How Guild Wars 2 CAN keep you playing!

[Nazferatwo.1764]

after war eternal, i would say i want more GW2... and i want to see cantha happen, with Tengu as playable race.

[Chasind.3128]

@Kylden Ar.3724 said:

@"Chasind.3128" said:There is no character progression or anything you do in this game that is actually impactful. Anet wanted it this way so casual players wouldn't worry about "grinding" to constantly keep up with gear changes.

That's something they got right in the designs.

Yes, I was just stating a fact about the game. All of content in gw2 is fairly easy, & simple even the time gated ones- Once you've done all you can do, just log in at reset & do time-gate event/ daily & that's gw2

[Leo G.4501]

@Nazferatwo.1764 said:after war eternal, i would say i want more GW2... and i want to see cantha happen, with Tengu as playable race.

A new playable race would definitely get me back to playing GW2 as I just enjoyed playing most aspects of the game for the joy of playing...

...but in the meantime, I HAVE MY CITY OF HEROES BACK!

So I can wait :astonished:

[Nazferatwo.1764]

@Leo G.4501 said:

@"Nazferatwo.1764" said:after war eternal, i would say i want more GW2... and i want to see cantha happen, with Tengu as playable race.

A new playable race would definitely get me back to playing GW2 as I just enjoyed playing most aspects of the game for the joy of playing...

...but in the meantime, I HAVE MY CITY OF HEROES BACK!

So I can wait :astonished:

haha, COH i plan to start that soon...but on GW2 topic, if motivated players like you and me spread the word, it will happen.after all, what is behind the walls of the tengu city ?i know when eye of the north came out, there was a hole that linked all three lands. cantha,elona and tyria.and it was located somewhere near the current tengu city.

lots of questions to be answered.

[misterman.1530]

@"Shylo.1426" said:Hear me out...loot needs to be improvedThe World Boss event had me excited, but had me realize what would keep me playing more often.World boss related slayer gear , loot that has exclusive stats that can only be accessed through slaying the world bosses. You don't need a rune for the gear because it's tied to the gear and REQUIRES you to obtain a full set to make the best of the gear. What I'm saying Is.. REAL loot. Give me INCENTIVES. I want my big bad kills to have meaning.Nothing about the end phase of the boss fights are memorable.

Imagine.. Going from - I want that skin -> I want that GEAR !Lets Look at an example :New gear for every world boss that dosnt step on the toes of existing loot chests, is account bound (almost like the loot from the Tequatl Rising event but more unique) and can't be broken down for mats or runes with exclusive runes already heldExample medium: Mask of the shatterer slayer (ascended) Exclusive rune stats with a bonus effect ( the effect maybe also has a () x modifier while in a shatterer instance event map and a ()% at full set equipped ).

I agree! I think when you defeat a major boss (Zhaitan, etc. - in the story mode) for the first time, you get a specific thing to make a legendary - not a single mat, but, say, one of the Gifts - your choice. Gift of Maguuma Mastery would be a perfect example. Why not? You just defeated the major baddie. That would make me more excited. I mean, I helped defeat Kralk and what do I get?:

• Dragonite Ore (5)
• Gilded Strongbox (3)
• Bag of Loot (5)
• Pamphlet of Wisdom (2)
• Volatile Magic (5x 100)

Ooooo. Be still my beating heart....such loot. And the bag of loot I got mainly contained junk items. So it's like:

"Congrats you killed the bad guy and saved Tyria. Here's some bags of stuff I had lying in my garage. Don't know what's in them...Good Luck!"

And when you open the bag, it's the guy's garbage from his chicken dinner the night before.

bleh

[Knighthonor.4061]

I want housing and things to put into my house. Not Guild Housing since only top level guild members get to use that feature

[joneirikb.7506]

Meeh "Loot" and "Rewards", the least interesting aspect of the game.

I agree with others that specify that the game is designed to avoid any kind of gear-grind (get your 80 exo in the rough stats you want, and be good for years). Large part of the reason I've played as long as I have, and will go back to play again etc.

Now I just feel like a negative nancy, honestly I've never been a person to chase after rewards, to me the gameplay is the reward, as long as the fights are fun I'm having a blast. Basically, you couldn't get me to fight Shadow Behemoth 2 times in a row, even if you gave me 100 gold per kill or a free legendary. I'll fight him if I'm nearby when he spawns, but no way am I going to sit and wait for such a boring fight!

[Tails.9372]

How they can keep me playing? Easy, make the content I like more rewarding.

The Great Hall event in Istan was an almost perfect example of a well designed meta. It was relatively short (usually ~10 min), rewarding and Warden Amala actually felt like a boss fight unlike the Mouth of Mordremoth and whatever this Kralkatorrik fight is supposed to be. The only complaint I had was that the champs were kind of a pace breaker but that's about it. Then they nerfed the loot into oblivion while also putting a "once per day" lock on it for no reason.

The game is full of interesting metas but aside from the initial experience I'm not going to waste my time on something that that's not rewarding and I'm not going to play rewarding content if it's boring as hell (like for example running around in circles in SW or the new Dragonfall meta).

