Guild Wars 2

Ohh I didn’t know that. I was missing only the Charr Story Arc, and since it was stated in the UI that it would give me a Mastery Point I went for it. Thanks for the reply though.

Only the four original maps that came with Heart of Thorns are eligible to give you a Class Cache. Bloodstone Fen is not even listed as a Heart of Maguuma Map, so any dailies related to it such as Heart of Maguuma Lumberer, Heart of Maguuma Miner and Heart of Maguuma Forager can not be completed in it.

Hey guys! I’m not sure if this is a bug or not but can anyone help me understand what happened?

Yesterday I finished the story arcs for Charr’s Personal Story for the first time in order to get ‘Bloodying the Past’ and ‘From Howl to Silence’ achievements. Each one of those reward you with a core Tyria mastery point and 10 AP. However, upon completion, no mastery point was given even though I got the achievement pop up (along with 10 AP / No mastery UI pop up though).

Even though I like the concept of Reward Tracks being brought to PvE, its implementation is tricky at best. Even more so when you look at their efforts to make their PvE content more rewarding. Anet wants PvE’ers to go through PvE content. Imagine if they made Dungeon Token available in a PvE reward track, that would mean that if you wanted too you would never have to set foot inside a dungeon, and you may say: “But that’s already there, if I want I can do PvP and never go through a dungeon”. While that is, in essence, true, you would be playing PvP, another part of the game completely. So you wouldn’t be invested in their PvE content but would be in their PvP content. It’s a win win situation. If you don’t like PvE, just earn your rewards in a competitive scenario and for those who don’t want to PvP, they have to go through the Dungeon making them worthwile to run even if for tokens alone, so the content stays relevant. If a PvE player doesnt need to run a Dungeon and a PvP player doesn’t either, so who’s left to run it? That would leave them in an even worse place than they are right now. And that applies to most every other thing suggested.

I don’t know, even though I would love to never have to run a dungeon again, or spend months on Dry Top for a collection, I can see why they wouldn’t do this.

Thaddeus.4891:

Well the reason you can keep your team alive in zerker is that there is only one stats that help you keep your team alive and it’s healing power. Since the content isn’t hard enough you don’t need healing, so that only leave us with zerker or sinister.

If the content is hard enough that we need healing and active defense, we would still only need zerker and some healing power. Boons, Reflect, Blind, Endurance, etc. All of those don’t need stats from gear.

I see your point. It’s a valid one and I agree with your first post. Boons should be rarer so they become meaningful and I still really believe Healing should be revamped (base toned down and scale factor increased). As for toughness and passive play I… yeah, I gotta agree with you but I do feel like the are way to many active defenses in game. So many that they are rarely a skilled play since some professions can spam invuls, blinds, evades/dodges, blocks, interrupts… and AI does hardly anything to keep up with the amount of counters to it. I hope I’m getting my point of view across ^^

lagrangewei.8516:

[…]nerfing healing power to make healing stat had a greater range will kind of make their personal heal meaningless and people will just be blaming healer for not healing enough, so…

I don’t think that it would become meaningless. It just becomes something that you can and imo should care about. If you’re a pure berserker you should think “I gotta be careful ’coz my heal is not as strong but oh look at dat damage!” and if you’re a cleric you should feel the damage being mitigated by your armor and actually see the difference in your healing capabilities. All stats should matter as opposed to what happens right now. Changing the healing power scale, and reducing the base effectiveness is a step in a good direction in my opinion.

@lagrangewei You’ve missed the point. Actually you proved mine. You said “[…]I didn’t even use healing stat to keep my team up in raid, so long as they know what they are doing[…]” If you are a support character that wants to pump out heals you should be using Healing Power. Everyone’s efficiency in a few areas of a build are too independant of said stat. So why not run Zerker if I can still heal my teammates to roughly the same as someone who has built his/her character around that. I’m not talking only about blasting water fields.

I agree that GW2 combat system is action based and therefore relies heavily in active defenses and not “face-tanking”. My point is combat should drive your skills to the limit, there should come a point where you run out of active defenses and fall back to some other traditional methods. Zerker should be your best set of gear for damage, but that’s it, you’re a good damage dealer. You shouldn’t be able to go full zerk and still keep your team alive, and still survive mostly everything, and still … you get the point.

