Guild Wars 2

Nike.2631:

Player Housing. Customizable personal spaces displaying ‘furnishings’. Furnishing can be acquired across a wide range of activities, including most existing currencies, but particular emphasis on Open World activities (critter drops, Event rewards)

No love for a furniture-making craft?

ZudetGambeous.9573:

However I am not saying that I don’t wish it scaled better. I think it should scale from 20+ people. having the minimum scaling start at 80 is just unfairly punishing smaller servers for no discernible reason.

That’s what I’m getting at. If you’re on a small server (I’m not), I can’t imagine Teq has been anything but an afterthought for the average player since the week he was revamped. A guild of – let’s say 40 – really good players on a small server are, in all likelihood, out of luck unless step outside the scope of the game. That’s all I’m saying.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Because not everything should be handed to you on a silver platter?

There’s a pretty big gap between “having something handed to you on a silver platter” and “going to specific website and applying to a specific guild, then organizing 80+ people to do an something”, wouldn’t you agree?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

darkace.8925:

I’m going to throw a final post in this monstrosity before it’s closed forever. I’m glad to see the latest proposal is worded in a way to include the Orders as mechanisms for delivering meta-events. I do hope, however, that these events are flavored in a way that captures the personality of the Order they’re tied to (large scale battles for the Vigil, etc). And with that, I’m out. See you all next CDI.

Please note items in a CDI proposal are not a promise of inclusion in GW2.

Chris

I know. My post was “if it’s done, I hope it’s done in this way”, not “I fully expect to see this in game”. Apologies if that wasn’t clear.

VOLKON.1290:

No, not really, when you consider this is more of a replacement for raid bosses than just a basic open world fight. Raids that aren’t coordinated failed. This is bigger. You should fail if not coordinated.

It’s not a Raid, it’s open world content. The fact that a large section of Sparkfly Fens is dedicated to it and the fact that people doing map completion might have to tiptoe around it means it is without a doubt open world content. It’s not the typical Group Event, true. But it’s still open world content. So I’ll ask again, why should so many hoops be jumped to clear an open world event?

I’m going to throw a final post in this monstrosity before it’s closed forever. I’m glad to see the latest proposal is worded in a way to include the Orders as mechanisms for delivering meta-events. I do hope, however, that these events are flavored in a way that captures the personality of the Order they’re tied to (large scale battles for the Vigil, etc). And with that, I’m out. See you all next CDI.

Vayne.8563:

Not to mention the amount of content Guild Wars 2 initially launched with was greater than the amount of content in Prophecies and Factions put together. Prophecies only had a bit over 200 quests. It has 25 missions. One starter area.

With factions they added another game and another couple of hundred quests, and another 13 missions.

That’s a far cry from 300 hearts and 1500 dynamic events, even if you don’t include jumping puzzles and such.

Then there are dungeons. There weren’t really "dungeons’ per se in Guild Wars 1 until Eye of the North. I guess you could say Sorrow’s Furnace was a dungeon. There were elite areas, but nothing like the Fractals.

Shrugs.

The content that existed in Guild Wars 1, whether you like it better or not, was far less than the content here. I mean five start zones is a lot more content than two. In fact, in it’s entire live, Guild Wars 1 only had 3 starting zones. Add all the quests and missions together, and Guild Wars 2 launched with more dynamic events.

It’s a whole different ball of wax to develop for.

Anet themselves said they’d need 3 times the number of events in zones, compared to quests in the old system, which means it has to take longer for new zones to be developed.

You say that like it’s something of which we should all be in awe. The only difference between a starting zone and a mid/high level zone are A) numbers (mob health, loot tables, etc), and some tutorial elements for new players.

Please don’t take me wrong; I’m a guy who very much appreciates five starter zones. The four leveling paths, start to finish (with the exception of mid-levels zones for Maguuma) allowed me to have fresh leveling experiences with four of my five characters. If the game ever expands to new regions, I very much hope they add more starting zones (complete with new mid to high level zones chalked full of Renown Hearts, Points of Interest, Vistas, etc).