I guess it's TD meta -> AB meta -> playing something else for like an hour and ten minutes -> TD meta -> ... until A-Net decides to either nuke the HoT metas too or releases another meta that's both rewarding and fun to play.

And yes, more world bosses / metas should have their own unique ascended gear / cosmetic infusion drops. Also, the infusions should be as rare as the ascended gear boxes (e.g. Tequatl's Hoard) and not this 1 to "you're not going to drop it anyways" nonsense we have rn.

[Shylo.1426]

Well,All of you assume I want the gear to be new best in slot but instead you neglected to read the last half where its said to be specifically tilted towards killing world bosses. ( as a possible example ). I do agree with all of you! But all I want is UNIQUE incentives not POWER CREEP incentives

[Emberheart.8426]

Anet can keep coming up with new rewards for every meta and currency all they want, but they will never be able to keep up with the players, especially when they are working on new metas and rewards for those at the same time. These rewards will usually be a one time thing and the meta will be abandoned after most people get it. I appreciate what Anet tried doing with Aurora and the skyscale. They tried to make LW maps more worth running and more active. However, eventually it will die down because people will obtain the reward.

There are a few things that Anet need to do to solve this issue. First of all they need to balance the generic rewards better. I mean rewards such as gear, mats and currencies. Some metas are obviously way better than others and people will flock to those. Many of the old world bosses need loot buffs, as well as the PoF metas that nobody has ever done. Some of the LW maps could also use a bit of tuning. Dragonfall is the only map that needs nerfs right now. It's worse for the economy than even Istan was since you can repeat it infinitely with no timers and you get 80 rare gear per run. The rare gear is way too much and it devalues every other meta. We had Istan without nerfs for over a year and the prices of rare gear never dipped as low as they are now. Barely over a week has passed and Dragonfall has completely crashed rare gear prices from around 20-22s to 12s each. Imagine one year of no nerfs for Dragonfall. Rare gear will probably hit like 3-4s each. You won't be making anything from it anymore.

Anet also need to introduce new features that require their own new generic items and materials, and then add those items to the drop tables to spice things up. For example, player housing could introduce many new items that are required for that activity. You can have different metas drop different items. They have to do something so that loot is actually exciting.

Finally and perhaps most importantly, they need to realize that even if they do balance the rewards pretty well players will still gravitate towards certain metas. There will always be a slight reward imbalance. Also, some metas are more fun or they are run more frequently by commanders. As they add more maps the population will get more spread out until it will be impossible to do all the metas even if they all end up being rewarding. The only way to solve this long-term problem is to introduce a system similar to GW1 Zaishen daily quests. In GW1 Zaishen dailies give you an exclusive currency as a reward for doing a certain activity for that day. There could be different Zaishen dailies for world bosses and meta events, which would guarantee that people would do all the content as long as the Zaishen tokens have very valuable rewards. The quests simply have to cycle between metas and other objectives every day and that would ensure that players are incentivized to run a variety of content. One really good thing about GW1 Zaishen quests was that you could hold up to 3 of each category in your quest log. So you did not have to do them every single day. You could pick up dailies for 3 days straight and do them all in one day if you wanted to.

I think that a Zaishen quest system would also tie in very nicely to the current story, since the Zaishen order is relevant again. They can also tie in the Crystal Bloom if they want to, since both organizations seem to want to follow the same entity. Maybe have the Zaishens give combat dailies, while the Crystal Bloom gives another category?

[serialkicker.5274]

Personally I'd like to see dungeon make a come back. They are most accessible instanced content compared to fractals and raids, so they would be enjoyed by larger population. Extra points if dungeons had different difficulties and better rewards.I'd like expansion over LW any day.I came to expect not much from balance, but I would like to see weapons rebalanced, because most of them are just not good.I'd like to see more funcionality for guilds and for guild halls.

[Samnang.1879]

more expansions, more events like world boss rush.
more features, housing, in game marriage, npc companions, stables for mounts, mount animations, the possibilities are endless... they dont even need a gw3 at this point. just keep gw2 going forever...

[godofcows.2451]

Invest in recyclable content such as pvp and wvw and continue to make them interesting. Don't leave them in the cold. This is the reason why battle royale and mobas despite resources being recycled during usage over and over again are still being played. Every engage is a different experience and carries the overused environment. Now I am sure pve has recyclable content too such as fracs and dungeons, invest on them too. These are what will keep people playing until the next big thing. If you keep on relying on expansions and living world stories, you will find that they are VERY HEAVY investments and require LENGTHY DEVELOPMENT TIME and once people are done with them, they won't do them again compared to recyclable content.

[snh.7091]

The reward system in this game is the worst I ever encountered. You can sink your life on it and 99% of the times you get just useless sCRAPs, but since the parent company is Korean it's no surprise.

In nearly 6 years of playing I got only ONE Dusk in SW. If that seems right to anyone they are out of their mind.

Launch any other game, most of them will truly reward you for what you put in. Even though games like Diablo are a different genre, the reward system in place is what I consider truly rewarding and fun.

