Guild Wars 2

With two of the elite specializations revealed now, Im starting to wonder if people who buy Heart of Thorns, and gain access to the elite specializations will have an unfair advantage across game modes, most impactfully in PvP. I dont have a problem with the elite specs being gated content with the expansion, but Im having trouble understanding how elite specs aren’t a strict upgrade compared to their vanilla counterparts.

A Mesmer who buys heart of thorns and takes Chronomancer as a spec, will have access to the Continuum Shift ability, which they can use to refresh all their cooldowns, refill health etc., IN ADDITION to the original f1-4 skills. Even if they dont use a single other mechanic from the Chrono, this gives an undeniable advantage to someone who bought HoT compared to someone who didnt.

Similarly with the Dragonhunter: f1 will now do the whole fire chain thing IN ADDITION to giving 5 players burning on their next attack, f2 will give a re-position tool and imobilize IN ADDITION to the heal it gives, and f3 will give a shield aura thing IN ADDITION to aegis.

I do realize that to gain access to these, you have to give up another specialization, so a Chronomancer would have the Chrono. spec as well as 2 vanilla specs, instead of 3 vanilla, which might slightly limit certain build paths, but this is hardly a drawback. At the end of the day, the person who paid for the Elite specs will have the same number of specialization lines and traits, but strictly better profession mechanics.

I might be missing something here, but I think just throwing in more stuff onto the profession mechanics isn’t a good way to go about this. Maybe if Chronomancer has to replace one of the vanilla shatters to get Continuum Shift , and new Dragonhunter virtue actives replace the old ones instead of strictly improving them, this might be better?

I think the GW2 team has done a great job balancing the classes up until now, but it kinda seems like they’ve been overlooking this, just wanted to point it out.

It’s a bit premature to QQ about Elite Specialization Balance before anyone outside of a few devs have actually had the chance to play them.

I thought with the Dragonhunter that the Spear replaces giving everyone Burning on next attack and the shield replaces giving everyone aegis?

I don’t know, since these mechanics do have counterplay to them:

• A Chronomancer can be broken out of their Continuum Shift (attack the thing), as well as players will know exactly where they’ll return to so they can prepare.
• The spear tether can be broken, the leap can be dodged and the shield can be circumvented by flanking.

I agree that it gives a slight advantage, but not enough to consider it P2W.

As I’ve said in the million or so threads on the same subject before:

1) Anet has said that they do not want elite specializations to be stronger (of course this is no guarantee but still..).
2) The numbers are not finalized.
3) At this point it’s all theorycraft. Until these elite specializations (as well as the entire new trait system for that matter) are actual put into practice, it’s too early to really judge anything.

Also, you’re wrong about the Guardian. The Dragonhunter replaces the active effects of virtues, it does not improve them.

The idea is that the elite specializations will change HOW you play, not how much damage you do.

Assuming they implement that concept well, it will not be “pay to win”.

They added these new abilities as part of the new expansion instead of raising the level cap and outdating everyones gear. If they had instead raised the cap to level 90 but those who didn’t buy the xpac remained at level 80 would you still complain about the higher level characters having an advantage?

Mmorpg have always been about keeping up with the Joneses, if you choose not to keep up then you know why the other guy is beating you and you know how to solve the issue.

Is it going to be unbalanced? Sure, it seems naive to say that all the new specialisations would be perfectly balanced out. Is it going to say unbalanced? Hopefully not, I’m sure ANet would be making some tweaks after release.

Expansions have to have stuff you don’t just get for free, or why would anyone buy them? They also have to have enough new stuff to warrant being a new box sale. Imo HoT is big enough to so warrant.

Thus from my perspective, complaining that HoT is PtW is akin to saying the original game is PtW because you have to buy a copy of it to play and you can’t win without playing.

That’s one twisted definition of pay to win…

Technically, since I’m paying for my food and thus staying alive and being able to GW2, I’m paying to win over someone that can’t do that… Yup, legit. GW2 p2w confirmed.

Another point which has been brought up on the guardian forums is that the new Wings of Resolve has about 1/5 the healing radius of the current Virtue of Resolve (240 vs the current 1200) so while it may seem great at face value, there are a lot of little things that prevent it from being a straight upgrade.

They will have an advantage, the advantage of choice. Those that buy the expansion have access to everything the rest do, on top of the added elite specs.

What remains to be seen is whether that kind of advantage will translate into a competitive advantage.

