#1 - Dec. 21, 2013, 11:56 a.m.

Hello Fellow Collaborators,

Welcome to the last CDI topic of 2013 (For Real this time!). In this topic we will be discussing Horizontal Character Progression. The CDI rules are as follows:

Rules

1: This initiative is all about discussion.
2: We will not be disclosing information pertaining to what is currently in development.
3: Anger and emotion will have less impact than intelligent discussion.
4: Together we will share and evolve design philosophies which will impact how we develop the game moving forward.
5: Aggression and disrespect to a fellow community member or developer will not be tolerated, and in the extreme could lead to the shutting down of the initiative.
6: The teams primary focus is work toward the development of GW2 and therefore posting of discussion and commentary may not be as frequent as you like. Please do understand that the initiative is taken very seriously by us all and that we will be reading the discussions and joining in as often as it is possible to do so.

We will be focusing on Horizontal progression in this thread.

Here is a handy summary of some of the discussion so far. Thanks Bezagron:

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/6#post3410790

Link to various summaries collated by Lost Witch:

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Summaries/first#post3442156

A link to the previous Vertical progression thread can be found here:

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Vertical/first

Finally please note this is not a competition either between yourselves or the developers in regard to one up man ship. The point of this Initiative is to work together to make the game better.

Note: We will disclose the ideas we do or don’t like as a group but we will not discuss schedules or timing around implementation. If there is still concern surrounding how seriously we take community collaboration then please do take the time to think about how much impact the community has had on the working of this game over the year.

Chris

P.S: Here is a discussion about the recent Vertical discussion thread from Massively! for those who are new to the CDI process:

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/12/17/flameseeker-chronicles-we-will-control-guild-wars-2s-horizonta/

#2 - Dec. 21, 2013, 11:56 a.m.

Note I will jump into the discussion once the conversation between you all gets going. Probably tomorrow. We will see (-:

Chris

#4 - Dec. 21, 2013, 12:06 p.m.

Also sorry for the delay, but I have been out and about with the family.

Chris

#212 - Dec. 22, 2013, 11:06 a.m.

Quick note to say that I am up to date and that there are some awesome ideas here.

If someone wants to do a macro summary of the main ideas that would be awesome (if they haven’t already. I haven’t seen one). If not I will do one tomorrow morning.

I will then call out some of the suggestions I personally really like. Also as per Colin’s question in the previous thread (one which has been asked again by some posters in this thread) feel free to discuss Horizontal Progression systems you have enjoyed in other games.

Chris

#359 - Dec. 23, 2013, 9:42 a.m.

Yoh.8469:

Hey Chris, you might want to add this thread to the Master Sticky, I kind of assume that’s why it exists.

Also, I have a question, you might want to pass it on to Izzy or somebody as it is a bit technical.
We know we are going to get new skills/weapons/traits etc eventually.

-
But, is it possible for these new skills and abilities to utilize the Z-axis?

Most of the skills in the game effectively work on a flat plane, but as the Zephyr Sanctum showed it is quite possible go vertical as well. (admittedly only so far in a controlled space)
Technical map issues aside, is it possible we could see skills like these introduced into the game?

For example: Jumping into the air and raining down daggers or arrows, of launching yourself up and over your opponent.

-

And for everyone else, what do you think? Would you like to have skills that used the vertical Z-axis?

Hi,

CDI threads get added to the master sticky once they end. While they are live they remain in this section in order to ensure that folks are aware of the current CDI. I hope this makes sense.

Chris

#360 - Dec. 23, 2013, 9:45 a.m.

Guhracie.3419:

Snip

A sort of scavenger hunt thing: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/4#post3408265

Legendary dyes: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/4#post3408259

Utility mini-pets: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/4#post3408254

Keep LS npcs in your home instance, and then fight them! https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/4#post3408238

Rework the trait system (soft trinity) : https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/3#post3407491

New craft: Tinkering: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/3#post3407258

Examples of ways to customize skills: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/3#post3407237

Crafting items with more flavor: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/3#post3407178

Challenge Missions: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/2#post3406960

Commentary about the difficulties of horizontal progression and potential solutions: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/2#post3406883

book system, etc: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/2#post3406542

In-depth about flaws with the runes/sigils system: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406492

Commander tags change color with WvW rank/Achievements: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406355

It seems counter-intuitive to have 5 guilds but only the ability to help one at a time. https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406331

Allow people to trade dungeon tokens for some sort of universal currency: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406082

modular gear customization: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406099
Follow-up to the above, with some fantastic ideas: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/2#post3406787

Racial skills could be more powerful on their home turf. https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406220

Item appearance levels- https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406221

Tons of good ideas; not specific.
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406043
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/4#post3408445
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/3#post3407529 https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/3#post3407397 https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/2#post3406583 https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/2#post3406543 https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406223
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406330
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406378

Details about dyes: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406233

Details about doing an “armor pass” https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406235

Feasible, well thought out idea for dual spec: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406262

This is why single-use skins don’t feel like progression: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406328

Separate PvE skills from PvP and WvW: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406329

Titles with color, and more good ideas: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/2#post3406709

A bag slot that is account wide, bring back the arena challenge from the Crown Pavillion, and others: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/2#post3406767

Thanks Guhracie this is great!

#363 - Dec. 23, 2013, 9:51 a.m.

This CDI continues to get better and better. It is awesome just to be able to sit here and think about all these great ideas. On top of this the professionalism and respect shown to fellow posters is exactly what I would hope from the initiative as it matures.

A couple of days ago I did an interview with a journalist about the CDI and he asked me what my favorite things about the CDI were (on top of other things. You will be able to hear it soon I think). Seeing you all brainstorm and problem solve like you are in this thread is excellent and exactly what I had hoped for the CDI. So many good ideas, so much for us to discuss with you and at Arena, and ultimately so much value to add to GW2.

With this in mind I will be keeping this topic open until at least the 6th of Jan so that once the majority of the idea have come forward we can discuss them and start putting proposals together.

Chris

#480 - Dec. 23, 2013, 4:28 p.m.

Bezagron.7352:

Horizontal progression page summary
Lets me know if you think I’ve missed something

Character progression

New Build: This includes;

• New weapons
• New skills including expansion of weapons skills
• New traits
• New stat combinations
• Sub-classes https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/2#post3406543
• New runes and sigils (ThanksTeckos.1305 missed that and I even have a post talking about then https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/6#post3410128)

Cosmetics: This include;

• PvE skin locker. Similar to the sPvP locker https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406328
• Mini pets. Slots to place mini pets in so they don’t just go to collection and a game that involves mini pets. https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406223
• Customising home instance – One main aspect requested is customising player housing where we can build and decorate the house (Thanks Donari.5237 missed that with home instance and player housing)
• An in game Hall of Monuments for GW2 to display achievements in game. https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406216
• New skins. Armour / weapons / back items
• More emotes
• Alternate animations – another collection.
• New dyes.
• Weapon dyes – ability to dye weapons
• Some type of armour customisation. https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406099
• Item progression. The fractal capacitor was used as an example
• Item enhancement. This could fall under item progression but the example used involved the flamekissed incident. The idea was to be able to enhance the human cultural armour so it could have the flamekissed skin.

Content

• Vanquishing. Example was another mode in dungeons were you have to vanquish all the monsters in the dungeon. https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406082
  Another good post on Dungeon vanquishing https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/2#post3406646
• PvE map vanquishing https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/3#post3407867
• PvE arena https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/2#post3406767
• Challenge missions https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/2#post3406960
• Crafting – Jaken has writing a interesting write up regarding crafting https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/2#post3407102
• Faction progression – Faction missions, armour, skills, emotes
• Order progression – Order missions, armour, skills, emotes
• Further personal story progression
  *Guild progression – adding guild halls

World development

• Louveepine write some great ideas of developing exploration https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/3#post3407529

Awesome work Bezagron.

Summary bump.

Chris

#482 - Dec. 23, 2013, 4:33 p.m.

Orpheal.8263:

Part 2:

Cosmetical Progression – Legendary Equipment, Skill Skins, Finishers, Weapon Dying
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406043 – Cultural Armors for Mystic Force Recipes, Fractal Armor Set
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406099 – More Armor Customization, Ability to turn one sided Armor patterns at Arms/Shoulders as example into a synchron version that has the pattern of the design on both sides
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406159 – More Achievement Skins
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406216 – Make Dyes accountbound again
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406221 – Visually upgradable tiers of Equipment/Equipment Refining
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406233 Make dyes in general more accessible, including the Gem Store Dyes
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406371 – Add ascendent Dungeon/Cultural Armors
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406399 – Upgrade cultural Armors with particle effects, Implement also a Pact Armor Set
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406459 – Add Class specific Armor Sets

PvP Horizontal Progression
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406139 – direct Rank Emote Chat Commands through numbering them

WvW Horizontal Progression
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406355 – Different colored Commander Tags

Crafting Progression
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406181 – Costume Crafting
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406237 – Dismantling of Crafted Items into all the smaller parts, real individual unique player named crafted items, Non RNG based Item Fusion

New Features and reimplemented ones from GW1
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406216 – Reimplement/rework the Hall of Monuments for GW2
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406223 – Add a kind of Minipet-Pokemon that basically already exists in Lions Arch
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406278 – Reimplement Dungeon Books
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406371 – Add a Faction based Reputation System
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406459 – Add more Search Functions to the TP

General Technical Improvements
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406233 More technical Support for various Mods, that can improve significantly the game experience visually as like mechanically
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406459 – General Fixing of Clipping Issues, be it for armors, tails, hair, or whatever

General Gameplay Improvements
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406278 – Fix Downscaling for all Low Level Areas, Make World Exploration resetable for repeatable rewards, More map wide Events similar to Scarlets Invasion
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406329 – Make all Skills for all Gameplay Modes seperate
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406492 – Redesign/Revamp of Runes and Sigil-System

Reward and Loot Improvements
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406278 – Make unique Minipets dropable for all the specific regions
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/first#post3406331 – Retroactive Rewards

Thanks Orpheal.

Chris

#653 - Dec. 24, 2013, 3:41 p.m.

Swagger.1459:

devs,

this thread seems all over the place. there are a bunch of suggestions about content and qol features that don’t have anything to do with progressing our characters, so could you please clarify what you mean by “horizontal progression”?

thanks!

Hi Swagger,

Nearly every post in this thread is about Horizontal character progression and personally I am really enjoying the ideation and brainstorming phase.

I haven’t been able to contribute in this thread because of family engagements (Wife’s Birthday, Preparation for Christmas Day etc). I intend to discuss my personal favorite ideas on the 27th.

We have plenty of time on the thread and it seems that most everyone are enjoying themselves and I am sure we will see some more focused proposals soon.

Chris

#654 - Dec. 24, 2013, 3:43 p.m.

Bezagron.7352:

Hi All
Just dropping in to say working on a summary post which will be up tonight (morning at the moment). Having Christmas with the family. Loving all the ideas, keep then coming guys & girls.

ps. Sorry wife said should give you all a Merry Christmas

Thanks Bezagron, Guhracie, Orpheal and many others for your help with the management of this great thread.

Chris

#670 - Dec. 24, 2013, 9:32 p.m.

Merry Christmas to all those where it is Christmas Day!

Chris

#671 - Dec. 24, 2013, 9:35 p.m.

Khunvyel.3972:

I’d like to give Mr. Whiteside best wishes and thanks for this initiative.
You Sir, have made people who haven’t been happy with the game literally come back and regain hope and faith into the game by the CDIs which have the community rolling.
You Sir, are the “missing link” that proves ArenaNet still cares for us and wants to get things progressing, together.
You Sir, should have a very well deserved Christmas celebration

We are all very anxious to see how and what is going to happen because of this collaboration. Merry Christmas, inhabitants of Tyria.

Thanks for your kind words and Merry Christmas!

Everyone at Arena cares for the community. I just happen to have little bit more time than most (-:

Chris

#673 - Dec. 24, 2013, 9:36 p.m.

Malchior.5042:

Hahaha! You would show up just to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Chris!

Merry Christmas everyone, devs and players!

#673 - Dec. 24, 2013, 9:39 p.m.

Malchior.5042:

Hahaha! You would show up just to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Chris!

Merry Christmas everyone, devs and players!

Merry Christmas (-:

Just got back from dinner.

Chris

#692 - Dec. 25, 2013, 11:17 a.m.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Thanks so much for all of your contribution, passion and support.

Chris

#761 - Dec. 26, 2013, 12:54 p.m.

Romo.3709:

Chris, is there any update regarding fractals in general? Maybe suggestions that we can tune in on or possible balancing of dredge fractal? In general, anything at all?

Hi Romo,

As soon as there any updates we can discuss we will let the community know.

Maybe we could do a CDI on the Fractals next year?

Chris

#837 - Dec. 27, 2013, 10:44 a.m.

Morning/Afternoon All,

Lots of ideas and discussion. I think it would be useful now to list your top three favorite ideas with either a link to your favorite description of that idea in the thread or a single sentence description of your own.

Let’s start to refine the ideas, filter and reduce them down the core of what makes them great in your opinion.

Chris

#840 - Dec. 27, 2013, 11:22 a.m.

Great start Magnus and Temariah.

Chris

#919 - Dec. 27, 2013, 6:06 p.m.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Morning/Afternoon All,

Lots of ideas and discussion. I think it would be useful now to list your top three favorite ideas with either a link to your favorite description of that idea in the thread or a single sentence description of your own.

Let’s start to refine the ideas, filter and reduce them down the core of what makes them great in your opinion.

Chris

This is going really well. Let’s stay focused on this for a little longer so folks have time to respond before moving onto discussions around proposals.

Chris

#974 - Dec. 28, 2013, 11:01 a.m.

videoboy.4162:

Khunvyel.3972:

I let the flamesticks poke me into oblivion for saying;

“I’d rather have a top 3 list of things that could actually make it in the game with existing technology and not having to do crazy amounts of extra coding, than having a top 3 list of things people want in the game just so without any further thought.”

°bracing°

Maybe if Chris tells us his three things, that will give us an idea of where to direct the discussion?

Are you willing to share, Chris?

Hi Videoboy,

I am still thinking through all the ideas and suggestions so my list may change but currently it is:

— Role Diversification: New skills/traits, new weapons, access to inaccessible existing weapons, infusions and hybrid professions.

— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing, Guild Halls, and Faction Alliances leading to new game play opportunities, rewards and content.

— Hero Recognition: Unique Skins, Titles, Rewards, followers and NPC reactions/opportunities based on the players individual feats in the world of Tyria regardless of how he/she chooses to play the game.

Please note these are just my personal thoughts on what I think would be cool. I am also still thinking about the ideas presented in the thread and therefore like anyone else reserve the right to change my top three (-:

Chris

#976 - Dec. 28, 2013, 11:07 a.m.

Conner.4702:

Shadow Blade.1324:

i remember you guys talking about endgame horizontal progression before maybe look at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIExN1GZK_Q
that lasted what 2 months? how long will anything from this cdi last? before you nerf it and promote gold farming for “economic reasons”

given the treatment of the vertical component of this discussion where inconvenient commonly discussed points were flat out ignored, and the most common dev posts were a variation of “im really busy with the holidays will read/reply later” its clear this will be marginalized with a token feature and “we listened to your feedback” when you introduce more unpopular changes.

many of the proposals in this thread have been discussed again and again over the last year
and you guys are always reading the forum’s right?, so its not like its new information, you have not taken action so far, we should believe you will now why exactly? your track record isn’t exactly good at this point, its not even average.

at this point i think this has degenerated into a PR exercise and you wont actually do anything substantial, so im no longer interested in taking you through game design basics you should already know.

Sadly this is how I see it at the moment. I do not feel this initiative is serious no matter how many times it is said to be taken serious. Simply because the actions do not reflect the words. Asking for a top 3 after 17 pages of ideas looks more like not wanting to go through it themselves and all that it accomplishes is rehashing the same old that has been talked about already without rhyme or reason.

Hi Shadow Blade and Conner,

The fruits of everyone’s hard work have already begun to show through, specifically in regard to the first CDI- Living World. The return on investment will take time to present itself due to the nature of game development.

However if you don’t feel like the initiative adds any value then you don’t need to partake in it.

Chris

#977 - Dec. 28, 2013, 11:11 a.m.

Let’s give folks a little more time to post their top three. Once it’s clear we have the majority of the collaborators favorite ideas we can discuss the pros and cons of the ideas and also discuss (as requested) the ballpark ‘cost’ of each feature vs. the priority the group would attach to each.

Chris

#982 - Dec. 28, 2013, 11:41 a.m.

Donari.5237:

Oh dear, Chris. You didn’t mention a skin locker or other skin management system. Perhaps that can be a swift change to your list?

Here are my clothes-horse necro’s bags, with all the different looks of boots and coats and skirts sorted out by type of garment and then from least to most coverage (those looking for Winged gloves and boots, they are on her to complement her Ascended coat/skirt). I also have over 4 bank tabs full of skins and dyes waiting for the right alt to receive them. Oh, how I’d rejoice to turn all that into a locker and free up the space for other things! I can’t even take her dungeoning because 20 free slots fill up too fast.

Hi Donari,

I certainly think that Wardrobe is a very important QOL improvement for Horizontal Progression if that makes sense?

Chris

#983 - Dec. 28, 2013, 11:42 a.m.

Chrispy.5641:

AlanaTheStrange.1463:

…List….

Nice List!

Agreed. Super helpful.

Chris

#990 - Dec. 28, 2013, 2:07 p.m.

Dominus.2360:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I certainly think that Wardrobe is a very important QOL improvement for Horizontal Progression if that makes sense?

Chris

I think it can or should be more than just a ‘QoL-Improvement’. Every MMO has or should have some kind of ‘core’, something outstanding compared to other MMOs, and that’s what GW2 is lacking right now. You maybe remember the GW2-Manifesto, where it was said that GW2 should have no grind; a lot of players interpreted this the way it used to be in GW1 – that BiS gear is something very easy to achieve. It turned out that this is not the case, or at least it’s not as easy as it was in GW1 (ascended didn’t really help in this topic).

Maybe this is the holy Guild Wars (2?) grail: That it’s all about collecting skins. You maybe remember how people farmed “Gate of Anguish”, and it was bascially only for skins (of course, some people farmed for gold, but they only obtained it by selling the skins to others). I’m sure you could do something like that again. To make collecting skins the ‘endgame’. That grind (in opposite to many other MMOs) means not to farm for better stats, but that grind (and sometimes non-grind-content too) mean to collect stats. What’s the very cool thing about it? It’s very casual friendly since hardcore players don’t have any kind of advantage in stats; they just “look better”.

So yeah, maybe it’s “just” a wardrobe, but I think you could go even further and make some kind of ‘unlock-system’ that allows the player to switch skins without wasting any inventory space or having to mind about stats.

Hi Dominus,

I don’t think the idea is ‘Just’ a Wardrobe. I think it is supporting functionality to an existing system (Skin Collection) that I would like to see expanded upon (Personal Opinion).

I think a lot of play could also come out of Wardrobe functionality. However I wanted to keep my list to 3 macro ideas and I believe Wardrobe would potentially compliment/support them.

Chris

#991 - Dec. 28, 2013, 2:09 p.m.

StriderShinryu.6923:

Dominus.2360:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

I certainly think that Wardrobe is a very important QOL improvement for Horizontal Progression if that makes sense?

Chris

I think it can or should be more than just a ‘QoL-Improvement’.

That’s an interesting perspective, and I can’t say that I disagree.

At the very least, GW2 does need a proper cosmetic system (if even for nothing other than storage, though more would obviously be better) because any appearance based goals put into the game at this point are tripped up right out of the gate by the lack of one. That’s why I personally put it forward as more of a sister goal to horizontal progression. Horizontal progression, regardless of the exact implementation, needs a cosmetic system if even some of the associated rewards/goals are going to be cosmetic based. But, I wasn’t really viewing the cosmetics as something of a goal of it’s own. Perhaps that could be a perfectly valid “end game” for GW2. It certainly does fit the originally stated goals that ANet put forward.

Agreed I see it as supporting functionality to existing systems. This said it could be designed in such a way that it builds on the gameplay.

Chris

#992 - Dec. 28, 2013, 2:11 p.m.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Morning/Afternoon All,

Lots of ideas and discussion. I think it would be useful now to list your top three favorite ideas with either a link to your favorite description of that idea in the thread or a single sentence description of your own.

Let’s start to refine the ideas, filter and reduce them down the core of what makes them great in your opinion.

Chris

Bump. Anymore top three lists folks?

Chris

#993 - Dec. 28, 2013, 2:12 p.m.

AlanaTheStrange.1463:

I made a tally with numbers, but some things are grouped into other things. I tried my best to make “umbrella” categories (up to Zone.1275’s post):

Weapon Skills 34
Quests/Order Missions 33
Homes 28
New Skills 24
PvE Skin Locker 23
Faction Reputation/Titles 21
Character Customization 20
Guild Halls 19
Personality System 18
Armor Sets (non-gem-store) 16
Hard Mode/Elite Missions 10
Lore 9
Legendary Dye 6
Mini Slot/Improvements 6
Mounts 3
Skinning Modularity 3
Dyeable Weapons 3
Legendary Skins 2
Monster Arena 2
Fishing 2
Modular World 1
Dungeon Achievements 1
Sub-Classes 1
Town Clothes 1
———————————————————————————————————————-
Edit: There were a few additional things voted up, but they didn’t seem like horizontal ideas (I recall a few of them from the vertical thread) but here they are as well:

Stat Swapping 6
More Account-Binding vs Soul-Binding 4
Progressive Items 1
Rewards for Consistency 1
Permanent Content 1
PvP Balancing 1

Many thanks Alana and Orpheal and everyone who has been supporting the thread.

Chris

#1092 - Dec. 29, 2013, 11:54 a.m.

VOLKON.1290:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

videoboy.4162:

Khunvyel.3972:

I let the flamesticks poke me into oblivion for saying;

“I’d rather have a top 3 list of things that could actually make it in the game with existing technology and not having to do crazy amounts of extra coding, than having a top 3 list of things people want in the game just so without any further thought.”

°bracing°

Maybe if Chris tells us his three things, that will give us an idea of where to direct the discussion?

Are you willing to share, Chris?

Hi Videoboy,

I am still thinking through all the ideas and suggestions so my list may change but currently it is:

— Role Diversification: New skills/traits, new weapons, access to inaccessible existing weapons, infusions and hybrid professions.

— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing, Guild Halls, and Faction Alliances leading to new game play opportunities, rewards and content.

— Hero Recognition: Unique Skins, Titles, Rewards, followers and NPC reactions/opportunities based on the players individual feats in the world of Tyria regardless of how he/she chooses to play the game.

Please note these are just my personal thoughts on what I think would be cool. I am also still thinking about the ideas presented in the thread and therefore like anyone else reserve the right to change my top three (-:

Chris

Any thoughts on tinkering ? I think it could fit in the second nicely.

