Guild Wars 2

New races won’t happen. They’re struggling to create legendary armour skins a year and a half after they were due. They’re obviously understaffed and redoing all known skins would either not happen and you’d have hundreds of crashes bugs or it would be very shoddily done.

electricwater.1572:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Largo’s wings would clash horribly with the ingame backpacks leading to characters with double wings, the Largos wings and the Gemstore wings.

The lore description of the Largos clashes with how the chars need to be well integrated into the society around them.
The largos are an enigmatic aquatic race from the depths of the Unending Ocean and the arctic oceans to the far north. They are silent, determined, and calculating killers. Few have ever seen them and lived to report it. The largos purposefully do not interact with land-dwellers.

As for this feature of their race They are capable of becoming invisible as they hunt their prey or scout their area. That will either be gone or it will so short it will be as useful as all the other racial skills.

No doubt some will say they can remove the wings. If you remove the wings and they never take off the mask so you can’t see the face and the Largos personality is rewritten to fit in with the story then why bother to make this race? They will be essentially long eared humans.

There is concept art of largos without wings though.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/c/c3/Female_Largos_without_Wings_concept_art.jpg

granted, this one was probably to show off armor in the back, but they could always say that those wings are artificial constructs designed to make it easier to swim, and while the standard largo comes with black/blue wings, you could change it later to whatever you want.

The lore doesn’t clash because there is no need to integrate the new race into existing vanilla story. It’s an expansion race, so it’s logical it only becomes available in expansion. Perhaps the events in largos homeland changed. They are now more aggressively attacked by DSD minions and have to seek help from other races, even if they do not personally like it.

Stealth could become a racial skill and have no major impact.

They can remove the mask, why not? They can even design different masks that don’t cover all of the face, but just parts of it.

I don’t really see the problem with this race.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

electricwater.1572:

About the voice actors. If new race would be largos (well I’d really like that) they wouldn’t need new voice actors. Since largos wear those breathing devices that transform their voice. So you could just use existing human/norn VA and then use some software to make it sound ‘robotic’.

So in your scenario, we’d have a “new” race that has no personal story, uses the same voices/expressions as humans, the same character models, the same armor. What, then, would make this a “new” race?

Who said there’s no personal story? I’m sure largos would have quite an interesting culture. The only thing we know about them atm is that they are secretive and belong to Tethyos houses. They could surely elaborate on that.

Well character models are a little bit different, but still humanoid (like sylvari and norn) so it’s easy to fit old armor on them. Their textures are quite different. Their skin looks kinda scaly and bluish in color (expand this color scheme to green/grey/purple/white) . They could have different hairstyles, fashions, etc.

What would make them a new race? Their lore, culture, fashion.

Do you necessarily need a giant ten-legged one-eyed creature with a high voice to call it a ‘new race’?

Because the only way to not have to pay a VA to do VA is to use existing lines. Which means no personal story for them. At least not one until the point at which the characters all say the same thing. So LS2 and on. I’d say LS1, but you can’t play that.

Classic example of people using their desires to reshape facts. The two most requested playable races are Tengu followed by Largos – as in, the masses desperately want to play bipedal birds for some reason and I’d much rather roll an aquatic butterfly.

Both of those races have character models distinct enough to require a complete rework of all existing armors.

I’m sure there are plenty of players who’d be willing to provide voices for the characters merely for credits getting their names in their game. I’d do it.

electricwater.1572:

About the voice actors. If new race would be largos (well I’d really like that) they wouldn’t need new voice actors. Since largos wear those breathing devices that transform their voice. So you could just use existing human/norn VA and then use some software to make it sound ‘robotic’.

So in your scenario, we’d have a “new” race that has no personal story, uses the same voices/expressions as humans, the same character models, the same armor. What, then, would make this a “new” race?

They dont even add armor to the game and prefer to add outfits since its less work. Why would you even think they would bring a new race?

Largo’s wings would clash horribly with the ingame backpacks leading to characters with double wings, the Largos wings and the Gemstore wings.

The lore description of the Largos clashes with how the chars need to be well integrated into the society around them.
The largos are an enigmatic aquatic race from the depths of the Unending Ocean and the arctic oceans to the far north. They are silent, determined, and calculating killers. Few have ever seen them and lived to report it. The largos purposefully do not interact with land-dwellers.

