Engineer has just recieved a heafty buff that’ll make it important to high level PvE. Guardian is a solid class all around, with some nice support and respectably DPS. Revenant is in a horrible place, with only the Necro suffering more. Honestly, I’d avoid Rev for now.
Vampires in Tyria are non-sentient and inspired by East Asian concepts (see GW1’s Hopping Vampires). They’re basically just mindless, hungry beasts. They are not related to demons (pure Mist creatures of varying intelligence and self-awareness) in any way.
It’s one raid, three wings. It exists an a vacuum. It’s all instanced. Instances are far easier to program and take less time than open world content.
And yet in that same time, the fractal team seems incapable of doing even a single fractal. You have to agree than the whole raid (all 3 wings) is something significantly bigger than a single fractal.
Something doesn’t add up here.
The Fractal Team also worked on redoing Fractals from their original format to the format we have now, which was labour intensive. Additionlly, they added rewards and changed how many existing rewards worked.
The Raid Team primarily used assets from elsewhere in the game (such as the towers of Divinty’s Reach) and built a handful of encounters spanning over three instances. Additionally, development of the Raid was overlapping. They had the whole of Heart of Thorn’s development to script, plan and develop and due to DnT’s expulsion from testing, we know that by the launch of Spirit Vale, Salvation Pass was already in testing. They weren’t making a Wing every three months, they had a LOT more time than that.
(edited by Safer Saviour.9685)
Try playing a build other than Shiro and Glint and you run into major problems, they are the only two legends and trait lines worth anything, need I point you to the massive list of bugs that have not been fixed? As far as I’m aware, most major bugs on the other professions have been sorted out just fine
In PvP? Yes. Outside of it? No. Mallyx and Jalis are preferred over Shiro in most raiding situations (one notable exception).
Shining Blade.
We have the White Mantle, we need the old school Shining Blade. Not Kurzick Mesmer Armour, and not that one mixed set only heavies can get, proper Shining Blade gear.
Do not conflate ‘support’ with ‘healing’.
Support in Guild Wars 2 comes in many forms. For instance in raids, your DPS comes from classes like Tempest or Necromancer. All of the heavy professions have lower DPS in comparison but all of the heavy professions are valued. Why? For the support and utility that they bring. None of them are ‘healers’ (yes, Ventari does need work).
Likewise, you will very rarely see a raid without a Chronomancer, yet Mesmers have the lowest DPS in the game by quite a margin. Chronomancers are some of the best tanks in the game and even when tanking isn’t needed, they bring a boatload of utility – of cooldown-reduction, ability-speeding SUPPORTIVE utility that’s essential.
On to healing specifically:
Healing in Guild Wars 2 is in its fledgling stages and I hope to see it develop, but for me, it would be a nightmare to see it develop into what you describe. Additionally, I like the core ‘feel’ of both Druid and Tempest healers. I like how the two are distinct from one another and provide different sorts of heals, which means that they are valuable in different ways. For sustained healing throughout an even-tempered fight, Tempests are lovely, but for burst heals in a fight with a more erratic tempo, Druids are awesome. In some fights (like Matthias Gabrel), having both can really help.
And I will stress here that Druids are not supposed to be ‘fluid’ healers. They are burst healers. They are there to help deal with moments of high pressure. They do that well.
I disagree with Tokyo on a lot of points. However, I have to conceed that there are aspects where the class needs some serious work.
Sword AA (+2 when available) is indeed your best source of DPS, but like Mesmers, Revenants are rarely brought into groups for their DPS capabilities. Raiders bring along Revenants for their buffs and for their hard-hitting CC abilities, which can prove crucial in certain encounters. If you intend to raid with your Mesmer, you will find yourself in a subgroup with a Revenant more often than not, as the synergy between the two classes can prove extremely beneficial to your group.
Glint is indeed, the primary stance of most Revenants and your friendly Mesmer will likely want you to maintain Facet of Nature for as much of the fight as possible, while the rest of the group will be pleased with Facet of Darkness. Facet of Elements > Elemental Blast is a DPS increase and should be used whenever possible. Light and Strength can be useful too, but in some situations they are either superfluous or detrimental, so use your discretion.
Your secondary stance depends on preference and situation. Most raid-Revenants will use Mallyx or Jalis (Mallyx provides a leap skill I find very useful in certain fights) but PvP Revenants default to Shiro. Ventari needs a lot of love.
I’d also like to point out that certain skills are not intended to be pure DPS skills. Sword three, for instance, is an evade that puts pressure on enemies. It is fantastic in PvP. Likewise, the most common secondary weapon for Revenants at the moment is the staff, and this is primarily for its 5 ability, which is a brilliant breakbar-busting CC move.
+1 to the OP. HoT ascended trinkets/rings and back items should be obtainable outside of the raid.
As a raider, I agree. This unfairly penalises players who prefer certain professions.
To get a full set of Ascended Armour for any class, you would need 1300 raid tokens. To get a full set of Viper trinkets (including the back item), you would need 1850 tokens.
I believe the negative attitude that some players have towards raids stems from a number of factors.
- GW2 is marketed as a very approachable game that makes no explicit time demands on its players. Players do not have to clear an afternoon in order to acomplish most of what GW2 has to offer. This is not the case with raids, especially for a newbie raider.
- Raiding has developed a reputation for being exceedingly difficult. This is not just relative to GW2, but accross the whole MMO genre. Raiding is touted as ‘end game PvE’ and for various reasons, a lot of emphasis is put on its difficulty. This can put people off even attempting to learn the content.
- Raiding is the playground of the elitists. This is not to say that only elitists raid, merely that those looking to push forward their achievements demand certain (sometimes unreasonably) standards of others. As a result, it can be difficult for a new raider to find a place.
