Guild Wars 2

In the novel “Edge of Destiny” Eir turns into a bear, many times. She would carve stone statues with her claws. When the chips were down and she needed to give a little more, she would change into a bear.

Even injured and weakened, I think she would have found the strength to change one last time and charge the monster… she would have gone down fighting.

No regrets at all. Sure, there are issues with HoT, but it’s the first time ANet required money from me in 3 years. I think it’s only fair to help them pay their bills now and then.

This is a tricky question. I’d say when HoT launched I’d have rated my fun factor at 5 or 6. There was good stuff, also some frustrating stuff.

Now, a week and a half later, I’d say the fun is 7 or 8. The point reduction for Specializations helped. I’ve gotten Masteries required for getting around the maps. I’ve learned how to deal with enemies that were total pains at first.

Only time will tell if it continues to get better, worse, or stays about the same.

I’ve found once you get the basic ones out of the way (1st level of each line and updrafts for gliding), working on HoT Mysteries isn’t that bad. I wander, do events and map completions, swap to alts and work on Hero Points for their specializations, help friends and guildies in HoT… and generally just try to have fun and not worry about the Masteries, and after a while I’ll notice my XP bar has filled up. Weee!

RyuDragnier.9476:

Shiren.9532:

Tregarde.6031:

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I was hoping to at least see her transform into a bear and charge the beast. She transformed a lot in the novel Edge of Destiny.

R.I.P. Eir.

Now that you mention it I completely agree. Why didn’t she become the bear or wolf? Even if the end is the same, she could have died fighting instead of just being fridged for Braham’s character development. If Kasmeer can pump out a bunch of illusions on the Breach Maker because she’s a special little mesmer snowflake, why can’t Eir, one of Tyria’s most legendary norn, die fighting in bear form even in a weakened state? She was well enough that after we free her, she engaged the boss (unlike Logan/Zojja in chapter 15 who need first aid in a much more dire situation)…

As Sero said…starved, dehydrated, probably didn’t have enough energy/endurance to pull it off.

Pfft. She used to carve stone statues with her claws in bear form. Turning into a bear was sort of her thing to do when the chips were down. The least ANet could have done was given her that last moment of defiance so she died like a Legend – never giving up.

I’ve very much enjoyed the new music in GW2 since Season 2, and HoT is no exception.

And I have to agree with others – please release a soundtrack with the new musics.

Priorities change, it happens. An MMO is an incredibly complex program, and they have a limited amount of people and resources. And just because WvW is going to be their #1 for a while does not mean they are abandoning everything, or even anything. In a couple months, their priority could shift again.

OMG… that is awesome!

After running around most of the night yesterday, I’ve come to the conclusion that the Hero Point adjustments are a good thing. Before it felt like a chore to earn enough points to unlock even a single Trait. Making the challenges scale down to match the number of players around means I can solo them when I’m alone. Now it feels like I’m making reasonable progress.

In other words, it’s fun again.

As someone with multiple characters, some who barely had any surplus points when HoT launched, this will help a great deal. Masteries are still a grind, but since Masteries are account wide I can accept that they take a while. Plus I can casually earn Mastery XP while I’m working on the Hero Points.

After running around most of the night yesterday, I’ve come to the conclusion that the Hero Point adjustment is a good thing. Before it felt like a chore to earn enough points to unlock even a single skill/ability. Making the challenges scale down to match the number of players around means I can solo them when I’m alone. Now it feels like I’m making reasonable progress.

In other words, it’s fun again.

As someone with multiple characters, some who barely had any surplus points when HoT launched, this will help a great deal. Masteries are still a grind, but since Masteries are account wide I can accept that they take a while. Plus I can casually earn Mastery XP while I’m working on the Hero Points.

It would be nice to see items like these in the Wallet so that all of your characters can access them from a single pool, instead of having to carry stacks on each, or going to the bank to transfer stacks when swapping characters.

After running around most of the night yesterday, I’ve come to the conclusion that the Hero Point adjustment is a good thing. Before it felt like a chore to earn enough points to unlock even a single skill/ability. Now it feels like I’m making reasonable progress.

