Guild Wars 2

You sir, are in for a lot of responses in this thread

Are there any plans for future dungeon content?

i’ll just say you should take the time to read into what’s changed in the game, contextualize yourself. you’ll be able to weight the value of questions, and improvise new ones, much better if you’re “warmed up”, rather than going with a vision from two years ago.

reddit has a thread for returning players, i recommend reading it

My Questions;

Regarding WvW;
Are the World vs World maps similar in size to the current ones?

Apart from Lava pools, what other cool mechanics will we see in WvW when we take control of Keeps and Towers?

Regarding Guild Halls;
When you say “grow” our Guild Hall, does that mean it’ll be an instance in the Maguuma jungle that we as Guilds will have to cultivate?

Regarding Stronghold in PvP;
Will you or Have you considered giving Stronghold a separate queue to Conquest for the launch of the game? Because some people may be returning just to play that. (if they don’t answer this question tell them “ANSWER ME!!” in a Batman voice)

hey Joe. a bunch of us have had some concerns about old mechanics and professions getting left in the dust by the awesome design ideas and mechanics implemented for the revenant.

Q: will devs “refresh” old trait lines, weapons and utilities to make old builds and professions as cool as the revenant and the new specializations? I understand they would like to introduce new mechanics through the new specializations, but will the old lackluster utilities, elites, traits and weapons get updated as well? i.e. ranger shouts and offhand axe, lots of other stuff.

Will there be any instanced group content? Dungeons, Bosses, Guildraids.

If the answer is no put a gun out an tell them to design some. Thank you!

oh, i figure i’ll drop a question too.

Q: Will the core professions get new utilities and reworked skills to embrace the new tech we’ve seen with the revenant, or will we have to specialize to have access to those new toys?

Guild halls – will we be able to customize their looks to our liking (Like Wildstar’s housing) or do we all get same old hall, just of different size depending on our guild’s funding?

Specializations – we know jack smack you-know what about them. Just how much new do they bring? Is it just one single new weapon for each one? Do they use same weapons as base professsion asides that one new weapon? And if so are their weapon skills the same as base profession’s in that case? How many new skills and traits are they getting compared to base profession?

Dungeons – will we see new ones, and will old ones be given some attention, especially A.I. wise?

“challenging conent” be mostly open world, instanced, or plenty for both cases?

And finally, how far is their current progress with HoT more or less? Are we looking at something that’s half done, 80% done, not even halfway yet?

Q: How do you even?

Why is Sandwichmancer still not a profession? Anet decided to tease such an amazing profession only to reveal the much less imaginative Revenant.

Also… Cantha?

I agree with the questions about updates to the old professions they all need to be overlooked and updated there are still so many useless skills it would be great to go into this expansion with new and improved stuff.

Hey Angry Joe! Love your show, looking forward to your take on what they show you. I doubt they’ll have anything guild hall related there, I bet it’ll be the last thing they showcase, but if you can find out any info we’d love to hear it.

Besides wanting a release date and price point. There’s a bunch of different things that all of us want to know about depending on our playstyle. I know we won’t get answers to most of the below, but I think it’s a decent amount of questions that we’re all wondering.

And a question that isn’t related to the expansion, but something I would love to know. What do they have planned for players between now and the release date? They hype of an expansion got many players to come back, but without the Living World updates or a festival going on what will keep them playing for the foreseeable number of months while we wait for the expansion.

General:
Size of the expansion? Will the new maps be on the size of the original maps or will they be “half sized” like the 3 they’ve added since launch. We know they are going to be packed with content but it would be nice to know how many maps/content we should be expecting.

Mobility questions. With the introduction of hang gliding and mushroom jumping and the mention of buildable waypoints at “forts” inside of the new maps that we can control. Are they going to be limiting normal waypoints “forcing” us to walk on foot if we walk into a new empty map or the like, or is there still going to be set “safe zones” for us to waypoint to – not just the start of a map?

With the showcase of Taunt, is Anet trying to finally give other play styles more relevance? Not bringing the trinity or anything, but bringing up different play styles in PvE, which has the mentality of “go zerker stats or go home”

They mentioned a close beta will start shortly after PAX East, do we have info on the size, scope, and length of it?

Mastery Lines:

Will we be able to unlock and fully complete all mastery lines at launch? Will there be a surplus or defect of mastery points/will some percentage of them be very hard to obtain and only for the “hard core” players.

How many mastery lines are we going to get, and will things be hard or soft gated with the new content. Will you just do very little damage without a certain combat mastery or will you be unable to hurt it without it?