Due to the fact I took a significant break from the game, I recently found myself in the position of a player looking to enter raids. In the past four days, I have outfitted my Revenant and spent time joining training and practice groups, as well as reading guides on the bosses. Yesterday, I cleared the Vale Guardian and Gorseval for the first time. It was immensely satisfying for me and I look forward to raiding further in the future.
However, that preparation was definitely a commitment, the practice runs were a commitment and I spent a while yesterday just watching groups pop up which were willing to accept me. Numerous other players do not wish to invest time in such things. This is fine. Raiding caters to the people who wish to be challenged by the game in a particular way and that’s not everyone.
I definitely wish that there was a larger variety in content being released more regularly as it seems unfair to force PvP players into long off seasons and non-raiding PvE-ers into waiting for more Living Story and more Fractals while these Raid releases hit.
When Arenanet announced Guild Wars 2 they really emphasised the fact they wanted to expand upon what players did at the endgame. They spoke about wanting to get more out of the combat system and challenge players in ways that, until then, only other players had been able to do. I’m honestly shocked by how many people are surprised by the upped difficulty in the jungle.
Now you have to pay attention, especially with certain mobs. You need to know what they do and how you can counter them. I personally have unlocked seven of the Elite specialisations, meaning I’ve taken seven classes into the jungle and while some have had an easier time than others, even my poorly equipped Elementalist and my Beserker Thief made it through. You absolutely can solo through the jungle, you just have to be more careful than in Core Tyria.
I'm tired of being optimistic [Spoilers]
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Safer Saviour.9685
Gw2 isn’t Gw1 and HoT isn’t like either of those at all however it was the robust story telling from GW1 that hooked people and that storytelling continued into GW2. We spent $50 for what amounted to just Orr in the original Gw2 but even less than that since Orr provided more branching story paths for its campaign and even a hub of operations. It even surpased in the event maps as event map in HoT beats to a single objective without much of a reward. While Orr has temples to capture and vendors providing ample reward for the effort as well as individual events like zombie chickens. Orr also had many JP’s, dungeons, and diving spots. Orr also had unique armor better drops with t6 mats and even it’s own lootable weapon set. Complete and event you could buy unique items like baby quaggan tonic. People actually stayed and farmed Orr because they wanted too not because they were forced too with some mastery grinding.
Let’s not exaggerate. The story in Guild Wars 1 was incredibly weak. The lore and worldbuilding were great, but the plot was disjointed and nonsensical until Nightfall. Prophecies began as a fight against the charr, then suddenly you fall into a plot about the White Mantle and then into another about dwarves and then another with the Titans. Only the last one sees any resolution within that original story. Ascalon doesn’t get anything, the White Mantle storyline isn’t resolved until the War in Kryta, the dwarves don’t get their resolution until Eye of the North.
Factions is a little better, but Shiro is a ridiculous Gary-Stu who prances about seemingly aimlessly for a very long time, and, once again, there’s no resolution to a lot of things up until the Winds of Change sweep through Cantha with the Ministry of Purity leading the charge. And the first part of that particular storyline is ‘kill the Afflicted… kill MORE Afflicted’. Amazing…
As for rewards, the majority of dungeons were worthless, the majority of missions were worth completing only for the achievements and dear Gods, the trading.
Regarding the epic army vs. Mordremoth feel people on this thread have been asking for – that is the story of the open-world maps. The instanced story is very much the story of Destiny’s Edge, Trahearne and the Commander of the Pact. It has a smaller scale with some decent rewards. Meanwhile, the overworld story is genuinely good, with clear narratives to every event chain that culminate in a map that is literally NOTHING BUT that giant army vs. the Dragon.
I wouldn’t mind more mounts like the gliders; area-specific vehicles kept within spaces that are designed to support their use. Thematically and mechanically, mounts that altered speed or altitude would not fit within the areas of Core Tyria. Those older maps are simply not designed to support such things. However, newer areas can be designed in whatever way the developers choose and after seeing how well the gliding system has been implimented, I would not be averse to a similar option elsewhere.
People have mentioned the desert wurms from GW1, for within the toxic and stormy areas occupied by Joko and Kralkattorik. That would be awesome.
Five of my characters have full map completion. That’s five Elite Spec weapons I’m locked out from…
I have been disconnected during the Tarir meta event three times now. I’m not sure why or what causes it, but it does keep me from getting any rewards, credit or EXP. And is extremely frustrating.
If I’m not mistaken every elite spec now has (at least) one of these threads.
Hurray… I guess?
I’m pretty sure Chronomancer and Reaper do not.
Chronomancer does (or did) as anyone with taste would find that it does not fit the mesmer theme. But mesmers are fickle and so hungered for some attention from daddy that they would accept to be called literally whatever just to be somewhat useful.
I have to disagree. Mesmers have always been one of the most ‘useful’ professions. Their utilities are amazing and it’s very rare to see one kicked from a group.
As for ‘Chronomancer’ not fitting, Mesmers are reality warpers and mental manipulators. They already have a few time/space manipulation abilities (including the well used ‘Time Warp’ and ‘Portal’ skills) in their skill pool and so the Chronomancer seems like a natural expansion of that. Along with Reaper and Druid, Chronomancer is easily one of the most thematically fitting Elite Specialisations.
Within the open world of the Heart of Maguuma, you’ll earn and build two new armor sets with unique looks for light, medium, and heavy armor.
You know that this means we’re getting at least five new sets of armour for every weight class, yeah? The two from the open world, plus the new Guild Armour, plus the Precursor and Legendary Armour sets from instanced Raids. Some of the ten new PvP tracks might well provide armour too.