But let’s not pretend a few more starting zones are that big a deal. Or if we’re going to, let’s be fair and also contrast the number of end-game zones. And before anyone mentions the side-kicking system (another feature I love), unless the rewards (loot tables, salvage items, resource nodes, etc) reward players with T6 materials then I would argue it isn’t an end game zone.

Vayne.8563:

This has to be true, because I beat Tequatl several times a week with the TTS mega-guild. It’s more than just a guild, it’s a guild of guilds. I’m sure that’s who you ran into.

We often have more than one overflow that we take over to beat Tequatl. Anyone can apply and join it as a secondary guild, and just rep at the right times to participate. They just have to go to ttsgamers.com and apply.

Anyone who thinks Tequatl isn’t done isn’t paying attention.

That’s an awful lot of hoops to jump through to beat what’s supposed to be open world content, don’t you think?

PS – The question was rhetorical.

Shinenryu.6351:

The chill dealing damage or torment is really interesting, and would add some new builds.

darkace.8925:

Unnamed Earth Trait – While you are attuned to earth your critical hits have a 10% chance to knock your target down for 1 second.

But I can’t agree with this trait, It seems to me too powerful, or it should have a CD on trait. Perhaps 10 or 20s, it may appears too short, but (as S/D or D/D) we don’t have that much CC (2, in fact, with very high CD).

An internal CD could (and should) certainly be utilized to ensure balance.

Until such time as we’re given updates that allow us to partake and enjoy at our own pace, none of the updates will look attractive to me.

Nike.2631:

Latinkuro.9420:

“There are enraptured super-fans fervently guessing at what’s to come, mind you, and apparently one person in every 10,000-20,000 has guessed correctly. “And we haven’t told them this!” Johanson cackled. “Most of the rest of our fans are all saying, ’You’re crazy! There’s no way that’s what it is – that’s way too cool.”

That quote mostly makes me think the writers and I have very different triggers for using the word “cool”.

But I’ll put up this simple test and we’ll see how it goes – “Is the climax of this season important enough that my character actually speaks. Or do we merely stand mute once again…?”

Place your bets.

We already know they’re not going to give our characters voiced dialogue for the Living Story. That’s been one of my criticisms of the LS, it just doesn’t match the quality found in the game at release. For various reasons (money and time, in the case of voice acting), the developers can never hope to match that high standard they set for themselves. And if they’re not matching it, they (and us) are just settling. I don’t want to settle.

Traits I’d like to see added (names are negotiable):

Fiery Blast – When Burning applied by you ends it deals damage proportional to it’s duration to the target and all nearby enemies.

Unnamed Lightning Trait – ???

Unnamed Earth Trait – While you are attuned to earth your critical hits have a 10% chance to knock your target down for 1 second.

Frostbite – Chill inflicted by you causes damage over time.

Of course, with the current “first in, first out” condition system these might not be so great, but I’d like to see something added to spruce up the elements aspect of the elementalists.

StriderShinryu.6923:

I’m also disappointed to see Orders and their involvement get such short shrift considering that they pop up in a fairly large percentage of posts in this thread. Yes, there’s mention of “factions” but again, no actual details on what that means. Are we talking races, class based factions, orders, area based factions, Scarlet fanboy factions? None of the above? All of the above? It also seems a bit of a throwaway point to me and not something to be made real note of given how it’s positioned in the proposal.

I assumed he was referring to the Orders when he said “factions”. If not, then I too feel the Orders came up in this thread too often to be left out of the proposal.

Nike.2631:

And a multi-tier herb garden is still pretty much a must (thought likely another gem store item).

I’d love a garden system tied to Player Housing. I’ve said before, my system would be as simplistic as purchasing and planting seeds (different types tied to different regions produce different harvests) a few real life days later. Different seed types from different regions would produce different (randomly determined) harvests. So an Ascalonian Herb Seed might produce Chili Peppers or Dill while a Krytan Seed might produce Yams or Sesame Seeds.

Easy enough to implement, and for once players with alts could actually put those alts to good use. I wouldn’t tie such a simple system to the gem shop, though; I don’t feel that’s the kind of thing that would be locked behind a pay wall.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Paulytnz.7619:

Sounds like it could possibly be dragon related then! O.O

Sounds like it is almost certainly NOT dragon related. Pretty much every single post is begging for a dragon to keep people interested and to make the game worth playing.