At least that’s what I think.

I feel like combat has to push players to the limit of their abilities. Thoughness and healing will only have a place as long as active defenses don’t cut it (imo they shouldn’t be the be-all-end-all) and self healing is toned down a lot.

Edit: Grammar hammer

Incentivizing Build Diversity

“Play what you want, the way you want!”

This has always been Guild Wars 2 motto. And yes, that has been the truth since launch. This does not mean that there’s no trinity nor that everyone should be able to do everything at once. This is an awesome concept: Wanna play a Ranger? Do it. Don’t like ranged combat and still wanna play a Ranger? Grab a greatsword and have fun. Wanna deal high damage with a Ranger? You can do it, just get the right traits and equipments. Wanna soak up some damage but don’t wanna give up the Ranger? You can do it. Wanna support your team and you really can’t get enough of Ranger? Well, you have numerous ways to do it.
That is, at least in my opinion, the way ArenaNet wanted the game to be. Unfortunely that is only half true. As of the current state of the game you are given to much without sacrificing nearly anything. That cripples build diversity and actually endorses the berserker meta, since you can go full dps without having to worry too much about everything else. Solving this is really about finding the right balance between the strength of your base attributes and your overall efficiency while unspecialized vs. your efficiency while fully geared and built to a defined role (be it a soft one or a hard defined one). So these are my suggestions on what could be done to address some of those issues.

Healing power and Scaling

Every profession can heal themselves and their teammates, each one with its particular flavor and fashion. While a necro can share his vampiric characteristics with their allies a guardian would breathe healing flames onto their fellow mates. The problem is that healing is so powerful in this game that it becomes trivial. Your heal with be just as powerful whether you’ve built towards healing power or not. The scaling of this attribute is laughable and since is not something that will impact you in any way it becomes irrelevant. This is what I would suggest:

- Reduce all base healing currently in the game (including those coming from water fields) by anywhere between 35%-50%
- Increase the scaling factor of each skill to an amount between 0.5 – 4.0

Prayer to Dwayna, a human racial heal skill, currently heals for 6,520 with a scaling factor of 0.85 off of Healing Power. In full Cleric’s exotic equipment you have a total of 1138 HP (excluding runes, sigils, food or traits) resulting in roughly a 15% increase in the healing output ( 7,487 ). It doesn’t feel rewarding to spec into Healing Power since the difference is not that great and the base healing is already really good.

To illustrate my suggestion lets take the same skill and tweak it accordingly.

Prayer to Dwayna now heals for 4,300 (34% less efficiency) and has a scaling factor of 3.25. In the same Cleric’s gear, you would now heal for 7,998 (an 86% increase). Now suddenly makes a huge difference to have built for healing power, and you as a player feel rewarded for investing in it.
There is still no dedicated healer. Every profession can still heal…. if you spec for it.

Revisiting the Combat System

As it is now, the combat system relies a lot in active defenses such as dodges, skillful use of blocks, invuls and so on. That is not a bad design, but this should be a matter of timing and skill and the constant flood of this mechanics invalidate any other types of mitigation in combat. ArenaNet should try and avoid giving so much access to these types of mechanics so combat can feel more varied. At some point the combat should be so challenging and engaging that it would exhaust your active defenses so the other types of defense (healing and toughness) can have a place. Mobs should have some sort of weakness as well as strengths so that we could explore them and take advantage of it. Right now every mob is especially vulnerable to direct damage and THAT is why the Zerker Meta lives. As soon as we get more types of vulnerabilities on mobs we’ll see actual variety in builds and reasoning in building towards something.

Fortitude, a New Stat

“You don’t mitigate conditions, you outlive them!”

That is not entirely truth. We should have a more direct way of dealing with conditions other than cleansing and high vitality. My suggestion is the inclusion of a new stat, similar to Ferocity: Fortitude. At level 80, each 27 points of Fortitude represents a 1% reduction of incoming condition damage. I think that this could address some concerns about the recent changes with conditions, but of course in PvE that would mean that mobs should apply a lot more conditions for this to be even considered using (tying to the previous topic).