Harder content:
Small man group: New dungeons or fractals?
Medium to large Sized: Are they bringing instance “raid style” bosses or are they keeping everything open world? Are we getting new world bosses, and any new info on the large map metas that they’ve mentioned so far (will they be more time based like Dry Top or a progress/performance bar like Silverwastes).

Classes:
Besides wanting to know what all the new specializations are, others have thought up some good questions. They’ve said that the Revenant and the new Specializations are using the new tech they’ve developed. Are the vanilla classes getting a fresh coat of paint or are they staying the way they are now. Are any getting access to the two new boons and two new conditions mentioned. As someone else put it, if the new mechanics are only going to the specializations why would we want to play the base class anymore?

How many Legends will the Revenant have access to? Will the utility skills be set in stone or will we have a small number of options per Legend?

Guild Halls: Any info really.

Will we “build” them up. If so, how and with what currencies? (Gold, influence, crafting mats, or some new currency) Will things be permanent or will they require an “upkeep fee”? How customizable will they be?

How are they addressing the size difference in guilds? Can only the big guilds get the cool shiny stuff or do smaller guilds have a chance?

Other than a place for the guild to gather and chat, what purpose do they serve? Why would we want to go to our GH instead of a town with crafting stations/bank access (outside of the reason they said where we could gather for ?

WvW:
How are they going to handle the rotation of the new borderland map? Is it just 1 color per week or will all 3 get changed or something new? Besides the mechanics of giving keeps special powers and having towers located in choke points, will the rewards for defenders be going up? There are many jobs in WvW that give very little rewards: scouts, upgraders, roamers, upgraders, yak walkers, etc. Are they going to try to change the reward structure to reward these players?

Are we getting any new WvW mastery lines?

I got one important question:

Are we finally getting a condition mechanics rework, that would make conditions much more viable in PVE than they are now?

Invidia.9074:

I got one important question:

Are we finally getting a condition mechanics rework, that would make conditions much more viable in PVE than they are now?

I agree with the need for this question.

One question:

Will the progress of the main story be released in certain time frames, developing something like big “progress chapters” (similar to WoW expansion story progression as an example) or will whole story be released right at the start of the expansion, “with the box” ?

Yes, the issue in this thread is really important, possibly the most important question concerning the expansion.

Basically it asks whether or not vanilla classes are going to be updated to be mechanically on par with the the Revenant and specializations. New tech is allowing for lots of new mechanics to be added in the expansion, and it seems the base classes are getting none of them except in specializations, while the Revenant will be getting those new mechanics in its base and the specializations. This has the potential to outmode the existing eight base classes as compared to the Revenant, as well as the base classes as compared to the specializations.

A developer popped in to the thread and stated that they would try to balance of course, but that really isn’t even the issue, the issue is more that the class will be more interesting, viable, and fun with the more advanced mechanics, not that it will be more competitive or powerful.

This interview will certainly be interesting. Considering past history with Angry Joe’s channel and Guild Wars 2 content.

As for a question. Will Super Adventure Box be continuing in its development when the expansion Heart of Thorns is released?

Hey Joe, if I could ask them one question it would be this…

Do you have any plans on making the game’s loot feel more rewarding and overhaul the RNG that has made some players like myself lose hope that we’ll ever get anything cool or valuable playing the game?

Attempting to list or record footage of the new specializations’ skills would be nice.

Lazaar.9123:

Invidia.9074:

I got one important question:

Are we finally getting a condition mechanics rework, that would make conditions much more viable in PVE than they are now?

I agree with the need for this question.

Same here, although I’m not sure if it’s entirely HoT-related. Then again, conditions will also be used in HoT…

Q: Will we see more complex boss fights/mechanics? Best example when it comes to good boss/encounter design is for me Wildstar. Also Tequatl is imho a step into the right direction. I d also like to know if there will be any group content for 5+ – 10+ ppl? I don’t wanna name it “raids” in the classical sense but I think that comes close to the possible mode I mean

Thx AngryJoe
Your GW2 review at release was incredibly well done

Great questions so far!
I’m really excited about the event empowered by you guys! The event will be on Tuesday and ill return on Wed, but most of the stuff will be embargoed for a tiny bit after.

See if you can find out if we’re going to be getting a sizable of new weapon and armor skins outside of the new legendaries. I know that’s usually a given with expansions, but what we’ve seen so far has mostly been displayed with old skins.

Who knows, maybe they have whole sets (like with dungeons) that we can earn.

Hey Angry Joe, love your show, glad to see you coming back. I hope you can do a peek at what has happened since you departed, but I know you probably have a lot of other games to draw your attention and time.

