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

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Sin

If there is still a sin/ninja class, make shuriken and blinding powder more prevalent. Shadow steps should be a primary thing as well, if you still have attributes set in such a way that certain skills can be primary... ‽-(eronth) I give up 17:27, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Part of the reason why I love GW is because it doesn't particularly lean toward one (real) culture. Ninja and shuriken is just too Japanese. The word itself is Japanese. Assassin, throwing daggers, and caltrop, however, are used throughout the world. So it's best to keep it that way. Lightblade 05:08, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Dervish is specific to the Islamic religion, and before they added it I would agree that Anet was trying to stay away from cultural identities, but that was about as specific as they can get, introducing fanatical islamic names into the game. When it comes down to it, Assassin means killer for higher, just as theif or pirate are not really defined by a combat orientation, however ninja or Shinobi as I would perfer, is a very specific combat style accustom to the techniques used by the Assassin profession, and since Ninjas are what people appreciate about the Assassin identity, and because Katana, another Japanese oriented feature, would be a great addition to the Assassin, it really wouldn't be an offense to make the change.

The only real good reason to carry over the title is to stay consistent with the identities already established in the game, though I would like for them to remove the professional notation from each of them and let players figure out what they are fighting by observation and not designated letters, that way we can better invent or own identities out of the abilities and professions combine on a character, and better mix up the action on the battlefield as well.--BahamutKaiser 00:52, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Random(ness)

I would like to see some Random maps but in a creative way. Example: A dungeon your exploring, however dynamic cave-in's change the path you can follow to get out. So you might know the map... but you don't actually know which way is out. Chik En 20:50, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, or maybe even a set of changing dungeons, a kind of keep going till you die type of thing. I used to play a game called Dark Cloud and also the sequel Dark Chronicle. In these games you would have to explore dungeons killing enemys until you find the enemy with the key to the door to get to the next floor. The great thing was every time you went into one of these dungeons they would always change, I assume they were randomly generated maps and the enemy's locations were probably randomly generated too. However im no game-maker... But something like that would be fun, where you enter a dungeon but it's a new feel every time. They could also maybe get harder the further down you go.

EDIT: Just thought maybe you have already made something like this in GW:EN, with the multy level dungeons. --Alien 20:57, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah..yes..random maps. One of the things that's lost for many many years. I don't know how hard it is to actually do this, but to my observations all the games that have random maps are 2D games. Lightblade 10:22, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Random maps should only be allowed on (very) optional side areas. I for one hate random maps ala Dark Cloud and Diablo and Dungeon Runners. They are never fun and kill interest. I just don't like the fact that if I'm looking to go through the area or find something in there, I'd have to waste time and find it again. It's a waste time. Random maps are only useful when a game has nothing much to offer except to visit random maps and repeat the same mindless repetition. GW is not a hack-and-slash game, and it should stay that way. -- ab.er.rant 10:30, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

In my experience I have only found randomly generated maps to be repetetive and boring, eventually lowering the quality of the overall game. The main reasons for this are that the map "tiles", while individually created, cannot fit together in an original way at all. In an original map, such as Guild Wars' current zones, you can look around and usually figure out where you are. Tiled maps fall into a horrible feeling of mazes, everywhere looking the same, with different levels or areas changing to a different tileset but ultimately the same "Big room", "Corridor section 1", "Corridor section 2", "T-junction". Maybe there is some original way to do it.. but I'll be impressed if it's not the same as every other generated map in games. - Shotmonkey 14:12, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I was suggesting static maps / areas as GW has but with random pitfalls that block passages that force you to travel a unknown route in the same environment you already know... as with real life... you know the area but things happen that divert your you in traffic do to construction or accidents Chik En 03:40, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Consumables

I would like to see Materials/Collector items (etc) used in other ways. Perhaps a new type of Skill that would work like a Elite (can only have one) but would not stop you from having an elite. Example. "Stone Shield" Use 2 granite slabs and 5 energy, apply a stone shield over your existing shield to boost your shields armor by 5 for the next 6 Attacks unless it blocks a critical attack in which case the stone shield is destroyed early. Chik En 21:03, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I cannot think of a single positive aspect I've seen towards consumables in multiplayer games - in the end, they all either encourage mindless grind (if they're acquired via PvE) or start some form of character ability progression (if they're acquired from PvP) - or both. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 21:05, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I think the Nightfall food items strike the right balance for non-cosmetic consumable items. They're cheap, stackable, provide a slight buff and last a long time. I don't want to see expensive consumables or must-have consumables, and I really don't want to see expensive must-have consumables. -- Gordon Ecker 22:43, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Agree that *required* consumables (such as the potions in Diablo) don't make for fun gameplay. The current festival consumables of GW strike a better balance. --Drekmonger 22:53, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Personally having a use for wood or bones or other things for more complex skills or simply other purposes would be great. I am not suggestion armor or weapons that wear away and require upkeep. As realistic as that is, it is just not fun. Other games have had huge success with consumables, (D&D) which is still primal influence to many RPG games. I do not know about you but I would like to use my wood planks for something other then just armor and weapons, there are only so many characters I will create after that.. the wood is merchant food Chik En 22:58, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not too keen on the idea of the crafting materials being used in some other way other than crafting. But as you mentioned D&D, are you talking about DDO? What sort of consumables do they have? -- ab.er.rant 02:09, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

The D&D I meant was the book & die game. Anyway using 20 wood planks to craft a Torch to see in the dark or a glass vile & some plant fibers & any residue to craft a lantern would work well to me. Skill usage was just a idea. I did not want to directly tie it my Light suggestion. Also could take parchment paper to help craft scrolls CHEAPER then just paying gold for a scroll. Chik En 13:22, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I Just watched the GW:EN demo for E3 (link is on Gaile's talk page) and new consumables are coming :) do not know about the old ones... something is better then nothing Chik En 17:29, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Now I agree with Aiiane that consumables causes grind. You already can see this in GW, as in...Candy Cane. Lightblade 05:02, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

They also can make materials more valuable and thats good for the economy. Skills using small amounts of related material could be nice, maybe have something like obsidian-shards consume granite slabs if aviable to boost attribute by 1 or 2 (with the option to stop the consumption). Every material should have such "drains" wich continiously remove them from the economy.Sir Astaroth 17:06, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I personally think that the ability to craft items yourself instead of using npcs would be a great addition and create a different kind of economy. Most MMO's today have this feature, and I feel like it really adds to the game. Some games limit the number of crafts you can take up others do not. I know in WoW for sure you are limited to two primary crafts and any number of side crafts such as fishing and cooking. --Sinsofchaos 16:19, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

More visceral combat

When Conjure Phantasm is cast, I want to see an illusionary phantasm bedeviling it's victim. When meteor storm is cast, I want to see property damage: faux-craters, breaking items, burnt grass, ragdolls being thrown around when someone is "knocked-down" by the storm.

In my own personal Ideal GW, the experience of combat would be a tad more Street Fighter-ish. For example, instead of blocks that last 12 seconds, more blocks like Auspicious Parry or Shield Bash at low Tactics -- fast recharge, and some sort of tactical bonus for the block. But, with a much shorter duration and a cancel if you attack or cast....allowing for actual blocking animations.

More advantage for flanking an opponent. Instead of randomly rolling for damage, it could be based entirely on your relative position to your opponent. (GW1 already does this to a degree, I'd like to see it expanded upon and exaggerated.)

Hits should "feel" like they hurt. Character animations and skill activation times should respond to damage -- I'm imagining a caster being wailed on my a hammer warrior, stumbling around while trying to keep his firestorm casting animation going. Hard hits might have a visual cue on the screen (such as the view of the world filtered red for a brief flash). Part of the idea here is to give some advantage to football style assaults (every man has a guy he's paired off against), rather than spiking out targets one by one.

