Recommendation: 'SSF' or an 'Ironman' gamemode.

[Edward.8904]

Hey everyone, I come from the Path of Exile and was curious if there was any interest in an SSF game mode for Guild Wars 2?

For those that don't know, “SSF” stands for: 'Solo Self-found' and is a character type in which the player can't benefit from trading or sending items from other characters\players, nor can the account benefit from advantages of Real World Transactions. The key thing these accounts do for the player is give up benefits for a heightened sense of agency.

Why Arenanet should consider creating an SSF gamemode: + It appeals to people who have already spent the money they were willing to spend. Eventually, players (outside of rare occasion) become ‘capped’ in a lot of ways. Endgame players simply have the cosmetics, legendaries and accessories they want already and new cosmetics have a very low appeal to them. You can see a similar environment in PoE. + SSF characters would attain a different form of meaningful character progression that people who are attempting to transition from another game desire. + Lastly, it gives players who don’t like the gem store to vote with their money and time. + Adds an additional layer of replayability on a character to character basis. + Huge casual appeal. + Dev time spent on it has an incredibly long tailwind.Guild Wars 2 certainly doesn’t feel like a grind in how it asks you to level and prides itself on horizontal progression. I think it's the most successful MMO of all time in doing this, except in regards to its economy. To put it plainly, once you decide you want gear and in-game cosmetics the game becomes a herculean grind that could take weeks or months to complete. SSF trades ‘gold grinding’ for ‘item finding’, additionally, it provides an endgame in the form of cosmetics, similar to how GW1 does.

For Casual players, SSF is awesome when framed right. The suggestion seems as though it is aimed primarily at Veteran players, but I don’t believe this to be the case. For casual players, letting go of the economic base is very freeing and rewarding. It allows you to let go of multi-character | account management on daily rewards, puzzle rewards etc. which is becoming much more normal in GW2. In fact, the only reason I became invested in PoE was this very gamemode where I attained levels I never thought I would aim for because of it.
+I want the value of one Eternity to be exactly one Eternity, not x many ingots farmed or x number of jumping puzzle daily rewards or x many gem conversions. Moreover, farming x many ingots doesn’t feel much like a legendary task, but attaining one normally would be an egregious misuse of time. This has been the biggest barrier for me playing more than a month or two at a time in the past.
+Additionally, ‘SSF’ style accounts lend themselves well to roleplay, as they start as a bit more of a blank slate than a character with x hundred Laurels, x thousand Karma etc. For me, its much easier to get invested into my SSF characters headcannon, than it is my other ones because I’m watching the character start at the ground and work up with in game shopkeepers, not just a Trading Post interface or my long list of items in the bank.

For veteran players, SSF gives immense replayability to a game they believe they know everything about and get to experience the sense of discovery for a second, third or fourth time. The unique limitations of ‘SSF’ modes in games that aren’t designed for them, make them that much more fun to play. It also gives meaningful character progression.

What I think a GW2 'SSF' Mode would be: A purchasable character slot that has the following characteristics:disable daily log-in rewards, level up rewards and daily rewards. Boosters of any kind would not be receivable\usable even through birthday\holiday events.
Additionally, limited time vendors could only sell you cosmetics.Account wide statuses, cosmetics and currencies would be set to 0 at start for that character. (Including Achievement points/Laurels). This would include bonuses for purchasing deluxe editions of the game.The Black Lyons Trading Company would not be usable, additionally, the Gemstore would not be usable.
This character would require its own bank and ideally would be a heavily expanded one.This character would be able to still mail stuff to others, but can’t open mail with items. (give something to a friend, etc.)While it's normal to make these characters not able to kill the same mobs as other players, I feel like that would do a lot of harm to the game and wouldn’t want that feature.

