Guild Wars 2

So… what would you guys think if Anet provided us with a test weekend ONLY for these two elite specializations (Ranger and Engineer), given they won’t be in the second BWE and they will only be played at the third one?

I’m really hyped to know more about these two and I’m also really sad and concerned (along many others) they wouldn’t get enough attention/balance if they are only shown during BWE3. We’ve already seen something like this was done for Revenant in July (where they gave weaponswap to Rev), so it wouldn’t be such a leap to do the same for the last elite specs revealed, would it?

I think we just have to accept that they don’t care about these professions. 2 Months out from launch and they still aren’t ready? Not good.

so a ranger with a staff….kinda sounds funky to me, unless you can hold a staff and bow in one hand each….. shoulda went with pistols or Rifle. would seem more modern anyways.

Reviera.5183:

so a ranger with a staff….kinda sounds funky to me, unless you can hold a staff and bow in one hand each….. shoulda went with pistols or Rifle. would seem more modern anyways.

yeah, more singel target ranged options are what the ranger needs

XD not really. ranger has far too little AoE attacks. just kinda thought it would be more normal to use ranged weaponry as the name “Ranger” suggests.

In general, I’d say that some professions had to be last so it might as well be the Druid and Forge.

In addition, balancing will continue after launch of HoT.

unless you can hold a staff and bow in one hand each…..

Come again? Neither staves nor bows are in any way wieldable in one hand. You’re joking right?

shoulda went with pistols or Rifle. would seem more modern anyways.

The theme they want for the Ranger is the technology vs nature or civilization vs nature trope. That’s why the Ranger doesn’t have firearms. Of course, an elite specialization might change that but still. I kinda like it that Anet is sticking to their guns (pun intented) in this regard.

XD not really. ranger has far too little AoE attacks. just kinda thought it would be more normal to use ranged weaponry as the name “Ranger” suggests.

The name ‘ranger’ does not come from ‘one who attacks at range’ but from ‘one who guards/patrols a range of land’ or something of that nature.

Levetty.1279:

I think we just have to accept that they don’t care about these professions. 2 Months out from launch and they still aren’t ready? Not good.

You do realize that they have internal builds that are weeks ahead of the beta build we’re getting?

It is a little disappointing. I didn’t even particularly want to play a staff Ranger but knowing that we’ll have less time for feedback and refining of the elite specialisations is sad. Even after testing and refinement the Dragonhunter still looks completely terrible and knowing that, it’s hard to get my hopes up that an elite specialisation with less testing time is going to fare better.

XD well if you wanna get on that point, Military rangers are “special forces”. then you have the country “rangers” considered as the official police. then you have the classic ranger of MMO’s that deal in archery or long range weaponry. and then your prospective of it. XD so really if you wanna define GW2 as “one who guards and protects the lands” shouldn’t they not be able to use daggers and swords? I don’t know, just my thoughts on it all. no need to get all fussy over it.

Maximus.8376:

Levetty.1279:

I think we just have to accept that they don’t care about these professions. 2 Months out from launch and they still aren’t ready? Not good.

You do realize that they have internal builds that are weeks ahead of the beta build we’re getting?

Then why haven’t they revealed the Druid and Forge?

Diovid.9506:

In addition, balancing will continue after launch of HoT.

We have all seen how they ‘balance’ when things are live.

thieves are less tanky then they were a while ago….so yes they do rebalance things, but not always how everyone “wants” them to. XD nothings perfect, I’m know kitten well we aren’t, and I take pride in being imperfect.

XD fact is they actually look into the matter themselves and deal with it accordingly.

Remember that they are releasing the specs as they complete them. You will notice that the coding and level of sophistication has gone up significantly as the specs were revealed. The first elite they worked on was reaper, and it is basically just necro with chill and a GS. There are no new effects, no new tech, just same old sup-par necro.

Now look at the later elite specs. Bezerker and Daredevil. They have human projectiles, extra endurance bars, moving fields, dodge modification, so on and so forth. They have all the shiny new OP things because they were developed later.

You should be very happy that they are still working on these as it means they will get the latest and greatest upgrades that will almost certainly be unbalanced compared to the early boring stuff.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

You should be very happy that they are still working on these as it means they will get the latest and greatest upgrades that will almost certainly be unbalanced compared to the early boring stuff.

Engineer was late to the party for launch as well. It was essentially incomplete when GW2 came out. Kits held no autoattacks, didn’t inherent stats from weapon, didn’t scale with rarity of equipment, sigils and runes didn’t work, one elite was a a literally rip off of other profession elites (with a random element to determine exactly which profession you were ripping off), one elite was bad even compared to racials, turrets would randomly shoot whatever and had virtually no AI (AI other minions did have), visuals were wasted as backslot and weapon got replaced, several kits didn’t have any weapon visual, no racial toolbelt, and it was the profession with most bugs in it. Most of these issues are fixed, some still aren’t.

