Curse

Bhaaltazar · Jan 24, 2006, 10:12 AM // 10:12

Hi,

I am a 26 year old player and I ve been playing GW for
quite some time now and i must say i enjoyed playing it . But lately i
begun to get bored while i play it. Same thing is happening with my
guild mates and other friends on GW. We run out of options to improve
our characters, items.... What I am trying to say is that once u
become ascended, get elite skills and buy best armors / items there
isnt much to do besides PvP-ing. ( its fun but u get tired of it
eventualy )

Thats why i decided to write you this email so i could propose a few
things that i think might benefit the game. I played many FRP-s,
MORPG-s out there ( Diablo, Everquest, WoW, Gothic, Baldurs.... ) and
they all had some good elements that i think could be included into to
the game.
First of all what i miss in GW are the races. I was used when i was
creating new character to select some fantasy race ( dwarfs, elfs,
gnomes, haflings, trolls, orcs... etc. ).

Another thing about the looks :

ITEMS ( Armors, Weapons,… )

There r 2 or 3 different armor looks per class for all players in the
game . Thats why everybody looks the same ( except the colours ). How
about some armor drops on farming runs ( like in EQ, WOW, D2.... )
this would make everything much more colorful and individual looking,
and there would also be more interesting exploring the world for some
rare creatures with good drops.

Armors should have some bonuses on them besides only def and some
minor bonuses. Runes add a little fun but not much. I realy liked the
freedom with runewords in diablo, all the different bonuses on armor
in EQ, Baldurs Gate and another games alike. Thats what made game so
interesting because there were so many items in the game ( rare, epic,
runewords... ), and there were so many choices you could use depending
on development of skill tree you were using.

Now there is only 1 or 2 useful armors per character in the game
without much freedom to improve it. With lvl 2 u can buy yourself best
armor in game with getting a runner to Droks or further. I think its
better if u need to find armor from mobs… this armors should only
serve you if u cant find any better during your PvE playing. Now there isnt any armour drops from some elite beasts ( wouldnt be nice to go hunt after ele boss with posibility to find a good ele armor on him? or from other beast as well? )

Same is with swords and other weapons… while reading what people are
selling in Droks or Warcamp there are maybe 100 usefull items/upgrades
in whole game for all classes. ( before last update there were 70
green items and only around 10 of them were useful )..
Sooner or later everybody uses same type of items, armors, upgrades….

Also another thing i noticed after i entered a game with my first
character and was a bit dissapointed, there aren't any amulets, rings,
belts, bracers…. It would be nice having some jewlery on you that
improves your skills, health, energy, bonuses,… etc on you. ( with
this options we could get even more choices in making our characters
).

I would also prefer using some runes or other upgrades for increasing
attack speed of weapon, add elemental dmg, skill improvements… Same
thing with armors… many different armors with posibility to create one
of your own choice ( blacksmithing ). Crafters are OK but they offer
only very limited choice. Maybe some proffesions ( crafts ) would come
handy so players could make items out of salvage items themselfs?
What about crafters than could add slots for upgrades ( sockets for upgrades ) depending on weapon class ( like different types of swords would have more sockets for upgrades etc. )

And one more thing about farming for items… After farming areas like
UW, FoW, Sorrows Furnance it all became so limmited. ( shards in FoW,
ectos in UW, Greens in SF etc. ). Maybe it would be more
interesting if u could get greens or other rare drops in more areas
from more creatures ( beasts ) or elite bosses ( creatures – for some EPIC items, armor sets… ) that would require a party ( guild ) to kill it.

IMO GW should have bigger PvE enviroment and possibility that more people could participate in some "dragon" hunts for some epic items or do some long interesting epic quests...

TRADING

One thing about trading. I noticed that its just hard to sell some
gold items or it just take too much time. What I mean is that for each
item u need to write all the bonuses, dmg, req, …etc. After a while it
all become quite confuzing and disorganized.
If you could add an option where you would click on item you want to
sell ( while writing ) and a link would show which everybody could
click on it and a window would open with the picture of an item u want
to sell ( like a window if u pull a cursor in items you are wearing ).
With this u could offer more items in same link instead of spamming
the trade chanell so somebody will notice your offer.

Trading would be much easier and people friendly with this option.

Another thing is character slots… With only 4 slots only there is hard
to try out all the caracters and combinations you want to make. More
slots should be available for this.