Criticisms of 'SSF' gamemodes: People feel as though 'SSF' players can get an elitist attitude for playing them, although, I don’t think that would be the case in GW2, as this community really steers the other way. Additionally, they use up dev time when those players ask for gamemode specific Quality of Life updates. For me, I think updates to QoL in game modes like this are fine if they happen once or twice a year.Food for thought Questions:Experienced players: What are the unique challenges related to Guild Wars 2's content that would make an 'SSF' gamemode hard to implement (*Either by leeching, or other means?) What would be impractical about the gamemode? Is this something you would want?For example, you would be limited in the number of Legendaries you would be able to attain, making the choice that much more interesting.Casual players like myself, have you played other games with SSF modes and did you play\enjoy them and is it something you would want to try out in GW2?

Good night, and good luck!

• Ed.

[Randulf.7614]

So you would be asking Anet to make a mode which actually encourages a player not to spend money?

I’m not seeing a reason for Anet to even be considered let alone implement it

There is also a misunderstanding in your post that vets cap themselves from buying new items, spending more money or getting new fashions. That is not the case with GW2

You also can’t untie things that are account shared for one character. Once unlocked it is unlocked for everything so it couldn’t be a new char it would have to be a new account and I can’t see why they would invest time into making something with little financial gain.

There are so many problems and changes they’d have to make (limiting legendaries for eg) just to make it work

[Howluffu.7259]

Just a question: Would this "mode" give better rewards than "normal mode"?

-If the answer is YES it's pretty cool if those rewards only stay in those SSF characters(like better equipment or exclusive mode equipment).

-If the answer is NO then just do it by yourself with your will cuz at the end of the day you won't need extra buttons to click to be in the SSF mode at character creation, just do it yourself at your own.

Then again with the low curve of the gear progression I don't think that they could deliver better rewards in that "mode".

[Linken.6345]

@"DarkEmiLupus.2876" said:Just a question: Would this "mode" give better rewards than "normal mode"?

-If the answer is YES it's pretty cool if those rewards only stay in those SSF characters(like better equipment or exclusive mode equipment).

-If the answer is NO then just do it by yourself with your will cuz at the end of the day you won't need extra buttons to click to be in the SSF mode at character creation, just do it yourself at your own.

Then again with the low curve of the gear progression I don't think that they could deliver better rewards in that "mode".

As this poster said you can already do it by your own free will not spending any resources you dont get with that character.And ofcourse not useing your mounts untill you finish each part that award them in the path of fire story right.

If your will aint strong enough then just start a free to play account and start from scratch when ever you got the itch. ( there is no limit on how many accounts you can have to my knowlage after all.)

[Edward.8904]

@Randulf.7614 said:So you would be asking Anet to make a mode which actually encourages a player not to spend money?Nope, I think the game mode appeals to people who aren't currently willing to spend more money or willing to spend money to begin with.There is also a misunderstanding in your post that vets cap themselves from buying new items, spending more money or getting new fashions. That is not the case with GW2Strongly disagree, but that's alright. Even Content Creators like Wooden Potatoes suggest that this is a problem with the end game.You also can’t untie things that are account shared for one character. Once unlocked it is unlocked for everything so it couldn’t be a new char it would have to be a new account and I can’t see why they would invest time into making something with little financial gain.Yeah, this is what would take the longest. I think that it would make a lot of money on a long time horizon and if someone wanted to only play SSF Characters (Say, 1-4 professions) it would be per character and that would make a decent chunk of change, more than expacs\LW especially considering the dev time!

There are so many problems and changes they’d have to make (limiting legendaries for eg) just to make it workI think the limiting of legendaries are a feature, not really a problem!

[LadyKitty.6120]

If you want to essentially start from 0 self-contained, why not just make a new account for that and just personally avoid using TP and such? Anet also profits, no extra coding needed.

[AliamRationem.5172]

So, maybe I am not understanding, but what challenge does this add? It sounds like it would just force players to farm everything themselves from scratch. Even if you never were able to craft full ascended, exotic is more than enough to do everything in game except fractals.

