Guild Wars 2

Specializations are Arenanets method of introducing new skills/abilities etc to the game without imbalancing it too much. New skills and abilities are fun to have and mix up the meta. They were unable to do this very well during the first Living World rounds (eg Antitoxin Spray) so they needed a method of doing this which was one of the main reasons I think they made Specializations (or elite specs).

Obviously a single or even a season of Living World is not enough time for Arenanet to put out a full set of new specializations BUT I am wondering what people would think of 1-2 professions getting new specializations that are possibly relevant/thematic to a Living World Release??

Obviously there is the “Not Fair” factor for peoples main prof that is not covered. So would people in general only be happy with all new specializations as expansion content? Obviously with incremental Living World updates it would eventually build up (across a few seasons) so that all professions had 2 complete elite specs.

These elite specs could potentially fill in holes where a profession is not performing well or introduce new roles that professions can now viably compete.

Example: Druid seems like the only viable dedicated healer/support spec at the moment. Why not introduce 1-2 specs for different professions that add viable healer specs to those professions? (eg Spiritualist – elementalist healer spec)

Example2: More thematic, with a pirate themed Living World season you could see one or two professions getting a swashbuckling like elite spec.

I’ve been thinking about mastery system and there are a few pitfalls in implementing such a system. Hopefully Arenanet is aware of them.

So instead of gaining levels and gear in this expansion (which I wholeheartedly agree with) we will gain account wide master points. But does this eliminate all of the downsides to levels and gear? potentially not.

What we know:

• You gain mastery points per hard “achievement” eg jumping puzzle, kill boss etc etc
• They are “unlocked” so you only get a mastery point/s the first time you complete one thing.
• you gain points and presumably spend them in gaining masteries in 4 current trees: exploration, lore, combat, collections/crafting
• There is a progression in each tree eg Hanglider —> learn to use winds etc..
• There is more importantly progression in combat tree requiring eg Mordrem bark tearing? in order to defeat a boss which then in turn unlocks more bosses/events which in turn unlocks more mastery points etc.

Some Potential Pitfalls:

• What happens if presumably you spend points in lore and then cant spend points in combat to get Mordrem bark tearing. Can you purchase that on another character? can you respec? presumably you can but then that still is a bit rubbish. It almost gimps your characters that you choose one line or another as you cant have hangliding on all characters for instance unless you spend X amount of points in exploration?
• Will there be enough points to unlock everything on one character or will you need “the lore toon”.. “the exploring toon”?
• Don’t you think Mordrem bark tearing is a bit dull? or any potential “agony” type buff/debuff that helps you defeat a boss/event. just seems so cheap. We want more skill in PvE not cheesing fights. It is essentially the same thing as a gear check but no excitement/choice in finding said gear.
• Combat masteries sound like attunements and everyone familiar with MMOs knows about attunements. Some players will have them and some wont and the frustration begins in finding players with them. The one upside being they are account bound although are they if you have to choose to spec combat masteries in order for your character to get them?
• Will you essentially be stuck for mastery points? with no way to get more as you cannot defeat a boss at a certain point and that is the only way to unlock more?
• Is it fair to have big lore reveals in the lore branch when not all players will do that? You kind of have to have some interesting lore in the lore branch. So does that mean almost intentionally hiding story/bigger picture from other players? Potentially not.. a minor point.

A lot of these potential issues are similar to issues with gear and additional levels so I’m wondering how Arenanet will overcome them. Some are almost inherent in any system of advancement such as this.

Some thoughts on overcoming pifalls:

• You could potentially with each mastery point allow for give a point/advancement in each line.. essentially 4 points. So all lines increase by one.
• There might just be an abundance of mastery points so that you can with a fairly casual amount of time max out everything. although they have stated that “they wont be falling from trees”
• Potentially the combat line (which sounds to be the more important) is advanced separately.
• have the more essential masteries to unlocking content (attunement type masteries) very early in any given line but then will there be anything worthwhile later on?

What does everyone think? This is obviously heavy speculation but Im just wondering what people will want from the mastery system?

TL;DR: Masteries.. What are they good for.. well hopefully something.

Ill repost what I posted on reddit a while back. I think this is ultimatly what ppl want. Its probably been suggesteed before but hey. Ive modified for other game modes also.

Ultimately you can unlock traits from a bunch of different things. Each time you complete one of these things you get to choose a trait one time (so no repeats of events etc). Simplify it to:

• Any meta event chain, JP or “special” event (special hidden events and mini dungeons etc) in zones 20-50 give you a unlocked Adept trait (no repeats). Also for WvW and PvP players there is a common (25%) chance to get an unlock PVE adept trait book from tower+ bosses or PvP track chests.
• Any meta event chain or JP or “special” event (special hidden events and mini dungeons etc) in zones 50-70 give you a unlocked Master trait (no repeats). Also for WvW and PvP players there is a uncommon (10%) chance to get a unlock PVE master trait book from tower+ bosses or PvP track chests.
• Any meta event chain or JP or “special” event (special hidden events and mini dungeons etc) in zones 70-80 give you a unlocked Grandmaster trait (no repeats). Also for WvW and PvP players there is a uncommon (10%) chance to get a unlock PVE Grandmaster trait book from keep bosses or PvP end track chests.