As for this feature of their race They are capable of becoming invisible as they hunt their prey or scout their area. That will either be gone or it will so short it will be as useful as all the other racial skills.

No doubt some will say they can remove the wings. If you remove the wings and they never take off the mask so you can’t see the face and the Largos personality is rewritten to fit in with the story then why bother to make this race? They will be essentially long eared humans.

Adding a new race adds a minimal amount of eye candy for the players that would need a disproportionate amount of labor on the part of the devs, and money on the part of the company, to make neat and tidy.

Most MMOs that add a new race to their games have a base model that can be tweaked with minimal developmental effort. GW2’s character models are so varied, though, that anything short of a completely new model (or one that hasnt been player accessible), would be unacceptable to the players, so this ease of implementation doesn’t really apply in this respect.

It’s too much, for too little.

But if a new race uses the same armor and animations as, say humans, then would the community really be satisfied with their addition? It almost seems “why bother” to me.

Adry.7512:

This completely debunks the assumption that there will be no new race added to the future of GW2.

No, it doesn’t. It only addresses one issue (and not thoroughly either). If you look at any of the threads where new races are discussed, you’d see:

• the developers don’t think it’s likely
• the question of armor is only resolved if the new race uses identical models to other races, to that there isn’t any need to do additional design/customization/QA
• identical models would be boring for a lot of players, who like races being visually distinct
• regardless, new armor doesn’t resolve the issue of the personal story
• even ignoring all of the above, ANet still would need to hire another 10 voice actors for everything in the game (2 genders for English, French, German, Spanish, & Mandarin)

tl;dr no, a new race is anything but likely.

you seem focused on the armor bit, but thats not the main argument why it’s unlikely:
1) it’d need a home city with a home zone. And thats why tengu is unlikely, there’s no space for both.
2) Personal Story needs to have a unique twist. Luckily, if lorewise the race doesn’t join the pact until after Zhaitan’s death, they can just have their own unique story until lv80 and then ‘join the pact’-right after the assault on Lion’s Arch (they’d still need a good reason why they weren’t in Orr)
3) dialogue, it would several new voice actors
4)

The VA currently is a lot of work for them, especially as they have ramped up the amount of dialogue. That on its own is probably the single biggest reason new races are highly unlikely. Scheduling plus costs as a non-trivial obstacle they would need to add into an already demanding amount of work they have to do.

No one is ruling out a new race entirely, although the likelihood is very much stacked against it still. As for what is stated in the OP, whether the race is built on existing framework is not entirely relevant, since races have individual details to consider – Charr and their tail for eg. Players want Largos, yet the “wings” cause issues there. And so on.

Adry.7512:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

This is a summary of what was said in 2013 about new races and new professions

“In 2013 in an interview with Matt Visual, Colin talked about the possibility of adding another race that the player base really wanted. (and we STILL really want them) After that interview, he went back to ANet and they had a discussion on adding another race vs adding another class. They came to the conclusion that adding another race really did not add much to the game while adding another class added a lot to the game. Which is why they stopped looking at adding another race and went full steam into working on the Revenant.

The reasons for adding a new race would be:
1. A new playable race
2. New stories and lore
3. Adding a few racial skills and elites
4. A new city and zone for 1-15 levels that do not affect the core plot with Zhaitan/LS 1 & 2.
5. Appease fans who are asking for it

The reasons against adding a new race:
1. Hiring a new male/female voice actor to be the voice of the main characters (pricy and gotta work their schedules)
2. Building another personal story (takes time)
3. Personalizing to the race, certain interactions with NPCs (racism, curiosity, etc) (often overlooked and takes a lot of time)
4. Adjusting EVERY piece of armor in the entire game(and those yet to come) to fit the new race (This would take months on its own)
5. Slows down production on all future armors, racial interactions, scenes where your playable character has to speak new lines, etc. (for every set, they have to customize 6-18 pieces of armor for 6 different races)
6. Racial skills are generally far weaker than the normal class skills/used rarely (nornbear pre nerf exception)
7. Setting the precedent that with an expansion you get a new race (meaning someday they would be making 6-18 pieces of armor for 7-8 races… ouch on the budget)