TL;DR;
- Less base healing; Increased healing power scaling
- Combat being more engaging in order to exhaust active defenses opening up a place for healing and toughness.
- Mobs being less vulnerable to direct damage and more susceptible to other forms of damage.

Well, these are my suggestions and what I think could improve the game for us!
Let me know what you guys think.

Well I really can’t say about the lore itself. What I can is tell you that nature is a lot more than plant life and animal life. Would you say that is fair to say that Spring and all the seasons would fit as an aspect of Druid? Life and overgrowth? Even plants and animals?
I’d say so. Without the sun’s energy life wouldn’t be possible (no plants, no animals). The seasons are measured in moon cycles (used to be at least). A druid that is one with nature being able to understand it on a higher level than the mundane leaf, or tree, sounds fitting tome. That’s me though!

lxghostxl.5097:

Basaltface.2786:

You guys are never happy with anything dont cha?… Man what would i give to have that much effort put into my spec…that comes from the same dev.

people wont be happy when their favorite class and play style as dps was changed to a full time healer. you should understand that not anyone will just accept garbage like this because majority of the people who chose this class is not to heal but to kick butts and feel like they are baddazz, now its a healer lol! what a joke!

To be honest, people chose The Ranger to play the ranged dps with a pet gameplay style. Elite Specializations came to change, and not enhance a playstyle. So of you want a ranged dps with a pet gameplay you’ll play a Ranger, if you want a ranged heavy healer with a pet you’ll play a Druid.

I’m thinking about running with this in general PvE since it’s the main thing I do:
Herald Front Liner Sustained Damage and Support

What do you guys think?

If you press and hold spacebar it jumps and deploys the glider, if you are high enough, automatically, no need to double tap or to wait for the visual prompt. Not sure if that’s what you’re asking for though.

Cavalier.9064:

Daegony.3604:

Question: I’ll only be able to pre-purchase HoT on August 7th (maybe the 8th), wich means the beta weekend will have started. Do I get to play even if I pre-purchase during beta time frame?

If it’s anything like the last beta weekend — when we tested an unfinished Revenant and the Stronghold map — you should be able to participate in the beta event with just a slight delay after pre-purchasing the expansion.

I pre-purchased on Saturday morning during the last one, and received my beta character slot and pre-purchase goodies within about two to three minutes.

Oh, that’s great. I’d be really sad if I was locked out of this BWE. Thanks for the reply!

Question: I’ll only be able to pre-purchase HoT on August 7th (maybe the 8th), wich means the beta weekend will have started. Do I get to play even if I pre-purchase during beta time frame?

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Daegony.3604:

You are “forced” to do WvW for badges.

EotM k-train. Not really any different than FGS champ train (depending on how cooperative the other 2 zergs feel like being)

Daegony.3604:

You are “forced” to do dungeons for tokens.

Pvp reward tracks

Daegony.3604:

You are “forced” to play the game to get gold for mats.

Well now we’re just being silly.

My point here is that there is usually at least an optional (even if not optimal) method for acquisition.

I don’t have an issue with fractals being the primary means of obtaining some of the components for the legendary gear coming into the game, but alternatives might be nice (and no, I’m not just talking buying it off the trading post) for those that aren’t into fractaling. Maybe just a fractal pvp track would be sufficient….

As I’ve said in several other posts, I think it would be good if the different modes had their own unique things to incentivize playing them (like fractals have fractal skins which you can’t trade). However, end game goals, like legendaries, should not be mode locked and depending on some of this set up, I would consider it to be bordering on that here.

But that’s just my 2c.

Having more options is nice but the argument of being forced doesn’t change. “I’m not a PvP’er so I don’t want to be forced to play a game mode I don’t want to get my tokens”. I’m not saying that it isn’t valid to have more ways to obatin certain things, but in all fairness, legendaries were that way upon launch. There were no secondary means such as reward tracks, EotM, etc.
I really don’t mind that they give us options for obtaining such things but the “forced” argument really bothers me. You are indeed required, but by no means forced.

