to use as the reward for their own creation .

I’m sure all of the things you’ve listed will be CDI topics over time, but none of them are as simple to implement. Runes are very… compact.

Touche. Touche indeed.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

something interesting I found when looking for another source:

why there are no quests in GW2:

Why did we get rid of quests? We got rid of quests because it forced the world to not change. Every new player that comes into the game has to do the same quests in the same order. How do you try to do that and have the sense that a player’s actions can change the world? Sure my actions can change the world to a certain degree, but not in the sense of ever changing a quest or the circumstances that are causing a quest-giver to say they need your help. So we thought that the kind of content that you release into the world needs to be the opposite of that. It can’t be something that when players run out of things to do we give them more challenges that they need to grind out to do and that add another 100 hours to the game. It just doesn’t work. If you want to be able to have players impacting the world around them, not just progressing and leaving the old stuff behind, then all of your content needs to be about impacting the world." source: http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=32955&storypage=2

relevant because players suggested Order-quests

Personally, I think quests in the traditional sense could be used specifically for personal progression.

While it generally doesn’t make sense to have ‘kill 10 of these’ quests (unless you have to prove yourself or something), having a quest to, say, gather parts for a weapon skin unique to your profession, or unlock a crafting recipe, isn’t all that immersion breaking, since it makes sense that that quest would be repeated by many people.

AlanaTheStrange.1463:

These are the perhaps-not-so-horizontal ideas that people still would like to see:

Stat Swapping 8

Eh, I’d argue that stat-swapping, if implemented in such a way that you unlock the stats instead of just being granted them, is a form of Horizontal Progression in the sense it’s broadening your options.

Depends on what type of look you’d consider ‘best’, really.

Do you like a more refined, traditional plate look? Some skin showing? Spikes and fire everywhere?

Dulfy is a good place to look for weapon and armour skins.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Is it really that important to recognize a profession by the armor it’s wearing?

Well, since armour isn’t profession specific anyway, I can’t see why it would be.

Laurelinde.4395:

My suspicion is that transmutation crystals are one of Guild Wars 2’s biggest-selling gem store items, so they may not want to jeopardise sales by implementing something along those lines.

What about if they changed the functionality of the Trans stones?

From merging two pieces of gear, allowing you to choose certain aspects (skin, stats and upgrade) to extracting the skin on that piece of gear without destroying it? Then add functionality to the Master + Mystic Salvage kits to extract the skin, while destroying the item.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Ronah.2869:

No I want a warrior with a scepter and dagger summoning minions

Then give the warrior the new weapon scepter which has a dark-theme (summoning minions) and a dagger.

Or simply don’t tie the look of armour to the rating (light / medium / heavy) / have different advantages to different armours, and then have a Necro with heavy armour look.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

@ people who want more skills (me included): Currently professions have about 70 skills (here: Guardian, included underwater skills). To develop that number of skills the devs needed literally years…

… and then guys come along and demand 40 new skills per profession. Seriously? How can this be feasible in any way? I’d love 40 new skills per profession, but I think more realistic would be a new weapon (3-5 skills) per profession and maybe 1-5 utility skills… and I assume this takes quite a while to design and balance.

Firstly, I don’t think the devs spent that many years on the skills for professions alone. I’d have wagered the people who developed the skills also done the environmental weapons, and traits as well, maybe even the runes and sigils too.

Secondly, I don’t think anyone who wants new skills (myself included) is expecting them straight away. If they are, then they’re just being a tad silly.

Swagger.1459:

2- gw2 could use more ability and weapon buttons to press on the bar. I suggest something like this…
*#1-10 would be used for individual or multiple weapon skills.
*f1-f4 mechanics bar
*f5 heal skill
*f6 aoe/team heal skill
*f7-f10 utility skills
*f11 &f12 elite skills
*a 3rd weapon swap option would be great as well.

For the love of the Six, please no.

I can’t see how adding more buttons to press would add anything to the game.

Nike.2631:

Maybe a “CDI Contest”, where instead of limiting things to a first, second, and third place winner, every player who suggests a Rune that is adopted into the game would get a set of 6 or 12 of them as the prize. With players sometimes wondering what the benefits of contributing to a CDI are, maybe a little in-game loot would inspire them

Why stop at runes?

• Skills
• Traits
• Armour and Weapon Sets
• DE’s
• Fractals
• World Boss revamps

It’d certainly give me something to do on the quiet days in work :P

Peetee.9406:

I don’t mean to sound rude but if you’re coming to the forums already asking questions and you aren’t even level 5 yet. This game isn’t for you.

‘I don’t mean to sound rude…’ is usually followed by something rude.

