User talk:Gaile Gray/Archive Guild Wars 2 suggestions/October 2007

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Contents 1 Do not split pve/pvp. 2 Is this page useful at all for the devs? 3 instanced areas, non instanced towns and roads. 4 Mounts 5 Three words 6 Attribute requirements for skills 7 Don't give Grind titles an ingame effect. 8 Map Notes (Suggestion) 9 Actual unique items/item scratching 10 More Weapons 11 Allow a character to learn new PRIMARY professions 12 Dye Effects 13 larger health bars. 14 World PvP - MMORTS? 15 Day and Night 16 The Sims 2 style face/character editor 17 More maintained effects 18 The Lodge (Warband/Family Housing) 19 Inheriting from Multiple GW1 Characters 20 Realistic Goals 21 AoE target an area OR a Target 22 Guilds 23 EMOTES! 24 Linux 25 a few things 26 Store Armor Unlocks 27 Give each race a pre-searing area 28 Divine Auras and the HOM 29 Weapons vs. Spells 30 Wands vs. Staves 31 Fight Sequences 32 Mods and Appearance 33 Armor Specific Skills 34 Multiple Characters & Grind 35 Guild Mutiny 36 GW2 Players Guide 37 Cancelled "Utopia" Content.. 38 Account handle 39 Earn Skills from Quests 40 Personality 41 Hired Actors

Do not split pve/pvp.

I liked that about the game, and I really don't want this game to become another "me too" wow clone.--72.84.76.135 11:44, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

This gets my vote also. At first I didn't like it, but seeing skill changes to PvP help create a more dynamic PvE game also. Seeing the addition of PvE only skills makes me sad, and I'm a PvE player only! --SK 14:57, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

This is interesting. I thought I'm the only PvE-only player who doesn't like the addition of PvE-only skills. If I could decide, no more PvE-only skills, please. The PvP+PvE system works wonders and it works surprisingly well that most skill balances are done due to PvP. -- (gem / talk) 15:28, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I think having identical functionality in PvE and PvP works, as long as there are similar mechanics between PvE and PvP. Fortunately, Guild Wars seems to follow this philosophy already for the most part. I'd definitely rather have more skills that are functional in both domains, as it allows more portability of PvE techniques to PvP and vice-versa. --Ari 23:09, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Put in a pvpve server.68.20.17.16 15:49, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Is this page useful at all for the devs?

I could be wrong, but this page seems to be turning into a mess of patchwork suggestions to the guild wars every1 is playing now. I don't know about you and the devs, but if I were designing a game, really wouldn't find a lot of this useful, and personally I think a lot of good ideas are being overlooked.

If our opinions matter at all, I think there should be a dedicated page to update all of us gamers on the planned progress of GW2, where us gamers can discuss the planned direction of development(the current page is overly vague for any kind of useful suggestion), whether we like it or not. It would be better than keeping us in the dark until release day to see that theres a whole lot of things that we'd like changed, that we didn't consider cos we had no idea that the game would be so different from GW1. Maybe take a leaf out of nikiwiki and put a voting system in too. Maybe you could get started on the offical guildwiki2? Thanks for taking the miraculous effort of reading this--WikiWu 12:36, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

While the suggestions page is getting rather unwieldy, neither Gaile nor ArenaNet staff has complained yet, so how would you know if good ideas are getting overlooked? If you feel so strongly about wanting to be be involved in the direction of development, have you tried applying for a job in ArenaNet? This page is just a page to gather ideas not demands. The whole point of not formalising a style of suggestions like nikiwiki is not to give the false assumption that the playerbase can dictate what the developers do. If you let a community of tens of thousands of vocal people decide what they want, you'll never get GW2 ready for release. -- ab.er.rant 01:41, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I really don't think Anet is relying on what we have to say for their goals, afterall, look at what we have to say......... Why would they? You can suggest pages up and down and they might look at it, and it might be good, and they might like it, and it may fit into what they are doing, and they may act on it. It really is a small fraction, but they have taken ideas from the forums and popular interests and added them to the game, quite a few really. But you can easily sift though all the misconceived and irrational ideas that make no sense and have no legitimate value and realize why most of it gets ignored.... cause it sucks.

I'm sure they have alot of experienced developers, alot of creative resources, and alot of creative priority in order to make a good game. I have even come up with some great ideas that I didn't get around to writing before they put something simular into the game first, so somebody at Anet has alot of exposure. The best we can do is try to aim in the direction they are heading and come up with some interesting and useful assets for them to concider, and maybe, we will see some influence in the game. But it would be madness if they tried to work with the public on ideas, even geniouses zealously disagree on minor topics, and just imagining expert developers trying to negotiate with the mainstream fanbase spells an extreme waste of time. Can you just imagine if developers started bouncing ideas off of the public?, or if the developers had to respond to even a fraction of the topics brung up? It would makes sense if they dialoged with a few people privately, but public referendum would be madness.

This may not be a good medium for discussion, and we may need a more technically involved representative to recognize and relay relavent information, but overall, this company has taken some time to consider some of the ideas brought up by their fanbase, and the fact that they communicate at some level and recipricate somewhat is reasonable enough.--BahamutKaiser 04:17, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

meh, its only a suggestion from a passionate fan ;), its up to the devs, I think everything that needs saying has been said--WikiWu 22:14, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this page is useful for the devs. It's early yet, and we're interested in reading what fans would like. We don't, and won't, engage in "design by committee." But input is a good thing. Thanks for contributing. --Gaile 15:50, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

instanced areas, non instanced towns and roads.

There are many advantages to instanced and non instanced areas . The main for non instanced are smaller groups, more monsters per player and no camping of monsters and quest objectives. The main advantages for instanced are more social encounters and a more realistic game experience. my suggestion (i don't know if this is even possible) is that all towns and roads are not instanced. When a player is walking along a road he/she would be able to see all other players that are walking on the road at the same time and would be able to see monster spawns and the lay of the land but not other players. But when he/she steps off the road they would be in their own instanced area but would be able to look at the road and see people walking. this would allow for social interactions while traveling and not have objective camping. however this would have problems such as running back to the road to be safe when attacked. however this could be solved by not allowing rezoning onto the road while in combat or only that player and not the entire group would be zoned. Mashav 06:03, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

You'll be pleased to know that they're already implementing aspects of your suggestion into Guild Wars 2. :) From the information which is floating around the web there will be much more persistence in GW2. Explorable areas will be persistent but missions and dungeons will be instanced. They also talk about an 'Event System' and how everyone would get rewarded for completing a big task in the persistent areas.

This interview is my favourite for reading about the kill stealing and instance stuff so far. To me they're not entirely clear on how they plan to stop persistent world kill stealing off of generic monsters and stuff... but it does sound like they have some ideas so it'll be interesting to see what eventuates. :) --Aspectacle 06:34, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Is it just me but, maybe you should be allowed to choose whether you want to be in a persistent world or instanced because obviously if you're still training or unconfident in your abilities you shouldn't be forced to go out with some certain people that might insult you or your companions and make you unconfident.Maybe if you're using a popular farming build at a certain area obviously farming will be very hard to do but, if you feel like going out and meeting people that should be you're choice.(If they do add Vanquisher title it might be also be a pain in persistent areas.) P.S I know its late to this certain topic but I just read it today.64.230.10.126 14:16, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I felt there should have been something like this in Guild Wars 1 where there is like a special "Instanced District" Where you can be just by yourself, Guild Wars 2 can have something like that. It deals with spawn camping troubles, and it helps players with slow computers. So the option to switch between instanced and persistance can help a bit.

Mounts

I know as soon as you hear mounts you probably think WoW, but i think that in GW2 there is a great potential for mounts to be a good part of the game provided they bring something different. I think that it would work to have a mount system that is similar to the Seige Wurms in Nightfall and the Seige Devourer in the Charr Homelands, where the creatures skills replace your own, although i do think that maybe the creature would have to be weakened a bit or not able to go on some terrain so that players dont only use their mounts for battle (possibly they lose a certain ammount of energy whenever they get hit or attack or someting, and when they reach zero you return to fighting on you own). These mounts would probably be best as PvE only.

OJ Blu

Mounts are a great way to diversify the combat experience, by allowing access to mounts in certain areas, players can utilize some unique advantages and effects, as well as practice different strategies. The idea of mounts in PvP is perfectly fine as long as it is a PvP arena designed for everyone to have a mount, but it is pretty pointless if all the mount does is increase speed, because everyone would than be going the same faster speed, and little changes.

