Just to be clear, you realize they will beta test the game no matter what right?
I think what you mean to ask is if they’ll open beta to the public, whether through an open beta or by some more selective process.
Um, are you unaware of things called interviews? They made their announcement, then they had interviews with MANY different groups. You are incapable of learning all there is to know from the “News” section. They have officially stated both of those things. These forums are inundated with links and quotes directly from them.
For that matter, what does casually mentioned mean? If a Dev says it, it’s a fact. It doesn’t matter where or when they say it. A quote is a quote.
Looking back at pre-release of GW2, we sometimes had these semi-casual interviews with devs at conventions that weren’t entirely accurate. Never were there any outright falsehoods, but things didn’t always come true the way people thought they would.
Just to illustrate what I mean: a dev saying “this skill will do 2k base damage” vs “this skill will do a lot of damage”. These are very different things, one of them precise, while the other is highly interpretive and very context sensitive.
We’ve heard about how strict Arena Net is with their blogs, there’s a lengthy editing process any official information about the game that they write for the website has to go through. There are many good reasons for this, off the cuff semi-casual interviews that give misleading or misunderstood answers to questions being prime amongst them.
All this to say yeah, if a dev says it, it’s typically fact. But take it with a grain of salt, because it might not mean what you think it does.
Since we don’t know precisely how specializations will work, it could be a few different things.
For example, maybe that wasn’t a druid. Maybe it was just a ranger with a staff, but not in “druid mode”.
Or perhaps druids get a summon pet ability, even if they don’t have pet as a class mechanic.
i think he’d have been more clear if he meant “nope, no halberds and glaives, but don’t worry, spears are coming”. but let’s keep on dreaming that he didn’t announce it, and that when specifically asked about it (after insisting that they announced everything major), he was accidentally coy and mis-worded his statement in a way that is vague enough to draw the conclusion that spears are coming.
because that makes more sense than “sorry guys, no polearms” means “no spears either”.
Like I said, I think the chances spears are coming are incredibly slim. I’d put my money on the weapon from the trailer being an environmental weapons, a Revenant ability, or a weird hammer skin.
But an unofficial statement by a dev from an after-party that doesn’t even properly refer to the spear isn’t exactly solid confirmation that spears are a no-go.
my spear is melee, because i’m not a guardian :|
and spears are a sub-category of polearms. polearms are literaly arms (weapons) on a pole. it’s in the name.
Staves and hammers are polearms too. It’s hard to identify the thing he was talking about as a spear when he didn’t reference what is referred to as a spear, as a spear.
They said no new weapons, but spear is already in game.
They said no polearms, but the language officially used in game is “spear”. Yes spears are a type of polearms, but you can bring into question why Colin would specifically use a word by which spears are never referred to, and are not recognized as in GW2 at all.
Furthermore, we got this information from a semi-formal, off the cuffs interview from an after party. Anyone who was around during GW2 pre-launch (or any other game for that matter) knows that that’s not the greatest source of information. It’s not officially reviewed information released by the company, and is subject to things like misphrasing, misunderstanding, misquoting, lack of context, etc. It wouldn’t be the first time information from such an interview ended up being wrong.
All in all, I think the chances that we get land-spears in HoT is really low at this point. But the chance does still exists.
If it truly became a problem, could they not just give NPCs abilities that strip/see through stealth?
The problem with the idea that it could be a staff, is the number of staves in the game that would be absolutely ridiculous to use as a melee weapon. Many of them are either very ornate(in delicate looking ways) or too ridiculously shaped to be a viable “ima hit you wit dis” weapon.
It’s akin to using stabbing animations as the most common animation for a hammer’s abilities just because “well look, some of the hammer skins have a pokey bit at the end”.
It just doesn’t make sense, you can’t base a weapon around a few select skins that happen to be viably usable in that way.
Even some of the skins linked by BladeRain. Could you really see someone swinging Final Rest, the supposedly obvious choice of a scythe, in the way Rytlock was wielding the weapon in question? We’re working with a very limited amount of footage here, but I couldn’t see it being used that way.