Yep I agree Tinkering would indeed work well for 2.

Chris

#1093 - Dec. 29, 2013, 11:58 a.m.

Orpheal.8263:

@ the Devs:

After seeing now, that the thread has quickly turned now into a disccusion around only everybodies Top 3 suggestions and Chris self saying, what is at the moment his personal own Top 3, I ask myself here…
Should I still make further with my Summaries? I’ve made so far Summaries from Page 1-8.

Already within these 8 pages are tons of people, which suggested again and again x times the same things, more or less in the same context very often.

I’d like to know now, if this CDI discussion here now focusses already now more only onto the Top 3 discussion, or if people want to see more summaries of the missing pages?
Because basically we have made together already so many great suggestions, that I think, all this stuff together could hold the Devs busy like until 2016 or longer xD
—-

With Chris having told us his current Top 3 I think this thread has now shifted into a direction, where people don’t care anymore, if more summaries are made. People are now focused on these 3 things, because everybody looks now only on these 3 topics where Chris has mostly his eyes on at the moment, to the point, that people make also directly disappointed conclusions, that thigns they have suggested won’t find their ways into the game, only because Chris hasn’t mentioned them in his Top 3.
—-

Honestly, I already also think, this thread has grown already again too big. I want to say – again. I think it is very important for futurous CDI’s that the managment of them gets better in keeping the threads as compact as possible, because it makes it very hard to keep everythign overvieweable, the larger the thread gets.

To come to an end, I my self naturally want to let you devs also know my own personal Top 3 of this thread’s suggestions:

1) Sub Classes
2) Housing/Reuse of Hall of Monuments
3) New Weapons and Class Specific interactive “Tools”

New Weapons like Great Axes, Halberds/Lances, Whips, Claws, Flails, Quarterstaffs, Crossbows

Class Specific Tools (Idea based on the Wild Arms Games)
Thiefs for example could get Basic Tools like: Grappling Hooks, Throwing Stars and Stealth Manteaus. Each Sub Class then again could add a Sub Class specific 4th Tool.

Rogue > Key Ring
Saboteur > EMP Grenades
Infiltrator > Trap Disabling Kit

These 3 things would improve alot of Role Diversification and Housing would add alot of Social Aspects into the Game.

Hi Orpheal,

First of all thanks for your hard work. Doing summaries is time consuming work and with the addition of the 3 priority focus I would suggest that you could stop. It is up to you however.

Chris

#1096 - Dec. 29, 2013, 12:03 p.m.

Khunvyel.3972:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Anet once stated in an earlier interview, that it’s more likely to add more weapons to current professions than adding another profession. I like this decision because this means I don’t have to level up another character but instead get more depth to my current characters.

I’m going to look for the source for you.
Edit: source: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Weapons-before-Professions/first#post2426745

Oh don’t worry, I remember this. I reply to you that if they add weapons, then they are going to fit the theme of the profession more than anything else. The Warrior has currently the biggest ar…se…nal (( seriously, forum admins, do your homework of censored words, this is ridiculous)) of smashies right now, so if anything, it is going to be other professions who are getting more weapons unlocked first. Also, by saying “new weapons” it doesn’t necessarily mean “previously locked weapons accessible.” I could totally think of new weapons finding their way into the game, let’s say, while the Warrior gets a Greataxe and a Crossbow, other professions get more than two weapons added/unlocked, while Engineer and Elementalist might only get one, due to their inherent profession nature.

Without wanting to play the devil’s advocate here, but I stopped believing in any earlier interviews as many of those became not really accountable any more, because since then and launch there was so much change, and we all remember the flak ArenaNet had to take from the players for “breaking promises in earlier statements.” I believe it when it goes live.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I want to emphasize this:

Anet

It can’t be something that when players run out of things to do we give them more challenges that they need to grind out to do and that add another 100 hours to the game.

It’s pretty clear that Anet is against some of our ideas here.

It is pretty clear, that ArenaNet was against their OWN ideas. Or maybe it wasn’t ArenaNet who shafted them. °wink wink nudge nudge°

At any rate, not wanting to continue idle banter but putting something more constructive into the topic;

Mr. Whiteside, is there any estimate when this topic will be closed, which CDI is going to be next, how many are there still to come, and can you already mention what your plans are to inform us about the brainstorming you had in-house?
Is there any chance we can get related coders on board to answer the likelihood and difficulty of implementation to the highest ranked suggestions?

Thank you

Hi Khunvyel,

The topic will be open until at least Jan 6th and probably longer.

The next CDI topic will be a CDI process evolution thread.

The CDI will carry for as long as it is valuable to GW2.

I am able to weight relative feature cost for us when it is appropriate to do so in the thread.

Chris

#1099 - Dec. 29, 2013, 12:18 p.m.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

So without a reply from a dev on the idea of zone progression, I try to evolve this idea since I think it is against the design decision of an ever changing world.

Zone progression might be too static. It’s always the same. Maybe it would be more in Anets spirit to make this zone progression more dynamic and bind it to factions on the world, who move around.

Think of it like this: There are small parties of npcs who represent a faction and move around in the world (It’s a bit like Nicolas the Traveller). Possible tasks in order to progress:

A group of Kodan advanced to snowden drifts

• a Kodan scout is missing – try to find him in (Jumping Puzzle xy)
• 15 members of the group tried to help local folks (15 different standard events in that zone have Kodan). Find them, help them and lead them back to the group.
• A Kodan scientist looks for critters to find out if there are signs of corruption. Find and collect 15 different critters.
• The camp needs supply from local surroundings, find and gather 25 wood/ore/herbs from that zone.
• A Kodan wants to trade his rare (random rare or exotic+) items with you, but he want’s an other rare item in return. It’s a rare artifact which only drops from certain mobs in that area. Find such an artifact and you might choose one of three rare (+) items in return (all of them have a Kodan-theme).
• Visit 6 Kodan scouts. They watch over half of the vistas on the map. Find them.

Now after 1 week the group moves to a new zone, but the progression isn’t lost for you. All the above objectives stay exactly the same in the new zone: Find and do a jumping puzzle, find and do 15 unique events,… . If you follow the faction and help them in their endevors, you’ll progress and unlock new exiting faction-specific rewards.

Basically it’s dynamic quests.

No new content, instead Anet uses already existing content to experience it in a new form.

Hi Marcus,

I think the idea of zone progression is quite interesting. Please don’t think that just because an idea doesn’t get a reply from a dev that we don’t like it. The CDI is a collaborative initiative. Much of what I do is read and learn and formulate.

We are getting close to the formulate section of the thread now and you will see more opinion and metric based discussion from me and everyone else.

Personally I love seeing you guys brainstorm and discuss design, that in of itself is super useful to GW2 moving forward.

Chris

#1104 - Dec. 29, 2013, 12:52 p.m.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

We are getting close to the formulate section of the thread now and you will see more opinion and metric based discussion from me and everyone else.

Chris

This really gets me excited Chris, I think we need a bit more direction from you devs what works and doesn’t work for you in order to develop good ideas together.

Honestly I think everyone is doing great. This has been the most professional CDI thus far.

Chris

#1110 - Dec. 29, 2013, 1:33 p.m.

Khunvyel.3972:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

The topic will be open until at least Jan 6th and probably longer.
The next CDI topic will be a CDI process evolution thread.
The CDI will carry for as long as it is valuable to GW2.
I am able to weight relative feature cost for us when it is appropriate to do so in the thread.
Chris

First off, thank you for the blazing fast answer, this further reinforces the feeling that you guys are actually keeping watch over this constantly and should serve as a healthy reminder to anyone of; “even if devs don’t reply to you, it doesn’t mean they haven’t read it.”

The two bolded things are very intriguing to me. If the CDI is going to continue for the coming months, as it seems, and perhaps years (perhaps not in the current abundance) then I am extra curious to know if we would be getting any estimate of “okay, we’re working on this now” or if we are getting our surprise patch along the way

It is also really great to know that you mentioned yourself as being the one who has enough weight to start getting the things mentioned rolling.To me, this is about the most valuable piece of information posted.
It proves someone who sits on a power lever is interacting with us actively, and not just someone who is “proposing things”.
Please do not take this as a hidden insult, I meant none. You know, even though your title is “Studio Design Director” – and titles can be fancy at that – it was no direct indication of how much decision power you have.

But with this very statement of yours, the future for GW2 just got a lot brighter
Cheers, Mr. Whiteside. I guess I’ll be digging up the pages of notes which have been accumulated in the past months to get more active, because now is the time again where I get the feeling that things can get done, finally.

Thanks for your reply.

To be clear:

I am able to weight relative feature cost for us when it is appropriate to do so in the thread.

This sentence refers to the fact that I am able to give you rough weighting estimates on how expensive a feature is in terms of relationships to other features. The CDI is absolutely not about going into scheduling details or any info that would be subject to change during the development of the game.

I just want to make that clear. This said I also want to make it clear that the CDI has a huge impact on the game through evolution of design philosophy and information from the community.

Finally there was huge impact from the community prior to the CDI as we always read this forum and many others.

I hope this helps in terms of a little more info. Ultimately the team makes decisions based on the info they have and the CDI provides very valuable info.

Chris

#1125 - Dec. 29, 2013, 3:59 p.m.

EnerG.2571:

I hope I am still on time for my top 3:

1. Upgradable items (weapons and armor); think fractalcapacitor 3 stage back item. Now think volcanus, stage 1; to make it ascended, stage 2; red linen cloth on handle, stage 3: get a shiny firy meteor on the swords hild.

The same 3 stages with for example the fractal gs (shiny effect at stage 3, the blue linen vandels at stage 2 and ascended at stage 1)

I could go all day with these ideas. As well as armor this would be a
really pretty and awesome addition.

2. Legendary dyes and being able to use a “brush” to really get your own Unique color scheme on armor and if possible on items as well..

3. Swithcing to a second, trait and armor set without using more inventory space.

Chris, I hope you could take a serious look at at least my number 1. It would be a really awesome implementation.

Hope you had a lovely few days off, almost off to the new year!

Kind regards,

Mesmatiks

Yep still plenty of time for top 3 posts.

Chris

#1218 - Dec. 30, 2013, 11:43 a.m.

Hi All,

Quick update. I will be afk for 2 days for family celebrations.

Let’s continue to here the communities top 3 lists and discuss ideas and then on the 1st Jan we can put some proposals together and dive into the specifics.

Chris

#1221 - Dec. 30, 2013, 11:46 a.m.

Moshari.8570:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

Quick update. I will be afk for 2 days for family celebrations.

Let’s continue to here the communities top 3 lists and discuss ideas and then on the 1st Jan we can put some proposals together and dive into the specifics.

Chris

Have a Happy new year!

Happy New Year Moshari and a Happy New Year to you all!

Chris

#1227 - Dec. 30, 2013, 12:10 p.m.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Happy New Year @Chris, other devs who read this and you guys! I haven’t seen such a dedication to a game from any other company so far, it doesn’t feel that Guild Wars is only a job for you, but your passion as well.

I’m not sure if others at Anet feel like you do, I have to say thank you for being this link to you guys. I’m looking forward to the following discussion about our brainstorming. All the best to you and your family.

#1229 - Dec. 30, 2013, 12:17 p.m.

Malchior.5042:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Happy New Year @Chris, other devs who read this and you guys! I haven’t seen such a dedication to a game from any other company so far, it doesn’t feel that Guild Wars is only a job for you, but your passion as well.

I’m not sure if others at Anet feel like you do, I have to say thank you for being this link to you guys. I’m looking forward to the following discussion about our brainstorming. All the best to you and your family.

<Big Hugs> to you Marcus and to all the fellow Collaborators. Thanks for being part of this initiative and making GW2 the very best it can be.

And in answer to your question the guys and girls at work are just as passionate as me if not more (-:

Chris

P.S: I crafted my first piece of Ascended on Live yesterday!

Weapon or armor?

Weapon, Greatsword, Tonn’s, Transmuted to Greatsaw……incoming PVT Flame (-:

Chris

#1242 - Dec. 30, 2013, 3:09 p.m.

Morrigan.2809:

Happy holidays Chris and everyone at Anet.

Thank you very much for your input and for giving us a CDI in the first place- your investment and your passion for the game makes me look to the future with great excitement because I think something truly unique can come from it.

All the best wishes to you and the team

oh and a small qol thingy- can we have a slot for mini pets?

have a nice time with your families!

You to Morrigan and thanks to everyone for their contribution. 2014 is going to be amazing.

Chris

#1330 - Dec. 31, 2013, 8:27 p.m.

Happy New Year All!

Chris

#1363 - Jan. 1, 2014, 6:22 p.m.

Link to various summaries collated by Lost Witch:

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Summaries/first#post3442156

Chris

#1413 - Jan. 2, 2014, 1:21 p.m.

Hi All,

Happy New Year! Thanks for being so patient with me. Regarding other dev’s posting during this period it is unlikely as it is the holiday period and I don’t expect them to emulate my behavior.

Note this CDI will only end when we are happy for it to do so ( and by we I mean all of us).

I am up to date with all the posts, thanks for all hard work, ideation, and discussion.

We are in the process of pulling the net in now and so I am going to ask you all to do something very difficult now (As in you won’t feel comfortable doing it). Previously I asked you to name your top three ideas. You did, and then everyone discussed them which led to a refocusing of many of your ideas and the birth of some new ones.

What I would like us to do is pick ONE idea that you would hold above all others as it relates to the community as a whole. Note I to found this very difficult but my one is blow. Also note I consider Wardrobe to be QOL, however any Wardrobe ideas that are Systemic or build on existing mechanics can be included.

Please also understand this is not a vote that leads to development, this is part of the ideation process. I would recommend looking at ideas that are built on existing systems or mechanics within the game. This is a nice to have however. Many have mentioned giving info on the relative weight of each idea that is put forward, we should do this after this phase but to be honest (having given it a lot of thought) I wouldn’t want to see this weighting get in the way of great ideas.

Remember at the end of the day we are not going to give details on what is in dev or what we plan to build. We will talk about what we like however and thus knowing details about Feature Cost is interesting to know but should not be something that inadvertently hampers the CDI or your ideas.

My original three were:

— Role Diversification: New skills/traits, new weapons, access to inaccessible existing weapons, infusions and hybrid professions.

— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing, Guild Halls, and Faction Alliances leading to new game play opportunities, rewards and content.

— Hero Recognition: Unique Skins, Titles, Rewards, followers and NPC reactions/opportunities based on the players individual feats in the world of Tyria regardless of how he/she chooses to play the game.

And my top one is:

— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing, Guild Halls, and Faction Alliances leading to new game play opportunities, rewards and content.

The other two were extremely close but I feel this one would have the best bang for buck for the community.

Finally note we are working on horizontal progression, with many of ideas (some of which may even be in this thread), so I can’t stress enough that this exercise is about further ideation focus refinement. Not a dev list.

Chris

#1416 - Jan. 2, 2014, 1:42 p.m.

jheryn.8390:

If I had to pick one of my three I posted before, it would be:

New Permanent Zones.

New zones would give us more JP’s, events, new creatures, and terrain to explore. Many people would like to see old GW1 areas opened up and I would agree with that 100%.

Note it doesn’t have to be from the original list that the poster (you) generated. It could be from anyone’s.

Chris

#1422 - Jan. 2, 2014, 1:57 p.m.

Shongaqu.5279:

Sociopolitical Diverification! Adding more ways for players to invest their characters in the world of Tyria is always welcome.

I am curious what sort of rough cost difference there is between implementing open world housing vs instanced housing.
I really like the idea of open world housing, but I am curious if everyone else feels it would add to their investment in Tyria?

Hi Shongaqu,

The cost difference between open and instanced housing is mainly on the technical side which in turn has a HUGE amount of design Considerations/Ramifications.

Hope this helps,

Chris

#1432 - Jan. 2, 2014, 2:11 p.m.

TheDaiBish.9735:

How specific are you looking for when we’re choosing our one?

Would ‘Expanding Ascended Gear’ count as one, for example, even though this could include:

• Giving different play modes the chance to Ascend Exotics (granted, this is Vertical) to not force people into crafting.
• Giving players the chance to unlock stats and upgrades on a single set of armour in a way unique to that play-mode.

Absolutely as long as the macro level design also included information about the more micro level of design you included in your post.

Chris

#1434 - Jan. 2, 2014, 2:15 p.m.

Louveepine.7630:

It’s ugly to ask us that…

Chris Whiteside preference # 3 in my version.

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/3407529

— Hero Recognition: Unique Skins, Titles, Rewards, followers and NPC reactions/opportunities based on the players individual feats in the world of Tyria regardless of how he/she chooses to play the game.

Sorry )-: but it will prove to be super useful though I think Louveepine.

Chris

#1436 - Jan. 2, 2014, 2:18 p.m.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

My number one would be “Zone Progression” / “Order Progression”

Something that gives players a purpose to explore the zones.

• A lot of people miss quests, my main guess why this is the case is: they miss stories. Dynamic Events are cyclical in nature, so those stories have no real end – climax if you want. Time to give your writers something more to do and let them design unique events.
• even the most simple idea could make people exited. Today I leveled in Kessex Hills when I saw a bear walking alongside a skritt. Awesome I thought… until I found out that I can’t interact with that npc at all; it’s just a guild mission boss. Why not spawn such rare characters (dozen of them, but rare spawns) in the open world, give them a loottable and a few interesting dialogue-options or even a small event associated.

Fill the existing maps with tons of things to do. I mean: tons and tons of things. And may these be just little things… the world has to feel more alive.

…and then combine this with progression. The more people find, the more they unlock. And the more they can unlock for others (in the sense of triggering new events).

summary: progression in specific zones via a huge variety of things to do (something for everyone – fighters, explorers, collectors, lore-lovers, treasure hunters,…………

People should have some goals for each of the zones. Not for the world in general (Legendary – mats from everywhere). Zelda reference: the Master Sword is in the Lost Woods, not everywhere in Hyrule.

This idea makes me excited, it could also tie into nearly every Horizontal Progression idea that has been put forward in this CDI.

It is just a good global ongoing goal to have, and one I think we have been doing but dependent on priorities could do a lot more of, especially from the point of view of using/evolving the Map Completion Meta Game system.

Chris

#1439 - Jan. 2, 2014, 2:20 p.m.

VOLKON.1290:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

VOLKON.1290:

-snip-

I love reading your ideas, but they make my head hurt sometimes. XD

There is the possibility of offering too many options to players too. Devs have to balance between underwhelming and overwhelming, and having huge varieties of ‘what if’ options could potentially be extremely overwhelming.

I’d rather be overwhelmed than underwhelmed. If overwhelmed, you can always catch your breath and get caught up.

Overwhelmed during the ‘Casting of the Net’ phase is awesome because we as a group will help to refine and reduce the ideas.

Chris

#1449 - Jan. 2, 2014, 2:43 p.m.

VOLKON.1290:

Sytherek.7689:

Role diversification.

I’m not that interested in player housing; it has no actual gameplay.

Role diversification adds to gameplay.

I disagree. Halls and Homes can add quite a bit to game play by giving people specific goals to work for. People may be drawn to areas hey normally don’t frequent for needed materials both mundane and exotic. Events could be created that tie into this as well. So to say is has no actual game play… I think the actual game play it provides could become quite extensive.

Agreed. It could also lead to new gameplay opportunities such as events, tasks, adventures and much more.

Chris

#1452 - Jan. 2, 2014, 2:50 p.m.

Malchior.5042:

Shongaqu.5279:

Malchior.5042:

Hero Recognition based on Order choice, Player Housing, Guild Halls, etc…that could branch into further Diversification and Performance through new skills, events, challenges, etc…

So based on the above mix of Chris’ original categories, I’d say Hero Recognition/Sociopolitical development could set a solid framework for the different skills, events, and challenges that we’re all eager to see as well.

Are you thinking PvE skills like we saw in GW1? or something else? new weaopns based on faction even?

example faction system with necro that has attained mid rank

• Great Sword for Vigil
• Scythe for Order of Whispers
• Chakra Guides for Priory
  all three would be melee AOE type weapons but do differnt things GS is power based, Scythe is Siphon based, CG is conditon based. depending on what weapon you want to be trained in you chose a faction to gain rep with. Ultimalty you can unlock all of them. Add token buffs like the Kiel/Evon ones to WvW for your faction so everyon can work towards it regardles of game type. Make them unlocked in SPvP for free.

Just sort of going down a rabbit hole with this…

For GW 2, I don’t think PvE skills would be a bad thing. WvW has their specific skills through rank upgrades. PvE should get similar. It’s very important; however, that said new skills are not imbalanced against the existing skills, and even more important that new, difficult, challenging content is introduced that could be alleviated partially by the use of new PvE skills.

The bold is going to be the difficult part. Players have blown expectations out of the water with stacking, combos, killing Lupicus in seconds, etc…If Arenanet truly wants to create challenge, they will essentially have to kill the existing builds or curb their power down to make any new content feel challenging enough.

I wouldn’t do this through nerfs to any existing skills, but instead, I would give all new bosses in metas or dungeons an “armored” buff (non-strippable) that reduced critical damage by a flat percent. This would greatly reduce the current strength of Berserkers, but still be possible to keep that strength high if players could stack Vulnerability. (the existing % debuff).

Some good points here. I would however disagree about challenge.

I think since launch we have introduced some challenging content for example, Fractals, the Gauntlet, Kite City, and Teq. I love the fact that challenge can come from many different areas and I agree with your point that GW2 does indeed have a high skill ceiling. The challenge for us is not to make the ceiling higher but to work within it and use all of the variables within it to create new challenges.

Chris

#1453 - Jan. 2, 2014, 2:53 p.m.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Malchior.5042:

Shongaqu.5279:

Malchior.5042:

Hero Recognition based on Order choice, Player Housing, Guild Halls, etc…that could branch into further Diversification and Performance through new skills, events, challenges, etc…

So based on the above mix of Chris’ original categories, I’d say Hero Recognition/Sociopolitical development could set a solid framework for the different skills, events, and challenges that we’re all eager to see as well.

Are you thinking PvE skills like we saw in GW1? or something else? new weaopns based on faction even?

example faction system with necro that has attained mid rank

• Great Sword for Vigil
• Scythe for Order of Whispers
• Chakra Guides for Priory
  all three would be melee AOE type weapons but do differnt things GS is power based, Scythe is Siphon based, CG is conditon based. depending on what weapon you want to be trained in you chose a faction to gain rep with. Ultimalty you can unlock all of them. Add token buffs like the Kiel/Evon ones to WvW for your faction so everyon can work towards it regardles of game type. Make them unlocked in SPvP for free.

Just sort of going down a rabbit hole with this…

For GW 2, I don’t think PvE skills would be a bad thing. WvW has their specific skills through rank upgrades. PvE should get similar. It’s very important; however, that said new skills are not imbalanced against the existing skills, and even more important that new, difficult, challenging content is introduced that could be alleviated partially by the use of new PvE skills.