And the last thing… I like the graphics of the game and all, but there
is abour ¾ of the game covered with deserts or desert like landscape.
What happend with some beautiful grasy landscapes, or ancient forests
with many secrets that are hiding ( here i realy miss elfs, or dwarfs
in snowy mountains ). I like landscape u create in preascalon
tutorial, i just wish there would be more landscapes like that.

With all this suggestions i dont mean that you guys didnt create a
great game, I would just like to help to make Guild Wars even better.
I know that all the things i mentioned above cant be added just like
that ( and u might have totaly different view on game developing ),
but I would be very honored if u would take into consideration any of
the suggestions above and maybe even use some of them in the future
updates and upgrades...

----------------------------------------------------------------------

I would also like u to discuss about some ideas i wote above... i noticed there has already been some discution about some, but i just wrote all that came into mind.

Regards,

Bhaaltazar

Argen · Jan 24, 2006, 01:44 PM // 13:44

Races: Ummmmm... I have a full battery of games, ranging for Eye of the Beholder to Morrowind, GW, EQ and so on... good idea, but I like the idea of GW being a humanocentric game. No one is able to complain that such and such (DROW, if you catch the term) race is broken. If they did different racial skins, dwarves that are short stouter skins or like making elves slightly shorter, slighter, pointy eared humans great.

As for Armor drops: only thing that would be possible would be for AL <= Max armor (60) to keep things balance... so some new skins is all. Not sure the possibility but with chapter 2 coming out, we will most likely see some new armors. As for this there would still need to be skin classes, rarity levels for each type so that they remain identifiable in PvP... I really hate whacking an El/Me with Hydromancer's Armor and Mantra of Frost up with Ice Spear instead of Flare because I didn't recognize the armor.

New skins that are identifiable fairly easily sounds fine... As for additional customization, I'm not sure. Runes already add a fair amount of customization and flexibility, if you are talking about say adding +15 AL vs. Cold to say Tormentor's armor than, no, not up for that. I also believe there are no less than 9 different looking and maximum armor skins per class (4 Droks, 4 15k, 1 FoW). Thats a lot of flexibility in appearance, considering the addition of mixing armors and dyes jobs.

Epic items are covered as green items which are the same stats as Perfect Godly weapons of the same type... Can't get much more legendary than that. You cannot increase any of the stats beyond this without unbalancing PvP and PvE equipment, something I would not look forward to. I agree with you on the limit of weapons and upgrades at around 100, but what additionally can you ask for? Weapons that add to your ??? confused here... maybe Sundering Staff Heads (I'd actually like one of those

) Additionally there are a wide variety of skins for many weapons too.

As for Amulets, Belts, Bracers, and to pull a term from D&D other Wondrous Magic Items... why? I can't think of many other effects I'd like to add to GW. Things like constantly maintained effects, extra energy, and the like threaten to desperately unkilter the balance in the game... think about the Henge of Denravi Sword... a measily +5 energy and they sell for around 250k. Rings, I believe are covered in your skill bar, in several cases I remember reading over them as Signet Rings. You make use of your ring slots as skill slots.

As for runes increasing attack speed, probably not gonna see it as this duplicates previous skills, skill and elemental damage can be accomplished with weapon upgrades. As for the customizable armor... see previous statements.

As for the additional sockets on weapons... The Scavengers of Ascalon quest kinda proved how abyssmally broken that was... Axes with +40% enchantment come to mind.

Additional slots really increase the effectiveness of certain skills... imagine a warrior with Strength 16, and 2 10/10 Sundering Glyphs... a 36% chance to sneak in 36% more damage... if these effects would stack.

Farming those areas is not really that limited... FoW, UW, and SF are large areas. They take hours to clear with a good group. Farming them in regards to Chest and Spider Runs in FoW, Smite Runs in UW, and Oro and FA Farming are very specific repetitive procedures... hence the term farming. Greens are fine where they are, unless ANet adds some new zones or bosses, and I can't figure out how they got into the new UW, but oh well. Now with Rare drops all over, there once was a time long ago when ecto's dropped everywhere. As for the EPIC items I'm not sure how PvP players would get them... imagine a PvP only group getting owned by a PvE team equipped with weapons PvP players couldn't get. Takes away ANet's idea of skill over grind. The idea of bigger PvE groups isn't something I care to think about either... I have yet to see a well organized and prepared group that can't stand against the level 28+ critters in the game. Without increasing the level of monsters to the ridiculous number or bolstering mob strength their really isn't a reason to do this... As it is right now, a lot of those high level areas require specific and sometimes expensive builds.