Now Engineer is late to the party again and im not even surprised. I’ve got a bet going where i said it would the very last specialization to be revealed and playable in beta, and i am very close to winning that bet now. So good for me i guess.

XD I don’t know, Engineer seems to be a pretty heavy hitter all the same. they even have the capability to ensnare a stabilized player with a turret. for all their flaws thay have a lot of capability to go about them, and I wouldn’t worry too much, save the best for last XD

They don’t need their own weekend, the next testing round is this coming weekend, lets see what happens this week. Maybe they will announce them both.

I stated in another thread, most people don’t even want to test their inner child is coming out and they’re screaming gimme gimme gimme at the new shiny. Just wait until they announce them like every other class they have announced.

Maximus.8376:

Levetty.1279:

I think we just have to accept that they don’t care about these professions. 2 Months out from launch and they still aren’t ready? Not good.

You do realize that they have internal builds that are weeks ahead of the beta build we’re getting?

So? it’s rather obvious (seeing revenant and the already presented specs) that they cannot balance those based just on internal playtesting. They do need player feedback from the beta weekends, and need it a lot. At the same time it’s also clear that every of those classes that were presented already needs more than just one or two (or even three) beta events to get finetuned. Somehow i doubt that the druid and forge will be exception. We can hope, of course, that they will be at the chronomancer level when shown up, but it’s equally possible that they will be the equivalent of dragonhunter or tempest instead.

However you look at it, the original promises that the betas will last as long as necessary aren’t being kept, and that the launch is (again) rushed for reasons that are completely independent to the state of expac’s completion.

Random.4691:

They don’t need their own weekend, the next testing round is this coming weekend, lets see what happens this week. Maybe they will announce them both.

I stated in another thread, most people don’t even want to test their inner child is coming out and they’re screaming gimme gimme gimme at the new shiny. Just wait until they announce them like every other class they have announced.

I highly doubt they would be included in this week’s BWE, especially if the build they’re showing is been locked for a couple weeks (this is speculation based on the fact some Dragonhunter changes couldn’t be implemented on time for it, and we’ve known about them for a week+) and basically given they were not included in the list of playable specs for the beta.

Anyway, after playing Reaper and seeing the AMAZING changes that were implemented based on BWE1 player feedback, I think these events aren’t just for show, but to tackle elite specs and HoT balance in a serious way. Therefore I keep thinking more testing = better balancing when the expansion launches.

There might be an issue with the timing between BWE and a possible Druid and Forge test weekend based on the idea they need to lock their game build for internal testing. Looking at the way they’ve shown and changed the balance of the specs, I’d say we may see the results from BWE2 feedback next week. They could potentially schedule the new BWE3 3 weeks after that (10/2-10/5). Therefore if testing for the e-specs happened 9/18 (after Druid and Forge are properly revealed during the previous two weeks) they may have to push BWE3 another week, which puts it frighteningly close to launch… It’s not a perfect option, but an option nonetheless.

So much kitten…

You guys realized that, no matter how it was going to go, two classes were going to be last, right? Ranger makes sense because we already knew we were getting Druid, and Engineer makes sense because it’s consistently been the hardest for them to develop for (considering how complicated the gameplay can be).

Stop whining and just wait for the content to come out…

MattyP.6954:

So much kitten…

You guys realized that, no matter how it was going to go, two classes were going to be last, right? Ranger makes sense because we already knew we were getting Druid, and Engineer makes sense because it’s consistently been the hardest for them to develop for (considering how complicated the gameplay can be).

Stop whining and just wait for the content to come out…

You would have a point if they had just announced all 8 specs (with Rev stuff mixed in) in a row instead of taking breaks for weeks at a time with no HoT news nor updates to the base game and now we are 2 months out from release with 2 specs unannounced and no time for proper testing.

Astralporing.1957:

Maximus.8376:

Levetty.1279:

I think we just have to accept that they don’t care about these professions. 2 Months out from launch and they still aren’t ready? Not good.

You do realize that they have internal builds that are weeks ahead of the beta build we’re getting?

So? it’s rather obvious (seeing revenant and the already presented specs) that they cannot balance those based just on internal playtesting. They do need player feedback from the beta weekends, and need it a lot. At the same time it’s also clear that every of those classes that were presented already needs more than just one or two (or even three) beta events to get finetuned. Somehow i doubt that the druid and forge will be exception. We can hope, of course, that they will be at the chronomancer level when shown up, but it’s equally possible that they will be the equivalent of dragonhunter or tempest instead.

