Guild Wars 2

Difficulty

• This was good, various mobs were more difficult then we have generally seen yet. The snipers have some pretty low health which is a good way to balance their really high attack. My glass ele didnt have enough def/hp to eat a full rapid fire channel, but a magnetic aura destroyed the sniper.

• The smokescales are a bit of a pain (but thats not a bad thing). However, it seemed sometimes they were still perma evading while they were just walking and I dont think I was being blinded either so something there might need to be looked at.

• In some events, we scaled them up to spawn champs and champs had a break bar, thats fine. but the break bar scaled so far that an icebow 4 that the champ walked out of did more to the HP bar than an icebow 5 did to the break bar. I saw revenant hammer #5s go down and multiple taunt chains on champs and the breakbar just laughed. It basically became the old 100 stacks of defiance non-mechanic. A look at the higher level of breakbar scaling might be in order as well.

• Overall, though, the types of mobs and their mechanics forced me to learn which mobs were which, know their attacks, know what to focus, figure out strategies, think before I engage and look through all my utilities in the open world. All these are positives. Before, I would have a “mapping” build on most characters that focused utilities on passives (signets) and movement abilities. Having to find combat utilities in open world was a good change. There was one particluar time where me and 2 othre people went to run across a path and there was a vet smokescale and a regular one blocking the path and something happened I hadnt ever seen in a level 80 area: we all stopped. It might be nice to have some kind of short range “say chat” style targetting that people nearby can see even if they arent in your party.

Day/Night

• Night felt like a different map. But I think it felt too disconnected from the day events. This wasnt as much the case in the south where we were escorting Laranthir, but it certainly was in the north where we mostly just ran around with frogs. I feel like the day and night, though it should have a different feel, the theme should be a bit more connected. I also feel like there were too many rally points. I think it would allow for more interesting mechanics if there were fewer rally points and harder assault phases. I made another post about this topic here https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Number-of-mobs-at-night-time/first#post5367394.

Masteries

• Masteries acquisition felt like it was in a decent place. The xp required scaled up as you progressed within a certain mastery line. It should certainly take some time to max things out.

• This feels like a good framework within which to work in the future. Players will be looking for new masteries for new abilities with living story updates, but you dont want to run into a situation 5 years in the future where there are 50 mastery lines with 10 masteries each as soon as a person gets to 80. It will just be way too cluttered. Mastery tiers could progress this without being a huge content dump when you first hit 80 but giving players who have unlocked alot something else to unlock. Maybe maxing out both itzel and nuhoch lines (tier 1 lines) unlock a little story instance where some high ranking itzel and nuhoch together take you into some secret area and grants you access to a whole new mastery line (a tier 2 line) about further jungle exploration.

Map Rewards

• These were a little confusing. To the point where I had to actually test them in order to figure out basic mechanics and even now I dont feel like I have a good understanding of what is going on. The tooltip on the map says “Next reward”, however, paying very close attention to what I received, I only got the “next reward” about every other time. If the “next” event does not give the “next” reward, it should be stated as the “next” reward.

• There also seemed to be a “primary” or “common” reward (usually fine material) and a “secondary” or “rare” reward. I am unsure if the selection for the next event was random or on a set rotation. If they are on a set rotation, then it would be nice to simply have them in progressive order on the popup. Perhaps, rather than being every other event (if thats what it is and if thats what it needs to be), there is always a reward of some kind and the “basic” reward is a cloth, leather or metal based on that map’s level. It definitely felt less rewarding then it could have simply because it seemed like a bit of a tossup as to whether I would even get a reward at all for the next event.

• I couldnt know what the next reward was without opening the map up and checking the popup. It would be nice if this were marked somewhere. maybe put a single line box at the top right of the screen in the objectives section of the ui or put the same icon and hover-over popup somewhere on the minimap’s menu.

• Similarly, I didnt know if I had received a map reward unless I payed close attention to the right side of the screen where rewards scroll down. The icon for the rewards would do well to be on the event medal you click.

• Seeing things like silver doubloons on the map was encouraging, but because they were in brisban, there was often times where I was waypointing around looking for events. Events in some areas, especially lower level ones, can be too sparse in events and makes this kind of system actually highlight the fact that it is lower on events and that can be frustrating. I understand that everyone is working on the expansion, but it might be worth it to gradually fill in some more events into some of these areas. Perhaps not in one giant lump, because that could take alot of dev time, but having 1 or 2 events or an event chain be rolled in to some of these areas ever few patches as time permits. Other ideas would be 1) to simply widen the range in which normal events are highlighted on your mini map/main map 2) put event starter indicators (little circle/star icon) on the world map without a range 3) there are sometimes npcs that call you for help and then point you in the direction of an event that is actually happening. These have no icon, maybe have an exclamation point like GW1.