My Suggestions for Guild Wars 2

[JDL.2785]

Hello, so this is my first post and I wasn't sure where to put this so General discussion seemed appropriate. Apologies if it is incorrectly placed.

Anyway, so I have been playing Guild Wars 2 since launch and really feel like the game has been getting much better in every expansion, still having a few issues in my opinion but overall fun and enjoyable. I had some ideas for what Arenanet could do to grow the game even further. These are just my ideas, so here we go.

 

Something that has always bugged me a little bit about the game is that the weapon skills don't have much choice. You choose your weapon and you get those 5 or 3 abilities and I find that sometimes, i really like 2 abilities but not the other 3. This also, in my opinion, limits the diversity of builds that was found in Guild Wars 1, which I enjoyed so much as you could have a huge amount of different builds. My idea is that you can merge weapons together, similar to how the Elementalists Elite Specialisation, Weaver, works, so that you could have both a mix of weapons. For Example, if you like the Staff's 1, 2 and 3, but the focus 4, 5 on lets just say an Elementalist. You can create a Focus Staff combo, that can do this. I love this idea and think it will lead to a lot of builds that suit players preferences. I do have concerns with this as well, such as balancing these weapons could be a lot more effort, as well as creating skins for things such as Pistol Daggers or something. I understand that this is a lot of work to pull off but I think that it will really open up the game to many build options. Not every weapons needs to be able to be combined together, but I liked the idea. Just an thought, could be impossible, but I would like to see it in the game.

 

I also think that it might be worth thinking about adding a Horse into the game. This would be slower than the other mounts by a small amount, have no jumping ability or dismount ability and have less health than the other mounts. However this would be available, within the base game. Essentially allowing Free to Play players to have a mount. This could show people that they really do want a mount and I think could get more people to buy Path of Fire. It is also a generous token to people who play the game for free, helping them to get nice stuff without paying. Of course I don't doubt Arenanet have researched this and considered if this would lead to profit or loss, so I'll leave that there as I can fully understand it not being done. But at least add a Horse of some sort to the game, so RP'ers or people who would just like a modest mount can appreciate it, even if it is in Path of Fire.

Whilst on mounts I would like to ask that mounts for Charr and Norn, be made a bit bigger and broader to fit their riders, as my Charr feels like he is a bit oversized for his mount and would appreciate a mount that felt appropriately sized. Also a Triceratops mount would be awesome... Just saying...

 

And A final idea which leans on one of my favourite things about Guild Wars. Heroes. It was a great satisfaction to have a group with you wherever you go fighting by your side. Not only that, they were a group of heroes that you yourself had geared up. You got them their runes, their armour and you chose their skills. This allowed for a single player, or a small group to still do high end content creating builds for your whole team, and the synergy that goes with that. And I feel such a system could work perfectly within Guild Wars 2. Use characters such as Taimi, Rytlock and Eir Stegalkin, and I know that the story line may decide whether these characters live or die, but going out and doing events raids and dungeons isn't about the story line. I can do the same dungeon many times, regardless of outcomes characters come back to life. I feel this small sacrifice of realism is worth the game play elements. Each hero, you would have to gear up, the armour being obtained cheaper and easier than normal armour, or through challenges like in Guild Wars. The characters already have classes so just give the player the option to change their skills, e.g. Rytlock is a Revenant. And this could be implemented into the world brilliantly, allowing for strategy beyond just 1 person. Use the exact same system they have now. If you have 5 heroes with you, 6 in total. Then level the enemies in the event and their numbers to be challenging for 6 people. The game already does this, and so would just need to count the heroes as players. If the server get's filled with too many people and their heroes, then each player loses a hero of their choice. At a full server all heroes would be kicked. This would mean if there is enough players to do a big boss event, then heroes are kicked from the party in order to allow players to play together, as if there is enough players, then you don't need heroes. However if you are by yourself, and you want to do a group event for a hero point or achievement, then you can get your heroes and fight with them. Te boss will be adequately scaled for the number of heroes you bring and that's it. This could also be used to allow people to do raids without guilds although I can understand heroes not being allowed in Raids. Also disable them for PvP and WvW. I honestly think this is a great idea and can lead to the group based combat and teamwork that Guild Wars 1 was all about.

 

Anyway these are just some things I felt like sharing. I hope Arenanet reads this and I hope that they implement these ideas, because I honestly think they are good ideas. I may have possibly missed something or some problems with them, but thank you all for your time reading this long post.

 

A final note, I do understand these are all big changes, but I think that the heroes idea could be implemented with ease and give you a sense of battle and adventure wherever you go. If you don't need them, then you get the community driven events that we already enjoy. I believe it is a win win, as well as being another form of progression, potentially getting armour and weapons and builds for your heroes as well as yourself. If these changes were to take place, then I would expect them to be in the next big expansion, or maybe even the one after that, as I understand they are no small feats. Once again thank you for reading, and I hope I didn't embarrass myself too much on my first post.

 

 

 

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I don't think they could (or would want to) add Heroes to Open World PvE. I don't think your idea would work in some cases; let's say a Meta event/chain has many players participating and removes all Heroes from the map. Those players wanting to solo some Hero Challenge on the other side of the map won't have any Heroes available, because the map is full of players doing other event(s). Or, said Heroes at the Hero Challenge could just disappear halfway through, because the map population suddenly hit full. Etc., etc.