You know what one in every 20,000-30,000 people is saying….

That scarlet will return next season…

Note, this can be skewed by one in every 20,000 being everyone posting on the forums, or just one in 20k being the only people posting in the lore sections or theorycrafting in seriousness.

I’m going to refuse to try to guess until we get closer, because there’s just not enough for me to go on yet.

I wouldn’t take the “one person in every 10,000-20,000 has guessed correctly” part of the quote literally. I doubt very much 10,000-20,000 people have bothered guessing what’s coming next. I doubt very much 10,000-20,000 people even know this season of the Living Story is coming to an end. And even if they do, it’s not like ArenaNet is tracking actual metrics on how many people are guessing X vs how many are guessing Y.

juno.1840:

There’s a lot of information in this topic and I get worried when I hear about “summary topics”. I’d rather ANet create summaries from this original topic so good ideas don’t get filtered out in someone else’s summary before it even reaches ANet’s hands. It’s a bit irrational on my end, but I’ve seen worse happen.

Irrational or not, I’m with you. I’d feel much more comfortable if a Red Swath handled the summary.

Einlanzer.1627:

Also, there is absolutely room for a heavy armor melee class. It would simply be a warrior class that dabbled in the arcane, touching a variety of arcane magic types.

Why heavy armor and arcane magic over heavy armor and divine magic, heavy armor and dark magic, heavy armor and elemental magic, etc, etc, etc?

Einlanzer.1627:

Anything else would either be far too specific to be represented by an entire class, or would overlap too much with existing classes.

There are only a few themes I can think of being added to the game without stepping on an existing class’s toes: a bard/minstrel type class (music), a martial artist type class (hand-to-hand combat), and a ritualist type class (spirit magic). Everything else is either already in the game or an amalgamation of two or more things already in the game. That’s not to say they can’t or won’t add something unrelated to the above three; I’m just saying thematically speaking, most of it is already covered by what we’ve already got.

Galen Grey.4709:

I honestly cannot understand why people think its so far fetched for Anet to release now zones / contents / races!

why the skeptism, they’ve said they’re going to do it from day one.

what are people skeptical about? that they dont have the know how? ability? motivation? I just dont get it

They’ve said they’re going to do a lot of things from day one. As the saying goes, “talk is cheap.” It’s not that they can’t do the things they say they want to do, it’s that they haven’t prioritized doing the things they say they want to do. Their priorities since launch have been the Living Story (designed to get us to keep logging in) and the gem shop (designed to get us to spend money). The allocation of their resources reflect their priority.

Jski.6180:

think ninja like it looks like magic but realty they are using low tech tools to do trick and effects.

Thematically, mechanically, aesthetically; what would make a ninja class different enough from the thief class to warrant its existence?

Rigultru.3597:

Horizontal progression is a fairly simple accomplishment in the minds of an RPG community

Perhaps RPG elements could/should be their own CDI? Things like the ability to sit down in a chair aren’t really tied to character progress, but I’m sure additions in that vein would be welcome by quite a few players. I just don’t see it as character progress, though.

juno.1840:

I’ll up it a bit more — if it was an expansion, why not just call it such? ANet went so far as to explain what’s going to happen in Q1/Q2 2014, yet they didn’t use the word “expansion”.

Not only did they not use the word “expansion”, they gave the same vague, ambiguous answer in response to the issue of expansions they gave us over a year ago…“big project in the background”. If this “big project” were an expansion, we’d have heard something about it by now. But we haven’t. Because there isn’t going to be one anytime soon. That whole interview was just an exercise in marketing.

Atlas.9704:

Comparing to Game of Thrones? Very ambitious, but let’s see how Season 2 goes before assuming such things.

Yeah, I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at that. That’s the kind of hype that bites developers in the rear…overhype something, pretend it’s something it’s now…and people will not be happy when you fail to deliver.

Atlas.9704:

The big patch idea I like, hopefully some of that Quality of Life stuff will be housing related.

If it comes with a new furniture-making craft, sign me up! I would also welcome fishing.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Not impressed by the interview, since he pointed out WvW season 1 as a “success”.

