Guild Wars 2

The second fettered pack will soon be released and i wanted to write some thoughts on the upcoming features and maybe some ideas how to improve them. I hope that you guys will also write your thoughts about the pack.

sPvP Changes

Standard enemy models option – this one was probably created for e-sports and competitive pvp. Personally i will never really use it because i like the race and armour differentials. Luckily it can be turned off, so i guess no matter if you will use it or not its a great thing.

PvP Exclusive armour – yes, yes and yes. I enjoy both pvp and pve but i always thought there should be a difference between theme. The new reward system is way better than the old one, but there should be some items that can be found in different modes only. WvW has mist forged weapons, PVE has live story items and now PVP will get a new armour set. I really like that there will a elite tournament version. Still there should be more items that will be rewarded in PVP, maybe some weapons and mini pets like in the old Hall of monuments times.

WvW Changes

I don’t play that much wvw. Maybe because there is to much zerg and not enough rewards.

Siege Golem Mastery is joining the list of WvW ability lines

I don’t know if the golem is underpowered or its not used enough. But it looks interesting. I think there should be maybe a few more lines but i don’t play that much wvw anyway.

Siege Disabler added to Traps and Tricks Outfitter

This looks like this could change a bit of wvw dynamics. Maybe now there will be a bit more strategising and maybe smaller groups will be more viable. Still i hope they will add a few more mechanics to wvw.

Commander tags are now account wide and have access to four colors (red, yellow, purple, blue). Costs increased to 300 gold but existing commanders will be grandfathered in

More colours should make things easier, there are to much commanders sometimes that don’t really help. Some players simply don’t turn their tags off when they are not using them. Still this won’t help in this case, but i hope there will be some mechanics that will make commanders use the tag only when commanding. Maybe a way to earn instead of buy it ? Still i think that the price of 300g is cool for the account wide unlock for all the colours. Nice that aNet listened and changed from 300g per colour to 300g per account.
The account wide thing was a must since its kind of strange to use so much gold for a charter based function.

New WvW Tournament starting on Sept 12, lasting only four weeks and unique matchups every week

I don’t know how the shorter tournament and different mach ups will effect the wvw tournaments, but i guess that if it won’t work out we still can go back to the old format.

Complete all four weekly achievement to unlock the meta achievement and earn the Mist Treader title

I did not play that much wvw last season because i did not have that much time and i thought that i won’t be able to complete the meta achievements. There were to boring. You had to do the same things over and over again, so i really like the new update. That way i hope i will be more motivated to play wvw and get the mistforged gear.

Improvements/Crafting

Dungeon Instance Owner

About time. This was one of the most annoying things about dungeons.

Crafting UI

Crafting is an amazing part of GW2. Personally the old system was fine but this one is so much better.

New backpacks added to each crafting profession that have looks unique to that crafting profession. The backpack’s look progress as you advance and builds on top of what you’ve already made.

Some new things to look forward to. I hope they will maybe add some new skins to the crafting of armours and weapons. In my opinion crafting items are same as the dropped ones, but there is more work to them, maybe reward us whit more unique skins on low levels.

Guilds/Megaserver

Everything in your guild—your bank, merits, influence, and upgrades—is now global and shared across all worlds

I am a part of a small guild an newer noticed that this was split. Still i guess it can be a bother.

Guild missions reservation system

Again something that i though it was already there.

Ability to exit out of closing maps

A great solution to a great problem. Empty maps are the worst. I hope that they will update the friend finding icon on the map, since sometimes it does not show up while on different maps.

Leveling

New leveling gear added that extends to exotic level of rarity. Available as recipes for crafters and as mob drops. Also players are more likely to get loot drops that they can use

I don’t think how this will work. Still it may be cool for players white more characters. The profession loot will probably not be that noticed but i really like it, since i can’t get a good wand for my elle.

New content direction system at the top right side of the screen, providing one clear location and arrow to guide players to exciting content

I really don’t know if this is a good idea or just something that wastes space. The map works fine for me. I just hope this won’t turn into click a button and finish the story type of game. But you can turn it off and i really like this.