We’re getting at least five new armour sets in HoT (two from jungle exploration, one from guilds, one precursor and one legendary). If they stick to Kristin’s philosophies, we may well get more through the Living Story and I have to have hope that they’ve held back some HoT-related things for the sake of the Living World release cadence.
We know that they’re going to hold back Raid Wing 1 for a week, and Raid Wings 2 and 3 for longer. Hopefully they have open-world and story-related things too. I think I recall that_shaman datamining additional Mastery lines.
As for what armours we’ve been given since launch (all ‘sets’, have three variants for the armour weights):
- Many, many backpieces and helms. 48 Backpieces from crafting alone.
- Hellfire Set
- Radiant Set
- Glorious Set
- Carapace Set
- Biolumi. Set (recolour of Carapace)
- Ascended Set
And in the gemstore:
- GW1 Set (Primeval, Krytan, Profane)
- Zodiac Set
- Aetherblade Set
- Flame Set (recolours of existing armours)
- Unmatched Set 1 (Braham’s, Pheonix, Magitech)
- Unmatched Set 2 (Ramparts, Striders, Incarnate)
- Unmatched Set 3 (Phalanx, Trickster’s, Viper’s)
The release of mismatched sets seems to fool people into thinking that the disrepancy between armours released in game and in store is greater than it is. Unfortunately, the disrepancy between weapons is another story…
EDIT Now let’s break down the outfits, shall we.
We have seen 26 outfits released since launch (not countin the ones converted to clothing tonics). Seems like a lot, yes? However, consider that armour sets have three versions. If we group the outfits up into groups of three, we end up with (I’ll round up), nine. That’s less than there have been armour sets. At this point, more work has gone into armour design than outfit design.
(edited by Safer Saviour.9685)
In Guild Wars 1, there was no Trinity. There were healers, and in some instances people would attempt to tank with the tools available to them, but rarely was this the most efficient or popular way of completing content. And yet, I honestly cannot remember anyone complaining about the lack of the Trinity in that game.
However, the combat and skill system in Guild Wars 1 was much more expansive in some respects. Conditional, sustained skills (Hexes and Enchantments), longer cast times and the prevalence of interrupts made for a system that encouraged people to try roles outside of pure or hybrid DPS.
Now, Guild Wars 2 actually does provide players with a great number of support tools (boons, condition management) and too often people forget that your standard Berserker Warrior is bringing along many, many support skills in the form of buffing banners. Likewise, your Berserker-geared Guardians, Mesmers and Elementalists are monsters of support and utility.
Admittedly, they are hybridised. They bring their utilities but they’re still trying to maximise their damage.
That wouldn’t change – that won’t change – with more traditional tank and healer-oriented skills. Those skills would simply slot into GW2’s system as further utilities and people would still sit around in their Berserker (or perhaps Sinister) gear, spewing their max damage, while taunting and leaking health at people.
What Guild Wars 2 needs is content that challenges this method as the most efficient way of progressing. We’re not lacking the tools to play pure control and support builds (especially with some of those Elite specs. on the horizon), we’re lacking the incentive. Hopefully, raids will be a step towards providing that incentive outside of PvP and WvW.
Hopefully gear inspect and dps meter with HOT
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Safer Saviour.9685
People think that dps is the only metric that is important. What if someone doesn’t get downed, avoids all dmg and performs fight mechanically very good but does 30% less dmg than a dude that needs to be constantly revived and messes up mechanics making fight all around harder because NUMBERZ!
Anybody remembers tanks in wow standing in aoe to ramp up vengeance? to dps moar ?:P
So the other guy that constantly died still did 30% more damage than the guy that was alive the whole time?
That is exactly the reason we need a dps meter. The fight was dragging on so long because the second guy did 30% less dps than a dead guy.
We definitely need some metrics to tell us why we can’t complete a fight. If you can’t figure out what is wrong then you can’t fix it. damage meters are a minimum barrier of entry for raids.
Raids will fail as content if we can not accurately determine who/what needs to improve.
DPS is not the measure of success. Not for what GW2 has planned. Already, the developers have described a fight in which there are two teams, with only one focused on damaging the boss (the other being concerned with clearing an escape to avoid a boss’s damage).
Further, proactive support is a massive, massive part of this game. Boons and conditions are everywhere and classes like Guardian and Mesmer might not hit the DPS figures of an Elementalist, but you can be darn sure that without them, that same Elementalist’s figures would be much lower.
Thankfully, you shouldn’t need a meter to be able to tell whether a player is using their class well. Skills have strong visual effects, many are tied to the weapons being used and boons and conditions appear for all to see. Not only that, but raids in GW2 seem to be aimed towards groups of friends and guildies. If you seriously want to put together a raid group, you should perhaps be looking towards PvP and making friends there, as that’s the game mode that Colin described as being where people ‘use the combat system to its full potential’. Talking with a few high level Fractal groups wouldn’t hurt you either.
Mounts for transport are practically (though not completely) unheard of. Mounts for combat, however? Those have been utilised for a long time. From the dwarven war dolyaks to the charr chuggers, mobile murder machines are definitely a thing in Tyria.
Most of the people who want to see mounts in this game are asking for transportation advantages. Speed boosts and the like. Well, mounts have never really been used for that.
Early on in the game’s life, people asked for great axe skins for hammers or greatswords. The response to that likely still stands as regards this: Anet have no desire to make weapons look like other weapons… they’d rather just add in new weapons with new skills.
When the team announced the very first holiday event, I was dismayed. For the majority of the dates they’d listed, I was going to be in London, with limited access to the internet and a computer that with much less power than the one at my homebase.