I can see this might require a bit of coding but ultimately I think this is what people would want. Make it simple to understand and people would have no problems with this system. Traits remain unlocked from doing things in the world but you are never locked into doing something specific although you do need to progress somewhat (ie you cant just unlock everything running around queensdale).

Would be totally against selling them on TP. The prices would plummet to current exotic prices approx 2G probably even less as you cant salvage them for Dark Matter.. There would be no need to open chests to get the skins anymore and the whole system would be trivial.

As others have said I think it is great that you have to do something in a specific area to get these skins. If skins like this were acquired for every area in the game how cool would that be? Its a good system going forward.

I suggested this in other threads but the best thing would be to be able to buy the Insect at the Top Tier (T5 or when last area is revealed possibly T6) for geodes (500-1000). This gives a non-random guarantied reward for players that are unlucky.

You could potentially have a purpose for unneeded insects. As the rarity is about that of an exotic drop just let players salvage them for Glob of Dark Matter but don’t let it be sold on TP.

There probably is a post about this somewhere but I cant find it. Possibly in the PvP forums.

I thought one of the most compelling reasons that Anet went with the whole PvP reward track system was that they stated they could introduce themed reward tracks for the Living World. Somewhat bringing the PvPers into the story/themes of GW2 a little.

I think it would be quite easy to create a reward track for Dry Top etc that includes rewards of geodes, sand (woot!), keys, Ambrite and possible rare drop of Ambrite Insects. This might give players that are interested in both PvE and PvP to play either and not lose anything in terms of specialized LW loot etc.

What you think?

Even better now thinking. On top of using geodes at the top tier to buy Ambrite Insect. add reward of Ambrite Insect for a very hard (Liadri level) story achievement. Plus (off the scales here) a new world boss (Worm Level) with better than 1% drop of Ambrite Insect. This gives us the following:

• Random lucky reward with grinding element that can be soloed but helped by others. (present system)
• Consistent non-random reward with grinding element that can be soloed but helped by others. (proposed top tier purchase)
• Non-random reward for hard achievement (involving skill) that cannot be helped by others. (story achieve.. would need to restrict to only yourself in instance)
• Random but higher chance reward for hard achievement (involving skill) involving a group. (proposed world boss drop in the last patch)

Does this cover all the bases… pleasing all people??

Others you could have but I think are just boring.

• Have money reward. (buy off trading post).

Yeah its a bit meh on the RNG. It is looking like it is about a 1% probability (based on heresay) so opening about 200 chests has a 86% chance of getting 1 (or more) so you are pretty unlucky to not get one at least by this stage. 100 is 63% chance so keep trying.

I got mine (just one) after about 30 chests which is a 22% probability. close to flipping two coins and getting both heads (25%).

However I think it is the best thing for the PvE game overall. Its all in the way you look at it.. its only been 1 month of Dry top. These weapons will always be there for you to get and you can almost solo farm some of the events to get geodes for keys. The only thing requiring people is reaching the high tiers and I think its super great for the game to have that. Its an MMO and people should be sudo-communicating in map chat to try and get the higher tiers or organizing guilds to do just that.

Given that I hope they introduce T6 with the last area of Dry Top (coming after next patch most likely).. possibly T7. Have the reward for the top (and last) tier is vendors will sell you a ambirite insect for 500-1000 geodes. I think that is not a bad way of dealing with bad luck.

geesh you guys sure like to QQ much.

Its very simple. This is a new system (reward tracks) so they would have implemented a new flag “unlock X dungeon reward track”. Both PvE and PvP (ergo all players) have to get this flag. This is the easiest and cleanest way Anet could implement such a system. Any other system that recognises previous “stuff” would have been more work developing/testing and been made redundant for new players and probably caused bugs going forward.

I would much rather a clean system from the get go. Just run the Story Modes geesh. There are probably going to be other tracks you are interested in anyway (the pvp only backpack!) do those first. You can only do one at a time.

