User talk:Maestro Ed

Game Suggestions
I'm a reasonable person; I understand time and budget constraints on such a massive undertaking as Guild Wars, but like everyone I wish it were made better and better. Most of my suggestions are reasonable and possibel without any radical overhauls or ridiculous imbalance being introduced.

Inscription Changes
(Original thread on GWO )

I think that the less used inscriptions, particularly on martial weapons need a buff. I'm fairly certain that virually NOBODY uses:

"Too Much Information" Damage +10...15% (vs. Hexed foes) "Don't Fear the Reaper" Damage +10...20% (while Hexed) "Vengeance is Mine" Damage +10...20% (while Health is below 50%)

"Vs. hexed" is fairly pointless at it's a condition that's less likely to be met than 15^50. Increasing it could give more power to hex builds, but I think a +20% vs hexed would eb a little better. "While hexed" is another sily one; nobody really carries round a duplicate weapon to switch to when they get hexed. I think an increase to 25% or 30% would be interesting, give some power against hexes in PvP and allow people to hit a bit harder in certain situation in PvE. "Vengeance..." is the strangest. I think this would still be balanced even if it was +50% below 50; who's going to risk staying below half health in PvP? Will we see infuse wammos with vamp weapons ready for a massive spike? Maybe, but that would be damn funny. As it is, the risk of being that low is massive, if you're there because of damage, you're probably going to die pretty soon or be healed out of it. If you're there because of degen, same story, but even if you kill the enemy, chances are you might not make it. Next point, STAYING below 50% health is a tricky job for the monks. Heroes and Henchmen simply WON'T do it, and player monks would find it tricky to balance.

So, suggestions:

+20% vs. hexed foes +30% while hexed +50% while health below 50%

Next up, caster mods:

"Don't call it a comeback!" Energy +5...7 (while Health is below 50%) "I am Sorrow." Energy +5...7 (while Hexed)

Same story with the below 50%, is sacrificing the +5 energy that you'd get all the time while over 50% worth getting +7 when you're almost dead or you get hexed? I'd change them to:

"Don't call it a comeback!" Energy +3 (while Health is above 50%) Energy +10 (while Health is below 50%)

"I am Sorrow." Energy +3 (while Health is above 50%) Energy +7 (while Hexed)

Would any of these ideas get you to use these inscriptions as weapon swaps?

Lock target on ally hero control
This might be tricky to implement, but it would be very nice if you could set a hero to only target (or priotity target) one ally.

Those times that you want a monk or ritualist hero to keep a vital ally alive can involve some tricky micro management, and a smiter buff hero is even more annoying: try giving a smiter hero Judge's Insight and they just cast it on themselves.

If it's possible to use the lock target button for allies, that would be nice.

New Titles
(Original GWO thread: )

I think it would be nice to have titles for players who have all three cartographer titles, and another for those who have all three protector titles. Something link:

"Protector of the Realms" "Grandmaster Cartographer General"

Or whatever; would be nice for those who have done everything. CHECK!

FoW/UW tweaks and extras
(Original GWO thread )

I have two suggestions to liven up the actual PLAYING of the only elite core areas in the game:

Despite the dislike of DoA by many, I believe that real high-level/rare rewards for completing elite PvE areas are a good idea and that they should be included in UW/FoW too. I know that having Ectoplasm or Obsidian Shards drop is reward enough for many, but this still leads to only 20% of the Underworld being played by 95% of the people, and probably about the same for the Fissure of Woe. So how about we include some more stuff in there? Not game-breaking imbalanced stuff, just some incentives for the players that need a challenge, but don't quite want a DoA level of intensity (aka boredom).

So, what to do with all those demonic remains...

I know this has been suggested before, but having collectors in these core areas for the many collectible drops would be great. It took a while to get them in Ring of Fire, but we can now get slightly different rewards from there (experience scrolls), so maybe something similar for UW and FoW?

Similar story though, collectors should be more difficult to reach, perhaps only spawning on completion of quests. Coincidentally, there are eight quest-giving NPCs in Fissure, and eight types of collectible drops there too (Corrosive Spider Leg, Dark Remains, Umbral Shell, Umbral Eye, Umbral Skeleton Limb, Gloom Seed, Shadowy Crest, Shadowy Husk). So getting SOMETHING from there would be nice. Maybe more interesting weapons/shield/fociis with +20% vs. creature type or +10 armour vs. damage type.

For UW, it's a little different, there are only four collectible drops, but putting collectors in nasty places and making people finish quests to get to them (Chaos Planes, Spawning Pools, Bone Pits, Ice Wastes) would make the rewards worth something.

I realise that Arenanet don't really want to update any already existing game areas, but the CORE areas, those available to everyone, could do with something to liven them up. HoH chest drops are improved/changed from time to time; lots of people play wanting their minature Ghostly Hero. So would it be possible to throw some NPCs and a few more lines of script in to make something like this happen? I'm not asking for anything huge, just some encouragement for many more players to really get into these areas and face a challenge.

With more fair party rewards for Urgoz' and The Deep now, I think it would make snese to add a little something to the UW and fissure: Add a chest to the UW when 'Restore the monuments of Grenth' is completed. The chest would drop an inscribable gold UW item (storm bow, eternal bow, eternal shield, ghostly staff, or new green or whatever) and two ectoplasm. Double of each of these for Hard Mode. Add a chest to the FoW when 'Khobay the Betrayer' is completed. The chest would drop an inscribable gold UW item (Fellblade, Shadow Blade, grinning recurve, shadow bow, shadow staff, chaos axe) and two obsidian shards. Double of each of these for Hard Mode. 

General Chapter 4/5 thoughts & ideas
(Original GWO thread )

This has been, well, sort of implemented in Eye of the North...''

Well, Nightfall has fallen and everyone seems to be getting used to new classes, skills etc. but in around six months time, we'll be seeing ANOTHER chapter, probably bringing ANOTHER two professions into play, then six months after that, another two professions!

Personally, I think we have enough professions for now. I'm not saying we have enough forever, just that I think we should have a new-profession-free chapter to give time to get with the existing program; I really feel that having 14 professions in 12 months time will begin detracting from the game, and it might turn into ArenaNet grasping at mixed concepts, but anyway: CHECK!

A chapter with no new professions? Well, that sounds like a strange idea, will we be going off to a strange new unexplored land with our Monks, Assassins, Dervishes etc? No, I think there's a better idea: CHECK!

Use some of the spare space on the existing maps. CHECK!

With all the lore about Orr, that's the obvious location to me; there's a lot of free map that can be used for another campaign. I know some people might feel like this isn't as new as content could be, but I'd really like to see the rest of Tyria.

Below, we have a map:



Black areas are the places in Prophecies, White is spare land, light gray is ocean, and dark gray is a nice place for a new campaign :)

In terms of content, whatever the designers say will probably have more innovation that what I can come up with in a few minutes, but I think a return to Tyria would allow the prophecies campaign to feel a little refreshed; a couple of map links for prophecies owners would be nice, as any players new to GW would obviously be enticed into seeing what went on in the rest of this continent! CHECK!

So, what do you think? Exploring the ruins of Orr, seeing some more of Tyria, battling a few old foes seem like fun?