You are “forced” to do WvW for badges. You are “forced” to do dungeons for tokens. You are “forced” to play the game to get gold for mats. Oh well, not sure it’s worth to argue about this again.
If my opinion is of any value, it’s totally fine that some rewards are gated behind specific content (and we are talking about a legendary after all). You are no more forced to do that than you are to salvage exotics if you wan’t ascended armor. (I don’t like to salvage a shiny, shouldn’t be forced to yada yada yada)

I’m really happy that the Swindler caught your attention. The inspiration behind this specialization was my old D&D rogue that was constantly checking his Bluff against Sense Motive, so in essence, it is all about keeping your enemies focused on you while you try to deceive them and manipulate their perception of the fight to your advantage. That creates a very distinct playstyle of the current thief who relies on not being seen and having always the element of surprise by his or her side. The Swindler wants you to focus on him, he wants you to think that you can take him down while he hides a sharp knife up his sleeve.

Thematically, confusion seemed like the perfect fit for this style of gameplay. The Swindler is supposed to have a “high risk; high reward” playstyle since you’re up close to your enemies, bluffing your way through their defences. It is indeed a Confusion-Centric specialization (built to synergize well within itself), however I wanted to make it worthwhile to spec into Swindler even though you aren’t interested in condition application through providing some good options for non-condi builds in the trait line, the Manipulation Skills and the sword skills.

I’m really happy to hear what you guys think, and to feel the appreciation towards the effort (graphic and conceptual) that went into designing this spec. Thanks a lot =)

Posted this as a submission to WP’s contest but figured I could post it here aswell.
A thief who… deceives: The Swindler (That’s a literal translation from a portuguese word. Hope it fits =P)

I agree that the choices are somewhat lackluster, but letting people choose 2 master traits or even 3 adept ones would defeat the whole purpose of the new system which is making you choose. You have to really give up on something, that’s what this system is all about: feel the weight of choice and be rewarded (or not) for it. As for the bug, well… it’s a bug and they happen (even more often in gw2 since there’s no testing server) and we have to wait till it’s fixed. Just be patient ’cause the system is working as intended =D

If we forget that this is a game, and that it has combat, be it against the AI or actual players (therefor needs balance), and we look solely to the mathematics point of view, I agree: Diversity was heavily crippled.
In the old system if we went full on a trait line we would have 240 different outcomes for that line alone, whereas in the new system we have 27 possible ones. But that’s just mathematics.
In the old system it was extremally hard to predict what choices a player would make, and those choices would either make you as a player feel under or overpowered. At the end, in the big picture of the game it was nothing but an illusion of choice. The hardcore players were running meta builds (no choice there) and the rest of the player base were being barely functional, and most of the time sub optimal.
Now we have 10 different combinations of core specializations (20 when the elite one drops) and within each of the three chosen ones you have 27 possibilities. That’s 810 possible combinations of traits to make your build [wich will soon double] and that is still a lot to think of when balancing everything out. But what makes this system better is that it is easier to predict the outcomes, and now devs can provide meaningful choices instead of just choices and make a lot of them much more viable and fun/rewarding to run.

JonPeters.5630:

Cheshire.8761:

Are you going to address how you forced characters to train into builds using their hero points without their consent? :o

Why not. Basically there were two options, both with a large number of edge cases.

1) We wipe your stuff and let you respec as you see fit. Because so much had changed this was our initial plan. Here are problems it ran into.

• People return from a long hiatus and don’t remember what they were running
• People log in and the first thing they have to do before they can play is learn both the new unlocking system and the new build system.

2) We look at what you had equipped and unlock the necessary skills and traits to re-equip you. Here were some discussions points around that:

• We might give you stuff you don’t want
• at least this won’t matter for lvl 80s if we make all the unlocks possible by just reaching lvl 80.

There is a third option which I’m sure you will bring up.
3) let players choose
Here are some reasons we did not go with that:

• Its twice the work
• Its actually more than twice the work because it would have required temporarily saving both options until you choose which is more complex technical work.
• People who were unlikely to understand or want to explore the new system were going to be potentially more confused by the choice.