I haven't played much PoE, but it's a diablo clone so it has a gear treadmill. This mode is probably a lot more meaningful in a game like that. In this game I think it just adds a lot of pointless farming, but no actual difficulty.

[Edward.8904]

@LadyKitty.6120 said:If you want to essentially start from 0 self-contained, why not just make a new account for that and just personally avoid using TP and such? Anet also profits, no extra coding needed.

A lot of the fun from SSF is in the community that surrounds it, but I really enjoy playing this way on my own as well. :]

[mindcircus.1506]

@"Edward.8904" said:To put it plainly, once you decide you want gear and in-game cosmetics the game becomes a herculean grind that could take weeks or months to complete. SSF trades ‘gold grinding’ for ‘item finding’, additionally, it provides an endgame in the form of cosmetics, similar to how GW1 does.

It's really a shame you had to engage in this level of hyperbole.I can't remember the last time I saw some cosmetic I wanted and considered it some awful grind. The last few Armor sets that were added to the game (Runic, Warlord's, Elegy, Mistshard) are all very reasonable collections and pretty high quality armor. With the side benefit in a couple of cases of pretty much filling a bank tab with stat selectable Exotic Armor boxes and armors I chose to unlock the skins.When it comes to the skins on the TP, if I factor in just how much gold an hour I can make in Dragonfall if I feel like grinding, there are very few things there that are unreasonable.Gemstore Armor sets and Outfits frequently get rotated into the Statuette Vendor for a pretty reasonable price.So what are we talking about when we say "herculean grind"?One-offs like that Charr hat that the RPers are losing their minds over?Legendary Weapons?+I want the value of one Eternity to be exactly one Eternity, not x many ingots farmed or x number of jumping puzzle daily rewards or x many gem conversions.Oh.... yeah.... just more Legendary envy.The game doesn't place a value on Eternity. It cannot be sold to a vendor.The players place a value on Eternity.

I get that you think Eternity should just drop because you made it to 80 on some Iron Man mode who's arbitrary rules appeal to you as a gamer.But I leveled my last toon to 80 under similar arbitrary rules. It gave me as much "agency" as I wanted, because I created the restrictions.My reward was a screenshot of a level 80 thief with zero deaths and the personal knowledge that I had done it "the hard way".

For example, you would be limited in the number of Legendaries you would be able to attain, making the choice that much more interesting.I believe the correct limit of Legendaries as rewards for this is 0.It's an awful idea that seems to cloak avarice in armchair dev speak.

[Edward.8904]

@AliamRationem.5172 said:So, maybe I am not understanding, but what challenge does this add? It sounds like it would just force players to farm everything themselves from scratch. Even if you never were able to craft full ascended, exotic is more than enough to do everything in game except fractals.

Yeah, that's sort of right its a 'zero to hero' playstyle. From a casual perspective, its not really adding a gear treadmill, its more of a 'play with what you find' approach while the grinders have the option to do what they find fun.It's not so much about adding challenge, but shifting the end game from grinding for gold to grinding for cosmetics\legendaries to more of a GW1 style end game. As GW2 exists right now, there are enormous gold grinds if you decide you want some in-game cosmetic or a legendary.

[mindcircus.1506]

@Edward.8904 said:

@"Randulf.7614" said:So you would be asking Anet to make a mode which actually encourages a player not to spend money?Nope, I think the game mode appeals to people who aren't currently willing to spend more money or willing to spend money to begin with.There is also a misunderstanding in your post that vets cap themselves from buying new items, spending more money or getting new fashions. That is not the case with GW2Strongly disagree, but that's alright. Even Content Creators like Wooden Potatoes suggest that this is a problem with the end game.I think even Wooden Potatoes himself would agree that after accepting the donations he did during "Guild Wars 2 Master" his opinions on this game's cosmetics may not be in line with most people's.He no longer has the same perspective. He has pretty much everything and a sizable chunk of that was thanks to donations. I don't want to take anything away from him or what he's done, I watched that guy legit grind those griffon adventures every day for months just for a mini.Near the end of his last bunch of Master streams he mentioned exactly this. How his perspective on the game's cosmetic rewards was not in line with the rest of the community's.