Gradient character effects. Conditions, hexes, enchantments, whatever else might have their effect keyed into their current duration. So instead of Bleeding or Crippled being a binary on or off, it would slowly tapper off. If two of the same hex/condition/enchantment is cast on a single guy, the durations stack up to ceiling. (looking back, the fact that hexes on the same kind don't really stack was confusing and a minor disappointment to me as a newbie. I remember casting 2 Life Siphons and expecting more bang.)

From a gamist viewpoint, less specific counters and more general counters. A team shouldn't be worried about whether or not they brought enough hex removal to beat another team's build. For any specific counters there are in the game, there could be an universal method of acquiring the counter while in the fight (in competitive PvP, world PvP, and PvE). For example, a set of sideboarded skills, a kit of signets no adventurer leaves home without. Every character has access to and can pull out a common signet on his bar in exchange for some tactical cost (like not being able to use the skill for 30 seconds).

Every counter to a hex/condition/enchantment should be anti-stack. Meaning, more cost effective against a huge stack of different conditions/hexes/enchant, less cost effective against a single. For example, the GW2 equilivent of Remove Hex could reduce the duration of all hexes on an ally, rather than outright removing one hex. This makes bringing a diversity of skills more adventeous than overloading a build towards a particular gamist theme--Drekmonger 10:37, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Destructable environment have serious performance issue. You know why Guild War's program runs so smoothly? This is one of the reason, because it doesn't have those messy effects.

Making GW more "Streeth Fighter-ish" would change the genre of the game. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, just look how changing genre effected Warcraft frachise.

Flanking...and you already know GW already does this. Flanking, shouldn't cause a number change in the game. I mean, everyone has their camera set to 0 to 45 degree angle of attack. That means you can only see enemies in front of you and not behind you. This already allows players attacking from behind gain an advantage and that's enough and we should stop there.

Making camera shake or flash can cause a lot of medical problem in some people. Now, I'm sure A.net doesn't want to get sued over this.

Lightblade 04:59, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

In reverse order:

• Making a camera shake or flash rapidly can cause medical problems. There's a way to do it without nauseating people.
• I said a tad bit more "Street Fighter-ish". GW1 is already headed in that direction anyway. By that I'm mostly referring to blocks. When you're blocking, you're not attacking. And blocking meant as a short term response not a long term status.
• The environment doesn't have to fully destructible, or even really destructible. I was thinking more of the pseudo-destruction found in games like Dawn of War. Or the typical First-Person shooter.--Drekmonger 10:50, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Hall of monuments

here is my opinion about the hall of monuments,

people who dont like getting titles will be screwed in GW2, or people who cant make it getting titles (like legendary survivor), i loved the idea of the new favor system, but making people unlock things by titles that are very hard to get (like vanquisher). the economy would be destroyed.

my idea of making the hall of monuments a better place, make HoM specific titles, some titles that you must get for those unlocks (armors weapons etc..), or let an NPC give you quests for specific unlocks.

for example: a quest requires you to save a trader or forgemaster, and the same forgemaster thanks you in GW2 for helping him, and crafts armor for you, that he wont do unless you've completed the quest in GW:EN. or someone needs you to get crafting materials in an elite area for his sword (or axe, but you get the point), and the sword will be available in GW2 for you :-) the game would be more balanced this way (i think) --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:83.128.72.180 .

thanks for reading this ~ Abbadon or ingame as god of the blade 15:27 12 August dutch time.

I don't think that people who don't like getting titles will be screwed in GW2 - the bonuses granted by the Hall of Monuments will be more cosmetic than anything, so no gameplay advantage will be offered. They'd still have all stuff from owning minipets, completing campaigns, having pets and heroes, and collecting armour. --Santax (talk · contribs) 13:29, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

While I'm not that worried about GW2's economy yet, I think it would be great if the only benefit the Hall of Monuments gave were skins - literally. Not the ability of generating items based on the things at the Hall of Monuments, but rather the ability of changing the looks of any customized weapon our characters have, and changing the skins of the companions we have already earned, so they look like the things in the Hall of Monuments. That way, we end with a system that gives absolutely no gameplay advantage to older players (as the weapons they would be upgrading with the new skins would be the ones they had to get in GW2, like any other player) while still giving unique rewards to them (as they would have skins that would not be available to new players). Erasculio 14:20, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I think the anon knows that those are just skins. He was just suggesting that those skins not be based on titles.

And to respond to the anon, I'd just like to point it out to you to read Hall of Monuments again. Titles are not the only thing that unlocks stuff in GW2. If you don't like the grind for titles, go and unlock all your heroes, charm exotic pets, collect minitiatures and other rare items, or earn lots of gold and buy yourself several sets of 15k. All of these will unlock certain things in GW2, not just titles. -- ab.er.rant 02:47, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Character Log

→ moved from User talk:Gaile Gray

Hello Gaile! Yes this will probably classify as a random post, but... nonetheless... Today as I was frolicking in the fields near Shing Jea monastery in hard mode with my monk , i thought about how nice it would be to have some sort of permanent character log... You know.... to tell you the total amount I've healed since I made the character, or the total damage I've taken... That sort of thing... ( To be honest I'd love to know how many naga I've killed... I hate 'em X_X ) I dunno if it would be possible to implement this in the game...But I didn't think anyone would make such blasphemous use of ellipsis, yet here I am... Ieldra 20:25, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

It's a very nice idea, Ieldra. I do not imagine it would be something that was possible for Guild Wars, but perhaps it is something the designers can consider for Guild Wars 2. --Gaile 05:53, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Away during PvP

→ moved from Talk:Guild Wars 2#Suggestion for Gw2

For all players, as soon as they enter PvP, set them to "away" status, complete with a message letting people know that said player is doing pvp and can't respond to whispers. That way nobody has to worry about turning it on or off. Just a suggestion. --T-Lo 01:33, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

That's silly. They're "Busy" and not "Away". Being in PvP doesn't mean they can't respond. Responding if still your choice. Suggesting for more options for a status message would be a much better idea. -- ab.er.rant 01:39, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

The quotations were supposed to indicate that I meant something along the lines of an afk tag, but not what they have now. Obviously, I have no idea how it's implemented in the game at the moment, but in GW right now, if you are not set to DND mode or Offline while pvping, it's possible for someone to lag you out of the game by sending you repeated tells. While there are measures in place to stop it now, it will likely remain a problem, and that's just a suggestion to avoid similar situations. --T-Lo 01:43, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Wow, you've got a bad case of whispers! O.o I haven't heard of any lag problems caused by whispers... mebe because nobody whispers me that much. -- ab.er.rant 01:46, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Not a bad idea to automatically indicate that a person in a match on the friends list, for either GW1 or 2.--Drekmonger 02:09, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Guard Gauge

I have so many ideas at this point, I could easily eclipse everything here several times with some to spare, but that's too much so I'm not going to do that here, I'll just put one or two of my better ideas here.

I've notice this in most games, and I've yet to see a remedy, but I've grown tired of it, it being the nonsensical slashing at opponents to deal light amounts of damage til you finally kill your foe from health loss. I can name almost any combat game, you hit the enemy, they lose some health, you take sword blows to the head and chest, Hammers accross the back, and your character is still fighting, it looks utterly fake.

The Guard Gauge is a second form of health and a substitute for the health gauge, it's function is simple, instead of only a Health Gauge, you also have a Guard Gauge, and when you get hit, instead of losing health, you lose Guard. This functions in many new ways, First is your health is less substantial, successful hits deal significant damage. Second is that your health is padded by Guard, therefore Guard must be depleted before you health takes damage from normal attacks. And most important, when you receive a blow which depletes some of your guard, your character makes an automatic Block, Evasive, or Deflecting maneuver, so it looks like your character is negotiating blows instead of taking them across vital points which would each kill and disable any real person.

