When will we get new Core Specializations?
Did you actually watch the live stream? The community, at that time, was asking for some sort of information about what was going on, we had ~3-4 weeks of light “fluff” pieces and recaps. Anet answered our pleas and showed us a lot of stuff that was rough around the edges and still has a lot of work to do.
They still have to:
Artwork for all of the traits
Artwork for the UI of each of the core specializations
Artwork for the UI of each of the branch of skills
Take any feedback they deem appropriate that we’ve given
Apply all the changes they’ve mentioned for our weapon/utility/heal/elite skills
Balance the heck out of the numbers
Test everything to make sure it’s not broken
And do that for each of the 8 professions.
Then change all skill points to hero points
Decide the set in stone number for HP to max everything
Remove skill points from our Hero Panel
Have us loose all skills and gain the correct amount of HP
Gain the correct amount of the new unnamed wallet Mystic Forge currency
Expand the wallet so it can fit the new item (and I assume they’ll also add other currencies at this time, geodes and bandit crests please! and place holders for anything new with HoT)
Decide if they want to change how any number is calculated, for example precision is going up to 1000, do they just want to increase the baseline crit chance of all players, or will they redo the formula so even with 1k precision we still just have a 4% crit chance.
Figure out if they want to do anything with condi duration and boon duration that is being removed from trait lines.
And I’m sure I’m missing stuff….
On top of that, the engi stuff wasn’t even in a state to show us in the game, just via a powerpoint, which had about 4-6 TBD traits or just “general idea” traits. Plus they said that they’d show us their work again at a later date before it goes live so they can get some final feedback/number balancing.
Don’t assume that we’re getting this for a couple of months. Maybe 1-2 months before HoT launches. Just enough time for most of us to play around with builds, and get new gear if we want it.
Heck, it all could be combined into a 3rd feature pack. Defiance changes, expanded wallet, hero points, new trait system, please some other QoL features (tonics and toys? in the hero tab like finishers), etc.
Did you actually watch the live stream? The community, at that time, was asking for some sort of information about what was going on, we had ~3-4 weeks of light “fluff” pieces and recaps. Anet answered our pleas and showed us a lot of stuff that was rough around the edges and still has a lot of work to do.
They still have to:
Artwork for all of the traits
Artwork for the UI of each of the core specializations
Artwork for the UI of each of the branch of skills
Take any feedback they deem appropriate that we’ve given
Apply all the changes they’ve mentioned for our weapon/utility/heal/elite skills
Balance the heck out of the numbers
Test everything to make sure it’s not broken
And do that for each of the 8 professions.
Then change all skill points to hero points
Decide the set in stone number for HP to max everything
Remove skill points from our Hero Panel
Have us loose all skills and gain the correct amount of HP
Gain the correct amount of the new unnamed wallet Mystic Forge currency
Expand the wallet so it can fit the new item (and I assume they’ll also add other currencies at this time, geodes and bandit crests please! and place holders for anything new with HoT)
Decide if they want to change how any number is calculated, for example precision is going up to 1000, do they just want to increase the baseline crit chance of all players, or will they redo the formula so even with 1k precision we still just have a 4% crit chance.
Figure out if they want to do anything with condi duration and boon duration that is being removed from trait lines.
And I’m sure I’m missing stuff….
I really hope they are much further indev then what you assume or what they have shown. What you listed would imply that they really don’t have much at all done, outside of concept and outline. If so and with specializations being one of the core aspects of HoT, it would mean A LONG time before it is released. Considering how long HoT has been talked about being indev.
snip
I really hope they are much further indev then what you assume or what they have shown. What you listed would imply that they really don’t have much at all done, outside of concept and outline. If so and with specializations being one of the core aspects of HoT, it would mean A LONG time before it is released. Considering how long HoT has been talked about being indev.
Oh I also forgot from the list.
Decide what they want to do about the cost of SP items (ie make things cheaper or more expensive).
Decide if they want to make SP (whatever the new wallet item will be called) easier or harder to earn
Convert everything in the game that gives SP to give the new currency or at least have them removed from the loot tables.
————————————————
Well, I’m just going by what they showed/told us and a bit of assumption. For the engi, they may have had more unstable builds that they weren’t confident enough to show us for one reason or another, so we got the powerpoint.
And because I can’t remember if I said this, and if I did to emphasis it, I greatly appreciate what Anet did. It was awesome to see stuff in the development phase and get excited to plan new builds. Anything that comes off as negative is just me sad that we can’t get this tomorrow.
Also, I may be a bit misleading, just because the OP expected us to get these traits after ~2-3 weeks. All the stuff I list is not done by the same people, so the work is being done in parallel. Now I don’t think we have any knowledge of who’s working on what at Anet outside of what we’ve seen on Ready Up and POI. So those designers could also be working on HoT work besides just the new traits. Plus some things listed are decisions you can make after an hour or two meeting.
But from what I recall, they showed 3? (head?) designers for the 8 classes (and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were 3-5 people working as a group on 3 classes with different people being in charge of a different profession, using made up numbers because I’ve seen ~300 Anet employes thrown around on the forums before). So the number crunching/balancing work total can be “cut by 3”. The artists are completely different people, and the designers of the UI/layout could be completely unrelated as well. The coders behind the HP system and the new wallet could be unrelated to each other, and/or unrelated to the profession people. Etc.
All that being said, when they first announced it I was already planning how they could fill the time with info between now (Jan) and release. Then around March (maybe April) the info started slowing down. They could still have HoT by late Aug, but it’s looking like it will take longer, especially if they want to add in the new trait changes/break bar/etc. before hand.
After this week we still have:
5 weeks: 5 more base professions elite specializations to discusses.
1 week: Potentially another week for the Rev to show us the other trait lines, 2-3 other legends, and weapons.
1 Week: The Rev’s elite specializations.
1 Week: Guild halls. How do we earn/build them. Why would we want to other than a hang out spot? How hard will it be for small guilds? How much can we customize them? We know pretty much nothing about them.
1 Week: “Challenging group content”. What does that entail in detail? Fractals/dungeons/raid bosses/world bosses/instances?
1-2 Weeks of revisiting the trait system. Maybe go over everything for a potential feature pack like update.
1-3 Weeks: “Other” PvE stuff. New armor/weapon skins, new legendaries (how do we get those and their precursors?), new collections, Activities and their rewards, etc.
0-1 Weeks: More indepth look at the WvW map.
0-1 Weeks: Showcase another map or another biome.
0-1 Weeks: Showcase more masteries besides gliding, mushroom jumping, and an overview of precursor crafting? I’d love to learn more about the lore ones. Or just do a more indepth look gaining them. “X content in the core game will retroactively give them, so go ahead and get started earning those core Tyria MP” perhaps.
0-2 Weeks of potential recaps.
0-5 Weeks (doubt this would stop their other news flow, unless they changed the info to be about it directly, so those not involved could get a look see) of Closed/Open beta for PvE, Closed/Open? beta of WvW, another look at Stronghold.
So I’d argue minimum 11 more weeks of heavy content. That brings us to late July-early Aug with no breaks. Plus they could have some “filler” weeks (I use the term filler here loosely, I liked learning about the frogs, but just not after such a long dry spell.): who are the Exalted? How are things going to progress after HoT is released, start date for Living World Season 3? Of course this is also assuming that things won’t pick up when we’re closer to release date, but I think it did for the core game. I could see them dropping big things on us every day for a week or two like they did with the Feature Pack 2 towards the end.
Either way, I’m still hopeful for a late Aug release, and maybe a late June trait revamp.