29 Jun 2009 at 03:34 - 1579
Please take on your mind all features developers have stated for gw2 before reading this post.
I noticed that arenanet was discussing to have 100 levels or unlimited levels.
They probably already decided, but here is my IDEA :
PVE :
1) 100 levels because that way players get the best feel of progression.
I know that gw2 will have expansions instead, but they can still make campaign to be a part of what you get in an expansion, the difference would be :
-no tutorial area
-no "beginner" zones
-no new classes
-each expansion would add levels to the game so that doing quests and missions in it actually makes sense.
-I know that the storyline isnt linear in gw2, but instead has story arcs, and a story arc doesnt depend on another story arc, and you could complete story arcs in any order you like, regardless of your level. It means that when you complete a quest or a mission you gain certain percent of exp you need to level up. If you are level 1 and complete quest "A", you gain 20% of exp you need to level up, but you would also gain 20% if you are level 99. Each story arc is a chain of missions and quests, missions and quests in it are being unlocked in certain order, you unlock 1 mission or quest for a story arc "A" when you complete 1 mission or quest in story arc "A". My Idea would be that once you complete all story arcs in a campaign, then you get "final story arc" unlocked, which is basically the ending for each story arc in a campaign, that means that all story arcs share same ending of a their stories, which is actually a big conclusion and ending of the whole campaign.
-each expansion would have 1 campaign
-gw2 without expansions has 1 campaign
Each expansion would add additional levels to the game so that completing quests and missions makes sense. If you complete first campaign, without repeating any quest or a mission, participating in world pvp or in dungeons, you would be level 100.
2) Players would not gain experience by killing monsters.
3) Players would not gain money and items (loot) by killing monsters.
4) This is for quests (missions would have same system as in gw1) : When you are in party, all party members have their levels equal to the level of the member with highest level, developers call it sidekick. When your party interacts with a monster, that monster becomes "reserved" for your party. It means that its level becomes the same as the level of the party member with the highest level.The interaction that caused the monster to become reserved is calculated based on its "new" level after it got reserved. It also means that only players from your party can interact with it for as long as its reserved. When a monster leaves its "original spot" for a certain radius, it is no longer reserved. "Original spot" is a spot where the monster was at the moment your party reserved it.
5) Sidekick : You are level 10 primary elementalist. Your friend is level 50 warrior. So basically, when you party with him, you temporary "jump" for 40 levels. Now, your elementalist at level 10 has 5 energy storage and 5 wind magic. By jumping to level 50, he would gain an amount of attribute points that combined with his current used & unused attribute points give an amount of attribute points that level 50 characters have. Attribute distribution over certain attributes would be based on his current attributes,
which is 5 energy storage and 5 wind magic, and the rest 0.
Lets assume he would gain 100 attribute points by jumping for 40 levels.
Then the automatic distribution goes like this :
[5(energy storage) +5(wind magic) =10. 100:10=10. 10*5 (energy storage)=50. 10*5(wind magic)= 50.] Sorry for me being bad in math :P.
Anyway, this would mean that 50 attribute points would automatically upgrade wind magic, while another 50 energy storage.
Of course that attribute upgrades would be like this then :
Upgrading wind magic to rank 2 would require same amount of
attribute points as upgrading it to rank 20. Of course this could lead to many people using skills of 4 or more attributes at once, BUT you could adjust
skills to it, and skills which do non-numerical effects, would require certain attribute rank if you want that effect to work. So, it is possible to still keep people on using only 2 or 3 attributes with this system.
The same way that experience functions would attribute points function as well. Developers stated that gear will not be class dependent. Lets assume
you have a gear which gives you + 50 physical defense, +10 elemental defense at level 10. Gear for level 15 would give you for example +75 physical defense, and + 15 elemental defense. Of course that there would not be a gear for every level, but if you jump from 10 to 50, and there isnt
a gear for level 50, and the first gear below that is for level 45, you would than have your gear "buffed" so that its original stats and the buff combined give the stats of a level 45 gear. Of course this boost would also depend on how your gear is customised. So if the gear on level 10 gives 50 physical defense and 10 elemental defense, if its boosted on level 45 it would give you for example 1750 physical defense and 350. Notice how 1750/350 is the same as 50/10. Im not sure if this would be the best way, since you can also do it as a difference between 50 and 10 being 40, which would mean that then we have 1750 physical defense and 1710 elemental defense.
