Guild Wars 2

I’m worried that new players will be required to buy the expansion in order to have the full customization of their characters: Mastery system, Reverant class, Specialization, and the Stronghold. Would the new player who can’t shell out cash for Standard copy + expansion be able to access all of these in the first day?

Now, suppose that the devs came out here and said “Players cannot access any of these without buying the expansion.” The problem is, GW2 pvp was about accessibility. Anyone can join in, customize their characters and pvp. Every gear, skill, trait was available to them. However, let assume there are no PvE content in the expansion, could it still be considered pay2win? Players with expansions have more power than players without expansions.

I dont think the new specializations will be a upgrade over the profession it used to be, more like a sidegrade/alternative way to play. So i dont think its like buying your way into power.

Even if several new specializations found their way into the new meta, people will still play ‘oldskool’ ele/engy/thief/guard if they are just too good to give up/provide an excellent team role.

My guess is that for spvp everything the new expansion will offer, like the new profession and the specializations will be available in spvp, just like how everything was made available at the launch of gw2 for spvp. perhaps we will need to buy it with skillpoints/gold just like the latest GM traits/Ammies

PvP in GW1 was just as accessible, but you had to buy the expansion if you wanted the new skills and I think it’s fair. Also, expect a price drop for the core game once the expansion hits.

They need to sell the expansions and encouraging people to buy it to get these features is essential. At the end of the day the new skills etc will probably be quite imba for a while, either too good or too bad.

Benjamin.8237:

At the end of the day the new skills etc will probably be quite imba for a while, either too good or too bad.

“For a while”, judged how fast and efficiently they do balance it will take them quite long, maybe 2-4 years.

Certainly imbalance bunch of stuff, bring some bugs in the first weeks.

But who cares. If Stronghold is a decent, fun and understandable mode it will bring thousands of players to PvP overall.

No “meta” for first weeks, new faces, team (not personal!) Ladderboards for GvG finally and ton of fun in general. That’s why I like big, sweeping changes.

Everything but Revenant and Stronghold is PVE anyway.

Katran.9186:

Everything but Revenant and Stronghold is PVE anyway.

Specialisations could very well work their way into PvP. By the looks of them they’re like sub classes, which would be sweet, and probably infuriating for the first few weeks.

witcher.3197:

PvP in GW1 was just as accessible, but you had to buy the expansion if you wanted the new skills and I think it’s fair.

Which is false. A lot of the meta builds uses skills from other campaigns. I would say that GW1 PvP would be pay2win if it cut out the PvE stuff.

A lot will depend on what they would need to do in designing the Revenant to allow it to have place in pvp. If anyone recalls the up-down that was dhummfire for necromancer just to get more of a present in the modes, so image a profession no ones knows how to play and a possibility of half a year with no adjustments to it.

I know there is not much info on the matter but they said you will need “to learn the new skills and weapons to defeat the bosses in the new area”. Now, everything else introduced in the new area, is only for the new area. It is very possible that these new “lateral class movements” will not even be for PvP, and only available in the new PvE area.

As for the new class, I too have a feeling it will be either OP or really weak coming into PvP. My feelings are leaning more to the OP AS HELL side. Being able to summon the skills and utilities of legendary creatures with heavy armor. Kind of sounds like a Ele skill bar (F1-F4) to change to the diff legendary skills per legendary. HOPEFULLY it is just the skills are named after some of the legendaries (and do similar things) but they are bound to normal heavy confinements of amount of skills available (2 weapon sets and utils).

When they were talking about Mastery system, if i remember good, they said multiple times it is PvE feature only.

As for the new class and new sub-classes, this is all that you can have when you buy an expansion. If a player buys only standard piece of game, he can still master the classic skills and builds we have right now at this moment available and which are gonna still probably be in a very good shape even after the expansion arrives. Of course only in terms of conquest, since that will be the only game mode he can play without expansion. So i would not be worried about that.

Anyway, in my honest opinion, Stronghold is gonna kill conquest in terms of popularity…

I don’t think it will kill conquest at all…. Stronghold will bring in a lot of WvWers into the mix. I myself am not interested in the new game mode at all. Will I try it, yes. Will I play it once in a great while, yes. If I wanted to raid strongholds with siege and AI players, I would go to WvW. I think it will bring in a ton of WvW players though looking for a small scale WvW experience.

Pretty sure I can speak for most the veteran PvPers when I say, we didn’t want a game mode that relied on AI & PvE tactics…

GhOst.4019:

I don’t think it will kill conquest at all…. Stronghold will bring in a lot of WvWers into the mix. I myself am not interested in the new game mode at all. Will I try it, yes. Will I play it once in a great while, yes. If I wanted to raid strongholds with siege and AI players, I would go to WvW. I think it will bring in a ton of WvW players though looking for a small scale WvW experience.

Pretty sure I can speak for most the veteran PvPers when I say, we didn’t want a game mode that relied on AI & PvE tactics…

It will bring in WvW people only if it is true guild fights….10v10 or more. The smaller fights (1v1-5v5) are more focused to PvP players.

Never said it wasn’t more focused to PvP players, but it will still bring in the WvW players. I said small scale, not medium scale. Roamers are usually only 5-6 players in WvW maps already. This will just give em a place. I can tell you from all mah hardcore WvW friends (that is all they do), they are excited to play Stronghold..me, not so much.

Yes it is PvP oriented and a PvP mode, but it will bring in a portion of the WvW players. Are they going to only play that day and night? No, but they will probably do a few matches a day when their zerg isn’t running.