I’m trying to wrap my brain around the logic of a game not being for someone simply because they’re new and they’re asking questions because they’re unsure of things…

Firstly, welcome

1. My only advice is do everything. Hearts and the Personal Story alone won’t level you up fully. You need to do Events as well. Gathering and crafting also grant XP.

2. Yeah, damage will be low. Melee damage tends to be higher than ranged, although it won’t be all that noticeable yet. As well as this, when you’re levelling, don’t go upgrading your gear every 2 – 3 levels – the stat difference isn’t worth it.

3. Your starter zone caters to levels 1 – 15.

Conner.4702:

Shadow Blade.1324:

i remember you guys talking about endgame horizontal progression before maybe look at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIExN1GZK_Q
that lasted what 2 months? how long will anything from this cdi last? before you nerf it and promote gold farming for “economic reasons”

given the treatment of the vertical component of this discussion where inconvenient commonly discussed points were flat out ignored, and the most common dev posts were a variation of “im really busy with the holidays will read/reply later” its clear this will be marginalized with a token feature and “we listened to your feedback” when you introduce more unpopular changes.

many of the proposals in this thread have been discussed again and again over the last year
and you guys are always reading the forum’s right?, so its not like its new information, you have not taken action so far, we should believe you will now why exactly? your track record isn’t exactly good at this point, its not even average.

at this point i think this has degenerated into a PR exercise and you wont actually do anything substantial, so im no longer interested in taking you through game design basics you should already know.

Sadly this is how I see it at the moment. I do not feel this initiative is serious no matter how many times it is said to be taken serious. Simply because the actions do not reflect the words. Asking for a top 3 after 17 pages of ideas looks more like not wanting to go through it themselves and all that it accomplishes is rehashing the same old that has been talked about already without rhyme or reason.

Well, this took longer than I thought it would.

You’re neglecting the positives of them having us just list our top 3.

Firstly, it’s easier to total what the majority of the posters feel are the general key issues (not specific solutions), instead of attempting to do that with 17 pages worth of padded-out ideas.

Secondly, after doing this, they can then use this thread to look at the ideas for the top 3 (thanks to the generous people who have been summarising the thread), while weeding out the ideas that could work, can’t work, needs refining ect.

misterDEAN.3027:

I personally dont believe how romans used shields had any influence on how shields work in game. I doubt they had any thought past how do we make this a DPS item. I think they are just so focused on DPS they dont know what defense is.

Shield Skills:

• Shield Bash – Stuns an opponent. Defensive in the respect that a) while they’re stunned they can’t do anything and b) interrupting an attack. Not to mention bashing with a shield was a tactic used by the Romans.
• Shield Stance – It blocks attacks. Unsure how this isn’t defensive.
• Shield of Judgement – It gives Protection as well as damaging.
• Shield of Absorption – It pushes enemies away and blocks projectiles.
• Magnetic Shield → Magnetic Inversion – Projectile Reflect and pushback.
• Static Shield → Throw Shield – Stuns attackers, dazes everyone it hits when thrown.

Shield Traits for all classes increases Toughness.

Unsure how you see the shield as a DPS weapon, to be honest. Unless you’re definition of ‘defense’ is strictly how much damage the shield can passively reduce, stunning, dazing, knocking back, giving Protection and blocking are all forms of defense.

What I think happened was, Tyria is kind of like a game of Pokemon to the Gods, and when the horses started to evolve, they forgot to press B.

Totally true, maybe slightly fabricated story.

Serious answer, I dunno. I mean, we had Necrid Horsemen and Banished Dream Riders in GW1. They must of got that form from somewhere, right?

Devata.6589:

“The healer doesn’t focus on what the Tank or DPS are doing, right?”

Not right. There are keeping an eye on everybody making sure nobodies heal drops and keeping there own cool-down for skins in mind.

I am not sure what you mean with 2. But the difference between having roles or not is that without the fight simply becomes less interesting. More of smashing keys then actually thinking about the fight, keeping an eye on things (except for your own HP).

And yes they all have some overlapping skills but thats nothing like it is in GW2 where they all have the same role but do have some difference in classes / skills. What you describe in your combat situation is the opposite of what we see in GW2.

I guess my experience with the Trinity differs from yours then (I’ve played all three roles at one point or another).

I guess you’re right about the healer (although part of the responsibility for both the DPS and Tank lies with themselves to not stand in the fire).

However, IMO it’s the DPS’s responsibility to manage their own aggro to keep it below the Tank’s, thus not get attacked.

As for tanks keeping an eye on mobs, yes. They keep an eye on mobs. Not every teammate to make sure they aren’t being attacked. Again, the responsibility to let the Tank know that something is happening to them, especially if the Tank doesn’t have a view of them.