[AliamRationem.5172]

@Edward.8904 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:So, maybe I am not understanding, but what challenge does this add? It sounds like it would just force players to farm everything themselves from scratch. Even if you never were able to craft full ascended, exotic is more than enough to do everything in game except fractals.

Yeah, that's sort of right its a 'zero to hero' playstyle. From a casual perspective, its not really adding a gear treadmill, its more of a 'play with what you find' approach while the grinders have the option to do what they find fun.It's not so much about adding challenge, but shifting the end game from grinding for gold to grinding for cosmetics\legendaries to more of a GW1 style end game. As GW2 exists right now, there are enormous gold grinds if you decide you want some in-game cosmetic or a legendary.

Sorry, I didn't play GW1 and I don't grind gold. I am not understanding why this would be a benefit.

[Edward.8904]

@mindcircus.1506 said:

@"Edward.8904" said:To put it plainly, once you decide you want gear and in-game cosmetics the game becomes a herculean grind that could take weeks or months to complete. SSF trades ‘gold grinding’ for ‘item finding’, additionally, it provides an endgame in the form of cosmetics, similar to how GW1 does.

It's really a shame you had to engage in this level of hyperbole.I can't remember the last time I saw some cosmetic I wanted and considered it some awful grind. The last few Armor sets that were added to the game (Runic, Warlord's, Elegy, Mistshard) are all very reasonable collections and pretty high quality armor. With the side benefit in a couple of cases of pretty much filling a bank tab with stat selectable Exotic Armor boxes and armors I chose to unlock the skins.When it comes to the skins on the TP, if I factor in just how much gold an hour I can make in Dragonfall if I feel like grinding, there are very few things there that are unreasonable.

So, the point is to not to grind for gold anymore. That is one of the points.

Oh.... yeah.... just more Legendary envy.It's not envy! :]I get that you think Eternity should just drop because you made it to 80 on some Iron Man mode who's arbitrary rules appeal to you as a gamer.But I leveled my last toon to 80 under similar arbitrary rules. It gave me as much "agency" as I wanted, because I created the restrictions.My reward was a screenshot of a level 80 thief with zero deaths and the personal knowledge that I had done it "the hard way".

That's not what the point is aaaat all and I don't want that. I don't know how you came to that conclusion.

That sounds really cool! :] Gamemodes tend to be more about community than the individual, but doing self-made challenges are fun and rewarding. I'm glad yours was too!

For example, you would be limited in the number of Legendaries you would be able to attain, making the choice that much more interesting.I believe the correct limit of Legendaries as rewards for this is 0.The game limits the number as it exists through map completion system for gen 1, not asking for them as a reward.

It's an awful idea that seems to cloak avarice in armchair dev speak.

Thanks for the input, I'll take that into consideration.

[Zephire.8049]

I can't see what the appeal would be of such a mode for a lot of players and definitely not for Anet. You can already do this by having self-imposed rules for yourself and as Randulf already said, Anet is not going to put resources and majorly change the spaghetti code for a niche option that prevents people from spending money. The only way such a mode would make money is if they charge for the character slot, and very few people will spend $10 USD on an MMO character that is prevented from benefiting from the time and money they spent on their account.

I haven't played PoE but am familiar with that type of game and there's a fundamental incompatibility with what you're asking for and an MMO. GW2 was designed to be alt-friendly respect the time someone put into their account—there were even changes in the past to the dye and wardrobe system to further improve things.

Speaking of the wardrobe system, there is absolutely no way to hide or remove unlocks on account. None. If you accidentally unlock Eternity's skin, you better like Eternity and want a legendary greatsword because support cannot unbind Eternity because they can't remove the skin from your account.