Good luck with the event, and if you want a couple questions:

- Will there be a way for new/returning players to experience the story of Living World Season 1?

- Is there going to be a Season 3 before the release of Heart of Thorns? If so, will it be focused on leading up to the content or more focused on world-wide reactions to what happened?

- Will someone please unshackle Josh Foreman and let him work on SAB World 3? Or at least a cyclical availability schedule for the Box so it’s still special/limited but not offline all the time?

Hey Joe! Welcome back

Q: are we going to have “squad layout” in Wvw/PvE? Or at least customisable party frames? Any UI improvements?

I sometimes see your Army still advertising. Make sure you check out the new WvW maps… We gonna give you a good fight I promise

Good to see that people with such deep knowledge of the game are getting invited to the press event to ask questions they had no idea would exist before asking the people who actually know what’s going on. ^^

The wonders of internet fame. At least I don’t have to ask you to not get angry about what I just wrote, because you know. Nothing personal.

Ask them why they insist to set the foundation of the game with everything they do from the scratch.
Living Story was meant to build the foundation of how the story telling and introduction of new content was going to work.
Feature patches were there to build a foundation on character progression.

Now with the expansion, they build the foundation on what Guild Wars 2 will expand and grow.

With all the foundations under the new foundation one has to ask, did they build all this on sand? What is wrong with all the former foundations, or the core game in the first place.

Was Guild Wars 2 never designed to grow in the original design? What is the plan beyond all those foundations, will we ever get a matured game?

I would be really curious to get an answer on this.

Where is the revenant better then other professions?

I mean the warrior buffs in an offensive way, the guardian in a defensive. Whats the position of the revenant? We have mesmer and ranger doing decent damage at range. The elementalist can do a lot of damage at range and in melee and buff offensive like no one else…

AngryJoeShow.5864:

Hey guys,
I’ve got a trip here to ArenaNet for a Press Event on the upcoming Heart of Thorns Expansion for Guild Wars 2. You may remember my Guild Wars 2 Angry Review on Youtube about the game, I really loved it at release (dont know how its evolved since then)

Its since been something like 2+ years and I haven’t returned to the game (Decided I was going to wait for the Expansion) and here it finally is! However because ive been out of the loop so long I sorta missed out on most of the happenings and current issues with the game.

If you guys want to let me know anything that needs addressing or you have some good Heart of Thorns Expansion questions you’d like to get answered (and think they will answer early) leave them here!

There’s no one more familiar and knowledgeable about the game right now then you guys still here on the forums!

I hope to ask about or capture footage of Guild Halls, Guild Wars, and The New WvW Stuff if possible, but who knows what they have planned and seeing as how that’s very social content I may not be able to experience/capture it at a small event. But ill certainly ask.

I’m very curious myself, and I’ve seen threads eluding to the same question, if “old” skills are going to get a little polishing up as well with all these new flashy graphics and ‘tech’.

• So, are old professions (besides specializations) going to get updated as well?*

I see WvW is already on your list.

But maybe see if you can pick the dev’s brain how they think this map, and wvw in general, is going to work with the unbalanced matchups.

F.e. it sounds cool to have a map with objectives being chokepoints, but if one server is dominating that just means the other two servers cannot even move around the map anymore.

Hello Joe
1) Release date?
2) How often do they plan on releasing new specializations?
3) Number of extra character slots given with the exp?
4) Are new maps like stronghold being worked on or are they waiting to see how the community reacts to the game type??
5) How many dungeons are we gonna get?? Any Raids??
6) From what I saw in the videos of HoT looks like it will demand more out of our computers, are they planning on optimizing the game??
Thanks Joe for all your content and good luck on the interview

Yeah I have a few questions…

1. Release date
2. Price
3. New WvW badge of honor rewards? I have 50k badges collecting dust.
4. New WvW abilities? I have over 1400 extra points collecting dust.
5. Information on specialisations of each profession? I think we all want to hear about those next.
6. Cantha happening? Yes? No?
7. 1 additional char slot with HoT purchase?
8. Will other professions get additions to their skills/traits etc. being as the revenant seems so much better than any other class to date?

Really happy to see you Joe!

I’d like to know the specialization names.

Lazaar.9123:

Are there any plans for future dungeon/instanced content?

Hey Angry Joe! If you’re into the Personal Story in Heart of Thorns, I really recommend you play the Living Story Season 2 episodes, it really helps setup what’s been going on.

Aside from that, my question: Typically how long will precursor hunting will take?