In Guild Wars 1 each campaign added two professions but they weren’t necessarily stronger than any of the core professions.

All the exclusivity does is it prevents people from playing as these elite specializations, it doesn’t make the people who have the elites somehow 10x more powerful than those without the elites.

just to clarify: I have no problem with having to buy access to the elite specializations. they’re going to be different and that’s fine. What Im hoping wont be an issue is whether the vanilla professions will become so outclassed that they become obsolete. Paying for access to something DIFFERENT is fine, but paying for access to something BETTER is problematic. Also I know the balance numberwise is trivial at this point. I have faith that anet will get that right, but adding class mechanics is fundamentaly unbalanced. Im glad to hear Wings of resolve will have decreased radius, and spear of justice doesnt give next hit burning, gives me hope my fears are unjustified.

ToenailsofGlory.8217:

most impactfully in PvP.

The elite specs will be available to everyone in PvP regardless of whether you got HoT or not.

Aktium.9506:

ToenailsofGlory.8217:

most impactfully in PvP.

The elite specs will be available to everyone in PvP regardless of whether you got HoT or not.

nope.
“As long as you’ve purchased Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, you’ll automatically unlock access to all elite specializations in PvP.”

They’ll give players who are especially good at designing builds a slight advantage early on simply because they’ll be new and no one will be familiar with what they can do or how to counter it.

(Only those who are good at designing builds because the other side to this is the people playing them won’t be familiar with them either and so most won’t be able to use their new abilities to their full potential.)

But that will sort itself out with time as people learn what they can do, how to recognise it and how to counter it.

Other than that Anet have said they’re not interested to be more powerful and they’ll be trying to balance them to make sure. I’m sure some skills/traits/combinations will be OP, just like the current ones are sometimes OP, but that’s what balance patches are for.

silly thread. the elite specs aren’t even balanced yet.

ToenailsofGlory.8217:

I might be missing something here, but I think just throwing in more stuff onto the profession mechanics isn’t a good way to go about this.

In Buy to Play games, the developers are tempted to add a lot of power creep, so players feel like they need to buy the newest content or be left behind in the power curve.

In Free to Play games, the developers usually leave content out of the game so it can be sold for (overpriced) prices in the game store.

It’s interesting, isn’kitten , that GW2 suffers the ills of both Buy to Play and Free to Play games?

except it’s not,

When did buying a MMO expansion become an unreasonable burden?

Windsagio.1340:

except it’s not,

When did buying a MMO expansion become an unreasonable burden?

This exactly. Typically the P2W term is reserved for when it goes beyond simply keeping up with DLC/Expansion purchases.

Though I truly hope they look at the power creep of not only the specializations but also the new traits. I see both as an issue and I’d hope they don’t have us forced into the elite specs and totally kill all old content that might still have some fun left in them.

Let’s be honest, why is this thread EVEN a thing? You’re all going to buy Heart of Thorns. Let’s face it. We all are. Gather up your pennies and put threads like this aside.

Roxhemar.6039:

Let’s be honest, why is this thread EVEN a thing? You’re all going to buy Heart of Thorns. Let’s face it. We all are. Gather up your pennies and put threads like this aside.

I always think it’s some kind of deep psychological need to try to guilt trip Anet into changing something they’re not going to change.

Roxhemar.6039:

Let’s be honest, why is this thread EVEN a thing? You’re all going to buy Heart of Thorns. Let’s face it. We all are. Gather up your pennies and put threads like this aside.

I will wait for “challenging content” reveal before making decisions.

Even if it is pay to win so what? The game doesn’t even have a release date yet.

Unless you are handicapped in which case I do apologize they’re is no reason a single person can’t buy the game unless they are lazy. I’ll work 2 hours over time and I’m fine, before I had a job if I wanted a video game I’d cut lawns. Anyone can make 40 to 60 bucks between now and release unless they are truly lazy.

When mmos add expansions yes we will have more options and styles to play then others. Sorry to say but it’s your choice to be left out and feel there is an unfair advantage on you. Personally though I think specizalations will break the game at all in pvp. They will still have there pros and cons like every class now and can always be countered

The chronomancer has a fairly equal amount of risk to its f5. If someone can force them to pop it and then destroy it at a perfect time for them (I assume being returned to your time will also act as an interupt. So if they break it in the middle of you summoning a phantasm your out of luck)

And the dragon hunter so far shows a completely different playstyle if you look at its core. Someone who goes full in to playing a dragon hunter is going to play SIGNIFICANTLY differently than a guardian will. Relying far more on preemptive preparation kiting and control in order to fight and stay alive. (note im just refering to the core dragon hunter playstyle. Not dragonhunter x mediguard or dragonhunter x bunkerguard.)