Also, there should be a difference between mounts and rides, or transformations. A mounted unit is still utilizing the abilites of the rider, instead some passive effects and a small tab with additional abilities should come up for mounts. This sub skill selection would be a great feature for many unique features in the game, offering skills oriented to unique situations, but do not affect any limited skill selections, this can include swimming, climbing, mounted riding, and perhaps a few other effects. Riding on or in something that replaces your skills is somewhat interesting as well, but since that typically has remote uses, I wouldn't consider that for most situations.

Utilizing mounts for overcoming foes and movement advantages, defense and armor advantages, and unique abilities associated with a mount like ride by attacks and moving combat, mounted combat could become a very enjoyable and interesting addition.--BahamutKaiser 04:53, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

It would be interesting if characters could acquire abilities to tame creatures in the wilderness to ride them through areas. Like a hopping animal to jump higher or a fish to help swim faster to reach that underwater cave before running out of air. --Redfeather 08:50, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

When it comes to swimming underwater and flying through the air, especially in the thrid dimension, it should probably involves something like the Siege Wurm example, where the creature engulfs or your controls are taken over by the creatures movements, simply because you are unlikely to operate normal techniques underwater anyway.--BahamutKaiser 13:41, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Mounting is gonna be very exciting in Guild wars 2,especially if you are gonna fight the ancient dragons(Would be good to use flying mounts)and as some say-swimming mounts,for excample if you are gonna go underwater u can be carried by a giant fish or something like that.Fighting machines like junundu wurms and siege devourers.Or to make a mount for excample something simmilar to horses,but not to use them in pvp.

Three words

Multi-attribute spells. How awesome would it be to cast a thunderstorm on a guy? All foes in the area are struck for damage based on both air and slowed for a duration based on water. Tweak your air so you have a large AoE-damage spell for PvE, or dump some air for an AoE-snare for PvP. Perhaps open a chasm underneath some foes? Percent chance of knockdown based on Earth, damage based on Fire (you know, the lava, etc that would be underground). Of course, these would probably be the high-end spells, and not too many of them... but it'd be neat! Heck, set it up right and you could probably have some sort of spell based off of ranks in Mysticism, Air Magic, Earth Prayers, and Fire Magic... Oh the possibilities! Armond 19:35, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I've wished for multi-attribute skills for some time now. They have a couple actually, where one attribute is the requirement and the other affects the skill too, but I'd like to get some more of these. -- (gem / talk) 04:35, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

This is a great idea. I found it kind of arbitrary that nearly all spells were effected only by the attribute, and perhaps boosted somewhat by a primary. I also hated how earthspells related to vulcanic activity didn't involve fire, also fire spells which involved meteor rocks with no earth damage application. It would be nice if, even if some spells belonged to one attribute, had shared effects and benifits from dedication of another attribute. And this would be even more enjoyable if GW2, assuming it carries over a simular system of flexible yet limited capabilities, allowed you to fully invest in more features, at least 3 in context, in order to promote the value of multiple attribute, or combination attribute skills.--BahamutKaiser 04:54, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

There are many who feel that Guild Wars is too complicated, including many members of the design team. It's hard to understand that, perhaps, from the perspective of a veteran player for whom playing is second nature. However, before you dismiss the idea, consider we have 1,234 skills. That we have about, oh, 60 attributes, 10 professions, a total of 90 different dual profession combinations, and a gazillion weapon and armor possibilities. It's great to suggest new ideas, and I certainly see the interest in this one. But my first reaction is that it would further complicate the game, and would therefore cause a higher threshold for new players to get into and master the game. Plus, I hate to see the skill descriptions: Does X if you have Y and Z, but A if you have B, or M if you have L but not N.  ;)

So while the decision is not mine on whether this idea would be implemented into Guild Wars, and while I can mention it to the designers, I can make a pretty fair prediction on what the reaction might be, given our existing concern for the high level of complexity for the incoming player. --Gaile 13:43, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I think that some if not all of us understand that and don't ask for a whole new 'everything affects everything' game system. :) Atleast I myself would just like to see a few more skills like this, maby a couple for every profession, not more. Ofcourse this whole thing might be moot with GW2, but we can't know as we don't know what kind of a system you are working on for the new game. -- (gem / talk) 14:51, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be great for an expansion. Similarly to how M:tG did it with gold spells and dual lands. I would say GW2 should be "basic," and then add on. --Ravious 15:46, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Gaile, just a few spells, and perhaps make them higher-end ones, so it takes a bit of a while to get them? That should make it so the beginning player has to play for a while before getting them (and hopefully learn in the process) :) Armond 16:09, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

The problem, I think, is that even if players took a long time to find that kind of skill, it would not take long for them to learn about it. Especially in PvP, given how everyone will be AUX at the very start. I think Gaile has a point in how this kind of thing could scare new players. Someone new to Guild Wars who's looking at what his toys would be (in other words, looking at a skill list) would likely be scared if he saw a skill described as, "Target foe is hit for 25...75 damage. Target foe is set on fire for 3 seconds if you have 9 Fire Magic, is slowed by 66% for 3 seconds if you have 9 Water Magic, knocked down by 1 second if you have 9 Air Magic and suffers extra 50 armor ignoring damage if you have 9 Earth Magic", regardless of where he would actually earn it (despite how I would really like a spell like that : D, but anyway...). Erasculio 16:18, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

A majority of RPG games online or console involve 4 to 8 "stats" which involve complicated undescribed effects with different growth patterns on each character type, along with all sorts of abilities with no description of how the abilities are affected by that skill. Imagining the supreme departure of GW from that system would be compromised simply because a skill clearly states the influence of two or even three related attributes instead of just one is prejudice.

Critical Agility..... that's exactly what this suggestion is, something that is already in the game, an ability which features influence from more than one attribute, very obvious, very clear cut, and perfectly easy to understand. If someone lacks an elementary school education and can't read the clear description of a spells function, they shouldn't be allowed to play, since they can't logically recognize the user agreement. Implying fear of hidden mechanics to a skill description model which would still address this issue isn't a valid disapproval. If player threshold is such a serious issue that skills with multiple attributes start eliminating players, someone really aught to be concerned about manual movement.--BahamutKaiser 04:17, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

The only reason I see why this won't happen in GW2 though, is I read that the skill system is going to be slightly simplified and more emphasis on experimenting with skills in different situations to achieve varied effects. I think it was referred to as the Emergent skill system. It's probably the main reason I am so darn curious to play GW2. lol --Redfeather 10:39, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

The vastness, and level of complexity is what attracted me to the game, and it's what keeps me playing....there is always something new to learn, new skill combinations to try, yet at the same time a beginner can get into it and hold their own. I would love to see multi-class skills, it would add an addtional level of depth......It's simmilar to the board game Othello, you can learn it in a minute, but it takes a lifetime to master. I don't want a game that I discover everything in the first week, I want a game that you still are learning new tricks, tips, features, combinations years later. Med Luvin 14:42, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I think things are being misunderstood here. My suggestion was that skills have more than one part of them scaling, and each part scale based on a different attribute (or at least one of them). The whole "while you have X in Y, Z in A" thing is indeed more complicated than I meant it to be. Armond 15:03, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

As for "how will we say which attribute scales which thing without having extremely long skill descriptions", I would say don't. List it as linked to multiple attributes and let players have fun fiddling around with them. :D Armond 15:32, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

The point Gaile just made is that Anet doesn't like increase learning curves. The easy way is to simply allocate symbols for each attribute, and place the symbol beside each adjustable figure in a skill, that way when you bring Meteor, and it does does X fire damage based on fire attribute, and hits X radius based on earth attribute, symbols for each would be beside each variable figure which can be scrolled over to explain this is adjusted by a certain attribute.

Creativity > Adversity.--BahamutKaiser 04:50, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

See Lion's Comfort for what they've done already. This is what I'm speaking of. -- (gem / talk) 10:46, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Hehe...reminds me of MtG--Warior kronos 23:06, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Attribute requirements for skills

Perhaps this isn't a viable idea, but if there's going to be ~100 levels, then in theory there should be a lot more attribute points than before (unless I missed an update somewhere - in which case this entire section is invalid). As such, people will want more powerful skills for higher levels, beyond simply scaling skills higher. So perhaps some of the more powerful skills (likely only some new ones) should have a minimum attribute requirement. Something like an improved Invoke Lightning: "Target foe and all adjacent foes take 75..200 lightning damage, have a 15..50% chance to be knocked down, and suffer from Weakness for 3..22 seconds. This spell requires 12 Air Magic." The numbers would probably be something like 12..20 or so, and the spell would simply fail with too low Air Magic. There'd probably be some uber skills that focus simply on utility that doesn't overly scale with attribute levels (similar to Shock, Maelstrom, and so forth), and this would help prevent skills designed for high-end play being abused in PvP, mid-end play, etc (I'm thinking 'nab the skill and just use it and throw attribute points into something else!'). This would also reward a player for focusing on one attribute over some others, though I don't know if that's something we want to do.