My questions all aim to WvW:

• How does the dev team take balancing issues for WvW small scale and large scale combat into account? Or is the balancing still only done around 5v5 structured PvP combat scenarios?
• Did the designers think of ways to break the GWEN Meta (big zergs mostly consisting of Guardian, Warrior, Elementalist and Necromancers) in WvW?
• Will every profession be able to run a viable and competitive roaming build. Meaning: will every profession in principle be able to somehow escape from outnumbered/lost fights (as of now necromancers for instance have a very hard time doing this).
• Right now there are food buffs in the game, that offer +40% condition duration to any condition applied. Other more specific food buff offers only +15% duration to a certain condition (like burning). Will there be new specific food, that offers better bonuses to certain conditions to allow more build customization.
• Will there be more functionality added to the commander badge?

Lazaar.9123:

Invidia.9074:

I got one important question:

Are we finally getting a condition mechanics rework, that would make conditions much more viable in PVE than they are now?

I agree with the need for this question.

• What lessons did you take from the existing maps when designing the new WvW borderlands?
• You have said there will be greater incentive to defend objectives in WvW. Can you expand on this? Was this a consideration with the announced changes to stability?
• You have said the new WvW borderlands will be rotated with the old map, and that the new PvP mode will share a queue with the existing PvP maps. Does this mean they will be available to players who don’t buy the expansion?
• Will the PvP guild leader board be just for stronghold or all game modes? If only stronghold, how will this work without separate queues?
• Can we expect many changes to the base professions beside what their specialisations will get? If not, will not specialising really be a compelling choice?

Hi Angryjoe!

• Any news on the changes to other classes? Not the specialisations, but the current ones.
• Especially necro.
• Besides the new borderland, what other new things will come to WvW?
• What changes may be made to PvE in general, so that support/defensive stats and condition damage is more viable?

- What will the new legendaries look like?

- When will the new legendary skins be revealed?

- Will there be something similar to the “Eternity”? (two legendaries that can be combined to one)

1) Ask about the Trinity in HoT
so people can finally shut up…

2)How will Specializations handle Weapons? Will each Specialization only use 1 weapon? Or will Specializations get new Weapon skills for other existing weapons?

3) how the Defiance system and the new Defiance bar works in HoT?

4)How will Instanced PvE content work in HoT? Any raids?

5)Any plans on Future Structured-PvP modes with more than just 5v5?

6)Whats some gaps that are planned to be made between “Edge of the Mist” and “World vs World” in HoT?

7)How will Healing Power, and defensive stats become more useful in HoT compared to Zerker gear stats?

8)Whats some of the new Specializations? And how does that class work?

9)Whats some Mastery Skills for Vanilla GW2 and whats some for HoT?

10)How will Crafting Improve in HoT?

11) What changes are being made to the “New Player Experience” and the Trait system?

Knighthonor.4061:

Ask about the Trinity in HoT
so people can finally shut up…

I believe you should change your question to: Will people be forced into roles via a hard trinity? Yours is very vague. (Because Guild Wars 2 already has a soft trinity)

Lazaar.9123:

Knighthonor.4061:

Ask about the Trinity in HoT
so people can finally shut up…

I believe you should change your question to: Will people be forced into roles via a hard trinity? Yours is very vague. (Because Guild Wars 2 already has a soft trinity)

Actually I am talking about the GW2 trinity.
In vanilla everybody knows Zerker rules all. They never held up to the trinity in vanilla.

Knighthonor.4061:

Lazaar.9123:

Knighthonor.4061:

Ask about the Trinity in HoT
so people can finally shut up…

I believe you should change your question to: Will people be forced into roles via a hard trinity? Yours is very vague. (Because Guild Wars 2 already has a soft trinity)

Actually I am talking about the GW2 trinity.
In vanilla everybody knows Zerker rules all. They never held up to the trinity in vanilla.

Zerker is a gear stat, not a role.

Question: How and when can we apply as beta testers.

Greetings.

Lazaar.9123:

Knighthonor.4061:

Lazaar.9123:

Knighthonor.4061:

Ask about the Trinity in HoT
so people can finally shut up…

I believe you should change your question to: Will people be forced into roles via a hard trinity? Yours is very vague. (Because Guild Wars 2 already has a soft trinity)

Actually I am talking about the GW2 trinity.
In vanilla everybody knows Zerker rules all. They never held up to the trinity in vanilla.

Zerker is a gear stat, not a role.

Yes and damage rules all. Damage is a role.
The game doesn’t even reward rezers during boss fight, and support/controller. Don’t do enough damage and you won’t get credit no matter how much buffing and healing and Rezing you do. Damage is the one and only true role in vanilla. Simple as that. No point arguing with you back and forth on that. Everybody knows it even if you don’t agree.