As long as most professions follow similar themes. (unlocking previously barred playstyles while retaining the core theme of there profession (some people may want to play archers but despise the ranger theme but love the core design and concept of there guardians. Some mesmers want to have decent aoe capabilities but despise the way necromancer and elementalist plays)

• Will there be balance issues? Aren’t there always?
• Will ANet strive to fix balance issues? They will, if they’re even halfway serious about the game.
• Will new things seem OP to those seeing them for the first time and having no clue what to do to counter them? Isn’t that always the case?
• Will proposed new things seem OP to those who have only seen video and descriptions and not any actual play? Always.

Test.8734:

ToenailsofGlory.8217:

I might be missing something here, but I think just throwing in more stuff onto the profession mechanics isn’t a good way to go about this.

In Buy to Play games, the developers are tempted to add a lot of power creep, so players feel like they need to buy the newest content or be left behind in the power curve.

In Free to Play games, the developers usually leave content out of the game so it can be sold for (overpriced) prices in the game store.

It’s interesting, isn’kitten , that GW2 suffers the ills of both Buy to Play and Free to Play games?

What content exactly did GW2 cut out to sell on the game store?

At most you can talk about season 2 LW, but that came out way, way, way after GW2 release, so I don’t see how it was “cut out”.

Not only that but LS2 was free to those playing the game. It only gained a charge for those who didn’t log in during the free release window. It may well be included in HoT, too, that seems within ANet’s style. (And what do you “win” from LS, anyway? Some skins and some achievement points, as well as an understanding of the story. Nothing that makes you game-mechanics stronger than other players).

noob will still lose anyway against a one legged old class character…

based on your definition of p2w OP, every MMO that has released an expansion is guilty of it. OH wait…did the new expansion just increase levels by 5? NO FAIR! everyone who bought the expansion is now 5 levels ahead of me, and they have an unfair advantage. PAY TO WIN!

seriously, your stretching the idea a bit. Just state that your worried about the balance of the new game mechanics and leave it at that. Expansions are always about increasing player capabilities. whether it’s level, or gear, or new class mechanics…doesn’t matter.

And on that note….every MMO that has released new classes has often dealt with this. remember the release of death knights in WoW WotLK? they pretty much broke the game. But WoW is still there….

(in an attempt to head off anti-wow extremists…I don’t play it, haven’t for a long time, have no bias, just using it as a comparative point).

Given Anet isn’t even upping the level cap and making a new tier of gear only available with the expansion this is far less of a Play to Win scheme than pretty much every other MMO that has gotten an expansion. AND it doesn’t have a monthly fee on top of the new expansion price tag like other MMOs.

Remember that time when “Antitoxin Spray” healing skill was announced and everyone went apekitten because it was gonne be too OP?

Bubi.7942:

Remember that time when “Antitoxin Spray” healing skill was announced and everyone went apekitten because it was gonne be too OP?

Good times.

This thread is negligible since the poster writes a complaint under a wrong premise: As some others mentioned, every expansion is ‘pay to win’ since in most you have a higher level cap. What a stupid post…

The OP’s complaint is equivalent to saying that people with 8 characters (which required paying for 3) have an advantage over those with only 5, since the former can play 3 classes that the latter cannot.

That could only be true if the classes were inherently unbalanced and ANet made no attempt to change that.

On the whole, that hasn’t been true for the existing 8 profs. I don’t see why it would change when they introduce 10 more profs (8 elite profs + revenant + its elite version).

The expansion is buy-to-play, the same as the original game was. If you don’t pay for the box, you don’t play; if you do purchase the account (or its upgrade), you play for as much or as little as you like without additional fees.

probably not.

If so, buy it. Fixed.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

The OP’s complaint is equivalent to saying that people with 8 characters (which required paying for 3) have an advantage over those with only 5, since the former can play 3 classes that the latter cannot.

That’s not a good comparison. You may not be able to play all 8 classes at the same time, but you do have access to all of them. While if you don’t buy HoT, you just won’t have access to elite specs.

So the developers are supposed to cater to people that do not support the game. This sounds like a horrible way for a company to stay in business.

