Guild Wars 2

OK, I think this is the first time I’ve been really disappointed in the development of this game.

We were told that we are only getting two beta events and who gets left off the roster of specializations that will be tested??? Ranger and Engi are both getting the shaft it seems. We can see from each beta event that classes where improved or balanced somewhat better after Anet got feedback on a class and we’re not going to get the same treatment.

Whatever get’s slapped together is what we’re going to be stuck with for a long time coming because if you’ve played ranger for any length of time you’d know how hard it’s been to get any changes made and they’re usually half-efforts at best.

Overall I love the game, and over the course of almost 3 years I’ve really enjoyed my ranger but I think it might be time to play chronomancer or start over with Revenant……

I have tried searching but I cannot find it. Could you please link me a post that states only 2 Beta Events? Not calling you out or claiming what you posted is not true, but I only delve through a handful of sub-forums so I missed out on this announcement.

I see absolutely no source for there only being 2, if they keep up the trend though that they did for the last beta (for the original game) there will be a 3rd BWE that’ll be extremely close to when it goes live.

That being said, it’s still bull kitten that 2 professions will not have a single bit of feedback for 2 of the BWEs, especially if there’s only 3.

Yeah, I don’t remember any info at all about a fixed number of BWEs …

The only hint we have stating that there will be 2 beta weekends was from the post about BWE1 that said “Progress earned by beta characters over the course of the weekend will be preserved between BWE1 and BWE2 so that you can continue testing where you left off.” which alludes to there only being 2 weekends.

If there’s a BWE3 it sounds like all progress will be wiped out before then.

from here: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-first-beta-weekend-event-begins-august-7/

khani.4786:

The only hint we have stating that there will be 2 beta weekends was from the post about BWE1 that said “Progress earned by beta characters over the course of the weekend will be preserved between BWE1 and BWE2 so that you can continue testing where you left off.” which alludes to there only being 2 weekends.

If there’s a BWE3 it sounds like all progress will be wiped out before then.

from here: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-first-beta-weekend-event-begins-august-7/

Yeah, but if there were only two BWEs then they would’ve announced the September one as the “final” BWE, and that’d be the dumbest decision they could make since two classes would be released completely untested.

Thanks Khani.4786 that was the article I was referring to. I’m not trying to stir anything up really but I really hope the devs do see this and other threads popping up.

Ranger doesn’t get the attention that most of the other classes do and even if there is a third beta event it would be really close to release time since they said it would be released in 2015. and as was said we would have the least amount of feedback given. It really just doesn’t seem very fair.

There will have extra BWEs for sure, the BWE1 and 2 in that article was just to explain the continuity of the beta characters, not that those will be the only ones will have.

But the part that ranger and engs will be the ones to have the least tuning time from feedback I agree.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-second-beta-weekend-event-begins-september-4/

Ranger and Engi left out in BW2. It really is annoying especially since those classes are the ones that need the most help.

As if Anet cares about Ranger feedback….

There have been ENCYCLOPEDIAs worth of suggestions to fix this broken class and its garbage class mechanic. You think anet cared one bit about any of it?

There was 3 BWEs for GW2 , I expect 3 for HoT now…

However that means only 1 BWE for the few dedicated rangers left to test and give feedback for anet to just toss aside.

If this druid spec isn’t game changing, I’m deleting this pathetic class. Sick of this garbage “mediocre at everything, great at nothing, sucks at most things” class.

Durzlla.6295:

khani.4786:

The only hint we have stating that there will be 2 beta weekends was from the post about BWE1 that said “Progress earned by beta characters over the course of the weekend will be preserved between BWE1 and BWE2 so that you can continue testing where you left off.” which alludes to there only being 2 weekends.

If there’s a BWE3 it sounds like all progress will be wiped out before then.

from here: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-first-beta-weekend-event-begins-august-7/

Yeah, but if there were only two BWEs then they would’ve announced the September one as the “final” BWE, and that’d be the dumbest decision they could make since two classes would be released completely untested.

Exactly. I do hope there’ll be a BWE3 (maybe 4) so we can test the other two elites and provide feedback then they make changes based on that and we test one last time.

And they didn’t say this is the final weekend test or say anywhere that it’s only 2 beta weekends. Just that we keep progress between 1 & 2.

I just hate that the class that I play the most we’re still waiting to hear about….and it happens to be the FIRST they told us about.