A game SHOULD BE FUN. Fun in not being a horrid grind, fun in being rewarding, fun in being competitive, in being entertaining, not just a money making machine!

[MoriMoriMori.5349]

So, instead of suggesting a new gameplay mechanics which would make world bosses more interesting to kill (what inevitably means more challenging, as for now I guess only Triple Trouble can really fail quite often, and requires at least some additional level of coordination to complete), and reduce those zergs you usually see there, which kill half of the fun, you suggest another carrot... These cheap mmorpg design approaches are like a cancer, or a contagious disease - once you caught it somewhere, you start to spread it all over the place..

[Rasimir.6239]

@wickedkae.4980 said:The fact that I am still using the same armor from 5 years ago is an issue.That's not an issue. That's a key design choice.

[mercury ranique.2170]

I do not think that a game should needs to keep a player playing. If that is a requirement, vertical progression is the worsed way to do so.I know there are games that needs players to keep playing as they depend on their monthly fees. But GW2 is no such game.So let's focus first on the reason why we play. Yip, this is about our miserable real lifes. Our anxieties, our issues, our illness, our neighbours and family. We need a get-a-way. A place to unwind and relax. A place where we can be the hero of Tyria. GW2 is such a game. This escape from the real world is addictive. We need our daily dose.But should this be the responsability of the developper? To a certain point it is. There are limitations. No content can be developped as quickly as it is played through.

• Side note: think about timegated skyskale and then to the amount of man hours into developping the same mount. Puts it into perspective right?-

So GW2 should give us opportunities to keep playing between releases. Rather then vertical progression, timegates, goldsinks etc, I would rather see sandboxes. GW2 allready offers a strong sandbox, but it can be better.

[Teratus.2859]

Be nice if more world bosses had unique loot like the Shadow Behemoths Final Rest staff.

One fun idea i've toyed with in the past as well is taking advantage of the Shatterer's (both forms) 4th and often utterly ignored target ring.When Shatterer is airborne after failing a CC phase it's tail becomes a target for a short period of time.It would be a fun challenge for ranged builds to organize an attempt at breaking off the Shatterers tail by exploiting this target and in doing so are later able to harvest a unique resource from a bunch of tail fragment nodes after the fight which could be used to create shatterer armour or weapons or something.

[Samuel.4812]

Honestly we don't just need new bells and whistles.

We need frequent balance updates and qol updates to wvw and spvp.

Love the pve ideas but gw was supposed to have SOME pvp focus and I feel like it's at the end of their list):

[ProtoGunner.4953]

I shite on balance. I just want some cool 5man instances. But they release them with the pace of a snail on valium. Oh, and an actual EXPANSION with 10 maps - like the obvious Cantha - would be nice.

[hugo.4705]

Dungeons =>Add rewards to spend token, currently have 500 crystals of knowledge but bleh already have every inquest armor set, every weapon set even kudu's phasing matrix. BUT add dungeon themed guild decos/stuff for our instance like token harvesting node and will be happy will make them useful. Even endless tonic I suffer seeing all the great foes for which we don't have a tonic for, even the more basic one! Mark I/II tonic, subject alpha tonic, and so on.. even a themed outfit obtainable for the associated tokens would be neat. Everything is there, the fundations are there but nothing is exploited at its full potential.

[Dami.5046]

Make all crafted ascended gear stat selectable on a one time basis at time of craft but still be able to change stats in the toilet.
Hold on that would crash the economy.But hey One can dream.

[Tumult.2578]

@castlemanic.3198 said:

@"Shylo.1426" said:

Imagine

.. Going from - I want that skin -> I want that

GEAR

!

I mean, that's the opposite of what GW2 has aimed to be this whole time. Guild Wars 2 is designed in such a way that the gear you have will never become obsolete, and that you'll always have the ability to be at the same max level you were 5 years ago.

I have no problem with the rest of your post but Design isn't everything because I clearly remember crafting an ascended short bow in year two and the next day it's skills were completely destroyed in a "balance" update. Never saw any Ranger use one for over 2 years in the game. When I crafted the Predator I used it for most of a year and then power was nerfed for condition damage and it sat on the shelf for almost 2 years. Only saw a few Warriors using a rifle in PvE. A recent balance update made it usable again. Balance updates will always make some items obsolete, but don't delete the item because Balance can take away, but it can give back too.Just saying...

[castlemanic.3198]

@"Tumult.2578" said:I have no problem with the rest of your post but Design isn't everything because I clearly remember crafting an ascended short bow in year two and the next day it's skills were completely destroyed in a "balance" update. Never saw any Ranger use one for over 2 years in the game. When I crafted the Predator I used it for most of a year and then power was nerfed for condition damage and it sat on the shelf for almost 2 years. Only saw a few Warriors using a rifle in PvE. A recent balance update made it usable again. Balance updates will always make some items obsolete, but don't delete the item because Balance can take away, but it can give back too.Just saying...

Gear being made obsolete by another more powerful tier of gear has nothing to do with balance. My point was entirely about the gear and the design of the gear, NOT about skills and related balance stuff.