Guild Wars 2

Bloodgruve.6038:

Brother Grimm.5176:

If you still have all that karma, buy a bunch of Orrian Jewelry Boxes….

Forgot about those, tyvm I’m sitting on 3 mil or so…

Get linen karma items, toss into forge, salvage the result, sell scraps on TP. Linen goes for a lot, you should make lots of gold with 3 mil karma. Wool also goes for a decent amount afaik.

Karma trains are in EotM now, it’s a WvW area. Pretty fun, lots of champs.

Silverwastes, world bosses and dungeons are the best areas for farming gold now afaik. Orr is good for T6 mats. The world boss train is also a great way to get account bound mats. Check http://dulfy.net/2014/04/23/event-timer/ to see world boss times and waypoints. Dulfy has guides for almost everything.

Living story instances cost gems. They’re unlocked for free for players who log in during the 2 week update period, but everyone after that has to pay. I think the latest update might still be active? Not sure.

smjiko.8314:

Hey ANet & GW2 players,

I used to love Guild Wars 2 and played it for hundreds of hours until eventually, I drifted away but with plans to return in the future. I was fully aware while I played that Server Transfers costed money in order to combat WvW abusal. However, recently I have been hoping on coming back to the game and playing with friends, but I am on a different server to them, and I really don’t want to pay the pretty substantial amount of money to transfer to their server just to let me WvW with them (because I can still do guesting).

Shouldn’t there be some sort of.. 6-month or 1 year transfer token distribution in favour of returning players? I can’t be the only person who has had this kind of thing happen, as returning to the game with intent of changing servers is, I expect, a relatively common occurence.

Thanks!

P.S. I should mention I know about the deletion of all characters resetting free transferability, but I have a max level char and a level 38 on there…

Don’t delete the characters. Ttrait unlocking for new characters is horrible and hasn’t been fixed yet.

If WvW with friends is worth $25/300G, then save up for it. Regular dungeon running will get that in a few weeks. If you just want to play with friends, all of PvE can be played just by partying up. The only PvE limitations now are NA vs EU.

Knighthonor.4061:

Celtic Lady.3729:

Supposedly, players wanted to get their traits by having to repeat the same few events in-game over and over on every character, so they could get them like they did in GW1.

And Anet thought it was a good idea to listen to them over the rest of the playerbase that never asked for that?

Forumites were raving all over about how much fun acquiring skills from bosses was in GW1. People who liked the old system never spoke up.

This is why people need to speak up when they like the status quo. When they don’t, the status quo gets changed to whatever the loudest voice wants.

Ben K.6238:

Because it’s not consistent with the rest of the environments in GW2. If the whole GW2 world ran with a surreal theme, it wouldn’t seem so out of place. Right now, though, you’ll be stepping out of the Silverwastes, which looks like a fairly reasonable network of arid canyons, into a place that looks like it has no ground. It doesn’t seem to fit.

Vertical design is a lot harder to navigate based on the map, too. Think how many people have trouble getting places in Black Citadel. ANet seems to be going all out with platforming recently, and it’s kind of annoying.

Palador.2170:

The map is active, but overly so. There’s no place that feels like you can catch your breath or get your head together. This is actually a problem for me, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.

We need the occasional safe point to reorient ourselves and catch our breath. If it’s all action all the time it soon becomes nothing but noise.

That’s what I was afraid of. Why does ANet make beautiful maps, then prevent us from enjoying them because we always need to be on our toes?

I’m starting to prefer beginner zones. At least those let players relax, go off the beaten path and enjoy the scenery.

Non-tradable precursors and legendaries? Yuck.

One of the few upsides of the current system is that precursors and legendaries can be bought with the game’s main currency. Tossing that out the window and adding extra gathering/quests to the process? Sounds like more work for a lesser reward.

And what about people who get RNG precursors and can’t trade them? Sounds like they’re just SOL.

There are many players who like complicated classes.

Simple classes for those who prefer them. Complicated classes for those who prefer them. We have both. Why is this a bad thing?

runeblade.7514:

If ANet put in meaningful distraction/side quest that rewards me equally as trait quest during leveling, then I’ll support removing trait quest. Dynamic event + Personal story doesn’t count. They aren’t rewarding. They don’t give me the “I actually got something!” feeling.

Leveling from 1-80 is boring without trait quest.