Belzebu.3912:

There will have extra BWEs for sure, the BWE1 and 2 in that article was just to explain the continuity of the beta characters, not that those will be the only ones will have.

But the part that ranger and engs will be the ones to have the least tuning time from feedback I agree.

Yeah, that’s what I got from the wording of the article, not that there will be only 2 weekend events.

@Skitz – that’s what I mean, Druid would have to be groundbreaking and perfectly made to not need more feedback than 1 BWE if they even have it.

I know the article doesn’t state that there will only be 2 but think about this, if release is going to be ‘IN 2015’ as they stated then it stands to reason that it would be a pre-christmas release. most of their sales are going to come through the holidays and even more if they can give us a set release date by november. BWE 2 will be in September, it’ll take at least 2 months to announce the other two classes and content.

That would put BWE 3 at November which would be 4 weeks shy of release? I just don’t see it.

khani.4786:

Durzlla.6295:

khani.4786:

The only hint we have stating that there will be 2 beta weekends was from the post about BWE1 that said “Progress earned by beta characters over the course of the weekend will be preserved between BWE1 and BWE2 so that you can continue testing where you left off.” which alludes to there only being 2 weekends.

If there’s a BWE3 it sounds like all progress will be wiped out before then.

from here: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-first-beta-weekend-event-begins-august-7/

Yeah, but if there were only two BWEs then they would’ve announced the September one as the “final” BWE, and that’d be the dumbest decision they could make since two classes would be released completely untested.

Exactly. I do hope there’ll be a BWE3 (maybe 4) so we can test the other two elites and provide feedback then they make changes based on that and we test one last time.

And they didn’t say this is the final weekend test or say anywhere that it’s only 2 beta weekends. Just that we keep progress between 1 & 2.

I just hate that the class that I play the most we’re still waiting to hear about….and it happens to be the FIRST they told us about.

You and me both, what makes it even better is that engi (the class i probably play second most) isn’t announced either, so this will be yet another BWE i spend playing normal ranger in the new area…

Prophet.1584:

… it’ll take at least 2 months to announce the other two classes and content. …

Well, you are basing those dates from info from your head only.
They are announcing thief elite + challenging group content + extra stuff (based on their tweets) all in the same week.

Belzebu.3912:

Prophet.1584:

… it’ll take at least 2 months to announce the other two classes and content. …

Well, you are basing those dates from info from your head only.
They are announcing thief elite + challenging group content + extra stuff (based on their tweets) all in the same week.

Adding onto your post Belzebu, it also only takes them a week (3 days in the week actually) to announce a week specialization, monday for the teaser, wednesday/thursday for actual info, and friday for the POI, any other day in that week they are free to announcer whatever they want and it wont even overlap with the elite spec.

To be fair, they aren’t looking for feedback on the vanilla classes, they’re looking for feedback on the new content and new elite specs.

I highly doubt they’d leave 2 elite specs completely untested via BWEs. And the “proof” of there only being 2 is questionable at best, and more likely just completely baseless speculation looking too closely at the specific wording of the quote.

Granted, its STILL going to suck if Druid and Forge only get 1 Beta for feedback while Tempest / Dragonhunter / Reaper / Chronomancer get 3, but such is the consequences of them “trickling” information to keep hype high.

Maybe there will be 4 BWE to at least give the final two specs two for balance, which would at least be pretty decent.

All the comment about BWE1 and 2 means is that they’re only agreeing to save your beta progress up until then. They have things they need to do eventually that will necessitate a wipe but they’re going to at least give you two BWEs of using the same characters so people can test out learning the masteries.

Okay all, here’s what we’re going to do:

We’ll roll rangers in our beta slots and play through the beta, and then we will come here and make a thread called something really generically clickbait-y for the devs, like: “[Feedback] BWE experience with Ranger/Druid.”

Then, we will proceed to list out all of the issues that us rangers have compiled over these 3 years and add them to the thread as though they were first-time experiences (similar to how it would feel to play an elite specialization or even know anything official about it).

Example: “So, is this profession mechanic…. finished? It feels a little stapled on or added in at the last minute. Since this is still the beta, hopefully you plan on overhauling the mechanic’s AI or even the whole mechanic, but as expected, right now it just feels clunky and unfinished.”

and

“A lot of these pet skills take a really long time to cast, I really hope this was just a beta over site.”