1. Ranger
2. Engineer
3. Necromancer

This LS round showed some real holes in the LFG tool I think.

a) for the dungeon. Why can’t we group with other players on different servers etc? should the LFG tool facilitate this also? the old LFG website did and was great. Players are not always active at the same times of the day and that would certainly help get people together. Also as we time down the popularity of this we are seeing less and less people at the top so why not have a non-server-specific version of LFG.

b) need a squad creator or a dare I say it “zerg” maker.. hah. Need a way to broadcast to others that there is a bunch of people doing the tower you should join. Not just to the map but to the whole server. If I login and I may check my LFG tool and I see 5-10-20 ppl doing the tower I might say yeah I might do that.

c) Similar to above but to elaborate. Currently the LFG tool doesn’t really show you much information.. groups blink up and are gone in an instance (which isn’t well explained to new players). This works ok for dungeons and fractals but not PVE.. as above need more ways to post information on events happening and the information stays up.. people just join. You could show how many players are in the tower (or current LS content) right now.. You could even “perma-post” the Queensdale/Frostgorge Zerg perhaps then accurately explaining the order etc.. some players like zerging so why not.. GW2 has opened my eyes to an MMO that you actually play with people naturally without needing to formalise everything into “parties” or “guilds” etc.. Not that those are bad things they are just next step things for most people.. first people should just naturally get together and play.. have conversations.. maybe start a guild.. no pressure. Other games are the other way around.. must be in a guild to play the game etc.. The LFG tool could be the noticeboard of these things etc.

would be cool if the air filters damaged the TA.. or possibly fear etc.. that would make it semi-believable.

Yeah all comes down to incentives. Put some exclusive skins that random drop in the tower. Put the deathmist ones in..

Skins (possibly minis and other items) are what is supposed to drive the game.. Anet has made normal drops a little interesting with champion bags but thats basically just money/luck/mats which is boring.. nothing to aim for bar achievements and once those are gone for most players we have what we have now.

The Tower is fun open world although certainly zergy (impossible to remove zerg from PvE) is also interesting in small groups but players still need incentives.

Another thing that would have helped with this kind of thing is initially have it per server but eventually just all servers on the one instance.. same goes with the dungeon at end. This does remove some of the “server identity” but at least gets people playing.

Cant really comment on the WvW stuff but..

I think its quite cool to have downed enemies in PvE. Certainly think it should stay for some enemies. (certainly not all)
a) adds way to show off some cool finishers (even the temp ones).. it starts conversations.
b) familiarises players with downed/finishing mechanic
c) by denying rallies adds an interesting mechanic to be aware of.. potentially prioritising target over others etc..
d) at the moment downed enemies are not doing much damage or any specials etc.. not really healing up either but has potential to be an interesting mechanic to add some difficulty and dynamism when required.

Well I freakin love my ranger in GW2. I find him very dynamic and awesomely swift and agile.

I think a lot of people jump into playing the ranger as a ranged class in this game. It is true that they do have excellent ranged options but that shouldn’t be the only way they are damaging all the time.

Anet has said that ranged will always do less damage in general than melee because of the trade off in risk etc. So Not only is it the pet (about 20-40%) but also melee has a major role.

I see a lot of rangers (general observation) thinking they should be doing uber damage just with shortbow or longbow.. you’ve got to get your hands dirty on occasion especially for bursting, but thats all good because rangers have a crazy amount of evading options with all melee weapons so shouldn’t be getting hit.

In general I think a lot of players play GW2 with a one weapon mindset (from other MMOs) when there are 2 sets plus available to any class and should be used for all the different situations.

Hmm, I think walking turrets would go against the idea of turrets as an area denial skill. admittedly it is a choice (trait) and also as stated Turrets aren’t really working as an area denial tool at all at the moment as they die like flys (necro joke).

I like the idea of just no damage or exceptional high toughness.. You need to think twice about fighting a turreted up engineer on his own turf, This plays into the GW2 combat concepts on movement being a significant factor (eg the supposed reason for the torment condition). In this case the denial of movement or dangerous movement.

Whereas Guardian has a number of skills that are about defensive area denial. Turret Engineer should excel at offensive area denial.

Ok my ideas on MF

As others have said perhaps the sharing out mechanic just wont work so scratching that.

Also to reassure people I think almost every player in the game (MFer and non-MFer) like Magic Find. Everyone likes having a lot of magic find its how this is gained that is the problem.

A few people have said making MF gained from an item either a permanent or a temporary buff. I like the purchase for Skill points idea but I think temporary buff would be better as we saw with the Southsun update. A few ideas on how you could gain this:

1. With each event completed in the open world you would get a 50% MF buff which could stack up to 200% – this would play in with people finishing events etc. The buff would last for 1hr perhaps (maybe 30min). It could drop off one stack at a time or all at once.
2. Overworld MF would drop off once entering dungeons. With each different dungeon completed you would get a 50% buff lasting for 1hr etc – This would possibly help reduce the appeal of CoFp1 (would need to balance it out so MF drops may give more money per run if you choose to do different dungeons in a run, hard as CoFp1 is so easy to finish quick, but possible)

Another idea instead would be to have a rare’ish soulbound (possibly account bound) item drop:

1. It would be similar to above providing a 50% buff stacking to 200% (so you need 4 items etc).
2. This could drop from any mob etc but may have a guaranteed chance of dropping from meta events or end of dungeons.
3. possibly a higher chance from champions making taking them out actually worth the time it takes.