However you look at it, the original promises that the betas will last as long as necessary aren’t being kept, and that the launch is (again) rushed for reasons that are completely independent to the state of expac’s completion.

Quoted for truth.

I am sincerely worried, I have very little trust Anet will get ranger right seeing their history on ranger and then they give us only 1 chance to rectify it which is not enough to actually get our spec back on track, same for engy probably. Especially if AI is involved it will be a mess.

Reviera.5183:

XD well if you wanna get on that point, Military rangers are “special forces”. then you have the country “rangers” considered as the official police. then you have the classic ranger of MMO’s that deal in archery or long range weaponry. and then your prospective of it. XD so really if you wanna define GW2 as “one who guards and protects the lands” shouldn’t they not be able to use daggers and swords? I don’t know, just my thoughts on it all. no need to get all fussy over it.

I agree with you.

We can also get on a perspective from medieval fantasy. Take a look at Dungeons and Dragons and LOTR. When I hear ranger, I think of Aragorn from LOTR or Drizzt from D&D. Heck, many of the ranger pieces from D&D are reflected in GW2’s version of the ranger.

Animal Companion – Check
Spells that are thematically nature related – Check
Two-Weapon fighting and Archery – Check
Quick Combat Style and Camoflague – Check (ranger bow skill makes you invisible, abilities that make you invisible until you attack, 2 swords has a lot of engage/disengage)

Overall, I feel like they are running along the medieval fantasy theme of Ranger. They definitely aren’t characters that just attack from a range.

Anybody notice that the last two elite specialization to be revealed happen to be the only two Elite Specialization that wr saw before they were fully revealed?

They listed what will be in this beta weekend and rangers and engineers aren’t in there.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Remember that they are releasing the specs as they complete them. You will notice that the coding and level of sophistication has gone up significantly as the specs were revealed. The first elite they worked on was reaper, and it is basically just necro with chill and a GS. There are no new effects, no new tech, just same old sup-par necro.

Now look at the later elite specs. Bezerker and Daredevil. They have human projectiles, extra endurance bars, moving fields, dodge modification, so on and so forth. They have all the shiny new OP things because they were developed later.

You should be very happy that they are still working on these as it means they will get the latest and greatest upgrades that will almost certainly be unbalanced compared to the early boring stuff.

But to be fair those things are not made by the designers themselve but by the engineers. I sincerely doubt that most tech is not there for a while already.

MattyP.6954:

You guys realized that, no matter how it was going to go, two classes were going to be last, right? Ranger makes sense because we already knew we were getting Druid, and Engineer makes sense because it’s consistently been the hardest for them to develop for (considering how complicated the gameplay can be).

So? At that time we still could believe they will have enough time to betatest all of the classes. Turns out the launch time and the number of betas is already set, at the time when Anet devs themselves do not yet know how much playtesting those two specializations will need… and after we have learned that one beta (which is all those specs will get) will almost certainly not be enough.

MattyP.6954:

So much kitten…

You guys realized that, no matter how it was going to go, two classes were going to be last, right? Ranger makes sense because we already knew we were getting Druid, and Engineer makes sense because it’s consistently been the hardest for them to develop for (considering how complicated the gameplay can be).

Stop whining and just wait for the content to come out…

no this is incorrect, they could have released all the specs by now for testing if they were ready. If they ve been hiding these for promotion purposes only, well thats a dumb move. Every spec they released needed tweaks and feedback, even chronomancer.

Levetty.1279:

I think we just have to accept that they don’t care about these professions. 2 Months out from launch and they still aren’t ready? Not good.

oh come on. Some specs HAD to be last. So because these two are last means they don’t care? Where the hell do you get that?

There are a lot of reasons for why they are last. The fact they dont care isn’t one of them. I mean, where the hell do you even that crap of an idea anyway?

Morfedel.4165:

Levetty.1279:

I think we just have to accept that they don’t care about these professions. 2 Months out from launch and they still aren’t ready? Not good.

oh come on. Some specs HAD to be last. So because these two are last means they don’t care? Where the hell do you get that?

oh come on, it’s not because they are last, but because they aren’t ready yet two months before launch, with only one beta event to spare for them (and that is assuming they won’t hit any snag that would delay their deployment before that beta happens).

Morfedel.4165:

There are a lot of reasons for why they are last. The fact they dont care isn’t one of them. I mean, where the hell do you even that crap of an idea anyway?

If they cared, they would have made sure there’s enough development and testing time for them. They didn’t.