Since even though I’ve mained the class, love the class, and have made it work all this time, I acknowledge that it’s constantly felt like I’ve been playing a 3 year long beta, I think that this might be a good opportunity to, if nothing else, troll ANet as hard as they troll us (there is no reason they needed to mention Druid in January and frustrate the hell out of all of us by not giving any more information, as though it would hurt to confirm things that won’t change from time to time in a blog or a post).

So that’s my plan. Everybody is welcome to join me lol

Haha, brilliant Jcbroe, they probably wouldn’t even notice anyways given the amount of time and attention they’ve paid to Rangers over the last 3 years.

Personally I feel this was either intentional and or they’re realising just how broken the class is and can’t get it finished in it’s intended time slot. (Funny how we’ve gone in perfect order of profession from their own profession page except ONE class.)

Leaving us last is just another excuse to not listen once they’ve done it, who cares anyways the specialisation is only going to be a band aid for everything that is broken anyways. I’m actually curious to see if they’ve had an original thought in the last 3years when it comes to the profession.

jcbroe.4329:

(there is no reason they needed to mention Druid in January and frustrate the hell out of all of us by not giving any more information, as though it would hurt to confirm things that won’t change from time to time in a blog or a post).

Feels like before and during that time, Anet had only decided on the name Druid, using a Staff, and receiving the shoulder piece. Add in a shot of a copy-paste staff animation from Staff Elementalist Air 2 with some vine effects and it’s enough to get people speculating and excited.

At least, that what it feels like to me. All this time, I can only speculate Druid will be revealed last due to Anet going through and testing so many concepts and iterations for the spec. I would laugh though if Druid received everything but a new class mechanic. I can see the “Ready-Up!” episode now…

“So, when you take the Druid Elite spec, the pet mechanics of the Ranger are still the same.”

“So, what you are saying is… NO CHANGE!”

I imagine like a doomsday clock on the wall and the devs are just in the fetal position crying bc they don’t know what to do with Druid. They honestly tried to fix the class, but realized it was just too far gone. “What the kitten are we gonna do, it’s game over man, it’s game over.” Tbf I don’t know how good they can really make Druid without it feeling like a straight, must have 1/3 upgrade and satisfy people at the same time. We’ll see.

Wondrouswall.7169:

jcbroe.4329:

(there is no reason they needed to mention Druid in January and frustrate the hell out of all of us by not giving any more information, as though it would hurt to confirm things that won’t change from time to time in a blog or a post).

Feels like before and during that time, Anet had only decided on the name Druid, using a Staff, and receiving the shoulder piece. Add in a shot of a copy-paste staff animation from Staff Elementalist Air 2 with some vine effects and it’s enough to get people speculating and excited.

At least, that what it feels like to me. All this time, I can only speculate Druid will be revealed last due to Anet going through and testing so many concepts and iterations for the spec. I would laugh though if Druid received everything but a new class mechanic. I can see the “Ready-Up!” episode now…

“So, when you take the Druid Elite spec, the pet mechanics of the Ranger are still the same.”

“So, what you are saying is… NO CHANGE!”

The problem with this and the main reason why most of us are irritated with the lack of Druid in the BWEs is because ANet simply has proven time and time again that their internal testing is not extensive or conclusive enough, or not handled in a quality enough manner to catch bugs and balance effectively.

Just look at the core specialization patch as the most recent example. There were tons of things that the community came up with to be fixed in just hours that should have never made it live.

The less time we get to give feedback, the more bugs and imbalances Druid will have come time for the launch of HoT.

The only point I was trying to make with the comment you quoted was that ANet didn’t really have to say anything at that point. We could still be sitting here in suspense, with no notion of what our elite specialization would be, waiting for a data-mined post about a name or a trait to be grabbed, and we would all honestly be less tense or frustrated. But ANet went and talked about Druid first, which makes people associate it with being the most completed, even if only conceptually, and then is so far behind in development we lose out on 2 opportunities to test and give feedback for bugs/balance.

Also, please don’t think that if I seem irate, it’s with you lol. The internet kind of just does that, and my only source of irritation is ANet lately (the other game I’ve invested a lot of time into recently is Destiny and so far I’m seeing the results I’d like to see from Bungie-Vision).

One of the biggest things that has irked me with this entire reveal experience is why the blog posts have had to wait to come out the week of the actual reveal. ANet, here’s a thought, you can reveal any concepts you set in stone and skills that need only number adjustments without having to wait on a live build to showcase the class. I mean, you guys did that in January when you announced druid in passing and then never spoke of it again. Sometimes, it would even be more useful to your developers, because before you ever even try to make a live build in game of the ideas and firm anything up, your community can give you feedback, like telling you when you have bad ideas like Water Spirit and Strider’s Defense.