In other words, it’s fun again.

As someone with multiple characters, some who barely had any surplus points when HoT launched, this will help a great deal. Masteries are still a grind, but since Masteries are account wide I can accept that they take a while, and it’s not that bad once you’ve got the basic ones. Plus I can casually earn Mastery XP while I’m working on the Hero Points.

I think it’s a great idea. I saw the warning appear on my screen once, and it took me by surprise. But I had been idling away from the action for a short time (something came up in real life that needed my attention). I’m sure I’d say the time is too short, I’d have to see it again a few more times to be certain of my opinion on that, but I don’t think it’s bad right now.

Kulvar.1239:

SPOILER

Belinda is a Warrior with a greatsword. Marjory is a Necromancer.
Belinda die. Marjory take her weapon.
Necromancer Elite => Reaper (Greatsword and shouts)

Eir is a Ranger with a longbow. Braham is a Guardian.
Eir die. Braham take her weapon.
Guardien Elite => Dragon Hunter (Longbow and traps)

We have lore <trolling>

That pretty much sums up the lore on Reaper and Dragonhunter.

I much, much prefer skins to outfits. I like being able to mix and match things to achieve a look. I’ve some very creative looks people have put together, and that level of customization is not possible with outfits.

Honestly, I’d be even more likely to buy a gem store skin set over an outfit. There are a few outfits I would have bought if they were skins instead.

As one who rides the line on “casual” (I guess you could call me upper casual?), this certainly means I’ll be able to fully fill my Specializations a bit quicker. Though I think 300 points may have been a better compromise.

It would be nice if ANet introduced some small guild halls, either for smaller guilds or guilds that don’t necessarily want the huge ones we have now.

I mean, seriously, the current halls are about the size of Divinity’s Reach. They are nice, but the moderate sized guild I’m in (rarely more than a dozen people online and repping on a good day) hardly knows what to do with it all!

Yes, please add this to the Wallet or Bank.

In fact, please add anything that is a crafting material you can find in the world.

Thanks for listening. I know it’s not easy to design challenges so they are neither too easy, nor too difficult. The effort to make things better is appreciated.

This pretty much echoes my feelings so far. The base game has a huge amount of variety and freedom, which is what has kept it fun for 3 years. You can just wander around, exploring and doing things (events, Hearts, etc) as you come across them. It keeps things from becoming repetitive and feeling like a grind.

HoT is only a handful of maps, and only a couple are accessible at first. There’s a much smaller variety of things to do. What is there is well done… but because there’s so little of it, it begins to feel repetitive and grindy very quickly.

I don’t think HoT is that much more grindy than the base game. The difference is that you have a huge world to explore in the base game, with lots of different things to do to keep you occupied. The variety helps to keep the base game interesting, without feeling so repetitive.

HoT, on the other hand, is a much smaller world. There’s only a handful of maps, and some are inaccessible at first. There’s a smaller variety of things to do. Level 80 has become a new starting point, because we now have to earn Masteries (effectively, new levels). And people who didn’t have a bunch of Skill/Hero Points saved up now have to work for more if they want to train up their Specializations.

In some ways it’s not all that different than when the game first launched 3 years ago. People wanted to rush though things, they wanted to reach the end quickly. Even today, it still takes some time to work a character up to 80 (without Tomes).

Yeah, I’d like to be able to progress through HoT faster. But at the same time, I didn’t expect it to be easy. This is GW2’s first expansion, and some things are bound to be problematic. But if there’s any reason I could lose interest in HoT, it’s not because of the grind, it’s because of the lack of variety. There’s only so many times I can run around the same map, doing the same events… especially when there is very little variety in the events.

But I’ll see how it feels in a couple weeks. Maybe once I got access to more of the maps, and more Masteries (which, thankfully, are account wide), HoT won’t seem so grindy.

~shrug~
I’ve been doing pretty good solo. Sure, I have a guild and friends, but they aren’t always available for groups, so I’ve done quite a bit on my own. Of course there are some things I can’t handle alone, but those are usually challenges that were meant for a group in the first place. If there aren’t people around to help in those situations, I just find something else to do that I can handle.