Leveling is the game. That’s the whole point of GW2 – the ‘endgame’ and the ‘before endgame’ are the same thing. Finding leveling boring is the same as finding the whole game boring.

Which is fine. Not every game is for every person. There are lots of games that focus strictly on progression and ‘rewards’ of bigger numbers. If you find playing GW2 so boring you need system reworks, perhaps another game would suit you better?

skeptic.2409:

thanks for the advice everyone cause honestly I don’t like d/d ele even thoug its the meta and I know it works best, but ill put on the might stack and see how it works and fix my rotation better and to everyone else go suck a kitten

It doesn’t really work better than other builds, I think it’s just more people play it so it’s better understood. All depends one what you’re doing with it. Just because something is popular doesn’t mean it’s automatically better. And if it’s not fun…I would rather play something that’s fun than try to be super optimized.

BobbyStein.2315:

Malkavian.4516:

BobbyStein.2315:

I just wanted to provide an update since it’s been a while.

• We are currently working to restore the Greatest Fear storyline to the live game. I can’t provide a release date at this point.
• In addition to restoring the Personal Story steps to their original order we’re making some minor improvements where possible (e.g. recording new VO or updating certain conversations, etc.).

We’ll provide additional details closer to release. Thanks much for your patience.

That’s all well and good. Nice to know you are getting down to fixing it. Now, that just leaves the issue on characters who have been through the botched PS. Will you by some chance, make it replayable like you did with the Living Story? Because if I have to grind my charr character just to see the fixed version, that’s just bullcrap. :/

The Personal Story was never designed to be replayable on a single character, so making a change like that would involve a lot of revision (updating and testing hundreds of story steps). It’s simply out of scope.

The updated story steps will start with A Light in the Darkness.

Sweet! Thank you for the update. Looking forward to finish the PS on my characters once the update is released.

Don’t forget Metabattle for builds and Dulfy’s class guides:

http://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki

http://dulfy.net/category/gw2/class-guides-gw2/

There’s a guild specifically for this kind of thing: Operation Union / Legion of Honor.

http://operationunion.enjin.com/ – guild forum
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/Operation-Union-Bringing-Players-Together-2 – post in the thread to get added

BrunoBRS.5178:

BilboBaggins.5620:

BrunoBRS.5178:

BilboBaggins.5620:

Argue the finer details all you want, for me it’s as simple as this;

ArenaNet realized that underwater “endurance” was a bad idea and players didn’t like it so they removed it and we have aquabreathers. So what makes them think people are going to like this same antiquated mechanic up in the air?

It’s no different. You can’t get to places you’re not meant to get to, this is isolated to this map and any future maps they make to take advantage of flying. Updrafts and the mastery to use them could be used to gate aerial waypoints without using endurance. The current dodge mechanic could be used for aerial combat (if any) instead of endurance.

Antiquated, boring, frustrating, poor design.

you have a really poor grasp of the design of both underwater mechanics and gliding if you really think the two are even remotely comparable.

Enlighten me then oh Maestro da Vinci!

as it’s been said several times in this thread by me and by others, underwater is fundamentally different from gliding. you see, going underwater isn’t something you do purely for locomotion. when you’re underwater, you’re exploring, doing hearts and events, fighting, etc. thus, forcing a player to go back to the surface halfway through a fight would be counter-intuitive.

meanwhile, gliding is purely a way of traversing. it’s a glorified jump pad. you use gliding from going from A to B. what the endurance bar does is limit what those “B’s” are. think of it like the zephyrite aspects: you can only go as far as the amount of charges you have left allow you to, but that’s ok, because the game was designed so that those charges are always enough to get everywhere you should be. similarly, you can (or will be able to, with enough mastery points) reach anywhere you should reach with a glider. you’ll never come short of a ledge when gliding if you’re meant to reach it and execute it well.

TL;DR: underwater endurance would stop you from doing what you’re meant to do, airborn endurance only stops you from doing what you’re not meant to do.

You’re missing the point, though.

People are disappointed that gliding is so limited. We were hoping it would be a freeform movement mode, much like water or land movement is. Instead it seems like it’s basically like Zelda fast travel, where you get a limited number of paths/landing points? That’s not nearly as much fun. Compared to the full-fledged movement options we already have, it’s disappointing that ANet chose to go with a limited movement ability for the expansion.