When I caught a few minutes, I’d struggle through some of the released content’s story and did enough to gather up a nice Mad Memories backpack… But there was no way I could handle the Clocktower. As someone who’d completed all the jumping puzzles in the game, this was a massive blow.
When I returned home, the Halloween event had less than a day to run. I raced around sweeping up the achievements I hadn’t grabbed and then set myself to the Clocktower itself. For hours. And hours… And Hours. It was painfully hard. Really. Then, about half an hour before everything was taken away, I realised that some people who’d had difficulty with the last jump were complaining it was bugged and that a restart would fix it. I hastily patched up my game and got back to work.
Four minutes before the Halloween event ended, my little Elementalist crashed through the face of that Clocktower and man, did it feel good!
In Guild Wars 1, the level cap was set at 20 and never increased. Truly, levelling was the tutorial experience and in subsequent expansions, you were expected to be at or near the cap before you even left the little tutorial islands.
When I heard that the maximum level in Guild Wars 2 would be 80, I was unimpressed. I hated the level grind and had come to associate it with barriers that prevented me from accessing the content I actually wanted to play.
Then I got to playing the game and levelling happened so swiftly, so smoothly that I almost forgot about it completely. I was busy getting this vista, that point of interest, capturing that supply camp or running through this jumping puzzle. Eventually I realised that levelling in GW2 is ancillary to the actual game.
I always got the feeling that WvW was supposed to be a bridge between PvP and PvE, hence players being able to keep their PvE equipment. This new map definitely has elements of that, but I think the real idea behind it is for players to use the environment as a weapon against other players.
As someone above said, there’s only really one place where players can fall to their deaths, so it’s less like EtoM’s do or die. It just gives players a few more ways to hurt their enemies.
erm plus all the lava plus all the random keep jumping stuff petc. u havent played the actual map yet but from the look of it it is mainly pve. and no wvw is not a bridge between pve and pvp. it is pvp and if u would be in a true wvw community u would know that. wvw is about battles not environment pve stuff. we dont need ai to do the kills and work for us. we wanna do it ourselves! we dont need a pve boss nor do we need pve jumping puzzles. all im asking for is to make this map optional so the pve community has their little playground to pretend to do pvp and we can keep the real pvp in wvw.
Actually, WvW is a kind of PvE/PvP hybrid. Breaking down doors and capturing forts is entirely PvE if no one’s actively defending that particular tower and most zergtrains enjoy zooming through empty towers just as much as any other. Certain players and groups do nothing but spread havoc by capping poorly watched camps and towers. Those players are just as much ‘true WvW players’ as any other.
Further, at least three of your ‘jumping puzzle’ pictures don’t seem to actually involve jumping puzzles so much as they have different floor/ridge textures.
From what we’ve seen (which isn’t much), the map seems very much the ‘environmental weapon’ I spoke about before. Fearing enemies off cliffs and into lava, bouncing them back into crevices for easy nuking, sneaky portaling paths in and out of strategic areas. There also seem to be some wide open flats for straight up Zerg vs. Zerg. I suppose we’ll see the balance when testers start releasing screens and thoughts.
Yes. I’m super excited. Although, I’m playing the actual live game rather casually atm.
I always got the feeling that WvW was supposed to be a bridge between PvP and PvE, hence players being able to keep their PvE equipment. This new map definitely has elements of that, but I think the real idea behind it is for players to use the environment as a weapon against other players.
As someone above said, there’s only really one place where players can fall to their deaths, so it’s less like EtoM’s do or die. It just gives players a few more ways to hurt their enemies.
please no, if you want to marry other virtual characters it might be time to take a break from the game or go play a total different game. (e.g. second life or something)
That’s a rather hilariously ignorant response – in-game weddings have featured in MMOs since there were MMOs. I guess the “RP” part of “RPG” doesn’t mean anything to you.
Guess lore isn’t a big deal to most RPers these days.
Marriage as a concept is something that’s not present in all Tyrian societies. Religion as a concept is something that is outright rejected in some Tyrian societies. A wedding chapel would be a bizarre novelty for these people. At best.
Considering the way Anet like to ground everything in lore (waypoints, WvW), I’d expect the new chapel to be something or cultural flavour or to feature in a the story somehow. It could be a chapel for the Zaishen Order, who’ve previously had a presence in LA. It could be a new cult HQ. I doubt it’ll be just a glorified registry office though,
While I’m not against in-game weddings, it’s a bit of a stretch to assume that the chapel’s there for that purpose. Three of the five playable races are non-religious, with weddings being somewhat of a novelty. A social construct deemed unecessary for various reasons.
I expect it’ll be a church to the Six, perhaps with shrines to the Spirits too, if Magnus got a say. Something for culture and flavour.
One form of Housing is set to be released with Heart of Thorns: Guild Halls. If this succeeds, perhaps we will see more developed personal Housing in the game. However, Guild Halls look set to offer more than simply decoration. Tying into another of your suggestions, we’ve heard that some of the Living Story Season 1 content will be available to guilds. Specifically, Arenanet has mentioned that from Guild Halls, guilds will be able to trigger and enter into a Twisted Marionette instance.
Mounts, however, are too divisive to be a truly positive addition to the game. We’ve had countless topics talking about them and they’ve always been more negative than positive. On several occassions, discussions have faded into outright arguments. Additionally, the workload would be terrible for developers. So many new animations, model making, gear and clipping etc. etc.
As a final note, I’d like to point out that Super Adventure Box was not, strictly, part of the Living Story’s Season 1. It was its own, standalone adventure and it’s been implied that we’ll get it back. Eventually. The question is ‘when’.
