Guild Wars 2

Idea is great, and needed, but the price is so far out of line that there’s no way I’d ever do that. If it was a bag slot, perhaps, but absolutely never under any circumstances would I do this for one slot.

…what servers are still playing WVW after HoT that are actually competitive during my primetime hours? Looking for a transfer. Doesn’t have to be super high-tier, just actually competitive when North Americans play. Thanks in advance for the advice!

Can I just say – as a player with 10 lvl 80’s, I appreciate this action – sanity has ruled the day. This make the xpac just about perfect in my eyes. Well done, ANet, well done.

I voted with my wallet when I pre-ordered for myself and my daughter, and I am now completely satisfied in doing so. Your reaction to the overwhelming feedback so quickly does you credit and totally justifies my faith is rationality winning the day.

Hell, I played EQ and FFXI – I can talk grind all day.

Some may not feel this new system is a grind. Many do. Ultimately it’s up to ANet as to what sort of game they wish.

In any case, after all the volumes written – I still have yet to hear anyone discuss how having Elites upon release would destroy the game. Opinions on that are yours, truly, and we’re all allowed them, of course.. They may differ from mine. As I stated previously – I am waiting for someone to show how giving us the Elites mainly right-off would have caused so many problems that it would ruin the xpac/game.

For the record, I don’t consider the content to be especially hard, per se – group-based, sure, but not that “hard”.

What I am severely annoyed with is the hero point grind. Having played all betas, I cannot even imagine what would be so wrong with playing this content with the elite specs. I really put in what is for me a great deal of time this weekend, and while I unlocked the elites for the three classes I care about most at this time – Revenant, Necro, and Engi – I don’t have more than one or two skills unlocked in each, so I am obviously not playing those specs right now – nor will I be, it seems, for quite a bit of time.

I also absolutely cannot imagine doing this for all 10 of my 80’s. The personal story is great, and I like the zones. It’s fun to discover for a while and explore everything, but in an MMO, you’ll know everything sooner rather than later. If I was doing it for one character, I’d be pretty happy right now. Having said that, while the content is cool, the hero point grind to access what should have been a basic feature of the expansion is awful, and definitely was the low point of the launch.

At least as far as I have gotten, which admittedly isn’t all the way yet, the content has been excellent the first time through, cool the second time through, and getting a little “automatic” by the third. You cannot possibly expect people to do that for 6, 8 or 10+ characters.

So it’s a little bittersweet for me. Just because I cannot understand what would have been so horrible about giving us access to our elites straight-off – perhaps a small quest chain or something that would have been an account-wide unlock, then you buy the skills (within reason – 400 to max any single one tree is insane). From what I have seen and experienced, they in no way, shape or form would have imbalanced the game – was it not balance that was discussed during the BWE’s? Honestly, every other MMO I’ve played introduced new classes this way. This is because it energizes people to buy expansion packs (see the gold standard thus far for this sort of thing IMO – WotLK Death Knight in WoW) and has the effect of freshening the game for multi-year players.

I think you’ve gone a step better than anyone else to date with the elites – this freshens every single class. Remarkable idea, really. But it’s at least somewhat ruined by the exorbitant “cost” of entry into this for a game that always said it valued game play and not grinds. I’ll be done with the new content before I even get to experience any of the builds I came up with in BWE, and quite frankly, nobody is unreasonable to have expected to be able to do the new content with the new elites. I’m happy enough to grind out my Masteries, story line, raid progression, etc.. I likely never will get them all now as I’d once planned doing. And it was so simple to deliver – I, like many, would have been much happier doing it across my whole toon army with the new abilities promised. And until someone explains to me how giving us this at launch with a simple unlock quest/proceedure/etc. would have broken the entire game somehow, and invalidated all the work that went into the zones, stories, and a million other things, I expect I shall continue to have somewhat of a bitter aftertaste to the whole thing.

But for the handling of the Elites, this would have been a nearly perfect expansion launch. So easy to get right, and yet it seems, so hard as well.

I do hope people from ANet read this. I’m not religious about this game, nor am I what you’d call casual. I’ve been playing video games of all shapes and sizes for the better part of 35 years now. I’ve seen it done right, and I have seen it done wrong. It’s difficult to believe the devs could have so badly miscalculated what shall now forever be known as the “Hero Point Effect”, but it seems that’s just what’s happened. It exists presently as a serious blight on an otherwise fantastic MMO expansion.

What I know is, that as of right now CST US, it is closed.

This is what I am leaning towards:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNAS8nn3gWNSuQrJRbo/ksP0gS4I6QJ4EdrklZlhNmb2RNgDawe6r3G-TliFABDcBAU4gAgkSjqUCakyMAeAAEq+zZ6GS4IAsy+DBAQAu5NzmtZgbezbezbezSBwkUL-w

I like a bit of a tougher build – I do a lot of small group and solo roaming on my server, and last BWE this ended up being my favorite build. It can take a serious beating, easily flip camps, has lots of might/fury/swiftness stacking for my group, helps lock down areas, etc. – plus has decent condi removal/management overall, and still hits like a truck. The best part for me is the buffs that some of the build is getting for BWE3 – it’s only going to be that much better.

I’d have to say, Roy’s been super-communicative here, and this has been buzzing around for some time now. I’d say it’s a long, long, long shot at best.

Having said that though, since I am a WvW’er mainly, I’m all set 5 minutes after release like others have said – all tomes, ascendeds, etc are ready and waiting.

I don’t chime in much, if ever, but I have to say – this should be viewed as the gold standard of how a class and changes are developed in an MMO. Job (nearly) done, Roy – fantastic effort, mate.

Kalkz.5297:

IT shows what you made of Bro ^

Numbers, Numbers, Outmanned, Numbers Numbers

lol

Even if that were true, whose fault is that? You guys kitten off a lot of people this week, and woke a sleeping demon. You might not be glad that you did. This isn’t about one or two guilds, this is all of us now. So you enjoy that, chief :-)

I’ve never felt compelled to post in threads like these until this week, but as an Ebay WvW’er, this week has been eye-opening.

I never really disrespected BP or AR until this week, and a lot of my friends and guildies feel the same. I find this “alliance” to be such a cheesy, desperate move. The fact that BPAR, despite this, are right on track to lose this week by their customary amount is hilarious justice at it’s best.

And you know why? Ebay had gotten complacent at the top. But this week, you kitten us ALL off. ALL of our guilds are putting in extra work this week, and lots of it. I have put in extra time this week like never before, as have basically everybody I know. Most of our commanders have really stepped it up this week, and I believe this has in fact been EBay’s finest hour. This shows what we are made of, and why we should advance.

About the numbers – last encounter I had before logging last night – I had been roaming and solo capping stuff on my ranger, and as I am crossing a bridge, about a dozen BP’s are moving up the road ahead of me. They see me and stop. I wait for them. They start inching closer, and I wait. Once in range, I fired a few shots, sent the pet, and began to charge – but they all turned around and ran away. I guess I outnumbered them…