The easiest way to do what you want is to set up a completely different server and more or less link accounts, but even that would require a lot of resources for something that would never make back close to what was spent on it (at the expense of making something that would benefit the majority while also increasing revenue, I might add).

[maddoctor.2738]

@Edward.8904 said:A purchasable character slot that has the following characteristicsAccount wide statuses, cosmetics and currencies would be set to 0 at start for that character. (Including Achievement points/Laurels). This would include bonuses for purchasing deluxe editions of the game.This character would require its own bank and ideally would be a heavily expanded one.

From what we know of how the game is created this would be impossible. Arenanet cannot remove achievements, or skins, from an account, unless they do it manually. And once they are removed, they are removed forever from the entire account. You cannot pick and choose and show achievements or wallet items to specific characters only. This eliminates the idea of having a new character slot with your idea, the only way it could work is by buying a new account, where all of what you need will be available, except for the heavily expanded bank. Why would a new character need a heavily expanded bank if it's only for them and they can't share items with other characters on the same account?

Experienced players: What are the unique challenges related to Guild Wars 2's content that would make an 'SSF' gamemode hard to implement

Last time they changed something on the database it was for the wallet/wardrobe in 2014 and it was such a heavy update that they had to bring the servers down to implement it (the one and only time GW2 servers were downed for an update) so I don't think it's anything remotely easy to do and I don't see any gain from doing it.

[Etria.3642]

@Edward.8904 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:So you would be asking Anet to make a mode which actually encourages a player not to spend money?Nope, I think the game mode appeals to people who aren't currently willing to spend more money or willing to spend money to begin with.There is also a misunderstanding in your post that vets cap themselves from buying new items, spending more money or getting new fashions. That is not the case with GW2Strongly disagree, but that's alright. Even Content Creators like Wooden Potatoes suggest that this is a problem with the end game.You also can’t untie things that are account shared for one character. Once unlocked it is unlocked for everything so it couldn’t be a new char it would have to be a new account and I can’t see why they would invest time into making something with little financial gain.Yeah, this is what would take the longest. I think that it would make a lot of money on a long time horizon and if someone wanted to only play SSF Characters (Say, 1-4 professions) it would be per character and that would make a decent chunk of change, more than expacs\LW especially considering the dev time!

There are so many problems and changes they’d have to make (limiting legendaries for eg) just to make it workI think the limiting of legendaries are a feature, not really a problem!

So you want anet to devote time and money to a game mode that is aimed at, let me confirm, people who do not want to spend money.

Not people who haven't spent money but might if you do this but who don't want to spend money. Who aren't willing to spend money. Who, by the very request, would have to spend time on a character that would never benefit from spending money.

This is akin to asking a subscription game for a special character slot that gets the benefits of the game but doesn't ever require a subscription.

It may or may not be cool for players but I can't wrap my head around it making any business sense.

And as for my personal opinion I've kinda tried to do this myself but I get fed up with not using mounts somewhere around the sixth heart in queensdale.

[Kulvar.1239]

If you want to self impose challenges or avoid certain gameplay mechanic, you just have to learn self control. There's no need to ask ANet to coerce yourself.If they had to make a gamemode for every silly challenge people can imagine, we would get no new content forever as they would be endlessly busy adding code to enforce them all.

[Randulf.7614]

@Edward.8904 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:So you would be asking Anet to make a mode which actually encourages a player not to spend money?Nope, I think the game mode appeals to people who aren't currently willing to spend more money or willing to spend money to begin with.There is also a misunderstanding in your post that vets cap themselves from buying new items, spending more money or getting new fashions. That is not the case with GW2Strongly disagree, but that's alright. Even Content Creators like Wooden Potatoes suggest that this is a problem with the end game.You also can’t untie things that are account shared for one character. Once unlocked it is unlocked for everything so it couldn’t be a new char it would have to be a new account and I can’t see why they would invest time into making something with little financial gain.Yeah, this is what would take the longest. I think that it would make a lot of money on a long time horizon and if someone wanted to only play SSF Characters (Say, 1-4 professions) it would be per character and that would make a decent chunk of change, more than expacs\LW especially considering the dev time!