All that did was bring in a mass of fairweathers who checked off boxes on an achievement list, skewed the rankings, and then logged out to never play again till offered another shiny carrot. Pretty much an example of how poorly the achievement system in general impacts the game… once the boxes are checked, the content is abandoned in favor of the next set of checkboxes.

WVW issues were not touched, nothing was done for long term WvW players, and tbh Season 1 was just a blip to be forgotten about.

Again, it all comes down to what the developers value. If they’re simply after metrics…the number of players logging on…then the WvW Season 1 was a huge success. I don’t play WvW, so I’ll give you the PvE side of things. If they’re after log in metrics, then I’m sure the Living Story with it’s ever-refreshing Achievement Point checklist has been a success. If they’re after fun, engaging gameplay, however, then I’d argue the Living Story has been a resounding failure (even if it did have an occasional bright spot).

When they say “shake Tyria to it’s core” and “Tyria really won’t be the same” I really hope they don’t mean “we’re going to give it the Kessex Hills treatment wherein we tear down a beautifully crafted zone so we can say ‘see, the Living Story has a permanent effect on the world.’”

I think you’re reading too much into it. I read,

“ArenaNet has already. The next step, “and we’re heading down that path regardless”, is to keep a big story but colour it with smaller stories that begin and end every month, the hope being to keep less invested players interested. “That would be our next step before we say, ‘Hey, we really need to change things,’” said Johanson."

as “more of the same; no expansion anytime soon.”

Vol.7601:

Another interview
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-01-14-you-thought-that-was-it-for-guild-wars-2

Something that’s been said before, and Colin Johanson said again in the linked interview:

“We have a couple of really big Guild Wars projects cooking in the background.”

We’ve been sitting at the table for a while, and we’ve had our fill of complimentary bread. It’s time to tell the cooks we’re ready to feast on something more substantive. It’s time to tell the cooks we’re ready to be served whatever it is they’ve been cooking on the back burner. Wait too long, keep it simmering on the back burner too long with promises that we’ll get to eat soon enough, and your hungry customers just might go to one of the soon-to-be-opening restaurants down the street.

Jandopo.2107:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

— Role Diversification: ‘Grail Quest’ (Personal rights of passage) style adventures through the open world (testing the player in combat, discovery, and puzzle solving) which others can engage in once the activities are activated which could reward the Hero with New skills/traits, NEW WEAPONS, access to inaccessible existing weapons, and infusions.

I love most of the stuff you mentioned and I’m really looking forward to them… BUT I think New Weapons should be available from the start, and not after completing a challenge.
I mean, if Halberds are suddenly added to the game, I’d like to try them immediately. Also, I would expect them to be easily available to low-level characters.

Thank you for reading.

Hopefully he meant “new weapon skills”. I myself would welcome the ability to customize my weapon skills with open arms and a joyous heart.

Pifil.5193:

I’m sure I’m not alone in getting bored with repeating the same content in a different area and I’m sure that ArenaNet knows that some of their players feel that way.

No, you’re not alone. I personally loathe the way the Living Story has be used to implement filler content designed to keep players logging in on a regular basis. But based on the fact that it’s been more of the same over the last year, it looks as if you and I are in the minority. If enough players are logging in – just logging in, mind you…they don’t even have to enjoy it – for the Living Story content then ArenaNet will keep doing what they’ve been doing.

Pifil.5193:

They need to add more. Simply producing a small instance and a new set of achievements to move the zerg to another field every two weeks isn’t enough.

Because they’re staying the course with the Living Story two week release schedule, we can only surmise that it is indeed enough.

I just want to voice a concern regarding the CDI process. I’m not entirely sure if it belongs here, but I don’t feel it’s worth starting a new topic to voice my concern.

There’s obviously going to be a lot of ideas thrown about, and some of them are going to be good. I hope the best ideas aren’t shelved because they’re implementation would be resource-intensive (time, money, man-power, etc).