Now every time you level up, there is a shiny badge that pops up where bouncy chests exists. Clicking on it will present a reward screen that will show you any new game systems you have unlocked by reaching that level

I don’t know what kind of rewards you will get. Hope this will be helpful, still i am afraid that this rewards will be way to important or not really useful.

Rallying from a downed state only available at level 5 and above

I don’t like this. Its actually the only thing that i really really dislike. Rallying is not that confusing and the downed state is an important mechanics in gw2 and i thing this is a really bad idea.

WvW and sPvP are unlocked at level 18 and 22 but experienced players can access it via Lion’s Arch or use hotkeys. The buttons will be hidden until you reach these levels but once the buttons are unlocked for one character, they will be visible to all future characters as well

Not a real difference so i don’t mind or like it.

Some other features like weapon swapping and skill slot unlocks have been moved a bit

I don’t know why ? It was good the way it was, why change it ? This is strange.

Your stats will now come in chunks after reaching a milestone rather than increase after every level

Again something that makes no sense whatsoever. Still i don’t mind it. The end stats will be the same. Still it fells like now you will change weapons and gear every 10 lvl and in between there will be nothing to change.

Skill slots for weapons will be unlocked for all weapons simultaneously as you level up. This means that if you picked up a new weapon for the first time after already unlocking multiple weapon skill slots, you will automatically learn the skills for that weapon

Another strange thing. I don’t know at what lvl the skills will unlock but it fells odd. It breaks the emergion. Now it fells more like you know how to use the staff great the bow works the same way.

Personal Story is also now unlocked in chunks as part of a chapter. Personal story chapters also got updated rewards to make them worthwhile for completing. When a story chapter is unlocked as a level-up reward, you’ll be able to play straight through the entire chapter from start to finish and not have any awkward starts and stops that throw off the storyline.The chapter rewards are not retroactive and only affect future characters

Actually i really like this one. I don’t know what lvl the rewards will be but i play the whole story at the same time anyway, because a few levels under the recommended works just fine. But this will be amazing.

Wardrobe/Minis/Finishers

Search box added to all sections of the wardrobe It will filter available options by name as you type

something that will be really useful.

Outfits are now moved to their own section, separate from equipment skins

This will make things more clearer.

New tabs are added in the wardrobe for finishers and minis

Yes yes and yes. We asked for a mini tab so long ago and now we have one. This is probably the best thing in the whole update. I love minis. Now just return minis for birthdays and i will be a happy camper.

Finishers are now moved into the wardrobe and can be searched as well. You can now preview them as well, even the ones you don’t own

The old way was ok, this one is amazing. I like that now you can preview them before using/buying.

Items Collections/Achievements

Item collections is a new set of achievements with unique rewards that are tied to finding items and skins. The achievements can be found in the Collections section of the achievements panel and there are a number of hidden collections

Collecting is my middle name so i love the new system. I wonder what kind of rewards there will be. Hope they will ad more over time. And arena net please add some more in game weapons and armours not just gem store.

Visit Rednax Youngblood in Lion’s Arch after the patch to get the coveted Collectible Spoon Box to start your Koutalophile collection which require you to collect spoons from renown vendors and dangerous locations

Newe knew the spoons existed in gw. But i really like the scavenger hunt theme and i hope we will se more of this kin of content.

Trading Post

Trading Post have been reworked so now it loads faster with a new and faster browser engine

So that was the problem whit the trading post. I wonder why we don’t have a web based or app based trading post ? It would be easy to implement and i would even pay for it. I would pay for an app not a each month.

Pick-Up tab has been removed with a new Delivery Box on the

Soounds interesting. Still had no problem whit the old one.

Expanded filter options

This will make things so much easier. The searching for gear was a pain sometimes.

I like most of the new changes and i can’t wait to test them out. I would like to thank arena net for the hard work.

General impression: wowed.

Part of the reason for the overall negativity on this forum is that there’s no super-gigantic awesome wardrobe-like feature in this upcoming patch – no big ‘seller’. But take it all objectively. It’s a gigantic list of QoL features, quite impressive.