Ralanost.8913:

And you aren’t getting it with the Mordrem. You simply can’t kill them until you get the mastery unlock. It really is no different than finding a key and opening a door, getting a glider to get to a new ledge or learning a language to open a sealed passageway. What is impossible made normal, what is impassable made traversable. Leveling is a gradual increase in your abilities, not flat out unlocking new areas. You gradually get better and can eventually tackle larger problems because you have higher stats.

That’s vertical progression. Until a player gets X skill/gear/MacGuffin, they can’t do the content.

And it gets better, because we can’t get X without running specific content repeatedly. It’s exactly the same thing as needing to run through raids to get gear so you can do the next raid. Exactly the same. The reasoning behind it is even the same – to distinguish players who have run through the content from those who haven’t, and give players who run through the content bigger/more numbers.

The more I learn about this expansion, the less excited I am about it. So far it sounds like a Tyrian spin on all the things that made me uninterested in other MMOs.

Pikka.6023:

On one hand, exploration and achievement is highly desirable, and necessitates ‘gating’ of some sort.

That’s quite a contrast to GW1, where the challenges so varied from one map to another, and even more so one dungeon to another, that you could easily wipe if you didn’t adjust your team and builds to meet the challenge.

Why do you think we need gating?

Exploration is about finding new places for their own sake. It’s not about bigger numbers, it’s about having fun poking your nose into hidden places. POIs, etc are not exploration, they’re a way to hand out XP besides combat. I’m really glad they’re in the game for that reason, but it’s not the same as exploring. Exploring is looking for cool spots to take screenshots, or learning the stories playing out on the map, identifying hidden secrets or just taking time to slowly investigate every crevice. This kind of play doesn’t mesh with a map full of powerful monsters and group events where everything is trying to kill you. Exploring needs to include at least some time to stop and smell the roses, and the current high level maps don’t really offer that.

High level content doesn’t need to mean ‘constant tension and watching your back’. It doesn’t need to mean ‘run, run in the metaevent treadmill!’. It’s good to have some of those maps for people who enjoy them, but it’s disappointing that ANet is making the entire expansion that way. I don’t find those kinds of maps fun, and so this expansion sounds like it won’t be very fun for me, based on what we know. That’s all I’m saying.

Trock Bronze.9625:

The way point comment is simple to understand- you can’t reach it without certain skills. Its not locked off and hell a mesmer can probably port you there without the skill.

as per the rest of this, so what? I mean really so freaking what? Oh no I can’t go everywhere in the new zone right away. Well could you do that at level 1 when this game came out? No, you had to earn levels, you had to complete certain things first, to hgain access to content. This is natural progress for a game and the ONLY way complaining about this would make sense is depending on what content is being prevented and how long it takes to be able to obtain it. We do not know the answer to this yet and I highly doubt it will be so painfully slow, its more likely to happen practically naturally and with little effort save for a few things, which again, is how games work.

Actually, you could. And you still can. The game currently does not lock players off from going somewhere based on their level.

That freedom was part of the draw for me. If I wanted to go anywhere, I could. It might not be a great choice, but I wasn’t being shoved out of certain content because of arbitrary numbers.

yanipheonu.5798:

Well I mean, this IS an RPG. If we’re moving away from the conventional levels and loot for progression, then we’re going to have to unlock something as a part of progressing, making our character not necessarily stronger! but more able.

Why?

Having more numbers isn’t an inherent part of an RPG. It’s just a common tactic designers use.

The fastest paced class is elementalist. Engineers maybe also?

Combat doesn’t here doesn’t work like other MMOs. There aren’t really any tanks. The closest to what you’re asking for is probably a bunker elementalist.

Why hasn’t ANet implemented more of these suggestions? These kinds of QoL features need to be a bigger priority.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Gilosean.3805:

So I was listening to the regular POI, and heard this:

“unlocking a waypoint after progressing a certain amount”
“unlocking NPC interactions”
“unlocking resource farms”

Does anyone else feel this could be horrific BS? After the screaming over progression-gating traits, skill-lots and other features, they’re going to add more progression-gating?

I mean, ‘unlocking’ waypoints could just mean getting them uncontested, but it doesn’t sound like that to me. It sounds like people need to progress the meta event for the map to be accessible.

We have that now. It’s Straits of Devastation, more or less. And some people really like the design, considering . . .

