Player Upgrades!!! <- Grinding System

The way i see it... there are 2 types of people in this world...

The kinda guy that doesnt want anything to do with grinding, and then the person who loves to grind and get new items and more money.

Anet seems to be trying to do away with the grinders...this in my opinion is a totally stupid idea.

I understand, and agree, that skill should be rewarded over time wasted. Just hear me out.

Games need replayability. Right now GW is lacking in replayability. YES, it has GvG and Hall of Heroes.. but why even bother? Its fun for a while, but the only thing you get out of it is a rank.

That is why i suggest a solution to Anets anti-grinding policy. And that is to add a grinding system, that doesnt affect player strength.
Add a Brand New Player Customization system.
Instead of getting a Sword that has +1 more % damage then your old +14%(which isnt even noticible in fights) Players would farm for upgrades.

Again, player customization would have to be as advanced as CoH's character creation. Alot of work would have to go into this to make it work.

Upgrades could include...

1) Increased glow effect
2) Different color glow effect
3) Necklace, bracelet, anklet
4) new emotes(including music)
5) Warcrys that players can hear(and also switch off if they want )
6) a faster way around cities(mount)
7) new armor customizations that change the look*
* i think different looking armor should be buyable...but only say..20% of all the armor that Anet can implement
8) Different Cooler Looking Spells
9) many other ideas

anyway...thats just a few ideas...add your own if youd like.

They could have some of these upgrades on drops...or they can have some hidden in distant corners of the world.

To fit these strange ideas into the atmosphere of the game...say you wanted to change your aura...Well you see a Guy in town with a ! above his head...he says "Bring me some blue essence, found only off the Holy Dragons deep somewhere in some cave, and ill create an elixir that will make your aura visible to mortal men blah blah"

In summary... I think Guild Wars should cater to the fans that enjoy making they're characters better and stronger(The 40k people that play d2 to this day at any given time)(The million players around the world that play WoW)
They should allow players to farm, but not necessarily just items to increase strength.

the cities are not big enough to need mounts.

even pets vanish in cities to take load off of servers.

see the huge number of dead threads about mounts

i am in favor of anything cosmetic but nothing that alters balance at all.

yeah the mount idea was just thrown in there

though NEXT expansion, id really like to visit a gigantic city...actually...id like to see all the cities grow in size, with alot more things to do in them.

Different color glow I agree with, not so sure about the mounts

armor limit to 20% of players is kind of stupid...

nonono, not limited to 20% or whatever...

considering 100% is the total amount of different armor in the game. 80% can be found in the wild by exploring. and 20% of it can be bought in towns...so it encourages going exploring, and buying and selling different armor.

I stopped reading at "A.Net seems to be trying to do away with the grinders"

I completely agree... I would really love to see different effects for the different elemental weapons, even if it's something small... a cold weapon, a slight blue, fire could make the blade look "heated up" or half way like the dragon sword around it... yea, shock dmg with little "shocking" graphics around the blade of the weapon... i mean, i think this would add alot of enjoyment out of getting a really cool weapon... perhaps the vampiric could even have a little something (a blood drip, or eh?)... i just think there needs to be differentiality from a fire dmg fellblade for instance, and a normal dmg fellblade, and so on. And who else thinks that the "Conjure" spells should add a different effect to the looks of a weapon...?

Not to mention, i would like to see something else added into armor customization, i mean like... the dyes are cool, and i love it, but i would like to see little customized things i could purchase for the armor... perhaps a little strap that you can dye and then insert onto your armor, or maybe have something like a "spike" that's placeable onto the shoulder... Make things like this harder to get to, you know... the good ole average granite, or grotto will do fine. But i would really love some more personalized things, and perhaps things that you can buy to upgrade your armor for the dual classes, such as something different to add on for a wa/mo and for a wa/n, since they're obviously two Very different characters, let's let them look different too. (Looks Only, nothing that will alter defense and such. I also love equal pvp... let's never forget about that.)

If they do add some sort of "Cosmetic merchant", perhaps you could add Really cool looking hair styles, or a tattoo for the face, and add these into the same sort of places.

What's great about all this, is it can be a great added gold sink, which i'm sure millions would love, since nobody wants to look like another... we all love originality.

Well, those are my thoughts on some great gold sinks, and great additions.

i think they shouldnt have as many merchants... of course they need an auction house system, and they can keep the mechants they have now.. just make it more of a player run economy.

i do like how the mechants provide the basis of prices..but maybe Anet can have those prices change by monitoring player trades too.

besides that... i think that customization should be a major concern, like i said above. and i think that farming should be about customization.. not about getting a not even noticibly better item.

People like to make there characters good...that includes good weapons, armor and just plain looking better then other people... so this will allow farmers to enjoy creating their perfect character, and would also make it so they arent better in PvP

Another thing id like to see is a "run" area...like baal or mephisto...people became addicted to doing that.. and addiction is what sells...honestly. you dont have to run these..but having them there is just something you know you can always go do.

Also...maybe include PvE only weapons and armor stats.

eh? so whyd you post...

That is a GREAT idea! Everyone should e-mail Arenanet and tell them what you want in the expansion pack.

what i would like to see is in essence an *cosmetic upgrade merchant* which would stock a huge amount of useless but different items you could add to each professions armor without making it so different you could not tell what they were

i want weapons that do nothing extra but make Ruriks flame sword green with envy

maybe colored lightning running along it
maybe changing colored flames
maybe............?

yeah weapon upgrades too would be awesome

I think you're on the right track, here are my ideas:
(donning +5 anti-flame breastplate of woe)

-Level caps on Armor and Weapons
-Craftable weapons and armor that characters can sell
-A wider variety of Armor
-Potions
-Food
-Auction House
-Communty events, even guild sponsored events

Seems to me people only feel the need to grind because the only things that matter are a few select items that are usually by most standards hard to get, except for a few enterprising people who figured out how to do it and to mark it up. This gives everyone the impression that one needs those items to play in PvP or PvE to have fun. Give the players more options to spend thier money on. Grinding isn't bad unless you feel like you have to do it to get ahead.

or maybe even do an emote upgrade? like u can "learn" a new emote by spending some gold/grinding?

also, the upgrades could be unlocked for pvp as well.. so you're pvp char can be a lot different from others.

potions are out as we have a self heal for everybody and as for food it would either have a plus effect same as a potion or a negative effect and i for one dont want to be an hour into a mission and go oops forgot the food and now i am suffering a progressive penalty at the worst time.

also food would take up one or more valuable inventory slots.

if implimented the scream of rage would be heard in Anets boardroom.

no way

Food in ffxi is handled is a temp effect (but lasts longer then most spells) that give you some sort of bonus (based on the food) that eventually wears off (and you can only have 1 food item on at one time). Food usually also give you a neagtive effect too in a diffrenet area.

Not a bad idea for a longer then a enchantement effect in a mission say 5 minutes.

... and the cosmetic merchants would require specific crafting materials in addition to gold to do the cosmetic upgrades. and the materials can only be found by killing monsters.