How can you announce that something will be released and not give a date or a price? It should be soon otherwise all this hype will turn into angst and ultimately disappointment.
Also, if you’re saying “When it’s ready” I guess that means it’s not ready and if you release it and it’s not ready that will = disappointment. Hope ya’ll didn’t announce this too early.
They haven’t announced the expansion’s release. They announced that they are working on an expansion, which will of course eventually be released.
You can tell people you’re working on something without knowing when it’ll be done.
Even if they have the info ready, they have to consider advertising/player attention. They’ll spread out new info about different aspect of the xpac over the months leading up to the xpac.
You’ll apparently be able to switch back and forth from your specialization.
Also, we’ll get more info before the xpac comes out. It’s not like we’re going to dive in blind, we just don’t have the info yet.
Staff as a melee weapon sounds silly? Is that what you meant or have I mis-read what you wrote.
You might want to look up Robin Hood v Little John while we round up some weapon nerds to explain things.
The sometimes delicate, ornate, for-use-in-magic, staves of GW2 are a little different from quarterstaves.
I can certainly see some of GW2’s staves being used to physically hit someone with, but there are plenty that look like they would break on contact. That being the case, a GW2 magic-staff as a melee does indeed sound silly.
Rytlocks weapon could have been a weird hammer, or something related to his Revenant abilities, or the art team is full of (to use a nicer word) meanies and put a spear in because their artistic vision was more important to them then the players and the integrity of the trailer.
(edited by Arewn.2368)
@Rognik I’m not really concerned about HoT, it’s the missing link players experience when they go from killing Zhaitan in the personal story, straight to living story season 2 that I think needs addressing. Just re-releasing the LS1 instanced stuff and adding a few transitional bits to fill in the open world gaps is a good idea. But since the dev team is likely wrapped up in HoT stuff atm, and since this is something that’s really needed by the time HoT launches (when a mass of new and returning players will come and do the story), I think a cinematic might be more feasible. At least as a stop-gap measure.
@CureForLiving I agree, which is why I suggest the cheaper/quicker/easier solution of a cinematic at the start of LS2 that explains what happened in LS1.
I actually kind of prefer the whole “no mob loot, rewards are the end/set intervals” thing.
Running around looting everything can frankly get annoying at times.
Not that I would want to see mob looting removed as a whole.
New races are essentially just skins. Nice to have, but I wouldn’t priorities it over other features.
More to the point, each race they add puts additional permanent burdens on future development. New armors and animations are that much harder to add because they have more races that need them.
If it’s a particularly large map, as they seem to be implying it is, then I think it’ll be okay.
You can also consider that we might not be fighting Mordremoth right off the bat when the xpac launches. They might have more maps “in storage” to release thereafter and build a lead-up to the final confrontation through LS style releases.
…which I might actually prefer. People bum-rushing through the content and killing Mordremoth within the first few days of launch would be kind of lame.
Easily Mordremoth.
Even a legandary norn with the help of the spirits of the wild could only take out a tooth from Jormag.
Even Destiny’s Edge with the help (and knowledge about a specific weakness they could exploit) of Glint couldn’t defeat Kralkatorik. And I’m not convinced they would have even if Logan didn’t leave.
No single mortal entity, by their own power alone, is going to stand a chance against an Elder Dragon. Pretty sure even the human gods don’t want to mess with them.
I’ve been playing since release, and have played every patch, so this isn’t a problem for me, but…
The story is going to be incredibly difficult for new players to get into, and with an expansion coming this needs to be addressed in time for release.
If interested in the story, a new or returning player will complete the living story and defeat Zhaitan. Thereafter, they’ll experience a time skip of over a year (in-story time) with absolutely no explanation. For seemingly no reason, they’ll be sent to dry top and greeted by overly familiar people who run around calling them “boss”, despite having never met them. These NPCs will then occasionally reference doing events with you that you’ve never even heard of.
If replayable LS1 isn’t coming out with the xpac, then this really needs to be addressed if you want new and returning players to have any interest in GW2’s story. It doesn’t have to be perfect, there just has to be something, ANYTHING, to explain what happened and bridge the gap.