I think this would help by adding a more interesting useful drop, at the moment the drops from mobs are plain boring and you don’t even look at anything blue or green. More useful things need to be dropped.
Using an item might make it a bit less of a chore to ensure your MF buff from events is up. You can accumulate the items and just use when you need to.

Basically the idea behind all of above just gives you MF naturally by playing the game etc.. It would need to be balanced to ensure it isn’t a chore to get the MF buffs but also not ridiculously easy either.

You would phase out MF on gear as suggested above.

Yeah as others have said. Fractals are all good and all but expanding out the number of actual dungeons with 3 or more exp modes should also come “when it makes sense”.

Which kind of brings up the Molten Facility Dungeon. There could be some great explorable modes in there. The “Story” of all the dungeons are effectively set in the past with the story of Destiny’s edge etc, so running the story now (when other living story has happened) is still fine, you are just going back in time. Certainly it would be cool for new players, whereas fractals can be a little gated for entry etc. The Explorables are always set afterwards but made in a way that it could be anytime afterwards. Why not just bring back the Molten Facility as a story but this time with added explorables??

Also Wayfarer foothills and Diessa Plateau haven’t changed for good as promised (in original game update blurb). Why not leave remnants of the Molten Alliance (now broken) in a bit of the maps possibly around the dungeon entrance etc??

hmm forum search is a bit hopeless then 8(

Cant believe there is no mention in this forum on this really..

Well Dragonball has some major problems. Anet, you probably already realize.

It is a good game and is fun…. The kicker… if people play and don’t afk etc. You need some way of just booting afkers.. the system should just do it automatically. banned for 30 minutes etc if you are afk ie not moving and shooting etc.

The dragon ball sounds and the music in the arena need some work.. they aren’t the best and have no punch. How about some quake-esque rock soundtrack as that seems to be the inspiration of the game anyway.

Now probably the most important you (Anet) cant tie PvP stuff like this to Living Story (PvE) achievements. It just doesn’t work and leads to what we are seeing right now, people akitteng to just get the achievements etc. Even taking it away from the meta (which you did) achievement doesn’t matter as its still there and PvEers will do it even though they hate it. Now, do I think they could learn to love it certainly, but some players just never will. Best to keep it in a separate optional Tab like Activities etc. Maybe an achievement to play one game or get all the weapons etc but that should be it.

Anyway I liked the game although it has been very frustrating. The map is good and weapons are really good and makes for some interesting PvP combat if played right.

To telegraph moves should just be the character saying somethings.. if indeed the fight calls for clearer telegraphed abilities etc.. A “say” that appears above their head.. simple as that. Wont exclude deaf players and is the best place for it (ie where the boss is.. where you should be looking)

In chat as well is fine and with an animation is fine also with audio from the character is also fine.

When completing the fight I did pay attention to the chat and saw the tells there and agree that it is not the best place for them although I had no trouble with it.

Comes back to why GW2 never implemented the system of showing the ability beneath the mobs healthbar etc.. You really need that to put these advanced mechanics in the game. I can understand the reasoning’s of “you should be looking at the boss” which is true so I think a “say” is a good compromise. You can see it above the lightshow and its where the boss is on the screen.

Yes Hats off to you Master Saber

I pugged this after a failed run (just from time really) where someone you had taught showed me the tricks.

It was a fun fight actually.. A real control fight from WOW days.. good use of phases. Now my group wiped a few times just winging it until we sat down and planed it out properly and we were successful and it was cool There are bugs in the fight for sure but I don’t think any are that major and can be overcome with simple control of the group etc.

It is good to see a nice hard boss fight in GW2 that requires some group coordination.

Thank You Regina – Just logging on now and reading through the thread getting slowly more and more frustrated and finally I am smiling again.

On another point.. when I heard this whole thing with Bonfires. I thought this would be a cool way to give the story of this and all future living story perhaps through a cutscene or a simple dialog. Come a couple of living stories down the track it would be cool to go talk to specific NPCs at anytime to show some of the stories that have completed in the past.. telling stories around the bonfire.. so to speak. These should never go away.

*resisting pointing out spelling mistake above

Good video though..

Certainly a huge improvement would be have MF effect all members of party. I do wonder if it would lead to buffbots etc but possibly not. If we are looking at 100% personal MF on only 2 members of party translates to 200% party M.. Im not sure if that would be to OP.. would certainly make grouping quite profitable if it all added up etc. It would still mean players would run two sets of gear.. easier stuff they would go MF gear and harder stuff little MF.

There are probably equal arguments for just getting rid of MF all together. It is just a weird selfish thing to put in GW2.