Knighthonor.4061:

Lazaar.9123:

Knighthonor.4061:

Lazaar.9123:

Knighthonor.4061:

Ask about the Trinity in HoT
so people can finally shut up…

I believe you should change your question to: Will people be forced into roles via a hard trinity? Yours is very vague. (Because Guild Wars 2 already has a soft trinity)

Actually I am talking about the GW2 trinity.
In vanilla everybody knows Zerker rules all. They never held up to the trinity in vanilla.

Zerker is a gear stat, not a role.

Yes and damage rules all. Damage is a role.
The game doesn’t even reward rezers during boss fight, and support/controller. Don’t do enough damage and you won’t get credit no matter how much buffing and healing and Rezing you do. Damage is the one and only true role in vanilla. Simple as that. No point arguing with you back and forth on that. Everybody knows it even if you don’t agree.

Actually, people that know truly how the game actually works know that damage does not rule all. For example, efficient dungeon clears are not done by pure dps. People support eachother through boons and support themselves through active defenses, as well as debuffing enemies to further support. People use control like reflect and blind to reduce damage to their party and to themselves. All three roles go hand in hand constantly, but one role is not played by one person, instead every person in the party is capable of all three roles in their own unique way. You are the one that argues back and forth despite the evidence put in front of you that you refuse to accept, so instead you push the same thing over and over again in every thread.

If you ask for more ways to further Guild Wars 2’s soft trinity, sure, go ahead, I am not against that. But do not state things that are not true.

Control: “This is where Guild Wars 2 makes the biggest break from the traditional MMO setup. Tanking is the most rudimentary form of the most important combat fundamental, CONTROL. Every game has it, yet it always seems to get a bad name. In Guild Wars there was Knockdown, Interrupt, Weakness, Blind, and Cripple, to name a few. We wanted to build upon what we think makes control such an important part of dynamic combat.”

Support: “Don’t belittle the SUPPORT role by calling it heal. Healing is the least dynamic kind of support there is. It is reactive instead of proactive. Healing is for when you are already losing. In Guild Wars 2 we prefer that you support your allies before they take a beating.”

Damage: “Call it whatever you like—DPS, damage per second—we just call it DAMAGE, and when it comes to making red bars go down, you can never have enough of it. Don’t trivialize it though; damage is a very versatile aspect of combat. There are so many ways that a character can do damage.”

AngryJoe, I recommend that you reinstall the game before the expansion is released and start a new character. After playing for a while, and I don’t think it will take long, you will probably have some pretty big questions of your own to ask.

1) Will the Necromancer-Spec be more PvE-focused? (Meaning being a (preferably melee) power-user with something unique and MEANINGFUL to bring for the team in dungeons/fractals)
2) Will there be a mass-rebalance-patch for the “Core Professions” before/with/after HoT?
3) If not, what reason do they think we have to continue using the Core-Professions which all more or less feel dated and, compared to the revenant, feel like the synergy of traits and on some classes, skills, is severely lacking?
4) Can we expect a Specialization receiving a ressource and low-no cooldown skills for their class-mechanic-change?

Lazaar.9123:

Knighthonor.4061:

Lazaar.9123:

Knighthonor.4061:

Lazaar.9123:

Knighthonor.4061:

Ask about the Trinity in HoT
so people can finally shut up…

I believe you should change your question to: Will people be forced into roles via a hard trinity? Yours is very vague. (Because Guild Wars 2 already has a soft trinity)

Actually I am talking about the GW2 trinity.
In vanilla everybody knows Zerker rules all. They never held up to the trinity in vanilla.

Zerker is a gear stat, not a role.

Yes and damage rules all. Damage is a role.
The game doesn’t even reward rezers during boss fight, and support/controller. Don’t do enough damage and you won’t get credit no matter how much buffing and healing and Rezing you do. Damage is the one and only true role in vanilla. Simple as that. No point arguing with you back and forth on that. Everybody knows it even if you don’t agree.

snip

Take this sweet discussion to the realm of PM and stop derailing this thread. You’ll thank me later.

Questions for AngryJoe :

1. The PR talked about challenging content. How will it be delivered ? Guild missions, instances, open-world or a mix of the 3 ?
2. What are the names for the specialization of all the existing professions ?
3. Any chance the technologies implemented in HoT will make their way to the base game ?
4. Did you design the druid spec for the ranger with a specific game mode or role in a party in mind ?

Thanks for taking the time AJ.

What are all the new weapons for each profession? Although I am most curious about elementalist.