Pros for making a new class:
1. This directly affects the core of GW2. The gameplay, the fights!
2. Completely new playstyle and experience for players to enjoy playing as/with/against 3. Potentially turning the pve/pvp/wvw meta on its head- goodbye GWEN
4. Addition of Revenant lore
5. Bringing in that missing blend from ritualists/dervish from GWf1
6. A new change to team compositions that is drastically different than it would be if it was just a new race

Cons:
1. Another class to balance skills/traits/specialties
Taking the arguments for one or the other with those facts in mind, I am not surprised that ANet chose to pursue the Revenant instead of Kodan/Tengu. In future expansions they may make the same choice again. In terms of affecting gameplay, adding another class will always have a bigger impact than adding a new race. Because of that we may never see a new playable race. It just forces Anet to dedicate much more resources every time they make something new.

On the flip side, ANet does recognize and even Colin himself would love to play a new race. But can they justify the cost? Perhaps if the community spoke loudly enough."

Link to full after-party notes/commentary – http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2tsiox/pax_afterparty_lessons_learned/

Coilin is nonexistent now. Additionally this tells me absolutely nothing. All it states is why people like new races….the hardwork required for a new race….for ANY mmo….and the obvious…balancing. This clearly states nothing more, oh and that for the first Xpac they decided to focus on a new class instead of a new race…Xpac 1 already came out….meaning that none of this is relevant anymore. Sorry

Just because you don’t like his answer doesn’t mean it’s not relevant and just because someone isn’t working for a company anymore doesn’t mean that the arguments against it that he used (voice actors, armor, extra time and money from now on to do all new content) suddenly goes “poof.” They explained the reasons why new races were unlikely. Unless those reasons have changed then they are still valid.

This is a summary of what was said in 2013 about new races and new professions

“In 2013 in an interview with Matt Visual, Colin talked about the possibility of adding another race that the player base really wanted. (and we STILL really want them) After that interview, he went back to ANet and they had a discussion on adding another race vs adding another class. They came to the conclusion that adding another race really did not add much to the game while adding another class added a lot to the game. Which is why they stopped looking at adding another race and went full steam into working on the Revenant.

The reasons for adding a new race would be:
1. A new playable race
2. New stories and lore
3. Adding a few racial skills and elites
4. A new city and zone for 1-15 levels that do not affect the core plot with Zhaitan/LS 1 & 2.
5. Appease fans who are asking for it

The reasons against adding a new race:
1. Hiring a new male/female voice actor to be the voice of the main characters (pricy and gotta work their schedules)
2. Building another personal story (takes time)
3. Personalizing to the race, certain interactions with NPCs (racism, curiosity, etc) (often overlooked and takes a lot of time)
4. Adjusting EVERY piece of armor in the entire game(and those yet to come) to fit the new race (This would take months on its own)
5. Slows down production on all future armors, racial interactions, scenes where your playable character has to speak new lines, etc. (for every set, they have to customize 6-18 pieces of armor for 6 different races)
6. Racial skills are generally far weaker than the normal class skills/used rarely (nornbear pre nerf exception)
7. Setting the precedent that with an expansion you get a new race (meaning someday they would be making 6-18 pieces of armor for 7-8 races… ouch on the budget)

Pros for making a new class:
1. This directly affects the core of GW2. The gameplay, the fights!
2. Completely new playstyle and experience for players to enjoy playing as/with/against 3. Potentially turning the pve/pvp/wvw meta on its head- goodbye GWEN
4. Addition of Revenant lore
5. Bringing in that missing blend from ritualists/dervish from GWf1
6. A new change to team compositions that is drastically different than it would be if it was just a new race

Cons:
1. Another class to balance skills/traits/specialties
Taking the arguments for one or the other with those facts in mind, I am not surprised that ANet chose to pursue the Revenant instead of Kodan/Tengu. In future expansions they may make the same choice again. In terms of affecting gameplay, adding another class will always have a bigger impact than adding a new race. Because of that we may never see a new playable race. It just forces Anet to dedicate much more resources every time they make something new.

On the flip side, ANet does recognize and even Colin himself would love to play a new race. But can they justify the cost? Perhaps if the community spoke loudly enough."