The new maps are going to be all 100% Silverwaste style, so I’m bracing myself for fights about people being on the map and but participating in the meta events. We’ve seen enough of that with champ trains and Silverwastes/Dry Top. Some people like wandering, or finding interesting NPC dialogue, or taking absurd screenshots! Sometimes people like doing meta events at one point and not another. But if we have to deal with the meta events to get access to the map, apparently. Why is ANet building an entire expansion solely for a single playstyle?

Are you sure about that?

• Zones shown seem totally designed around group play. People playing at offhours are SOL.

I doubt it. Megaservers should cover that except for maybe a small period at around 5am PST?

It could be like Orr…but it could also not. If they mean ‘uncontesting a waypoint’ why did they say ‘unlock’ instead? It sounds like they’re thinking of something new, and the way it was presented made it seem like it was more heavily tied to completing the meta events then current content is.

I’m pretty sure that when they say ‘all the maps will be built around metaevents like Silverwaste’ that’s what they mean. It’s great that some people like Silverwastes. But it’s only 1 way to build a map. A very specific way that strongly encourages people to play it exactly as intended, and doesn’t leave room for much exploring or anything else. When I hear that the expansion maps are all built like Dry Top/Silverwastes I get a lot less interested, because I don’t find those maps very fun.

We’ve never really seen what happens to a metaevent map when it isn’t the latest farming content. Right now Silverwastes seems to be doing OK, but Dry Top seems a lot less populated. When we get a whole new expansion, how much will the spreading player population impact that? How badly will the new-content-farmers leaving SW for HoT mess up the ability to complete the map? IDK, but taking a look at WvW I think coverage could be an issue for keeping the maps playable. I could be wrong, but a whole map designed around high-level group play is riskier than one not designed for that.

The big change is the trait system. You won’t get traits until level 80 now.

DON’T delete that engi. Characters created before last April have all their traits unlocked. New characters have to go through a bad, bugged and boring unlock system to have functional builds, or pay 900% more to unlock the traits.

Metabattle ( http://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki ) and Dulfy ( http://dulfy.net/2014/10/24/gw2-engineer-class-guide-by-doomblade-and-element/ ) have good build guides.

You can make a new character if you want, but I’d just keep going with the engineer. It’ll come back to you as you play.

Yeah, this happens. Usually because someone put too big a sell order in and there was time to undercut it.

When you can’t lose money or wait around, put small sell orders in. Never let people have a chance to undercut you. Also, keep an eye on the weekly cycle – often item prices fluctuate with workweek schedules. If you try to sell at a high point, you’ll need to wait until the market hits that high point again.

I’d wait for at least a week before trying to move my sell orders.

Also – playing the market isn’t a shortcut to wealth. It’s hard work and a lot of knowledge about the items you’re selling, the patterns of GW2 buying and selling habits, and keeping an eye on upcoming patches or new recipes. There used to be a forum for the economy but it got removed (why the dungeon forum stayed and BLTC went I will never understand), so people new to the TP are kinda SOL now. It’s a lot harder to get started.

Good luck!

Labjax.2465:

I feel there is some information in Colin’s post – just not much to go on:

we’re going to be removing the current trait unlocking system currently on live and replacing it with a more simplified system that supports where skills-traits-specializations are going in the future. We’ll go into more details between now and the release of HOT on how skills, traits, and specializations will work in the new Gw2 world.

This doesn’t tell me a whole lot, but it does seem to imply that the days of “go complete an absurdly specific objective to unlock your trait” will be over. That’s what I get from simplified anyway.

It’s not much and I understand if people are feeling like this is kind of a meaningless spotlight. I got something out of the post, but not enough to really talk about it, other than as a confirmation that something is going to happen finally.

The problem is that ANet also called the current system streamlined/simplified. I don’t think they understand that word the same way players do.

The confirmation that of change is nice, but honestly it’s a very small drop of nice in a big of bucket of ‘what on earth were they thinking’ that’s built up over nearly a year.

So I was listening to the regular POI, and heard this:

“unlocking a waypoint after progressing a certain amount”
“unlocking NPC interactions”
“unlocking resource farms”

Does anyone else feel this could be horrific BS? After the screaming over progression-gating traits, skill-lots and other features, they’re going to add more progression-gating?

I mean, ‘unlocking’ waypoints could just mean getting them uncontested, but it doesn’t sound like that to me. It sounds like people need to progress the meta event for the map to be accessible.

