Guild Wars 2

I was curious what other people’s thoughts on this would be. For me I would like it to be a unique thing for each specialization that made sense. For example, the Druid specialization could be unlocked by visiting an NPC in the jungle that’s researching the old Maguuma druids and going on a series of personal story-like missions where by the end you discover some secrets that let you use the druid’s power.

My fear is that specializations will just be unlocked via the mastery system. It would be disappointing to get it by spending a point you got from map completion and then joining the zerg that’ll probably be running events in Verdant Brink nonstop. I think I just don’t like the disconnect between the thing you want unlocked and the activity performed to do the unlocking.

So how would you like specializations to be unlocked?

I agree with the personal story quest

but you still have to keep in mind a PvP aspect… will be everyone forced to unlock specialization in PvP or will it be unlocked automatically for the PvP purposes?

I think a quest it best. Nothing too fancy, but maybe a matter of “find trainer, complete a rite of passage style instance”

The instanced approach would serve as a basic tutorial to whatever mechanical changes come with the spec and perhaps provide the player with a blue or rare weapon that is granted by the spec to get them started.

They should all be unlocked by visiting an ancient and wise guru… in Cantha.

Last discussion post I had up about Specs most people wanted them earlier than level 80 (40-60ish) through a meaningful task, not just buying into it

I want to unlock them in an epic, lore-rich and story-driven quest. I’d even like it if there is one quest per profession.

Something like a two part skill challenge. For example, Warriors find a specific Hylek and challenge him and his students. You fight three enemies in the form of his students, then when they all die you fight the Hylek master.

Personally I think they should be available pre level 80. a) Why make players wait, really? There could be a lot of players who want to play but have no interest in the base prof. b) It’s potentially a significant barrier to sales. If a former player is interested by the specs but hasn’t levelled their characters to 80, they might just think it not worth the time / effort.

That said, if they are at level 80 I would bet on there being some kind of story and quest to go with it. The sole spec we know is druids and presently they don’t really exist in GW2. So there’s got to be some explanation for how we can suddenly become them.

Story is such a big part of the game’s appeal. Just having players visit a trainer to pick up their new spec would be a huge wasted opportunity.

A mission like in GW1 that allowed you to unlock further secondary professions.

gemstore

sry i have a dark heart

Honestly? I want to unlock them by buying the expansion.

That’s it. No in-game lore or quests for it.

Normally, I’m all for in-game lore and backstory. For this, however, I think it’s best to just say nothing and let people come up with their own reasons for the new developments. There are endless backstories as to why characters become Rangers. There shouldn’t be only one to why characters become a Druid.

I want Specializations to get unlocked as followed:

• Implement a Mentor System
  This will lead to the point, that we will find now everywhere in the world some hidden new Mentor NPC for all Professions (they will constantly move around and won’t be found always at the same place, they are like Guild Mission Wanted NPC that constantly move around but just with the difference, that they are daily in a different map (but sometimes they also just make a break for a while and stand just somewhere around in towns maybe )

• Players can become pupils of these Mentors to learn from them how to specialize.
  Each Specialization for a Profession will have a different Mentor, so whenever we see new Specializations in the future, we will have to find also new Mentors.

• With the Introduction of a Mentor System gets also introduced a new “Talents System”
  To learn and unlock for your Character a new Specialization, a Player has to learn or receive first various kinds of Talents first.

To learn or receive new Talents, the player either has to do various things:

• Do specific Tasks for your Mentor, which can lead to your personal progress in several kinds of Talents
• Combat simply against Champions or World Bosses and observe them to learn from them (Signet of Capture-Style)
• Do successfully your Mentor’s Specialization related Trials
• Learn Basic Talents through Mastery Points, Upgrade these Basic Talents via the help of the above points

Example

Lets say the Thief-Specialization becomes the Infiltrator.

Basic Talents that the Player would be able to unlock via Mastery Points would be:

• Shadow Control
• Alertness
• Camouflage
• Deadly Venoms
• Assasination

Each of them for example would cost 5 Mastery Points to unlock.

To advance for example now in the Basic Talent “Shadow Control” we can dow now following things:

• Speak with our Infiltrator Mentor to do tasks for them, doign them will let us progress in this case in the Basic Talent Shadow Control to learn new Advanced Talents in the Category of Shadow Control. Advanced Talents do exist of 3 Types then.