With this system, when foes are fighting eachother it looks like a battle instead of a boxing match, swords cross, shields block, and armor is utilize to deflect attacks instead of taking turns decapitating eachother until one foe loses enough health to die. With this system normal blows will be guarded until the guard gauge is depleted, than opponents will take unguarded blows to their health, which will be significantly impacted by the damage, instead of fake animations of deadly slashes which only do insignificant damage, since their health gauge will represent a smaller portion of survival than before. And features like Critical Damage would incorperate new effects, like dealing damage to the health even when Guard is remaining, or Crushing Blows delt by Heavy weapons which deal partial damage to Guard and Health even if Guard is remaining, because the weapon is to heavy to block completely.

This will introduce a system of combat and animation which will make the battles look real, no more head chopping and chest stabbing til the foe is finally dead, the opponents will actually battle like real opponents, and only the final few deadly blows will actually land on vital points of the target.

For more information on this topic, the original post and elaborations are writen at GW2 NikiWiki on the Battle Guard Gauge topic.--BahamutKaiser 19:26, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I always thought that the combat system was fake. Think about it.... you use decapitate on your foe, yet they still live.... and have a head. Or how about GETTING UP after a backbreaker? The characters in GW are far too durable to be realistic. But then again, realistic is not fun; and I would not support making GW2 'realistic' either. Counciler 05:31, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Realistic is fun, I don't know any supporting evidence that shows otherwise. That is why every generation of gameplay designs new more realistic features to make games more natural and believable. All good games incorperate greater degrees of realism with better graphics, more realistic mechanics, and better character representation, just look at what Gears of War has done for shooting games, the simple addition of using cover in battle instead of bunny hopping like an unreal game made Gears of War the #1 players choice for G4ia.

Simple fact is that unrealistic stabbing and smashing without defensive capabilities makes combat look fake, players and viewers who initially see this find it silly, and incorperating a dimention of defensive combat maneuvering makes it look real, so players will be facinated by the spectacle of realistic combat displayed. If you don't have rational explaination to your perspective, than it is just prejudice, and I'm not going to bother addressing presumptions.--BahamutKaiser 16:43, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Guilds and Ranking

Hey there, here's what I'm hoping for: That the current number of guild members can join the newly created guild in GW2 again. Lots of MMO's have a lvl requirement for a certain number of members they can take in guild. But I'm sure A'nets people will not allow current members to be left behind. What I also would like is different rankings in Guild, now we only have Leader, officers and members. It would be great if we were able to make our ranks ourselves. Currently a lot of guilds have like 75+ members, some have been in guild for ages, but a guild filled with officers does look a bit odd.. So I'm all for customized rankings in guilds =) -- (Tribina / talk) 21:08, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Interesting quests

Almost every MMORPG is plagued with a proliferation of boring, meaningless quests that often require the player to 1)kill stuff, or 2) go from point A to point B killing stuff in between. The quest, Double Dog Dare on the other hand, while ultimately being another checkpoint run, was far more interesting as it required the player to think instead of following the quest marker. Quests like these on a larger scale, spanning zones or even continents, would make questing much more enjoyable. Optional quests that tied into the background of NPCs (like Althea's Ashes), are also good, as they allow the world to seem larger instead of confronting a bunch of two-dimensional NPCs. And while not a quest, the mime battle in Tihark Orchard was fun in that it was different and required you, the player, to think and react instead of mindlessly killing and following quest markers. --Thervold 22:29, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with this, it is fairly silly for you character to go around doing mindless chores for characters over and over again. Wile some quests serve as filling, and a little battle experience, quest should be more like what the objective sounds like a "quest". This could involve more searching and exploration of unknown areas, more development of the reason for the quest, why your doing it for said person, and more interaction with your opponent if it involves killing a foe. Also, more puzzles, mysteries, even solving riddles, there should be some significant reason why a joe shmo isn't doing this, the village idiot should be running the bee hive out of town, not the apsiring hero of Tyria.

Additional ways to improve quest are as simple as requestors who have a developed identity and relationship with your character, or at least an association with someone who does, private matters which are trying to be handled in secret, but most of all, a better enphasis so those reasons are understood. A quick bit of text, and a green check followed by some lead indicators really don't foster good involvement with the quest.--BahamutKaiser 21:48, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

To make it simpler to the devs. Quests, should be about solving puzzles, instead of mindless fedex running. Puzzles doesn't need to be complex, like the teleport pads in Crystal Desert, is perfectly fun and enjoyable. Another example, in the Double Dog Dare quest mentioned by OP, the quest (green) marker should be disabled for this quest so that the player have to figure out the line on their own to gain the reward. Remember, the fun is in the process and not the goal. Lightblade 05:20, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

never remove the green spot, its stupid to do that. That just means Players have to switch to some walkthrough or use some tools that mark the location. Look at WoW: there are no markers for the quests, the first thing most players get is "Meta-Map" wich shows coordinates that can be used to find locations with quest-name and a web-database. Its just frustrating if you cant find the spot where the xyz is, becouse you cant find the "little bush right after the big tree if you follow the street northwards". The better idea is: If the area is explored, you get marks for the waypoints. if the area is not explored, you may gather information to get more waypoints leading to the final spot (making it easyer to follow the way as there are more spots showing you are heading in the right direction). Sir Astaroth 17:50, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I was refering to that peticular quest. What's the fun of treasure hunting when you take the fun of figuring out the clues out of the game? Lightblade 18:17, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I think a good idea for a new type of quest would be you get like 1000exp. (or any other ammount) and the rest of the reward is randomized. It would be a better reward if you did the quest well (like depending on party work or how well you did with just henchmen and heroes) and worst if you left your party to do everything or couldn't devliver the box of oats to farmer simpson in 2 minutes and instead you delivered in 5, the best reward being 500 gold and a perfect item(not like perfect insightful,that would make the game less challenging, but like a perfect collector weapon) and the worst reward being a require 12 item or just 150 gold Also random quests that appear if you kill a drake or something in front of a guard etc. and he notices and asks you help for killing the mommy dragon and will reward you well. I think that this would be really neat. I have many other quest idea's that dont involve constant grind and make the game more fun, these are just few of the the greater ideas.Monkel the monk 23:55, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I really liked 'Double Dog Dare'. It reminded me of a quest in EQ2's Oakmyst forest. --Redfeather 23:41, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I must say, I love the new quests in GW:EN. They feel like the designers made a conscious effort to come up with ideas to break the monotony. From skills that show quest markers to giant snowballs of doom to fistfighting along side Kilroy, I'm enjoying these much more than most in the campaigns. Good work, team! --Thervold 05:26, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the quests so far in the Sneak Peak weekend are filled with variety and fun. Give the quests makers a raise Anet! XD --Redfeather 12:08, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Endless Progression without the Endless Grind

I wish the entire concept of XP were thrown into the bit bucket. Esp. the where it pertains to farming mobs. (also treasure drops should be exterminated, except as one-time rewards like some of the chests in Nightfall).

Really, monsters should be the opposition to the goal, usually not the goal itself. A hero wants the dragon dead to save the town -- not to earn XP so he can go kill bigger dragons, so he can earn XP to kill bigger dragons, so he can earn XP to kill bigger dragons. So he can buy the expansion and kill bigger dragons. Endless loop continues.

But the popularity of The Other Game has shown steady progression is desirable by a large segment of players, regardless of how distasteful I personally find it.