Stuff I Like:

- Trading Post overhaul
- buffs for Engineer’s Flamethrower
- Ranger balance changes (I am leveling a Ranger right now, so looking forward to the new, faster longbow)
- new collection achievements (yeah yeah, I know some people think it’s just ANet adding busywork, but they might actually give me a reason to do some more map completion on alts if karma vendor items are involved)
- Crafting backpieces + Crafting UI tweaks
- performance enhancement in dungeons and WvW

Stuff I’m On The Fence About:

- the changes to leveling. Rewards just for leveling? Nice. Statistical progression coming in chunks instead of gradually? Uh. Weapon swapping and skill slot unlocks “moved to different levels”? Why? Unless they’re being moved to earlier levels. I still don’t understand how weapon skill unlocks are going to work; I didn’t mind having to actually USE each weapon to unlock skills for it, as opposed to having to wait until a specific level.

Stuff I’m Not So Thrilled About:
- Necro balance changes are rather meh (except for axe and dagger semi-cleave, I suppose)
- Thief’s Black Powder is getting a bit of a nerf

Still no:
- precursor crafting/scavenger hunt
- legendary armor/trinkets
- guild/player housing
- new skills/weapons/races/profs

Most of these things were promised over a year ago. This is why we are so miffed.

Sakri.7234:

Still no:
- precursor crafting/scavenger hunt
- legendary armor/trinkets
- guild/player housing
- new skills/weapons/races/profs

Most of these things were promised over a year ago. This is why we are so miffed.

They were not promised. Intended, subjected to change perhaps. But never, once promised. It is statements like this which caused the devs to be cautous in their communications to us when words were incorrectly interpreted. Lets not reurn to those days..

Randulf.7614:

Sakri.7234:

Still no:
- precursor crafting/scavenger hunt
- legendary armor/trinkets
- guild/player housing
- new skills/weapons/races/profs

Most of these things were promised over a year ago. This is why we are so miffed.

They were not promised. Intended, subjected to change perhaps. But never, once promised. It is statements like this which caused the devs to be cautous in their communications to us when words were incorrectly interpreted. Lets not reurn to those days..

Well said.People on this forums start to hear and see things that does not exist.

sPvP Changes:
Contradictory while nice.

PvP players have been asking for something to denote them as PvP players for quite some time. With the Llama mini and PvP Legendaries as their only way of standing out of the crowd… well, most people don’t look at their feet when walking (I know I do, but that’s because it’s a habit from when I was young). Granting them PvP Exclusive Armor is great and I appreciate it, even as a PvE player who has not yet completed a single track. The Mistforged version is also nice, if not a bit too exclusive, in my opinion. Perhaps they could have made it a rank 80 track or, you know, have rank inclusive tracks (inclusive meaning once you unlock it, you’ll always have it as opposed to only having it while you’re in that rank). They then proceeded to implement standard models.

Both of these changes are great on their own but together, they are contradictory.

Then we move onto WvW. I might be wrong, but WvW is dying because it’s getting no attention and only surviving because of world loyalty and players wanting to feel like they’re making a difference (if you want a ktrain, go to EotM). Megaservers were the wrong direction in world loyalty (megaservers were not, however, the wrong direction for PvE content). I’ve said this before, but basically there’s little world loyalty while outside of WvW. You can be running around nearly anywhere and if you see a guild recruitment message, chances are it’s not a part of your world.

Quick tangent before I smoothly progress: Instead of adding content to WvW, Anet is trying to repopularitize (not a word, I know it should be repopulate) it by [re]implementing WvW Tournament. While this does, to some degree, improve world loyalty with the threat of personal rewards, it doesn’t really mean much to WvW players since they, you know, already had this. It’s like you returning SAB to PvE. While it’s nice, it’s not particularly necessary and most players have sort of gotten used to not having it anymore (shhh, I know you really want SAB).