- Damage
- Support
- Control

• Or we go for the hunt of Champions and World Bosses to battle agaisnt them and observe them while we whight them, using the buyable 1 Time Use Elite Skill “Eyes of the Observer” with that a player analyses the enemy, weakens them temporaly with all conditions and receives self for a short moment all buffs and learns when defeated either a new Talent or at least gains some progress for other talents.

• Once our Character hasn’t only learned the Basic Talents, but also “mastered” them, what is the final state of each Talent, our Mentors will offer us to do Specialization Trials" Doing these successfully, will not only unlock the Specialization for our Character, but will unlock also “Elite Talents” to our chosen Basic Talent Tree of Shadow Control in that case. The unlocking of the Specialization will happen juts only the first time, when we do a Specialization Trial for one of the Talents of our Specialization, so the player has basicaly multiple different choices for which Talent you want to work on to get to your Specialization Trial, so that a player can simple choose that Talent out, that you personally like the most or simpyl fits the best to your personal play style, because each Specialization Trial would be different, based on which Basic Talent you have chosen.

Howeve,r a player who wants to do so, can do naturally all Specialization Trials for all Talents, because doing so and makign successfully the Specialization Trials would reward each time for doing successfully the firts time a Specialization Trial with profession specific rewards, like Weapons, Parts for a profession specific Armor Set, unlocking profession specific Finishing Moves and back Items ect. as your Mentor keeps track of it, which Specialization Trials youve done successfully of the various Talents of the chosen Specialization.

Simply said, 5 Basic Talents means, you can do 5 different Specialization Trials and all of them reward you with something profession specific.
But you need to do successfulyl from those 5 only 1 to unlock for your Character the Specialization, in this case it woudl be the ability to become an Infiltrator as Thief.

in more then one way.

- buying (like in the current game, skill merchant)
- guesting i mean eventing
- personal story
- champions

Redoing Dungeon Master title.
Solo.
On Necromancer.

I honestly don’t want to do anything to unlock it. Jumping through some arbitrary hoops on every character to try out the specializations just sounds tedious and time consuming for no real purpose.

Thats something, that only a real lazy person would say…

Specializations aren’t something, with that you just get gifted with within the very moment of when you start the game after installing HoT.

Specializations belong to Character Progression and CHaracter Progression isn’t something, that you receive just for free. You have to work for it to get them.

anything that doesn’t involve any form of gating outside of your own skill level.

I think it would be cool if it was a “learning” process. e.g. for druid; you talk to someone, and then get the ability to wield a staff. however, you can only use skill #1 (or maybe are limited to lower level staves) and you have to do some form of non-grindy “training” to unlock more skills and such.

that’s just a concept, i don’t mean it specifically happening that way

PopeUrban.2578:

I think a quest it best. Nothing too fancy, but maybe a matter of “find trainer, complete a rite of passage style instance”

The instanced approach would serve as a basic tutorial to whatever mechanical changes come with the spec and perhaps provide the player with a blue or rare weapon that is granted by the spec to get them started.

One of the best ideas on this.

I’d like specialization to be a process

If you are interested in turning your character(like ranger -> druid)
You flag your character as initiate

First quest the trainer gives you is to unlock the specialization(ability to turn into the new profession)

Second quest the trainer gives is to try out the specialization (like for druid you are imbued with the powers of an arch druid to defeat an almighty dragon minion in Maguuma)

Third stage – Accept to be fully transformed (irreversible)
or unflag your character and stay the profession you already were.(you won’t get the chance to specialize again)

Then if you accept the transformation
the trainer will have quests and places for you to go
to seek out new traits and grandmaster abilities related to that new profession

This way players can try out the new specialization without instantly making the decision to specialize.And things like traits and new abilities have a place and reason.

tekfan.3179:

I want to unlock them in an epic, lore-rich and story-driven quest.

Guess i’m with the people that want this

It should be early on. It would stink to have to play a class to cap that you might not like in order to get to something you might want but don’t know whether it’s right for you or not til you get there. I am all about an involved quest etc. but it should be early on enough that you don’t have to play something you don’t want to play to cap.