My suggestion: a cinematic similar to the character creation cinematic, wherein your character has a monologue about the events of season1 and the main characters they met. The cinematic could be triggered upon activation of the first episode of LS2.
“In the past year, I’ve been following my own adventures away from the Pact while they secure Ore after Zhaitan’s defeat. In that time, I met a young norn named Braham who -insert Braham info here-, alongside a Charr named Rox -insert Rox info here-…Marjory…Kasmere…Taimi. Together, we faced the threat of a crazed Sylvari named Scarlet Briar, who ravaged the world and eventually attacked Lion’s Arch. We put an end to her there, but not before she was able to tap into a major Ley-line and wake what we believe to be a 6th elder dragon, mordramoth, from its slumber. Now we head forth to investigate.”
It is by no means perfect, it still leaves holes, but it’s a relatively quick and simple solution and is orders of magnitude better then the current gap in the story.
This way, new players will at least have some context.
“Oh yea, that’s the person from the cinematic. Oh, that’s the thing they mentioned happening earlier”.
(edited by Arewn.2368)
Ohhh, you’re right. I forgot about abilities that are voiced.
First and foremost, I have to get this off my chest: no new race is really not a big deal. It’s one of the most hallow things they can possible add. Counting a skin, because that’s essentially what it is, as a major feature is ludicrous. I can understand the desire for it, but don’t misrepresent how big it is.
New race lore and areas are things that we are actually getting, we just can’t play as the races in question. It’s really just a skin.
Not to mention the negative impact extra races has on development… (need for more armor and animations every time they add something to the game).
Honestly, I don’t really understand those who wanted an expansion so badly. The patches already gave us any type of content we could ask for from an xpac, the only difference being the packaging. It’s just asking to pay for something we’ve been getting for free all this time.
That said, it is fairly spoiled to now complain about having to pay for content, especially in light of all the free content we’ve gotten since release.
And we don’t actually know how big this is going to be. All we’ve gotten thus far is a vague outline of major features. We have no idea how these things will work or how big they are.
Obviously Revenant characters shouldn’t be allowed to participate in old content.
Seriously though, gameplay mechanics > lore. There really doesn’t need to be an explanation. Just like the fact that there doesn’t need to be an explanation for replaying Arah and re-defeating Zhaitan at a whim.
I’m pretty sure player voices were race-bound. Not profession-bound.
If it’s not within the next 3 months, I think they’re going to have some problems.
They’ve built a community and game that thrives on frequent updates after all.
I’d expect the majority of the dev team is at this point focused on making the expansion, so I doubt they’ll be releasing anything new in-between.
Super Adventure Box is the only content I can think of that they can throw at us to tide us over. Maybe a pvp and WvW season to help distract us as well.
It’s hard to say how long it’ll take though. There’s signs that indicate it could be relatively soon. But it could just as easily be the case that they have several months of work left, and we simply don’t know it.
It’s a paid expansion. The objective is to make content in the expansion that will entice people to buy it. That’s the point.
Fortunately, GW2 is a game where you don’t have to worry about falling behind. You don’t have to worry about not having access to the new level cap, or to a new tier of gear, and none of the non-expansion content will be obsolete just because the expansion released. This also means that players who buy the expansion won’t somehow be buying themselves some huge advantage over players who don’t. You won’t have the new shinnies, but balance wise you’ll still be on equal footing.
If you don’t want to buy it, you can continue playing and enjoying the game you already bought, and the 2+ years of free patches it has accumulated.
If you get envious of those who have the new stuff, buy the expansion.
I imagine you’ll retain access to all the current content (presumably including WvW since the new map is mixed in to it), as well as generic “inseparable” things like changes to fundamental game mechanics and balance. You won’t have access to new stuff, new maps, guild halls, new pvp mode, things like that.
Arena Net will give us a precise breakdown of where they draw the line, but it’ll inevitably be something to this effect.
If you want the new content, the new “stuff”, then you’ll have to pay though. I really don’t know what to tell someone who’s upset at the idea of having to pay for content….