The bold is going to be the difficult part. Players have blown expectations out of the water with stacking, combos, killing Lupicus in seconds, etc…If Arenanet truly wants to create challenge, they will essentially have to kill the existing builds or curb their power down to make any new content feel challenging enough.

I wouldn’t do this through nerfs to any existing skills, but instead, I would give all new bosses in metas or dungeons an “armored” buff (non-strippable) that reduced critical damage by a flat percent. This would greatly reduce the current strength of Berserkers, but still be possible to keep that strength high if players could stack Vulnerability. (the existing % debuff).

Some good points here. I would however disagree about challenge.

I think since launch we have introduced some challenging content for example, Fractals, the Gauntlet, Kite City, and Teq. I love the fact that challenge can come from many different areas and I agree with your point that GW2 does indeed have a high skill ceiling. The challenge for us is not to make the ceiling higher but to work within it and use all of the variables within it to create new challenges.

Chris

Also note I do agree that we need to continue to balance some build paradigms. Specifically support and crit. We have been working extensively on this toward the end of 2013 and will continue to do so.

Chris.

#1457 - Jan. 2, 2014, 2:56 p.m.

Malchior.5042:

Thanks Chris! Good to know it’s on the radar, perhaps even being worked on as we speak

. (-:

Chris

#1458 - Jan. 2, 2014, 2:58 p.m.

Ronah.2869:

Sociopolitical Diversification

Guild Halls

- Guild Halls should be accessible through an UI icon similar to PvP, WvW, TP, etc.

- Getting back to the place in the open world where you were should be done through the same UI icon
(Note: The same Ion should be found in |G| window for those who want to accesses it from there)

- The guild hall UI Icon will be available only if the character represents the guild (guild-less characters won’t have that button in their UI)

- Guild Halls should be instanced zones or various architecture

- Guild Halls zones should evolve in time depending on the guild influence, merits, points etc accumulated totally by it.
( I am not a fan of donating because this will force guilds on arguing of what is more important: banners or guild donations?. It should be automatically evolved once you get to certain amount of points similar to the achievement system: you unlock things the more you gather and it should count the total amount w/o extracting the usages of influence points

- Statues:
I would like to have a place in the Guild Hall where I could see Statues of the characters that have done the most for the guild, calculating the influence earned
it will be a sort of the Top 10 Players list only we can see statues of the last character the player has played.
The Statues will be updated every time the players logs off with the respective character he has been on and the Top 10 will be updated every week counting the activity of the last week (This will give the possibility that new guild members can be in Top 10 if they played more then old guild members)

Also regarding the statues, there should be one permanent statue of the Guild Founder so every one will know who is the founder of the guild.

- Trophies. These are items that can be displayed in some palce in the Guild Hall and they are earned by playing guild activities. They are like Guild Ranks and if we compare it with the WvW ranks, we can see a rabbit, a dolyack, etc

- Guild Halls should contain all services available in the game bank, crafting, merchants, etc.

- You should be able to receive a temporary guild invite to any number of guilds to be able to visit their Guild Hall. The invite will be shown in the Guild Window under the current guilds in a guest category

Housing

- I like Open World housing and not instanced based. I like to see player cities evolving. Zones like WvW maps only called sectors which can be accessed through UI icon
- the UI icon is available to every character
- the player houses will be account bound and it will reflect the players activity through all his/her characters
( the houses will have racial rooms in it and they will vary in aria depending on how many characters of that specific race the account has.)
expl.
if an account has 1 character of each race, the house will have 5 rooms of similar aria decorated in racial style.
if an account has 1 character the house will have 5 rooms but only one will be decorated because the account has 5 default character slots
if an account has more then 5 characters then the racial rooms will be larger depending on what race has more characters. NOTE: for each character slot added to the account over the default 5, the house aria will grow with 10 % meaning that if an account will have 64 character the house will be 640% larger

- players will buy a house space and a house model. When the existing land will be finished, A-Net would release a new similar zone. So the player city will have Sector 1,2,3,4 …. 100,… etc
Later, they can add new house models which can be purchased from a cash shop item called "House make over kit "

Some Awesome ideas in here Ronah!

Chris

#1460 - Jan. 2, 2014, 3:05 p.m.

Randulf.7614:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

My number one would be “Zone Progression” / “Order Progression”

Something that gives players a purpose to explore the zones.

• A lot of people miss quests, my main guess why this is the case is: they miss stories. Dynamic Events are cyclical in nature, so those stories have no real end – climax if you want. Time to give your writers something more to do and let them design unique events.
• even the most simple idea could make people exited. Today I leveled in Kessex Hills when I saw a bear walking alongside a skritt. Awesome I thought… until I found out that I can’t interact with that npc at all; it’s just a guild mission boss. Why not spawn such rare characters (dozen of them, but rare spawns) in the open world, give them a loottable and a few interesting dialogue-options or even a small event associated.

Fill the existing maps with tons of things to do. I mean: tons and tons of things. And may these be just little things… the world has to feel more alive.

…and then combine this with progression. The more people find, the more they unlock. And the more they can unlock for others (in the sense of triggering new events).

summary: progression in specific zones via a huge variety of things to do (something for everyone – fighters, explorers, collectors, lore-lovers, treasure hunters,…………

People should have some goals for each of the zones. Not for the world in general (Legendary – mats from everywhere). Zelda reference: the Master Sword is in the Lost Woods, not everywhere in Hyrule.

This idea makes me excited, it could also tie into nearly every Horizontal Progression idea that has been put forward in this CDI.

It is just a good global ongoing goal to have, and one I think we have been doing but dependent on priorities could do a lot more of, especially from the point of view of using/evolving the Map Completion Meta Game system.

Chris

I think this idea is pretty much reflecting the ethos of the game as well. I find myself often just wanting to wander the game (actually I’m doing that now whilst I break to catch up on this thread) – you don’t need me or anyone else to tell you how wonderful the game is just to explore as a setting. Someone suggested in another thread the game feels “sterile”, which is perhaps too harsh a word, but they could be more alive with so much more bustle going on in them.

I think the above suggestion would transform the game to a level beyond any other mmo and be hard to compete with too.

Yeah I read that thread to. Its interesting how a Living World Event can feel more ‘Alive’ than exploration in some maps. I think the fact that Living World events are tied directly into achievements that reflect the theme of the story contribute to this.

This is why I like Marcus’s idea so much. It builds on existing systems and content and is more of a philosophy than a specific work task.

Chris

#1463 - Jan. 2, 2014, 3:14 p.m.

timmyf.1490:

I have an idea for you, Chris. One which might seem a little radical, but here goes:

Have an all-(relevant)-hands-on-deck release with the entire (relevant) development team building new Dynamic Events. Shoot for the moon: dozens or hundreds of new Dynamic Events. Call it a “Game Changer” because it is literally changing the game world.

Based on various loose-lipped comments I’ve heard, you have something big planned in the next few months. Why not follow it with a huge overhaul to the in-game world? Give everybody a reason to go back out and explore again.

And then… repeat. 3-6 months down the road, cycle out 100+ events and add 100+ new ones. And repeat. And repeat. That’s a real “living world.”

I think that’s a really interesting idea TimmyF.

……..’nuff said (-:

Chris

#1464 - Jan. 2, 2014, 3:16 p.m.

Randulf.7614:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Randulf.7614:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

My number one would be “Zone Progression” / “Order Progression”

Something that gives players a purpose to explore the zones.

• A lot of people miss quests, my main guess why this is the case is: they miss stories. Dynamic Events are cyclical in nature, so those stories have no real end – climax if you want. Time to give your writers something more to do and let them design unique events.
• even the most simple idea could make people exited. Today I leveled in Kessex Hills when I saw a bear walking alongside a skritt. Awesome I thought… until I found out that I can’t interact with that npc at all; it’s just a guild mission boss. Why not spawn such rare characters (dozen of them, but rare spawns) in the open world, give them a loottable and a few interesting dialogue-options or even a small event associated.

Fill the existing maps with tons of things to do. I mean: tons and tons of things. And may these be just little things… the world has to feel more alive.

…and then combine this with progression. The more people find, the more they unlock. And the more they can unlock for others (in the sense of triggering new events).

summary: progression in specific zones via a huge variety of things to do (something for everyone – fighters, explorers, collectors, lore-lovers, treasure hunters,…………

People should have some goals for each of the zones. Not for the world in general (Legendary – mats from everywhere). Zelda reference: the Master Sword is in the Lost Woods, not everywhere in Hyrule.

This idea makes me excited, it could also tie into nearly every Horizontal Progression idea that has been put forward in this CDI.

It is just a good global ongoing goal to have, and one I think we have been doing but dependent on priorities could do a lot more of, especially from the point of view of using/evolving the Map Completion Meta Game system.

Chris

I think this idea is pretty much reflecting the ethos of the game as well. I find myself often just wanting to wander the game (actually I’m doing that now whilst I break to catch up on this thread) – you don’t need me or anyone else to tell you how wonderful the game is just to explore as a setting. Someone suggested in another thread the game feels “sterile”, which is perhaps too harsh a word, but they could be more alive with so much more bustle going on in them.

I think the above suggestion would transform the game to a level beyond any other mmo and be hard to compete with too.

Yeah I read that thread to. Its interesting how a Living World Event can feel more ‘Alive’ than exploration in some maps. I think the fact that Living World events are tied directly into achievements that reflect the theme of the story contribute to this.

This is why I like Marcus’s idea so much. It builds on existing systems and content and is more of a philosophy than a specific work task.

Chris

It’s partly why dynamic events are such an overwhelming strength of the game, especially over an archaeic qst system. The events tell the worlds’ story not the character’s. If you go on holiday to the same country every year, there will always be something different – places change over time and people change even if only in the background. That’s what every zone should aim to achieve even if it isn’t part of the current main story.

Aaaand I’ve realised I’ve gone off topic into a diff CDI here

I don’t think we are off topic and it is a really interesting discussion. I will however bump the post I made about the next phase of this CDI so other’s realize what we are doing.

Chris

#1468 - Jan. 2, 2014, 3:18 p.m.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

Happy New Year! Thanks for being so patient with me. Regarding other dev’s posting during this period it is unlikely as it is the holiday period and I don’t expect them to emulate my behavior.

Note this CDI will only end when we are happy for it to do so ( and by we I mean all of us).

I am up to date with all the posts, thanks for all hard work, ideation, and discussion.

We are in the process of pulling the net in now and so I am going to ask you all to do something very difficult now (As in you won’t feel comfortable doing it). Previously I asked you to name your top three ideas. You did, and then everyone discussed them which led to a refocusing of many of your ideas and the birth of some new ones.

What I would like us to do is pick ONE idea that you would hold above all others as it relates to the community as a whole. Note I to found this very difficult but my one is blow. Also note I consider Wardrobe to be QOL, however any Wardrobe ideas that are Systemic or build on existing mechanics can be included.

Please also understand this is not a vote that leads to development, this is part of the ideation process. I would recommend looking at ideas that are built on existing systems or mechanics within the game. This is a nice to have however. Many have mentioned giving info on the relative weight of each idea that is put forward, we should do this after this phase but to be honest (having given it a lot of thought) I wouldn’t want to see this weighting get in the way of great ideas.

Remember at the end of the day we are not going to give details on what is in dev or what we plan to build. We will talk about what we like however and thus knowing details about Feature Cost is interesting to know but should not be something that inadvertently hampers the CDI or your ideas.

My original three were:

— Role Diversification: New skills/traits, new weapons, access to inaccessible existing weapons, infusions and hybrid professions.

— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing, Guild Halls, and Faction Alliances leading to new game play opportunities, rewards and content.

— Hero Recognition: Unique Skins, Titles, Rewards, followers and NPC reactions/opportunities based on the players individual feats in the world of Tyria regardless of how he/she chooses to play the game.

And my top one is:

— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing, Guild Halls, and Faction Alliances leading to new game play opportunities, rewards and content.

The other two were extremely close but I feel this one would have the best bang for buck for the community.

Finally note we are working on horizontal progression, with many of ideas (some of which may even be in this thread), so I can’t stress enough that this exercise is about further ideation focus refinement. Not a dev list.

Chris

Le Bump!

Chris

#1469 - Jan. 2, 2014, 3:26 p.m.

Gaebriel.3754:

I think that the earlier mentioned Hero Recognition and Diversification is a great interpretation of the things I like most about Guild Wars 2, therefore I would definitely go with that! :-)

Though I’ll still waffle a bit on my favourite bits of this game, in the hope that it’ll be helpful in some way:

Fashion and customization:
Having more choice for dress up and personalizing characters would be awesome. I love coming up with new character ideas. So this includes more armour variety (especially for medium), town clothes, currently unobtainable sets (such as the PvP-only tribal set or shaman NPC animal hoods). Also, a better way to store them such as in a skin locker! Also I’d love to see a way to unlock the clothing and armour that’s already in the game but not yet for players to wear.

Lore and world:
Anything that ties our characters to the world or choices we made. For example the aforementioned Order missions would be awesome, or different factions we could support to unlock rewards. Rewards could tie in to customization again, armour, weapons, titles, unveiled mysteries, decorations for your home instance .. Perhaps an Elonian hairstyle for Order of Whispers, or a Raven Headdress for earning favour with the Norn Raven Spirit. Or an eyepatch, for supporting corsairs. Unlocking is good!

Skills and customization:
I’d love to see new skills, weapons, traits, everything. Perhaps also customizing the weapons we already have. For example, three different skills to choose from for your “number two” attack with a sword. The skills would be of similar power, but different, so people could diversify their builds with the existing weapons.

As a final note, I think your art design is absolutely amazing in every aspect of the game, so whatever you will do, seeing more of that is always a treat to me. ^^

I will pass on your kind words to the art team.

Chris

#1472 - Jan. 2, 2014, 3:35 p.m.

[quote=3445479;TheDaiBish.9735:]

#1472 - Jan. 2, 2014, 3:37 p.m.

[quote=3445479;TheDaiBish.9735:]

#1473 - Jan. 2, 2014, 3:38 p.m.

Snipped from TheDaiBash

Thanking you.

Right…left…diagonal…

My one would probably have to be: Traits and Skill Progression.

Including, but not limited to:

On the Skills side of things:

and a note on providing a reason for new skills

[/quote]

Lot’s of really cool ideas here to. I really like the carpentry idea which you and others have mentioned in the past. In regard to the idea about bosses that learn. Do they learn within the world they reside in for example SoR or is it level based like in fractals or based on an item the group has (essentially gated)

Chris

#1478 - Jan. 2, 2014, 3:56 p.m.

KratosAngel.7289:

We have to choose only 1. Do we necessarily have to choose between those 3 ?

— Role Diversification: New skills/traits, new weapons, access to inaccessible existing weapons, infusions and hybrid professions.
— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing, Guild Halls, and Faction Alliances leading to new game play opportunities, rewards and content.
— Hero Recognition: Unique Skins, Titles, Rewards, followers and NPC reactions/opportunities based on the players individual feats in the world of Tyria regardless of how he/she chooses to play the game.

Or are there other choices ?

Also, would it be possible to have a CDI about fractals and ascended ? Because there’s soooo much more to talk about and do about it.

Yep those were just my top 3. You can create your own or pick from ideas from other CDI members etc.

And I am sure Fractals will be the topic of a CDI at some point.

Chris

#1482 - Jan. 2, 2014, 4:07 p.m.

To be clear you guys and girls don’t have to pick the ones I put forward. I was just contributing to the thread with what I would like to see as a player. You can pick an ideas from the thread. Just wanted to make that clear.

Chris

#1525 - Jan. 2, 2014, 10:42 p.m.

cesmode.4257:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

My number one would be “Zone Progression” / “Order Progression”

Something that gives players a purpose to explore the zones.

• A lot of people miss quests, my main guess why this is the case is: they miss stories. Dynamic Events are cyclical in nature, so those stories have no real end – climax if you want. Time to give your writers something more to do and let them design unique events.
• even the most simple idea could make people exited. Today I leveled in Kessex Hills when I saw a bear walking alongside a skritt. Awesome I thought… until I found out that I can’t interact with that npc at all; it’s just a guild mission boss. Why not spawn such rare characters (dozen of them, but rare spawns) in the open world, give them a loottable and a few interesting dialogue-options or even a small event associated.

Fill the existing maps with tons of things to do. I mean: tons and tons of things. And may these be just little things… the world has to feel more alive.

…and then combine this with progression. The more people find, the more they unlock. And the more they can unlock for others (in the sense of triggering new events).

summary: progression in specific zones via a huge variety of things to do (something for everyone – fighters, explorers, collectors, lore-lovers, treasure hunters,…………

People should have some goals for each of the zones. Not for the world in general (Legendary – mats from everywhere). Zelda reference: the Master Sword is in the Lost Woods, not everywhere in Hyrule.

This idea makes me excited, it could also tie into nearly every Horizontal Progression idea that has been put forward in this CDI.

It is just a good global ongoing goal to have, and one I think we have been doing but dependent on priorities could do a lot more of, especially from the point of view of using/evolving the Map Completion Meta Game system.

Chris

Chris, if you remember, I suggested something to this regard about global ongoing goals within the living story CDI thread. I think I titled it, global dominance where depending on how much of the world the players control, we receive certain benefits similar to WvW.

Hi Cesmode,

I certainly remember the title (Global Dominance) but am fuzzy on the details. I will go back and read the idea. Sorry for not remembering and calling this idea out to.

Chris

#1529 - Jan. 2, 2014, 10:51 p.m.

Shongaqu.5279:

cesmode.4257:

Chris, if you remember, I suggested something to this regard about global ongoing goals within the living story CDI thread. I think I titled it, global dominance where depending on how much of the world the players control, we receive certain benefits similar to WvW.

Hmmm tie the idea of global dominance to guild claiming of outposts in the open world and you would have a fascinating meta game that could involve the whole server. Small guilds of 5-10 could fortify camps and outposts while towns and forts would be available for larger guilds. It would cost influence and guild merits to claim an outpost and you would have to make sure the guild checked up on it at least once a day.

yes Malchior I got some of my sandbox ideas into the horizontal CDI I am sorry :P

Yes I remember this now along with a similar idea by Nike. Very cool ideas.

Chris

#1531 - Jan. 2, 2014, 11:01 p.m.

morrolan.9608:

How about some of the more egregious vertical progression imbalances get fixed before implementing purely horizontal progression suggestions such as the fixing ascended armor crafting so that it is more equitable instead of light armor taking 36 days to craft, medium armor 24 days and heavy armor 25 days due to the time gating on bolts of damask.

Hi Morrolan,

I will discuss this with Izzy when I get back to work on the 7th.

Chris

#1532 - Jan. 2, 2014, 11:37 p.m.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

Happy New Year! Thanks for being so patient with me. Regarding other dev’s posting during this period it is unlikely as it is the holiday period and I don’t expect them to emulate my behavior.

Note this CDI will only end when we are happy for it to do so ( and by we I mean all of us).

I am up to date with all the posts, thanks for all hard work, ideation, and discussion.

We are in the process of pulling the net in now and so I am going to ask you all to do something very difficult now (As in you won’t feel comfortable doing it). Previously I asked you to name your top three ideas. You did, and then everyone discussed them which led to a refocusing of many of your ideas and the birth of some new ones.

What I would like us to do is pick ONE idea that you would hold above all others as it relates to the community as a whole. Note I to found this very difficult but my one is blow. Also note I consider Wardrobe to be QOL, however any Wardrobe ideas that are Systemic or build on existing mechanics can be included.

Please also understand this is not a vote that leads to development, this is part of the ideation process. I would recommend looking at ideas that are built on existing systems or mechanics within the game. This is a nice to have however. Many have mentioned giving info on the relative weight of each idea that is put forward, we should do this after this phase but to be honest (having given it a lot of thought) I wouldn’t want to see this weighting get in the way of great ideas.

Remember at the end of the day we are not going to give details on what is in dev or what we plan to build. We will talk about what we like however and thus knowing details about Feature Cost is interesting to know but should not be something that inadvertently hampers the CDI or your ideas.

My original three were:

— Role Diversification: New skills/traits, new weapons, access to inaccessible existing weapons, infusions and hybrid professions.

— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing, Guild Halls, and Faction Alliances leading to new game play opportunities, rewards and content.

— Hero Recognition: Unique Skins, Titles, Rewards, followers and NPC reactions/opportunities based on the players individual feats in the world of Tyria regardless of how he/she chooses to play the game.

And my top one is:

— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing, Guild Halls, and Faction Alliances leading to new game play opportunities, rewards and content.

The other two were extremely close but I feel this one would have the best bang for buck for the community.

Finally note we are working on horizontal progression, with many of ideas (some of which may even be in this thread), so I can’t stress enough that this exercise is about further ideation focus refinement. Not a dev list.

Chris

Le Bump!

Chris

Bump.

Note I will create a Proposal for discussion based on everyone’s discussions and favorites once folks have more time to discuss and list theirs.

Chris

#1570 - Jan. 3, 2014, 11:24 a.m.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

Happy New Year! Thanks for being so patient with me. Regarding other dev’s posting during this period it is unlikely as it is the holiday period and I don’t expect them to emulate my behavior.

Note this CDI will only end when we are happy for it to do so ( and by we I mean all of us).

I am up to date with all the posts, thanks for all hard work, ideation, and discussion.

We are in the process of pulling the net in now and so I am going to ask you all to do something very difficult now (As in you won’t feel comfortable doing it). Previously I asked you to name your top three ideas. You did, and then everyone discussed them which led to a refocusing of many of your ideas and the birth of some new ones.

What I would like us to do is pick ONE idea that you would hold above all others as it relates to the community as a whole. Note I to found this very difficult but my one is blow. Also note I consider Wardrobe to be QOL, however any Wardrobe ideas that are Systemic or build on existing mechanics can be included.

Please also understand this is not a vote that leads to development, this is part of the ideation process. I would recommend looking at ideas that are built on existing systems or mechanics within the game. This is a nice to have however. Many have mentioned giving info on the relative weight of each idea that is put forward, we should do this after this phase but to be honest (having given it a lot of thought) I wouldn’t want to see this weighting get in the way of great ideas.

Remember at the end of the day we are not going to give details on what is in dev or what we plan to build. We will talk about what we like however and thus knowing details about Feature Cost is interesting to know but should not be something that inadvertently hampers the CDI or your ideas.

My original three were:

— Role Diversification: New skills/traits, new weapons, access to inaccessible existing weapons, infusions and hybrid professions.

— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing, Guild Halls, and Faction Alliances leading to new game play opportunities, rewards and content.

— Hero Recognition: Unique Skins, Titles, Rewards, followers and NPC reactions/opportunities based on the players individual feats in the world of Tyria regardless of how he/she chooses to play the game.

And my top one is:

— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing, Guild Halls, and Faction Alliances leading to new game play opportunities, rewards and content.