I don't know, maybe I'm way off and the system of elite skills is enough to counteract this. Armond 16:09, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Even though the level cap is higher the attribute points, or what ever they invent instead of the attribute system, will most likely be capped at a lower level like 20 or 50, or atleast we hope so. -- (gem / talk) 19:45, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Theoretically, it doesn't require an attribute increase at all. All abilities just need to scale in value by level as well as attribute. Most abilities already apply this in GW, with attacks, defense and spells, level advantage or disadvantage alters the value. One safeguard is keeping a high initial value, and low increase in power per level (primarily in health). Plus you can adapt all abilities to factor attribute focus and level into their power, that way the attribute focus can be limited, if not maximized to begin with, and only operate as a choice of which abilities you want to focus on most, rather than having to pour more and more in for higher levels to achieve the same effect at a higher plateu. There are some serious safeguards to consider, overall with higher levels, but basically, it is really just a number, how the values operate is completely uncertain.--BahamutKaiser 04:58, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Don't give Grind titles an ingame effect.

The pve-only skills all improve based on a title as do the title effects (lightbringer etc), but the max levels of those titles are deliberately put at a level where only those that make a major investment (especially the Kurzick/Luxon) can get the maximum benefit. Everything else in GW1 is about providing an even playing field between casual and hardcore players, but these pve skills don't follow that. I'd suggest that if you have pve skills in GW2 that they be powered by regular story line quests rather than requiring the player to repeat bounties/quests/vanquishes/etc. I'm fine with high level titles giving access to new armors, shiny weapons, etc. but keep grind for cosmetics, not mechanics. Sadie2k 19:26, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

See my rant about this subject at User:Gem/Thoughts#PvE-only skills. -- (gem / talk) 19:43, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Weapon Mods, Insignias, Runes, Obscure Elites, larger skill selection and secondary utility, all of these are advantages available to players who play more, and can reach or afford them. In case noone has noticed, this is the last mentioned addition to GW to tide us over til GW2, has it crossed anyones mind that all these titles allow us to persue something during the 2 or 3+ years before the full sequel arrives? These Sequels, along with the repeatable quest system in EotN are designed with the timeframe in mind, and to be really honest, these PvE skills are easy to obtain and empower with casual play, offering a significant ease to all gamers.

Without any competative advantage, it really doesn't matter how powerful players get in PvE, it really just stems from jealousy. The real issue is whether or not people are enjoying these abilities, and whether anyone is being suppressed because of it. With a greater focus on continuing levels in GW2, whether players who play more have a greater advantage with titles is much less significant. The real issue is how quickly players can obtain advancement so all players can reach a level of satisfaction in a relatively painless period of time, and than focus their gaming toward the action of the game instead of the growth of their character.--BahamutKaiser 04:28, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

The problem is, that even though it takes time to rank up to power PVE only skills, the system still doesn't seem to add longevity as there is little to entice many PVE players into acquiring and experimenting with these skills. It makes me sad when players say they have nothing left to do, yet they have hundreds of unused skill points on their characters and I am playing with friends in PVE who are using virtually the same builds since day one. :(

I hope GW2 promotes game play longevity by offering a system that more strongly entices players into learning new skills for their characters. Skill collecting and experimentation can eat up a LOT of time and be quite fun, but in GW1's PVE game there doesn't seem to be enough of a payoff for players to spend much time in learning and experimenting with all the skills in game, apart from attaning UAX for PvP purposes, which most don't seem to care about.

In my opinion, it won't be terribly effective in how long it takes to power up skills in adding longevity to the game, but about how rewarding it will be made to PVE players to learn more skills and experiment with them. The emerging emphasis on repetition over creativity, to develop one's PVE character, is turning off a number of players also. --Redfeather 11:07, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I like your idea (making experimentation with skills to be more important) - I really like it, in fact, since I think the greatest source of "healhty" replayability in GW is just trying the same thing but with a different skill bar - it's a completely different experience to play an area as a Necromancer Putrid Bomber than as a Necromancer Minion Master, for example. But I think it's a much deeper problem than that. Which skills work in an area is, I think, a mirror of how hard that area is. A hard area restricts build availability as players have few options to take in order to survive; an easy area allows anything to work, but if anything works players don't have reasons to change builds. An in-between would make it so that some kinds of skills are almost needed, but generic kinds, things available to all professions. A good example of this were the enemies running from AoE spells - to counter this, all we had to do was to bring a snare, something available to all professions (be it through crippling, a snare hex or a knock down) and that may be easily adjusted into any build.

But, what happened when Arena Net introduced the AoE flee? (Some) players complained. It got so ridiculous someone complained that he would waste time running in circles, together with all his heroes, behind the feeling enemy. Which means, the player allowed the (very limited) AI in GW to outsmart him, as he was unable to do such a simple thing as dealing with it in a proper way. Other complains were that (some) players didn't want to make any change at all to their builds - even the small change required to add a snare would prevent them from playing the way they wanted to.

In the end, Arena Net gave up and kept most of the AoE flee on Hard Mode. There players have a reason to change builds once in a while, but it also becomes stagnant - not only it falls within the category of "something so hard players have to use more or less the same build always", but also it's more or less the same everywhere: you have to prepare against melee enemies doing a lot of damage everywhere, about the AoE flee everywhere, about casters doing a lot of damage and thus needing shut down everywhere, and so on. Ideally, IMO, we would have a system in which there's variation - one area has enemies with the AoE flee, another has enemies that attack twice as fast, another has enemies with very high armor but low health, and so on. This is something Arena Net almost managed with GW:EN (the enemy design there is, IMO, the best thing in the entire expansion, and by far the best seen in GW), but even then players would complain. Sometimes players feel more like a hindrance than anything else. Erasculio 12:43, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps something like this to offer incentive to explore the game's skills?

I don't know if this sounds any good. But how about adding Profession Master NPCs. What happens is as characters learn/capture skills for a particular profession, they raise their proficiency rank in that profession. As their proficiency rank raises, they can go to the appropriate Profession Master who will offer a 1 vs 1 battle. Victory in this battle will be difficult if a player does not diversify and adapt their builds to each Profession Master's style. Beating this master will teach you a special PVE skill. These special skills are more versatile than regular skills. The skills' power level use the attribute system like normal skills, however they would allow players to create more diverse PVE bars as 1 of them can offer far more synergy than a regular skill. A character that learns all the normal and elite skills from a particular profession will be able to challenge every ranks' Profession Master and learn all of that profession's special PVE skills. Character advancement would feel far less repetitive and very little new would need to be added to the game. It's simply a system that takes advantage of what's already there! It would take time to for players' to accomplish, however the player will experience constant rewarding gameplay by continually learning new skills and being encouraged to figure out builds with them, in the pursuit of these special PVE skills. --Redfeather 13:01, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

BahamutKaiser said: "Without any competative advantage, it really doesn't matter how powerful players get in PvE, it really just stems from jealousy." I disagree. I myself am very disappointed that the PvE portion of the game has become a joke so that every 10-year old kid can get through it with a single skill bar. I'm not jealous beacuse someone has better skills than me due to spending more time grinding for reputation. The game is getting easier and easier with every new PvE mechanic that they've added with the new campaigns. (with the exception of hard mode ofcourse) I and many other players find it ridicilous that the challenge is being taken away, even from hard mode. The worst thing was to add PvE-only skills, since these aren't balanced due to PvP, and PvE players just don't complain when they get something better. Atm it's just a matter of time for the whole PvE population to get KoaBD, PKM or even IVI. -- (gem / talk) 14:01, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not that much worried about the balance in PvE, since Arena Net already showed to us that they are paying attention to it (as seen on the nerf to PvE only skills; I would guess a nerf to Ursan Blessing is incoming, for example). But what you are describing is something I see as a huge problem too, but it's hard to discuss. Those who like overpowered PvE only skills (and consumables, and all the other things that turn GW into Easy Mode) have a single claim - "Don't like it, don't use it". I don't agree with that, given how I think dumbing down GW hurts the game itself more than the players. Worse, even an average player is capable of playing through "Easy Mode" quickly, without having to stop to change skills, change strategy or just to think. I think this leads to a "now what?" situation, in which players rush to the end of the game as quickly as possible, and once there (ironically) complain how the game is too short.