This Beta Portal is a freaking sham....
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Safer Saviour.9685
As a Guild Wars 1 player with a decent AP figure, several thousand hours played and no portal… I think it’s a good idea for RNG to play a significant role in this.
Anet wants a good sample of players. Not just the elite, not just the ‘deserving’, but people who will play the game in wildly different ways and thus, provide some nice data to poke at.
Good luck to all still farming and congrats to those who’ve obtained their goal.
I think my soul has left me. It was the farming. I know this will be fruitless, but I farm on anyway.
At least I am a little richer. xD
I will definitely buy this expansion, as will most of my GW2-playing friends.
… But we’re such a small sample size, so who cares?
It’s clear that Dry Top and the Silverwastes have been testing grounds for various systems. Personally, I like both maps because they present players with constant activities and events. Heart of Thorns looks to take this much further, with larger, more expansive maps and a greater degree of exploration, individual challenges and group bosses. We’ve also heard developers mention instanced story content. To say nothing of the new class and specialisations that are restricted to Heart of Thorns owners.
Hero Points & old characters: breach of trust
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Safer Saviour.9685
As someone with multiple level 80 characters, I too, have been considering these issues. However, I do think that, for the sake of the new system and new players, it would be better if Hero Points were distrubuted purely in a manner equivalent to the new system’s obtainment methods.
We know of two methods by which we obtain Hero Points: levelling up and open world skill challenges. Awarding some characters additional points based on tomes/scrolls of knowledge would unbalance the system terribly, especially considering that this is Anet’s proposed long-term expansion/progression system. Having old characters be awarded a full track’s worth of Hero Points (or more) would give them a permanent leg up on any new players, giving them more points to spend on future specialisations.
As such, I would propose a method of compensation for those who have used skill scrolls and the like. Once a character’s Skill Points have been converted into Hero Points, I think it would be beneficial for whatever Skill Points left unconverted be turned into this new currency for Mystic Forge ingredients (Bloodstone Shards, Augur’s Stones etc.) or simply turned into gold. This way, players who lose out, get something for their efforts without unbalancing the new system before it gets a chance to find its footing.
I didn't want to say it but(post spec stream)
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Safer Saviour.9685
I’m a Necromancer main, so I’m likely more disappointed than most.
… But overall the changes are great. Most classes get a lot of interesting and innovative tweaks and I really like how this system paves the way for further expansion and diversity in the future. Hopefully they’ll find a niche for the Necromancer, work out the details on the Engineer and various other classes. When it’s polished, this system is going to be great fun, I know it.
(edited by Safer Saviour.9685)
Lol you really want to refer to the NPC that’s purpose is being a tutorial for the gamer? Because that are the only NPC’s that talk about them.. Those that are there to learn the player about the game.
When teleporting I have no problems taking a lot of stuff with me including my ranger pet. Even if there would be a limit then it’s pretty big and then teleporting over 5 times to take all goods from a to b would make more sense that traveling over a dangerous road (we need to guard them for that reason) while you can teleport over easier and faster, you only have to do it a few times.
Oow and if you say “the npc would also have to pay for the way-points so that might be a reason” guess what, they pay me (and all the other players helping) to guard them. Pretty expensive.
With all due respect but Waypoints do not fit or are not a part of the lore. We both know it. They are purely there for the player and my guess is that they are not there because it’s so great but because the instanced maps are a problem for if you travel over multiple maps.. loading screen after loading screen. So my guess is that they are mainly put in to solve that problem and then marketed as being some great innovative idea (it’s not really, it has been possible in all MMO’s but then it’s considered cheating). Don’t try to make something part of the lore that isn’t. You can just say you don’t like mounts just don’t find excuses like “they don’t fit in the lore” and then putting yourself in the position where you have to explain how Way-points do fit in the lore.
“would suddenly decided that riding a good ol’ dolyak through the spider cave is a good idea.” Not sure if your example is great but if the questions is “I would need an answer as to why the people of Tyria would suddenly decided that riding a beast to travel faster is a good idea”. Because it makes sense. Thats in fact, thats why people in real life started doing it. It makes sense.
You use beast to transport goods, you use them to fight, you use them as pets.. it’s a matter of time before they would get the idea of using them to transport themselves. It would be strange if they didn’t.
Perhaps it only works on living creatures? As I’ve said, the waypoint system’s workings need better explanation but regardless, they are still considered present in lore. I recommend you look up Angel McCoy’s interviews with the various role playing communities as it’s there where you’ll find her answers on the matter. Here’s a snippet from one of them that definitively tells us that they exist within the world of the game and not just as a mechanic.
Esprits d’Orr : Should waypoints be considered from a roleplay perspective? If so, how do they function?
Angel McCoy : Absolutely! Waypoints are asuran devices, and all the money you spend to use them goes straight into the coffers at Rata Sum
O.O … Can I have your loots?
Seriously though, well done. The effort that must have gone into producing those is insane. I hope Arenanet releases a few more Legendaries soon, so you can continue on your quest!
It would not ruin the atmosphere it would enrich the atmosphere.
If you want to justify it in the lore you can’t wait for mounts to be usable. I mean, they are all over the place but we can’t use them.
While we can hop from one place to another while thats not part of the lore. The NPC’s don’t even seem to see the Waypoint system. They talk about the portals as if thats great while it’s some system that while it’s hopelessly out of date with a system like the Waypoints.. That the NPC’s don’t even use. How often did I not have to guard an NPC walking form one Waypoint to another Waypoint.
So yeah you want stuff to fit the lore then you most love the idea of mounts and must want Waypoints to be removed.
Zooming players are still an issue I do not want to deal with.