Link to full after-party notes/commentary – http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2tsiox/pax_afterparty_lessons_learned/

There seems to be this argument about a new race not happening in the near future of GW2. This opinion is backed by the fact that making a new race require a lot of work because of all the different armors that would have to be re-done and future armors for said race. THIS is backed up by a couple of dev comments stating how hard it is to make a different armor type every race, which explains why we dont get an abundance of armor per major content update.

Well I will tell you that all your assumptions are wrong. What Anet has created (and the reason why they struggle in making armor), is a different body type for almost EVERY race available in GW2. We have a small, medium, large, and beastly body-type. This sums up almost every body-type available in your average mmo. Meaning that there is a veryyyyyy high probability that any future race added to the game WILL fit the body-type of a current race. This means that ANY armor created or existing will be able to be applied to said race without any difficulties.

This completely debunks the assumption that there will be no new race added to the future of GW2.

EDIT: the race that you play in this game is irrelevant. What matter is the position of commander. If the new race gets introduced through living world then the stories can merge and eventually having said race as a commander would make sense. Now I’m sure a few tweaks and twists would have to be made in the storyline. Who knows, maybe in future storylines we turn down our position and promote a fellow member as the new commander, making it easier to include a new race.

EDIT 12/28/2016: The introduction of a new race is predominantly story-based. Lets break it down; a new race Xpac comes with a race (obviously), maps, armor, weapons, architecture, story, depth, lore, and culture.

NOW, lets see what a regular GW2 update contains; new maps, armor, weapons, architecture, story, little depth, little lore, and sometimes culture. Now do you see the big picture?

For Xpac one they were deciding between a new race or new class….THATS IT! They werent deciding on new race vs. more features, or new race vs. more xpac. They simply decided that a new class would bring more balance to the game.

If anything i think this game needs an Xpac that focuses more on lore expansion and story development, which would be ideal with the addition of a new race.

*finishes Winters’ Presence
*equips it
*equips winter outfit
*no snow

*cries in quaggan

I found out its better not to have every aura on since some of them will block the others from showing.

I hope they put in some exchange npc so we can change exotic to ascended.

Toasa.1236:

I mean , why should you main a class and exactly learn how to Play it, if there are several other classes where you dont have to learn so much, and its way better?

Probably because skilled players think that if you exactly learn how to play your main, you are going to be better than others, regardless of the build they use. For example, mesmers should stay far away from dragonhunters to avoid the traps, save an escape, and shatter clones to prematurely trigger traps.

There are always going to be some builds with a lower skill floor than others; that doesn’t make them overpowered. The ‘meta’ is not just about choosing a popular build (easy or not); it’s about being prepared to deal with people who are running those popular builds.

Since we have A wardrobe and outfit areas can we get a sort of “toybox” for all our toys and musical instruments to sit in to save precious space!

Haleydawn.3764:

Nightshade.5924:

Haleydawn.3764:

Nightshade.5924:

ProtoGunner.4953:

It’s not that hard actually. Just try it. To point that out, I am probably something above average but by far not the best Jumper out there and I have never ever seen any snoflake melt under my feet. That just happens if you are super slow and there is no need to be slow, just jump straight to the next snowflake.

Also, I like if some kind of achievement (take it literally: achievement, you achieve something) is needed to make something. It is a fluff item, not needed.

I’m guessing you didn’t read my post.

For clarity. I have tried this JP time and time again.

For the last four years.

I have NEVER, NOT ONCE, EVER, GOT PAST THE MELTING SNOWFLAKES.

For the record, I have completed MAYBE HALF of the in game JP’s. And in most cases had help from friends or other players (Mesmers) to allow completion.

And that is why this sort of gating SHOULD NOT EXIST. SHOULD NOT HAPPEN.

Not everyone is good at jumping puzzles. I think the best example I can use here is Mike Jordan. I’m sure you’ve heard of him. If you’re over 30, anyway.

My point being is MJ was a Basketball God. He was the MAN. BUT… guess what? When he tried to play PRO BASEBALL… NNNNNnEEEEPPppTTTT!!! WRONG ANSWER!! EPIC FAIL!

So… anyone can play the game. But there’s only, what, a few hundred guys that compete at the world level for PvP? There are Three or four servers that DOMINATE WvW? ARE YOU GETTING THE POINT?