….

Anyhow, I needed that off my chest lol.

jcbroe.4329:

Okay all, here’s what we’re going to do:

We’ll roll rangers in our beta slots and play through the beta, and then we will come here and make a thread called something really generically clickbait-y for the devs, like: “[Feedback] BWE experience with Ranger/Druid.”

Then, we will proceed to list out all of the issues that us rangers have compiled over these 3 years and add them to the thread as though they were first-time experiences (similar to how it would feel to play an elite specialization or even know anything official about it).

Example: “So, is this profession mechanic…. finished? It feels a little stapled on or added in at the last minute. Since this is still the beta, hopefully you plan on overhauling the mechanic’s AI or even the whole mechanic, but as expected, right now it just feels clunky and unfinished.”

and

“A lot of these pet skills take a really long time to cast, I really hope this was just a beta over site.”

Since even though I’ve mained the class, love the class, and have made it work all this time, I acknowledge that it’s constantly felt like I’ve been playing a 3 year long beta, I think that this might be a good opportunity to, if nothing else, troll ANet as hard as they troll us (there is no reason they needed to mention Druid in January and frustrate the hell out of all of us by not giving any more information, as though it would hurt to confirm things that won’t change from time to time in a blog or a post).

So that’s my plan. Everybody is welcome to join me lol

…. You sir are a genius

release date 10/23…..still think there’s gonna be BWE3 or 4?

Prophet.1584:

release date 10/23…..still think there’s gonna be BWE3 or 4?

Druid will get the last BWE for feedback… great..

If they don’t even have a BWE3, than this class is next level kittened.

Seems like enough room for 2 more BWEs. Seems

Unless they decide to take a break or two, then Druid is kinda screwed.

We don’t live in a vacuum. The things they have learned from the other classes can be used to address ranger and engi’s problem before they occur. When looking at the Revenant and Dragonhunts they made their roles more clear with damage and utility tweaks. I have no doubt Anet applied these lesson to the berserker and daredevil.
Then will then in turn use the feed back from Bersekers and Daredevil to help touch up engi and rangers.

Honestly I am not excited about Druid. I have play a ranger in the beta and had fun.

On the pvp side of things I not expecting Druid to suddenly thrust rangers into the meta. So I guess it comes down to what your really expecting out of the Druid.

Chronomancer were op beta toned them down. You assume that not having a beta or a lot of time after beta automatically translates into begin underwhelming.

Both the Druid and Forge (engi) seem to have big ai component, I think it why its taking longer and also I think some of this will translate into mob Ai and they are waiting to reveal them because it will be to telling.

Like for example Daredevil are getting the ability to finish on a skill, I would be very surprised if some mobs didn’t have something similar (making content just that much more challenging).

While we haven’t had a beta weekend we have had many thread about what we would like to see on the druid and future specialization and I’m sure Anet has been taking notes.

Why worry about things you can not fix. Focus your efforts where and when they will have the most impact.

We could have a beta weekend as late as oct 9 and that would still give them two weeks to act on the feedback.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

We could have a beta weekend as late as oct 9 and that would still give them two weeks to act on the feedback.

They’ve left so many things broken for 3 years….. a 2 week buffer is not comforting.

This was the exact first thought I had when I heard the release date is the 23rd of October. If it only gets tested in 1 BWE, there’s no way it’s going to be balanced on release.

Prophet.1584:

OK, I think this is the first time I’ve been really disappointed in the development of this game.

We were told that we are only getting two beta events and who gets left off the roster of specializations that will be tested??? Ranger and Engi are both getting the shaft it seems. We can see from each beta event that classes where improved or balanced somewhat better after Anet got feedback on a class and we’re not going to get the same treatment.

Whatever get’s slapped together is what we’re going to be stuck with for a long time coming because if you’ve played ranger for any length of time you’d know how hard it’s been to get any changes made and they’re usually half-efforts at best.