Spoiled from the past 2 1/2 years of free stuff? I don’t know what else to think. You can only get free stuff for so long before it comes time to pay up again.
Funnily, I’ve always questioned people who want an expansion for this very reason. Why would you want to pay when you’re getting free patches otherwise? xD
Sorry if this has been already answered, couldn’t find it:
Will we be able to choose the Specialization from level 1, or only at 80, or somewhere inbetween?
By the sounds of it, at 80. They were talking a lot about post 80 progression, so that’s the impression I got.
That sort of restriction on playstyle based on your weapon choice already exists in the game though, it’s just specializations appear to make them more formalized that before. For example if you want your necro to wield an axe or main hand dagger with a focus or warhorn, then you’re kinda obligated to make a power or minion build – you could make a condi build instead, but that wouldn’t be viable given those weapon combinations don’t deal condi damage.
Also we don’t even know what the other ranger specializations are. For all we know there could be a melee-oriented ranger specialization that uses staves as melee weapons, complete with a different set of weapon skills.
We’re so lacking in information, that we don’t even know if there is going to be more then one specialization per prof… x.x
wtb blog-post with more info
Ranger wouldn’t be a spec. You’d play a ranger up to whatever point in the game you get specializations, and then choose from between a druid and a…I don’t know, “hunter”, or whatever the other ranger specializations are, and get that spec’s weapon and abilities, in addition to the regular ranger skills.
It’s going to be a really weird system, if that’s not roughly how it works.
We have no real confirmation that that’s how it’ll work, and there are other potential systems that could work. Not that I’m saying it couldn’t be what your just outlined.
Unless we have a source of information other then the HoT webpage, FAQ, and the pax livestream, what we know about specializations is incredibly vague. Thus all the speculation.
Maybe specializations will allow us to toggle our profession mechanic to something new.
They’ve been talking about “petless rangers” here and there. So taking the “druid” which they announced, maybe druid is a ranger who’s profession mechanic is something other then a pet.
In the video, we saw a ranger with a pet and a staff in hand. But do we have confirmation that the new weapons are permanently tied to the specializations?
It could simply be the case that that is a staff ranger, showcasing the ranger’s new weapon, but isn’t necessarily a druid.
I am hoping it is an add-on, optional make-use of spec. That being said, as an example: being a Druid but still having the option to using original Ranger associated skills, weapons, traits etc.
Hope I explained that properly.. It is quite a baffling topic.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you mean, but if it’s an optional spec, but being a druid means you still have access to all your ranger stuff, what would be the point in specing as a ranger?
I kind of think, or perhaps hope, that the specializations are not binary choices. Not ranger OR druid, but rather a ranger who has learned druidism.
I would think these so called “specializations” expand upon the profession, not move you into something different. After all, you don’t suddenly forget everything you’ve learned when you decide to specialize in something new.
They talked a lot about “character progression” at the pax presentation. I take that to be something additive, not exclusionary, and I think that applies here.
“I’m a ranger who find himself in the maguma jungle, exposed to this new thing called druidism. So I’ll study it, learn this specialization, and add it to my arrsseenal(got censored lol) as a ranger”.
The information we have is very vague at the moment though, so I guess we’re stuck waiting until Anet gives us more info.
Didn’t see any in the material they’ve released thus far, but I would assume there would be a few spots where you can dive in and fight.
What was *not* anounced for the new expansion
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Arewn.2368
If I had spear I’d not be likely to SLASH using it
also as for me weapon he used there was more greataxe-y that spearlike…
Consider the shape and how small the head was, the weapon was very spear like in appearance.
And there’s many ways to wield a spear, poking most certainly is not their only use. Slashing (provided the spear/polearm in question has an adequate head to do so with) and whacking are perfectly good ways to inflict serious injury with them.
If you’re talking about the red concept art, that looks like a sword to me…
Pretty sure Revenant will have spear. Check out 1:35-1:39 in the trailer.
1:35-1:39 in the trailer.