Let’s take furniture for player housing as an example. This is just an example, so don’t read too much into it. For the sake of argument let’s pretend a furniture-making craft is the consensus best/funnest way to decorate a player’s house. Again, this is just an example; I’m not claiming it is the best method. Adding a new craft would involve a lot of work: new crafting discipline, new master crafters, new crafting stations, crafting AI tweaks, new recipes to be discovered, new recipes to be bought with karma, etc. The alternative of just adding vendors in-game or selling them via the cash shop would require far fewer resources to implement.

In this scenario the easy route is much quicker, easier, and cheaper to get in the game. But the crafting route would be much more rewarding to the players (hypothetically). I would hope the developers are better than the players in that they’re not looking for the proverbial “path of least resistance”. I would hope that quality and fun, not cost and ease of implementation, would be the determining factor on what suggestions from the CDI are considered.

Okay, feel free to return to your regularly scheduled discussion.

mtpelion.4562:

You said:

Of course we’d need fish to make sushi.

I was simply challenging the “we’d need” part.

I’m not opposed to adding fishing at all.

Unfortunately, the nature of communicating with strangers via text means things said can be taken literally when they’re not meant to be. Obviously we don’t need (it isn’t necessary) fish to have sushi, but I need (I really, really want) fishing to be added to the game.

DarcShriek.5829:

Nope, Jeweler isn’t going to 500 any time soon. I’m not aware of any plans that have been stated by Anet that include jewelry going to 500. If you know otherwise please provide a link.

There’s an as-of-now unused ascended slot for jewelcrafting in the collectibles tab.

It’s been brought up since the days of the BWEs, but I’m going to broach the subject yet again. Is there any chance we’ll ever get a way to focus-farm leather and cloth? As is, if I want a quantify of a specific type of ore or lumber, I grab a pick or axe and go get it. With leather and cloth, I’ve got to kill a specific enemy (takes longer than mining/logging) and hope that the RNG gods favor me (RNG check for the drop and another RNG check for the leather/cloth if it’s a bag or armor-to-be-salvaged).

The inequity A) doesn’t seem necessary, and seems easy enough to fix. So why are those who need leather and cloth still forced to jump through more hoops/endure more pain than those who need ore or lumber?

Kuruptz.4782:

just dont get this huge RNG system

You don’t?

Kuruptz.4782:

done it everyday since release

Well there you go.

zaw.6741:

this kind of thing should be obtainable in game through some quest or achis [maybe in guild halls if these are ever introduced?]…not from shop for such ridiculous price…

Or, you know, you could just grab a mining pick and make a run through one of any number of zones with copper, silver, and gold ore nodes. It’s not like these gem shop nodes are going to give someone so much ore they’ll have an advantage over someone who doesn’t buy them. The RNG dyes, on the other hand…I’ll NEVER support or defend RNG in cash shops so long as the odds of obtaining the rare/desirable items aren’t made public.

“Johanson said that the living world is new territory; ArenaNet has been steadily learning what works —as well as what doesn’t — and smoothing out the implementation. He reiterated that the living world and expansion-style content are not mutually exclusive, and that although players may perceive the studio as concentrating on living world content in lieu of expansion content, there are teams working behind the scenes on other projects.”

“Ah yes. Behind the scenes. We have dismissed that claim.”

mtpelion.4562:

darkace.8925:

mtpelion.4562:

darkace.8925:

It would be nice to get some more use out of Seaweed. It’s a level 80 material, and I think it’s only used in one recipe. Of course we’d need fish to make sushi. And what better way to get fish than fishing. I’m going to change my vote from bacon to sushi.

Sushi is vinegared rice.

Fish, vegetables, etc. are all optional toppings that go on the sushi.

And?

So you don’t need fish in the game for them to add sushi. Just Rice and Vinegar.

I never said we did need fish for them to add sushi. I said sushi would be a great opportunity to add fishing, which I something I’ve personally wished were in the game since the beginning.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

And if all this concludes in a new dragon I’ll say it was worth all the torture.

A new dragon is welcome, but if I’m fighting it (or it’s minions) in existing zones then it’s not good enough in my book (your mileage may vary). I want a new dragon to be a catalyst to opening up more of the world for exploration, not just giving us something to do in zones we’ve explored many times over.