There are so many problems and changes they’d have to make (limiting legendaries for eg) just to make it workI think the limiting of legendaries are a feature, not really a problem!

The problem is most of your replies show a misunderstanding of the game and it’s community.

People are always spending money. The group who will never spend any more is likely so small to be insignificant given there is always new stuff added and stuff waited for. We know this from the giant forum request threads for new and returning stock

As for your second reply I am afraid you are just incorrect. This isn’t a right or wrong answer - players in general do not cap themselves and Anet constantly cater to that

Limiting legendaries is not a feature. The game would have to be recoded to lock out skins and items which it currently does not do. That is a problem to overcome and one which is of no benefit to the game.

Fundamentally none of the ideas or arguments for it will make for a healthier game and are very much the antithesis if GW2 and its community.

[mindcircus.1506]

@Edward.8904 said:

@mindcircus.1506 said:

@Edward.8904 said:To put it plainly, once you decide you want gear and in-game cosmetics the game becomes a herculean grind that could take weeks or months to complete. SSF trades ‘gold grinding’ for ‘item finding’, additionally, it provides an endgame in the form of cosmetics, similar to how GW1 does.

It's really a shame you had to engage in this level of hyperbole.I can't remember the last time I saw some cosmetic I wanted and considered it some awful grind. The last few Armor sets that were added to the game (Runic, Warlord's, Elegy, Mistshard) are all very reasonable collections and pretty high quality armor. With the side benefit in a couple of cases of pretty much filling a bank tab with stat selectable Exotic Armor boxes and armors I chose to unlock the skins.When it comes to the skins on the TP, if I factor in just how much gold an hour I can make in Dragonfall if I feel like grinding, there are very few things there that are unreasonable.

So, the point is to not to grind for gold anymore. That is one of the points.That's your response?You don't have to "grind for gold" to get cool cosmetics in this game. This game gives you 60 gold a month just for doing dailies. Just Logging in gets you almost 35 gold in Mystic Coins. The game pretty much showers a player in raw gold for doing sfa. There are very few activities other than doing the story or WvW that are truly unrewarding in terms of time spent. Even the least engaged player can make 10g an hour just chopping trees and mining rocks.Anyone grinding gold is doing so because they want to.

I get that you think Eternity should just drop because you made it to 80 on some Iron Man mode who's arbitrary rules appeal to you as a gamer.But I leveled my last toon to 80 under similar arbitrary rules. It gave me as much "agency" as I wanted, because I created the restrictions.My reward was a screenshot of a level 80 thief with zero deaths and the personal knowledge that I had done it "the hard way".

That's not what the point is aaaat all and I don't want that. I don't know how you came to that conclusion.Really?For example, you would be limited in the number of Legendaries you would be able to attain, making the choice that much more interesting.+I want the value of one Eternity to be exactly one Eternity, not x many ingots farmed or x number of jumping puzzle daily rewards or x many gem conversions.Yeah of course you didn't say that.That sounds really cool! :]

Gamemodes tend to be more about community

than the individual, but doing self-made challenges are fun and rewarding. I'm glad yours was too!This statement is false.Having a community around it is about nothing but flex and to hear a bunch of people say "omg how cool that you did that!!". It doesn't change the gameplay one bit. And in the end that's the actual reason behind "Iron Man" challenges....to change the gameplay and give smaller encounters additional weight.

Given that reality, there is zero reason I cannot just place my own restrictions and enjoy the gameplay without an expensive to develop system that purposefully cuts the developer out of revenue and who's actual goal is to get @Edward.8904 cosmetics because he thinks they are too expensive.