Either Rytlock is hitting people in melee with a very pointy staff, or that’s a spear.
I see no merit to the idea of raising the level cap in GW2.
It wouldn’t push us to play the new HoT content, because you can level anywhere. And as demonstrated by pretty much every piece of content we’ve gotten since release, players don’t need any such “push” in the first place.
They can also add new skills without raising the level cap. In fact, finding unique content-related means of acquiring new skills would be a whole lot better then just gating them behind extra levels.
So what’s the point? to put a dull and unnecessary wall in-front of the new content? to make us re-grind to re-gear our characters?
Raising the level cap is just pointless in a game like GW2, it adds nothing of merit.
Would certainly be a nice change for small guilds so that they can progress more.
A simple change that would help a lot.
Spear.
Like seriously, spear please. They’re in game already, are perfectly suitable thematically for warriors, we see them in concept art all the time, AND I REALLY WANT THEM.
Instead of having to take special considerations in designing mobs just for the sake of a single condition, wouldn’t it be much easier to simply make that condition more flexible? i.e add a damage over time component to it
And it’s unreasonable to expect retroactive changes to most mobs in the game just to make confusion work better. So unless they forsake all old content, changing mobs isn’t going to be an effective solution.
Oh, no! A PUG will take 12 minutes to clear CoF instead of 8! The horror.
More like 9minutes instead of 8.
Might’s only a portion of your damage, and it’s getting about a 15%~ nerf. As others have pointed out, this won’t be a game changer in PvE. It’ll slightly increase clear times of organized groups, and will bring Might’s value more in-line with other boons.
We’re getting some much needed changes to confusion in PVE in the upcoming balance patch on the 27.
Unfortunately, I’m dubious of the effectiveness of the proposed change. As the dev note rightfully points out, mobs don’t swing much and this contributes to how lackluster confusion is in PVE.
Simply increasing confusion’s damage doesn’t resolves this problem though, as it is the very nature of confusion that doesn’t integrate well in PVE vs mobs.
Even if the damage is increase, we’ll still be stuck with those times where confusion does very little (or nothing) because the mob only swung once (or not at all), or started moving just after applying confusion.
Controlling the mob and timing your attacks is important and should be rewarded, but in the case of confusion, its effectiveness is too random and dependent on such factors.
I propose that confusion should be changed to work similarly to Torment. A portion of confusion’s damage will automatically tick once per second, and the other portion will trigger upon action (current functionality).
This way there is a standard, a baseline effectiveness for confusion that you can rely on in PVE.
It would have made much more sense if the airstrike was used to cut-off/eliminate the mordrem reinforcements (those that had not yet entered the base), and then our job would have been to clean up the remaining mordrem in the base, then declare victory.
Not only would there be no senseless “oh look, we survived the bombardment we target at our own troops”, but it also would have made Trahearn thanking us feel a lot more satisfying.
“Thanks, you did a grunt’s job and carried that torch! you saved the day!” doesn’t feel like a very good reason for all the appreciation and credit we received for the victory.
They should just make it a solo instance then… Geez what the heck.
What’s the point of all those people being there if people you know cant even be amonsgt them.
Any way to do so?
You know, play with friends?
Told a friend of mine GW2’s new patch was out and the Christmas JP was out. We like doing JPs together and he wasn’t around for past wintersdays.
Made a few attempts, and he’s already asking to go to OS or something else.
“What the heck’s the point if we can’t even see each other?” He says.
I personally don’t like courtyard. I feel DM has its place as a quick and dirty team-fight pick-up match type game mode, but it being mixed in with the other maps is getting increasingly annoying.
While I appreciate and think the current “vote on the map you want from this pool of 3” system is great, I unavoidably end up on court yard occasionally and can’t help but feel like I’m wasting my time on it (do to my personal dislike of it).
While trying to make it more competitive is great (though I’m doubtful 5v5 deathmatch with no objectives of any sort will grow to be any kind of interesting), it is a different game mode and pooling it in with the conquest maps puts players in an awkward position.