This is how I wanna unlock specializations:
First you finish map completion, collect a Gift of Exploration and collect a bunch of mats and do a scavenger hunt (much like the mini moa scavenger hunt from gw1 which spans all areas of the game) and you craft a Legendary Ring at Sorrows Furnace. You then find out that the Legendary Ring has a strange inscription on it and it can talk to you. Soon you come to release that this ring belongs to Mordremoth and the reason why he’s awakened. You then have to put together a band of heroes and go into Mordre and cast the ring into the Mount Ring of Fire. However through this perilous journey you are forced to wear the ring in order to get away from the minions of Mordremoth. But everytime you wear it Mordremoth can sense where you are but you gain the ability to see everything in game code. You then realise that the players in the game are actual people who are linked to the game and controlled by other people for their entertainment. Regardless you press on to the Ring of Fire mountain even loosing companions to dangers along the way who cant respawn since you have permanent aggro from Mordremoth while wielding the ring. Then you finally get to Ring of Fire where you find out that it was Primordus all along sitting in a cave full of treasure he stole after killing all the dwarfs living there. Then you sit on a cannon for 5 min and defeat Primordus at which point Trahearne jumps into absorb the soul of the dragon since all sylvari are dragonborn and totally saves the day and takes all the credit. Then with his new found power and knowledge he grants you your specialization.

Something like a more deadly version of the GW1 class introduction quests. When you picked your second profession. I think I would enjoy that more than some alternatives ive heard.

I wouldn’t mind how I got it (be it through a quest in HoT or a 5g manual from the trainers), so long as it doesn’t involve grinding or the help of RNGesus.

Also, I’m still a bit bitter about them making Specializations a level 80 feature. As someone who has four level 80s and doesn’t plan on making any more alts (except for the Rev), it doesn’t affect me, but I know lots of people who bailed on GW2 around the 40 – 60 mark because they’ve gotten so used to all their skills and wanted something new. I thought this was essentially going to be that.

But nope, locked till level 80 (at least from what I read). ;____;

Anyway, off-topic mode off!

Knighthonor.4061:

PopeUrban.2578:

I think a quest it best. Nothing too fancy, but maybe a matter of “find trainer, complete a rite of passage style instance”

The instanced approach would serve as a basic tutorial to whatever mechanical changes come with the spec and perhaps provide the player with a blue or rare weapon that is granted by the spec to get them started.

One of the best ideas on this.

i like this as well. or, say you hit level 80 you get a quest based on your characters own thoughts on how they can ‘improve their skills’ and go on a personal quest, a little bit like how rytlock went on a quest and came out a revenant.

Orpheal.8263:

Thats something, that only a real lazy person would say…

Specializations aren’t something, with that you just get gifted with within the very moment of when you start the game after installing HoT.

Specializations belong to Character Progression and CHaracter Progression isn’t something, that you receive just for free. You have to work for it to get them.

Heaven forbid I don’t want to repeat content on all my characters just to see if I like the new specializations at all. If it took some effort but was an account unlock, fine. If it’s per character I won’t be happy. It’s like doing the personal story on every character. I don’t consider that fun at all. The first 2-3 times through was ok since I got to choose different orders and races and see it from a different side. After that it’s just the same stuff over and over.

Repetition isn’t fun nor should it be required for unlocking something that is a feature of an expansion. I forgot though, this is GW2 and people love doing the same stuff over and over. Like the living story and doing it all over again for achievement for extra loot. Repeating STORY content shouldn’t be praised.

A simple straightforward quest. NO farming, grinding or collecting of any sort.

The key selling point of the xpac should not be heavily gated.

I would like it if we had to travel to a far flung area to get it, to really emphasise that they’re new, mysterious powers that are being discovered. (Take in mind from a lore standpoint, what are these specializations? Why has their power not been discovered previously?)

Besides that, maybe a quick quest, slaughter some stuff, go on a genocide, kill 10 rats. Usual stuff.

Honestly? I just want to be able to swap to it, immediately on hitting 80 or installing HoT. I’m sick to death of gating mechanics when I don’t care about anything but the reward.

No quests, no far flung areas, no time spent at all, just press a button and boom I’m a Druid, or a whatever names they give the the specializations. You are already, probably, going to be max level before you even get access to them, so why in the world, when its not so weird end tier goal for every character, should they be gated behind anything? There’s no reason whatsoever.