If there must be a steady endless progression, it would be better as a task orientated badge system. Like the boy scouts. Each badge gives you some kind of talent, unlock, access to an item. Some badges might be ridiculous in terms of time investment, to keep the grind crowd happy.

A count of the number of badges earned = character level, which would then be a cosmetic number. Your e-peen, in essence.

The idea is to reward experiencing different content (or the same content in different ways) instead of endlessly farming the same spot. For example, you might do a raid once to get the badge, then try the raid with a set of restrictions to get another badge. Opposed to: doing the same run over and over again in the exact same choreographed method in order to get a slot machine chance at an item or build up reputation titles at a constant rate.--Drekmonger 04:43, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

badges = titles, and you already know these titles are grind. So I don't need to say more. Lightblade 05:11, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I used the word "badge" instead of title to suggest that a badge is a one-off accomplishment (such as clearing a mission at master level) rather than a number that can be incremented through repetitive action.--Drekmonger 07:21, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I suppose you're thinking of Lotro? As far as I can understand from your description, this badge is already mostly covered by titles. Titles can easily be conceived that don't require repetitive action, simple things like the protector and guardian can easily be expanded on with little variations like speed, less-than-full-party, clear all enemies, prevent something during mission, etc. In short, your idea is basically an idea for less grind-oriented and more interesting titles.

I'm more interested in being able to display multiple titles. Or at least a way for someone to actually see more than one of your titles. -- ab.er.rant 08:06, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Sure, more interesting titles. But the real point was character level = # of titles/badges. XP is no more, nonexistent. Instead of farming mobs to get up to level 100 in GW2, players would have to work towards accomplishments. (This lends itself to a Diablo2 style level ladder as well, except based on achievement instead of grind.) Note, I also suggest removing treasure drops from mobs.--Drekmonger 10:38, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

And you think achievement is not grind? Level, in itself, is a type of achievement. Title is another form of achievement, same goes with badges. Grind will always exist as long as the game is about the goal and not the progress. In other RPGs, when you are gaining experience points, are you really doing it because it's fun and you're learning something, or is it because you want the reward (level up) as a result of the experience point? When you're doing quests, are you enjoying the story that it provides, or are you doing it because you want the reward at the end? Lightblade 21:32, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I think chasing achievement can be grindy. But mostly when I say grind I mean repetitive actions being rewarded. In GW, chest runs and reputation title farming qualifies, as does green farming. I fear that endlessly bashing mobs for levels will also become a kind of rewarded grind in GW2. My idea is to reward players for taking diverse actions (chasing after diverse goals), rather than rewarding them for doing the same thing over and over again.

As a happy side benefit, bots run by gold sellers would be practically useless if there were no XP or treasure drops off of mobs.--Drekmonger 17:01, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

This really has very little to do with removing grind, supposedly your going to do other tasks to accopmlish other achievements beside level orientation, but that isn't ensuring that those tasks are not grind, and dividing our abilities up into several character development phases isn't acutally different than levels..... it is just a disguise by using a different name.

Even with the title oriented abilities in EotN, your still grinding to kill foes in a secluded location for most of the points.... inevitably, this system actually limits the number of activities and you can do for seperate paths of character development, forcing you to fight the same quests and the same mobs in the same locations over and over again for a seperate set of abilities, making it even more monontinous to develop particular abilities instead of being able to pursue in any of the regions and activities available in the game.

No matter how creative this sounds, youv'e actually created a new dimention of grind. The purpose of a level allows you to have a universal means of developing your character, as well as communicate your strength. With a bunch of divided stats you can no longer state your characters development by stating a digit, now you have to read out 5 statistics.

There should definetly be more fun ways to play the game, more fun ways to develop your character, and more fun ways to accomplish your goals in this or any game, that is how a good game is designed. But this is not going to help anything, it will actually create more grind, whereas all of these fun and interesting character development opportunities could be excersised by everyone as they see fit, instead we end up having to excersise every character development avenue for each ability, even if some of them are not entertaining to us. This whole concept is brought about by prejudice and assumption, if you cannot recognize the actual issues and address them instead of jaded perspectives on something failed in a previous experience, than your not going to be able to develop useful ideas.--BahamutKaiser 15:33, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Guild Name Reservation, and Guild Mechanics

It would be really nice if the Guild Name is reserved for use by the Guild Leader. It is acceptable (and understandable) if leaders have to reinvite former (GW1) members in to the GW2 Guild, versus having members transfer automatically, but please allow us to reserve the Guild Name at the very least.

Also, if possible, can Guild Leaders have finer control over the internal Guild Member Types/Rankings, as well as ability to customize what each Type/Rank can do? For example, I could create a rank (which I personally would have the option to name as anything I like) "High Officer", and I assign to that person all permissions aside from modifying anything to members at his own rank or any rank above him (i.e. "High Officers" cannot promote more "High Officers", as well as for those higher in rank than him, say, "Co-Leader" and "Leader").

--125.60.241.168 23:09, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Edit: I have now created an account here. The prior edit was mine. --Altimit 23:13, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Observation Mode - not just for GW2

I'm in a really great alliance, and I try to look up to certain people in our alliance's lead guild, but I rarely get to watch them on TV. I think a great change to make would be to change "My Guild Battles" to "My Alliance Battles" in the Obs selection window. That way, it will be easier for me and many others to be able to look at how the 'higher-ups' in the alliance do things, so we can learn to be better players ourselves. Socketface 23:44, 20 August 2007 (UTC) P.S. One of the new dances should be taken from Superbad's opening. That would be great. =P Socketface 23:52, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Adding an Epic Dimension

One if not the main regret I had concerning Guildwars first of the name was the lack of an epic dimension to it, this is something I would like to see in Guildwars the second.

Of course having said this I now find myself with the task of defining epic as I see it which is quite simply a non repeatable event of a certain magnitude. Up to now Guildwars the first saw a few of those like for example the closing down of several beta events and I feel they add an extra dimension to the game by providing an event that you simply have to have lived. Of course by definition epics cannot be too frequent, they have after all to keep that heroic dimension that makes living through them so particular. -- 81.242.180.100 07:45, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I think you're talking about epic scale events, such as world wide changes. Personally I would like to see, not just large scale, but massive scale battles. In huge canyons and over massive mountains. I'm talking on the upwards of thousands of players all fighting at once, not in 4-man teams. And when you die, you're kicked out of the battle. Maybe taken to a "hospital" or w/e. I know at first this seems crazy and would require people to have insain computers. But the guild wars engine is getting out dates, even with constant updates. We have to remember that in 2-3 years our technology will have increased quite a bit and things like this won't seem so crazy. But would definantly add a flare to the game. --Lou-Saydus 16:33, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Massive scale battles are just like some teen's sweet 16 party. All loud and unorganized. Not fun at all. Lightblade 16:51, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

My idea of this would be able to choose what you descend from,like who's family was peasents, or heros, or monks-this would descide what type of area(like farm or academy) you start out in within the bigger area of the map like ascalon or the jungle. This would make the game seem much bigger and shouldn't take too much memory on anyones computer. I also like the idea of having a big battle almost like the searing of ascalon that would take you from your family or something but that wouldnt take of long as pre-searing.Then again, it should only be like a 12 on 12 battle between defferent players-but in a way so it dosnt turn out like luxon and kurzick competition right in the beginning of the game. Also players should have the option to skip this if had already done this before on the account-and just create a backround of your char. while creating it.Monkel the monk 23:32, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I think the huge battle would be awesome. A thousand players, 500 to a side, but a never ending battle over a place the size of an explorable area, everytime someone dies, another person who is waiting is sent in. The chaos would be the best part. Monks would be constantly healing, their energy management put to the test. Warriors and dervish would be fight ten, fifteen people at the same time, putting their stances to more use. The range fighters,(rangers, paragons) would fire away from afar, and the casters would rain AOE down. It'd be more like a war, than a battle. Bluemilkman 01:10, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I hope "omg lagg!!1" won't be the favourite phrase during then. --[Altimit|talk] 10:37, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I think simply adding more manually controlled combat would make the game feel more epic overall, part of the reason combat and the game as a whole gets to feeling dry and monotinous is because you go into battle, maybe do some fancy directional movement, and simply select targets and skills.