The new maps are going to be all 100% Silverwaste style, so I’m bracing myself for fights about people being on the map and but participating in the meta events. We’ve seen enough of that with champ trains and Silverwastes/Dry Top. Some people like wandering, or finding interesting NPC dialogue, or taking absurd screenshots! Sometimes people like doing meta events at one point and not another. But if we have to deal with the meta events to get access to the map, apparently. Why is ANet building an entire expansion solely for a single playstyle?

Other major problems:

• Zones shown seem totally designed around group play. People playing at offhours are SOL.
• Adventures and leaderboards – does anyone else have more info on how these work? Can we disallow our data showing up on leaderboards? Not everyone likes measuring their kitten every play session, and some people like playing alone/have stalkers/etc and don’t want to share their favorite content with all and sundry.

No thanks.

We already have character-bound-hunting with traits. And character bound skills too. I have absolutely no interest in yet another character-bound system that would just mean I have to replay X amount of content to get back to where I started.

Q: Can an account unlock every mastery track in the game?

The answer should be yes, but unfortunately it’s hard to rely on your designers’ judgement after the past few years.

Q: Adventure leaderboards – can we disallow our data showing up on leaderboards? Are they an opt-in feature?

Not everyone likes measuring their kitten every play session, and some people like soloing/have stalkers/etc and don’t want to share their favorite content with the world.

eremos.8142:

Presumably unlocking the higher tiers will require quite a lot of points, but it’s also worth bearing in mind that there will be a finite number of points that can be earned. You get them by completing specific pieces of content, not indefinitely like skill points. There might well be more mastery tracks and tiers than you can unlock with the points available.

That would be crazy. Not saying it’s impossible – the trait revamp was also crazy, it’s not like ANet is great at understanding the impact of changes.

But limiting player access to content like that would be insane. With classes and races we can make an alt, with skills and traits we can unlock and swap. Preventing a player from ever getting access to all the mastery tracks would be a complete slap in the face.

Palador.2170:

Well folks, the blog about Masteries is up.

The ability to train Masteries is unlocked at level 80 for all players that own Heart of Thorns.

And that line does not sound promising. Lets hope that there’s more to come that runs counter to that line.

The blog: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/reimagining-progression-the-mastery-system/

Hm. That makes it sound like the skillpoint shift on leveling won’t take place on accounts that don’t have the expansion.

Palador.2170:

Now, so long as you’re in the main world (not HoT zones), your EXP will go towards this Mastery. Maybe it takes one full bar to get to rank 1, two bars to rank 2, and so on… but ANY EXP you gain is going towards this. If you go to an HoT zone, you’ll change over to working on HoT Masteries.

No grinding of any content is needed. Specific content to unlock, yes, but then any content can be used to earn Mastery ranks.

No, any content can’t. Only content in that specific region. Exactly like you say in the first paragraph – only HoT masteries progress in HoT and vice versa. ‘Do set content repeatedly to gain an ability or get locked out of new content’ is what the mastery system description says.

So far, we’ve heard the expansion described as ‘extremely challenging’, ‘80s only’ and ‘group content’. Speaking as a casual player, it sounds like the new content isn’t going to be for me at all – more challenging and group focused than Orr isn’t going to be fun. But if I want hang gliding or any other HoT mastery, I have to play that. If I want to play with friends but don’t have the masteries, I can’t play that content with them.

It’s exactly the same as a raid for gear. I have to run a specific group of content repeatedly to get X, and X is vital to enjoying new content. Not having X will prevent me from participating. The content to be run might be more varied than a dungeon, but it’s the same underlying philosophy of needing to run content repeatedly just to be able to keep up with game content that turns people off about raid gear grinds.

Yobbles.7569:

Evening, I am not a new player (quit after 1st or 2nd month) cannot remember honestly. Now that I have reinstalled the game though I am completely lost. i am not sure if I should delete the toons I had and start over, suggestions?

No, don’t. Veteran characters made before April 2014 have some benefits that make leveling them much easier – all their traits are unlocked. So if you have any characters made before that month they should definitely stick around.

My advice is to just get out into the world and start running around a starting zone. That will get you used to the game again. Good luck!

Regular hand stretches. Get up for drinks of water or something every half hour.

You already changed your keybindings, which is another big suggestion. Good for you.

Have you made sure your mouse is comfortable and the right size for your hand?

Probably smarter to do everything but the precursor. Precursor prices will probably drop right up until the expansion launches. But as soon as it hits, everyone who can will be crafting new legendaries. Plus, you might really like the new legendaries.