Next, you are level 1 and you have 25 health and 10 energy.
When you gain a level you would gain 25 health and 10 energy.
If you had 30 health and 5 energy, you would gain 30 health and 5 energy when you level up. This depends on your primary profession of course.
I see a flaw here if race affect stats. So instead of an asura having inherent advantage as elementalist over norn elementalist I did it differently.
Your character would have racial attribute of his race+ primary attribute of his primary class+ secondary attributes of primary and secondary class.
Racial attribute doesnt have inherent effect, but there are skills that belong to it. It is the same as as a secondary, but has an importance as primary,
because it depends on your race and you cant change your race of a character. Norn racial attribute would probably have form skills, currently most known is bear. Racial attribute skills would be balanced with other attribute skills, because if they are not balanced, that would be the same as giving races inherent advantages then, which would force people to choose asura if they want to be elementalist. And besides its better to have balanced skills separated into more attributes because its easier to balance them then.
6)The reason for monsters having levels would be when you fight certain monsters and bosses. If you are level 20 and do quest in which you fight "werewolf" level 20 and "werewolf queen" which is level 24, that would mean if you are level 40 doing that quest, you would fight "werewolf" level 40 and "werewolf queen" level 44. (no, not level 48 as some of you may think.) Basically, werewolf queen level in this case is "your level +4 because she is a boss" in easy mode. If you do hard mode, her level is then "your level +4 because she is a boss + few levels because its hard mode".
7) Players would gain experience, money and items as a reward for completing a quest or a mission. I dont know what kind of quests will gw2 have, but if it has standard "kill 10 bulls", "collect 10 bull horns", then the solution is very simple : Each party member has its own quest counter.For example, if there is a party with 2 party members doing the same quest each of them has to kill 10 bulls. This is the simplest possible solution for scaling up in difficulty. So that not every member has to talk to npc to get his "copy" of the quest, a player could send a quest invitation to party member and that player could accept it if he/she has it unlocked. Every time you send a quest invitation, it is automatically sent to each party member. If a party member already has that quest on his/her quest log he/she does not receive the invitation for it. First time you complete a quest or a mission, it is in easy mode. All quests and missions would be repeatable. If you want to repeat a quest or a mission, you have to complete the whole campaign in easy mode first. Completion of campaign unlocks hard mode for its quest and missions. When you decide to repeat missions or quests, you would only gain experience if it is in easy mode. In hard mode you get money and items same as you get when completing the quest or a mission for the first time and more experience than in easy mode. However, if you complete the same quest or a mission in hard mode twice you would get only experience the second time. You could repeat any quest or mission any time since you already have all missions and quests unlocked from before. If any member in party has hard mode, every party member mode becomes hard if they have it unlocked. If not, then all hard modes in party become easy modes.
You could switch on and off hard modes only while outside of the party,
you might consider it a "toggle self-buff" and each time you switch from easy to hard, everything you achieved in a quest is reset. For example if you killed 5/10 bulls, if you change mode, it becomes 0/10 bulls. When you switch from hard to easy there is no reset. You could see if a player has hard mode unlocked.
8) Dungeons : Instanced, rules 2) and 3) not valid. To be honest, dungeons are only played for farming, but i decided not to bash developers ideas for gw2 so i complimented it instead.
9) You would gain experience by participating in world pvp.
Reason for this kind of system :
I would like to play an MMO as a game, not as everyday job.
Basically, MMOs these days have gameplay which is more like an everyday job for a player than a game. I mean on grind. Even if the game has like so many quests that you dont need to grind to level up or has only few levels or no levels at all, you must still farm for money.