Guild Wars 2

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

Hello, Mist Warriors!

I am excited to reveal that on August 8th we will be adding Gliding to WvW. The team has been working hard on a way to make gliding in WvW feel fun and fair, and by using our brand new territory system, we believe we finally have come up with a way to accomplish both goals.

Territories

Each objective in WvW now has a territory associated with it, and the ownership of each objective is displayed by map outlines in the color of the owning team. In addition to the map displaying the territory, the WvW score UI now displays the objective of your current territory next to the War Score your team is earning that tick. The objective icon functions the same way it does on the map and clicking it will open the Objective Upgrades panel.

Gliding

Gliding in WvW does not require unlocking gliding through PvE masteries. Instead, you can acquire Gliding by using ability points in the new Heart of Thorns War Gliding Mastery. The War Gliding Mastery is available to those who own Heart of Thorns and allows gliding in territories that your team owns in the Mist War maps: Eternal Battlegrounds, Alpine, and Desert Borderlands. If you enter a territory that you do not own while gliding, you will be kicked from your glider.

We’ve made several map adjustments to the Eternal Battlegrounds, Desert, and Alpine Borderlands maps to better accommodate gliding. Besides map adjustments, we have also replaced Ballista’s fourth skill with an anti-air bolt skill that shoots people out of the air and immobilizes them for a short duration.

It is important to keep in mind that this is a test for gliding in WvW. If we discover with this test that gliding is not appropriate for WvW, we will disable it.

Ability Point Reset

With the August 8th update, we are also adding a new ability point reset vendor, the World Ability Master, to every portal/home keep (team starting area). A free sample ability point reset is available per character so that everyone with ability points can start gliding right away.

This is all I have to say about that.

I haven’t read the many posts on this so bare with me if it’s repeated: I don’t think giving ranger-like skills to a hybrid melee class is a good idea. Though giving a bow does help about the range issue. I would be giving them both offensive and defensive melee skills or utilities to assist against dragons, but still keep the bow. Just my bief 2 cents.

$50 for the core AND HoT? yes. For just HoT the base expansion? No. That is my issue. Simply that. I don’t NEED another copy of GW2. I already have another account from when my daughters tried to play and I claimed it when they stopped. I don’t intend to put HoT on that one until I know how it goes. I am not INTERESTED in paying for something I don’t need.
HOWEVER, I have bought core games like that when they included bunches of other expansions when it was cheaper to do it that way on steam. They provided the option for another CD key for that core game and any other expansion/DLC I had already purchased.

Another slot? Most people in game can farm enough gold or use real cash to buy the gems, then buy the slot. Unfortunately, dropping the price would be a better option for those who already have GW2.

Considering NCSoft’s financial woes and potential restructuring, this is probably what they told Anet to do in order to boost profits.

Need a larger map before we start raising the number of players. The map being used in this beta is good enough for 5v5. MAYBE 6v6. 10v10, IMHO, is too many for structured.

Everybody that is NOT new to structured PvP will find that A LOT of the builds used there are being used in Strongholds. This is all new and people, as stated above, have found ways to counter some of the “brain dead” builds that are out there. If your preferred profession happens to NOT have the proper counter to what you are facing, then simply hope that somebody on your team does. Communication is important. Again, we are all still trying to learn this as we go, though I do feel like there is something missing from structured that should be there.

When MMO’s first came out, yes they had monthly, but they were DESIGNED to make you play for LONG periods of time so that they make a lot of money off of YOUR time. GW2 is not and as someone typed above, a major restructuring of the game would have to happen. There are some of us that have very limited budgets so monthly options would NOT be viable for us.

Syione.3046:

Rangers should get dinosaurs for pets!

T-rex FTW?

I didn’t read all the posts, but this is my take: I miss the days of the IWAY builds and “Fang of Milandru” builds as well. Things were were more flexible then. In GW2, you are pretty much slotted with what you have. Though the first five skills connected to each weapon DOES make sense. Unless you wanted to make some weird farming build. Heh!

I interpreted this as “Old wounds reopened on a former GW1 player”. Which I am also a former GW1 player, I might add, AND whose account and main character was there at the beginning as well. In addition to 7+ years of GvG. Let’s be realistic here. A different player base was targeted and modeled for. With HoT, I think they are trying to find some type of middle ground to bring some of us who were GW1 PvP and PvE’ers back. Strongholds, with the current game mechanic, MAY BE the closest to real GW1 GvG there is. We will know for sure once they start more reveals about the expansion.

Linken.6345:

I think I got what he wants more varied encounters but how the hell do you design a mob that a cleric wearer take down easier then a zerker

Well, maybe one might have an effective build, as a warrior, to score well on DPS. Maybe one day you don’t feel like DPS and want to go support and be equally as effective in a group. That’s the kind of variety the OP is talking about. Usually, the hard part is figuring out what traits/skills/weapon sets/armor you need to fill that role. Yeesh.That sounds expensive.

Bryzy.2719:

May I just direct everyone towards the fact that Anet are creating SPECIALISATIONS with HoT??

That in itself says they recognise the fact that there needs to be disparity between professions and role-taking in the game for it to be fun to play. So regardless of what you all say about role-taking being bad or ‘oh noes we can’t have da trinity’ – too late because that’s what Anet are leaning towards with this expansion.