I’d get all the mats and gifts ready, then see what happens with the expansion.

gwonevet.4813:

i’m in an american server

Legion of Honor / Operation Union is a great newbie-friendly / leveling guild. There’s guild missions and all the perks of a large guild, but we welcome anyone who wants to hang out and have a good time. Here’s the website: http://operationunion.enjin.com/

and here’s the forum thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/Operation-Union-Bringing-Players-Together-2

AzureHunter.6079:

jackaljag.8637:

From your description you might be interested in playing engineer.

It’s the jack-of-all-trades profession with a huge variety of utilities/skills to choose from, involves a lot of juggling actions to optimize damage but is top tier DPS, with some great support abilites and the ability to fill in most gaps in party composition. The only thing that’s kind of lacking is the ‘melee combat’ part, but only kind of because while most of the engineer’s weapons and kits are technically ranged they actually do the most damage at medium-to-melee range (think shotgun instead of rifle, basically – technically a gun, but if you want maximum kaboom you gotta be up in the enemy’s face).

Also worth noting that the expansion is going to let engineers use hammer, which might fill in what aggressive in-your-face melee playstyle we’re currently lacking.

I think I’m gonna give it a shot, sounds pretty awesome, thanks!

You do realize you can do any level content on any level character?

I mean, new alts are awesome. But you can have fun exploring zones with your existing characters. In some ways I find that more fun, because I don’t have to keep an eye on my leveling with my 80 characters.

GreenAlien.5623:

They wont get transformed to mastery points. They are not taking skill points out of the game. You still need them for unlocking skills and mystic forge stuff. It makes no sense to randomly transform them and many people have thousands of skill points.. Anet doesnt want everyone and their mother to have more mastery points than they will ever need right after release.
So yes, even a non dev can answer that part of the question.

If it will be harder to get new skill points, will be almost entirely up to what content you play. If you only play that “high level content” you will probably soon be sick of Scroll of Knowledge loot.

I would have said the trait changes made no sense either, but they happened. I don’t try to predict what ANet will do.

As someone who doesn’t find the current higher level content all that fun, I want confirmation on what’s coming down the pipe.

Lazaar.9123:

Gilosean.3805:

Yeah, none of you are actually answering my question. You can’t – that’s why I put ‘Dev Question’ in the title.

Well, all an ArenaNet staff member is really going to do is collect the question to maybe answer in a blog post at a later date.

We get devs answering questions in the forums. It’s not super likely, but I definitely want to get this question on their radar. It impacts how I play until the expansion arrives.

“Each Mastery track is tied to a region of Tyria—they must be unlocked with Mastery points gained in that region and can only be trained in that region”

Really, ANet? Really?

Translation:
“Each Mastery track gear tier is tied to a region of raid in Tyria—they must be unlocked with Mastery points gained in that region and can only be trained in that region by running that content repeatedly”

It’s not a gear grind. OK. But it looks, sounds, and smells like a content grind. I’m withholding judgement until we have more details, but please explain why needing to rerun content to be able to participate in that content isn’t grindy.

Yeah, none of you are actually answering my question. You can’t – that’s why I put ‘Dev Question’ in the title.

What I’m asking for is details of how the system is going to work, because it impacts how I play now. If accumulated skill points are transformed to mastery points, I’ll spend them all now. If it’s harder to get skill points – which is almost certainly going to be true, because anything would be harder than now – I’ll stockpile them or the products of using them because those will be more valuable.

Alexander Dragonfang.1759:

lordkrall.7241:

Why do you refuse to acknowledge the fact that you DO NOT HAVE TO PAY IN ORDER TO ACCESS THE CONTENT?

Either you can trade gold for gems. OR you can join someone that have the content unlocked.

Paying with real money is one out of THREE options. Why do you only focus on that one while completely disregarding the other two?

Since gold has a relative market value cause can be traded for gems, gold and gems are exactly the same really, now, considering the trade values, for a new player buying this chapters is completely impossible, and by the time they are able to mass that many gold, who knows, Anet might even lock the LS2 away. So no, the gold one isn`t free.

The second option is reasonable, but since none of us can get into them lol, and considering there is people SELLING to be away with the trade of gems…. This is not a easy way, but well, better is nothing.