The other two were extremely close but I feel this one would have the best bang for buck for the community.

Finally note we are working on horizontal progression, with many of ideas (some of which may even be in this thread), so I can’t stress enough that this exercise is about further ideation focus refinement. Not a dev list.

Chris

Le Bump!

Chris

Bump.

Note I will create a Proposal for discussion based on everyone’s discussions and favorites once folks have more time to discuss and list theirs.

Chris

Morning All,

I am going to be out most of the day. Looking forward to seeing more of your number Ones and discussions around them.

Chris

#1570 - Jan. 3, 2014, 11:25 a.m.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

Happy New Year! Thanks for being so patient with me. Regarding other dev’s posting during this period it is unlikely as it is the holiday period and I don’t expect them to emulate my behavior.

Note this CDI will only end when we are happy for it to do so ( and by we I mean all of us).

I am up to date with all the posts, thanks for all hard work, ideation, and discussion.

We are in the process of pulling the net in now and so I am going to ask you all to do something very difficult now (As in you won’t feel comfortable doing it). Previously I asked you to name your top three ideas. You did, and then everyone discussed them which led to a refocusing of many of your ideas and the birth of some new ones.

What I would like us to do is pick ONE idea that you would hold above all others as it relates to the community as a whole. Note I to found this very difficult but my one is blow. Also note I consider Wardrobe to be QOL, however any Wardrobe ideas that are Systemic or build on existing mechanics can be included.

Please also understand this is not a vote that leads to development, this is part of the ideation process. I would recommend looking at ideas that are built on existing systems or mechanics within the game. This is a nice to have however. Many have mentioned giving info on the relative weight of each idea that is put forward, we should do this after this phase but to be honest (having given it a lot of thought) I wouldn’t want to see this weighting get in the way of great ideas.

Remember at the end of the day we are not going to give details on what is in dev or what we plan to build. We will talk about what we like however and thus knowing details about Feature Cost is interesting to know but should not be something that inadvertently hampers the CDI or your ideas.

My original three were:

— Role Diversification: New skills/traits, new weapons, access to inaccessible existing weapons, infusions and hybrid professions.

— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing, Guild Halls, and Faction Alliances leading to new game play opportunities, rewards and content.

— Hero Recognition: Unique Skins, Titles, Rewards, followers and NPC reactions/opportunities based on the players individual feats in the world of Tyria regardless of how he/she chooses to play the game.

And my top one is:

— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing, Guild Halls, and Faction Alliances leading to new game play opportunities, rewards and content.

The other two were extremely close but I feel this one would have the best bang for buck for the community.

Finally note we are working on horizontal progression, with many of ideas (some of which may even be in this thread), so I can’t stress enough that this exercise is about further ideation focus refinement. Not a dev list.

Chris

Le Bump!

Chris

Bump.

Note I will create a Proposal for discussion based on everyone’s discussions and favorites once folks have more time to discuss and list theirs.

Chris

Morning All,

I am going to be out most of the day. Looking forward to seeing more of your number Ones and discussions around them.

Chris

#1571 - Jan. 3, 2014, 11:26 a.m.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

Happy New Year! Thanks for being so patient with me. Regarding other dev’s posting during this period it is unlikely as it is the holiday period and I don’t expect them to emulate my behavior.

Note this CDI will only end when we are happy for it to do so ( and by we I mean all of us).

I am up to date with all the posts, thanks for all hard work, ideation, and discussion.

We are in the process of pulling the net in now and so I am going to ask you all to do something very difficult now (As in you won’t feel comfortable doing it). Previously I asked you to name your top three ideas. You did, and then everyone discussed them which led to a refocusing of many of your ideas and the birth of some new ones.

What I would like us to do is pick ONE idea that you would hold above all others as it relates to the community as a whole. Note I to found this very difficult but my one is blow. Also note I consider Wardrobe to be QOL, however any Wardrobe ideas that are Systemic or build on existing mechanics can be included.

Please also understand this is not a vote that leads to development, this is part of the ideation process. I would recommend looking at ideas that are built on existing systems or mechanics within the game. This is a nice to have however. Many have mentioned giving info on the relative weight of each idea that is put forward, we should do this after this phase but to be honest (having given it a lot of thought) I wouldn’t want to see this weighting get in the way of great ideas.

Remember at the end of the day we are not going to give details on what is in dev or what we plan to build. We will talk about what we like however and thus knowing details about Feature Cost is interesting to know but should not be something that inadvertently hampers the CDI or your ideas.

My original three were:

— Role Diversification: New skills/traits, new weapons, access to inaccessible existing weapons, infusions and hybrid professions.

— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing, Guild Halls, and Faction Alliances leading to new game play opportunities, rewards and content.

— Hero Recognition: Unique Skins, Titles, Rewards, followers and NPC reactions/opportunities based on the players individual feats in the world of Tyria regardless of how he/she chooses to play the game.

And my top one is:

— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing, Guild Halls, and Faction Alliances leading to new game play opportunities, rewards and content.

The other two were extremely close but I feel this one would have the best bang for buck for the community.

Finally note we are working on horizontal progression, with many of ideas (some of which may even be in this thread), so I can’t stress enough that this exercise is about further ideation focus refinement. Not a dev list.

Chris

Le Bump!

Chris

Bump

#1580 - Jan. 3, 2014, 11:56 a.m.

morrolan.9608:

How about some of the more egregious vertical progression imbalances get fixed before implementing purely horizontal progression suggestions such as the fixing ascended armor crafting so that it is more equitable instead of light armor taking 36 days to craft, medium armor 24 days and heavy armor 25 days due to the time gating on bolts of damask.

The goal of the T7 materials is not to be a pure time gate for crafting it’s to allow those materials to have value above their cost. This does mean weapons and armor that only take one material take longer to craft if you craft all the T7 mats yourself but you could also buy those mats thus it isn’t a time gate.

We do recognize that cloth prices are a bit high this is a factor of how hard it is to focus farm for leather and cloth. This is something we are looking into.

#1638 - Jan. 3, 2014, 5:28 p.m.

Wow what a great conversation!

I was reading it while I was out and thought it might get heated but you all owned it really professionally.

I am going to play some NetRunner and will be back in discussion either later tonight or tomorrow morning.

Chris

#1773 - Jan. 5, 2014, 11:25 a.m.

videoboy.4162:

This thread has me all excited for new updates and I can’t wait until they release the preview for the update in the 21st!

Curious: Has there been anything (even tiny things) that we’ve discussed in the various CDIs that has been able to be added to the game yet?

There have been evolution s based on CDIs. I will do an update when my vacation ends.

Glad your excited about the CDI. Me to!

Chris

#1776 - Jan. 5, 2014, 11:45 a.m.

Nike.2631:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Note this CDI will only end when we are happy for it to do so ( and by we I mean all of us).

Ever the optimist .

What I would like us to do is pick ONE idea that you would hold above all others as it relates to the community as a whole.

While the answers have been illuminating, I think we’re also looking at a little bit of a false dilemma…

— Role Diversification: New skills/traits, new weapons, access to inaccessible existing weapons, infusions and hybrid professions.

— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing, Guild Halls, and Faction Alliances leading to new game play opportunities, rewards and content.

— Hero Recognition: Unique Skins, Titles, Rewards, followers and NPC reactions/opportunities based on the players individual feats in the world of Tyria regardless of how he/she chooses to play the game.

…Are for the most part Rewards for play. These are the incentives to spend time in Tyria. They are ‘ends’, though Role Diversification also represents some new ‘means’.

I think each of those categories for the most part represents different teams that work in parallel. The Balance Team won’t be bogged down scripting in new racial titles. The map designer’s creating the framework for guild-halls won’t delay the creation of new armor skins. And beyond our individual preferences for one proposal over the other, I’d bet good money nearly all of us agree that some progress needs to take place on ALL of these fronts to keep GW2 in a strong, competitive, and innovative position relative to an interesting year for gamers who like to check out new things …

I’m suspicious the choke point could end up being the means of accessing these goodies. New gameplay. The sub-set of design most people mean when they throw around the vague-to-the-point-of-meaningless “Content”. In our lust for shines, are we overlooking gameplay? Or are simple ideas like ‘re-clearing maps with additional challenges’ and vague hand-waving alluding to ‘new mini-dungeons’ adequate?

I can list lots of things I’d play for. I’m not sure I’ve given enough thought to what else I’d like to be doing during that journey…

I disagree. This CDI is about horizontal ‘progression’. Specifically ‘Character’ progression. On top of this each of the examples I put forward and those of many contributors imply or state activity leading to the ‘progression reward’.

Certainly in my mind I am imagining the journey being centered around existing core journey mechanics or evolved mechanics and systems like Marcus’s map progression idea or by many ‘journey’ ideas yourself and others have made.

With each of my suggestions I also imagine the theme of each type of character progression have a huge impact on the ‘flavor’ of the journey that pertains to each. Also note that in two of my examples they are not considered progression ‘end’ points. Instead they are bridges leading to more journeys.

Therefore in short I think a journey CDI would be awesome and whilst it is awesome to read these ideas in this CDI, i do not believe that Journey is the primary discussion in this topic, however important it may be.

Chris

#1777 - Jan. 5, 2014, 11:46 a.m.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

DarcShriek.5829:

Totally uninterested in player housing. I am interested in new lands to conquer. I am not interested in progression that means I need silk curtains rather than linen curtains. I am here to save the world. If I want to decorate a home, I’ll play the sims. It does a much better job of home creation than GW2 ever could.

I doubt that player housing in GW2 would mainly be about choosing your curtains. Chris already mentioned tasks, events and challenges coming out of this – some content where other players are involved, if I heard him right.

That is correct.

Chris

#1779 - Jan. 5, 2014, 11:55 a.m.

There has been a huge amount of discussion around sub classes. I would love to see you guys close out this particular area by either putting a sub class proposal together (Sentence detailing how it would work) or deciding as a group that it isn’t relevant at this point.

Personally I like the idea behind sub classes and see quite a few of the counter arguments based upon assumptions around balancing etc. Where possible we should try not to make decisions around feasibility of ideas through assumptions.

In short I would like to see if the CDI group thinks it is a relevant part of Horizontal Progression at this stage of GW2’s life?

Chris

#1787 - Jan. 5, 2014, 12:26 p.m.

Kain Francois.4328:

I know I’ve suggested this before, but I will repeat it again: Underflow servers.

The root of all Horizontal Progression is the community. Chasing after nice aesthetics are pointless without other players to show it off to and interact with.

Please bring the community back to your game. We need underflow servers before Horizontal Progression even has a meaning.

Personally I think Underflow Servers are very important to. I do however think that your final sentence is a bit over the top (-:

Chris

#1796 - Jan. 5, 2014, 1:13 p.m.

Hi Kain,

I understand the fundamentals of your point, my comment was not in reference to this.

It was in reference to ‘dramatic’ way in which you are trying to make your point. You will always do better to approach discussion from a reasoned metrics based standpoint than from an emotional one.

Thus with all due respect my opinion of your sentence was that it was OTT. I think I am entitled to have that opinion.

At no point did I either disagree with your point or say that I didn’t understand it.

‘Beacon’ mechanics are very important serving a ‘Complimentary Function and Cyclical Compulsion Loop Driver" of all types of Progression including Vertical but they are not the ’Core’ of either Vertical or Horizontal reward progression. The proof of this can be found by reading posts by contributors who sight their favorite example of Horizontal progression being in single player games for example.

I hope this makes my initial point clearer now and sorry for any confusion.

Chris

#1797 - Jan. 5, 2014, 1:22 p.m.

Ok so I am heading out for the day and will be back later.

Meanwhile please keep the conversation going in regard to Sub Classes. I do appreciate that the initial reaction is to do a separate CDI on it, but I would like to see if we feel it could be part of a Horizontal Progression proposal at this stage or that we think it is currently not relevant and thus making it a topic for the future makes sense.

I am going to bump the phase post I did a few days ago as well to get some more opinions on the groups ‘Ones’.

Chris

#1798 - Jan. 5, 2014, 1:24 p.m.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

Happy New Year! Thanks for being so patient with me. Regarding other dev’s posting during this period it is unlikely as it is the holiday period and I don’t expect them to emulate my behavior.

Note this CDI will only end when we are happy for it to do so ( and by we I mean all of us).

I am up to date with all the posts, thanks for all hard work, ideation, and discussion.

We are in the process of pulling the net in now and so I am going to ask you all to do something very difficult now (As in you won’t feel comfortable doing it). Previously I asked you to name your top three ideas. You did, and then everyone discussed them which led to a refocusing of many of your ideas and the birth of some new ones.

What I would like us to do is pick ONE idea that you would hold above all others as it relates to the community as a whole. Note I to found this very difficult but my one is blow. Also note I consider Wardrobe to be QOL, however any Wardrobe ideas that are Systemic or build on existing mechanics can be included.

Please also understand this is not a vote that leads to development, this is part of the ideation process. I would recommend looking at ideas that are built on existing systems or mechanics within the game. This is a nice to have however. Many have mentioned giving info on the relative weight of each idea that is put forward, we should do this after this phase but to be honest (having given it a lot of thought) I wouldn’t want to see this weighting get in the way of great ideas.

Remember at the end of the day we are not going to give details on what is in dev or what we plan to build. We will talk about what we like however and thus knowing details about Feature Cost is interesting to know but should not be something that inadvertently hampers the CDI or your ideas.

My original three were:

— Role Diversification: New skills/traits, new weapons, access to inaccessible existing weapons, infusions and hybrid professions.

— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing, Guild Halls, and Faction Alliances leading to new game play opportunities, rewards and content.

— Hero Recognition: Unique Skins, Titles, Rewards, followers and NPC reactions/opportunities based on the players individual feats in the world of Tyria regardless of how he/she chooses to play the game.

And my top one is:

— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing, Guild Halls, and Faction Alliances leading to new game play opportunities, rewards and content.

The other two were extremely close but I feel this one would have the best bang for buck for the community.

Finally note we are working on horizontal progression, with many of ideas (some of which may even be in this thread), so I can’t stress enough that this exercise is about further ideation focus refinement. Not a dev list.

Chris

Bump

#1923 - Jan. 6, 2014, 9:11 a.m.

Reading through a lot of the comments on various class diversification (or just stronger trait/skill diversification) concepts, one of the things that seems to be missing is a discussion on how you’d actually earn/unlock these additional abilities to make it a progression system.

One of the goals of progression, in this case horizontal, is to create an extended sense of game play and thus = reward for playing it.

For example, we’ve added more skills to the game recently, but those simply unlock with skill points, which basically means → play any part of the game that gives exp, or kill champs to get skill point books. That’s ok as systems of unlocking horizontal progression go for the extended class diversification, but game play wise it generally means find the easiest place to get XP/champ-loot and do it over and over again for a large % of players, since folks most often gravitate towards the path of least resistance.

What sort of systems of horizontal progression unlocking would you like to see that’d accompany a system like extended class progression?

#1933 - Jan. 6, 2014, 9:35 a.m.

Zone.1275:

ColinJohanson.2394:

What sort of systems of horizontal progression unlocking would you like to see that’d accompany a system like extended class progression?

I think special dynamic events could be one way. Currently some dynamic events open up special vendors to buy little knick knacks. For example, if in Brisban Wildlands there was a special dynamic event chain where you help the Skritt King in some way and after the events are over you can buy a new skill from him with skill points.

So a question for this, how would we message well to newer players how a system like this would work? One of the challenges of events is simply: they may not be running when you’re in an area. Is it ok to make people stand around waiting for an event to happen so they can get a specific thing from that event? How would they know what to do if the event wasn’t currently active, what form of messaging could help them understand the state of the world – while still being immersive and not requiring them to use a 3rd party app to progress?

#1934 - Jan. 6, 2014, 9:38 a.m.

darkace.8925:

ColinJohanson.2394:

Reading through a lot of the comments on various class diversification (or just stronger trait/skill diversification) concepts, one of the things that seems to be missing is a discussion on how you’d actually earn/unlock these additional abilities to make it a progression system.

One of the goals of progression, in this case horizontal, is to create an extended sense of game play and thus = reward for playing it.

For example, we’ve added more skills to the game recently, but those simply unlock with skill points, which basically means -> play any part of the game that gives exp, or kill champs to get skill point books. That’s ok as systems of unlocking horizontal progression go for the extended class diversification, but game play wise it generally means find the easiest place to get XP/champ-loot and do it over and over again for a large % of players, since folks most often gravitate towards the path of least resistance.

What sort of systems of horizontal progression unlocking would you like to see that’d accompany a system like extended class progression?

Regarding your specific example of new skills, throwing skill points at the game is the least interesting route you guys could have given us. A system where we kill veterans to capture skills could have provided both more interesting game play and another form of a gold sink (assuming we purchase signets or consumables used in the capture process). In my opinion, there are always more interesting options than “sit in front of your keyboard pressing buttons until you’ve got enough skill points to unlock something”.

Yeah to be clear, my point was in saying the skill point version isn’t very interesting, it lends itself to degenerate game play (play the fastest way to earn skill points, not the most fun) which is generally true of most systems of progression in basically any MMO ever made.

The veteran hunt is very similar to the Gw1 style skill collection, and certainly one of the systems we’re well aware of and talk about regularly when we consider systems of horizontal progression acquisition for the future.

What other systems would excite you that don’t fall into the “sitting in front of your keyboard” pressing buttons options? Keep in mind they need to be easy to learn so we can teach them to new players, accessible, and not overly complex/tedious, and hopefully not something with a path of least resistance that leads to degenerate game play.

#1945 - Jan. 6, 2014, 9:52 a.m.

Swagger.1459:

the current system works great and allows for progression on the individual players terms. no need to make “special” content that forces players to jump through hoops or do things outside of their realm of interest when you have a user friendly system in place. the main concern should be to improve existing content and adding more permanent content along the way.

Which current system do you think works great specifically? In theory, we have a lot of systems already

For me, I think some our current systems of horizontal progression and their earn systems are:

- Collect skins: Purchase them for currencies (which becomes play the fastest way to earn currency X), get them as rare drops (play fastest way to kill mob/content type X), or purchase them off the trading post. (Play the fastest way to earn gold)

- Skills: Collect skill points. (Which becomes play the fastest way to earn XP, or skill points.)

- Achievement Horizontal Rewards: These are things like achievement point skin unlocks, titles, etc. This is more just sort of play everything that gives achievement points, since very little of it is repeatable.

- Legendary: This one doesn’t really have a totally clear path to acquisition other than earn crazy amounts of gold, which goes back to play the fastest way to earn gold. (note legendary is only horizontal if you already have ascended)

- WxP Abilities: Complete objectives worth points in WvW. (Complete objectives as fast as possible, find a group to help you do this. Of all the above this is basically just telling you to play WvW, and though it is as some degenerate aspects is probably the least so)

- PvP Skin Locker & PvP Ranks: Play PvP. (This is basically just play PvP since the latest release.)

Not everyone plays the way I described above, but many of the systems above encourage you to want to play the fastest way possible to earn the rewards, sometimes at the cost of not playing the way you’d find the most fun. The upside of Gw2 is you can play the things you enjoy most and still be rewarded for them in most cases, even if it’s not at the fastest rate. The downside is because almost everything can earn you most of the same rewards, this becomes a matter of choosing to do the things you enjoy the most, but getting rewarded slower because of it.

Potential different systems would create more diverse game play, but the challenge is making it not overly complex, and running the risk of driving players to force one specific type of game play they may not enjoy since they can’t earn it other ways. These are some of the challenges we face we looking at any form of horizontal progression, and some of the discussions that come up when looking at new potential systems as well.

#1949 - Jan. 6, 2014, 9:57 a.m.

VOLKON.1290:

You could even throw out in the PvE world random Champions that enter the world from one side, simply walk across and out the other if they’re not defeated. It would be up to the players to recognize, band together and defeat this champion to get an unlock that way. Don’t announce it, just have it happen.

So an open question: If you don’t announce it, how do players who want to progress their character down these new paths of exciting character progression know what to do it, or how to progress? We’ve seen if the path of progression isn’t relatively clear, most our every-day casual players won’t bother doing it, which isn’t a system that buys us much game play over-all.

And if the champion isn’t available, how do we message to players that the system of progression to advance their character isn’t available at this time? I think you can get away with no real messaging around something like a rare skin, but if it’s a system that expands your characters profession diversity it needs much clearer communication.

These are the kind of questions I ask the designers coming up with the systems we’ll use in the future, so it’s a fun opportunity for you guys as well

#1951 - Jan. 6, 2014, 9:59 a.m.

VOLKON.1290:

Well, new personal story arcs could send you off on paths that lead to unlocking something specific from the Order you chose at the beginning of the game (which would add more substance to the Order you choose mattering)…

Also just want to quickly add, I think this would be really cool and is an example of an approachable system for all players that’s relatively easy to message, understand, and could be available to everyone.

#1952 - Jan. 6, 2014, 10:01 a.m.

Romo.3709:

Given the fact that the questing is a thing of the past, maybe instead of having “trainers” be merchants, we can create a small instance (no bigger than Ascension Arena in GW1) where you’re presented with a task having your regular weapon skill and only that one utility skill you’re trying to learn.
With a trainer (now in real meaning of the word) looking over you, giving you pointers as to what to do in situation he/she had presented you with.
It’s just a small concept, but this way you’d earn your skill rather than just outright buy it, while learning it at the same time. Maybe give it an attempt cost? Creating an ability to fail such quest?

I think this could have a lot of potential as well, depending on the ability it could even change up the game-play/experience.

The next challenge: We want to put as much content in the open world as possible, so you’re constantly running into other players and having great social experiences. This is one of the pillars of Gw2, and why we try and avoid instances as much as possible. How would you modify this system to work in the open world? (I see a lot of easy ways – skill point challenges are very similar to this, but it’s fun to ask you!)

#2160 - Jan. 7, 2014, 3:17 p.m.

Hi All,

I am back at work now and was just enjoying the last few days of my vacation.

It is awesome to see you all discussing the ‘Journey’ side of Horizontal Progression with Colin. Once that discussion has finished I will help us put a proposal together for both the ‘Journey’ and the ‘Reward’ and we can go from there.

Meanwhile Lee from GW2 Hub has posted an interview with me about the CDI. If you get a chance check it out and enjoy the fruits of your hard work:

http://www.guildwars2hub.com/features/interviews/exclusive-video-interview-chris-whiteside-cdis

Chris

#2176 - Jan. 7, 2014, 4:56 p.m.

Deified.7520:

I think we should all take a moment to thank Chris Whiteside. Whether or not our ideas or suggestions see the light of day, hes been on these forums almost every day during the holiday/vacation. Its good to see that type of dedication with an employee of any company.

So thank you Chris for your hard work during this CDI!

I would like to thank you all for spending your time and rocking it in making GW2 the very best game it can be!

Chris

#2259 - Jan. 8, 2014, 2:46 p.m.

Thanks folks lots of really great ideas, concepts and discussion here!