Once you have to actually pick all of your attacks, even if it is simple button mashing for your general attacks, and add manual blocking as a normal action option, as well as replace pixiefire wanding with limited sets of weak spells, you make the battles much more involving. That alone means players will be more occupied, and more frantic in combat, making it much more epic. This introduces the element from shooter and fighter games where players can play the same map, with the same teams and players over and over again for hours and not get a little bored, because they are excersising a broad level of control and technique over their character making the combat experience much more emersing.

As far as epic proportions go in storyline and character pusuit, I think there was plenty of epic events in GWs, it is really just a matter of presenting them in an epic way that makes them grand. Things like FMVs, unique soundtracks, theme music for remote events and meetings, facial expression, and realistic looking combat all make the experience much more memorable. This causes experiences like the Sephiroth complex, the right combination of dialoge, music, events and character development enscone a personallity which remains in players minds long after the experience.--BahamutKaiser 02:46, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Title utility

As of now, most of the fluff titles don't do anything other than allow the player to show it off. If titles are carried over into GW2, it would be neat if more of them allowed the player to enable some graphical effect that doesn't influence game play (kinda like /rank). For a few GW1 examples, the drunkard title would enable a swagger emote, the lucky and unlucky titles would enable an emote to create a bright or gloomy aura, sweet tooth would enable a spaz emote, etc. While I would like development time and effort to be focused on gameplay, sometimes players just feel like being silly, and I think small things like these could help that fun. --Thervold 00:27, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

/bonus

i was wondering if we could change the /bonus /preorder command to bring up a menu like the PvP equipment menu...this would allow you to browse for the 1 item you want and not have to create them all. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:24.69.179.206 .

That's provided if they are even planning to retain the /bonus command in GW2... it might be a whole different method altogether. -- ab.er.rant 09:14, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

i think they will because i posted this on gailes non GW2 page and she asked me to move it here

We could use this for GW1 too... 82.166.2.71 20:48, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

No Levels

A higher/non existent level cap brings a number of pitfalls many online RPGs have to continually find workarounds to deal with. Such pitfalls include:

• A character's ability to beat specific content without considerable time investment. (Casual gamer unfriendly.)
• Power leveling sellers.
• Community complaints of the dreaded grind.
• Uninspired content. (eg. seas of mobs whose soul purpose is to pull and kill for exp)

Almost every online RPG game uses level as a progression restriction. It is, in my opinion, quite an ancient, over used mechanic in the genre. I would love to see it bite the dust! So here's an idea for GW2. No levels! Instead a player could gain attribute points through quests chains, missions, first defeats of huge bosses, ect. The total amount of attribute points is still capped, in fact the attribute system is largely unchanged. The only change is that each attribute has a cap. The caps are raised through completion of multiple content paths, ensuring that content has more value and character advancement is more than just 1 number beside their name.

eg. Fire Magic 3/9

(3 being your Fire Magic level using attribute points.)

(9 being the highest you can raise it for now.)

You raise this cap on each attribute by successfully finishing content that pertains to that attribute. This content can overlap other quests so friends can also finish similar quests in the same area for their attribute cap raising, or players can raise their attribute cap while their group is completing quests or missions. A few examples of such content.

• Visit the fire temple and retrieve the Flamechanter's tome.
• Survive against a wave of fire elementals.
• Defeat a flame magic wizard in his tower.
• Complete some fire training quests.

Each would raise your fire magic attribute cap by 1-5 for example, depending on the difficulty of the quest, mission, boss, ect. The total attribute cap probably wouldn't change. 12 could still be the highest. Or perhaps it could be raised as players would still only have 200 attribute points to play with. All of that content can also teach new spells as well. That makes content far more rewarding and adds a level of player progression that expands further than a mere adventure level. You can also acquire titles this way to show other players what your current specialized attribute is and it's cap.

• eg. Fire Caller, Flame Lord (I took those from Charr)

Any and all comments are welcome! I hope that some people out there believe that character progression in an online RPG doesn't have to be based on a single level! --Redfeather 11:39, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Problem is, that's still grinding in the end, you just don't have a little bar to watch, and progress will actually be alot slower, as well as the gap between "elite" and "noob" being enormous. -- Txzeenath 11:41, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Grind in a game is uninspired repetitive actions necessary for progression to further content. This is inspired content. It's multi-pathed and completely optional in what you choose to complete and hopefully what order you choose to complete it. Compared to character level I just can't classify this as grind. And a greater range in character growth + more rewarding content is what a large number of people wish to see in PVE. In fact it is probably the only reason why a higher level cap has even been mentioned as being considered in this franchise. --Redfeather 11:49, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict, please quit doing so many edits for one comment)

Try it with a few characters and see how much you want to play anymore. It's repetitive and annoying still. If not worse.

I'd say the title system GWEN is expanding on is perfect. Level cap still exists, attributes are the same, but people who play way too much, can still do their grinding and actually be more useful than someone who doesn't bother or doesn't have the skill to do so.

Higher level cap and/or a bigger gap between players is not what is best, and goes against exactly what you want to get rid of. The entire fun of GW is that you reach max level quickly and can participate in all the things everyone else does. Giving bonuses for extended development is fine, but when you require a character to do long activities for basic "levelling", it's still grind in the end. Quests for character development is also being expanded on during GWEN, so it's likely some form of it may exist in GW2 like you said, but doubtful as the entire "levelling" system. -- Txzeenath 11:41, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

The suggestion I made here wasn't to make advancing a regular character any more time consuming. It was so content was more rewarding and that if a character finished the content they could concentrate on learning multiple secondary professions and raising those secondary attributes by exploring/re-exploring content while being rewarded. I hoped it would promote longevity to the hardcore PVE audience while not changing anything for the casual. Higher level cap is not something I want to see at all. I really hope they don't raise the level cap in GW2 as I have read is being considered. :( --Redfeather 12:23, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Also the title system GW:EotN is introducing is almost exactly like what I'm suggesting here. The EotN title system is adding the reputation with each faction as a new attribute. Finishing content raises that attribute. The difference and main flaw of EotN's title system is that instead of only raising the cap for these attributes it is permanently raising the power level of the skills in that attribute. This will inevitably lead to full skill bars of max skills and 'power creep', broadening the gap between the abilities of players by huge margins. Which, in my opinion, is going to lead to problems.--Redfeather 12:39, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea Redfeather. But level would have to be in there somewhere, just for marketing. There's too many players conditioned to expect and want that number. But it could simply be all of your attribute caps added together, with no additional effect. So a level 40 guy would be the same powerlevel as a level 70 guy. The big difference would be the level 70 guy would have many more options for builds (outside of organized PvP, where every character should have identical options without grind).--Drekmonger 17:36, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Title skills are only useful in PvE, and so far I can only use 3, unless the title level also limits the number of skills you can use, it may not be possible to have an entire bar, I don't know.

This discussion is making broad generalizations and missinforming about leveling and high levels, the system of grind is brought about by combat and gameplay that isn't fun, and being subjected to it for long periods of time, the high level has to do with the time, but not the playability of the content, therefore what really needs to be changed, improved or revolutionized is the kind of combat and adventures players pursue, not the amount of time they spend pursuing it. I think any good game is designed to have plenty of content, and any good MMO is designed to have endless content. Wile not all of that content should be character development, it is obvious that character development is enjoyable, and trying to peg it as the reason the gameplay is boring is prejudice.