And third, this shouldn`t even be a thing. But since it is, i guess me and my friends will have to enjoy the spectacular story line of GW2 through youtube videos, because, you know, thats how you enjoy games today anyway.

Yes, this system sucks. It’s like DLC. I can understand why ANet did it, but I’m not particularly happy. It is free if you log in every 2 weeks though, which is a nice touch.

Have you tried asking guildmates if you can go through the instances with them? I’d be happy to do them with you and your friends, I need help with some of the achievements anyway.

Since the mastery system is replacing the skillgain from experience, what will happen to accumulated skillpoints when the expansion rolls out? Will they get turned into mastery points (please say no)?

How will getting skill points after the expansion work? What mechanism is available so players can continuously get skillpoints?

What happens to players who don’t get the expansion – do they still use the Mastery system, or do they keep the old functionality?

Honestly, ‘Skill points will be added as rewards across high-level content to offset this change.’ sounds an awful lot like ‘Skill points are now dungeon rewards’, which would be terrible. Or to Orr events or something, which would be irritating but not as bad.

What I’m asking for is details of how the transition is going to work, because it impacts how I play now. If accumulated skill points are transformed to mastery points, I’ll spend them all now. If it’s harder to get skill points – which is almost certainly going to be true, because anything would be harder than now – I’ll stockpile them or the products of using them because those will be more valuable.

Since the mastery system is replacing the skillgain from experience, what will happen to accumulated skillpoints when the expansion rolls out? Will they get turned into mastery points (please say no)?

How will getting skill points after the expansion work? What mechanism is available so players can continuously get skillpoints?

Honestly, ‘Skill points will be added as rewards across high-level content to offset this change.’ sounds an awful lot like ‘Skill points are now dungeon rewards’, which would be terrible. Are they added to Orr event rewards or something?

What I’m asking for is details of how the system is going to work, because it impacts how I play now. If accumulated skill points are transformed to mastery points, I’ll spend them all now. If it’s harder to get skill points – which is almost certainly going to be true, because anything would be harder than now – I’ll stockpile them or the products of using them because those will be more valuable.

They’ve already said the masteries will be added to the whole game.

I LOL’d. That was funnier than I expected.

Just checking to see if there’s any informtion on ANet’s schedule at PAX East? It’s hotel and travel booking time. Would be nice to be able to start planning things.

Seal.5964:

You should have a look at the Megaserver System https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/introducing-the-megaserver-system/

If you plan to play WvW, it’s a good idea to be on the same server as them. Otherwise, any is good!
I haven’t had any problems with full servers, in all honesty… Likely yours is because there’s too many people online! And if that will be your home server and you’ll need to queue from now on… I don’t know if it’s worth it! You should be able to log on in off-peak hours (unless this is some kind of bug). I recommend getting a low-population server, so you can play whenever you want

Last I knew GW2 server size is based on accounts on that server, not currently logged in players. Peak times don’t make a difference. The only time space opens up is if a player transfers off.

Official ANet response. I bolded the relevant part:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Server-Populations/703192
Hello everyone.

Connor, when you see a server FULL means that the people who’ve chosen that server as theirs, or players who have moved to that particular server, have reached the cap, independently of where did they create their accounts.

Answering to your second question: no, there is no chart that shows that kind of information at the moment, I am afraid.

Warrior or Guardian – solid, easier play, good learning characters, always welcome in groups.

Rangers – some builds are powerful, some aren’t. Not always welcome in PUGs.

Elementalist, Engineer – Squishy, hard to learn, hard to play well, but flashy. Expect to die a lot and deal with people complaining about your class, you’ll be called OP and too weak at the same time.

Necromancer – no idea. Haven’t played it enough. Not a controversial class.

Thief – Expect hate in WvW due to stealth, except from people using thief stealth themselves. Divisive class but fun to play.

I love my elementalist, but they are definitely the most work just to complete content. Warrior or Guardian are easy mode, but can be nice and more relaxing.

Phoebe Ascension.8437:

@ OP, the boomsticks on TS are really loud. And knowing that if you record something a distance from the origin of the sound, that it’s much more silent (wich means with the sticks this should be the case, since sound recording was on stage), it would mean it indeed should have been crazy loud for your ears.