Peppit.9057:

Secondly, I think that gaining items through the open world is an excellent idea but it is also a golden opportunity to add housing items to existing trade-skills, for example, armorsmiths could create decorative suits of armor, tailors could create cushions, beds, etc. These items could then be a way for these trade-skills to make a profit. In addition to this, consider allowing people to add crafting stations to their houses, which would add utility.

I’d personally rather have a full-fledged furniture-crafting craft utilizing wood, metal, leather, and cloth to make furniture of all types and qualities (tiers) than to see existing crafts try to fill our home-furnishing needs. Such a craft could also make bags in the same vein as the armor-making crafts (a “soulbound items go here” or “consumable items go here” bag would be most welcome).

VOLKON.1290:

Grandmaster.2683:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

-A reworked (cleaner) version of Signet of Capture would work very well for Role Diversification.

Just thinking.. With a signet of capture, would it work for just utility abillities?
I personally think Guild Wars 2 still need swap able Weapon skills, so each weapon would be possible to use for different roles. Have this been thought of or..?

Ugh… that has the tainted smell of specialization to it. If you allow specialization, people will begin to require specialization. That’s definitely not a good thing for this game.

People are already specialized. 99% of the players in this game (hyperbole) are specialized in outputting as much damage as possible.

Vayne.8563:

Just about the worst defense anyone can use for something to be in a game is that it’s been like that for years.

That’s highly ironic coming from you considering how many times I’ve seen you use that very justification for ArenaNet’s shift from the game they wanted to make to the game they’re currently making.

Vayne.8563:

darkace.8925:

Morrigan.2809:

Aeonblade.8709:

Mortifer.2946:

I don’t understand what are your expectations people. Living story content is great, I don’t say it has a strong story, but it is fun! I, for example, loved scarlet invasions and it is sad that almost nobody does them by now. Everyone just farm their way to legendary and forget about all the fun

The reason almost nobody does them is because the majority of people did not find them fun.

the reason why no one does them any more is that they nerfed the champ farming and took away the loot bags for different phases and made it a succeed to be rewarded event.

The farmers don’t like it because they do not want to invents 45 min to get their loot-

I tried one of the invasions the other day because I did quite enjoy them at the time- but we were 4 people and so of course we failed

His point stands; if they were fun there would still be non-farmers participating.

I don’t agree with this. I had fun in the Scarlet invasions, but they occurred too frequently. Because they occured so frequently I burned out on them.

Sometimes a great song is played too much on the radio. It gets played out and I start to not want to hear it. It doesn’t mean it’s not a great song.

I enjoyed the Scarlet invasions, and not predominantly for the loot. It was content we could run as a guild and we were all in mumble, running around, having a blast. It was fun.

Was the farming a part of it? Sure it was. But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t having fun.

What’s to disagree with? Would you not still do the invasion events if you still found them fun? If you’re not doing them it’s either because you don’t find them fun or because you’re no longer a member of the “I don’t grind, I do what I find fun” club. If you found them as fun as you’re letting on, a break should have renewed your interest. If it didn’t, then the only conclusion I can come up with is you didn’t have as much fun doing them as you’re trying to convince us (and yourself) you did.

Morrigan.2809:

Aeonblade.8709:

Mortifer.2946:

I don’t understand what are your expectations people. Living story content is great, I don’t say it has a strong story, but it is fun! I, for example, loved scarlet invasions and it is sad that almost nobody does them by now. Everyone just farm their way to legendary and forget about all the fun

The reason almost nobody does them is because the majority of people did not find them fun.

the reason why no one does them any more is that they nerfed the champ farming and took away the loot bags for different phases and made it a succeed to be rewarded event.

The farmers don’t like it because they do not want to invents 45 min to get their loot-

I tried one of the invasions the other day because I did quite enjoy them at the time- but we were 4 people and so of course we failed

His point stands; if they were fun there would still be non-farmers participating.

Mortifer.2946:

I don’t understand what are your expectations people.

Let me answer your question with a question. Why aren’t your expectations higher? Do you not think the developers of ArenaNet capable of producing content of the highest quality? I do. Why don’t you? And if you do, why don’t you expect them to deliver what they’re capable of delivering?