This also addresses the last problem, uninspired content, obviously, by developing good and enjoyable content to play, you eliminate both grind and unenjoyable play, this is a failure to design good gameplay, not a character development flaw.

The whole thing about power leveling is irrelavent, players who want to have a hand up can do that, and players who are willing to cheat or break regulations to do it is also their interests, this is only an issue if they resort to this because they do not want to play the games character development process, and that is only significant if the gameplay in such aspect is generally unenjoyable.

The last concern is probably the only legitimate one, underleveled content which can be beaten easily. I really don't see how you can maintain competative combat without cutting the progression of power at some point, either you do it directly or indirectly, it's really a gimmic if your gaining levels that arn't used. But with a high level cap, it is likely that some of the content will be easy to beat, wile like most MMOs, once the character development has been accomplished there is a majority of content still left to experience. As for previous content for lower levels, if players choose to return to them and slaugter defensless Scale, thats their delight, nobodies forcing them, and if they want a challenge, even at a high level, they can do it with reduced team mates and take on greater odds intentionally. Either way this is rarely an issue in MMOs, since players will simply glide past the country sides they use to train in to the locations they are challenged at. But some additional measures can be added to competative PvE locations which either restrict your characters power to a certain level to keep it difficult, or by restricting the maximum level of your party, forcing you to enter with reduced team members if you are a high level, they can even create alternate content for repeated experiences just like hard mode in GW1, this isn't an original problem, and it is far from difficult to address.

The entire concern about levels and character development stems from a prejudice and bias brought from previous game experiences. Dated games like D2 and FFXI may have had really poor combat mechanics and/or grossly boring character development, but that doesn't mean GW2 should not have character development because it wasn't done right, or at least well in the past. People do like character development, otherwise they would be playing an action game, not an RPG, and wile I invite action and strategy gameplay into GW, character development should not be dismissed just because it has been done poorly in the past, especially when it is the combat that is done poorly, not the character development. Each of these issues can be remedied directly instead of taking it out on the jaded grind and levels, because in the end, just because you remove the levels does not mean the combat will be fun, and just because you remove character development doesn't mean that you will spend any less time playing, the direct issue is that players want fun content, in character development, as well as every aspect of this or any game, it should be an enjoyable experience. That's just good game design, and overlooking the truth will only result in even worse choices which will make even less enjoyable games.--BahamutKaiser 20:19, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

extra options for character creation

i have wanted to see something like this in an rpg for a long time. while creating a character you would be able to select normal or advanced character creation. with the advanced creation you could chose things like age, which god you follow mostly and what you are inclined to (magic, attacking, defending, balanced) and with these comes bonuses. with age you could have three ages young, middle age and old. young adds 10% to movement speed, attacking and skill damage and faster trigger for health regen but 10% less experience or something to this degree. middle age is par everything being a normal character (this would be chosen for normal character creation.) and old would be 10% slower movement 15% more mana and faster regen and 10% more exp. pledeging yourself to a god would also have benefits such as more healing for Dwayna but less damage, more energy for Lyssa but slower health regen, faster health regen for Melandru but less enchanting, 2-5% less dp for Grenth but res takes longer and + dmg for balthazar but more dmg taken and Kormir would be normal. and being inclined to attacking would give + dmg but all blocking -5%, magic would be more mana regen but -max health and attack speed and dmg. Defending would be -5% dmg and an innate 5% to block but less dmg on all skills. Balanced would be no + or -. all these bonuses could be changed by going to trainers or disciples of gods or masters of time( for inclinations, god worshiping and age) for 10k or so. This is so you can change it if you want but not at any time you want so that changing for farming or running isn't viable. also the first change would be free. please tell me what you think.Edit:on a not really related note i also would like beards:)

I was actually thinking of character creation for GW2 as well, been daydreaming about it and this is what my character looked like: Tribinasura Mutant ^^ -- (Tribina / talk) 13:07, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm all for more options in character stats! If it uses plus and minuses to balance out the choices it could be quite interesting. I'd make a super chubby Asura that is slower in movement but has more health. Call him Fatasuraus :D --Redfeather 22:51, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I really dislike respec restrictions, so I'm strongly against this idea. -- Gordon Ecker 06:16, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

You can still respec Gordon. If I hate the -%movement speed on my chubby Asuran, I can take him to the gym. XD --Redfeather 12:04, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

More interesting boss encounters

Bosses in GW are currently nothing more than beefed up normal mobs. They have a set of skills they use as everything else does, they have more HP, they do more damage. That's it. I speak as a WoW veteran and a relative GW newbie when I say that despite my appreciation of many many things in GW, I think the bosses are quite frankly rubbish.

Now I'm not trying to say GW should emulate WoW in any way, but I'm sure anyone who has played WoW for any length of time will agree that every single boss is more interesting than any boss in GW at all. Sure, Shiro banishes some people, that's cool. Abaddon's encounter has other factors, important skill effects and random spawns of claws - but at best it compares to the end boss of the lowest level alliance instance in WoW, Edwin VanCleef.

I'm not sure what to suggest specifically without sounding like I want the bosses to be WoW-like, so I simply suggest that they are made more like encounters and events than just another (albeit tougher) creature. - Shotmonkey 14:24, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Hopefully during the sneak peak weekend for EotN we can see if the new bosses are closes to what you sound like you wish for. From what I've read the main EotN bosses are like end stage bosses in adventure games, something I'd always wished for. I will see this weekend! :D --Redfeather 22:42, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I always wanted to see the bosses react to certain situations differently, for instance maybe crippling 'Boss A' would make him go into a "Panic Mode" where he starts shooting off all his skills/spells randomly with very little thought put into energy management or if it would be a good idea to use that skill at that time, thus making him easier to kill for some groups. Then on the flip side 'Boss B' might get a damage boost for being crippled allowing him to more easily kill you and your group. Or for the really bizarre perhaps if someone in the party started dancing it would distract the boss for a few seconds so the rest of the party could wail on him without retaliation, perhaps fire damage really scares certain bosses into running leaving they're group for the slaughter, or they have a personal bubble where melee characters will be severely beaten for entering it. Things of that nature could make a boss fight more fun and unique and reward players for using certain types of skills. Although one could argue that a similar system is already in place where for example a monk boss focused in Protection Prayers would be more easily taken down with enchantment removal since a lot of spells in that line are enchantments, I personally think my way would be way more fun. Broodling67 05:59, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I think the GW "bosses" should simply be renamed Elite Monsters, which simply have Elite Abilities and greater strength than typical monsters, and introduce boss creatures or finishing battles with unique effects, attacks, situations or creatures. There were a few of them in GW, like Glint, Wurm Queen, end bosses, and a few others, but it should be a more common occurance particularly in instanced combat.

Some simple examples would be a fully balanced team of opponents, which consist of a specturm of opponents with all the abilities of a party, and well equipped, or battles which involve seige weaponry, or defending multiscale locations. It isn't like these things wern't in GW, it is just that they wern't elaborate and frequent enough.--BahamutKaiser 02:54, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

More Unique

I am very big on how my character looks and moreover his uniqueness. So obviously I would like a more in depth character creation system. First off your profession should not decide what you look like, I would like to design my character and then choose profession. I hope to see several different body types so that not all necromancers look like they just crawled out of a grave. Eye colour would be a nice function as well. It's been mentioned many times, but it would be cool to be able to change your characters hair colour and style so if a new expansion comes out we can have access to all the new style choices. Maybe during character creation have a page where all your choices will be permanent like body type, height, face, etc. and have warning before you hit save that those choices would be permanent, and then another page for the non permanent choices like hair colour.