The atmosphere in an area such as the Dreamdark Enclave would not be improved by fifty guys running in circles in hazmat suits.
Waypoints are in the lore, they are described as an extension of the Asura Gate principle. A handful of NPCs in the starting zones do mention waypoints and encourage players to utilise them. However, waypoints are not large-matter transporters. How they work is messy and unspecified (and yes, I would like some clarification there) but we do know that they can’t be used to transport things over a certain mass limit. As such, the transportation of goods is still handled by slow caravans when Asura Gates cannot be used. Angel McCoy also spoke on how people pay for waypoints in lore (the money is taken from a registered account).
Beasts are used solely to transport goods or as offensive weapons. They are not used for personal transportation. Not anywhere in lore. From the old Necrid Horsemen to the charr chuggers of the modern era, none of it is simply to get from place to place. I would need an answer as to why the people of Tyria (many of whom are reluctant to leave their stronghold-cities), would suddenly decided that riding a good ol’ dolyak through the spider cave is a good idea.
Take the general idea of mounts and then to satisfy those who not like mounts to much we have the following limitations / additions:
No mounts in city’s,
No combat mounts in PvE, (so you can also not use the speed to your advantage during fights)
A max speed of x . I think max 3 times that what you can get with normal boost (that is 33 %? So then max 99 would be a good compromise. Of course if the max speed without mounts increase that of mounts increases as well.
No flying mounts. (But yes for low hovering mounts including really hovering (so not that you bumb in to a very low object because you see yourself hover above it but are in fact on the ground)). Think of some of the tonics that make you ‘fly’ but without the bumping into object you hover above.
I don’t care for a ’don’t show mounts options". Think it would be strange but if people want that I don’t care (might however not work if they implement hovering in a good way as I describe above).
The option of having Speed shoes as alternative for a mount. It would then work exactly the same as mounts do but without really seeing the mount but giving you a speedy gonzales like animation. That would then be the easiest to get the most ‘mounts’.
I absolutely see this as incorrect implementation.
I do not want anything (speed shoes or mounts) that increases the speed beyond the present cap. I do not want to have to see people zooming by regardless of how they achieve that level of speed, especially since Guild Wars 2’s animations are incredibly appealing to me at present.
I do not want to see more than a handful of racial ‘mounts’ outside of the appropriate areas. A Krytan town full of charr chuggers or asuran hazmat suits would ruin the atmosphere Arenanet has tried to create for that particular environment. The art direction in this game is still one of my favourite things to enjoy.
I do not want anything added into the game without a reasonable way of justifying it in lore. Why would mounts become popular in a dangerous world like Tyria and where people can instantly hop from one place to another? This is an important question that I would want answering.
So the conclusion is.. Yes to mounts if implemented correctly?
Yes.
Correctly meaning gimmick mounts like the broom and location-limited like the desert wurm from GW1 only. If I have to see a guild of people riding charr chuggers out in Queensdale, I would consider that ‘incorrect implementation’.
I think that Kekai does freelance work for Arenanet still. After he left, he produced the designs for Ascended Armour.
Oh, looks like we had two completely different versions of Guru and GW1 then, because I very much remember people complaining quite a bit about the story. But then again, rose-tinted glasses does tend to make things look better than they actually were.
Or maybe you’re lying? The idea that Abbadon’s complaints was close to Scarlet is laughable.
Personally, I didn’t care much for Abaddon’s storyline either. If they kept him to just being the dark forgotten god enacting Nightfall, I think I would have enjoyed him more, but they had to inject him into Prophecies and Factions on top of that.
I actually liked Khilbron and Shiro. When Abaddon came along, he ripped apart their motives and basically gave them Tyria’s version of “The Devil made me do it!” excuse. It kinda ruined them for me.
Without Abaddon, Khilbron was just an evil Lich and Shiro had no motivations at all. Honestly, Shiro is my least favourite figure in all of the Guild Wars lore. He’s basically a super-special powerful guy with very, very litle motivation at all. Conversely, Abaddon is a God wronged. What he does in Nightfall is terrible, but there’s always the question of whether he deserved such treatment purely for disagreeing with his companions. He’s an interesting character because he was once glorious and now he’s reduced to desperation and insanity, which isn’t something you often see in God characters. Well, not in the modern era.
Its as simple as it gets like i said in my other thread you get what you pay for i wish gw2 had some kind of sub fee or threw expansions in our face just so that i can pay for high quality content instead of getting light temporary content thats really below expectations of a game with such a vast lore which could be compared to paying to eat at a fancy restraunt eating amazing food or paying nothing and eating free horrid tasting food out of the dumpster out back behind the restraunt. If we want that high quality content its gonna cost us and im for one supporting them however i can (long as i find something worth buying thats pretty much overpriced (but still worth buying) but u cant blame them its a free game) so that i can see that high quality content… We are the investors and the life support of the game our money given decides the size of the content, u honestly cant complain and beg for FREE content ANet is a business looking to make a profit… Its not going to give you great content for charity… They have bills too we supply their way of living they dont sit in a small room without seeing their family for days on end just to make people they will never personally know happy so the more little content we sit through supporting them as much as we can instead of being cheap seeking free or near to free content the greater the content will grow.
Guild Wars 1 had no sub fee and expansions were delivered every six months. These expansions provided continents equal in size to continental Tyria, new classes, new weapons, new storylines, new skills, new quests and other new features. The game had a smaller budget than GW2 has and dare I say, was also far less profitable.
In fact, it would probably be far less stressful for the development teams to unify, to stop producing Living World content and to develop an expansion akin to this games predecessors. The issue is that they don’t want to. They want to take this Living World concept and push it as far as they can. Generally, I am receptive to this idea. I like logging in to a changing, evolving world and I think that the more practiced Arenanet gets, the better the content will become. I base this on the clear improvement that happened over te course of Season 1.