Mortifer.2946:

Living story content is great, I don’t say it has a strong story, but it is fun!

That’s subjective. Objectively, much of the Living Story has either been temporary or filler. The developers have said both temporary and filler content isn’t the best way to make a game.

Mortifer.2946:

I, for example, loved scarlet invasions and it is sad that almost nobody does them by now.

What was it you liked about them? Did you actually find them fun? Or did you just do them because the loot/effort ratio worked was lucrative?

Mortifer.2946:

Everyone just farm their way to legendary and forget about all the fun

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t FUN supposed to be the entire point of video games?

Chris Whiteside.6102:

— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing (Customizable from rewards gained in the open world), Guild Halls (Customizable from mass play rewards) and Zone Dominance through Faction Alliances (Leading to both individual and group rewards such as titles and skins)

I must have missed that, but if it’s what it sounds like then there are going to be potential problems; particularly one dominant faction leading people to believe they must align with it to get the rewards, leaving other factions abandoned. Again, if this isn’t what I’m thinking it is then disregard my concern.

I’m still seeing calls for sub-classes, and I’m still unsure why they’re needed at all. Why do we need another layer of game mechanics to let us play a “druid” ranger with a bunch of spirits or a marksman ranger focused on ranged combat when the current skill and trait system already allows us to do exactly that?

Essence Snow.3194:

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.

Thus the timing around this topic is actually excellent.

Chris

What are ya’lls thoughts on the investments players have (weapons/armor/trinkets) into certain specs being a limiter to diversification?

Ascended, and the time-gated nature of crafting it, certainly acts as a barrier to experimentation with different builds.

mtpelion.4562:

darkace.8925:

It would be nice to get some more use out of Seaweed. It’s a level 80 material, and I think it’s only used in one recipe. Of course we’d need fish to make sushi. And what better way to get fish than fishing. I’m going to change my vote from bacon to sushi.

Sushi is vinegared rice.

Fish, vegetables, etc. are all optional toppings that go on the sushi.

And?

timmyf.1490:

Khisanth.2948:

How does it trivialize exploration? They don’t magically become available to you(except some of the ones next to zone entrances). You still have to get there yourself at least once.

Are you saying you NEVER used fast travel in GW1?

If/when Cantha is added to the game are you going to swim through the Unending Ocean every time you want to go there?

…

How much exploring have you done in Orr? How about Southsun Cove? Sure there are waypoints but most of the time they are all contested anyway so it’s like they aren’t even there.

Just to reiterate, because I feel like nobody is understanding me:

1) I’m not saying waypoints should be removed from the existing content.
2) I do not think mounts should be added.
3) I certainly used fast travel in GW1.
4) I do not think you should have to swim across the ocean every time you want to go to Cantha.
5) I don’t explore Orr much because everything there has CC and it drives me crazy.
6) I don’t explore Southsun much because Veteran Karka = owwwww.
7) My suggestion is for INSTANCED GROUP CONTENT as a TEMPORARY way to introduce new zones and provide a sense of exploration
8) After a period of months, those zones would have Asuran waypoints and become more like the zones we have now.

Edit: and here’s the link again: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3416638

I don’t explore Southsun because there’s nothing to see or do. There are no Vistas, there are too few Points of Interest, there are far too few Dynamic Events, and I personally wouldn’t have balked at some Renown Hearts either. Outside of harvesting runs or Queen kills, there’s really no reason at all to spend any time in Southsun.

I’m an open-world PvEer. I delve into dungeons and fractals, but most of my time is spent running around the open world. Mesmer is the only class I haven’t played, and that’s largely because I can’t find a build that appeals to me. For aesthetic reasons (Bifrost on a Mesmer looks quite fitting), I’d like to run a staff build. But it appears to me the only worthwhile staff builds are support builds or maybe condition damage builds.

I’d really like to stay away from a condition build, as it will play too much like my Necromancer, leading to a stagnant leveling experience. I’d also like to avoid Shatter builds, as cycling illusions and pressing F1 for 80 levels seems like it’s going to get old fairly quick. So I turn to you guys. Given my above preferences, what’s your best recommendation for a PvE staff build? Thanks for your input.