I think the biggest thing I was trying to get at with my question is: what should the journey towards an alternative system of horizontal progression really be like?

Folks talked a lot about different ways you could say acquire skills other than the current system, but that’s really more a change to an existing skill acquisition system, as opposed to the journey of unlocking something like an advanced profession (or masteries) as some of you discussed.

Say for example, we decided to allow your profession to gain an additional mastery as Nike and Chuggs in particular discussed above. I think we have a lot of fun ideas in here for the journey unlock specific aspects of that mastery, but what if you first had to unlock the core “mastery” track, which then allowed you collect the smaller components? What kind of experience do you think would be compelling here as an over-all journey?

Some of the ideas I’ve really enjoyed so far from this thread include →

• Additional story lines with your orders that allow you complete or unlock new masteries/abilities.

• Adding new content to the existing maps (or re-using existing moments) that serves the purpose of being a bit like skill challenges, content on demand that allows you to overcome challenges to allow you unlock various abilities/masteries.

A lot of the ideas boiled down into variations of one of these two options, and really both have a lot of cool concepts and ideas. Can folks think of anything else that’s a bit more outside the box for something bigger?

#2264 - Jan. 8, 2014, 3:18 p.m.

cesmode.4257:

ColinJohanson.2394:

A lot of the ideas boiled down into variations of one of these two options, and really both have a lot of cool concepts and ideas. Can folks think of anything else that’s a bit more outside the box for something bigger?

I had suggested several times about Global Dominance system. Similar to WvW…we as players and as a server, complete events across the entire map of Tyria and receive passive bonuses based on the % of the map that we control as players. So if we leave entire zones(say the lesser traveled zones) to be completely occupied by centaurs, for example, we won’t be receiving maximum benefits. And you can use most of the existing dynamic events to accomplish this. There are many DEs that take over way points and camps that we as players can complete and push enemy NPCs back…thus acquiring a larger portion of the world.

This encourages players to play in more than one zone, get sthem out in the world, etc.

On top of this, put in a reward system for completing unique(different) dynamic events in a month. I.E. Complete 90 unique dynamic events in January and receive a Cesmode mini(just kidding). But you get the picture.

Is that big enough and outside the box?

The global dominance is a really interesting concept, and something we played with a bit back in Gw1 with the luxons/kurzicks but never really pushed far enough to make into a compelling system. Some questions and challenges that immediately come to mind with this would include: How would players playing in an overflow map make a difference, or feel like their time is being well spent? How would this work if we pursued underflow servers? How would this work for worlds that have relatively medium/low populations, or for players who play at off hours (say Australians). ? How would new players understand, and be motivated by this system, and should they be? And most importantly: How would this result in unlocking an advanced profession or advanced horizontal progression for your character? [I get how a system like this could be used for more world bonus specific rewards which is really cool, but I don’t fully see the character specific journey which was my original question]

The event idea is an interesting one, but it doesn’t feel like a “grand journey” so to speak. Do you feel like if we asked you to do 90 different events in a month, and that allowed your ranger to say become a Druid, you’d feel like that was a cool system?

#2318 - Jan. 8, 2014, 6:33 p.m.

DiogoSilva.7089:

ColinJohanson.2394:

• Adding new content to the existing maps (or re-using existing moments) that serves the purpose of being a bit like skill challenges, content on demand that allows you to overcome challenges to allow you unlock various abilities/masteries.

A bit like skill challenges, but while skill challenges are just “boss” fights, it would be cool if this kind of content generated entire chains of events with some more gameplay diversity and an interesting scenario behind them.

A lot of the ideas boiled down into variations of one of these two options, and really both have a lot of cool concepts and ideas. Can folks think of anything else that’s a bit more outside the box for something bigger?

Remember GW1’s Hall of Monuments, where the winning team got a game-wide chat message announcing their victory? Using that as an inspiration, but thinking of something completely different (without involving pvp), what about some content being unlocked at the end of epic dynamic events, and rewarding access to unique content?

But hey, this already happens with some mini-dungeons, don’t they? Maybe this concept could be expanded upon.

CONCEPT FOR OPEN-WORLD MINI-SCENARIOS

The teams that would complete specific and long challenging dynamic event chains would unlock access to unique mini-dungeons, with some interesting stories, scenarios and challenges behind them, all leading to a mini-story conclusion and a flavored reward to those players. The reward could be anything, including a new subclass tier, or mastery, or something.

Unlocking an open-world mini-dungeon would be map-wide, a message would automatically be generated in the chat warning players about it, and everyone could join and get the “normal reward”, but only the teams that have participated in the specific events that lead to them (and have met a specific condition) would be allowed to get the unique “mastery” reward, and a ray of light would shine upon them for all other players to see. Another message would automatically be generated in the map, this time announcing the players who have advanced through a mastery, and all other players in the map would be like “wow, how did you get your name in the chat? What did you do to get that mastery? I want to get it too!”

The dynamic events leading to those unique open-world scenarios (let’s call it that) would work as discussed: they would either start automatically from time to time, or start on demand if the player has met a specific condition. However, even though they could be started on demand, they wouldn’t be easy, with a high chance of failure for the unprepared, making them more special.

And finally, for a player to meet the specific condition to start those events on demand (and thus to get the “unique” reward from the end of the mini-scenario later unlocked) could be received from the also-discussed Orders quest system, or something.

There you have it, I proposed a new idea (mini-dungeons/ scenarios unlocked from events) and fused this concept with the two other ideas the community has been discussing (unique on-demand events and orders quests).

Very cool, something we’ve discussed a lot internally as well in regards to some of our concepts of what future maps would look like

#2513 - Jan. 9, 2014, 8:36 p.m.

Hi All,

I got back into the office this week and have been SUPER busy. So i sincerely apologies for not contributing over the past few days. I need to catch up from page 44 )-:

I intend to put a proposal together on behalf of us all this weekend. Feel free to carry on chatting and brainstorming in the interim. I am looking forward to getting back into thread and seeing it come to its conclusion.

Chris

#2518 - Jan. 9, 2014, 8:54 p.m.

Devata.6589:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

I got back into the office this week and have been SUPER busy. So i sincerely apologies for not contributing over the past few days. I need to catch up from page 44 )-:

I intend to put a proposal together on behalf of us all this weekend. Feel free to carry on chatting and brainstorming in the interim. I am looking forward to getting back into thread and seeing it come to its conclusion.

Chris

Why don’t you put in post breaks just like Anet did in the beta forum.

I think it’s important you read every post not just the summaries however thats so much, it’s almost impossible. By putting in post breaks you could make it more manageable.

I will be reading every post. I am aware where I left of and will be continuing from there. Not sure why you think I just read summaries.

Thanks for the suggestion.

Chris

#2562 - Jan. 10, 2014, 12:08 p.m.

Bezagron.7352:

HP summary page 29 to 34 Part 1
Next summary up, should be back in order after this. For Updated Top Three Tally refer to HP summary page 35 to 40 Part 1. Also for anyone looking for up-to-date topic information and a complete index of all summaries over the Character Progression CDI The Lost Witch has created CDI – Character Progression – Summaries. Again if I’ve missed anything let me know.

First off Chris rejoins the discussion now looking for everyone to list their Top One Idea.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Snip. .

What I would like us to do is pick ONE idea that you would hold above all others as it relates to the community as a whole.

. .Snip. .

And my top one is:

— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing, Guild Halls, and Faction Alliances leading to new game play opportunities, rewards and content. Snip..

Chris

Top One Tally (update to pg 34)

1. Sociopolitical Diversification (26)
2. Role Diversification (23)
3. Zone & Order progression (12)
4. Hero Recognition (10)
5. Skin Locker / Wardrobe (2)
6. New Permanent Zones (1)

Please note I’ve separated Sociopolitical & Zone / Order progression as I feel Zone & Order can incorporate large elements of role diversification and hero recognition as well.

Character Progression

• Chuggs talks about Rewards vs Content, Shallow Vs Deep HP and brings up vanquishing in the open world. Marcus wonders about respawning mobs affecting vanquishing and looks at vanquishing in GW1. Adding further to vanquishing here
• One idea in LanfearShadowflame’s list takes the HoM from GW1, looking to rebuild the visual display for achievements and rewards in GW2. Also lists various other HP ideas.
• Cesmode brings up Global Dominance and Nike links the topic. An interesting idea for PvE which could be compared to Faction Alliance battle in GW1 and WvW in GW2.
• Marcus Greythorne wonders about all those out of the way veterans in game. Could they be used for something skill hunting no, could it be card game, arena fights, map hunting.
• Obscure One looks at options for the gem store in HP.

Edit: Added The Lost Witch summary index link to top.

Hi Bezagron,

Thank you so much to you and everyone who has been creating summaries and supporting the CDI community with updates and information.

I really appreciate it.

Chris

#2563 - Jan. 10, 2014, 12:09 p.m.

anonim.5932:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

I got back into the office this week and have been SUPER busy. So i sincerely apologies for not contributing over the past few days. I need to catch up from page 44 )-:

I intend to put a proposal together on behalf of us all this weekend. Feel free to carry on chatting and brainstorming in the interim. I am looking forward to getting back into thread and seeing it come to its conclusion.

Chris

Hi Chris,
think it’s indeed the right time for your proposal. It’s hard for new people to join this thread, because they won’t read everything and don’t know what has been discussed so far. Yep, there are some players making big efforts (thanks for that!) to summarize everything, but still…
A proposal could create a “new” start of a concentrated discussion, where everyone new could start to participate.
Perhaps even a new thread would help to integrate new players?

And thanks for the CDI and your “heroic” engagement for this one =)

Honestly I wish i had more time to engage. Especially this week. I will catch up tomorrow though. And then in the next CDI Process Evolution maybe we can all come up with some ideas to help us all with time and the ability for everyone to be able to drop in and out.

Chris

#2570 - Jan. 10, 2014, 2:41 p.m.

VOLKON.1290:

Hey Chris, welcome back!

Although it’s not relevant to the progression system being discussed, have you seen the “Let the night be nighttime” thread yet? I added a thought in there as to how we could use making the dark darker to enhance the overall game play. It may be worth your read.

Thanks!

I saw it last night while I was reading the forums in bed but that was the one topic I didn’t read, sorry.

I will read it tonight but based on what you just said I am very intrigued and can imagine what the content will be (-:

Chris

#2635 - Jan. 11, 2014, 4:05 p.m.

cesmode.4257:

ColinJohanson.2394:

A lot of the ideas boiled down into variations of one of these two options, and really both have a lot of cool concepts and ideas. Can folks think of anything else that’s a bit more outside the box for something bigger?

I had suggested several times about Global Dominance system. Similar to WvW…we as players and as a server, complete events across the entire map of Tyria and receive passive bonuses based on the % of the map that we control as players. So if we leave entire zones(say the lesser traveled zones) to be completely occupied by centaurs, for example, we won’t be receiving maximum benefits. And you can use most of the existing dynamic events to accomplish this. There are many DEs that take over way points and camps that we as players can complete and push enemy NPCs back…thus acquiring a larger portion of the world.

This encourages players to play in more than one zone, get sthem out in the world, etc.

On top of this, put in a reward system for completing unique(different) dynamic events in a month. I.E. Complete 90 unique dynamic events in January and receive a Cesmode mini(just kidding). But you get the picture.

Is that big enough and outside the box?

Just catching up now. I really do like this idea, always have. I see this as a base system that would be applied to content across the board that would impact many features and mechanics, not just Horizontal Progression. I bet this idea comes up in many more CDIs as it has already done in the past.

Chris

#2636 - Jan. 11, 2014, 4:58 p.m.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Conski Deshan.2057:

1. Communities or Solo instances?, do you want to see groups of players houses in the one instance or a private instance with only your house in it? (people can still visit either way.)

Snip…

2. Construction, what level of involvement would you like? building it block by block? A room by room function where you can pick and choose rooms to add? A series of set designs?

I love games like Minecraft and Terraria’s control over what you can do and the sheer RIDICULOUS amount of effort people can put into doing things terribly unique with construction. I’d rather they stick to those games than Guild Wars 2. I’m sorry, don’t get me wrong, those of you who do things like rebuild Minas Tirith or make soaring citadels of glass and stone which look like they took hours – I salute you. But trying to satisfy you with that level of control is going to drive the developers MAD. MAD I SAY.

What I’d expect is a modular approach. You can choose a floorplan/blueprint from a few predeveloped shells with “X large rooms, Y small rooms, and Z floors”. Then you can pick and choose from a list of “large rooms”, “small rooms” to fill it in. Things like a trophy hall, a crafting workshop, or something just decorative . . . like your asura has a golem foundry, my human has a chapel to Grenth, his charr can have a room where he works on his charrzooka or mortar system. But almost all of the basic rooms come unfurnished.

Then you can use artisans or interior decorator NPCs to create from a menu using some materials (not huge amounts though) to craft furniture or decorations which get placed like siege blueprints – you get a bundle item and a red outline turning green where you can place it. Standing close you can target it for context specific things . . . like sitting on the couch or posing before a trophy on the wall.

3.Functionalities, I think we can all agree at a basic level housing should allow for some storage and display of trophies/achievements/weapons/armor , in addition to this what would you like to see, Farming? nodes? intractable objects? side missions?

Trophy showing off? Yes definitely.

Nodes? Ehh, yes, might be nice. Link it to what your home instance currently has available and you can either use your house or your home instance. And based on level you can have access to crafting materials of varying tiers (but not Tier 6 without actually doing something to earn them) such as a rich ore node or a few trees, or a garden you can choose what to plant for availability tomorrow. Like you will get sometimes a seed from gathering which lets you spawn a patch of that gathering node for plants in a garden.

The last probably is a bit much and prone to causing shakeups in the economy for food. Oh well?

4. Interior customization, placing objects within the house how would you like it to work?

I covered it above.

5. Getting items, How do you get items to put in your house?

Decorations either through your interior decorator crafting them, achievements from Living Story or retroactive, potential rewards from champion bags, or from chests out in the world. Say, chests in Orr have a chance to give humans an icon of one of the Six Gods looted from the Holy City of Arah . . . or charr a piece of Pact weaponry to hang on the wall as memory to those who were lost . . . or sylvari getting a sprout traced back to Caladbolg’s influence on Orr?

In other words, decorations either basic and available to everyone or things which require you to go adventure and get them.

6. Linking to other content, is there anything you would like to link with housing? (i.e in a perfect vision of the future I could walk out of my house onto an airship dock and take my airship into combat)

Much like with Guild Halls, you can buy servants/assistants who would do things like . . . an Arena Master who would let you go to Heart of the Mists, a Mist War Veteran who could drop you to WvW, an Asuran Travel Facilitator who could send you to any Asura Gate destination in a major city. Or for a FLAT FEE (say, 2s 50c) drop you at any Waypoint not contested you have discovered. (Big enough an expense it’s possibly cheaper to move to a city close then travel, small enough that it’s preferable to reach some long-distance locations like Orr).

Hi Tobias,

I like your commentary on housing. In a game like GW2 I think that the focus is best pointed at ‘Character’ Progression rather than ‘World’ progression and I think your housing ideas fit nicely within this paradigm.

The focus should be on the character and the story and the synergy between the two.

Chris

#2637 - Jan. 11, 2014, 5:02 p.m.

Morrigan.2809:

Malchior.5042:

Conski Deshan.2057:

ColinJohanson.2394:

The event idea is an interesting one, but it doesn’t feel like a “grand journey” so to speak. Do you feel like if we asked you to do 90 different events in a month, and that allowed your ranger to say become a Druid, you’d feel like that was a cool system?

By grand journey do you mean in difficulty or length?, As I assume you want all players to be able to unlock their “subclass” fairly soon after hitting 80?

Also could we get a weigh in on your opinion on housing?

I’ll offer a counter-view here. First off, what would you consider “fairly soon,” Conski?

• IMO, why should a person unlock their subclass fairly soon after hitting 80? Hitting 80 the person just reaches their last trait points, their max level gear, and all the other elements to cement their play.

• Me personally, I’d be ok with a week-long journey (hardcores could probably rush it out within a few days) that focused more on “unlocking/discovering potential” within your character.

• The idea above that adds different weight to all the events sounds decent, but also sounds incredibly time-consuming to Arenanet. Colin, I probably could do 90 events in a week, but I wouldn’t enjoy it. Instead of deciding on a number first, I’d focus on the flavor of each event being run. I would expect a Ranger hoping to “Ascend” (hehehe) to Druid would do an event track or whatever that sent said Ranger all over Tyria doing Druidy or Rangerish things (those are words ).

• This could conclude with a new instance/dungeon or something where a party completes the final task to “unlock their potential” together. This adds additional merit that GW 2 is a game that’s built on large encounters, profession combos, and player interaction. After said final task is completed, each party member would unlock their prospective track, and they can all rejoice together at their accomplishment.

I just want to make it very very clear that I in no way want my personal character progression dependant on group content. – read 5 man dungeon. In no way. Sure give that option for people who want to party up but it is my own character and as such I should be able to do it.

I think this is a fair expectation.

Chris

#2640 - Jan. 11, 2014, 5:27 p.m.

Shakkara.2641:

ColinJohanson.2394:

And most importantly: Snip

The event idea is an interesting one, but it doesn’t feel like a “grand journey” so to speak. Do you feel like if we asked you to do 90 different events in a month, and that allowed your ranger to say become a Druid, you’d feel like that was a cool system.

No, just please NO!

This is a terrible system, and I think you get what we want completely the wrong way around.

We want more skills and more traits to have more diversity and really build a character that suits OUR wishes.

What you’re doing with your subclasses, is once again make DEVS design character templates for players to follow.

Worst of all, you’ll go and produce a lot of content which is EXCLUSIVE to a particular subclass and thus cannot be used by any other player character. This results in a lot of work that doesn’t have much value to an individual player. You should make content for ALL classes, and let players cherry-pick from that freely, and create their own subclass that way!

In ultima online, I can combine skills from 50 different professions and choose become a vampire-paladin-warrior-samurai also known as Sampire, a class designed and created by the players. And sampires come in 100’s of different flavours, mine for example doesn’t have bushido and has much less chivalry, but instead has bandage healing and parries with a shield instead of a 2h weapon.

What you want to do, is give us a ‘druid’ subclass. With a few new standard abilities that are unique to the druid and cannot be creatively combined in any way. You’re once again determining what is good for us, instead of giving us any freedom over our characters.

Worst of all, you propose us to do some chore as task, that has the subclass as ‘reward’ at the end. Sounds an awful lot like vertical progression to me. If this is about horizontal progression, there should be a horizontal approach to acquiring new skills, meaning that like in GW1, they’re split in many little bits which are ALL available for capture at the same time, waiting for you to capture. It’s up to you how you prioritize their acquisition. I think a similar system to the hearts would work, heart-quest like things that each unlock an individual skill/trait/etc upon completion. The only bad thing is that GW2 has so many character levels and thus many zones are not yet accessible to low level characters so that unfortunately means that they can’t capture everything right from the start. But yeah, having levels in GW2 was one of the biggest mistakes anyway.

We want houses, we want more skills.

WE DONT WANT SUBCLASSES!

Hi Shakkara,

I just want to point out that this is not a particularly collaborative or useful post. Please however don’t take this personally.

The whole point of CDI is to discuss, brainstorm and then ‘reduce’ ideas as a group until they reach their pure essence.

Making assumptions about what ‘everyone’ wants just does not work in this kind of collaborative environment and not lead to progression within ideation.

Finally the purpose of the CDI is not for the developer to be told what ‘Everyone’ wants. It is to work together to evolve our design philosophies and experience in game leading toward synergy in problem solving and ideation.

I hope this makes sense.

Chris

P.S: Go Hawks!

#2642 - Jan. 11, 2014, 5:30 p.m.

Aeonblade.8709:

Swagger.1459:

I hope that if a “grand journey” to horizontal progression is introduced, the paths are equally offered to wvw, pvers and dungeon/fractal players or you’ll run into the same issues that we currently have with ascended vertical progression.

This, remember, WvW centric players aren’t going to be pleased if they have to farm PvE for their progression, be it horizontal or vertical

I certainly respect your points.

Chris

#2646 - Jan. 11, 2014, 5:43 p.m.

Zaoda.1653:

@ColinJohanson,

In regards to new weapon skills/unlocks, I think the way it worked in GW1 in terms of obtaining both normal and elite skills using the Signet of Capture was so unique and amazing. It was something I had never seen done before in any other game I had played, whereby you go around the world looking for specific bosses that have the elite that you want, and that boss had a particular glow depending on what profession it was – gold/yellow for warrior, cyan for ritualist, green for necromancer etc. you slayed that boss, and captured its elite when standing near its corpse. I felt like I had truly earnt that skill, and that to me is what it’s all about – true progression.

So something like a Signet of Capture concept where you can purchase, or get via a reward, and go around and collect weapon skills from bosses would be ideal – and would make you feel as though you truly earnt it.

You could even swap in, say, 10-20 skill points for a capture skill (as many have been wanting more ways to use excess skill points, this could be another way to use them up?)

Edit: another idea could be bringing back elite tomes? Just a thought anyway.

Hi Zaoda,

Absolutely, this is a simple and excellent system. Very elegant, and rewarding with a great sense of discovery.

Chris

#2699 - Jan. 12, 2014, 2:04 p.m.

videoboy.4162:

Chris,

I know you can’t give details, but I was wondering if you guys figured out a way to separate the LS from the PS? I remember several Dev comments mentioning that the PS was reducing what could be done in LS (example: Killing Jennah because she had to be alive in the PS.)

This is definitely something we have been discussing.

I cannot give anymore details than that however.

Chris

#2701 - Jan. 12, 2014, 2:13 p.m.

Merus.9475:

Shakkara.2641:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Shakkara,

I just want to point out that this is not a particularly collaborative or useful post. Please however don’t take this personally.

The whole point of CDI is to discuss, brainstorm and then ‘reduce’ ideas as a group until they reach their pure essence.

Making assumptions about what ‘everyone’ wants just does not work in this kind of collaborative environment and not lead to progression within ideation.

Finally the purpose of the CDI is not for the developer to be told what ‘Everyone’ wants. It is to work together to evolve our design philosophies and experience in game leading toward synergy in problem solving and ideation.

I hope this makes sense.

Chris

P.S: Go Hawks!

Perhaps you should address the points I made with my post instead of the way I wrote it.

You’re still not really reading that feedback, are you. This is not a forum for telling other people how wrong they are for disagreeing with your vision of the game, and it’s not a forum for addressing the developers specifically. You had the germ of a good argument in the previous post – that having a set of shared skills that every profession has access to is better than having lots of different subclasses – and instead of railing against other people’s ideas, you should have developed your own and shown how it solves problems that other approaches have.

Hi Merus,

My goal with this post is to help educate the poster and others on the core philosophy of all CDI’s .