In other hand, if players want an Easy Mode, would it be right to not give it to them? Plenty of games have an easy mode. One game even has a mode in which it gives full invulnerability, just so players have the ability of seeing all the scenarios and other cool things the game has. GW gives us the option of challenging ourselves by not using those PvE skills or consumables and just playing in Hard Mode, so we may make the game as hard as we want. Just as those who like Hard Mode likely enjoy the challenge, we have players who are not really interested in being challenged, but just want to experience the other things GW has. Would it be right to prevent them from doing so?

IMO? Yes! Any design change is going to please some players and anger others; I believe Arena Net has to follow what is better for the game. And allowing players to rush through GW on Easy Mode only hurts its longevity, IMO. But this is a complex discussion; not only the answer isn't obvious, but it also gets mudded by players who don't really want to play the game, but rather to skip it. Take a look at, for example, GWO, and you would notice how some of the players defending Easy Mode are the same who complained against the locked gates in Factions and the same who complain that they don't have gold to buy anything. Erasculio 14:26, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh gawd, how could I forget to rant about the one-use items? They are the bane of PvE. With my spare 300 skill points I can buy 300 items that remove all DP and give 10 MB. With them I could complete every vanquish and every hm mission even without having a good clue on how to play, and with a clue about how to play I don't need to amend my over powered PvE build for any area at all. And if I add my gf's spare skill points to the tally, we have 600 instawin items for use. Need to add that to my 'thoughts' page too.

And anyone interested in game difficulty balancing might want to read this. Other articles on that website rock too. -- (gem / talk) 14:48, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't mind if the PVE game has an easy mode in the way of consumables. There are very many players who are not used to, and never will get used to the frame of mind necessary in order to complete very challenging GW content. I don't think they should be restricted to what areas they can see, but I do think the game should have a built-in incentive to not rely on consumables.

Also I see PVE skills as simply 'shinies' that were thrown into the game to compel players to endure the time sinks added to gain faction reputation. Which makes me sad, because such repetitive gameplay wasn't necessary, as an incredibly entertaining type of longevity already existed in the form of over 1200 skills to learn. Those 1200+ skills are so much content waiting for players to play with, but there's little incentive built into the game for players to do so. :( --Redfeather 15:58, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree that normal mode should be completable by everyone. The problem I have is making hard mode too easy. It takes away my enjoyment of playing, and dimnishes the achievements of everyone who would be able to play hm without the additional helps. But we are getting off topic now, the original topic was about the repeatable grind needed for the reputation titles. -- (gem / talk) 19:58, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

There already is need to variate many skill options, because some don't work effectively or at all in certain situations. Kind of like Raising Undead with no corpses. All they need to do to allow more skill experimentation is make it easier to aquire skills, just remove the gold cost and buy with just skill points. If I had the skills to use, which is prevented by cost and lack of character synergy, I would try innumberable builds, but I have a serious limit in progress due to the restrictive cost and monitary requirements..... and because I divide my time with every profession.

Either way, this isn't a replacement for rewarding progress, it is just an addition. I'm really more interested in the addition of more action packed gameplay and action based controls... that alone offers enough facination in order to make even the same activity fun and exhilerating to play... which is why FPS players manage to have a ball playing the same 10 maps with the same abilities for hours to years. (this is not an endorsement for FPS in GW).--BahamutKaiser 02:54, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Everything available through grinding is a thorn in the eye for the casual player, whether it be skills or cosmetics. They want to have the same stuff the hardcore crowd has and that is simple not possible. Also I think many of the casual players would disagree with you, they would rather have the cool looking stuff and not the skills. The current PVE skills are both powerful and pointless. Any player has a ton of skills already at their disposal and one more or less will not really matter, you can complete everything fine without them. Besides any overpowered must have skill gets nerfed in the end. I do agree with the rank effects such as the lightbringer damage reduction, that leaves the casual player at a disadvantage if they want to try anguish areas. Z3ronl 20:07, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Lightbringer doesn't pose a problem. I've been vanquishing lots of 'difficult' HM areas with only 3-4 ranks in LB. The titles related to PvE skills are the problem. The new skills are more powerful than skills which are also used in PvP and will most likely not be balanced as well as PvP skills due to their 'importance for the game' being much smaller than the importance of those that affect PvP. Ofcourse most of them aren't too good without grinding the titles, which requires players to do easy repetitive farm to gain skills too powerful. -- (gem / talk) 20:50, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Seed of Life and There is nothing to fear got nerfed, although i admit i dont know why. You're right they are too powerful and personally i think PVE skills should only have effects that aren't viable in PVP like Light of Deldrimor, but i think many players would rather have cool looking armor then a new skill. GW end game rewards is all about looks.

I think thie most important part about PvE skills is that they offer unique features and effects which apply to PvE and not PvP. This allows players to interact more and simply makes the game more fun, like Light of Deldrimore. But also, PvE is made to be more epic, and having brokens skills, which is basically what all PvE skills are, to have a better advantage against difficult to broken odds makes the game more exhilerating. Though I would rather see more balance skill diversity than PvE skill superiority, there are definite benifits, I honestly love being able to play in avatar form 100% of the time.--BahamutKaiser 05:05, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Knockdown, movement control and energy denial are far weaker against AI opponents because human players can effectively manage their energy and effectively utilize co-ordination and mobility, so any knockdown, movement control or energy denial skill balanced for PvP will be underpowered in PvE unless it involves a punishment aspect which the AI ignores (as is the case with Ancestors' Visage / Sympothetic Visage and Shield of Judgment). Anyway, I think that PvE skills should be tied to regular attributes, easily maxed titles or character level. -- Gordon Ecker 06:34, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Let me go all the way back through this discussion to say: Yes! to the original poster. No in-game effects of grind titles please. --Xeeron 10:01, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Map Notes (Suggestion)

→ moved from User talk:Gaile Gray

Hello Gaile and wiki community! Just a quick suggestion for this GuildWars, or perhaps the next.. I was collecting some of the treasures in the NF campaign today and thought it would be very cool to be able to take notes on the main map, in the form of placing a pin at some desired location. This way a player could record the locations of whatever they like (a treasure, nice bit of scenery) along with a brief annotation. Thanks Spiderman 12:23, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Please remember that we have a page for this, the User talk:Gaile Gray/Guild Wars 2 suggestions page. Please place all suggestions there. --Gaile 13:46, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

My sincerest apologies. I should have read through more thoroughly. Can someone please help me move this? (I'm fairly new to MediaWiki) Thanks Spiderman 04:37, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I will move it, and you can check the history (do a comparison) to see how it sort of fits together. I'm no expert, but I can do that much. :) --Gaile 06:22, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

That would be cool! I hope it's implementable! Armond 15:47, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

/agree, even if you could just mark areas with one of those little green dots that marks a quest location, perhaps you could have a few colours so you could colour code your landmarks. This would be useful but being able to add text would be really helpful as well. An idea I had was you you place you dots on the map and when you create them you can add a note which is viewable when you roll-over the dot. Another useful feature of these dots would be if you could select one and then it used the same kind of mechanic as the green dots for quests do. i.e. it gives you a green arrow on your compass that you can use to navigate to your personal dot. Just my ideas. Lyra Valo 08:31, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Does the placement in Guild Wars 2 suggestions imply this won't happen for Guild Wars 1? Dancing Gnome 05:40, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

They have this sort of thing in Oblivion as well, but Oblivion only lets you use one marker at a time. It would be cool if we stuff like that Alreajk

Actual unique items/item scratching

hi! I think that a great idea for gw2 is firstly iten scratching this is not the same as durability incase people start complaining. i think it would add uniqueness to weapons if when there used in combat a chunk of the weapon could come flying off or if scratchs could appear the more its used. just to show that people have used the weapon alot and that its unique to them. Another idea is actual unique items eg:only one in the ENTIRE game sure it might give people a slight advantage to have +10 extra health that can never be obtained. but you could lock it out of pvp in pve im sure no one would mind. An example of an actual unique would be in wow's planned expansion where frostmore will be available to 1 person only or in another small mmo i play where I have a sword with my name attached it is the only "name's sword" it also has the only red glow in the game and looks great. you could make weapon series as prizes where there are 7 unique weapons up each its unique colour that would only be obtainable by 7 people and thats it. and my final idea is weapons that can cast spells or give you the ability to cast a spell eg:crappy sword that can cast Meateor shower with half the cooldown,or has a random chance to cast a random spell this could be added by a rare item being found and added to the sword eg: the way sword grips and handels work. Thats all thanks for listening --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:193.203.157.79 .