(edited by Safer Saviour.9685)
Not as many as you think – the broom didn’t sell well so why would others?
The broom didn’t sell well because there’s no point in having something like that when you can only use it in towns, much like the town clothes. A mount is something that would be used in the open world, and would typically have a practical use, again, unlike the broom, which didn’t do anything but fulfill someone’s desire of being a virtual witch.
Mounts that give speedboosts will not be added for reasons discussed in this thread. To recap: the balance nightmare that would ensue concerning speed related skills, signets, runes and their place in the economy. Instead of reorganising everything (again, let’s not forget they’ve only just released a feature patch that included a major overhaul to many signets, runes and skills), the balance team could be working on something that the entire playerbase is interested in and something that’s been promised for a long while: new skills.
Mounts have one practical use in lore: as warbeasts. Mounts are obsolete as a form of personal transportation. Asura gates and waypoints allow the people of Tyria to travel with reasonable safety and extreme swiftness while mounts such as asuran golems, hazmat mechas, charr chuggers, airships, seige devourers and tanks are used as weapons. This has always been true of Tyria. Back in Guild Wars 1 there were enemy horsemen and every single one was a cavalryman (and dead. Because horses, as far as we know, are extinct). There is no practical reason, in lore, to switch to mounted transport.
The broom can be used in the open world. It is a simple, cosmetic toy that you can ride along the roads of Tyria regardless of where you are. This and the sonic tunnel toy are as close to mounts as Guild Wars 2 is likely to offer for the forseeable future due to the massive undertaking that adding mounts in any other way would be.
If you look around there are hints that Cantha is totally closed off from the rest of Tyria as they didn’t want to deal with the elder dragons. Even the Tengu left Cantha. I don’t think Cantha will be in anytime soon – back to the OD.
As Cantha hasn’t been in contact with continental Tyria for around a century, how things stand is a mystery that players seem very keen to explore, judging on how often the topic of Cantha pops up. I too, doubt we’ll see it any time soon (DEFINITELY not in 2014) but people keep calling for it.
You failed to interpret what I read because nowhere did I say stop having WPs. I ask for this in addition. By the way its not a game breaker for me but there sure seems like a lot of unnatural fear or hatred over something in a game whether or not it doesn’t take from the game but adds to it. If people are so sure it wont happen, that Anet wont allow it then they shouldn’t need to feel they need to argue that point out because they should be secure in their convictions.
I think that’s because few games do mounts particularly well and Anet has so many features already in the game that fill the roles that mounts usually occupy. I like the existence of speed runes, skills and swiftness, not just for combat, but for map travel. I don’t want mounts to be as good as that, because there’s no reason to make something that works and is worked into so many systems obsolete. I don’t want mounts to become fast travel options and as purely cosmetic items they make characters, their armour and their weapons look… small and trivial. You’re less likely to notice Kudzu on someone’s back if they’re on the back of some gigantic charr device. Not only that, but those models would take up so much space and would be hell on maps where large numbers of people gather already. Poor low-mid computer people don’t deserve that. Lorewise, how would Anet justify people suddenly using mounts en masse? That’s not the norm in Tyria and it never has been.
From a simple and selfish point of view, I don’t want to see mounts as a feature. How many AAA MMO releases offer a game world with no mounts? Where would the people who dislike mounts go were mounts added to Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars 2 offers me a sanctuary from the obnoxiousness of mounts and all that surrounds them. I am happy without them. I would be unhappy to see them all around me and if they became the fastest way to travel, well, that would destroy the aspect of this game I like most (exploration) for me.
Arenanet has no plans to add mounts. However, like Cantha, if there is enough demand, they will look into it. That’s what these forums are for and it’s why threads like this are filled with such absolutes on both sides.
Maybe Im different from the people you are used to but after playing GW1 for three years and then going to another game I couldn’t get back into it even when it had some new content. I thinks alot of people like me do move on forever when they move on if their new game captures their attention and imagination. I did the LA run, the Drognars run, and four of my characters completed all Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall, EotN.
The travel made sense in GW1 to me because I didnt play online rpg type games before that and becasue it was a heavily instanced theme park game. It felt very much more on rails than GW2.
Then when I played another mmo without mounts I wasnt bothered. Then I played two others with mounts and they so made sense because travel meant people were often populating zones as they passed through and you could get of your mount and get involved. WPs everywhere are just ways to avoid other people on the road. Avoid events on the way. Get somewhere fast and ignore the rest of the world.
You are different than me. Your tastes and playstyles have adapted through different experiences and that’s absolutely fine. What isn’t fine is the idea that players should be forced to drag themselves through content they really don’t want to do. If a player wants to ‘skip a zone’ in order to get to a dungeon, or the spawn site of a world boss, then there’s no good reason they should be forced into making a long, morale-crushing trek.
At present, zones are fairly populated anyway and people will shout out on map if and when they need help, or whenever an event of interest pops up. Having a player wander through the world on the back of a broothmother wouldn’t hinder or help the levels of population in a zone, not in a game like GW2, with its event system and megaservers.
And that’s the crux of the issue, really: Guild Wars 2 was not designed to have mounts. When it was being developed, the staff were working around the knowledge that there would be no mounted transport and so everything was put in place in a way that left no space for anything but gimmick mounts, such as the broomstick or its predecessor’s desert wurms. Those are fun, limited and don’t take too many resources away from the development teams. Were mounts to be added in a way that’s similar to WoW, LotRO and others, space would have to be created in the Guild Wars 2 picture. It’s as if you forced a puzzle piece into a completely different puzzle.