Perhaps part of it is because of how I have my characters outfitted. They aren’t in the best gear in the game, but they got pretty good stuff, and yet I can survive things that are bringing other people down. Maybe it’s time to put a little more into Vitality and Toughness?

Kidel.2057:

…So basically everyone in raid will look for Scrapper and Druid, and kick almost everything else…

Until ANet implements a set of tweaks that nerf overpowered abilities, buff up underpowered ones, adjust the cool down on some skills, etc.

ANet WANTS us to bring in diverse groups into raids. They were paying attention to what was happening during the Beta. They are paying attention to these forums. There will be tweaks by the time HoT goes live. There will be tweaks after. Many, many rounds of tweaks. That’s just the nature of MMO’s.

Instead of complaining and prophesying doom (which won’t happen), how about providing some constructive criticism and ideas? Yes, things will be unbalanced at first, but they will get better.

I didn’t expect to like the Scrapper much, since I never cared for using hammers on my Warrior or Guardian (don’t know why, just didn’t like it). But I really enjoyed running around on an Engineer with a hammer.

I don’t know what to add that hasn’t already been said. The hammer is fun. Gyros need some tweaks, but I liked them too. I may wind up playing my Engineer more in Hot.

Engineers can already do weapon swaps. They’re called “Kits”

We will probably see no practical effects, other than in conversations. But I would expect some of those conversations to get really nasty. Might also hear something in those random NPC barks.

Though I think it would be fun to something that has some sort of effect on our Sylvari characters.

I kept seeing bristlebacks the size of houses all weekend. It was kinda funny, but I hope it gets fixed when HoT comes out. Those buggers take up a lot of screen space!

It was buggy and not available for most of BWE3, but in the end they got the first raid up. I managed to get in a group and test it out. It actually was pretty fun and I think with some tweaking raids will work out pretty well in GW2.

This first raid is meant to be our beginner raid, and it shows. You got a progression of 3 enemies to take down, one at a time (unless you wander too close and pull the next one in line). Each has a “trick” to taking them down (one required condition damage, one needed boons stripped, etc). My group wiped only a couple times before we got our groove and the first 3 champs went down fairly easy. There definitely are roles in GW2 raids, but they are not the typical tank/heal/DPS of other games. Once people know their roles it takes very little coordination during a fight if the group works well. And it was kinda fun figuring out ways I could do my job better.

Then was the last boss, who combined aspects of the previous 3, and had some tricks of its own. We wiped several times here before we got the first stage down. Then there’s a second stage where the boss splits into the 3 previous ones… again, wiped several times before we got the hang of stage 2. Then stage 3 goes absolutely nuts! The boss recombines into one, sections of the floor glow, and the boss is tossing out mini bombs like it was making popcorn without a lid on the pot. Unfortunately, we had to give up on stage 3 as it was getting late and people were being responsible and needed sleep. Still wasn’t sure if it was good or bad to be on the glowing floor section by the time we broke up. Hehe.

Another plus, the people I raided with were pretty nice. It was all a PUG, and we all seemed to understand that this was just a Beta, we shouldn’t expect everything to work perfectly, and we were there to have fun. Overall, a good experience for 2 hours in brand new content.

I don’t know if we hit the enrage timer, but looking at posts above I think it’s likely we did (was that the popcorn bombs?). If so, then I DO think that the timer needs to be extended. I know raids are supposed to be challenging, but our first raid should be a bit on the forgiving side so people don’t get too frustrated.

In the end, I think this first raid will provide good training for later raids. Though it is small and will become repetitive once people have each part figured out (I figure an experienced group familiar with the raid may be able to complete it in under 30 minutes, maybe as short as 20). Hopefully ANet has plans that will make later raids more interesting.

Halvorn.9831:

Well ok, then here’s a bug report. Went to Mists on my beta chars, placed loot in my regular account bank, logged to a non-beta char, retrieved items, soldd on TP.

I wasn’t even aware that this was not intended. I just thought TP was disabled on beta chars so they could not buy things from gem store that would be lost when they are purged.