It might be interesting to allow temporary PVE buffs to be acquired from NPCs for gear. Those buffs could degrade over time, or over use. Enchanted sharpening on a weapon that degrades as you battle, enchanted armor that offers resistance to types of damage, but degrades as you are hit. I wouldn't think it good if they could be reapplied mid dungeon, but instead encourage players to strategize how they will make the most effective use of them while working through an area before they wear out. --Redfeather 16:09, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Repair weapon.. repair weapon... look nice at first but eventualy those "enchant" will become the norm and we will have to continusly cash gold on npc to reapply the mod. It will get boring and frustrating. --Bob 19:30, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I think it should be add once and only a monster drops the "spell handles" plus the scratchs dont damage the weapon they are just there to show that the player uses it alot --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:192.122.221.111 .

What about something purely cosmetic, like polish? -- Gordon Ecker 07:24, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Or pink sparkles. I hope nobody goes through my post history and counts how many times I suggest pink sparkles. :/ --Redfeather 08:25, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

It would be nice indeed if unique items were actually unique, now they are pretty much undyeble versions of their gold counterparts, save for some who have a unique skin. Allow unique items to break current weapon conventions as in giving them mod combinations that arent possible with modding regular items. e.g sundering and silencing on one item. Naming conventions would not be a problem since they have unique names. Or give them unique mods that arent available with normal items. +15% Range for bows or +5% IAS. Unique items are a poor man's weapon now, i don't think they were meant to be that. ofcourse farming would be an issue, making them widely available to anyone. Z3ronl 08:56, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. Strongly. If the mod combinations are available, they should be available to everyone, not just the players who can afford a rare item. I think the problem with unique items is that they generally have common skins, unpopular stats or both. -- Gordon Ecker 10:10, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

The very idea of green weapons was so that everybody would have access to max stats.. back in the original prophecies days, you could actually sell a white, max-damage weapon with ease, and if you had a perfect, gold weapon.. that was something else! — Skuld 11:38, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Green items served their original purpose very well, but the inscription system and the improved salvage system have made perfect items more affordable. If the inscription and salvage systems are carried over, or Guild Wars 2 has some other system to ensure that perfect items are easily accessible, it is likely that green items will only be useful as prestige items, and they can only serve that role with nice skins and decent stats. -- Gordon Ecker 06:48, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

if you find a unique item (which would be very rare as a dev would have to make each one) it would only be usable by that charactors account (note i say account and not just charactor) so say. Conski's wing staff customised for Conski The Warlocks desendents +12 energy 13-25 (higher damage than the max pretty usless as eles never use there weaps0 health +35 hct of fire magic spells 25% on attack 5% chance to cast mind blast @ lvl 12 fire

the example item would have above "max" stats (tho not that big an advantage) and when found is automaticly customed for the account now no other item with these exact stats could ever be made again to keep it unique. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:192.122.221.111 .

Why do you need an extra advantage???? why? do you really need that +10 extra health in pve? or that +5 extra base damage on the weapon? Why do you want a very few people to have an advantage over all casual players that won't afford this items? Why do you want to force the people who won't like the skin of this items to have a disadvantage? Or why do you want every of this items a "must have"? There are very few items in prophecies that indeed had an unique advantage over all others, the most famous was the HoD +5 energy sword at first it was also removed from game and its cost was about 700-1000k because of rarity before factions cames out with this mod (inscription) a common, also it was ugly. The "replace" of the hod sword was the fiery splitter which also end as a common mod (inscription). Stats should never be a reward, aesthetic should: titles, emotes, skins. Skill over Time remember that. Coran Ironclaw 13:41, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

but its not the advantage its to premote uniqueness like say everyone knows that "john doe" has the legendary sword "xyz" it makes some people stand out it gets boring if everyone can have the same thing as everyone else make it slightly unfair +10 health wont sway a battle but it will make a weapon unique --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:192.122.221.111 .

Why do people need to stand out like this? How would one decide who finds these? Totally random? Imho fame should come from the player being so totally awesome that people know him from that, not the fact that he happened to get an item that only onw player can get, and it was by random. -- (gem / talk) 19:34, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I am fine with rarity, but make it a name, or a skin, like minigreaselightning, or crystalline sword. There is no need to increase stats. Coran Ironclaw 19:46, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Preventing the items from being traded would still give an unfair grind-based advantage, but instead of being available to anyone who saves up the money, it would only be available to players who get lucky with the drops. -- Gordon Ecker 06:48, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

i realy don't see where all the hostility to the idea comes from. In any other game you have people who you know no mater who or where you are there your heros or villens it makes the game more personal rather than facless people walking round with everyone being able to get the same stuff "Life is not fair" i mean think of it this way there is one septer of orr who ever finds it gets the ability to control titans and bonus energy. if it was a quest reward it would crap up the lore that its this all powerfull staff that 1000000 people have.I would hate to see your reaction to another thing i was going to sujest which was one off player specific events.(like in .hack) --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:192.122.221.111 .

That's why i play Guild Wars and not "any other game". if a "lucky drop" will get the best or unique things and you can't obtain it by no other means, where's the motivation? where's the skill over time? at least even in farming there is some skill looking for the best place, build, method etc. but in just a "lucky drop"? there is nothing. My real suggestion would be remove gold weapon from drops, make them craftable like destroyers, those are the best way. And again reward with prestigue on skins, title and name, not in stats. Coran Ironclaw 08:52, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Nearly every other MMORPG has extremely rare items which are mechanically superior to affordable items. Nearly every other MMORPG requires players to grind for gear in order to stay competitive. The original Guild Wars was marketed as a subscription-free, low-grind, heavily instanced online game. There's a lot of players out there who hate grind. -- Gordon Ecker 09:02, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind having the ability to name weapons upon customisation as a form of unique weapon. Adding one of a kind items with inuque statsd however goes against the core idea behind guild wars in my eyes. Getting a decent rare weapon (non greens as they are already named) and paying an extra fee at a weaponsmith to give it a name such as "Kurosawa's Advocate" will allow furthar customisation to characters while keeping the rarity of some weapons as well as balance. Isamu Kurosawa 09:12, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

fine it will have the same stats as any other weapon but will have a different skin and the main point THERE IS ONLY ONE OF IT. it could be given out in an event or hidden away in some far off corner of the map that some explorer finds --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:192.122.221.111 .

I'm sorry but that is just the worst idea ever. Everyone should be able to get a certain item, and not have to buy a special "only one in the world weapon" for 5000k or however ridiculously high the price gets. - Hyrule 11:28, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

if you read all of it you would notice it is customised for the person who gets it account --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:192.122.221.111 .

My apologies, it was just so terrible I couldn't read the whole thing. - Hyrule 14:03, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Aside from promoting elitism and envy, you're forgetting the feasibility of the idea of limited unique items. Since there are potentially millions of players, say GW2 will start off with 1 million players, and say about 1% of them attended the special event and/or got lucky with the drop. Are you expecting Anet to devote the time of their artists, developers, and playtesters to try and come up with one unique item for each of those ten thousand players?! And that's just for starters... What if there are 5 million players? 10 million? It's totally infeasible and illogical.

As for the durability, Diablo has used it, and it was silly, it was likely just something to spend money on. Anet has a very good track record of removing silly stuff that supposedly "adds realism" when all those so-called "features" are really nothing more than "annoyance". Forcing me to repair weapons first everytime I go on a quest or mission is not fun. They serve absolutely no purpose other than waste my already limited time playing games. Unless you can come up with a brilliant in-game benefit from having weapons slowly "get scratched", no thanks. -- ab.er.rant 02:49, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

the scratch does not do anything the scratch appears on the weapon it does not damage it. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:213.202.129.110 .