I hope so. And I REALLY, REALLY HOPE THAT THE DEVS DO TOO.

For ME, and MANY others, the WD JP is just not doable. And that Gate should be REMOVED from WP. It is the ONLY collection that I am CURRENTLY aware of that has such a thing.

nuff said.

I don’t like Toypocolypse, Bell Choir or Snowball Mayhem, but I don’t think those requirements should be removed from Winter’s Presence acquisition. I’ll just have to grin and bare it and try and get the Snowball wins and Bell Choir done. If I don’t, oh well. It’s not pertinent to obtain this skin at all, if you want it, you’ll do the requirements like everyone else.

I’m perplexed. Why are you even playing GW? You can’t do open world combat? Really? You don’t PvP? Really?

Because THAT’s what Toyocolypse is. Open world w/ altered weapons. Because that’s what Snowball Mayhem is… PvP w/ altered powers.

You’re saying YOU CAN’T EVEN DO MAIN CONTENT, and you have the NERVE to comment ON MY HATRED OF JUMPING PUZZLES?

Dude. So WRONG. I agree that the Choir is annoying.. but doable. UNLIKE the JP.

The adjusted weapons are precisely the reason I don’t like them. They’re clunky, slow and sometimes a bit laggy, as is bell choir. I don’t hate them, just not fond of it.
I’m an avid PvP/WvW’er. But I generally play a bit of everything. Just because you seem to think you can’t do a pretty easy jumping puzzle doesn’t mean It’s not doable.
I actually find your argument for removing it funny. Because your only argument is that you can’t do it. That’s it.

And again My point seems to escape you.

An EASY jumping puzzle is one that anyone can do. Say Shaman’s Run.

And I don’t THINK I can’t do this puzzle. I KNOW I can’t. Again w/ you not reading. Go back to the original post. I’ve tried dozens of times to get past the (&%!#$%^& melt under your feet snowflakes. I. CANNOT. DO. IT.

There’s a reason I only have done about HALF of the JP’s in the game. I SUCK AT THEM. Going back to Shaman run? The first time I tried it,… hmmm. I think It took me something like 10 tries. Probably more, though.

And for the record, the three guys that I play most often w/ agree w/ me. None of us, to the best of my knowledge, have EVER completed the WD JP.

JP’s ARE NOT MAIN CONTENT. THEY ARE SPECIALIZED CONTENT. THEY SHOULD NEVER BE USED TO GATE ANYTHING LIKE A COLLECTION THAT IS OPEN TO ALL PLAYERS.

OR.. the WD JP should be made available ALL YEAR. So maybe after another YEAR of trying it, I might complete it ONCE. Or TWICE. So that’s, what, seven years to get the achievement?

First of all, you’re assume a new player cannot be a good player.

Secondly, you’re assuming the player’s build is all that matters, rather than strategy and situational awareness.

by ‘noob build’, do you mean ‘good easy builds that are stronger than weak hard builds’?

OriOri.8724:

A few changes I would like to see that would not only make the game better, but also make balancing easier:

• Change traps and marks so that the CD only starts after the mark/trap is triggered or they time out (oh yea, this would also involve putting a reasonable time out on traps/marks in all game modes). These skills should be balanced around this.

• Remove passive procs. Ideally all passive procs would be removed from the game, however realistically I want to see ~50-75% of the passive procs removed. I honestly believe that with the direction ANet went with HoT that simply removing all passive procs would now be a bad move, so I want to move towards severely limiting the amount of passive procs in this game. At the very least all passive procs that deal damage or activate invuln skills need to be removed. Stuff like Hunter’s Determination, Versed in Stone, Pulsating Pestilence, Defy Pain etc…

• Skills should have 1 or 2 things that they do, no more. SoTM is still a prime example of exactly what NOT to do with a skill ANet. Damage, CC, and evade built into a single skill, and you don’t even have to trait for any of it.