As for long EPIC quests... have you done Titan's Source or quests like the Four Horsemen? Those are about as intense as I can fathom... and time consuming. Considering how many people have to bail on PuGs and groups as is, imagine a group of 16 or 32 that has 10 leavers in it. 8O

I however do like the idea of the click to trade system... I mean I can now hold control and double-click my weapon slot to tell the party what I'm wielding, why can't that include the same to tell all what I'm selling.

Adding more slots is a hot topic, we are not sure if the new expansion is going to give us 0,1, or 4 more slots... most everybody wants more slots. I don't want to buy a mule account.

I think the reason for the blasted landscape is covered in the game's story. And there is more world in Chapter 2. Ascalon was once the grasslands, but you will find the ancient forests beyond Kryta, which is mixture of climates.

Pre-Ascalon: Equivalent to the Mid-West, meadowlands, in many ways with more forests.
Post-Ascalon: Equivalent to the Mid-West around East St. Louis. Badlands.
Shiverpeaks: Mountains (Deldrimor and Stone Summit Dwarves live there)
Kryta: Lush plains, hills, some forests.
Wilds: Steppes country.
Maguuma Jungle: Forest and jungle.
Crystal Desert: Ummmm... yeah... lots of sand.
Ring of Fire Islands: Baghdad, 2006. Volcanic Wastelands.

Great ideas though... just worrying about balance and quantity of information for my brain to absorb. I do really like the trade idea.

Bhaaltazar · Jan 24, 2006, 02:49 PM // 14:49

Argen what i try to say about armors was that i d like to see my character slowly evolving... without everybody having a chance to buy best armor early in a game with low lvls... that means that armor crafters in Ascalon, lions, yaks.... r realy needles since most of people buy a runner to beacons and than to droks..

I d like to see a game without runners threw missions and such... with knowing that u just might get a good peace of armor on your way threw mission... knowing that killing mobs wont get u just the gold and few xp. To me is like cheating when I buy myself best armor from crafters and such...
IMO its much better when u achive something in game when u put some effort in it... not just cleaning aout area for few hours when u already know what will u get sooner or later in that area ( SF ) but to anticipate that u just might get the item that wont be for sale everytime u come into city and 10 ppl at the time would try to sell it...

Oh 1 more thing.. i would except little more from armor for 15k or FoW armor. If i spent 10X more money on certain armor i would except that armor stats would be better than just basic droks stats... To me its just a waste of money to spent only on looks of it... and be think ur "leet" because of that...

what i want to say is that everybody says: this sword, this armor, wand, staff.... is the best here in the game ... and after that all wears the same equipment ( more or less )...

What i liked about oher online games is that you could find even cheap weapons or pieces of equipment that were useful ( maybe with higher req. ) and not only few leet items in the game. ( here r just Greens and few golds ( which again mostly do same dmg, same bonuses )).... i dont like this idea of max posible item dmg or armor def.

Id just like to have at least one more option than only PvP after i get all best equipment, skills and 20 lvl... u can make it 20 lvl in a day or 2... but after that just PvP.. well sooner or later it becomes boring... ( same thing happened with Diablo 2 when in a week u could have all u wanted and than do few PvP fights before there was nothing more to do ... it was few fun months and nothing else).

I know that some of this will change in chapter 2 i just hope that it wont be all about PvP and there will be more to do after you reach max lvl.

Orbberius · Jan 24, 2006, 02:53 PM // 14:53

Yeah Anet, it would be great if you could just make your next expansion Guild Wars: World of Warcraft.

/sarcasm

The basic idea behind Guild Wars is that it should be easy and fun for anyone to play, regardless of how much gold they have. That is why the armor in Drok's is exactly the same as the one in FoW. This also ensures that the PvP experience is balanced.

Bhaaltazar · Jan 24, 2006, 03:19 PM // 15:19

Well u say balanced... But why making PvE if there in not real use of it... Why dont just make PvP arenas like this weekend and all can just fight with same PvP weapons and gear... u can unlock all the skill with faction, u just need to fight little longer...

To me it would be more interesting if i could make custom armor... if u had better armor than i have that would mean i just need to put little more effort into game... If that is not so than why even bother to play PvE when all is about ballance in PvP..

Dont u think when everything is easy sooner or later is no longer interesting?

Argen · Jan 24, 2006, 08:55 PM // 20:55

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