Ah! I see, so it's like a well-worn armor, dented shield, chipped swords, etc. Nice idea actually. But you'd have to wonder how noticeable such things are. Make them too small, and other users just won't be able to see all that detail unless everyone stands still. Make them too obvious, and they might be too ugly. Probably not worth the effort for something so small (but nice to have nonetheless). -- ab.er.rant 08:11, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

More Weapons

It would be neat if there were more diverse weapons! Melee spears and staves would be a neat. There will be a more unique experience if the weapon wasn't tied to a profession, rather it can be mastered by any profession. -- Hopefulaltruist 23:00, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I would like to see a much larger diversity of weapon types and weapon functions, as well as weapon multifunctionality. But I like that some weapons have unique advantages, and that different professions are limited to a certain combination of advantages, as well as their weapon selection. Wile weapons all basically offer the same objective, some are clearly designed for use in different situations, and freely associating them with any other leads to unbalanced combinations, reduced team reliance, and character monotany.

I also hope all caster articles lose wanding functions, and only operate as spell boosters or manual weapons.--BahamutKaiser 02:45, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Allow a character to learn new PRIMARY professions

Build a character around a name, avatar, titles/reputation, locations explored -- not a primary profession. Even make it difficult and time comsuming for me to learn a new primary profession, such as going thru schools, training, arduous quests, etc. Still require me to get all the requisite equipment and be limited to one primary and secondary profession at a time. I'd love to get to play different professions and keep everything my main character has. I've wanted account based titles for a long time because it's fun to play all the professions, but so much is being added that benefits playing a limited number of characters. This is another solution instead of account based titles that would solve it for me. Cameronl 04:53, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually we don't even know whether GW2 will have professions or not... but there was a previous suggestion that suggested that each account only has one character and that character can be switched around to any archetype freely. Or something like that. -- ab.er.rant 08:01, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

As a player who likes to have a "group" or "family" of characters as well as a small amount of RP in my actions, I dislike both suggestions. --Xeeron 10:10, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

The existance of professions was confirmed by the PC Gamer issue in which Guild Wars 2 was formally announced. I can see several major advantages of variable primary professions:

• Reduces the impact of sub-optimal or unpopular race / profession combination choices, including race / profession combinations renderd sub-optimal or unpopular by balance changes.
• Makes the game more PuG-friendly by allowing anyone with the appropriate skills and gear to respec to the needed profession, as well as reducing the negative impact of uneven profession popularity.
• Makes it easier for casual players to try out different professions.
• Being able to effectively use any skill from any profession makes learning all skills a desirable and beneficial long-term goal.
• If ArenaNet decides to add a new profession at some point in the future, players could simply buy expansion X, and unlock the profession with the appropriate NPC or quest, without the need for the player to create a new character or the need for ArenaNet to create a new starting area.

-- Gordon Ecker 10:14, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Although I initially was a bit against this, I think that experimenting with new stuff like this might be worth it. GW has had other new ideas which have worked better than one could expect, and this one might make the play experience more enjoyable for many. People have recently been complaining about the title system forcing one to play with only one profession and this would be a partial fix, although the different races in GW2 will still keep the need for multiple characters. Also, Gordon has some very good points. -- (gem / talk) 13:34, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't really think this is a good idea, i can see several negative points to it.

• Reduces longevity of the game by a very large portion. After you finish all the content with one char your basically done, no point in starting a new one. You can easily capture all elites since you have access to those locations already. Sure, some might go for titles and stuff but a lot of people dont really care about those things.
• Some features that i really like about GW wouldn't exist for example running would be almost completely elimenated. I don't think many players want to run all the content on their first char. Besides if they decide to run it, they change to ranger or dervish and run it themselves.
• The more everything becomes an option, nothing really is an option. Why try to make things work with what you have, when you can just take uberbuild A or B from wiki and go. The fun part is trying to overcome hurdles with the options available. If a mission is too hard playing an elementalist, you would take something else that would be easier and not learn how to overcome those things with your elementalist.

There are some good points, like those above but in general i think it would ruin the gameplay since you wont learn how to play a certain profession since you wont be playing it long enough. Z3ronl 21:01, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I like the idea a lot, specially since gw2 will have races. I see the arguments of xeeron an z3ron1 being null because of the races, "After you finish all the content with one char your basically done" Not at all, first you have the long-term achivements like titles and second you have other races to prove on!. "As a player who likes to have a "group" or "family" of characters as well as a small amount of RP in my actions, I dislike both suggestions" Your Group can be one of each race! Coran Ironclaw 21:46, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

My argument would only be voided if races change the gameplay in a drastic measure and that we wont know until it comes out. Z3ronl 22:00, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree that you run the risk of "The more everything becomes an option, nothing really is an option". You could solve that by providing rewards for completing tasks as a primary mesmer or monk or each profession. Beyond that you could even reward for completing them with a certain sealed deck of skills, but that may be too much. Cameronl 22:08, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

The way I see things, if playing through a mission or dungeon with a character of one profession is dramatically different from playing through it with a character of another profession, being able to play through it as either of those two professions on the same character won't make it more similar, and if playing through a mission or dungeon with a character of one profession is pretty much the same as playing through it with a character of another profession, having each character locked into a primary profession isn't going to make a difference in the mission or dungeon experience. I just hope that they have hard mode, or some other way to make the earlier parts of the game challenging and rewarding for high-level characters. -- Gordon Ecker 04:26, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Changeable Primaries is nearly a neccessity, with the static but less galvanized effects of races, they function more like a static primary with minor to moderate unique and unchangeable advantages and disadvantages. Basically, a static primary is still in place, your race.

More importantly, the whole more options less choices theory revolves around poor gameplay mechanics. As stated, having freely adjustable professions allows players to fit the need of a team, and if the professions are balanced properly, and more importantly, each profession is designed with a valuable and indispensible benifit, than a party will need to diversify in order to function.

Each profession could even hold their own level like FF, but I think Anet favors originality..... though being able to level up as anything allows players to reach maximum potential with other professions, without any experience using them. Also, seperating each profession with their own level development ensures replay value with each profession on a single character. This reduces flexibility of profession selection in character development periods of the game, so it is a tradeoff. But no matter how high the level cap is, it shouldn't be entirely lengthy to achieve levels, and as long as the character development process is brief, it is just a short task on the road to offering more profession selection through the adventure experience after character development is finished.

And most importantly, forced replay in order to experience all the options in the game is a serious negative, many of the games tasks are uninteresting and tedious, the first time may hold some story imput and interesting events, but repeated experience rarely holds any excitement. Quest should be more repeatable like EotN so players can enjoy experiences they like over and over again, but players shouldn't have to replay all the parts they are already over just to gain access to another profession, this is a serious pain that I feel all to well, with 7 developed characters, everyone remembers being stuck through the rurik scenes with a new player or running the blankets for the settlers, ther 6th time, it was alright once, but when you try to take on the insurmountable amount of content on all over again just for a profession, it makes you hate.

Needless to say, because of the races, which will hold far less alignment than a profession, you will still have the option to experience fairly unique content over again wile playing through the game in a different situation, and that is replay enough if one wants to do it. At least with free swapped professions you know each character will be able to operate the basic functions of any professions, even if they are a little less capable with it.--BahamutKaiser 04:40, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Experiencing all the options in an MMO is impossible by design definition alone. Granted ANET doesn't use a subscription model but they have an interest to keep people playing the game as well. Once you have experienced it all, you'll move on that is not a good thing for a game that relies on people playing online with each other. Most of the content is already easily accessable, with wow it took me forever to get a maxed char.Z3ronl 14:44, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I dunno, it seems the common perception is that the races will have inherent statistical differences. Really, all I can see for racial differences is the player's starting location within the world (geographically), and possibly a small amount of race-specific skills. If there is no statistical difference between races, then primary professions should stay as they are now: fixed. If not, I think the ability to change them would make for interesting possibilities. --Valentein 21:52, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

How would you define "experiencing all the options" in Guild Wars 1? If it means having one character for each primary profession, each of which has all primary skills, there are a significant number of people who have already done so. As for racial skills, having different skill pools is a mechanically siginficant difference. What happens if one of the racial skills is the key skill for an extremely popular build? Should racial skills be nerfed to uselessness, and, if so, wouldn't that make racial skills pointless? -- Gordon Ecker 00:19, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Depending on how the leveling system works, if you can keep your current level when switching professions i would suggest that you can change your primary but there is a waiting period of 24 hours so that if you really wanted to try the new profession then you wait a day then you can play as him. This would make your profession choice not permanent but you could not change it at will. If the same sort of system is kept then by changing profession you would use your current levels attribute points but you would not have any of that professions skills unless you buy them. Mashav 06:20, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Repeating everything over again to try out the options of another profession is not experiencing all of the options in an accessible fashion. As said, if races do have original benifits, it will already limit your options somewhat, and that is enough. Limiting your characters options to a subtle effects ensures that your not missing out on significant primary functions of a profession. It is a system of limitation far less than what we have with static professions now. And I can not believe the density.... of course the options are in context to all the profession options (you know that topic up there, "the" options, do I have to spell it in crayon for you?), the professions define the functions and abilities you can use in combat, wile races will still limit your selection somewhat, their subtle nature is not nearly as significant as profession alignment.