Overall I love the game, and over the course of almost 3 years I’ve really enjoyed my ranger but I think it might be time to play chronomancer or start over with Revenant……

Since day one ranger is bad. Well at least the good aspect of this is that me and many other rangers will save our money.
#no-prepurchase-games-when-your-profession-is left-behind-since-day-1

Serraphin Storm.2369:

snip

Honestly i’m not worried about it. Most likely i’ll buy HoT and continue playing this game because i’ve really enjoyed it and the people i’ve met through playing it. What I most likely won’t do is continue playing Ranger at all if Druid doesn’t address the areas that we are lacking.

Chronomancer and Daredevil look more and more attractive.

BolshoiBooze.3406:

This was the exact first thought I had when I heard the release date is the 23rd of October. If it only gets tested in 1 BWE, there’s no way it’s going to be balanced on release.

Its ranger. Since when do they care about making it right or listening to feedback about that class lol?

While I’m glad the release is in October, rather than December, I find it a more than a little disconcerting that we Rangers and Engies will have perhaps one Beta event to test and give feedback, and give Anet time to balance the classes, though I’m truly not surprised. Anet abandoned Rangers long, long ago. remember 6/25/13?
I’d had great hopes when they hired Dave Mark for AI development, that perhaps our pets would be addressed (as in giving Rangers the ability to control (i.e. make them dodge) our pets since we’ll never be free from them. From the data-mined info for Engies, they will also have to deal with AI with respect to their drones.

Looking towards the Druid specialization, all I see in my mind’s eye is a slightly different reiteration of the Norn racial skills. Either our staffs will pump out an animal (Bear, Raven, Wolf, Snow Leopard) or we will turn into one of them, depending on the key we pick.

With 4 rangers and 2 engies, I’m quite disappointed, but won’t give up playing them and trying to make them work. To be fair Engie is in a fairly good place in comparison.

I’m assuming druid was one of the first to be worked on? If so its going to be amazing ! Maybe they have been working on it so long and testing it for so long that they felt the specs that were worked on later needed more community hands on to help them smooth it out.

I think depending on feedback they might do a bwe4. Its not like they cannot do it. Flip a switch right? Didn’t they build tech specifically to handle these BWE? ;-)

Prophet.1584:

Serraphin Storm.2369:

snip

Honestly i’m not worried about it. Most likely i’ll buy HoT and continue playing this game because i’ve really enjoyed it and the people i’ve met through playing it. What I most likely won’t do is continue playing Ranger at all if Druid doesn’t address the areas that we are lacking.

Chronomancer and Daredevil look more and more attractive.

Well the real question is do you even want to play an AoE supporty build? If not then you probably wouldn’t want to play Druid if they stick to what they originally were saying.

The best way to explain my feelings towards all this would be, “I’m not mad, just disappointed.”

Durzlla.6295:

Well the real question is do you even want to play an AoE supporty build? If not then you probably wouldn’t want to play Druid if they stick to what they originally were saying.

They said that? Where at? o.o

Toolbox.9375:

Durzlla.6295:

Well the real question is do you even want to play an AoE supporty build? If not then you probably wouldn’t want to play Druid if they stick to what they originally were saying.

They said that? Where at? o.o

This was said waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in january or february that druid would have aoe and support, it may not be the focus, hell they may have completely scrapped that idea and made it like a raw damage option, but i’d eat my hat if druids staff and utility skills weren’t AoE based.

Keep in mind, that shortly after this statement revenant got a MH sword and an off hand dagger datamined, neither of which do what Sword/Sword does now, and the ele had a sword (or dagger was never confirmed) data mined that had all the dagger skills (literally the dagger skills word for word on every single one of them), except the 1 skill was a chain skill. So a lot of kitten has changed since then, and since druid isn’t out yet i’d be it’s changed at least a bit.

One iteration would be that they introduced professions they thought would need the most feedback, leaving the ones that didn’t for last because they’re incredibly sure they did good with those.

haha…good one but they don’t exactly have a good track record for being competent at ranger design. Engineer and Ranger preview images announced with HOT were probably chosen to reverse psych us that things were gonna be okay. It wouldn’t do if they released only guardian, ele and mesmer preview pictures at launch, and then proceed to reveal their specializations first. They had to keep us hoping with the early reveal..

I’m hopeful because reaper was actually pretty interesting, but druid just…fails to inspire anything at all.. Given how good the DD spec is, they should have just left that to the last bwe. Because all it needs is just a tuning of numbers, as opposed to what making druid viable would require

Sincerely,
Embittered & Extremely Sore Ranger

P.S I would eat my hat,socks,shirt and underwear to be wrong. PLEASE let me be wrong