Each thread has a Micro and a Macro goal. The Micro goal is to discuss and get the very best out of each topic to make GW2 the very best game it can be. The Macro goal with each thread is for us as Collaborators to be able to mature and advance our design acumen and methods of communication in each thread which in turn with multiply the positive value of each micro goal.

Therefore please don’t assume that because I am offering advice on the macro level that I am not engaging on the micro level.

I am including a link that has more detail on the overarching goals of the CDI and how it works:

http://www.guildwars2hub.com/features/interviews/exclusive-video-interview-chris-whiteside-cdis

Chris

#2702 - Jan. 12, 2014, 2:16 p.m.

videoboy.4162:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

videoboy.4162:

Chris,

I know you can’t give details, but I was wondering if you guys figured out a way to separate the LS from the PS? I remember several Dev comments mentioning that the PS was reducing what could be done in LS (example: Killing Jennah because she had to be alive in the PS.)

This is definitely something we have been discussing.

I cannot give anymore details than that however.

Chris

Darn, I totally tried to phrase it in such a way that you could just say yes or no. LOL I’ll try harder next time. =D

#2703 - Jan. 12, 2014, 2:19 p.m.

videoboy.4162:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

videoboy.4162:

Chris,

I know you can’t give details, but I was wondering if you guys figured out a way to separate the LS from the PS? I remember several Dev comments mentioning that the PS was reducing what could be done in LS (example: Killing Jennah because she had to be alive in the PS.)

This is definitely something we have been discussing.

I cannot give anymore details than that however.

Chris

Darn, I totally tried to phrase it in such a way that you could just say yes or no. LOL I’ll try harder next time. =D

#2704 - Jan. 12, 2014, 2:19 p.m.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

videoboy.4162:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

videoboy.4162:

Chris,

I know you can’t give details, but I was wondering if you guys figured out a way to separate the LS from the PS? I remember several Dev comments mentioning that the PS was reducing what could be done in LS (example: Killing Jennah because she had to be alive in the PS.)

.
.

This is definitely something we have been discussing.

I cannot give anymore details than that however.

Chris

Darn, I totally tried to phrase it in such a way that you could just say yes or no. LOL I’ll try harder next time. =D

#2704 - Jan. 12, 2014, 2:23 p.m.

videoboy.4162:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

videoboy.4162:

Chris,

I know you can’t give details, but I was wondering if you guys figured out a way to separate the LS from the PS? I remember several Dev comments mentioning that the PS was reducing what could be done in LS (example: Killing Jennah because she had to be alive in the PS.)

This is definitely something we have been discussing.

I cannot give anymore details than that however.

Chris

Darn, I totally tried to phrase it in such a way that you could just say yes or no. LOL I’ll try harder next time. =D

Sorry (-:. Not trying to be evasive. It is just an area I am unable to discuss.

Chris

#2706 - Jan. 12, 2014, 2:27 p.m.

So I am currently on page 47 and have read 53,54 and 55 (-:

I have blocked out time to get to get completely up to date by lunchtime tomorrow (Assuming nothing crazy goes on tomorrow morning).

I am hoping to have the proposal up tomorrow morning and would think that by the end of next we will have stickied this topic. This thread has been excellent in general and has already impacted us internally which is the core of what the CDI is.

Following the tabling of this thread we will move into CDI Process Evolution phase 2.

Chris

#2726 - Jan. 12, 2014, 6:14 p.m.

Sytherek.7689:

DevilLordLaser.8619:

That makes sense, and it’s occurred to me as well, but I’ve certainly seen my share and a half of completely nonsensical garbage out of all manner of game developers, almost always justified by some variation of the excuse “We don’t have the time/resources to do that. Make do with what you have.” It’s made me…twitchy…over the years >_>

I’m a game developer but not from ANet, so perhaps I can try and clarify. Exactly why does “we don ’t have the resources” make you “twitch”?

Is it that you don’t believe the developers? Is it because you, a non-developer, think these things are easy?

Do you think they should hire more staff? Can they, given the economic model of the game?

A company exists both to pay its employees and make a profit. A great idea may simply not be economically or logistically possible, no matter how much it may make you “twitch”.

Here’s another angle — just how much do you expect to pay, in real dollars, for guild and player housing? Will adding such items improve player recruitment and retention, and if so, to what extent?

For example, I would pay $25 (2000 gems) for player housing that is meaningful and flexible and useful. Would enough players pay that much to justify development by ANet?

ANet must allocate resources effectively to stay in business and grow the game.

A well made point Sytherek.

Chris

#2728 - Jan. 12, 2014, 6:21 p.m.

MRA.4758:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Shakkara.2641:

WE DONT WANT SUBCLASSES!

I just want to point out that this is not a particularly collaborative or useful post. Please however don’t take this personally.

While I agree with your position that no one should argue like she is speaking for everybody else, I’d like to encourage you to not discard the problematic points addressed by Shakkara so lightly. I, for one, am also not thrilled at the thought of a subclass specialization system for GW2.

There are very valid arguments in Shakkara’s post:

• A subclass makes you follow the template provided by a game designer, instead of helping the player to invent original builds for her character.
• Subclass exclusive content in very inefficient to build since, say, 23 out of 3*8=24 players would not benefit from that content. You should recognize this argument, since this was the exact same reason Anet stated for dropping the idea of profession exclusive skill challenges.
• The “tasks of acquisition” do bear the risk of being fun for the first or second time, but might end up becoming a chore or grind, eventually.

I still haven’t seen a single proposal of a subclass specialization system that actually helps to improve build diversity. From what I have seen it might be far more likely that such a system rather fences you in and forces you to take particular roles. (“hey, bro, if you’re a ranger/druid then you have to make a toughness/healing power build, everything else is just plain stupid!!!1!”)

I still think that the “no trinity” approach of GW2 is one of the greatest improvements that the game has brought to the genre. And we are still not completely there: Way over a year after launch some specs still gravely outperform other specs of the same class, thereby already kind of forcing a fixed role on a particular class. And you should know how hard the balance team is working to solve this problem. My fear is that subclassing would just further escalate the situation: Would it really be possible to balance for viable damage, support, and control builds for each and every class/subclass combination? In my opinion, subclassing fits more to a classical trinity based game system, and not to GW2.

Hence, I would rather like to see a form of horizontal progression that helps to generate more viable spec combinations for all classes, instead of a system that might lock you into a fixed and/or preconceived role.

~MRA

Hi.

I agree with this sentiment as a player to a degree:

‘Hence, I would rather like to see a form of horizontal progression that helps to generate more viable spec combinations for all classes, instead of a system that might lock you into a fixed and/or preconceived role.’

I think you still misunderstand in regard to this comment however:

’I’d like to encourage you to not discard the problematic points addressed by Shakkara so lightly’

Because I respond to a member of the CDI pointing out how to better approach the initiative does not mean that I have not read the entirety of the post. Much of my time is spent reading and thinking about points made by Collaborators and therefore a comment on the Macro that I think is important does not mean that I am not thinking about the Micro.

Chris

#2730 - Jan. 12, 2014, 6:27 p.m.

timmyf.1490:

Chris-

At one point, you had offered to produce an estimate of implementation time/resources for some of the systems, I think. Are you still planning on doing this so we can better prioritize some of these ideas? Or will you be building the proposal based on the discussion so far?

I think some of the ideas here might serve as “quick wins” and that a lot of the suggestions, like subclasses and housing, might fall out of favor when the folks here (who I assume are mostly not developers) see how much extra effort those systems require.

Oh, and thanks. I think this has been a very interesting CDI, even if I tend to disagree with a lot of the ideas.

Hi Timmy,

Here is a link to the post in which i discussed the pro’s and con’s of individual feature/idea weighting, as an update for you:

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/29#post3444858

I can still provide feature weighting insight with the proposal (when it is done- Tomorrow morning) should everyone feel that it would be useful?

Chris

#2734 - Jan. 12, 2014, 6:35 p.m.

Yoh.8469:

MRA.4758:

I still think that the “no trinity” approach of GW2 is one of the greatest improvements that the game has brought to the genre. And we are still not completely there: Way over a year after launch some specs still gravely outperform other specs of the same class, thereby already kind of forcing a fixed role on a particular class. And you should know how hard the balance team is working to solve this problem. My fear is that subclassing would just further escalate the situation: Would it really be possible to balance for viable damage, support, and control builds for each and every class/subclass combination? In my opinion, subclassing fits more to a classical trinity based game system, and not to GW2.

Right, so the DPS only system they have now is just so wonderful, and is chock full of build diversity. Oh wait….
And I think you missed the point, what Arenanet were trying to do wasn’t so much to get rid of the Trinity, but replace it with their own version of one that was more diverse and less crippling then the original holy trinity. DPS-Control-Support.

They however failed to do this, and created a system where you effectively are only a DPS, and everything else is a side dish. In fact in most modes of play, it’s Zerkers or go home.

While you can play with different builds, the game punishes you for it pretty much. You always going to be less effective then your pure DPS counterparts.
Not to mention it’s a very isolating and solo experience by design, which clashes head on with their more collaborative multiplayer events and scaling.

-
I do give them credit for doing well with just one type of play, but you can’t ignore the great whopping problems that come along with it.
Not to say that a sub-class system would fix that, thou I wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand based on assumptions. But it possible to begin addressing some of the issues, depending on how it is executed.

Which is the main problem with your argument, you just declare ‘sub-classes’ won’t work, without defining this incredibly loose term that means different things to different people.

You might want to define your terms.

As a point to add to this discussion. We have, and are still working on getting the support balance right in regard to the global role balance meta. And it is due to agreement with points made by yourself (and those of others) that we have been working on this.

Chris

#2735 - Jan. 12, 2014, 6:38 p.m.

timmyf.1490:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Many have mentioned giving info on the relative weight of each idea that is put forward, we should do this after this phase but to be honest (having given it a lot of thought) I wouldn’t want to see this weighting get in the way of great ideas.

So this comment from awhile back stuck out to me. I think we’ve got plenty of ideas here, with Housing, Subclasses, Order Missions, new weapons/traits/skills/races, and more all having a lot of discussion.

The weighting, therefore, probably isn’t going to cause much trouble at this point. What it might do is allow us to consider some tradeoffs…

Suppose a reasonable housing system requires 120 man-weeks of work. (In reality, I’d expect it to be far greater, but bear with me.) That might make housing seem less attractive if we find out we can get Order Missions for 60 man-weeks and a new weapon for each class with another 60.

I am aware that estimating development efforts to that level of detail requires a pretty thorough proposal ahead of time, but even a semi-realistic ballpark could provide for some useful discussion.

As always, this is both your game and your initiative, but for my part, I think it would be a worthwhile next step.

Yep i think that is a good point.

Note I am currently waiting for Teq to spawn with my guild and therefore will probably disappear soon (-:

Chris

#2737 - Jan. 12, 2014, 6:41 p.m.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Note I am currently waiting for Teq to spawn with my guild and therefore will probably disappear soon (-:

Chris

Remember your training.

. . . trip the charr running away next to you so you can get away.

. (-: .

Chris

#2739 - Jan. 12, 2014, 6:51 p.m.

Yoh.8469:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Yoh.8469:

MRA.4758:

I still think that the “no trinity” approach of GW2 is one of the greatest improvements that the game has brought to the genre. And we are still not completely there: Way over a year after launch some specs still gravely outperform other specs of the same class, thereby already kind of forcing a fixed role on a particular class. And you should know how hard the balance team is working to solve this problem. My fear is that subclassing would just further escalate the situation: Would it really be possible to balance for viable damage, support, and control builds for each and every class/subclass combination? In my opinion, subclassing fits more to a classical trinity based game system, and not to GW2.

Right, so the DPS only system they have now is just so wonderful, and is chock full of build diversity. Oh wait….
And I think you missed the point, what Arenanet were trying to do wasn’t so much to get rid of the Trinity, but replace it with their own version of one that was more diverse and less crippling then the original holy trinity. DPS-Control-Support.

They however failed to do this, and created a system where you effectively are only a DPS, and everything else is a side dish. In fact in most modes of play, it’s Zerkers or go home.

While you can play with different builds, the game punishes you for it pretty much. You always going to be less effective then your pure DPS counterparts.
Not to mention it’s a very isolating and solo experience by design, which clashes head on with their more collaborative multiplayer events and scaling.

-
I do give them credit for doing well with just one type of play, but you can’t ignore the great whopping problems that come along with it.
Not to say that a sub-class system would fix that, thou I wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand based on assumptions. But it possible to begin addressing some of the issues, depending on how it is executed.

Which is the main problem with your argument, you just declare ‘sub-classes’ won’t work, without defining this incredibly loose term that means different things to different people.

You might want to define your terms.

As a point to add to this discussion. We have, and are still working on getting the support balance right in regard to the global role balance meta. And it is due to agreement with points made by yourself (and those of others) that we have been working on this.

Chris

Cool beans.
Yeah, I’m aware that it’s being worked on, and I realize that this problem is just going to take time to fix.
It’s a great big honking problem, and you don’t want to cause a bunch more problems for yourself by rushing into it.

I just wanted to point out that while the system you’ve got is very inventive, and works well in a lot of places, it’s not all sunshine and kittens.

‘and you don’t want to cause a bunch more problems for yourself by rushing into it.’

Exactly.

Chris

#2853 - Jan. 13, 2014, 12:12 p.m.

timmyf.1490:

I’ve felt this for awhile, though I still don’t quite know how to phrase it. Wondering if others might have an opinion.

As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.

I’ve suggested zones without waypoints as a way around this. Does anybody else feel the same way? Or am I romanticizing the runs from towns to far-flung locations in GW1?

Edit: should have said this originally, but all the credit to Sir Arthur for expressing my feelings better than I’ve been able to. This post was meant as a huge +1 to his.

Hi TimmyF,

I agree:

‘As convenient as I find the waypoints all over the place, I feel like it trivializes much of the exploration we would be having without them.’

Chris

#2885 - Jan. 13, 2014, 1:13 p.m.

Mikuchan.7261:

Nike.2631:

Major bonus points for working in Rooba and C.L.E.A.N. . I strongly approve of building on our existing lore through these new journeys.

I think both Halloween events have shown ways “questing” can be delivered with a GW2 twist. Some of that tracking is managed through Achievements, and a few achievement points along the way is probably a plus.

-snip-

I think we also need to consider something very important that hasn’t come up (that I saw)…

What about Alts?

Once I unlock a Mastery for my Guardian, do I have to repeat that journey on all of my Guardian alts before they can benefit? Because that throws up big “GRIND INCOMING!” warning lights and claxons in my mind.

I had hoped/expected/envisioned that advancing my Renown in an Order would be a shared process for all of my characters in that Order. I hope something similar can be done for class-based progressions.

Thanks! :P

And good point.
The achievement system has been used for similar things.
The biggest problem with using the achievement system is that you can’t repeat quests. This would be fixed by either making some achievements (like quests) character bound or by making some rewards (like recipe rewards from quests) infinitely copyable to all characters account wide.
The last part would solve the Alt issue.

But if it’s not repeatable, you can’t make a new character to re-live the story.

So I think it’s better to make a quest system of it’s own that’s is more streamlined. This would probably also make it easier for ANet devs to create the quests.
The quest log could utilize the personal story window to have a quest tab.
Achievements can obviously still be tied to doing quests, but as a reward for doing them rather than a system.

With it’s own system, you could for example fix the alt problem by having a feature that if you have completed the quest once and the character meets the requirements, you can unlock the reward by other means for example currency. This should be limited to certain rewards, like skills and traits and stuff. For getting items and gold etc you should still have to do the quest.

Basically having other ways to complete already completed content without having to redo it unless you want to.
As a side note, it’d be nice to be able to clear world completion by creating a map for a certain price on a completed character and using it on another character to get world completion, all waypoints unlocked, you get your legendary materials etc.

Some very astute points in this post Mikuchan. You will no doubt be interested to know that we have been working to solve some of the issues you raise recently, and it is worth noting that when a CDI topic is running in parallel with work that is either about to be or already going on in the studio then the particular CDI is even more useful.

Chris

#2887 - Jan. 13, 2014, 1:21 p.m.

draxynnic.3719:

When it comes to the idea of subclasses, “advanced professions”, and the like, my suggestion (which I’ve espoused a few times) is the following:

Treat it as a key, not a lock.

Subclasses are a great idea for coming up with themes for new skills and traits, and for coming up with a story that links them. Consider the oft-mentioned idea of a druid subclass for the ranger, for instance. From that theme, you can come up with a set of skills and traits that support that theme (caster weapons with nature-magic-esque skills and traits that support them, for instance) and a story that fits with the theme (a journey of discovery into the culture and magic of the Maguuma druids) along which the player can unlock the new abilities associated with that theme. Similar journeys of discovery could go into Elonian lore for elementalists to be able to become dervishes, or into Cantha for necromancers to be able to learn the secrets of ritualism, just to use a couple of examples – Tyria has loads of cultures and old and new lore that could be drawn on for new themes.

Once unlocked, though, I think the new skills and traits should be able to be chosen using the existing system (or an improved version therof) rather than forcing someone to commit to a specific theme. If the hypothetical ranger wanted to become a full-on druid, that should be their choice. If they just wanted to incorporate a little of their new learnings into their old way of doing things, or mix what they’ve learned from the legacy of the druids with the teachings of the kodan wardens they stayed with last Season of the Colossus, they should be able to do so.

…Snip…

The themes should be a key, providing inspiration for the development team to come up with a set of related skills and traits and a story for how characters can acquire them – not a lock forcing people to only play characters that have been “approved” by the creation of a suitable subclass. Ther’d be no point at which there’s a mechanic where you expressly choose a subclass – instead, you can choose for yourself through choices of skills, utilities and traits how closely you align with a theme. I certainly don’t want to see subclass changes as being another way for people who like experimenting with new builds to be nickeled and dimed and discouraged from doing what they find to be fun.

(On this, I think I’m in consensus with Chrispy and Tobias – I typed this up before reaching their posts on the last page)

*Yes, I made this up just to make the number… but it seems logical that they might include something like Rain in their aspects given the other three. As for how to introduce it – simplest way would probably to make one weapon that represents the Zephyrites in some fashion, and equipping that weapon automatically changes your attunements and linked traits. Believe me, I’d love an opportunity to play a Zephyrite-inspired character, although the mobility would probably need to be toned down substantially…

On order skills:

I’d really prefer not to see skills locked behind orders – or at least, not permanently. For new players, that would raise the spectre of forcing the player to choose between what they want mechanically and what they want for roleplaying reasons, and philosophically I don’t think that’s a choice player’s should be made to make unless it’s deliberately intended as a Faustian compromise of virtue for power. Worse, for established players that have already committed to an order, it’d really suck to have the ideal skill go to a different order, particularly if your original order choice had come close to being a mental coin flip to begin with (as was the case for one of mine – one of my Vigil characters was literally chosen between that and the Priory based on HQ location, which is no longer a significant issue since we can now use the portal of any HQ to get to Fort Trinity).

I could certainly see some being easier for members of one order or another, but I’d rather not see skill access be gated behind something that many people would have decided on over a year ago, particularly for their mains.

On Nike’s thoughts regarding paying for skills or unlocking them through story: That was actually done in GW1 – you could pay for skill unlock packs (primarily beneficial for PvP and heroes).

Hi Draxynnic,

In my opinion this is an excellent focus/paradigm for the creation of sub-classes:

‘Treat it as a key, not a lock.’

Based on the way the professions were built for GW2 I don’t think we would treat sub classes any other way. However your reasoning and points are well made and serve as an excellent guide or talking point should we decide to explore Subclasses in the future.

Thanks,

Chris

#2890 - Jan. 13, 2014, 1:25 p.m.

zamalek.2154:

Gulesave.5073:

Current state of the “subclass” discussion:

Those points are a summary of only your suggestion, suggestions (regarding subclasses) I found since Bezagron’s previous summary :

• Septemptus posted about schools
• Chuggs talks about mastery and some unlock options
• Lheimroo suggested using personality traits to derive some form of subclass
• Tobias suggested using the orders as a subclass
• Nike suggests having a switchable trait line
• Nike asks about alts
• Chuggs Grand Journey
• My tweaks to Chuggs ideas

Unlock options:

• Some of the above suggestions involve unlocking as well
• Mikuchan gives 4 ideas and 5 more ideas
• Shiren suggested reusing insignia quests
• DarkWasps housing system
• timmyf’s order missions
• DiogoSilva talks about a new currency
• DiogoSilva’s mini-scenarios (Diogo goes more in-depth )
• adubb suggests making better use of dailies/monthlies
• My synergistic/free-form missions

Thanks both for providing design summaries. When discussions are this involved and threads are this long, initiatives like this really make entering the discussion much more accessible for Collaborators.

Many thanks,

Chris

#2913 - Jan. 13, 2014, 1:59 p.m.

Gaebriel.3754:

This got me thinking more on the following, some of which I already briefly mentioned in an earlier post:

Journey Challenge:
A mission directs you to an NPC scout (located at the zone’s entrance or one of the camps) to activate this mode. You remain in the open world, but this mode deactivates all waypoints in the zone and gives you several enemies to defeat and/or places to reach for clues, puzzles and the like. If you die, you will respawn at the scout’s location. That would inject some good old fashioned fear of dying into traveling. This Journey Challenge could be linked to a mission to unlock archetypes.

Additionally, this could be available for every zone as a zone completion challenge mode. You will have to discover the entire zone (again ..!), including the waypoint locations (though they are deactivated) to unlock your zone reward: a themed armour set as well as a page with the lore of the zone, added to your personal ingame Tyria encyclopaedia tab (as mentioned in my earlier post).

Players are rewarded with a title when they complete the Journey Challenges for a group of zones: all Kryta maps, all Ascalon maps, etc. A further title could be rewarded for completing all the zone challenges in the world.

So in short, Journey Challenges:

• Get players into the world and encourage them to traverse the various gorgeous environments of Tyria.
• Instil a sense of progression easily tracked by the already existing map completion meter, and offer a tangible reward for completing it.
• Expand on the Guild Wars 2 core gameplay elements with minimal alterations. The challenges are comprised of elements already in the game, with the exception of UI elements, rewards and deactivation of waypoints on a character basis.
• Could be challenging and potentially time-consuming depending on player skill, but very doable.
• Are fairly long term and give players something substantial to do (unless you’re super hardcore of course).
• Are entirely optional, but give access to titles, fashion and lore.

Hi Gaebriel,

I love how you start with a game play example and then list the mechanics of your design. This is a really good best working practice.

As a player I also really like the design and see it almost like a ‘Grail Quest’ in its most traditional and beloved sense. Something that Chrispy also alluded this design idea to, calling it a Pilgrimage to Enlightenment!

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/48#post3470419

It gets me really excited in terms of a thematic device for horizontal progression that could house a lot of ideas that have been put forward regarding utilization of existing and new content within zones.

I would add including LW into this wrapper however assuming we were able to solve the accessibility problem.

Good stuff!