Wait, so an expansion to a B2P game is now consider a pay to win? There is some twisted logic that I do not follow.

What a confusing title. Please make sure you know what pay to win means before you make a threat.

If they added item to gemstore that would give you 100% more power precision ferocity for 4k gems and it worked everywhere, that would be pay to win as not everyone can just buy that upgrade and thus will lose almost every time. There could not be expansions to anything if you think adding more content to game is pay to win. World of Warcraft is pay to win as you have to pay for the 15 expansios for it and game time.

Mikko.2684:

If they added item to gemstore that would give you 100% more power precision ferocity for 4k gems and it worked everywhere, that would be pay to win as not everyone can just buy that upgrade and thus will lose almost every time. There could not be expansions to anything if you think adding more content to game is pay to win. World of Warcraft is pay to win as you have to pay for the 15 expansios for it and game time.

You just called out the “but you can buy gems with gold so it’s not P2W!!!111!!” crowd for a dance. Don’t go there man, I’ve been there and it’s not pretty.

i dont necessarily agree with the OPs premise, but all you people responding realize, he is not opposed to an expansion, his problem is he believes the elite specs are straight up better (more powerful) than the other specs.

he is essentially saying they are more powerful, and if you have the expansion you will have an advantage.

Specializations are coming before HoT, you don’t have to pay to have them.

Moss.5371:

Specializations are coming before HoT, you don’t have to pay to have them.

elite specializations is what hes talking about

oh doh, my bad

Elite specializations are ArenaNet’s answer to increasing the level cap, and advancing character progression, in an expansion. Of course they’re going to be an upgrade to a profession. They wouldn’t be called an “elite” specialization otherwise. But calling it “pay-to-win” is just ridiculous. You could say the same about any MMO releasing an expansion that increases the level cap too.

I think we should:
1. Calm down
2. Wait for release of all specializations
3. Check out beta
4. Give feedback
5. Find out how it work after release
6. Complain when all previous steps done

It is too early to say something will be p2w. Yes elite specializations right now looks op, cos it is something new to us. I bet there are counter mechanics against them. Yet it might be true that they will be very good at start to convice more ppl to buy HoT – it is just a speculation tho. Looking back here is 1 possible option. They might give elite specs to everyone like they did with LS and doing with WvW Desert map. It will shut down some hate etc. and show that Anet really care about their players, but then what will be the point of buying expansion?( For pvp and wvw players that don’t care about pve content).

HoT will not offer more levels or more stats. Your berserker geared mesmer will be doing the same damage and have the same health as another player’s berserker geared chronomancer.

Your mesmer will be able to select 3 mesmer trait lines. The other player will be able to select 2 mesmer trait lines and the chrono trait line.

Your mesmer will be able to equip no more than 2 different weapons while in combat and the chrono will be able to equip no more than 2 weapons in combat.

In general both mesmer and chrono will have the same effective power, just with different options. However, the chrono does have one advantage over the mesmer, as far as I can tell, and that is an extra F5 skill. I do not have an issue with wells, as that is just offering different skills in place of core skils, but the F5 skill is an extra skill that is replacing nothing. Which means the chrono has one more skill than the mesmer.

To me the chrono’s F5 skill is the only thing that has the potential to be considered pay2win, because the core mesmer cannot equip anything to compensate for the chrono’s F5 skill.

The only way Anet can ensure balance in this regard, in my opinion, is to replace one of the other existing F1-F4 skills with Continuum Split, instead of simply giving it as an addition to the other skills. I believe both core and elite specs should have access to the same number of skills, otherwise one will always have a slight advantage over the other, and CS seems quite a substantial option.

Overall, I do not think GW2 is/will be a pay2win game, and I am sure Anet will try to keep the elite specs balanced and in line with the core specs, so they are not more powerful or capable. The F5 skill does worry me slightly, but I hope that the core mesmer will be getting something to compensate, that the chrono does not have access to.

MelGT.8326:

Elite specializations are ArenaNet’s answer to increasing the level cap, and advancing character progression, in an expansion. Of course they’re going to be an upgrade to a profession. They wouldn’t be called an “elite” specialization otherwise. But calling it “pay-to-win” is just ridiculous. You could say the same about any MMO releasing an expansion that increases the level cap too.

no, they arent supposed to be stronger, If elite specs are stronger the whole game balance/variability will go in the garbage