With a button that says ‘unlock’.

mugen.4763:

This is how I wanna unlock specializations:
First you finish map completion, collect a Gift of Exploration and collect a bunch of mats and do a scavenger hunt (much like the mini moa scavenger hunt from gw1 which spans all areas of the game) and you craft a Legendary Ring at Sorrows Furnace. You then find out that the Legendary Ring has a strange inscription on it and it can talk to you. Soon you come to release that this ring belongs to Mordremoth and the reason why he’s awakened. You then have to put together a band of heroes and go into Mordre and cast the ring into the Mount Ring of Fire. However through this perilous journey you are forced to wear the ring in order to get away from the minions of Mordremoth. But everytime you wear it Mordremoth can sense where you are but you gain the ability to see everything in game code. You then realise that the players in the game are actual people who are linked to the game and controlled by other people for their entertainment. Regardless you press on to the Ring of Fire mountain even loosing companions to dangers along the way who cant respawn since you have permanent aggro from Mordremoth while wielding the ring. Then you finally get to Ring of Fire where you find out that it was Primordus all along sitting in a cave full of treasure he stole after killing all the dwarfs living there. Then you sit on a cannon for 5 min and defeat Primordus at which point Trahearne jumps into absorb the soul of the dragon since all sylvari are dragonborn and totally saves the day and takes all the credit. Then with his new found power and knowledge he grants you your specialization.

or in brief ..

just let us copy all of Lord of the Rings … at least 2/3rd of what I read here, soulds like exactly from LotR..especially all this stuff about, Mordremoth senses, where we are when we have the ring stuff …

Seriously, what has all this to do with Specilizations lol as likem also Map Completion..nothing at all …

but why do i have just the feelign this post was nothing but a sarcastic troll post and not meant for real oO

Ralanost.8913:

I honestly don’t want to do anything to unlock it. Jumping through some arbitrary hoops on every character to try out the specializations just sounds tedious and time consuming for no real purpose.

I can understand that, but the main reason I want to have to do something to unlock it is because I want something new to do in the game. I have a ton of 80s right now and I feel like I’ve done everything with them. Whenever I take a character out I still have fun playing them, the problem is that every time I try to think of what I should go do when I want to play everything I think of is something I’ve done many many times before. I’ve gotten to the point where I’ll sit at the character select screen for 5 minutes trying to think of what to do and then just eventually exit because nothing sounds that interesting.

Unlocking specializations via a quest-like system would add more stuff to do and extend the life of HoT a bit. I know that no matter how good the new zones are after I’ve done everything in them 10-20 times I’m going to lose interest again so anything that makes that take a little longer is good in my opinion.

Vilkata.4725:

Ralanost.8913:

I honestly don’t want to do anything to unlock it. Jumping through some arbitrary hoops on every character to try out the specializations just sounds tedious and time consuming for no real purpose.

I can understand that, but the main reason I want to have to do something to unlock it is because I want something new to do in the game. I have a ton of 80s right now and I feel like I’ve done everything with them. Whenever I take a character out I still have fun playing them, the problem is that every time I try to think of what I should go do when I want to play everything I think of is something I’ve done many many times before. I’ve gotten to the point where I’ll sit at the character select screen for 5 minutes trying to think of what to do and then just eventually exit because nothing sounds that interesting.

Unlocking specializations via a quest-like system would add more stuff to do and extend the life of HoT a bit. I know that no matter how good the new zones are after I’ve done everything in them 10-20 times I’m going to lose interest again so anything that makes that take a little longer is good in my opinion.

We will have new zones, new specializations, new traits, new weapons for each profession, masteries and everything else coming with HoT. There will also be repeatable adventures scattered across every map. Are those not enough?

I don’t get it, why do people want to put a backstory in power progression?

People complained about Trait system and that they want it to be gone completely. New players hated it and veteran players hated it.

If ANet puts any effort to obtaining specialization, no one would like it because they all want it instantly.

Ralanost.8913:

We will have new zones, new specializations, new traits, new weapons for each profession, masteries and everything else coming with HoT. There will also be repeatable adventures scattered across every map. Are those not enough?

Sure those will be plenty at first, but no matter what most people that pick up HoT when it launches will probably be done with all the content it offers long before the next expansion happens. Anything that extends that playtime while still being fun adds value.

But it’s not just a matter of content, it’s also a matter of making the specializations feel significant. You shouldn’t get everything for free because then it becomes meaningless, but you also shouldn’t have to grind through repetitive content over and over for your rewards because then it feels like a chore. Finding the sweet spot in between these things is what can make a game great.

RNG events that are never up and require 5+ people to do or 2g
:^)

Gem Store, obviously
/sarcasm

As I was thinking with how the Trait system should have been, I’d like to see class quests of some kind, possibly an instanced mini dungeon.

If there’s enough lore to support it, I’d be cool with a small chain of quests to unlock it per class/account.

I say have specializations be automatically available to all Lv 80 characters when you purchase HoT, but a story instance becomes available when you switch. The instance should be optional, (mostly a lore drop and tutorial), and the player should be teleported to it. The reward for completing it should be something valuable, like a unique skin for their new weapon.