Because of the longevity of a full MMO, and the wasteful bore of repeating the same content, it is supremely significant that primary professions be changable. Repeatable longevity is plentiful, through the experience of different races, and greatly different plot development of a character of another race interacting with the world (if it is designed well). The replay of the game with alternate content and significant identity differences is more than enough to persuade players to replay the game, for good reasons instead of bad ones.

Rule number one..... two, three, four and five of game making, FUN. Repeating the same content with simular characters to experience the profession options, not fun. Poorly designed replay enforcement just so players will remain occupied trying to open up all the playing options instead of continuing and repeating interesting activities BY CHOICE which are fun to play and replaying different scenarios with unique story development for other races, not fun. If I hear another retarded remark about how poor game design should be considered to support longevity, when it actually causes gamers to seek other alternatives, I will develop psychic powers and psychically bitch slap your prejudice, bias, jaded ass... GOD!!!, evolve or something, I can't deal with this stupidity anymore!

All joking aside, it was a dumb mistake, but underhanded tricks to make players play longer fall under the definition of grind, and grinding over the same content which you already played just to try another profession is no exception. At least, if we have to develop each professions abilities on a single character, we can pick and choose which parts we want to repeat and replay to BEST SATISFY THE PLAYER (also a sub-priority of having fun).

As for fostering unique advantages among races which will still push players to replay with other races.... well that isn't even as bad as what we currently have, replaying the same race and content just to use primary abilities and functions from professions, because you at least get to experience different content, and have another very different character. But just like profession balance, each race should have equally valuable and effective, but different advantages. And that does not mean nerfing whenever one of the chess pieces are mistaken for puzzle pieces (the worst habit and failure of GW1 progress), it means each should have something of value. The best part is, with races, the advantages and unique features can be minimized greatly in comparison to professions, so it is far less of a division, along with being far less monotinous to replay the game through somewhat different content.--BahamutKaiser 03:12, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

i had FUN playing several characters, to each his own and i would prefer to keep the discussion civilized. (remark@unsigned poster above) Besides a lot of professions can be played well as a secondary, the primary attribute is not always needed. Maybe just skip professions alltogether and have a classless system where your attributes develop during gameplay. As for races, well we won't know until GW2 ships but I doubt the content seperation would mean more than different starting areas and an odd quest here or there and if stats were significantlty different, you will get the same issues that you have now. Repeating content to fully experience all the options. Z3ronl 08:41, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

There are some people who like and support any kind of grind, that really isn't an issue, nothing prevents them from playing the same stuff over again if they want to, for the same character doing different professions, or another simular character doing another profession, the use of changable primaries protects all of those who do not enroll in any form of grinding activity and only wish to enjoy the least amount of inconvenience possible will obtaining character flexibility.

I've tested this system before in another game, and honestly, it was one of the best features in the game, the races had very little differences, and you could play every "class" with one character. Though you had to develop each seperately, you never had to repeat particular quests, and your character benifited from access to new places to play even for low level content making it a new experience. It simply works better, if only that game didn't totally fail combat gameplay and economy, I would still be playing it.

5 static race selections is actually less unchangable options than GW1 so far, even though races should not prevent your ability to operate any profession, and support any role in a party even with advantages or disadvantages. In comparison you have 10 static profession options in GW1, and 90ish profession combinations beyond that, and there is a very big difference between running most of them as primary or secondary. Lets assume we get 10 and only 10 professions for the life of GW2, and you cannot change a primary, the number of static race + unchangeable primary options rockets to 50. That is 50 different characters if you wish to experience each profession on each race, the changeable secondary isn't relavent. No One has the time for 50 characters just so they can have a complete selection, even if they only select the effective combinations, and there are sure to be some repeats with a few professions, it will be more than it is already in GW1. And than you add the possibility for either more professions or more likely, more races.

It's basically non-negotiable statisically, modern games realize the failure of seperating each slight variation with obscure replay neccessity, it just prohibits access in practice. That is why RPGs will typically offer either adjustable professions, or attach specific professions to a certain race, with very little shared profession selection between races, if they even have a selection for each race. It comes down to neccessity, and modern developers cannot afford to allow that kind of character obscurity without suffering for it.

P.S. I think everything up there is signed, just follow the indents.--BahamutKaiser 15:05, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Ahh, okay. Well most of the RPG'S i played, although last years its been pretty much WoW or this, still adhere to the old school classes. I'm not promoting grinding, but this is for me, the least troublesome grind there is. Oh well, the table is set and now we just have to wait and see what's for dinner.Z3ronl 17:04, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Here is my thoughts; I do like the idea of more than one character slot, as I read this section I read about game longentivity and something came to mind. I thought about pre searing in the original prophecies, there was something a bit unique about that place in that if you chose the monk profession you did monk quests and like wise for the other professions. what my thoughts are is why not add more profession specific quests through out the whole game. As I see it it would give me some fresh content with every new character I make. Elven Fyr

That's a perfectly good idea, however not at all related to whether or not to have changable primaries. It would benifit the experience of play if each profession you used or race you used had more unique events thouought the game, but that is reguardless of being able to switch them.--BahamutKaiser 02:43, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

i would prefer being able to change my primary profession, and that different professions shouldn't have different faces and armors. I've found myself repeating missions with different characters, having to change character for different pvp styles and so, it isnt that fun having to complete the same campaign with 2 or 3 different professions. I'm only going to have one character in gw 2 anyway so it wouldn't bother me if it was like it is but this idea is good. --Cursed Angel 01:17, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Dye Effects

Standardize Dye effects on all armors and equips. It's just sad that certain armors are harder to "mix and match" due to the effects of dye on the armor. Renin

that sounds good... I know at least 1 of my armors that when it gets dyed white it turns grey. a constant dye would be good. Personally id also like some kind of glow material that you could put in your dye and your armor would glow a little. Mashav 21:44, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd also like to be able to dye all of my armor. If an armor has three colours, I'd like to be able to replace any/all of those colours with a new dye. For instance, the effect of dye on warrior fissure armor in GW1 is negligable because most of it is grey and doesn't change, you can only change the highlights. Sadie2k 00:36, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

yeah that would be good as well. or maybe you can colour the parts of your armour differently such as the grey part on your armor you could dye 1 colour and the normal part you could dye the same or a different colour... either way all of your armour would be dyeable. Mashav 02:26, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Would be nice if we got a new type of dye that changed texture rather than colour. Dyes would be matt by default and mixing in one of these special dyes its changed. Silver dye could be moved to this category and be used to make your dye mixes metallic, then we could have irridescant dye, glittery dye, etherial dye (think ghostly items) and many other possiblities. I'm all for anything that increases customisation abilities to GW2.Isamu Kurosawa 09:18, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

larger health bars.

1 thing id like to see in GW2 is larger amounts of health so that non spike healing is applicable in higher stages of the game. I think that the amount of health that a player has should allow them to survive for longer then 3 seconds when attacked by 1 group of monsters when they have the right armour and level for that area. This should also be true for PvP. Health should be enough to survive 4 damage dealers for at least 3 seconds. This would be similar to if all dmg and healing in GW1 was reduced by 50% or more. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Mashav .

Spike is good tactic also, why do you want to kill it? Coran Ironclaw 04:56, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

If health-damage ratio would be changed like that spiking would be a dead tactic. Not a good idea. And even if the health amount is raised, hard PvE areas need to be made hard in some way and high damage is one of those ways. We don't want 'easy mode' instead of 'hard mode'. -- (gem / talk) 09:02, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I know but in getting guardian in tyria and elona i could use 3 skills and become invincible and tank. Spell breaker, protective spirit and SoA. I also did all of Eotn with Zb, protective spirit and soa. And with 3 skills i have made all healing prayers pretty much useless. I loved using healing prayers to keep people alive for most of tyria the first time around but as i got further it pretty much became very hard. For most of Elona and Cantha healing became pretty much useless. healing some1 back to full and having them die less then 1 second later really sucks. If this did happen it would also allow for more flexibility in builds in higher areas of the game. As for spiking i guess id be fine if 5+ human dmg dealers could but the AI in game would spread out their dmg and it would take each 1 at least 6 seconds to kill their target. On a side note this is probably my last post here so don't direct any more posts at me. Mashav 09:47, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

You have a point there that Protective Spirit is too good of a solution in PvE due to the high amounts of damage caused by enemies. I'm not sure if this would help with that problem though. Adding more enemies instead of more damage might better in harder areas and would releaf us of the need to use PS. (btw, PS is by no means a necessity, just over used and an overly easy choice) -- (gem / talk) 10:12, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

All it takes is greater sabatoge efforts against protection and enchantments to make protection less effective than healing in certain circumstances, that way healing provides greater value. Also, healing means of shutting down spikes and providing consistent support against continous effects should be improved. Primarily healing hand and healing seed could stand to compete and outperform protective spirit in certain situations, if they were developed with the ability to continously overcome heavy damage in mind.