The amount of times where a run has gone wrong because of certain team-members (Healer OOM and Tank not listening, DPS just standing in the fire, DPS attacking before tank has aggro / going full out right at the start ect), certain parts where you’ve said the responsibility lies with someone else, I couldn’t count.

Also, for number 2, I’m referring to what I’ve been referring to all along; roles within encounters instead of pre-defined roles.

Let’s use CoF1, changed up a little, as an example:

• Crystals grant regen (affected by Poison), damage reduction and condition removal every x seconds, with a shorter cooldown the more crystals there are (thus, giving more importance to this mechanic). Breaking these crystals will apply a stacking debuff that does a DoT that increases in intensity. This only kicks in when there are more than x amount of crystals.
• Effigy will try to attack the person breaking the crystals when the amount gets to the point he isn’t receiving the buff anymore.

You can have a number of roles in this fight:

• Someone to break the crystals. This role needs to be swapped throughout the fight because of the DoT. This requires either communication, or people to keep an eye on the guy breaking the crystals to know when to swap, with an order worked out before the fight (Damage)
• People to use CC when the amount of crystals. However, this is a part-time role, since it’s dependent on the amount of crystals, thus shouldn’t have a person dedicated to it at all times. (CC, Damage and Support)
• Damage to whittle down the bosses health. (Damage)
• To make it easier, someone to apply Poison to reduce the effect of the regen. (Debuff)

Now, in this fight, even though there are two damage ‘roles’, them two roles are different, and unique to this fight.

Now, lets compare it to, say, the Lover’s fight:

• The Lover’s gain health regen, damage reduction and increasing stats when within a certain radius of each other, with increasing potency. They try to move to each other on frequent occasions, but will give up after x amount of seconds.
• The Mesmer has a skill that deals damage based on how many conditions you have on you.
• The Ele has a skill that summons mini elementals, each applying a different condition (burn, chill, blind, bleed).

In this fight, you have completely different roles to the CoF fight:

• 2 Dedicated CC to keep the Lover’s away from each other OR 2 people to each lover, and they share responsibility of CCing, with one extra on the Elementalist in order to clear the elementals.
• 3 Damage dealers, who have dual responsibilities of damaging the lovers and killing the mini elementals.
• Condition removal, which is a shared responsibility due to how frequent the skill is cast, meaning players have to time their condition removal.

(An example of choice, and how players can choose their approach)

Now, as you see, the roles of the CoF Effigy fight and the AC Lover’s fight are different, created by the mechanics of the fight.

This is what I mean by having the encounters create mechanics, and not pre-ordaining groups to 1 control, 1 support and 3 dps.

As for your last comment about not seeing it in GW2, whenever my group first done instanced content, we’d always have one or two people with either a control weapon set, or a few control utilities, so if someone did go down, they could function as a controller until they got the person up. That’s where I got the example from.

Firstly, have you Ascended it?

Secondly, turning it into a Beta Fractal Capacitor:

• doesn’t change the stats.
• Gains an inherent +5 agony resistance
• Gains a cosmetic effect.

Finally, if you wish, you can go from the Beta Capacitor to the Fractal Capacitor, where the change is purely cosmetic. If you’re going to do this, don’t put an Infusion in the slot, since the slot resets, so you’ll lose that Infusion.

Devata.6589:

Problem is that you mainly have to be watching yourself not somebody else and the overall difficulty go’s down because there is less reliance on you specifically because of your special role. thats simply how it works out in GW2 at this moment.

1) In the Trinity you’re focusing on what you’re doing, relying on others to do their job. It’s exactly the same. The healer doesn’t focus on what the Tank or DPS are doing, right?

2) If them mechanics that create the roles in the encounters needed to be performed in order to beat the encounter, how is that any different to the Trinity?

Devata.6589:

Even in real combat situations there are many roles including healers (medics), tanks (tanks and other infantry), dps and many other roles at well. All working together and that just makes good teamwork.

However, let’s imagine one of those soldiers got injured. Suddenly, another soldier (usually DPS) becomes support to help get the wounded soldier out or to cover, while the other soldiers lay down suppresive fire (control) to give them a chance.

Or maybe a field medic took a bullet to the arm. One of them soldiers can easily switch from firing his gun (DPS) to helping that medic out with basic first aid (support).

They aren’t fixed into their roles, and they can freely adapt to the situation.

Kind of like the GW2 combat system is currently.

Someone goes down, and suddenly someone could potentially bring out some CC in order to give some other players the chance to revive the downed player.

More similar to the situation than strict role dependency, where if one role fails it’s the end.