 

They might be viable for instances, though.

 

Good luck.

[kharmin.7683]

Why do the majority of these types of suggestions tend to always incorporate GW1 stuff into GW2? There are reasons why ANet decided to make the changes they made when creating GW2. I say, leave GW1 material in GW1 and stop asking for some kind or hybrid.

 

As for horses, I think it is clear: if you want a mount, then purchase the xpac. I cannot see how this concept could be any more simple.

[maddoctor.2738]

About your first suggestion:

In GW1 you can't use Sword skills without a Sword, same with Hammer, Bow, Dagger, Spear and Axe, so all the physical weapons. They applied the same mechanic from GW1 to all weapons in GW2, to make it both easier to balance and keep the mechanic similar. Why would caster skills work differently than physical weapon skills anyway.

 

The second one:

Mounts are Path of Fire content and players running around with them are enough of an advertisement for free players to go get their own.

 

Third one:

Aside from the terrible implications for performance and even gameplay if they added Heroes to the open world, GW2 is not a static game. It requires constant careful movement and good positioning, this makes it much harder for an AI to play Guild Wars 2, than it is to play Guild Wars 1, which is a mostly static game that only requires some prioritization of skills and it's done. Better allies in story missions are needed, they are usually useless, unless they help with a battle gimmick, and they could get a buff or two to make them more useful in story instances, but that's it. No further AI companions are needed.

[JDL.2785]

Okay... These are all fair points.

First the phasing... When I was talking about heroes being kicked from your team it would be as players enter the general area. The game already registers whether players are participating in nearby events so I think that it wouldn't be unreasonable to use this to determine when heroes phase out. This is not determined by whether the server is full, as an NPC does not take up a players spot on a server, but if there is a lot of people doing the same event. It will still be a problem though, but I don't think it is enough to break the idea.

Also to keep on the heroes topic I do agree that the NPC's tend to be quite bad in combat, most relying on tonnes of health or immunity to the big attacks in order to be useful. They do not dodge attacks as mentioned, and do not really fight in a fluid manner which they need to in order to surive. I can see this being a problem, although I don't think it is insurmountable. I believe that the allied AI needs to be better on a whole, able to dodge attacks and such, before they add heroes. (If they do). This may be a difficult task however I think it is possible.

 

I also do not think that performance will degrade too much, as I don't have the best computer, it was quite cheap, and I can still do pretty big World Events that get lots of people involved. Also there is a limit on how many players there are in an area. If there are many players than performance will drop regardless of heroes, and at this point heroes will be gone anyway if there is that many players nearby. Simply put, if there is enough players to drop performance than heroes will not be active in the area, and so I do not see a problem. And besides that the only lag I really get is in World Vs World and I don't think heroes should be there.

 

As the Horse goes I think it would be a nice gesture on Arenanets behalf although I completely understand your point, and as a person who bought the game at launch and bought all expansions, I can see that giving the Free to Play players a mount probably wont happen. It was just a small idea, and a nice gesture.

 

With regards to the dual weapons, I think that allowing players to craft dual weapons would be cool. This would work for both physical and magical weapons, essentially allowing you to pick and choose what abilities you have. This isn't similar to GW1, I am aware. It is not supposed to be. The idea revolves around having 2 weapons equipped in the same weapon slot to allow for skills to be chosen. So you could have a Greatsword and a Hammer for the guardian. You then can choose between 2 skills for each of the slots 1 to 5. I think this will lead to more choice of build. Sorry if this was not a proper response to your point. I am not sure what you meant by "Why would caster skills work differently than physical weapon skills anyway." As I never thought that. As the balancing goes, I did mention this and I understand it is a difficult thing to balance and does make it more complex, however I do favour options and choices, which are more complex. I think it is possible, but I agree that it is definitely a lot of work.

 

Finally the second answer, sorry i don't seem to be able to quote very well, states that these types of suggestions are incorporating things from Guild Wars 1. I would say that Dual Weapons is changing from Guild Wars 1, there were no mounts in Guild Wars 1, so you are talking about Heroes. As a whole I do agree that games must progress, and move forward which can leave people upset as the game is no longer what they remember. Guild Wars 2 has changed vastly from launch for the better, in my opinion. Arenanet has done a fantastic job, I think. But I do think that in general games should take what is good from their predecessors. I believe that heroes was one of the best things about Guild Wars 1, on top of many things. And to improve upon something great you must take what was good about it and make it better, and of course add new things. I understand your stance but I would especially say that it is at least worth considering what people liked about the previous game, which was very successful, and think about putting it into the sequel. You say not to create some "hybrid", however it is Guild Wars 2. It came from Guild Wars. I do not feel like they should leave everything from GW in GW, because this is the sequel and creating games revolves around taking what people like about current good games, and implementing it in a better package of some kind. Or just total originality, which this is not because it is an MMO and a sequel.

 

I hope my answer convinced you that these ideas are possible. Thank you for taking the time to respond and the time to read this response, as you can all see too clearly, these ideas are not polished things ready for immediate implementation, but I do think with a lot of work they could be brilliant. I agree with your comments about the horse.

 

 

[Ceit.7619]

I think in general your ideas have to be looked at through the lens of a cost/benefit analysis. The amount of developer time that would be needed to do it versus what they realistically could expect to gain. In general, they would stand to earn nothing off the work you're laying out for them, other than the 'hope' of it attracting more players.