Absolutely zero trinity will never happen in any MMO. The linear gameplay that GW2 has right now with its PvE set-up advocating a single meta is BORING. Plain and bloody simple. There’s no meta diversity, no variation and no tactical thought. Just mindless zergs of #MaxZerkOmg players running around seeing who can do the most damage.

A good point. It’s a possibility. As of the zerging issue, yeah. Unless you are actually GUIDING the zerg, it is just mind numbing following it around. I wouldn’t have a bigger team than 20 going after keeps and have smaller teams of 5 running round mostly harrassing and taking camps on multiple servers. A lot more coordinating and less mind numbing, IMHO. OH! And we will have to learn how to keep the keeps now since they will be more rewarding to keep! In the early release of GW2, that’s what my guild did.

Vayne.8563:

gregor lightbringer.7143:

I won’t buy ANYTHING until I know how strongholds will work. It may be the closest, with the current mechanic, to GW1 GvG there is. However, I am skeptical on the feel of it. The mechanic focuses too much on a solo-style game play. GvG in GW1 was team oriented. Yes, I know about spit teams and even where a single profession (mostly ranger or assassin), but you really had to know your profession. I really feel that Anet traded one fan base for another, but that isn’t the topic today, is it?

A lot of people who liked Guild Wars 1 assume that most people liked Guild Wars 1 for the same reason they did, in the same way they did. I don’t believe that to be true. I don’t believe half the people who played Guild Wars 1 ever participated in Guild vs Guild, let alone liked it. As Guild Wars 1 grew as a game, they moved away from PvP and into PvE. You could see how the game started to evolve. That must have meant that a lot of players didn’t play Guild Wars 1 the way you think they did. Or at very least they started trading their fan base a long long time ago. Long before Guild Wars 2 came out.

I actually had played GW1 since it’s open beta and GvG’ed for 7 YEARS. I enjoyed the PvP aspect AND the growing PvE evolution of the the game. The PvP of GW1 was what got it’s popularity. To me it was balanced in the end with the PvP and PvE.
I like the PvE of GW2, but the PvP (structured) is too “copy/paste” for my taste. I don’t mind WvWvW. To me, that would be good casual PvP.

Q: Stongholds: What party sizes are they considering and what kind of gameplay will it be? Will it be like the “battle of attrition” style of combat like GW1 GvG or more like structured?

I have no problem with specializations as long as they compliment the profession instead of “insult” it.

I see what you are saying about a more supportive role for professions, but the problem is the mechanic of the game. It’s designed to give you more of a “I can solo” feel. In structured, for instance, you could have a “team” of 2 players each having specific set ups. Each, however could hold their own depending on the circumstances. In GW1, however, even with slpit teams/professions, everybody was set up to work as an integral part of a whole. Team play and communication was paramount. Support professions were TRULY support professions.
Again, I THINK I understand where you are coming from, but with this type of game mechanic I highly doubt it would come about because any profession/professions that truly are given abilities/skills that would enable a more functional support ability would become OP.

I won’t buy ANYTHING until I know how strongholds will work. It may be the closest, with the current mechanic, to GW1 GvG there is. However, I am skeptical on the feel of it. The mechanic focuses too much on a solo-style game play. GvG in GW1 was team oriented. Yes, I know about spit teams and even where a single profession (mostly ranger or assassin), but you really had to know your profession. I really feel that Anet traded one fan base for another, but that isn’t the topic today, is it?

As someone who played GW1 from day one, I remember all the balancing done in GvG. Sometimes it was meant to mix things up to change meta and other times it was because of gimmicky builds that unbalanced PvP. Now it SEEMS like balancing has been ignored and as much as I liked the idea of a different mechanic, I would now like to see the trinity come back so that GvG, or something similar, can come back to bring back what Guildwars was about in the beginning: Guilds fighting Guilds. Just add a healer class, nerf healing type skills on the other professions to balance, and it will be good to go. It will be a lot of work, but it will bring a lot of friends back if it works.

Basically I log in and I can’t get out through the way point. There is at least one other besides me.

Where the heck was the spirit of GuildWars in GENERAL in that? IMHO, another mark against Anet, NCSoft, and Nexon.

I’m used to the old GW1 hammer warrior. It was the slowest weapon in the game, but it almost ALWAYS was used as the #2 warrior in meta. KD’s were used as important strategic and spiking techniques. HOWEVER, backbreaker in GW1 was a 4 second KD. In GW2 it’s 2 seconds. The mechanics in GW2, obviously, are totally different and it was reduced to MOSTLY a control weapon instead of just another choice of weapon gameplay. Hammer is not what it was to me. IT NEVER was a defensive or control weapon. It was a “kick as many butts as possible” weapon. I begin to wonder who they pulled their game testers from.

We NEED GvG back in Guild WARS. Period. Just about ALL my friends, who were GW1 players who go back as far as open beta days, are basically quiting because WvWvW can mostly be a zerg-fest and structured PvP is more like a cross between random/team arenas from GW1 and capture the flag. I know they were trying to eliminate the trinity, and thus had to redo how the pvp is done. It removed, however, the sense of the “war of attrition” and true tactical sense that GW1 GvG had. Without going into it too deeply, I feel that the original GW1 PvP commnunity was abandoned for the sake of a more “traditional” mmo game.

Whispering karma amor with Vigil helm. Gold with some maroon trim. Had to have The old school Icebreaker in there.

If they made the movement control server side instead of local side, it wouldn’t be so much a problem. Of course, the issue would be then performance.