Oh drat! I tried that first BWE and it didn’t work, so I didn’t even try this weekend. If I’d know that it could work I’d have had some nice stuff to sell on my non-Beta characters. Hehe.

I am hardly some master elite player in GW2. Half the reason I stay here is I got tired of raids in other MMO’s. But my experience this weekend leads me to believe that raids in GW2 are going to be reasonably accessible, and challenging without being impossible.

Yes, you’ll need good gear, but that’s not too difficult. Between crafting, karma, and laurels, even someone who doesn’t like PvP can get Exotics or better.

And yes, you’ll need to set your character(s) up for playing specific roles in raids. Anyone who’s been playing a while should already have a good idea how to play at least some of the roles. And sometimes learning to be good at that role can be half the fun. In the raid I was in this weekend I was already set up reasonably for a role, but as I played I figured out ways I could do it better.

And yes, raids will need skill, but any advanced content should require skill. But, again, I’m not an elite player, but I was able to hold my own pretty well once I understood what I needed to do.

Raids may not be everyone’s cup of tea. But from what I saw this weekend, they will only be “exclusive” if you let them be.

1 – Revenants are a new profession. Their versatility is that their weapon AND their utility skills change. No other profession can do this. ANet had to balance this somehow.

2 – I had little trouble soloing much of the content. Other content is clearly meant for more people. Since there were almost always people around, I didn’t find this a problem.

3 – Okay, no real arguments there. The jumping mushrooms are kinda silly.

As for the last paragraph – GW2 is already one of the most friendly MMO’s to casual players. I’ve been able to level several characters to 80, gear them up with Exotics, and most of it solo over the past 3 years. And I have limited play time. HoT is not meant for beginners. Pretty much every expansion for any MMO is not meant for beginners. Even so, my experience with Raids this weekend leads me to believe they will be a lot easier to get into than most other MMOs.

As for “no high quality massive single player RPGs”, have you not heard about Dragon Age, or The Witcher? The latest ones can easily consume 100+ hours, each.

This is nothing new. None of our progress in the original rounds of Beta were saved. Why should it be different now?

That being said, I would like to have kept some of the stuff I picked up. But I knew what I signed up for, so I’m not going to complain.

It would be nice to turn off, or at least turn down, the flashy effects… especially in large groups. In raids, the ability to see your enemy will undoubtedly be crucial.

Gameplay means being able to play the game. If the flashy effects are blocking the view, it hampers gameplay.

Just to add the chaos – the Beta Weekends typically start at noon Pacific.

We’ll probably see an official notice sometime in October.

This is no different than in any other MMO – new content requires buying the expansion it comes with.

Raids are new to GW2. The first raids will take place in the new lands. This should not be unexpected.

Raids may be expanded into the older content in the future, after ANet has had time to tweak and get a handle on how to design and balance raids in HoT.

The way it says “The encounters within Raids will contain tons of exclusive new items you’ll never be able to find anywhere else in the game,” makes it sound like we’re dealing with RNG drops.

Honestly, I’d rather we earned tokens that we can use to perchance what we want, just like from dungeons, rather than raid over and over and hope we get a drop we like.

Or, at the least, make the drops like the Carapace armors, where we get to chose a specific item of the type.

I like most of what Anet is saying about Raids and Challenging Cotent. As usual, it sounds like ANet has really examined what is fun, what isn’t fun, and worked to make their new system as fun as possible.

EXCEPT… the whole part about requiring specific Masteries. Part of the fun about GW2 has always been that certain classes and abilities were not required. We didn’t need tanks of healers to accomplish things. Roles were flexible, you could even change a role in the middle of a fight by swapping weapons. If you knew your Profession and abilities well, you could win.

Now it’s sounding like Raids in GW2 are going back to the old formula. Instead of the game letting me play the way I want to, now I’ll be required to play the way the game wants. If I don’t, then failure is practically guaranteed.

I could be wrong. Maybe Raids in GW2 will be incredibly fun. But I worry that they’ll be incredibly frustrating if we do not follow the very specific path to victory.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

in the Xpac they clearly stated the Trinity will not happen because this game does not force you into those roles but it is a choice of " how much Damage do you want to provide" , " how much support do you wish to provide" , “How much Control do you wish to provide”

The Trinity may not happen. But Raids will force players in other ways.