[Danikat.8537]

Well the good news is you can already do this, and people do on a regular basis, either alone or as part of a guild or group. There's lots of variations of course since everyone's free to set their own rules. (My personal favourite is a combination of no deaths allowed and only using white/common quality equipment.) The only tricky part is you can't actually keep gold earned by that character seperate, so you need to track it in some way. But if you're not using the Trading Post there's very little to buy with gold anyway, so I don't tend to worry about it - I'm happy to assume that when they need a new salvage kit, or on the rare occasions I need to use a waypoint because I've gotten myself trapped somewhere, that they've done enough since the last time to cover the cost.

If you want to remove unavoidable perks like increased magic find, or really don't think you can trust yourself to follow the rules you've set then you could create a free account. That way they don't get access to anything in your wallet, bank (or guild bank), don't get login rewards and can't trade most items. Of course you're still able to use the gem store to buy boosters and things, but if you're willing to spend real money to break the rules of a self-imposed challenge I think it's time to admit you're not actually interested in the challenge anyway and just play the way you would prefer.

If you do want to try it a basic version like you proposed is probably a good starting point, but you'll probably want to try something more restrictive than not being able to use the trading post, bank or gem store once you get to grips with the idea. The gem store in this game only sells cosmetics, convinience items and minor boosts so not using those doesn't make a noticable difference and relying on drops to equip a character is fairly normal and more than enough to get you through most of the game.

Some popular options include:

• No deaths - this is the obvious one to add additional challenge. Every fight needs to be weighed up against the risks, and while joining a huge squad and charging around might seem like an easy solution it's really easy to lose track of what's going on and miss a red circle or something in that situation so it can actually be safer to stick to small groups or even solo.
• No waypoints - This is probably the most popular one for getting veteran players to see the game in a new light and rediscover things they've forgotten, although if you're doing the personal story the level 30 bit where you're going back to your city after every step does get annoying. (Some people allow asura gates, others don't.)
• No mounts/gliding - Again this can be a big change for long-term players who are used to these options. (It can be difficult to totally avoid the glider because you can't disable it and a slightly longer press on the jump key will open it, but I think the important thing is to stick to the spirit of the thing - if you need the glider to get there then you can't go there.) Obviously only works in core Tyria, but if you go on that long it could be expanded to only allow gliding but no mounts in HoT and only mounts with no gliding in PoF. Maybe only the 3 required mounts (raptor, springer, skimmer) too.
• The Iron Price - Named after the Iron Islands law from A Song of Ice and Fire - you are only allowed to use things which drop from enemies. Not only no TP or gem store stuff but nothing from story or level up rewards and nothing bought from NPC merchants. If you didn't kill something and take it you can't have it.

[Omega.6801]

Since these threads pop up every week, I haven't bothered reading your wall of text. Sry m8.

Am I right to assume that any suggestions made in the OP could be done by an individual alone, restricting him/herself by chosing lower tier gear or deleting a character should the toon die for example, thus limiting the use of ressources by not adding game modes or special instanced maps?

[Danikat.8537]

Well the OP was right about one thing: this does help sell gem store stuff. After writing the post above I found myself really wanting to try this again, so I bought another character slot while the sale is still going to make a challenge character.

This version is going to be:

• No deaths - if the character dies I have to start over
• No items from other characters, the bank or trading post
• Only white equipment (except the Hero's Band because my tradition of wearing it to level 80 on every character superceeds this and anyway it's actually making the character weaker by taking up an accessory slot with a very weak bonus)
• No waypoints, mounts or gliding - asura gates are allowed
• No boosters...I might use food later on if I need it, but the character would have to make or buy it herself.

I'm not putting any restrictions on cosmetic items because that doesn't make any difference to gameplay and I find it boring.

[Edward.8904]

Given that reality, there is zero reason I cannot just place my own restrictions and enjoy the gameplay without an expensive to develop system that purposefully cuts the developer out of revenue and who's actual goal is to get @Edward.8904 cosmetics because he thinks they are too expensive.