Fluff:
Guilds are now global! While this is great in conjunction with the megaservers to help improve guild loyalty (woah there, that’s not the word world), it doesn’t address some issues which may still occur, such as Guild Missions requiring guesting even with the Megaservers to get appropriate rewards (if you’re not from that world). Also, Anet usually tries to incorporate smaller guilds with their updates, but this patch doesn’t really target them at all. It’s focused on the bigger guilds, which is fine, but has absolutely nothing for the medium or small guilds in the game. (Yeah, sure, your guild has 5 people in another server, cute.)

TP Changes were necessary but didn’t address the problems with the TP, such as Projected Profit (it still shows both fees next to each other, but it doesn’t list the final profit and it also spreads the numbers apart, making it harder to do quick math [yes, it’s not THAT much harder, but it is still more annoying to have to look back and forth]). Additionally, the UI seems smoother but also requires more clicks. As an end-product, you want things to be able to be moved through using less clicks, not more.

Wardrobe Changes: Nice fluff, can talk about how they’re bad for players, good for the economy, good for arenanets profit margins, and easily abusing completionists, but I’ll skip.

Balance changes: Most of these were minor bug fixes and tweaks. While some of them were on the placement of a major balance update, the entirety of the patch is not a major balance update and won’t affect the game significantly.

There’s a lot more I can talk about but basically, it all boils down to:

Most of these changes are great, on their own, but together they actually clash, conflict, and don’t have a place in a major biyearly patch. The only advantage to having this be held out for so long was to re-rail arenanet on how to implement the account bound commander tags (because 300g for a different color is not something that players had wanted).

Everything else could have been done without having the “hype-prolong” added to them.

The pack seems to have a nice bunch of things in it but I’m going to reserve my opinion until I see how it all works in practice.

saalle.4623:

Randulf.7614:

Sakri.7234:

Still no:
- precursor crafting/scavenger hunt
- legendary armor/trinkets
- guild/player housing
- new skills/weapons/races/profs

Most of these things were promised over a year ago. This is why we are so miffed.

They were not promised. Intended, subjected to change perhaps. But never, once promised. It is statements like this which caused the devs to be cautous in their communications to us when words were incorrectly interpreted. Lets not reurn to those days..

Well said.People on this forums start to hear and see things that does not exist.

agree…but it doesn’t change the fact that “highly desired features/content” (like precursor craft/hunts, new game modes in PvP, or guild system expansion/ improvement) have taken a backseat to “who gives a kitten”, “this is horrible”, and “thats nice, but not really needed” features, for well over a year.

which would be fine, if Anet didn’t introduce features/non-LS content/bug-fixes/balance passes/etc. at such a GLACIAL pace.

as for this feature pack:

Love:
TP overhaul is awesome and long overdue. they went above what i expected here, so kudos to Anet.

Like:
1)standard PvP models and pvp exlusive armor (i don’t pvp, but these are pretty cool).
2)commander tag update – could/should have been more comprehensive as there were a ton of gret ideas in that CDI, but account-bound and new colors are a start (but likely all we’ll ever get).

Necessary (But Let’s See If It Works):
1)all the optimization/performance improvements to combat and megaserver
2)Balance Pass

Dislike:
profession-tailored loot (if its hardly noticeable as they claim, why bother? it will be noticeable) salvage mats are not equal….those who will get more cloth (wool, linen, silk) are the winners; the rest lose.

Okay, I Guess:
the rest

overall, it underwhelms me as a vet, but if this makes the experience for new players good enough to retain more of them and extend the life of the game for another 6-8 months, so be it. i can accept that.

Lheimroo.2947:

General impression: wowed.

Part of the reason for the overall negativity on this forum is that there’s no super-gigantic awesome wardrobe-like feature in this upcoming patch – no big ‘seller’. But take it all objectively. It’s a gigantic list of QoL features, quite impressive.

I believe that the collections system has the potential to provide “pursuit” activity for what might be a large segment of the player base. My guess is that the incoming implementation is a test bed, and if it is popular, will result in lots more collecting going forward. This system could potentially be bigger than the wardrobe over time.

As good or better than the first FP