As for armour well, its pretty good the way it is the only thing I would like to see on it is the ability to add emblems or designs on them so if I really wanted I could have a giant 'X' across the back of my jacket for my rangers druid armour, with the ability to dye that 'X'. It would be cool to create your own designs and upload them into the game but I realize it would be difficult to do that with millions of people playing the game so something similar to the guild cape design would be fine. I think something like that would be nice to make one self stand out a little more.

My last suggestion would be about the unique weapons in the game, to put it plainly there is very little unique about them, just the name of the weapon. First off almost every boss should not have a unique, most of the uniques should belong to the toughest and/or hardest bosses to get too, these weapons should also have a skin that only they possess. This would add more to the prestige of owning such a weapon that it not only looks cool but that you also had to take down one of the most difficult bosses in the game to get it. The only problem with this approach is that it might not be very friendly to the casual players if it takes awhile to get to the boss and then take him down, but when I think "Unique weapon" it shouldn't be something that everyone can have, maybe I'm being elitist with that thought but there should be some reward for those that do go that extra mile that most people don't, and I for one would be one of those players that would be unlikely to get such a weapon I have never gone to Sorrow's Furnace, Tombs, Underworld, Fissure of Woe, or the Domain of Anguish (Very busy maxing titles).

Reading back over these some of them sound more like demands rather than suggestions, I do not mean to sound like some overbearing jerk that must have things his way but some of this stuff would be nice. Broodling67 05:59, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

In regards to uniqueness maybe instead of having bosses drop just unique weapons maybe they drop armor or cool things you can add on to your character like wings, glowing aura, glowing eyes, etc... They can be just for looks or maybe even have extra bonuses. -- Hopefulaltruist 00:10, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Changing primary professions

It's a rather extreme suggestion, but it's been done before by at least one MMORPG (Final Fantasy Online), and it would allow you to have all race / profession combinations with only one character per race. Armour would probably need to be profession-restricted, but other than that, I don't see any potential pitfalls. -- Gordon Ecker 06:25, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

A multi-purpose character? How lame that would be... That would remove a lot of replayability from the game as there's no need to play new pther characters at all. I prefer having non.changeable primary. -- (gem / talk) 15:41, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, maybe the characters could start with several primary professions at level one, but one primary active at a time. When they change, they may start from level one for that profession while retaining the other lvl for the other class.--Bane of Worlds 19:18, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

That would still make it useless to create other characters as it would be much easier to maintain one play character than multiple ones. I'm sure that rare players would like this. -- (gem / talk) 21:36, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

What about characters of other races? -- Gordon Ecker 21:46, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I actually would vote for this suggestion for PvP Characters, but against this suggestion for PvE (provided that the PvP and PvE distiction is still present in GW2, but that is the general idea). --Altimit 03:01, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Nice catch. For PvP only characters I would support this. However, I guess they'll keep having different looks for characters of different professions which would make this impossible. -- (gem / talk) 07:10, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

This is an outstanding suggestion because forced replaying of previous content is very unenjoyable. As one who has made nearly every profession and played through campaignes over and over I can testify that having to replay alot of the content is very boring, a time or two and the events and activities are interesting, having to redo every quest and mission over again for every single profession, that is a totally new definition of grind.

Breaking down each profession into seperate levels is an easy way to ensure that using several professions does take legitimate amounts of developement, wile not pushing you to repeat content your not interested in or don't need. And now that we will have unique features introduced by our race, and our professions, it is even more difficult to develope every combination. Just developing several secondaries for one character in GW1 can take an unwelcome amount of time and significant amounts of grind, just thinking about the amount of time it takes to fully develope every combination with a half dozen or more characters is disappointing, multiply that by race and profession combinations, and the repeation is astranomical.

Player will still be interested in playing the game with several races, and new races could and hopefully will be offered as the game expands, this will provide more than enough repeatability, and in combination with the duration and longevity of MMO teir content, it will be more than a challenge even with freely changable primary and secondary professions, assuming professions will even be carried over.--BahamutKaiser 03:10, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

"Special" Item Slot

After looking at the "Consumables" section above, i came up with this idea. Since it slightly strays from the original purpose, but still pretty interesting IMO, i made a new subject. How about this: A slot in the inventory called "Special" which you can put crafting items (and maybe other items) in, which could have some effects (all of these outside of pvp, of course):

1. Common crafting material would have skill boosts but consume materials at a specific rate. For example: Bones boost the power of summoning spells.

2. Rare crafting material would have buffs that do not consume the items, but are comparably inferior than the consumable boosts. For example, using an ecto would give you 2 extra energy.

3. Special Items: Would be basically stuff you get from drops of monsters etc. Would work like Rare crafting material and would be equal or slightly lesser in value. For example, a spider would drop "spider poison" which would work longer than regular poison. Could also be a time-based consumable.

4. Rare Special Items. Would work like rare crafting material but would be more limited to get (like only in special events or upon completing a chapter, but can be traded between players), and so can give better boosts than those, but still be slightly inferior or equal to the consumables.

You can play with the consumption rates, like use time-based consumption for some items, or using a single material for several spells (or vice versa).

This not only adds more complexity to the system, but also provides ANet with an economic balance, a PvE difficulty balance, and a possible money sink (in Rare Special Items). idanbd 19:55, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Guild's build small towns, not Guild Halls.

I dunno, I'm just throwing this idea out there. But maybe, Guilds can buy land in a certain area and they build small towns there that would act as ouposts and stuff. Like each guild member can build their own house and customize the inside and other members can build smiths, general trading stores etc. The Guild Leader would build a town hall and people who want to join the guild must find the town and enter the town hall. They build the buildings using resources found in the wilderness, like wood and stone. This might eliminate all the constant "Join our guild" spam in the all chat. To me at least, this would add a lot more playablity for those who have beaten the campaigns and stuff. Then for GvG, the guild fighting each other vote on a map to play and fight there. -Mobius --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:87.123.33.146 .

OOOOHHH! I LOVE THAT IDEA! You could buy more land for more space during the fights and whatnot. Guild leaders would become Lords in their own right. But maybe one could enter a guild but not be able to use anything there until they join.

As a sidenote, being able to be part of more than one guild might be kind of cool too...or having different characters in different guilds should one so decide.

• Starr*

This would also give more use for materials. The houses could show off like an armor set or something. ‽-(eronth) I give up 02:58, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

This is a nice idea, and I do hope that Guild Hall customization becomes part of Guild Wars 2. However, the GW2 team should strike a balance between customization and common sense; I surely wouldn't want Second Life-ish Hall in Guild Wars. --[ ALTIMIT | TALK ] 04:53, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh yes, please add Guild Hall/Village/Castle^^ customization! It would be great if you could make your own defenses for GvG or buying NPCs for GvG (The total amount should be limited). It would also be great if you could let craft the weapons and armor for your own Guild Army XDD .

Yup, then you end up like Ultima Online. Where the demand for land is much MUCH greater than the supply of land. Lightblade 20:57, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Instances.--Drekmonger 01:03, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, instances. They could have unlimited capacity guild hall "anchor points" all over the map, and restrict access to alliance members and guests. -- Gordon Ecker 01:34, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, maybe then alliances buy the land and not individual guilds? -Mobius --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:87.123.33.146 .