I expect that meeting when adding waypoints went like this:
‘We spent 4 of the 5 years from 2007, when we first said anything about a sequel, to 2012, when released, designing the world of our game with an artistic, painterly effect. Great job! Now, add waypoints every 20 feet so most of it goes unnoticed except by those who want to go through the same thing over and over 5 or so times. At least you artist helped provide grounds for a good gold sink!’
I’ve heard very few people complain about the way the game looks. On the contrary, most players seem greatly enthused about the art direction. People who don’t want to explore every nook and cranny aren’t incapable of appreciating a great view from time to time and every player seems to carefully craft their characters’ looks and armour sets. I simply disagree with the idea that players should be forced into going through content they don’t want to do. Not everyone likes exploring, not everyone cares about map completion. I do, I love this world and I love the way it looks but not even I want to feel forced into trek after trek for the sake of progress. That’s just not fun.
To explain to people from the start I thought the game had a major contradiction in encouraging people to explore and fill out zones whilst putting in waypoints that meant once you made a quick run ignoring everything else along the way to get to that zone wp you just needed to you. There after you could then just teleport ignoring everything in between.
I have 5 capped toons and played since release but the highest exploration I have is 80% because I explored different areas with each and just ignored other areas completely because I could just run a line through to get to the wp I needed and the zones took long to full explore again. I could not be bothered exploring other areas again except until now. Im slowly, and when I can be bothered playing, trying to get full world completion on one character.
Anet wasted their encouragement to explore, explore, explore on me
Guild Wars 2 is one of the few MMOs on the market that rewards players for pure exploration. However, it doesn’t force you into clearing every corner of the map, nor does it punish you for wanting to take a break. Fast travel is a feature of the Guild Wars series, it’s also rather nicely built into the lore and there is little reason to ignore that when waypoints provide such a brilliant convenience. Waypointing saves players from having to trek across maps in order to get to a dungeon, or a guild mission, or a world boss. This is great because it means that players can jump right into the fun, rather than spend several minutes, or even an hour, preparing to have fun.
Let me regale you with a story for a moment. Back in Guild Wars 1, map completion was killer; brutal and unforgiving in the most cruel of ways. I completed my cartography in tandem with vanquishing, which, for those who don’t know, involved slaughtering every mob on every map in hard mode. Cartography/Vanquishing in Ascalon was a particularly gruesome endeavour. Party size was reduced from the usual eight, to a harsh four. However, if you travelled from Yak’s bend, you could get an extra two party members and you could drag them onto any Ascalonian map. Unfortunately, if you zoned to a city or an outpost, your extra members would go poof so if you wanted to be ‘efficient’, you needed to caravan and to complete map, after map, after map.
In one session, I completed Traveller’s Vale, Ascalon Foothills, Diessa Lowlands, Flame Temple Corridor, Dragon’s Gullet, The Breach, Old Ascalon, Regent River Valley, Pockmark Flats and the Eastern Frontier. During this time, I learned the pain of walking, the pain of being unable to just click a button to backtrack or get to a map easily. If I stopped half-way through a map, I would lose my progress on that map and would have to start vanquishing all over again. I’d also need to run through all the maps I’d completed in order to get to whatever was next in the chain.
At present, in Guild Wars 2, my Thief is sitting at 81% map completion. I might only do a heart today, I might do nothing at all but it’s likely that my friends will call on me to run a dungeon and not having to run from the top of Mount Maelstrom, which is where my little Thief is right now, to Beetletun, which has the armour one of my friends is keen on getting, will be wonderful. Not losing my progress, not having to run the distance to get back again, not halting or interrupting or stuffing any pointless travel time in my game experience… well, that’s just beautiful to me. Whether I were to run that distance on foot, or sat in the kittenpit of a charr chugger, it would still be a waste of my time. Nothing but an obstruction that stopped me from getting to the content I wanted to do.
Things will need to be tweaked but I don’t see it being difficult.
Just as an example mounts could have a cooldown before resummon after you fall off if an enemy catches you. It would also just need an activation time to mount and dismount and so it wold be hard to see a benefit of riding incredibly fast into battle then having three seconds to dismount or power down or unstrap the cumbersome jetpack, fight then run away and have 5 minutes before you can remount again.
There’s no difference to griefing a player by running a monster or monsters into him as it is now.
The wurms we could ride in in GW1 were a great gimmick but nothing else.
Mob density is thick in places but a decent speed and an evasion skill with a long cooldown could help.
‘Decent speed and an evasion skill’ would need to be balanced in terms of runes/sigils, skills/signets, endurance, the related gemstore boosters and the economy in general. None of that is easy. None of that counts as a ‘tweak’. That’s a total rebalance and/or a complete devaluation of certain items and skills in the game. The developers chose to cap speedboosts for a reason, they balanced various aspects of their game around that cap and to upset that, they would need a better reason than ‘I want to go zoom on my broothmother’. Want to run fast? Buy the right rune, equip the right skill. Want to get somewhere quickly? Use one of the perfectly good, lore-friendly, game-supported waypoints.
Gimmick mounts are far, far more likely than mounts that you can drag anywhere.
So what you’re suggesting is a second healthbar and evasion tool. That’s very much an unbalanced, poor idea ……..
….. This game was not designed to support mounts and were mounts added, every aspect of the game would need to be restructured…
Why not just make it so that if you even get hit while on a mount, your mount would be dismissed and you would be dazed for 2 seconds. Nothing else has to change to maintain a balance.
Because with the mob density in some areas, you’d not be able to ride your mount further than five in-game yards, making it pointless anyway.