Chris

#2916 - Jan. 13, 2014, 2:03 p.m.

Dreaude.9205:

This is my first post in the forums I believe and I am making it because of how much I have enjoyed reading all of your ideas and hope I can contribute to the discussion even in a small way.

I was thinking about the acquisition side of things, specifically the mission based ones revolving either around the orders or a kind of personal quest line to unlock/acquire the desired step in the progression.

I think player triggered dynamic events for single steps in the process of the unlocking could be one option.

DiogoSilva mentioned this in his mini-dungeons post except I am thinking the player currently pursuing mastery etc. would be the Only trigger as opposed to it being a timed event, or the result of an open dynamic event chain. To me, making it something more personal in scale.

As an example:
A character could receive notice of a dangerous risen enemy that has popped up in the Maguma Jungle and the Vigil has asked the Character, as a champion of the order, to go deal with it.

When the player arrives in the area of the report the player would specifically choose to trigger the event. It would be an open event in which other players in the area would receive a dynamic event notice for and can participate in.
The player would receive a completion for the, for lack of a better term, step and the other players participating could receive the usual dynamic event completion rewards.

To try and explain a little further; I was thinking of this simply as a mechanic in how the player could pursue the horizontal progression. I was not thinking of the full system of mechanics that would could be needed or used. I saw a few posts about the different variety of mission types and themes that the player could be required to complete to unlock skills, weapons, traits, armors etc. and I think this could be One way of doing those missions. It might not be for each step, but maybe as the culmination/end of a number of prior steps or the result of meeting certain conditions. One tool in the box so to speak.

The “player events” could not be limited to just Kill X creatures or kill Veteran Y but could use the exiting dynamic event styles such as escorts, collection, scavenger hunts etc. or possibly introduce new ones/hybrids such as a race between an NPC. Through gangs of enemies or not, possibly with a timer: “stop him before he reaches the ship or we’re sunk!”

Players participating in the “player event” could also receive some kind of reward relating to the horizontal progression the triggering player is working on. If for example all the steps are linear they could receive partial credit for that step, or perhaps unlock it for themselves. The dynamic event UI notice could also be updated to so say something to the effect of “CHARACTER NAME is fighting for their life – help them!”

Participation and completion of the player triggered events could also be used as a way to communicate to other players the existence of the horizontal progression that is available them in the future through the completion text. In the case of the Master suggestion, when the player receives their completion notice the text could read “You helped TRIGGERING PLAYER NAME defeat Oogalook The Wrathful and learn their prestige skill” or something to that effect.

One of the reasons this appeals to me is that it gets people, out in the world participating and working together which is one of my favorite things about GW2 and I myself would enjoy seeing that in the horizontal progression. It also has the feel of me affecting the world a little more in that I am making the event happen rather than me responding to the events of the world.

I don’t know what technical limitations this would come up against, or what ramifications this might result in play-wise for all players in the zones, but wanted to try and contribute.

Exciting idea that pulls and builds from the core of the social pillars in GW2.

Chris

#2926 - Jan. 13, 2014, 2:14 p.m.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

@Bezagron – Great work there, the links must have been incredibly finicky to get to work right. Taking time out to say great job with it! Someone remind me to tip him.

Agreed. Bezagron you do so much for the CDI thank you so much.

Chris

#2975 - Jan. 13, 2014, 3:53 p.m.

VOLKON.1290:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

VOLKON.1290:

Hey Chris, welcome back!

Although it’s not relevant to the progression system being discussed, have you seen the “Let the night be nighttime” thread yet? I added a thought in there as to how we could use making the dark darker to enhance the overall game play. It may be worth your read.

Thanks!

I saw it last night while I was reading the forums in bed but that was the one topic I didn’t read, sorry.

I will read it tonight but based on what you just said I am very intrigued and can imagine what the content will be (-:

Chris

Actually, look at this one instead People are starting to add some brilliantly creative ideas to it.

Ok will do.

Chris

#2984 - Jan. 13, 2014, 5:15 p.m.

Yoh.8469:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

VOLKON.1290:

Hey Chris, welcome back!

Although it’s not relevant to the progression system being discussed, have you seen the “Let the night be nighttime” thread yet? I added a thought in there as to how we could use making the dark darker to enhance the overall game play. It may be worth your read.

Thanks!

I saw it last night while I was reading the forums in bed but that was the one topic I didn’t read, sorry.

I will read it tonight but based on what you just said I am very intrigued and can imagine what the content will be (-:

Chris

Nah, don’t be too kitten yourself mate.
Trying to read through all of this is a full time job in and of itself. I just can’t keep up even with all the time I have, so your a bloody trooper to have been able to keep up.

Just don’t burn yourself out mate.

Thanks Yoh I appreciate your care and that of others, but the CDI is ultra important to GW2 and Arena, plus I really like being part of it all.

Chris

#2985 - Jan. 13, 2014, 5:18 p.m.

Chuggs.1682:

CHIPS.6018:

Basically it comes down to this:

GW1 kept players playing by having multiple alt-characters. It was super easy to level up and max equip a new character. This means newbies zones are rarely empty, because veteran players will be bringing their alts though those newbie zones. Most players have a decent understanding of multiple classes, because they played though them all.

WoW kept players playing by power creep. It takes a lot of time and effort to max equip just one character. And so everyone have to focus on one character, that’s it. The newbie zones are emptied out very quickly, because veteran players do not have time to play an alt. Since most players only ever play though 1 class, they often have great misunderstandings on other classes.

I personally prefer GW1’s method. And so it was disappointing to see GW2 going toward the WoW method.

That’s a great, succinct summary of the two extremes, but I think GW2 is a lot more nuanced than that. GW2 has tried to shorten the leveling curve from WOW greatly, and has given people more reasons to go back to early zones through the Sidekick system, living story, dynamic events, and world completion.

The allure of the GW2 world is that it is really a living world where new challenges erupt in old places, and those challenges can bring in players all along the experience curve.

GW2 has flattened the gear curve immensely, and expanded the world on offer to max level players to avoid the trap of MMO’s which are just “get on to raid” or “grind out reputation.”

The more GW2 can do to make itself utilize that world and expand the content in there, the more people are going to be happy with horizontal progression and new experiences, rather than chasing higher stat gear.

This is just such a positive loop that in turn impacts other core positive loops in the game that it is a given in terms of a goal.

‘The more GW2 can do to make itself utilize that world and expand the content in there, the more people are going to be happy with horizontal progression and new experiences, rather than chasing higher stat gear.’

Chris

#2986 - Jan. 13, 2014, 5:26 p.m.

Eli Stormstrike.8637:

Eli Stormstrike.8637:

CONTINUED…

ACCOUNT-BIND/SOULBOUND
To encourage alt’ing even further, I suggest that soulbound be removed whereever possible and be converted to account-bound; considering currencies are account-bound, there is no reason for us not to be able to use the same armor sets for our other characters, instead of having them purchase it again with the tokens grinded for on our mains.

DOUBLE SPECIALIZATION/TEMPLATE SYSTEM
The Template System that existed in GW1 saved alot of time, encouraged trying out different builds and easily allowed players who were inactive and returned to be able to become re-connected to the gameplay more easily through remembering and reading through the titles and compositions.

I see no reason for us not to implement such a system for our Traits and Skills, allowing us to re-specialize on the fly depending on the demands of the encounters before us.

WEAPON TYPE ACCESSIBILITY
I don’t see the reason for weapon types being restricted based on class and profession, and removing those restrictions might attract more people to different classes and give players an even broader sense of customization and progression.

I would, for example, love to see a Ranger able to use Rifles.

LEGENDARY DYES AND ACCOUNT-BINDING
This suggestion has been brought up before, I don’t recall where, but it’s yet another method of customization and cosmetic progression which is only positive.

First of all, Dyes should become account-bound on acquire, which would further ease and encourage alt’ing and be a simple quality-of-life update.

As for Legendary Dyes, the suggestion that was put forth was to add effects to the armor similar to those gotten from Legendary Weapons, with fogs and glowing effects added to the character and its armor.

DONE

Hi Eli,

I will be meeting with Izzy to discuss this proposal in detail. He will respond once we have had a chance to do so.

Chris

#2988 - Jan. 13, 2014, 5:33 p.m.

Signet of Forums.4397:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Zaoda.1653:

@ColinJohanson,

In regards to new weapon skills/unlocks, I think the way it worked in GW1 in terms of obtaining both normal and elite skills using the Signet of Capture was so unique and amazing. It was something I had never seen done before in any other game I had played, whereby you go around the world looking for specific bosses that have the elite that you want, and that boss had a particular glow depending on what profession it was – gold/yellow for warrior, cyan for ritualist, green for necromancer etc. you slayed that boss, and captured its elite when standing near its corpse. I felt like I had truly earnt that skill, and that to me is what it’s all about – true progression.

So something like a Signet of Capture concept where you can purchase, or get via a reward, and go around and collect weapon skills from bosses would be ideal – and would make you feel as though you truly earnt it.

You could even swap in, say, 10-20 skill points for a capture skill (as many have been wanting more ways to use excess skill points, this could be another way to use them up?)

Edit: another idea could be bringing back elite tomes? Just a thought anyway.

Hi Zaoda,

Absolutely, this is a simple and excellent system. Very elegant, and rewarding with a great sense of discovery.

Chris

Well, I didn’t think the part where you had to have the Signet of Capture already taking up the slot of one of your skills on your skill bar in advance was what I would call “elegant,” but it was interesting aside from that.

Hi,

I am referring to the system at it’s core level. If we were going to reintroduce the system we would evolve and polish it.

I hope this makes more sense.

Chris

#2991 - Jan. 13, 2014, 5:45 p.m.

Nike.2631:

BlizzShark.5410:

My opinion on Sub-class system is:

• The system works very well. Why? Can make professions a little more exclusive. Ex: Thief vs thief and both have different sub classes we can see 2 different play styles.

It makes me wonder where the game has gone wrong that people don’t realize WE ALREADY HAVE THIS. My Super Unicorn in all Settlers gear is an effective WvW Thief spec that doesn’t even go into stealth. A mantra healing Mesmer is completely unlike a Shatter-duelist spec.

• Sub-Classes could also be the way to add new weapons.

Or we could, just, you know… add them to the game and allow players to mix and match as their tastes and imagination prefer.

• Trait Templates – You could save a build to quick change if you are on wvw or pve and change if you are Out Of Combat.

So now I can set up my ‘groups of trash mobs smashing build’ and my ‘boss-killing build’, and sweep through dungeons even faster than before toggling the two because now I don’t have to make any strategic decisions at all… It doesn’t get much more vertical than that.

Horizontal progression design is hard, because you have to add cool to the game without appealing to the lust for naked POWER. Its hard, but its also worth it.

Excellent post Nike.

Your question here:

‘It makes me wonder where the game has gone wrong that people don’t realize WE ALREADY HAVE THIS. My Super Unicorn in all Settlers gear is an effective WvW Thief spec that doesn’t even go into stealth. A mantra healing Mesmer is completely unlike a Shatter-duelist spec.’

We don’t teach it well enough and therefore it is obfuscated to the point that players have already invested heavily in a particular role making experimentation in diversification less appealing (for a multitude of reasons).

Recently however we have been working kitten balance and situational role parity and bit by bit in game you can see player’s experimenting much more. This is a very good sign and will afford us a stronger foundation to build our content on moving forward.

Thus the timing around this topic is actually excellent.

Chris

#3000 - Jan. 13, 2014, 6:44 p.m.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Recently however we have been working kitten balance and situational role parity and bit by bit in game you can see player’s experimenting much more. This is a very good sign and will afford us a stronger foundation to build our content on moving forward.
Chris

Okay, what was it that got censored there?

‘kitten’ maybe? (-: Not sure but it adds comedy value so i am going to leave it (-:

Chris

#3002 - Jan. 13, 2014, 6:45 p.m.

StriderShinryu.6923:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Recently however we have been working kitten balance and situational role parity and bit by bit in game you can see player’s experimenting much more. This is a very good sign and will afford us a stronger foundation to build our content on moving forward.
Chris

Okay, what was it that got censored there?

What do you mean? They really are working on the balance of kittens throughout the game. Personally, I think more kittens in all areas of the world would certainly make for a solid horizontal progression system I could enjoy.

. (-:

Chris

#3020 - Jan. 13, 2014, 8:09 p.m.

Hi All,

Here is the proposal I believe we are making, please discuss and let me know if anything should be added or removed. Note many of us have read the thread internally and thus there has already been valuable impact.

Our Horizontal Progression Proposal

The Reward and Associated Journey

— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing (Customizable from rewards gained in the open world), Guild Halls (Customizable from mass play rewards) and Map Wide Meta events unlocked through Faction progression (Leading to both individual and group rewards such as titles and skins)

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

— Hero Recognition (Reward) is a by product of the above two types of Horizontal Progression leading to Unique Skins, Titles, Rewards, followers and NPC reactions/opportunities based on the players individual feats in the world of Tyria regardless of how he/she chooses to play the game.

Global Rule Proposal governing the above:

- Where possible use the above design paradigm to reinforce and evolve the existing world.
- Players should be able to have multiple methods of achieving ‘Grail Quests’, rather than a section of the journey being based on Jumping Puzzles and that alone for example.
-A reworked (cleaner) version of Signet of Capture would work very well for Role Diversification.
- Sub-classes will be discussed again in a CDI once Arena finishes its current balance work in regard to roles.
- QOL features such as a wardrobe should support this global design.

Once we have discussed the proposal and the thread reaches conclusion we will sticky it and move onto CDI Process Evolution Phase 2.

Thank you all so much for your hard work and your passion toward making GW2 awesome. This has been a really good CDI and I want to thank you on behalf of Arena for caring so much about the world we love.

Chris

#3028 - Jan. 13, 2014, 8:38 p.m.

Nike.2631:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

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

darkace.8925:

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

That threw up some flags for me too.

Chris, and you clarify your terms “Zone Dominance” and “Grail Quests” please?

I have updated the proposal.

Chris

#3030 - Jan. 13, 2014, 8:48 p.m.

Nike.2631:

Shriketalon.1937:

The problem is not teaching the system, it’s challenging the players. Most of the content in this game consists of very crude opponents, mindless melee monsters who stroll towards the player or imbecilic ranged enemies who stand still while someone bashes them in the face. Likewise, most monsters have one single cooldown skill, a rather pathetic lack of resources.

Quoted for truth.

And really, the dumber monster AI is the more often you get calls to split skills between PvE and PvP behaviors. The effort spent making smarter, nastier, more vicious critters pays off double in the less you have to manage parallel skills between gameplay modes.

City of Heroes (may it soar forever in our hearts) was an EXTREME example of this: healing didn’t generate agro so healers could stand completely naked healing at full-blast in the midst of a mass melee and would be ignored by critters until every other party-member was dead. This lead to Devs ignoring giving healing classes any sort of active defense as part of their class. Now pop them into PvP where the universal battlecry is “KILL THE HEALER FIRST” and let me tell you: playing a healer in PvP in that game sucked donkey hindquarters. And they WOULD NOT FIX IT because ‘hey, healers are fine (in PvE)’…

I spoke with their lead designer about it a few times. He didn’t seem to appreciate my suggestion~

“Have healing cause substantial agro in PvE – then when you get a hundred thousand players screaming that healers are unplayable (or rather as unplayable as they are already in PvP…) maybe you’ll feel empowered to fix the root problem …”

I’d really like to see healing others in GW2 generating massive agro, because if monsters don’t respond to it, the fight’s already over. Similarly some mobs that are justifiably smarter in-game should clearly prioritize taking the weakest player down… and then prioritize ending them. Embers are about the only trash monster in the game I respect in group-play, and that’s because they almost coincidentally finish off downed players with their fire fields.

And this is not a call for the (un)holy trinity. The trinity is also based on BAD agro behavior. There is a reason the MMO-tank doesn’t exist in the real world: it is based on the attacker’s complete stupidity. You don’t attack the lowest threat + highest mitigation target first (without arbitrary mind-control… er, ‘taunts’). Games that rely on tanks as a role end up having to do backflips trying to make them relevant in PvP. Again: dumb monsters prompting dumb classes that fall apart when faced with human opponents.

Instead this is the call for more relevant Support and Control. If Critters were actually dangerous, there would be a place for helping the “priority target” survive either by healing/defensively buffing them (Support) or by debuffing or CCing the attackers (Control).

The issue of unsatisfying role balance is something to be laid at the feet of the AI design as much or more than any inequity on the player skill choices side.

I want us to get the role balance paradigm just right providing a solid foundation to interact with before turning up the heat in terms of AI behavior. I believe and know this to be a prerequisite.

I can’t really go into much more detail than this.

Chris

#3032 - Jan. 13, 2014, 8:56 p.m.

darkace.8925:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

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

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

HI Dark,

I have updated the proposal to give more exposition in those areas.

Chris

#3072 - Jan. 14, 2014, 12:44 a.m.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

Here is the proposal I believe we are making, please discuss and let me know if anything should be added or removed. Note many of us have read the thread internally and thus there has already been valuable impact.

Our Horizontal Progression Proposal

The Reward and Associated Journey

— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing (Customizable from rewards gained in the open world), Guild Halls (Customizable from mass play rewards) and Map Wide Meta events unlocked through Faction progression (Leading to both individual and group rewards such as titles and skins)

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

— Hero Recognition (Reward) is a by product of the above two types of Horizontal Progression leading to Unique Skins, Titles, Rewards, followers and NPC reactions/opportunities based on the players individual feats in the world of Tyria regardless of how he/she chooses to play the game.

Global Rule Proposal governing the above:

- Where possible use the above design paradigm to reinforce and evolve the existing world.
- Players should be able to have multiple methods of achieving ‘Grail Quests’, rather than a section of the journey being based on Jumping Puzzles and that alone for example.
-A reworked (cleaner) version of Signet of Capture would work very well for Role Diversification.
- Sub-classes will be discussed again in a CDI once Arena finishes its current balance work in regard to roles.
- QOL features such as a wardrobe should support this global design.

Once we have discussed the proposal and the thread reaches conclusion we will sticky it and move onto CDI Process Evolution Phase 2.

Note this is the formulation of a collaborative proposal for discussion. Once the proposal is finalized it will be discussed internally. However there will be no promise of associated actions or schedule.

Thank you all so much for your hard work and your passion toward making GW2 awesome. This has been a really good CDI and I want to thank you on behalf of Arena for caring so much about the world we love.

Chris

Bump. The following reminder added:

Note this is the formulation of a collaborative proposal for discussion. Once the proposal is finalized it will be discussed internally. However there will be no promise of associated actions or schedule.

Chris

#3165 - Jan. 14, 2014, 12:57 p.m.

The Lost Witch.7601:

I would like to add one thing to this proposal that has been well-received earlier on in the thread.

(This could be just a QOL feature, but in my opinion an important one)

• More customisation options regarding our armor and weapons. (Things that came up in this regard were: pattern dyes, texture options (other types of wood and different metal polishes), customizeable features like long sleeves vs short sleeves, emblem design, that sort of stuff.

This falls under hero-recognition, but is a bit different than just adding new skins.

---

Regarding the AI first or class balance first discussion:

Let’s say we change the AI and the encounters to require more healing. Currently not all classes are equally able to heal. So this might lead to ‘forced’ group compositions, something GW2 seems to be very keen on avoiding.

They would have to change class balance with the upcoming AI-change in mind. But releasing the new AI before setting the balance right… could lead to a few months of frustration as the devs are trying to get the balance right.

On the other hand, without new AI to test on… how can you set the balance right?

The best would be a simultaneous effort, but with such a big game… it may be impossible to set aside enough resources to work on these simultaneously without rushing other content.

I guess they will need to do some guesswork with class balance keeping AI changes in mind, and be prepared to update it shortly after AI improvements come through.

Thanks Lost. I will add this to the proposal

Chris

#3166 - Jan. 14, 2014, 1:06 p.m.

Devata.6589:

Mimizu.7340:

I see so many animals in the game that I would like to charm into a ranger pet yet the game only allows me a small portion of them.

Ranger pets need expanding to include all the working animals in the game.

I would like a Stag pet, for example.

(and i miss the zoo island from gw)

That is one of the elements I touched on with the RP part of horizontel progression here: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/63#post3494474

It´s not yet on the proposal list. Hope Chris will adds that soon. Think the RP (or casual or whatever you name it) horizontal progression is pretty much non-existing in GW2 and it could make huge steps there.

Can you put a short proposal together for the CDI group to discuss please?

Chris

#3167 - Jan. 14, 2014, 1:08 p.m.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi All,

Here is the proposal I believe we are making, please discuss and let me know if anything should be added or removed. Note many of us have read the thread internally and thus there has already been valuable impact.

Our Horizontal Progression Proposal

The Reward and Associated Journey

— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing (Customizable from rewards gained in the open world), Guild Halls (Customizable from mass play rewards) and Map Wide Meta events unlocked through Faction progression (Leading to both individual and group rewards such as titles and skins)

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

— Hero Recognition (Reward) is a by product of the above two types of Horizontal Progression leading to Unique Skins, Titles, Rewards, followers and NPC reactions/opportunities based on the players individual feats in the world of Tyria regardless of how he/she chooses to play the game.

Global Rule Proposal governing the above:

- Where possible use the above design paradigm to reinforce and evolve the existing world.
- Players should be able to have multiple methods of achieving ‘Grail Quests’, rather than a section of the journey being based on Jumping Puzzles and that alone for example.
-A reworked (cleaner) version of Signet of Capture would work very well for Role Diversification.
- Sub-classes will be discussed again in a CDI once Arena finishes its current balance work in regard to roles.
- QOL features such as a wardrobe should support this global design.
- QOL: More customization options regarding our armor and weapons. (Things that came up in this regard were: pattern dyes, texture options (other types of wood and different metal polishes), customizeable features like long sleeves vs short sleeves, emblem design.

Once we have discussed the proposal and the thread reaches conclusion we will sticky it and move onto CDI Process Evolution Phase 2.

Note this is the formulation of a collaborative proposal for discussion. Once the proposal is finalized it will be discussed internally. However there will be no promise of associated actions or schedule.

Thank you all so much for your hard work and your passion toward making GW2 awesome. This has been a really good CDI and I want to thank you on behalf of Arena for caring so much about the world we love.

Here is a write up about the current CDI from Anatoli at Massively:

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/01/14/flameseeker-chronicles-taking-guild-wars-2-job-specialization-t/

Chris

Bump. I will bump the proposal once more tomorrow and then sticky the thread (-:

Chris

#3181 - Jan. 14, 2014, 2:51 p.m.

Hi All,

Here is a write up about the current CDI from Anatoli at Massively:

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/01/14/flameseeker-chronicles-taking-guild-wars-2-job-specialization-t/

I will add it to the proposal post.

Chris

#3190 - Jan. 14, 2014, 3:26 p.m.

By the way moving forward (and we can discuss this in the CDI Process Evolution topic) I would like you guys to nominate someone to build the Proposal on behalf of us all.