• Auto attack chains should not be applying conditions or boons. Its too easy, contributes to boon/condi spam like crazy, and makes it absurdly easy to apply cover condis throughout the entire fight. I could maybe, maybe, be convinced that its ok for each class to have 1 auto chain that applies a boon/condi on the third hit only, but that’s it. The only exceptions to this would be auto attacks whose sole purpose is to apply condis and do negligible damage on their own (eg mesmer staff auto)

• Resistance should be nerfed. It should be nerfed to 50% or 33% reduction in condi damage, and have stacks. Each stack allows you to ignore 1 soft CC condi until the stack runs out. So 1 stack of resistance would no longer make you completely immune to conditions. Conditions should then be rebalanced entirely around the new Resistance boon. Fundamentally though they will never be balanced as long as there is a single boon that allows you to ignore all conditions in the game at once. They need to be balanced around a reasonable resistance boon that is the proper equivalent of protection.

Lol, wow, we follow what you ask and watch half the classes disappear from PvP, Nerf traps like that and guard will all but vanish like warrior did for a time. The only other “good” guard build that is not trap heavy is burn guard, but then that is only good for so far in league play. As conditions are easy to remove. But then from what I can tell, people seem to class everyone who’s not playing there class, or playing a build they can’t handle are “noobs” and that build needs to go, because the “noobs” keep killing them in group and 1vs1 fights.

Toasa.1236:

New Players should be NOT able to kill good Players just because of the build.

If you’re getting smoked by “new players” no matter what their build is, in PvP/WvW, then you aint a “good player”.

What makes you think that just because the CHAR is new, that the person playing it is new to the game?

I’m a huge fan of the old video-games. I grew up with NES and SNES and loved RPGs and Jump&Runs equally. I always enjoyed the idea of selecting a personal difficulty level, to make the game either easier or more challenging. GW2 still is a videogame and I truly beleive we do have the three difficulty levels – easy, medium and hard.

Easy
That is basically what the OP called “noob builds.” Most people call them metas. Predefined setups of character-class, equipment, passives and skills with recommended rotations. The least ammount of flexibilty and free will, for the highest efficiency and the lowest chance of failure and defeat. As in the old games, the easy mode only grants you access to the basics. A narrowed view of what is possible. You get an idea of the whole thing, but nothing more. A demo if you say so.

Medium
This allows you to select between most classes, pick up an own setup, create own gear with unique stats and use a lot more passives and skills than on easy mode. As with the other games, there is ofcourse a greater chance of defeat and failure. But you have access to a big part of the game. Also as in the old games, playing on medium requires experience and some detailed knowledge. Or you die a lot. You may never be as quick as on easy. Still you do rely on common sense, calculate your stats and make your decisions upon your own feeling of what is good or not. Some possibilities are still locked as they look just horribly stupid, even to you.

Hard
This grants you access to everything. You can use every class, every skill, every piece of gear you like and give a kitten about efficienty. Sadly this mode grants you access to the largest pool of failures and defeats. People who play on hard, often use additional handicaps, like playing without runes, or ignoring the recommended group size. You can play as a pink rabbit armed with a toothpick and a voodoo-doll, soloing arah 4. But wether you survive depends on your skill alone.

-
Just choose your difficulty level wisely and keep in mind on what scale the others play. So you won’t have a reason to complain. (this is my opinion)

Toasa.1236:

trap thief

(…)

If you dont want to nerf the dmg, nerf survivability.

(…)

New Players should be NOT able to kill good Players just because of the build.

How could a good player get possibly killed by a thief trapper? All you need is 1) something to cure immobilize, 2) 50 endurance, 3) any form of AoE to see (or not since he’s stealthed) him bite the ground. Seriously, a perma-stealth trappers is possibly the easiest build to defeat, provided you know how it works (which was kinda implied by being a “good player”).

It’s like those players standing still against a staff thief and complaining thereafter Vault is OP…

Noob builds don’t kill other players; players kill other players.

Toasa.1236:

New Players should be NOT able to kill good Players just because of the build.

Good builds don’t get killed by new players.

You, uh, may be holding that manual upside down. Removing or (nerfing) a build will shift the meta, not halt it completely.

Be careful what you wish for, because at some point your ‘good player’ build will find itself on the chopping block if you cut down enough people you assume to not be trying as hard.

Menadena.7482:

Toasa.1236:

Remove or nerf those noob builds.

Im talking about no risk-high reward builds like condi mesmer, trap thief, The damage of Berserkers and dragonhunters aswell rev’s.

If you dont want to nerf the dmg, nerf survivability.

How about no?

Hmmmm… “no” sounds good to me too. Let’s go with “no”.