I don't know why you're so condescending and rude to me. You just continue to make assertions about my intentions. This isn't worth the time. Have a good day.

[Dante.1763]

@Edward.8904 said:

Given that reality, there is zero reason I cannot just place my own restrictions and enjoy the gameplay without an expensive to develop system that purposefully cuts the developer out of revenue and who's actual goal is to get @Edward.8904 cosmetics because he thinks they are too expensive.

I don't know why you're so condescending and rude to me. You just continue to make assertions about my intentions. This isn't worth the time. Have a good day.

To be fair, hes right about alot of what he said. You can do all of what you want without a dedicated mode or server, the devs dont need to spend time or money making something that can be done already. Further, he is also correct about skins.

[Danikat.8537]

For what it's worth I disagree that most cosmetics are obtained just by grinding gold. There's a huge number of things in this game which cannot be bought with gold at all. I do sometimes wonder if the game needs to do a better job of communicating that though because it's a fairly common complaint among inexperienced players. I guess they see other people's characters wearing things they don't have, see lots of expensive things in the Trading Post and assume that's all there is to it. In reality if you want to get everything you're going to need to do a lot of things beyond simply getting gold.

For example this is what my main character is currently wearing:

• Icelord's Diadem - 25 Hall of Monument points from GW1.
• Blossoming Mist Shard Chestguard - Get the Mist Shard coat box from defeating each of the champions in Dragon's Fall, then upgrade it with 10 spirit shards, 100 mistborn motes and 20 ectoplasm (which I actually got before I'd finished killing and the champions).
• Glacial Gauntlets - From completing 21 'A Crack in the Ice' episode achievements.
• Warbeast Leggings - The recipe costs 1g, if you don't get it as a drop, and the rest is crafting, total cost about 9g.
• Funerary Boots - From doing map completion on all Path of Fire expansion maps.
• Scion's Claw - From the Healing Heir collection achievement. (Funny thing, I was going to use a gem store sword instead, then I discovered this one while looking through the wardrobe in the bank and realised not only does it look great but for this theme it's absolutely the most perfect choice.)
• Heroic Dragonsblood Torch - I'll be honest, this one was a pain to get, but mainly because I'd never bothered to keep any Exquisite Serpentine Jewels when I'd previously obtained them, and didn't have any branded masses. It costs about 85g for the recipe and crafting materials, but it is an ascended weapon.
• Holographic Shattered Dragon Wings - I got this back during Season 1, when it was the meta-achievement reward so it involved some seeminly grindy achievements like killing 300 holographic minions. But since it was Season 1 it clearly took me less than 2 weeks to do it, and the only part I remember getting bored with is trying to participate in enough holoprojector events.

Overall it's a relatively inexpensive outfit in terms of gold (especially if you replace the torch, even with the normal Dragonsblood one instead of the Heroic (ascended) version). It took a lot of time of course, but by the time I decided to put this particular outfit together (shorting after The Icebrood Saga started) the only bits I had to make an effort to get were the coat, gauntlets and the torch and I'd already made a lot of progress towards the coat and gauntlets just from playing those releases. Oh, and the sword but that was both quick and a really nice storyline which I'm sorry I didn't take the time to play earlier.

In my case at least this also disproves the idea that eventually players are 'capped' on cosmetics and don't want anything else. I've been playing this game since the head start weekend, over 6,000 hours in total and more than half of it on this character, but I'd only used the crown and the wings before, all the rest of these were new to me just a few months ago. But the story inspired me to go for a new theme, very different to anything I'd used before, and that lead to exploring lots of new options. Even with 11 characters there's lots of stuff I still haven't used, and I'm always coming up with new ideas (it's one reason I like making tempoary characters, like my challenge character mentioned above). I know some people have gone much futher than me down that route - there's a maximum of 70 character slots in this game and we know that because some people have hit it and use them all - but I think it would be quite hard to ever say you've reached a point where you're finished with cosmetics and will never need anything else.