Is there any chance it can be moved to its own separate queue, for those who actually want to play this(DM) game mode? Or could we at least get a way to “downvote” maps? Because when I see courtyard, it’s immediately the case that I will automatically prefer the other two maps, regardless of what they are. In such a case, being able to use my vote on reducing a map would be much more effective.
Also, having 2 exits from your base would be great. The spawn camping can be really painful.
All I can say on this is we have been talking about it internally and trying to come up with different solutions that make CC valuable without allowing players to “stun lock” creatures (which would be a very real problem if we did not have Defiance). I can’t say any more on that at this time, so here’s a better question for you:
If we removed Defiance, how would you propose a replacement that makes CC (interrupts, stuns, fears etc) valuable without creating a situation that allows players to CC a creature to death.
An inverse defiant system could work well and I would imagine shouldn’t be too difficult to implement, given the already existing mechanics in GW2.
Defiance would act as a sort of boon, where bosses GAIN a stack of defiance every time they are CC’ed. Each stack would reduce the effectiveness of CC on the boss (similar to the stun duration reduction on Melandru runes), and the boss would gain CC immunity upon reaching a certain number of stacks (stacks TBD based on balance). Each stack would have its own duration (duration TBD based on balance), so over time the stacks will individually fall off on their own, allowing you to once again CC the boss.
This system would allow for more interesting use and combo’ing of CC, but would prevent CC-locking since consecutive uses become less and less effective, eventually leading to immunity. Balancing the system would be very flexible, since you can adjust the #of stacks and duration of stacks based on the frequency you want to allow bosses to be CC’ed.
Gonna go ahead and just give my top three. I think raiding may have been too nebulous a topic, it contains too much, and there’s too great a variety of views people have of it.
I think the simple use of the word “Raid” may have been this thread’s biggest hurdle.
Anyways:
1. Challenge – Above all, medium sized instanced cooperative group content needs to provide an interesting and cohesive challenge that keeps people coming back for months on end. It doesn’t have to be the pinnacle of difficulty, just a cohesive challenge. An “easy mode” or “flexible mode” for people who want a chance to play but are impeded for what ever reason could be included, but nothing should compromise the experience of the “normal mode”.
2. Player skill – a player shouldn’t be bogged down in farming just to enter the raid, nor should farming (gear progression) impede their progress. From one boss to the next, the only thing holding your group back should be learning the fight and having the skill to perform.
3. Accessibility – raids should be like dungeons in that there’s no concrete entry requirement. No guild upgrades, gear checks, or time-based lockouts. Just collect the needed members and head in. PUGing is an important tool to get people playing, and it should be supported.
Another thing I noticed about this CDI thread while typing out my top three:
The format doesn’t match the question. Chris has been trying to get us to focus on GW2’s mechanics in raiding (a very important topic), but that really doesn’t conform to the current “top 3 priorities” format at all, and it doesn’t fit very well with the thread’s initial “proposal/function/risk” answer format either. Just something to keep in mind.
Defiant, spamming a bunch of rupts only to have someone passively trigger the 9000 defiant stacks again is probably the worst system I’ve ever seen when it comes to boss interrupts in MMO, no offense.
I agree, defiant definitely needs a look at.
There’s certainly a need to stop perma-stunning (or lengthy chain-stunning) boss type mobs, but it can be solved in much better ways, even by just modifying the current defiant system.
For example, make defiant a stacking buff, each stack has it’s own duration, and when the mob reaches a certain numbers of stacks (say, 5) it becomes immune to CC.
When a stack falls off, you can CC it again. Or wait for multiple stacks to fall in order to chain your CC a bit. Balancing the number of stacks and buff duration will allow you to determine the frequency at which a mob can be CC’d.
The defiant buff could additionally reduce the duration of CC effects, encouraging you to save your CC and/or wait for more stacks to fall off in order to use a more potent CC.
Defiant is kind of a topic of it’s own though, and there’s plenty of ideas about it floating around, so perhaps I shouldn’t be bringing this up here.
Ran into the same issue with the water bucket, was very disappointed.
This update is basically garbage as a result, can’t give it anything more then a 9.8/10