At the end of the day we wanted to ship this build so we had to decide. Based on instinct we erred on the side of helping people we thought would be more overwhelmed by the opposite choice, and I would make that choice again because it has less edge cases, impacts more expert users, and leans towards over unlocking for free to benefit most of the edge cases anyway.

Hope this info helps you understand our process a bit more.

Thanks,

Jon

Does it break anything if you just add a “refund hero points” button? That way you can just let the game re-build your choices and if your not satisfied, just refund the points and assign them to what you need/want. Just a suggestion anyway =D

Amadan.9451:

they never resets already accomplished goals on character. as i’m told they did it only once about fractals.
i had all of the traits unlocked regularly on all of my character and when they changed the sysitem the the one we have now, my traits stayed as they were. only the new xiii traits are to be unlocked

I know, but they are know part of a reward track of sorts, they are a linear progression from trait I to trait XIII, same goes for skills. I’m curious as to what will they do!

Teon.5168:

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

Capture two keeps in a row? Sorry your ‘omg i progress half a level’ feeling is gone. Yes at first their may (or may not be) a mastery in wvw to max, but that will be fast complete, and from then on, everything in wvw, will feel more empty then ever. Not good. But it’s same in pve.

Getting half a level on your experience bar after you have turned 80 actually gives you some sort of ‘accomplishment’ feeling? Ok, whatever. If not having that xp bar is some sort of major game breaker for you(I have no idea why it possibly would be), then maybe you just need to take a break?

Imo, why should someone even care what their experience bar is doing after reaching 80?
I don’t even pay any attention to my experience bar anymore on any of my 80 characters. It won’t affect me one or the other if it is there or not on my 80s.
/shrug

I like that they’re pushing this mentality away with HoT. As it is I really don’t care about my exp bar on my level 80 chars. Masteries are a nice way to break it, and if it stays as it was during beta it means they ditched the “flat leveling curve” so experience will actually matter a lot.

I don’t mind the gold spent. But it would be nice to know if we would loose the stuff we unlocked. Hero Points as it is unlocks everything from traits to skills via specialization tracks.
Assuming that I’m not a completionist, I have only what fits my playstyle and what if that trait or skill I find useful is at the end of the specialization track for it? Would I still have it even though I have not gone through the trouble of unlocking the first tiers of the track?

I don’t even think it’ll be that big of a deal to implement since they have that with levels, traits, and so on. Just make it so when you fill up your mastery bar you get a notification like the trait one, and if you click it you open the masteries UI to assign a new track.

I’d like a skin and dye inspect, no need for stats or rarity of gear. More often than not I find myself wondering what dyes and armor pieces is someone using, though there are some pretty obvious looks, some are not that much. And when it comes to dyes it is even harder to guess what was that awesome tint of green or red that guy was using. So I’m all up to aesthetic inspect.

I like the idea of Mantras as their new skill type. It would sound better as Chants or Prayers, but I guess Mantras fit.

I don’t see having a set skillbar per legend as being a problem. I mean, thinking about it makes it a really versatile profession. Any other profession have currently a fixed set per fight, that’s 1 heal. 3 utilities and 1 elite. The Revenant has 2 heals, 6 utilities and 2 elites on a given fight that uses a manageable resource wich gives it a lot of thinking before using a skill or risking to run out too quickly on energy. Having a fixed set of skills per legend is great for devs to make strongly sinergetic skills and to me seems a fair counter to the perk of having more utilities, heals and elites in a combat situation. Also, as they’ve shown on the stream, his trait lines are really tied up to a legend and making said stance even more sinergetic and powerful. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing having a pool per legend to choose from, but it’s not horrible not having one.

Oh kitten, mine crashed and won’t open again. =D

Its back online, at least for me. Now my problem is: since I’ve tried to repair the client earlier it is downloading the whole game again. Should’ve waited longer before doing that ¬¬

It seems to be a problem with Brazil then. I even tried repairing the gw2.dat file, and nothing. Still getting the error message.