“if your squad is working on the last boss of a wing, and no one has a particular and clearly stated Mastery unlocked, you’re probably going to fail spectacularly.”

This is saying that it doesn’t matter how much DPS, Control, or Support the group has. It doesn’t matter how balanced or how skilled the group is. If people don’t have a specific Mastery, the raid is almost guaranteed to fail.

Yeah, I don’t really like an “enraged” mechanic either. It’s like the game is punishing you for not having enough DPS. Which, as others have pointed out, only encourages people to gear up specific builds.

PopeUrban.2578:

I suppose it’s possible that technically the destruction of the pact fleet hasn’t happenned yet though, right? As in the video that we got was a teaser which is technically the intro to HoT.

As has been said, officially Season 2 ended with the Pact fleet’s destruction. The movie that played AFTER (the one narrated by Caithe, saying how things were going to hell) was a teaser for Heart of Thorns.

I agree that it makes more sense that over the past several months the Pact has been searching for Mordremoth (it’s a big jungle!), and the fleet hasn’t been knocked down yet. But that’s not what ANet has said, unless they decide to retcon it.

Season 2 ended with the Pact airship fleet being decimated. Heart of Thorns opens up immediately after. This means only hours, days at most, have passed in-game.

Today “The Mordrem Are Coming” was announced. https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-mordrem-are-coming/
Yay, looks like fun! BUT… when does this fit in the timeline? Was it before the Pact fleet’s destruction? After? Happened about the same time?

The loot you will get will be the same, whether you go solo or take a full party. The loot that drops for you, ONLY you can pick up. No one else can pick it up. Loot is not split between everyone there.

So, you will not earn any more profit doing a dungeon solo. If profit is what you want, join people doing speed runs.

I’d love to see a proper sitting animation.

Revenants should be able to channel Tybalt!

I could add such a huge list of desired emotes… so I’ll just save space and say:
Yes, please!

And the suggestions so far are good ones.

phys.7689:

Tregarde.6031:

It’s no different than the Beta Weekends three years ago. ANet felt only certain parts were ready for playing, so we only got those parts.

The company has limited resources, and so they prioritize and concentrate on a limited number of things at any one time. They’re doing their best to get Heart of Thorns done. Personally, I appreciate their ‘when it’s done’ policy over rushing out broken, buggy, and unbalanced things to meet some arbitrary deadline.

no, the beta weekends years ago were basically close to fully formed, and had access to all professions. They locked out stuff beyond a few starter maps, not because of what was ready, but of what they were willing to reveal.

¯\(?)/¯
Sure, all professions were there. But there were other things (besides starter maps) that were not in the 1st, or even 2nd BWE. And I think it’s safe to say HoT is “close to fully formed,” or we wouldn’t be having this new round of BWE’s.

So my point still stands. We’ll get to test things when ANet feels they’re ready. Not before. Which is fine with me.

In general, I’m enjoying these new options for my characters. Some suit the way I play them, some don’t. And that’s the point of the Elites – to give us more options, not to make our characters super powerful.

Sure, they need some tweaking to get them balanced well, but that’s half the point of the beta weekends.

The only one I find ‘underwhelming’ so far is the Dragonhunter. It just feels too much like they decided to give the Guardian some Ranger abilities, and I played the new abilities very much like I do my Ranger. But I did find it a useful hybrid of abilities, I may wind up keeping the bow on my Guardian.

Here you go – the inspiration for the staff Daredevil:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mw9vaNS3b0s

(note – put here for entertainment, not as criticism)

It’s no different than the Beta Weekends three years ago. ANet felt only certain parts were ready for playing, so we only got those parts.

The company has limited resources, and so they prioritize and concentrate on a limited number of things at any one time. They’re doing their best to get Heart of Thorns done. Personally, I appreciate their ‘when it’s done’ policy over rushing out broken, buggy, and unbalanced things to meet some arbitrary deadline.