Also, more abilities which offer high damage delivery through multiple smaller attacks would also offer a counter to protective spirit. Skills which offer 2 and 3, to even 5 simultanious or repeatative strikes for small damage would clip under the damage threashhold, offering effective damage against techniques like reversal of fortune, protective spirit, and even be more effective against abilities like guardian, since certainty of half is better than chance of whole. In this way, many protective abilities would have a much harder time negotiating damage, and simply healing the damage becomes a greater neccessity.

Lets just imagine an Assassin unarmed punch skill, call it shockwave fist, and it does 40 attack damage and also deals 17 damage five times. Certain healing techniques would make that ineffective, but most protection abilities would let it right though.--BahamutKaiser 23:57, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Good ideas. :) -- (gem / talk) 00:00, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Another effective way to empower healing is with the guard gauge idea I came up with. Personally I think the unrealistic health and damage application make the game silly looking. With a guard gauge in combination with a health gauge, healers could utilize effective means of restoring health or guard (which is the characters natural yet depleating means of defending himself), or both at once with different abilities, and also have a combination of support techniques which allow them to heal in two different ways instead of one at a time. This can be further embelished by making most healing techniques replenish health first, and than guard if health is full.

On the opposite side, protection effects can be further limited by offering protective effects to guard only, or health only, reducing their potency. Some would probably offer independant benifits, wile some would benifit both, but the general advantage would be that healing spells are better at replenishing both wile protective spells offer seperated benifits.--BahamutKaiser 00:24, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I personally would just like to see a 75%, 50% and/or 25% marker on the health and energy bar. That way, it'll be easier for the conditional skills to use,Renin 02:17, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Strongly Agree - I found it funny that some skills work only on these conditions, but the game does not provide a direct and precise way for the player to determine if the condition has been met. --[ ALTIMIT | TALK ] 08:37, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

World PvP - MMORTS?

World PvP sounded like one of the most exciting things about GW2 to me. The feel of an ongoing battle of epic proportions is something ANet came close to with alliance battles, and I hope it's replicated for GW2. I've also thought since the announcement of GW:EN that many players would invest in a GW RTS-we have an established in-game universe, multiple races, a profession system-staples of most hero-based fantasy RTS games. Then the other day, someone on a forum I visit (see here) found this. It's a cross between an RTS, a FPS and a MMORPG. The concept is like any traditional RTS-the commander orders the NPC units to head to point x, attack unit y, or build building z. Now imagine the same, but this time, instead of the units being NPC's, they're humans. The commander (perhaps chosen through his/her experience of world PvP or world PvP "rank"?) would give the players commands, who would then execute the orders, contributing to the overall victory or defeat. I think this is a wonderful concept, and personally believe it should be looked into for GW2. --Santax (talk · contribs) 18:42, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

There are other RPG+RTS games out there, Spellforce and Spellforce 2 for example. The genre isn't such a success. I think GW should be focused on what it is good at. Splitting the team to develop two games at the same time = bad idea. Especially as the games would be competing eachother for customers, not other games. -- (gem / talk) 20:45, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Another thing is that theres also a Savage 2 coming out with players being builders and other features. I would suggest going to their site to get some more perspective. Mashav 22:57, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Essentially GW is a strategy already, but it isn't going to be like a commander telling people to go places and organizing a battle like a typical RTS game. Players don't respond well to foriegn control. It is better to have smaller groups trying to achieve a given objective in a semi divided setting where only a few members are working together directly and coordination and leadership is decided by choice, not abilities and appointment.

The alliance battles are a great way for world PvP to work, on a much larger scale. Different strongholds and capture points exist where players emerge and try to maintain defenses and advantages. Adding some diversity to a much large scale is a definate need, but basically it is no different than playing chess, but expanding the board and elaborating with special additions.--BahamutKaiser 00:09, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Day and Night

I dont know if this had been suggested but I would like to see persistant time. For time to change while your out exploring from day to night. Sun Rises, Sunsets, Clear Nights, Raining Nights and everything inbetween. I like Darker levels and would prefer to do all my quests at night if I could. Imagine all the unique quests they could make based on if the moon is out, different enemies based on if they are nocturnal or not.Ifive 20:59, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I think 1 to 3 hours would be appropriate for a day / night cycle. Specific instances could ignore the cycle if necessary for plot reasons (such as infiltrating an enemy camp at night). -- Gordon Ecker 06:15, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

More undead spawn at night. Inscription with +20% dmg at night, and of course insignia with +40 al at night. All pvp match count as day, so it not out of balance. 3 hours is enough to complet any mission or vanquish any area with those bonus and provide a long enough down time so it not over exploited for farming. --Bob 16:47, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I love the idea of a day and night cycle. But i would like it even more if seasonal changes would be a fact too. In december snow, signs of kids through snowman near city's, big white landscapes. Springtime, Autumn, Indian summers. Ahh the dreams. -- Silverleaf 12:46, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

The Sims 2 style face/character editor

I'm not sure if you've seen this, but I found "The Sims 2" to have a pretty nice face/body editor for characters one creates. I'd quite like to see something like that in GW 2, because it obviously allows for more diversity in the characters appearance than the current preset faces and bodies in GW1. LunarEffect 21:08, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

The Sims 2 makes it possible to produce thousands of possible faces, but most of them are hideous. -- Gordon Ecker 23:46, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

That too. But mostly because The Sims 2 is a single player game. GW2 is an online game, and having things that customizable is not realistic. Lightblade 23:52, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

The Sims is not just an offline game... and City of Heroes/Villains has a lot of customization options. -- ab.er.rant 01:24, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd rather a game than ran smoothly than have infinite facial customisability. I'm not sure that they could make the faces look as nice (smooth/detailed). Perhaps they'd use similar technology as they do for armours - all armours but your own look yuk in towns. So all faces in towns/persistent explorable areas in GW2 would look ugly (polygons/choppy texture) but your own. --Aspectacle 03:51, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd like a bunch of facial feature pools (overall face shape, eyes, hair, facial hair, ears and horns, tattoos / makeup etc.) and several body types to select from, but I don't think that implementing Sims 2 style face structure sliders is worth the drawbacks or resource investment. -- Gordon Ecker 07:28, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

A system like that would force players to load a lot of stuff when they enter an outpost. We recently found out from Gaile that they've even removed some pets from the game (eg the Hippo) just to reduce loading times needed when entering an area. Implementing a more detailed character creation would be even worse as an outpost could have a hundred players, forcing every player to load all of their unique details when they enter the outpost, making the game not-too-enjoyable for people with slower connections and computers.

I'd be interested in the addition of a simple body tupe slider and a bit more broader face and hair selection. -- (gem / talk) 08:57, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

It seems some of you are still thinking within the borders of the technology that was available when GW1 was programmed. Was that 2003/2004? Well its 2007 now, GW2 probably wont be available until 2009. Even now processors are more than 100% faster than they were back then, 64 bit technology has been made widely available, theres directX10, you can get huge hard drives for very little money, the speed of internet connections is skyrocketing!...Now one thing I love about GW, is that it never required me to make any huge investments in new, expensive hardware or monthly fees, which is perfect for a student as myself and of course I'd love it to stay that way...but...I surely don't expect to be playing GW2 on the same PC I started GW1 on. My vision of this face editor is far from being able to model an own face for your char, more along the lines of being able to change the size of ears, nose, eyes, mouth (or at least being able to choose some presets of these parts separately)...similar to being able to change the hight of a char in GW1. I'm pretty sure modern shader languages could make it look "smooth" =) LunarEffect 15:27, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

As long as they don't have Oblivion's character building/rendering engine. *shudders* -