To me Jennifer hale was dissapointing (on twitch). My first click on channel was a rebroadcast, and colin was speaking ok loud, but still to silent at my normal settings, so i pushed it pretty loud (hey i missed the live stream for 4 hours, and finally came home, so was excited). Then I managed to finally watch form beginning, and knowing Hale from mass effect (love her there) and same for her voice in gw2, i expected a nice, friendly, not to loud voice. Boy was I wrong, such a crazy loud, shouting, almost angry voice from her. That really hurted my ears on twitch. Had to mute immediately. And her look was similar dissapointing, the picture on the web, show her as a much nicer person then she look on the gw2 pax south stage. Dunno what is up with her.

I think Hale was mostly trying to work up the crowd (not that it really needed it) and be heard over the noise. Even when the boomsticks weren’t going the auditorium was pretty noisy.

Leo G.4501:

1) Some people didn’t get them though (I got mine tho)
2) Funny that, I started playing again (like every day) about a week before the whole “Heart of Thorns trademark!” news. It’s nice coming back to something after an extended break.
3) I heard a few people try to predict the next announcement as “new race” and I was one of those people that really hoped for Tengu. Just because people didn’t cry and throw a fit doesn’t mean they weren’t disappointed.
4) I was one of those that said “It’s kinda like a mount…” but then I could care less about mounts. The flying, in general, is a tad meh but we’ll see. I’m more interested in being able to see those huge detailed areas on a leisurely breeze than the flying itself.
5) Luckily, I was in the 2nd row to the right near the door. Not as much noise :P
6) I think everyone was still unsure as we don’t know what the extent of the PvE character progression will hold. The last thing people want is an expansion where they don’t have a new long-term goal to strive toward.
7) I haven’t done the newest Living World story yet. I just hear this stuff 2nd hand. Maybe it hasn’t sunk in for everyone yet :P

My reactions to the announcement were awestruck. I never would have guessed we’d get more weapons in this update! The new profession I’m still kinda distant from the idea. Kinda makes me sad for Warrior though. Rytlock was Destiny’s Edge’s Warrior and proclaimed bad-kitten . I guess Warrior just isn’t bad-kitten enough for him Had to go invent a whole new class…

About 3: I was just reporting on what fans were doing in audience, since Twitch watchers wouldn’t see that. I was kind of disappointed about no new races too. Maybe next expansion.

I thought Logan was a warrior? I tuned out Destiny’s Edge because they act like whiny teenagers, so I may be totally off base.

6) I and a lot of other players would check out if we needed to deal with level cap raises or a new gear tier. They both mean we would need to regrind all our armor. LOL no am I putting up with a game doing that to me. I think the audience reaction reflected that – there were some players who obviously didn’t care, but most people were relieved they wouldn’t have to deal with it.

7) I think a lot of people are in that boat. I’m just waiting for news to spread to see how players react. If ANet starts canonizing in-game racism, that will be a huge issue. There are enough griefers without ANet providing a rationale for trolling.

I got PAX tickets through Gaile’s giveaway (Thanks, Gaile!) and wanted to share my impressions. I’ll focus on the things not shown on the Twitch stream.

1) The T-shirts and pins were quite nice. Glad to see ANet giving out good swag to devoted fans.
2) I met several people in line who had recently started playing the game as news of the announcement trickled out. It looks like ANet’s marketing is doing its job.
3) I also met long-time players who were pretty excited about the changes. The new class seemed to be a big hit. Most people weren’t worried about the lack of a new race.
4) Flying got probably the biggest spontaneous response on the first trailer showing. Practically everyone saw that and went ’WE’RE GONNA FLY!’ Nobody screamed about mounts.
5) Those boomsticks were loud. I don’t know how well they came through on the stream, but in person they were deafening.
6) No one I talked to seemed to want a level raise or a new gear tier. The reaction was more muted than the definite excitement about flying – this was a ’they’re not doing it, thank goodness’ reaction instead of ‘new feature, yay!’
7) Interestingly, no one reacted to ‘Mordremoth has corrupted most of the Sylvari race’. I was expecting more lore fans there.

The whole thing did feel much more staged than some other game panels. Oh well, the demo will show us more. It was a hype event.

Reactions to announcements:
1) As a casual PvE player, I tend to translate ‘challenging group content’ as ‘not for you, Gilosean’. ANet, I’m really hoping you prove me wrong here.
2) Account based progression THANK YOU.

P.S. If you’re looking for an awesome tactical battle RPG to play until the expansion comes out, Pillars of Eternity has got you covered. Don’t get tired of GW2 before the expansion hits!