Nope. Guilds are more appropriate for a simple reason: We don't even know if there's gonna be a GW2-equivalent of an alliance. Plus, by making it guild-specific, it's accessible to a greater number of people, especially small guilds. -- ab.er.rant 01:16, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

And then add NPC's in major towns you can ask about the location of a specific guild. He then gives you - let's say a one time use key - you can use once you walked to the gerneric Hall/Village/Castle outside to enter that guild's instance. If a guild doesn't wish to be that public, deny access to that NPC and let guild members with specific rights hand out those keys... Onoes I lost it again --zeeZ 17:18, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

 What they could do to have it take up less land is to make the towns like dungoens, were they dont take room and were u just click the icon and a big area comes up. But I RLLY Love that Idea!

Storage

How about a special storage like the storage vault but smaller but you can open it anywhere that way you can access your mini pet from any character in any location? Also maybe weapon and armor locker so they don't take up room in the inventory so players don't accidentally sell them buy mistake... X.x Another thought, I dislike having to do all that clicking to identify the loot i've picked up maybe there can be an identify all items button or id all items in one bag. -- Hopefulaltruist 23:53, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Portable storage suggestion reminds me of DnD's Bag of Holding --[ ALTIMIT | TALK ] 05:22, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Customization

I was thinking maybe GW2 if there is still weapon customization instead of customizing it just to the character how about for the account instead? Also maybe customizing can have more benefits like lowering the req. -- Hopefulaltruist 00:03, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

20% extra damage is quite respectable boost, at least for damage-based builds. There should be a different effect for non-damage based weapons (because if you got a staff for casting, you have no real reason to customize it. the damage you do is minor at best). Same should be done about the reqs on caster weapons, because if the only problem with using a rit staff on an elementalist is the damage req isn't met, you need some better system.

Otherwise, the req system works well for players and keeps the economy from overflooding with high-quality items.

Character Development

With all this talk of 100+ level cap, not sure if i like the idea. Will there be anything in place to stop 100+ big fish bullies going around and gobbling up/killing off the small fish, so to speak.

Have not seen any talk of this, but would it be possible to incorporate SKILL SLOTS into GW2. In much the same way as we currently have WEAPON SLOTS, but rather than just being able to change WEAPONS, you could change WEAPONS, ATTRIBUTE POINTS and SKILLS, while out and about. So as to adapt to changing situation as they occur, as oppossed to running back to town to change everything. You could then mix up the emphasis you place on primary and secondary professions, attack or defence.

One might argue, that you can already do this back in town, and YES, i agree. But with all this talk of dislike for grinding, would it not be nice, if when you come towards the end of a quest/mission you could adapt to a change in circumstance. Again you could argue, that if you read up prior to entering a mission, you'll know what you'll need. But surely this takes some of the fun out of finding out what's required for yourself. Dont get me wrong, i find the mission help pages a great source of help if i run into difficulty.

Would this not facilitate character development also, without creating a level 100+ giant killing machine.

Thinking about it, this could put a whole different spin on PvP. If for one minute you think you have the opposition weighed up, for it all to then change.

Comments welcomed. SaltyOldSeaDog 12:43, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Some kind of skill sideboard would be interesting. -- Gordon Ecker 21:18, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

This would in effect mean having a larger skill bar, or even the possibility to change complete builds while fighting. Given how the locked 8 skill skill bar is a courner stone of GW's balance, I disagree with the proposal. --Xeeron 21:31, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

So is the level 20 cap, that doesn't mean Guild Wars 2 will have a level 20 cap or an 8 slot skill bar. It could have a 6 slot skill bar, a 10 slot skill bar or an 8 slot skillbar with a 4 slot sideboard. -- Gordon Ecker 22:12, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Also, you could have something that disables the effects of all the skills on your bar whenever you switch it for a new one. That way you can't enchant yourself to invincibility then unleash an attack while still invincible. ‽-(eronth) I give up 22:59, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm actually hoping they will introduce unique skills or skill sets used particularly for special features and terrain in the game, which would be interchangeable or additional to what we already use. These would be used in special situations like, wile swimming, climbing, riding, or in some case even flying. A few interchangeable skills which offer special abilities wile swimming and climbing would be a very interesting development which would make different experiences more unique and diverse. Things like Assassins being able to swim underwater quickly to engauge or escape wile swimming, or rangers ability to throw a rope to access difficult areas wile climbing, or Warriors ability to muscle his way up a cliff face for a period of time.

As for the actual skill limitation and such, they are talking about more developed abilties with alternate uses which would change if used under different circumstances, like using an attack wile jumping. I hope this leads to a more action bases system like the Battle Action System I suggested, allowing a more viseral and exhilerating combat experience to emerge, with a combination of action and strategy mechanics.

I think the limited skill feature is a plus which offers a diversity of focuses and character identities, but I hope they replace the simple auto attack features with additional minor abilities which can be used in a semi manual way in order to introduce more action to the gameplay.--BahamutKaiser 01:07, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Skills with different effects depending on whether they target an ally or foe

I understand that Guild Wars 2 will include skills with effects which vary based on the situation. What about skills with affects that vary based on the target? something like this ...

Rodgort's Invocation: Spell. If this skill targets a foe, that foe and all foes within (range) take X damage and are set on fire for Y seconds. If this skill targets an ally, that ally is enchanted with Rodgort's invocation for Z seconds, gaining immunity to burning and +W armor against cold and fire damage.

Or this ...

Grenth's Balance: Spell. If this skill targets a foe with more Health than you, you gain half the difference (up to your maximum Health) and that foe loses an equal amount. If this skill targets an ally with less Health than you, that ally gains half the difference and you lose an equal amount.

-- Gordon Ecker 01:47, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Skills as general purpose tools in the world

It would be interesting if skills had different, but predictable, effects on different targets -- beyond just the ally/enemy distinction. What happens if you cast Deep Freeze on a river? A pool of magma?

If skills could have predictable environmental effects, there could be the sort of tactical puzzles with no set solution. The players would have to figure out a way to use their skillbars to create a solution.

The environment becomes another monster to fight, in essence. There's not set solution to killing a monster; you figure out a way to use skills to beat the tactical situation.

In GW:EN for example, you have the big balls of snow that roll down to crush characters. Avoiding the snowballs with Dash is one solution. Maybe melting the snow with Fireball or freezing it in place with Ice Spikes was also a valid solution. How about "killing" the snowball with a Shield of Judgment, or smashing it on to another path with a hammer attack?--Drekmonger 02:21, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

This is one of the most awsome ideas I've seen so far, it makes alot of sense to add multifunctional and environmental effects to abilities. Though exageratedly diverse amounts of effects would just encumber the game, it would be natural and functional to introduce a hand full of general effects for a variety of abilities, attacks and spells. Things like being able to move heavy objects with strengthening abilities, breaking barriers with axes, hammers and meteors, but doing significantly less or ineffectual damage with lighter attacks on barriers, creating paths and routes with earthquakes and ropes. Some general, and moderately shared effects spread accross a hand full of skills for different situations and needs would make the game, particularly exploration, much more interesting.

This could also be carried over to something like using earthquake in a field of snowy trees to drop snow on underlying foes causing additional ice damage and slow effects, or shaking a slope causing an avalanche. This kind of terrain effects and involvement would make many locations much more unique and memorable.--BahamutKaiser 03:19, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd love to have fun with ice and lightning spells underwater, and I'm hoping that fire spells will cause some kind of boiling or steam affect rather than just fizzling. -- Gordon Ecker 04:04, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not so sure underwater is a realistic theme for fantasy combat, even in modern society, fighting underwater is not common, and in a GW fantasy, it would basicly come down to some magical ability to explore underwater, or just walking on the floor of a body of water which is just a twist on normal terrain. Flight makes more sense than underwater, wile swimming on water with moderated submersion skills would be much more viable. Also, electricity can't really be directed underwater meaning you would have to touch your foe like an eel.--BahamutKaiser 16:32, 3 September 2007 (UTC)