Yes, there are specialties in any work place. However, more often than not, someone else will be able to fill that role, even if it’s for a short time, while the person who was originally manning that role returns.

Three, huh?

In no particular order, and from no particular person:

1) The Skin Wardrobe

In whatever form, before there can be cosmetic progression, I feel there needs to be a system that records said progression.

2) Deeper Importance of Order and Personality

These are choices that we make. However, they aren’t meaningful in any way, out in the open-world. There’s no way to show progression in these choices.

3) Skill and Traits Progression

Personally, I’d favour a GW1-esque system, or a system where you use skill points to unlock challenges to unlock skills. I feel that making us hunt for skills and such for our builds would:

• add more longevity than simply allowing us to unlock them from the UI.
• add more immersion (actually learning a skill from someone vs seemingly suddenly remembering how to do it).
• good way to re-use lower level content.

Also, I’m going to link my thoughts. I personally think they’re good ideas. I mean, if I didn’t, why else would I post them?

My Thoughts

Devata.6589:

I think it’s a combination of both and feel like both are missing in GW2. About that each role would have to take skill X, Y and Z? No even with roles there any multiple ways but yeah if your role would be healer nearly all skills you use will be heal related. Just like most of what you are using now is DPS related and then there is the healing yourself or friends to compensate for not having that healer-class. There is now just one role and thats a DPS role with some healing abilities.

But surely that would make healing exactly like the current state DPS? Just different flavours of heals. So instead of damage with a condition, damage with another effect, it’d be a heal with a boon, a heal with a cleanse, a heal with some other effect.

Again, if we take ‘role’ to mean your purpose in the group, and on a deeper level, your purpose during that encounter, then the roles can come from the encounters themselves, and with great variety, without needing to jam everyone into three generic roles that will never change.

Not to mention you’d have to tune all content around having a support character, thus forcing groups to take a support, as well as a control, since the support would have to have the highest aggro to make the content difficult. Granted, because of the lack of aggro-keeping skills, it would be a step up from the traditional Trinity.

However, I don’t feel set, defined roles that are made and organised before you even enter the dungeon are the way to go, rather roles that are unique to that encounter and that are created by the mechanics of the encounter itself, so you have to adapt while you’re in that dungeon.

IMO, more variety in what roles there are, so more opportunity to make choices, so more depth.

Devata.6589:

Requireing a specific group is something else then requires specific roles.

’ but it also allows for depth in the system we have now – we’d have to make meaningful choices out of our skillsets, where we allocate our trait points, without delegating a profession to a role"

The depth in the system we have now? Aren’t the most complains about the combat or about not having a trinity is indeed the fact that there is no depth in the system.

We do NOT have to make meaningful choices. It’s just a spam of buttons that does not require a lot of teamwork, thinking or preparation at all.

Everything you are saying now we have because of the current system is escalate what many people are missing because of the currency system.

I never really have to think a lot in the combat in GW2, I don’t even have to pay much attention to it. If I do a dungeon 90% of the times I have GW2 windowed while reading some websites or watching a movie. Most combat games would not allow me to do so because they require my full attention.

You took that quote out entirely, completely out of context.

That quote wasn’t saying that we currently use the depth. That part was attached to an argument as to why roles should be built into the encounter’s themselves, thus improving them to make use of the depth of the system.

There is depth (that is, the amount of meaningful choices you can make) in the system itself – it’s just the content doesn’t require it.

If you come up to a boss, wiped, and you swapped a single skill, trait, whatever out that makes that encounter easier (say, going from a passive Power increase to an Immobilize), that’s a meaningful choice. That’s where the depth is in the system.

On the opposite side, forcing people into set, defined roles (like the Trinity), doesn’t give players the opportunity to think of their approach, thus takes away from the meaningful choices. Each role would have to take skills X, Y and Z. No choice =/= no depth. The only choice is when to use them, and then it tends to be in a rotation.

This is why I say that, for the most part (excluding Defiant), it’s encounter design that is at fault, not the actual system. It doesn’t force us to adapt and think how we can use the tools we have. Set roles would also cause the same problem, because if you’re a Control player, you don’t need to adapt your build – you take whatever traits and skills provide you with the tools to control.

The only unconstructive thing about your list is the lack of ‘why’ you find them certain aspects appealing / unappealing.

misterDEAN.3027:

Everybody must put on a happy face and praise the game? Nobody is allowed to voice their opinions or constructive criticism? Thats terrible. I can see deleting post for profanity, violence, hatred, or just plain being rude and nasty. But my post did not fall in to any of those categories. I am truly in shock. Forum staff members here are like gestapo’s from kitten germany. Comply or we will deal with you.

Yep, there’s absolutely no threads critisising the game on the forums. Every single thread is positive.