Guild Wars 2

Hello,

As told, next weekend will be the demo weekend for elite specs, yet these will only be available in PvP and WvW. I fear that will turn out to be a big mess, and an overall wasted opportunity.

My objectives for such a test are to have a glimpse at those elite specs, try the skills, weapons, utilities, look at the traits and how they synergize, and give them a run in my favorite game modes. I think it’s safe to say that most players can relate to these objectives. Yet, allowing only WvW and PvP will be a tremendous hindrance.

WvW topic :

That game mode is the closest to PvE, so I think this is where I’ll try to stick the most. The central issue here is : maps are limited, and can queue. I’m thus expecting the maps being awfully clogged by people just wanting to try elite specs… OS won’t be of any help, so I guess it’ll be EOTM, which may not be the best sandbox ingame.

So, just suppose I manage to get in after 1 hour waiting… I’m running 7 professions, and even if I don’t want to try some of them, I can’t honestly figure such a wait…

PvP topic :

No worries about queues to enter PvP lobby, yet… I’m expecting the test grounds being crowded. Maybe a ticket system to kill Svanir, the lord and those will be useful ? (irony). Overall, it probably won’t be easy to test anything on dummies. The FFA arena will probably an interesting place to watch though.

The second issue is the amulet system. I’m not blaming it in itself, but as a PvE/WvW player, I know that I won’t be able to tweak things as much as I could with amulets.

So, what’s the use ?

Overall, it occurs to me it’ll be hard to try much things with the tests limited to WvW and PvP, so what’s the use ? If it’s only to read traits and tooltips, just help update the wiki or the build editor… A test on thin air hasn’t much interest.

Possible solutions

I’m really strongly for a plain PvE test. It’s probably too late, but I’m suggesting two non exclusive options :

• Use the LWS3 maps as playing grounds. Most of them are interesting, with events, different kind of gameplays, some legendary bosses (I’m thinking of Lake Doric here).
• Limit the test to Auric Basin : this may be the easiest HoT map to navigate (gliding and mushrooms not really compulsory, reasonnable verticality), and it holds a meta event easy to understand and fairly challenging.

Moreover, offer this possibility even to players that don’t own HoT : it may be an incentive for them to buy it alongside PoF !

Thanks for attention.