Due to the Red Swash on the left it seems some are getting confused with Promise vs. Proposal and I just think it would be healthy to do it this way anyway.

Chris

#3191 - Jan. 14, 2014, 3:28 p.m.

brittitude.1983:

darkace.8925:

Rigultru.3597:

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

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

I think this is a really good idea. I think some aspects might be part of HP, but there are a lot of things people want that Chris said are QOL and even more things that seem to be less about progression than about immersion.

I think this is a good idea.

Chris

#3197 - Jan. 14, 2014, 4:02 p.m.

Chrispy.5641:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

By the way moving forward (and we can discuss this in the CDI Process Evolution topic) I would like you guys to nominate someone to build the Proposal on behalf of us all.

Due to the Red Swash on the left it seems some are getting confused with Promise vs. Proposal and I just think it would be healthy to do it this way anyway.

Chris

I Nominate Bezagron if he’s up for it. He’s managed to stay mostly neutral this whole thread when he was writing those summaries. Not only that, but he somehow managed to read every single post in this thread and come up with a 1 sentence summary on almost every single suggestion/proposal in this thread. That’s just crazy and awesome at the same time!

Also, I took screenshots incase a player tries to say that “Kitten Anet broke their promises to add (housing)!!!!”

Hugs.

Chris

#3232 - Jan. 15, 2014, 1:30 a.m.

The Lost Witch.7601:

Perhaps you should give some details as to what a proposal means Chris?

---

My impression as to what the proposal is:

The proposal is an attempt to collect the most important and interesting ideas from the thread in one post.

Which is important for the following reasons:

• Players can check if their ideas have landed, or if they may have been overlooked.
• Devs get an overview of everything that has been mentioned here. Which makes it easier to remember some ideas and view the bigger picture.
• Summarizing forces the writer to sharpen the thoughts. Which results in clean, though broad ideas that are more easy for everyone to understand.
• It can be used to check if everyone (or almost everyone) agrees with the ideas mentioned. (This is vital!)

As for what the proposal is not:

• It is not a promise.
• It is not a complete summary.
• It is not a guideline.
• It is not just a wish.
• It is not a substitute for the entire thread.

I imagine the proposal to be on the wall at the arenanet office, and at quite a few desks. And in addition to that, there are probably a lot of notes flying around regarding ideas mentioned in this thread.

---

Which brings me to another point:

Chris, in the future, please do not rename threads. (This one was split into vertical and horizontal through the name) It breaks all the links. And when the thread is closed, the links can’t be fixed anymore. Renaming the thread again to it’s original title would break all the links made after the first name change.

The summaries that have been made could be of use to find important ideas that you and other devs may remember. But they rely on links. So please do not rename the CDI’s.

(If you are willing to reopen the vertical progression thread I could probably fix the links. Just let me know if you think it would help and when it would be open.)

Hi The Lost Witch,

I understand your frustration. However as far as I recall I didn’t change anything. I will look into this when i get into work tomorrow morning.

Chris

#3233 - Jan. 15, 2014, 1:32 a.m.

StriderShinryu.6923:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

By the way moving forward (and we can discuss this in the CDI Process Evolution topic) I would like you guys to nominate someone to build the Proposal on behalf of us all.

Due to the Red Swash on the left it seems some are getting confused with Promise vs. Proposal and I just think it would be healthy to do it this way anyway.

Chris

Ouch.. not a fan of this at all. There already appears to be some favour in terms of who gets responses and who doesn’t (not that it isn’t already warranted). I’d hate to see how things turn out if one person gets elected as the spokesperson and other just as worthy nominees don’t. This sort of system is just asking for trouble.

I understand. Let’s discuss it in the process evolution CDI and go from there and I will explain the full reasoning around it.

Chris

#3234 - Jan. 15, 2014, 1:32 a.m.

Gulesave.5073:

Quick reminder: this thread is now focused on narrowing down guidelines for a general proposal to the development team. Once that is done in the next day or so, the whole thread will be closed and stickied.

For any topics that have been bumped out—such as subclasses, fractal levels, skin locker, &c.—it is recommendable to find or open a new thread in the relevant sub-forum.

+1

Chris

#3235 - Jan. 15, 2014, 1:36 a.m.

Here is the proposal I believe we are making, please discuss and let me know if anything should be added or removed. Note many of us have read the thread internally and thus there has already been valuable impact.

Our Horizontal Progression Proposal

The Reward and Associated Journey

— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing (Customizable from rewards gained in the open world), Guild Halls (Customizable from mass play rewards) and Map Wide Meta events unlocked through Order progression (Leading to both individual and group rewards such as titles and skins)

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

— Hero Recognition (Reward) is a by product of the above two types of Horizontal Progression leading to Unique Skins, Titles, Rewards, followers and NPC reactions/opportunities based on the players individual feats in the world of Tyria regardless of how he/she chooses to play the game.

Global Rule Proposal governing the above:

- Where possible use the above design paradigm to reinforce and evolve the existing world.
- Players should be able to have multiple methods of achieving ‘Grail Quests’, rather than a section of the journey being based on Jumping Puzzles and that alone for example.
-A reworked (cleaner) version of Signet of Capture would work very well for Role Diversification.
- Sub-classes will be discussed again in a CDI once Arena finishes its current balance work in regard to roles.
- QOL features such as a wardrobe should support this global design.
- QOL: More customization options regarding our armor and weapons. (Things that came up in this regard were: pattern dyes, texture options (other types of wood and different metal polishes), customizeable features like long sleeves vs short sleeves, emblem design.

Once we have discussed the proposal and the thread reaches conclusion we will sticky it and move onto CDI Process Evolution Phase 2.

Note this is the formulation of a collaborative proposal for discussion. Once the proposal is finalized it will be discussed internally. However there will be no promise of associated actions or schedule.

Thank you all so much for your hard work and your passion toward making GW2 awesome. This has been a really good CDI and I want to thank you on behalf of Arena for caring so much about the world we love.

Here is a write up about the current CDI from Anatoli at Massively:

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/01/14/flameseeker-chronicles-taking-guild-wars-2-job-specialization-t/

Chris

Updated proposal.

Change Log

Terminology Change: Faction to Order.

Chris

#3237 - Jan. 15, 2014, 1:51 a.m.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

@Chris

Looks good, don’t see anything to correct on it.

I’ll be working up something for the “subclass CDI” whenever it comes out. Any idea on what the next one is so I can start studying?

I think we should discuss that in the CDI Process Evolution Phase 2 which will start on Wednesday 22nd. Among other things we need to chat about what topics to discuss in the next CDIs and how to go about choosing them. I would personally like to have a week long PVE CDI on Fractals next (Running in conjunction with a PvP and WvW CDI) but we should discuss it as a group first.

Chris

#3239 - Jan. 15, 2014, 2:04 a.m.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

@Chris

Looks good, don’t see anything to correct on it.

I’ll be working up something for the “subclass CDI” whenever it comes out. Any idea on what the next one is so I can start studying?

I think we should discuss that in the CDI Process Evolution Phase 2 which will start on Wednesday 22nd. Among other things we need to chat about what topics to discuss in the next CDIs and how to go about choosing them. I would personally like to have a week long PVE CDI on Fractals next (Running in conjunction with a PvP and WvW CDI) but we should discuss it as a group first.

Chris

On all those topics, I have no knowledge (PvP), limited knowledge (Fractals), or only amateur knowledge (WvW) so I’ll likely be quiet in whatever topic we wind up doing

See you on the 22nd for the discussion then, though. I’m off to go work some other ideas up.

Awesome, see you then Tobias. And I am pretty sure that any CDI member at this point would be a benefit to any CDI topic moving forward.

Chris

#3265 - Jan. 15, 2014, 12:28 p.m.

Nike.2631:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Here is the proposal I believe we are making, please discuss and let me know if anything should be added or removed.

Several Questions:

Do you want to us to actively gather QoL changes proposed/discovered/refined in this thread as part of this proposal? Many of them serve to showcase progress along horizontal goals such as collecting mini-pets leading to a mini-pet slot to facilitate their display. I see a couple of them in the proposal now, but that section is far from comprehensive.

What is the desired level of detail for the discussion points of the proposal and should we assume the team has already done a cursory scan of this thread? In other words how much should we care about the specifics of our proposals being reflected in the proposal document? For example while I’m happy the essence of The New Masters has been incorporated, some of the nuances like ensuring that all five player races receive similar representation among the NPCs used to mediate the Journeys have been lost in translation . Would it be better for me to pull those kinds of details out as bullet points and re-present them?

((On some levels I’m concerned how much brainsweat we may have wasted exploring the fine details if the team will only see a summary of a summary of our contributions…))

Thank you for any insights you can share.

The level of detail is great the way it is. We read the posts and note micro suggestions in terms of the level of detail in rewards for example. This is why I don’t add specific reward types or skills in the proposal.

Chris

#3266 - Jan. 15, 2014, 12:40 p.m.

VOLKON.1290:

I’m going to toss a new idea in here even though the proposal is already out there because… well, because I just thought of it… sorry Chris. It may seem a little strange (and feels a little strange to me to be honest) but it feels like a potential horizontal progression path…

Right now with the Living Story we’re seeing a changing of the guard as far as the heroes of Tyria go. Destiny’s Edge is settled back into non-guild, non-adventurer life with some influence and we’re seeing the latest quintet of Braham, Rox, Marjory, Kasmeer and soon the new Asura who seems about to become significant as well. To me, this could be the beginning of a new guild similar to Destiny’s Edge. I think that I think it would be interesting if, through the Living Story, players could also become a part of that guild and somehow through their actions and accomplishments in the LS progress along a path to possible rewards, unlocks, etc.

Conceptually it’s still a bit vague, I just thought of it, but possibly there could be skills or traits unlocked, unique weapon or armor skins, minipets, items to display in a housing environment (guild emblem or crest for example), etc.

It’s a fledgling idea, but there you go.

Yep this is a really cool idea. Something we have been thinking about and something I am unable to comment on.

Feel free to explore it among yourselves though.

Chris

#3267 - Jan. 15, 2014, 12:43 p.m.

Jandopo.2107:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

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

Pardon me for asking this again, but by “New Weapons” do you mean “New Weapon Skills” or “New Weapon Types”? Because…

I think New Weapons Types should be available from the start, and not after completing a challenge.
I mean, if Halberds are suddenly added to the game, I’d like to try them immediately. Also, I would expect new weapons to be easily available to low-level characters.

Thank you for reading.

We would discuss both. Sorry for not getting back to you sooner.

Chris

#3268 - Jan. 15, 2014, 12:45 p.m.

Devata.6589:

I had a list compiled of RP elements talked about in this thread. Pets being one of them, another being the way or acquiring items like ‘fun items’, mini’s, dyes, mounts, recipe’s and so on. Another element went into fun crafts and the last went into NPC interaction for exploration and acquiring things.

I did try to put that down as a proposal around RP elements as all of these elements had been talked about in this thread before.

Maybe it’s because of my lacking skill of setting up a proposal but what happened in stead is that the person interested in pets went on to talk about that, the person interested in fun-crafts went to talk about that and so on. But as this thread is ending I think it’s important to now make a complete proposal for that whole RP part of HP in stead of going into the details again.

Here you can find me trying to set up the proposal: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/64#post3495708

Here I define the ‘dynamic catching of pets’ a little better: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal/page/64#post3496209

We can put links in a proposal so devs can also read the details back. But it’s time that this gets packed into a good proposal. So we can move on. Devs will always be able to come back here to see more details.

Thanks Devata.

Chris

#3272 - Jan. 15, 2014, 1:11 p.m.

LittleLepton.8915:

Hi Chris, could you comment on this? It would be very helpful ^^

J Eberle.9312:

Hello Chris.

…

So in all seriousness, we could use some feedback. It’s great that you are willing to discuss fractals, but could we possibly include all dungeons in this discussion? Along with possibly the discussion of new/upcoming dungeons?

One point I want to ask the CDI group for help in is just the size of the threads and their accessibility in regard to this. The larger the thread, the harder to engage properly and the lower the value impact on the game.

With this in mind I am worried that having any CDI topic be to big is that it is going to lead to dis-economies of scale. Therefore this is something we should discuss in the Process Evolution CDI. On top of this it is not OK for me to just pick the topic of discussion currently and therefore whilst I would like to discuss Fractals next, that doesn’t mean that this will be the case.

We can discuss further in the next CDI. Meanwhile let’s concentrate on finishing of this CDI topic please.

Chris

#3275 - Jan. 15, 2014, 1:28 p.m.

darkace.8925:

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

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

Chris

#3278 - Jan. 15, 2014, 1:41 p.m.

darkace.8925:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

darkace.8925:

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

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

Chris

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

No need to apologies Dark and thanks for clarifying.

Chris

#3279 - Jan. 15, 2014, 1:43 p.m.

Romo.3709:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

darkace.8925:

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

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

Chris

I was also wondering since apparently the team members are following the CDI (at least in general) what do you do with the said proposal?
I mean it’s not a promise list or a wish list. Is it more of a discussion list? And if so, how much discussion do you guys bring to the table? Is every member prepared with some kind of basic background information about the topic before the discussion starts? Or do you guys sit down and bring it up and brainstorm? If that’s the case, isn’t more detailed proposal needed to show what has been discussed and how it was met with others responses?
I’m not questioning you guys or saying that you do not follow CDI, I’m just interested who’s the proposal for and how does the whole thing work.

Hi Romo,

This video answers a lot of your questions as long as you have the time to spare (-:

http://www.guildwars2hub.com/features/interviews/exclusive-video-interview-chris-whiteside-cdis

Chris

#3307 - Jan. 15, 2014, 6:21 p.m.

Nike.2631:

Snip

Horizontal Progression CDI: Our Proposal

PRINCIPLES
- Where possible new content should refresh and evolve the existing world.
- Players need multiple paths when pursuing mechanically significant rewards, respecting all major modes of play and play-styles within those modes (i.e. jump puzzles vs. combat).
- Secondary cosmetic rewards (titles, weapon skins, mini-pets, town cloths, furnishings) can be tied to unique feats to enhance the prestige to those feats. Primary cosmetic features (armor, faces, hairstyles) are not advised in this role. Example: The mini-Liadri the Concealing Dark specifically announces the player’s mastery of the Queen’s Guantlet.
- Be inclusive, respecting all in-games choices such as character race, profession, Personality, and Order. Example: if new Racial Dances are introduced, make sure all 5 races have a new dance to seek out.
- Consider Quality of Life improvements that communicate progress to the player, organize goal selection, and showcase the results of their effort. Example: The PvP Locker allow players to quickly review what they have, what they might still want, and enables them to flaunt what they have already accomplished.

REWARDS and THE JOURNEY

— Building Identity: Giving players more say in how the world of Tyria and their fellow players see them.

• Trophies & Recognition. Unique Skins, Ranger Pet Skins, Titles, Rewards, followers and NPC reactions/opportunities based on the player’s individual feats or the completion of major multi-stage tasks in the world of Tyria.
• Choice & Consequence. More NPC dialogue that responds to the player’s Personality, Race, or Profession. Alternate animations or utterances that convey Personality. May also unlock ‘shortcuts and side-paths’ with minor opportunities to simplify challenges or reap additional rewards based on these choices.
• Player Housing. Customizable personal spaces displaying ‘furnishings’. Furnishing can be acquired across a wide range of activities, including most existing currencies, but particular emphasis on Open World activities (critter drops, Event rewards)
• Guild Halls. Shared, large-scale spaces which can house personal furnishing and special guild-specific items. These items reflect success in mass-play activities or pooling huge amounts of currency beyond the means of most individual players.
• Order Progression. Strongly thematic rewards based on repeated service to the Order’s Goals, including titles, skins, lore, emotes, furnishings, utterances (“For the Vigil!”), and NPC dialogue. Order progression also allows players to unlock new large-scale events for themselves and others, reflecting the order’s interests & with flavorful rewards.
• Public Monuments. Permanent or rotating open world sites for recognition of players. Populated by server-specific competitive achievements like server firsts or potlatch-challenges.
• Personal Resources. Continuing growth of the Home neighborhoods as a ‘private garden’ of crafting nodes and possible cheap/fast travel hub.

— Role Diversification: Giving players more options when creating their build.

• Grail Quests. Personal rights of passage through open world adventures, testing the player in combat, discovery, and puzzle solving. Once activated by the player others can join in the activities for basic rewards, while the central Hero earns New skills/traits, previously locked weapons/new weapon skills, or new Ranger companions.
• Item upgrades review and expansion. Rebalancing unpopular Runes, Sigils, and Infusions to promote greater variety of builds. Introducing new upgrades as both specialized rewards and new crafting opportunities.

FOR FUTURE DISCUSSION

— Sub-classes will be discussed in a later CDI, timed for maximum advantage in light of currently ongoing Skill and Balance changes.
— Entirely new end-game activities like Polymock and their supporting progression systems.
— Fractals. where we are now, what can be improved, new shards to conquer, redressing inequities from the transition to the new scaling system.
— More personal customization options regarding armor and weapons. Includes pattern dyes, texture options (other types of wood and different metal polishes), customizable features like long sleeves vs. short sleeves, emblem design.

Hi Nike,

Thanks for taking a crack, it is certainly well formatted and easily digestible.

I am still thinking in regard to how you have built/focused your proposal but my initial thoughts are that it is to much like a design document from a micro standpoint.

The proposal should allow room for maneuver from a design standpoint and should be more goal focused from a macro standpoint.

I will think on it more and am excited by your show of initiative here.

Chris

#3308 - Jan. 15, 2014, 6:24 p.m.

Bezagron.7352:

Hi Chris
Just looking at;

Chris Whiteside.6102:

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

Chris

And wondering about roles. Other then build content (weapons skills, skills, traits, armour etc..) not much else across the game affects roles. We made all these choices across the game like;

• Play in sPvP or WvW or PvE.
• sPvP – Custom, Solo or Team arena.
• Specialise in WvW ranks (Mastering Ram, Arrowcart..) become a Commander.
• PvE – Dungeons, FotM, Open world events.
• Crafting

I find myself agreeing with Devata looking for involvement of RP elements in HP and specifically RP elements for role gameplay in events & encounters. Tying overall game journey (Eg. sPvP ranks, WvW ranks, Crafting levels achievements etc..) into everyday gameplay interactions and journeys. This could open up event & encounter options tied to players overall game journey that allow other paths & choices to complete these events & encounters. Similar to the options given to players in Scarlet’s secret room at the Top of the Nightmare Tower (Solve the puzzles or choices to fight).

I think the proposal might be missing these RP elements other then that I think the proposal’s great Chris. Looking forward to seeing you all in CDI Process Evolution Phase 2.

Yep still thinking about this. Personally I feel it is implied but if you guys don’t then it clearly isn’t (-:

Chris

#3309 - Jan. 15, 2014, 6:28 p.m.

Bezagron.7352:

Also just letting everyone know I will not be covering any more summarises. So 53-58 will be my last one for this topic. Hoped they help and next time I jump in summarising I’ll look at improvements and staying a bit more up to date. Any feedback would be great (Maybe in the Evolution CDI). Chris would summarising and/or ways to improve summarising be part of CDI Process Evolution Phase 2.

Hi Bez,

Regarding:

‘Chris would summarising and/or ways to improve summarising be part of CDI Process Evolution Phase 2.[/quote]’

That would be great.

Chris

#3333 - Jan. 16, 2014, 12:12 p.m.

Hi All,

Thanks for all of your feedback. The stakeholders have been sent the proposal (and have already been impacted by the conversation anyway, which is the most important element). Note the RP elements are not lost on me.

As such we will be stickying this thread and will be opening up Process Evolution Phase 2 on the 22nd of Jan.

Thank you all so much for you contributions to the topic and also for helping to shape the best working practices of the CDI.

We are starting to get there as a collaborative design group.

Here is the proposal:

Our Horizontal Progression Proposal
The Reward and Associated Journey

— Sociopolitical Diversification: Player housing (Customizable from rewards gained in the open world), Guild Halls (Customizable from mass play rewards) and Map Wide Meta events unlocked through Order progression (Leading to both individual and group rewards such as titles and skins)
— Role Diversification: ‘Grail Quest’ (Personal rights of passage) style adventures through the open world (testing the player in combat, discovery, and puzzle solving) which others can engage in once the activities are activated which could reward the Hero with New skills/traits, new weapons, access to inaccessible existing weapons, and infusions.
— Hero Recognition (Reward) is a by product of the above two types of Horizontal Progression leading to Unique Skins, Titles, Rewards, followers and NPC reactions/opportunities based on the players individual feats in the world of Tyria regardless of how he/she chooses to play the game.

Global Rule Proposal governing the above:

- Where possible use the above design paradigm to reinforce and evolve the existing world.
- Players should be able to have multiple methods of achieving ‘Grail Quests’, rather than a section of the journey being based on Jumping Puzzles and that alone for example.
-A reworked (cleaner) version of Signet of Capture would work very well for Role Diversification.
- Sub-classes will be discussed again in a CDI once Arena finishes its current balance work in regard to roles.
- QOL features such as a wardrobe should support this global design.
- QOL: More customization options regarding our armor and weapons. (Things that came up in this regard were: pattern dyes, texture options (other types of wood and different metal polishes), customizeable features like long sleeves vs short sleeves, emblem design.

Note this is the formulation of a collaborative proposal for discussion. Once the proposal is finalized it will be discussed internally. However there will be no promise of associated actions or schedule.

Thank you all so much for your hard work and your passion toward making GW2 awesome. This has been a really good CDI and I want to thank you on behalf of Arena for caring so much about the world we love.

Here is a write up about the current CDI from Anatoli at Massively:

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/01/14/flameseeker-chronicles-taking-guild-wars-2-job-specialization-t/

Chris

#3336 - Jan. 16, 2014, 12:44 p.m.

Nike.2631:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Here is the proposal:

Ooof. Nothing I wrote was usable to improve the proposal .

Other people have said they feel like they have a good grasp of what you’re looking for. Hopefully you or they can provide further examples. I’m evidently on the wrong track.

Nike your proposal was excellent but was to micro in my opinion for the CDI. Proposal to the team should be more goal oriented with micro examples to reinforce the goal.

The formatting, verbiage, details were all excellent. The delivery focus however is not quite right.

Let’s talk on Skype so I can explain in more detail.

Chris

#3337 - Jan. 16, 2014, 12:45 p.m.

Malchior.5042:

Fantastic, Chris! Thanks for being so open to the community and for being the front-runner on Anet’s side of the CDI.

BTW, I sent you a PM regarding an idea for the next CDI. I imagine your inbox is stuffed with them, but when you get a chance and can send a response, I’d appreciate it.

Thanks for being so collaborative with us and helping to make the game the very best it can be. I think the CDI is awesome and it is nothing without all of your hard work.

Chris

P.S: I intend to catch up on my inbox this weekend (-: