Guild Wars 2

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

My biggest issue with mesmer’s blink, has always been how badly it screws you over in WvW.

You cannot, for some reason, cleanly blink around/past broken walls in keeps/smc/towers/etc. Whatever calculation they’re running, the game just doesn’t allow it.

That has literally gotten me killed on more than one occasion, and it’s very frustrating.

Walls and blink are natural enemies in WvW. I did some testing and indeed, you mostly can’t blink “through” an broken wall, even if there’s an obvious gap. But that’s just the beginning !!!
When the wall is up, and you defend, blinking to or out off the wall top is random at best “out of sight”. Even blinking from one end to the other can give the “out of sight” message.

That’s for blink, though most of teleports are the same. A fix would be deeply appreciated.

I’d be really thankful if McKenna or anyone else from ANet was able to answer those simple questions :

• Will the current hero points (tied to each character) be able to unlock the new e-spec ?
• Will the new PoF stats be added to stats selection of exotics and ascended gear from the skirmish vendor ?

If the answer is yes, then the new currency will only be required for runes, sigils, and craft reciepes. Not for the espec unlock. Even if I’m not fond of the concept of “new currency”, this may be an acceptable choice because runes, sigils and craft reciepes will require PvE grind whatsoever (for map tokens, I suppose).

Make an accountwide deposit all materials option.

The core idea is : once material storage is full, material go in inventory. And when playing with various toons, each one of them gets its own stack of said material.

Issue is : only one toon will use the exceeding material when crafting. It’ll come from bank, material storage and inventory. Therefore, the crafting session stops because of “not enough said material” eventhough other toons have some in inventory.

That’s why a “deposit all” option that’d work account-wide would be kitteneful QoL change, because it’d prevent the need to switch to another toon, click “deposit all”, then switch to the next one “deposit all” etc.

Deniara Devious.3948:

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

All skirmish chests earned before PoF launch will contain Proof of Heroics. All skirmish chests earned after will have the new currency.

I hope the player will be able to select the new currency or proof of heroics from skirmish chest, because otherwise it would mean that obtaining proof of heroics will be really difficult after PoF.

I am speaking this for others. I personally have over 15k of proof of heroics. I don’t think I will ever be using them all.

Given skirmish chest is a vendor, I think they’ll just add a new line.

That said, it’s really lame to create a new currency. That’s the cheesiest laziest way to solve an “issue” that may not even exist.

Akkeros.1675:

AzureWolf.9150:

Serenity.6135:

VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.3618:

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

We will be adding a new currency that is similar to Proof of Heroics that will allow you to buy new sigils, runes, recipes, and hero points from PoF.

so all the hero points I have done despite having maxed everything will be worthless? I really do not want to grind through all of PoF just to max out the elite. THAT is a horrible, thankless, boring grind.

You don’t have to grind all of PoF, this will work the same as with HoT which is good. This way you can still get all this stuff done through wvw, and nobody can simply have immediate access to everything which would be unfair to those with many thousands of Proofs of heroics.

So banked Hero Points on characters will or won’t work to buy skills for PoF? In which case, what use would those banked Hero Points be when you’ve already maxed out all your skills and the first elite class?

from what it seems, there will be a new way to distinguish one version of hp’s (e.g. gold/yellow) vs another. So, the ones you have now will not work.
So, if you grinded HP’s or bought HP’s after maxing out HoT then they are no longer useful (just as they are not useful now.)
Sucks, I know. That should have been communicated from the start so people don’t invest hard work into a currency that would be easily assumed to still work.

I think Hero Points you already have will still be useful. You have to spend them to unlock skills and traits, the whole system works that way. Therefore, whatever points you already have can be used. The only question is : will that be enough ?

Now, the new currency will be used for reciepes, runes and sigils, as well as HP unlock. It’s the hero points unlock on PoF maps for “convenience”, or any need of extra HP.

At least, this is how I understand what McKenna said.

It’s cheap to just yell “git gud” without putting some thoughts in it. There’re many types of players looking for various things, and I’m usually more eager to think the issue with the “player” factor coming last. There’re some things not truly involving the player factor that need to be underlined :

• Stunbreakers and stability skills (and passives to a lesser extent) are scarce with high CD’s, while CC’s have recently multiplied. There’s an asymetry here that allows for builds to stunlock a player.
• The stability change doesn’t help, for the same reason, because CC’s can be spammed. Put back stability the way resistance works, and a lot of stunlock will vanish. It’s really ironic to see that they decided to change stability “for the better” and yet they go back to the very same design for resistance.
• What does “git gud” imply ? Is it working and training 10 hours a day with every classes in a maximum amount of PvP fights ? I’m overdoing it here, but there’s a learning curve, and if the curve is unfriendly to most players but hardcore getting ready for WvW olympics, then this may be an issue for the game.
• If you really think about it… Is it really desirable for a game to allow any mechanic to just lock a player, preventing him to do anything but watch his toon melt in the few seconds that requires ? Does it really pushes the players to get better, and come back in game for more fun ?

It may be a matter of “git gud”, and I also regret that the small scale scene gets harder and harder to enjoy. But I truly thing that it boils down to a “game philosophy” issue : what the game allows, what it doesn’t, what is considered enjoyable, etc. In that matter, I don’t think that stunlock should exist, in any case.

I’m really disappointed in that move honestly. We’ll be soon running with 4 currencies in WvW, and it clearly needs some cleaning, and more consistency in the “what currency buys what thing” departement. Example : New Currency buys PoF runes, PoF reciepes, PoF sigils. PoH buys HoT runes, HoT reciepes, HoT sigils alongside superior siege blueprints. So it has to be cleaned a bit.

Some questions are also unanswered, and I’d be really grateful to McKenna to give some insight to it :

• Will ascended gear with selectable stats (bought with skirmish tickets) provide new PoF stats at release ?
• If someone bought that gear and did not pick the stats yet at release day, will the list update, or will it stick to core(+HoT) stats ?

Here’s a suggestion :

Turn all the BL’s into PvE areas, where players can’t fight each others. Let the structures be flipped by packs of players once in a while to get participation to full T3.
When you get to full T3, you get an invitation to the VIP area : a new all flat map with a fancy circle of dancing quaggan in the middle where you’ll be allowed to only fight other players.

/sarcasm mode off.

I’m totally against a death penalty that focuses participation. In my opinion, any fight action against another player (even if it’s blocked, or dodged, or whatever) should reset the participation decay timer to 5:00. Always keep in mind that in a 1vs1 fight, if someone wins, the other loses, and there’s no reason to be exceedingly punishing.

Now, the issue of “I’m dead ? I don’t care, I just respawn and come back” is really annoying when fighting near spawns, I agree with that. Impairing participation is just not the appropriate answer. Unfortunately, I’ve got no appropriate answer to suggest right now.

TheOneWhoSighs.7513:

The amount of CC is so insanely high in this game, that new bosses literally have to have a “break bar”, where the entire goal is to spam CC up until the bar is gone.

This is the core issue. They put the breakbar system in PvE. Yet, as they’re obviously unable to design a challenging content without it being an endless pool of HP or “break that endless bar or die from the attack”, they had to give a liberal access to CC to some classes.

And now, we’re in WvW, with the exact same liberal access to CC, which allows some classes to completely disable a player. I purposely say player and not toon, because it comes to the point even with lots of stun breakers and stability access, you could just as well go do something else for your character is locked. God forbid, even their NPC’s have a liberal access to CC !

That’s the new challenging system guys ! Allow the player to make actual actions only 10% of playtime !

So, as many said previously : 1,5s of total (hard) CC immunity after each CC. Keep them for tactical purposes. Locking a player so that the war can use hundread blades without too much hassle is no tactic.

andrenaline.4286:

I just bough a gear with my main for my alt, then I realize I cant take it from the Bank cause it Soulbound. I gave nearly 500 k karma just to find out I cant use the gear. So I have to spend plenty of time to running with my alt ,to discover Ruins of Or and to buy it or I am forced to pay 50-60 gold to the trading post to buy a gear. Why is that ? Can you make that Karma gear Acountbound . I cant salvage it , I cant wear it , I cant sell it …. Seriously ?

It’s a legacy from the time karma was character bound. Each of your character had its own karma in wallet. When they put on the wallet system, they merged all the karma, yet karma sellers still sale account bound items.

It’s no confort though. Good luck.

I’m also quite fond of snowy areas, with the exception of every dredge area (I loathe industrial themes and find them totally out of place).

I like snow and hills, mountains, forests. Those always feel soothing to me, with special thoughtful fondness for the forest NW of bitterfrost frontier, and the hot springs SE of bitterfrost, or W of wayfarer’s foothills. Even all the Jormag’s corruption areas are fine for me !

I don’t like industrial areas (dredge, charr), all desertic/wasteland areas (dry top, core Orr maps mostly, partly Ascalon). Those feel flat and boring to me. Nothing to see, nothing to feel. Desert…

Once again, I’m all for more male armors options. I’m not even talking about skimpy here, but about basic quality. Examples have been quoted : inquest, whispers, conurer or carapace light chest pieces are basic pajamas for males.

Some of the leaked new armors are encouraging though.

So, even before asking for more skin (which is also required a lot, to repurpose base sylvari, charr or norn character design), even before asking to be able to show my perfect 6 pack or whatever, I really really wish for light armors to be less flat, less stale, less basic long sleeved shirt with a random pattern on it, less no interesting texture, less no colour effect with dyes.
For an elonian theme, I’d really like to see more armors like paragons used to have (elite sunspear ftw), things like anubis guard in stargate…

As for heavy armors : too many fridges all around. Same issues, same wishes.

I can see two potential frictions with that idea :

• It requires a broad trait overhaul for all traits of all professions, so that the core elite becomes really meaningful. I’d add that trait rework is deeply needed whatsoever. Especially since PoF’s elite seem to have, roughly, 3 mechanics highlighted in traits : core and HoT’s elite require to be raised to the very same standards.
• Some builds require both HoT elite traitline and that “core elite” traitline, so there’d be a lot of yelling against the idea.

That said, I’m not especially against it. Roughly, I’m not against big overhauls in traits and skills once in a time : it shakes the habits, which usually draws to more creativity in builds and the so-called meta. So I’m anticipating it’d create new builds. As for how many of them compared to what exists now, I don’t know.

1. When you do stuff in WvW (events, kills, wall repairs etc.) you earn participation. You can track your participation in the bar above the mini-map.
2. Participation comes in 6 levels.
3. At each tick, i.e. every 5 minutes, you gain participation points :
   • The amount depends on your participation level. You can also use some boosters.
   • Participation points fill your reward track, you can check in the WvW UI : the chest icon.
   • You can get loot from the reward track, the nature of which is determined by the reward track you chose.
4. At each tick, i.e. every 5 minutes, and providing your participation level is at least 3, you get pips :
   • The amount of pips is determined by your server rank, your personal rank, and various bonuses (loyalty, commanding and outmanned)
   • A given amount of pips earns you chests. Wood, bronze, silver, gold, etc. each new kind of chest requires more pips to unlock.
   • Chests provide determined loot, amongst which claim tickets.
5. The countdown atop your screen tells you when the next tick will occur.
6. The countdown on your participation bar tells you :
   1. If it’s green or yellow : the time remaining before your participation starts to decay
   2. If it’s red : your participation decays, and the countdown tells you when it’ll reach zero.

I hope I haven’t forgotten anything. Feel free to ask if you need more information.

As a foreword, I’m not a tech specialist, but I’m no naive computer user too.

What bothers me the most is : I have this several years old laptop which is not true gaming, yet has a decent graphics card, a nice CPU, and enough RAM. I mostly play TESO and GW2 on it. On GW2, I need to put almost every graphics things at minimal not to lag too much, and the game is quite ugly, with lots of graphics bugs all around. I can play TESO almost full graphics high on the very same laptop, and what I removed didn’t impair the overall graphics impression much. Also, the overheating is far more significant on GW2 than ESO.

I know GW2’s engine is roughly an update of GW1’s. I also acknowledge they improved the graphics experience, light effects and such things : you just need to check PvP lobby before/after.

I’m supposing code isn’t really clean and moving one part can tilt the whole game down, yet, building new things atop old ones may get things even worse in the mid/long term. So, really, even if cleaning the whole enging, updating it, have a better use of GPU, or whatever can improve things isn’t easy, I think it’s necessary, just like OriOri said.

My biggest concern, though, is : even if the game is still nice and appealing, it really feels bad to see such tech issues, and it yells bad buzz.

And if it’s not for GW2, please build up a new engine from scratch for GW3.

Doug.4930:

didn’t want to make another thread to clog up this forum with similar questions.

But how is the current 1v1 balance? Again post HoT it was pretty good. I mean sure there were a few builds that played themselves and needed to be buried and never spoken off again (PU condi mes, condi thief, cele ele etc). But After HoT it felt like there were so many builds that you really couldn’t lose when running, that it became sort of unplayable. Not to mention that to put yourself on somewhat of an even playing field, you HAD to run the new elite trait line.

Any thoughts, has the situation improved?

1v1 is severly declining. Lots of “roamers” are now groups of 3-5 to 10 ppl.

Build diversity has also severly declined. The builds you’re quoting have totally vanished from my game experience.

Now, about the elite traitline, I’m mixed feelings. Some months ago, I would have said it’s compulsory. Those last weeks, I’m seeing more and more core specs, so I suppose the meta is changing.

Just my 2 cents

Well, I wouldn’t say a plain “yes” and mislead you. It depends a lot of your weapons selection and other traits selection.

All that I can say is : if you’re playing a power soulbeast, berserker stats may be useful, and some soulbeast stances and traits may be useful as well.

Hello,

It may be. Dagger is more of a conditions dealing weapon, but stances are quite neutral (mostly survivability and boons) so they’ll fit in most builds. Some traits deal with poison, but there also are other fishes in the sea.

You’ll probably be able to adapt a core ranger build in soulbeast without too much change in gear.

Hello,

As most of people say, the mirage mirror mechanic is a bit clunky, and the whole Mirage spec is really antagonistic to shatters. Possible solutions suggested to change the F-skills, and here’s my suggestion about it.

The core idea is to provide mirrors a “for allies” next to a “for enemies” effect that trigger upon shattering the mirrors. The effect is controled by the mirage’s attunement, i.e. the F-skill. Roughly, the “illusions shattering” becomes a “mirror shattering”.

• Mirrors will always provide Mirage cloak upon shattering ;
• Now, mirrors can be shattered by enemies and the player ;
• Using a F-skill (changing attunement) turns all the mirrors into clones, and trigger the shatter effect. The clones creation follows the usual rules ;
• All the shatter traits will be triggered upon mirror shatter (and maybe toned down a bit).

Every mirror created will have upon shattering effects depending on the attunement.
Depending on attunement, shattering a mirror will apply effects on enemies :

• Mind wrack : deals damage
• Cry of frustration : applies confusion
• Diversion : dazes enemies (1/4s)
• Distortion : applies weakness.

Depending on attunement, shattering a mirror will apply effects on allies :

• Mind wrack : plain heal
• Cry of frustration : provides alacrity
• Diversion : gives endurance
• Distortion : provides superspeed

Feel free to comment. I’m confident it’ll never be aired in game, but I needed to pull it out of my mind.

Hello,

With the arrival of the soulbeast, pet will now provide 3 skills in addition to their usual F2. Yet the current UI forces you to select each and every pet one after the other if you want to browse them, which is very tedious. The wiki provides all the data, but it’d be better to have it ingame.

That’s why I’m suggesting here to develop a new pet UI to make things easier. As I’m too lazy to code it, here’s a description :

• First horizontal frame : full width. 4 squares to show what is equipped as a pet. Equipping a pet would now be a drag and drop in those squares
• Second frame : main window, full width, subdivided in :
  • Tabs menu : to sort by pet type, i.e. canine, feline, moas, fishes etc.
  • First sub-frame : vertical list showing all the available pet in the category. Like Blue Moa, Green Moa, etc. You drag and drop from here to the upper squares.
  • Second main sub-frame : window with all the data needed : descrption, pet skills, normal F2 skill, beastmode skills and family (stout, deadly, ferocious, etc.)
  • Third subframe (optional) : pet rendition (like in character creation mode) with the name below. Either “Juvenile Pink Moa”, or the name the player gave. _It also gives the possibility to manage pets name, eventhough they’re not equipped.

In a nutshell : an pet-encyclopedy, from which you drag and drop the pets you want to equip in slots atop the window.

I tested things mostly in WvW, small scale, and the wyverns in northeast DBL. I really had a crush for Mirage, but I tested some others as well.

The fast ones :

• Spellbreaker seems fine :
  • easy to handle and understand ;
  • sustain improvements appreciated ;
  • utilities maybe too situational ?
• Soulbeast seems fine too :
  • nice addition to the pet mechanic ;
  • rich possibilities yet not too hard to apprehend ;
  • dagger may be a little weak ;
  • Dolyak stance bugged (broadly reported) ;
• Scourge :
  • Mobility gain appreciated ;
  • Punishements need a better range lisibility ;
  • Core traits that are realted to shroud need to get a clearer tooltip.
• Weaver :
  • Lots of jumps and spins and explosions, but where is the effectiveness ?
  • Twist of fate needs to remove immobilization too.
• Renegade :
  • Kalla lacks personnality
  • Shortbow seems average/fine
  • Utilities work far better as an offensive support than as self-support.

Mirage :

• Profession concept and mechanics :
  • Really interesting gameplay, with lots of mobility options ;
  • Mirage gameplay is very antagonistic of phantasms and shatters ;
  • Mirror shards lack reliability because they don’t last long enough ;
  • Maybe a trait should allow mirrors to heal or cleanse.
  • Interesting idea was to turn F1-F3 shatters into mirror spawns
• Weapon skills and ambushes :
  • Axe 2 should provide an evade ;
  • Axe 3 has targetting issue, especially on non-flat ground, or against moving targets ;
  • Ambush skills should auto-trigger immediatly when in mirage mode.
• Utilities : targetting issues for Mirage advance and Illusionary ambush like Axe 3. Others seem too weak.

Miscelleanous :

• New elite specs don’t shout “power creep” as much as HoT’s did. Good !
• Overall new interesting gameplays are provided, that seem to get along fine next to core and HoT, for a given profession.
• More talks when using utilities : I liked it
• Nice graphics for the new specs. Special mention to Cardcaptor Sakura Firebrand.
• Default builds had unusual stats, like soldier+ exuberance, apothecary. It’s good to shed some light on them too.
• 100 words for feedback ? Please be serious… Or have a feedback thread in each profession subforum please.

I think it has to be taken cautiously :

• It necessarily lacks efficiency, because lots of things are new and not known. Moreover, gear may not be the best one, choices are limited, and whatever, builds are not accurately tweaked.
• I somehow have the feeling ANet didn’t want any new spec to be as “damage bomb” as some HoT’s were. So it may feel a bit lackluster.

That said, it’s true there’re some issues that have been uncovered during this test. For example, weaver’s survivability, or mirage’s shatter. The thing is subforum seem to be extremely toxic currently. Not so much positivity, not so much rationality, and a lot of personal attacks… I won’t read them for some times…

I think things will evolve till release, for PoF’s and hopefully for HoT’s elite specs too.

Colly.4073:

Don’t you have to hit dodge to trigger ambush.

Of course you have ! My question is : when you hit dodge, do you need to hit 1 to proc the ambush, or is it automatically cast ?

Hello !

Simple mechanic question : as ambush skills are in the 1 slot, which is the auto-attack slot, do they automatically trigger, or should I hit 1 to have them occur ?

I’m 99,99% sure the answer is yes, only because I tried to see the ambush skill availability time in and out of fights ; the latter is significantly longer.

But I just want to make sure…

I have the same issue here. I noticed it triggers correctly when you use it for a stunbreak, yet no boons. Otherwise, it doesn’t trigger at all, whether you’re in combat or not.

I don’t know whether it’s a bug or a functionality, and I’d be glad to have an answer about this.

Malerian.8435:

Far to many people coming into WvW just to farm pips. WvW is a competitive part of the game, and has lost it’s way with all these rewards! Do not get me wrong, I like rewards. But I play WvW for fights in the first place. Now we have all kinds of people out here who have no clue what they are doing. All they do is karma train and farm pips.

I understand your point. Even I was upset this morning when I saw our T3 keep almost be flipped by 3 people only because the 10-12 other players in map couldn’t bother to come and help, instead of just flipping camps for participation upkeep.

The issue is : just read the forum. You see complaints everywhere that the game mode in uninteresting, unrewarding, boring, cheesy, dying etc. Even if it’s only 10% true, at this point, any solution that can make people play is worth considering. I don’t know whether the new players here will only stick to rewards, or if some of them will get interest in it, but I’m sure those last ones are needed. I’m also sure that showing newcomers the door in order to keep a so-called purity of the game mode will eventually lead to the game mode death for real.

My guess is even if you get loot with your demo char, increase in tiers and in your reward track, everything will be lost eventually. That’s how PvE works. The only thing that’ll remain is the points you awarded your server, supposing they don’t clone them either. (I doubt they will)

Vavume.8065:

Dawdler.8521:

Its really quite simple.

If WvW is available in demo mode and you are playing on a demo character slot, nothing will be saved. Otherwise if elite become available on your normal characters, it should be like normal.

What he said ^

Personally I will just test elites out in pvp instead, despite WvW being my main game mode, the thought of a precursor dropping puts me off playing any content with loot, for the same reason I skipped the last demo weekend completely. I had 3 precursors drop in the first 2 years of the game, but none since, if one dropped during a demo I would prob want to uninstall.

That would be the perfect troll demo beta feature ! Please ANet, for next XPac, just make every demo toon drop a precursor each time something big is done. That’d be so much fun !!!

Sonja Teh Trapper.7012:

well i am excited about trying these out this weekend! but as of yet i do not see any demo slots open! will we be able to use our main ones or just the demo beta?

Probably only demo beta characters will be able to pick the new elites.

As for the rewards, my bet is it will all void in the end of the weekend, just as it did in PvE.

Considering the specializations come along with a new weapon, it’s safe to assume that it’ll be available.

Last time with HoT, borderlands and EBG weren’t cloned, so there were new elite specs running around. I remember I had very fun and interesting fights, not knowing what I was doing with a random build and sub-optimal gear, against players that were in the very same situation.

In itself, I don’t think it’s a bad thing to test elite specs in “regular maps” WvW. My only worry is WvW will be the only testing option that feels like PvE, so the maps will probably be severly queued, and I also fear toxicity caused by it. I just remember how toxic chats were when the pip system brought PvE players in…

That said, this may be an attempt from ANet to push PvE players to WvW, so I hope my server will be nice and welcoming and embrace the opportunity, instead of playing the elitist vets that prefer be 3 on a map, but have their so-called purity safe.

I disagree with the OP’s idea. It makes no sense making the damage dimnish with the amount of stacks. What would make sense is the variation of damage dimnish with the amount of stacks increasing. Now, it’s just proportional, but other formulas may lead to a situation to which the additional bleed stack wouldn’t be that significant in the damage increase.

Now, we also have to remember that the nerf in the condi duration will greatly damage the ability to go high in stacks, which leads me to what Zoltreez says : the spam is terrible, as much for boons than for condis. I tried, just for fun, to focus on corrupting boons with my necro, and it’s insane : the fight begins, 15 boons pop almost instantly, you corrupt, and they’re back a split second later. It’s roughly the same with conditions : you cleanse, and it’s back a split second later. There also are cleanses mechanics that are really spammable…

I’m not sure there’s any good solution for that, as Aeolus said, because they made the fundamental choice with GW2 to put “everything” as boons and conditions, instead of keeping a more complex system. GW1 system might have been more intricate, but it also allowed for more granular tweaks on their side, and more subtle gameplay on our side (you couldn’t “just spam it”). Now, there won’t be any change there till GW3. I also want to underline that some effects (I’m thinking about some big bosses effects) should be labeled boons or condis, and are not, which shows they may be positive it’s an issue.

Ramoth.9064:

As in, why do you give a kitten if WvW players flame you. Your experience and enjoyment of the game is just as important as theirs. The trade-off this time being this weekend is a once off event, and their precious reset weekends happen 52 times a year. I would not give a rats ass if I ran around nude in borderlands testing out the firebrand.

Aw, my bad ! I didn’t get what you wouldn’t give a kitten about ! I agree with what you’re saying afterwards, because it’s plain rational thinking. Unfortunately, lots of people don’t give a skritt about such reasoning :-(

I’m really happy about how my dragonhunter currently is, and it’s the only one of my toons that I doesn’t want to either switch back to core or push to the new elites.

I’d be really sad if they mowed my DH just to make firebrand more appealing, because even if I’m trying my best to read all the stuff, I just don’t feel hyped for firebrand… It’s just my taste though.

Now, as Sarie said, Firebrand should be a supportive (maybe not too far from Druid ?) class, inclining more to condi damage-wise, while DH is a pure damage spec, so I’m just hoping those two will be different enough not to interfere with each other.

sorudo.9054:

just in case ppl still think it’s the same as GW1, this is how GW1 does it.
nothing is a mystery except the stats, that’s the biggest problem the GW2 version has, no information.

In a sense, the lack of information isn’t really a problem.

Your screen perfectly shows that the thing called “Unidentified gear” in PoF is not your average unidentified gear from any other (MMO)RPG. What we have here is a mere chest, or currency. Nothing much to freak about.

The only thing I reproach them with is I’m supposed to have the choice between salvaging or converting. Yet, I also know some collectibles or skins are locked behind the identification process, so it feels compulsory to identify till it’s all unlocked. After that, I’ll just salvage everything…

Ramoth.9064:

ThomasC.1056:

Sure ! Go try the elite specs in WvW !

After a neat 2 hours wait because of 25+ queues in each map, you’ll be kindly welcome by yells from WvW vets because you’re taking the spot for someone who is, you know, just trying to mind his WvW business on reset day… Everything will go fine.

Its just one weekend, who gives a kitten?

Technically two kinds of people give a kitten about this weekend :

1. Hyped PoF players who want to test things and builds, and not only read the traits and skills’ tooltips from the wiki. PvP won’t be suited at all for PvE tests, and WvW borderlands/EBG will probably be clogged, which only leaves EOtM, as stated indeed. I’m doubting EOtM is a really good place for PvE testing though.
2. WvW involved players. It’ll be reset day, and weekend, which often is a critical moment, with significantly more players on the map. It’ll probably create a lot of toxicity if BL and EBG get queued by players just out there to test their buids on camps guards. I think some players will also try open PvP, and I won’t blame them, because I have fond memories doing that during the HoT beta. Now, during HoT beta, we were only a few players testing HoT specs in WvW, because most of the beta players were in PvE.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

When i start xpac i hear i gotta do what i gotta do cause drumroll Kiel said so!
So remind me here, am i a commander of Tyria’s greatest military force or Kiel’s errand boy?

On second thought, don’t answer that. It’s too depressing to know…

I may be desperatly optimistic, but I don’t really think we’re running an errand for Kiel.

First, I think we’re missing part of the personal story. I can’t really figure out we’re finishing LWS3 and then hop into the first airship (which appears to be Kiel’s ?) to Crystal Desert without a little bit of chat and preparation. So I suppose ANet didn’t show us that part.

My feeling is more something like Kiel is hitching us a ride to the Crystal Desert : it’s lion guards aboard, and not pact soldiers. So it’d make sense that they keep on following Kiel’s orders, and not the PC’s. Moreover, the dialogues here were something like “Stay aboard while we solve what Kiel asked us to do, and we’ll finish taking you wherever you were going”, and the PC decides to go out and do the job. So technically, you’re just being helpful, and not running an errand for Kiel.

Now, I agree that even if you dismiss the whole military rank, status, commander mumbo jumbo, you’re still the guy/cat/salad who took part in the slaying of 2 elder dragons, and who roughly saved the day for the second one. The commoner might not really be positive of all that, but I feel like any military or intelligence thing (Shining Blade here ?) should be aware of that, and show a little more deference to the PC.

Sure ! Go try the elite specs in WvW !

After a neat 2 hours wait because of 25+ queues in each map, you’ll be kindly welcome by yells from WvW vets because you’re taking the spot for someone who is, you know, just trying to mind his WvW business on reset day… Everything will go fine.

Manasa Devi.7958:

So I do decide the type of loot I get despite you claiming I don’t?

Considering you can’t control what the outcome of the identification process will be, nor what the salvage will provide you, I’m rightfully telling you can’t decide the type of loot you’re getting. With that focus, you can’t chose what you get ; only what you do.

Now, if you’re considering that the choice between going straight for mats (without any control on the outcome) or for identification (with no more control on the outcome) is a sufficient focus to qualify for “your personal decision of what you get”, then it’s up to you.

Manasa Devi.7958:

So I don’t have the choice to gamble by “ID-ing” or just salvaging? How exactly does it work then?

You have that choice : either you salvage, and you get mats, and that’s all, or you ID, and you turn that currency they awkwardly called an “unidentified item” into regular loot, with a loot table that may or may not be close to the current one, and then proceed with your usual routine to deal with your inventory.

Manasa Devi.7958:

Sure, I could just salvage it, but what I really want is to just go on doing what I do now. I don’t want to have to decide between gambling and salvaging. I want the game to decide what drops for me.

The game already decides what drops for you. Only it’s a decision that is delayed to the moment you chose to identify an item. There’s no real difference between the identification system and the current loot one but the additional price, and the moment you gamble on the loot table. Moreover, you can also decide not to care about that part of the loot and just salvage everything.

So it just comes down to you not wanting to change your habits. I have issues about the ID system, but not that one, and I don’t feel like this will help improve the system in any way.

Some french translations are also awkward at best.

Now, it may not be ANet’s fault. Usually, when a game is translated, the core company (ANet here) hires a specific company to do the translation job, which sometimes also includes voice actor acting and management, and sometimes, the control is quite loose.

Moreover, the guy (or girl) paid to do the translation often don’t know much about the ins and out of what he translates : it may even come down to an excel spreadsheet with a list of words and expressions to translate…

I’m not looking for excuses though…

Eventhough buying PoH was a concession that came later after the HoT launch, it’s now an establish system. As far as I’m concerned, I’d be really upset if they put that system aside for PoF… There’s no rational reason for that beyond the “it’s new, so you’ve got to sweat to get it.”

That said, have you seen there now were elite specs NPC’s ? the holosmith and mirage were in the demo map. I’m wondering whether they’ll stick to HoT system, or they’ll put a more PvE thing like a quest to unlock the elite spec… If it’s the latter, WvW hardcore will be doomed.

lagrangewei.8516:

with new specialization coming, it is obvious that class will be rebalance. I am all for changing to existing HOT and unspecialized spec to allow for class to have more variation and function. in fact it is a good thing that specialization will now be “specialized” because there is more then one option.

however the general mood I get while talking to people in the game after the pre-POF patch is they feel that their specialization is being nerf without any improvement in their function. I rationalized to them that POF isn’t out yet so the HOT spec are not yet properly rebalanced. but it seem that concern of POWER CREEP is growing, that we will not see diversity in build but rather the wholesale abandonment of old spec like when HOT was launch.

that would be unacceptable. the expansion is suppose to give us more option, so I do hope that the concern of people are wrong, that anet will make specialization competitive with each other then making it unspec < HOT < POF. because that would be a disappointment.

anet can get away with HOT powercreep with the argument that “future specialization will be balance and specialization are better then unspecialization” however it will not fly with POF since specialization already exist and there will be benchmark to uphold.

personally i feel that the new specialization will finally give anet the leg room to make class adjustment that make better sense, but at the same time it increases the difficulty as there are more thing to balance, I only hope anet took game balance seriously and see that this is indeed going to be trickier then HOT launch and allocated the correct amount of resources into it. even if not immediately, at least make more statement ensuring the playerbase that the game will be balance over the time so people first impression doesn’t straight up kill POF since the new specialization will be “revealed” next week.

I offer a wish of good luck to the staff and crew of anet. to manage both the design and PR side of game balancing.

I’m not quite sure the core < HoT < PoF is what we’re heading towards, even if I acknowledge that core < HoT is/was a thing. I’m hesitating between present and past here, because last patch made me feel like a couple of my old core builds would now shine better than they used to. Yet, I haven’t tested it, so I won’t be categorical about it.

Now, from what I checked, the core point is the elite specs will be significantly different from each other. Like, Druid vs. Soulbeast : those can’t honestly fulfil the same role. That’s why I don’t think we can put a HoT < PoF sign reasonably, for a given profession. Then, for a given role that may be quite different. Yet if you consider the “healbot” role, for example, I’m not really sure what elite spec in PoF can fulfil that role better than a druid or a tempest would.

In my opinion, what I stated above is a good thing, because it provides diversity, and I really hope than a given profession can fulfil several roles, while a given role can also be fulfilled by several professions.

Then, there also is a deeper issue, which has been a core issue in GW2 since the beginning : the central role has always been “damage dealer”, power or condi, in most cases. Which means the noisiest echoes will be on the DPS topic…

Maps and environment :

• Nice scenery design : even if it’s desert, it doesn’t look too dull.
• Flatter map makes things easier to reach (HP, masteries…) : it feels relaxing after tangled depths (even if I ended up getting used to it)
• Really nice musics from what I heard
• Raptor feels nice once you get used to it, and quickly feels indispensable
  • Yet, going by foot gives the impression the map is empty. It feels like the maps have been stretched, and things are therefore diluted. On another hand, it’s a desert, so…
• Lots of NPC’s chat makes the places feel more lively.
• New mobs are interesting.

Personal story :

I only played the introduction instance.

• Once again, I don’t truly feel involved in the story. I suppose that instance is the second part of something else that I’m missing.
• Once again, I don’t truly feel like I’m someone important in the world. I’m not asking for exceeding deference, but I’m expecting most of the “armed factions” to know and show some respect, apologize for inconvenience, etc.
• Outnumbered fights : thank you ANet. At least, you acknowledge my character is a powerful being in Tyria ;-)
• Raptor management part : useful at first try, may be tedious afterwards, especially when it’s partly redundant with the reknown heart.

Events and loot :

• I liked the NPC that tells things to do around. Is it only for reknown hearts ? It could be used for other events.
• Bounty hunt : I like the idea, but I’m mixed feelings. I stumbled upon one of these champions, and managed to kill him, yet I didn’t get the full credits, because I somehow didn’t “activate” the bounty (I’m supposing). It’s a hassle, because I saw there were achievements around that.
  • I’d keep the board thing, and make the board give an item like the current scrolls. That way, you could “activate all bounties at once”, and claim your rewards when you’re back in town.
• Lots of loot had a little text attached with it. I like it.
  • I wasn’t sure that text meant we were supposed to do something with the item. E.g. I thought I was supposed to give the necklace to somebody specific. I’d enjoy such a feature.
• I wasn’t sure what to do with some specific things that weren’t labeled as “trophies” nor “material”…
• Unidentified items : I like the feature. It prevents from a lot of clogging.
  • I’m more skeptical about the identification process (reknown hearts vendors, and price) : should be possible in towns too.
• I’m really frowning towards the achievements and collections locked behind the identifying process :
  • Identifying is tedious in itself
  • You can do 2 things from an unID item : either ID it, or salvage it. Yet, if it’s compulsory to identify to get achievements or collectibles, then you must ID it, and it ruins the whole point of having a salvagable unID item that won’t clog your bags.

You’re not alone, I’m also really excited about what’s coming ! To be honest, now that HoT is symbolically over, I must say that most elite specs weren’t really fitting with my playstyle, except DH ; I’m not planning to switch to Firebrand right now. I’ll see after test. Even the last patch somehow turned me towards my old core builds !

Now, I’m really looking forward those new elite specs, and growing nice ideas on how to use them ! My only fear is they mow them to the bone in 6 months because they’d have revealed too powerful.

Hello,

As told, next weekend will be the demo weekend for elite specs, yet these will only be available in PvP and WvW. I fear that will turn out to be a big mess, and an overall wasted opportunity.

My objectives for such a test are to have a glimpse at those elite specs, try the skills, weapons, utilities, look at the traits and how they synergize, and give them a run in my favorite game modes. I think it’s safe to say that most players can relate to these objectives. Yet, allowing only WvW and PvP will be a tremendous hindrance.

WvW topic :

That game mode is the closest to PvE, so I think this is where I’ll try to stick the most. The central issue here is : maps are limited, and can queue. I’m thus expecting the maps being awfully clogged by people just wanting to try elite specs… OS won’t be of any help, so I guess it’ll be EOTM, which may not be the best sandbox ingame.

So, just suppose I manage to get in after 1 hour waiting… I’m running 7 professions, and even if I don’t want to try some of them, I can’t honestly figure such a wait…

PvP topic :

No worries about queues to enter PvP lobby, yet… I’m expecting the test grounds being crowded. Maybe a ticket system to kill Svanir, the lord and those will be useful ? (irony). Overall, it probably won’t be easy to test anything on dummies. The FFA arena will probably an interesting place to watch though.

The second issue is the amulet system. I’m not blaming it in itself, but as a PvE/WvW player, I know that I won’t be able to tweak things as much as I could with amulets.

So, what’s the use ?

Overall, it occurs to me it’ll be hard to try much things with the tests limited to WvW and PvP, so what’s the use ? If it’s only to read traits and tooltips, just help update the wiki or the build editor… A test on thin air hasn’t much interest.

Possible solutions

I’m really strongly for a plain PvE test. It’s probably too late, but I’m suggesting two non exclusive options :

• Use the LWS3 maps as playing grounds. Most of them are interesting, with events, different kind of gameplays, some legendary bosses (I’m thinking of Lake Doric here).
• Limit the test to Auric Basin : this may be the easiest HoT map to navigate (gliding and mushrooms not really compulsory, reasonnable verticality), and it holds a meta event easy to understand and fairly challenging.

Moreover, offer this possibility even to players that don’t own HoT : it may be an incentive for them to buy it alongside PoF !

Thanks for attention.

Honestly, it doesn’t look at all like old “identify gear” systems for a simple reason : in older games (thinking here of Diablo 1 or GW1), the gear you had to identify was, for example, “unidentified sword”, “unidentified chainmail”. It was often a single, non stackable, piece of gear that you had to identify for specific bonuses or things like runes.

Here, that “unidentified gear” is nothing more than a currency, and you buy random loot with it, as many people above stated. There’s nothing to freak about…

Just for the sake of lisibility, the wiki also has them clean

I’m really sensitive to the argument saying that providing mounts lowers the urge to spam swiftness or equip speed up traits and skills. But it has to be kept as only a speed boost…

As for the trolling issue, I’d say no mounts during combat, maybe no mounts in hostile territory. A neat idea would be to put “stables” in objectives so that you can get a mount only from camps, towers or keeps.