Guild Wars 2

Ugh, the initial price tag was the only thing keeping caps locked Portuguese out of map chat.

Get used to seeing a lot of BR? BR? ALGUMEN BR GUILD? HUEHUEHUEHUEHUE.

I really liked playing Chronomancer, Reaper, and Sword/Sword Mace/Axe Revenant. I might have to try Sword/Axe next time but I forgot to. Every other time we’ve gotten a chance to play Revenant I haven’t enjoyed it nearly as much and it missing Shiro legend was why, that’s the missing piece of the puzzle. A lot of people felt the damage was underwhelming I didn’t notice it too bad and figured it’s because this character doesn’t have ascended jewelry and weapons much less armor and the right runes that I like to use for damage.

Chronomancer wells damage some people complain about but I figure the same thing but.. you’ll probably go over the numbers and figure out what would be best. I was a little bit disappointed with continuum shift simply because the window in which to jump back in time is SO short it can be really hard to use effectively. I mean when I continuum shift, I want to be able to drop a well of gravity, along with the damaging well on top of it, then shift back and cast them again for a nice aoe spike that mesmers usually don’t have prior to chronomancer.. but you might not get both wells off before you shift back depending on how many clones were shattered, I dunno, seems just a touch short, short enough that instead of it being a “planning ahead” skill it’s more of a “reactionary” skill in where you use it just before you take big damage and then shift back to full health (like a dodge almost) rather than using it to double cast spells or juke someone which is more like what I want it to be. Shield was better than I expected, well, tides of time is fun anyway. The phantasm isn’t as good as most of the others.

Reaper I just liked all around though I REALLY want some sort of spooky/ghostlike voice filter for the shouts! It just doesn’t feel right to yell “Suffer!” in my normal voice. Reaper Shroud is awesome, and GS skills feel quite powerful, though I’m not sure I’d use them in a PVP setting because they seem fairly easy to avoid.

I wanted to play them more but with most the events being broken in VB and me wanting to advance masteries I felt kinda trapped on that.

Gliding is also a lot of fun

Focus has 2 blasts, and offhand dagger has 2 blast finishers, warhorn has none.

I’d say add them to sand squall and heat sync, as those are buff/support skills and a blast finisher would be used for buffing/supporting.

it’d actually make warhorn good then.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Devildoc.6721:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

“In before the names don’t matter crowd:”

Well obviously the names we chose DO matter to us and we don’t want to lose them just because we stepped away from the game for a year, or three.

I’ve made a couple of names recently. The first one, I chose a short plant name. It was taken. I changed a couple of letters and had a name that went through. Took only 2 or 3 minutes. My second name, the first choice was short and taken. I added another letter then a lore appropriate second name and then it went through. Maybe 2 minutes max.

Names can matter, I mean some people just throw together a name and call it good, others actually put thought into it.. and if they lose that name, a temporary break could quite realistically become a permanent break. I don’t know if I’d stop playing the game entirely after losing a name, but I’d stop playing that character probably.

I’ve had some character names for years, starting from Guild Wars 1 and continuing Guild Wars 2. One of them was my char that I got 50/50 in the HoM with. I never want to lose my chars names I have years of history with them and to lose them because I stopped playing for a while, that would be awful.

Absolutely, I can understand, it’s especially bad if you have a reputation on a game or a lot of friends who know you by that name. Now this other dude’s running around with your name and people mistake them for you, and they may trash your reputation. People may think you sold your account, etc.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

“In before the names don’t matter crowd:”

Well obviously the names we chose DO matter to us and we don’t want to lose them just because we stepped away from the game for a year, or three.

I’ve made a couple of names recently. The first one, I chose a short plant name. It was taken. I changed a couple of letters and had a name that went through. Took only 2 or 3 minutes. My second name, the first choice was short and taken. I added another letter then a lore appropriate second name and then it went through. Maybe 2 minutes max.

Names can matter, I mean some people just throw together a name and call it good, others actually put thought into it.. and if they lose that name, a temporary break could quite realistically become a permanent break. I don’t know if I’d stop playing the game entirely after losing a name, but I’d stop playing that character probably.

I’ve gotten one word, 5-6 letter, class relevant, race appropriate (for Asura) names within the last year or so, without surnames, without accents…

and this game lets you use alt codes and have spaces for a surname. Quit being uncreative and entitled.

What do you want next, the game to require your medical records and tax statements to verify that you’re still alive? On your death should a family member send Arenanet a copy of your death certificate so they can purge your account?

PlatinumMember.5274:

The overload seems underwhelming because it acts like a giant INTERRUPT me.

Good:
Like the animations except for overload earth, seems kinda stupid, we need less spell pollution not more.
Auramancer is back.

BAD

Agreed with all the bad in the OP.
Warhorn is a kittenty focus.
Ironically, the focus works better with tempest skills than the warhorn.
Overload except earth is a giant stun me you fools sign.
Realization that players are easily impress with skill effects.

yeah I’m beginning to rethink my thoughts on the overload effects. The fact that they’re CHANNELED hurts their usefulness.

Arobain.8274:

tooting on the a horn, lol right, well anyways, understand that many things are subject to change before release, there will be beta tests, so they’ll get our feedback, remember the huge change with revenant after that beta test? yea, if feedback is strong enough, it could change entirely

sure, that’s why it’s important to give initial impressions early while things are still being developed rather than “wait and see, it’s not even live yet!” and THEN making judgments, when it’s still in development they can make changes fast. When it’s gone live, it’ll be months before they can make changes because they’ve moved on and are working on something else.

So tempest…

The Good:

+Overloads seem nice, with the traits to support them make them useful PBAOE’s, water healing is a little underwhelming, but the other 3 can be useful.
+Air and Earth Shout are useful, freeze and fire might also end up useful.
+Tempest Traits support good utility (might/weakness on shouts, auras on overloads, auto cc break, etc)

The Bad:

-Warhorn is confirmed to be underwhelming almost entirely.
With the exception of cyclone and dust storm I found the warhorn skills to be pretty bad, it hurts that since they’re offhand weapon skills they’re on 25s or longer cooldowns. The boons provided by fire 4 and earth 4 were rather low duration/stacks so any group using might stacking is going to stick to traditional methods and using earth4 to extend by 2s is just not even going to enter the equation. The moving water field could be okay but with enough latency I can see it’s usefulness being limited, especially in a WvW zerg where people will try to blast it and miss.
- The water bubble and self heal shout seem on the weaker side despite having longish cooldowns. I get that they’re aoe, but having aoe heals be decreased strength is one of the reasons healing as a support character is undervalued compared to everyone just relying on their self heals and dodges and going full dps. The only group heal that is of considerable value is blasting water fields, because you can blast the same field multiple times to actually get a decent heal out of it.
- The Rebound elite skill seems to follow a pattern of ele elites post FGS and Meteornado nerf of being underpowered, underwhelming for “elite” skills. 25% recharge on one skill on a 60s cd just isn’t “elite”. This is like a smiter’s booned version of Glyph of Renewal from GW1. If it was instant recharge of one skill, or affected multiple skills, maybe it might be worthy of being elite. Now? no.
- The trait line doesn’t really have any damage increases. Right now, for a dps build you’ll go fire/air/water, or fire/air/arcane depending on whether you think you’ll stay above 90% health more often or have more than 5 boons more often. I suppose it’ll come down to the math of whether or not the shouts and overloads make up for a 10% dps loss or not. I’m on the fence.
-
The Ugly:

Warhorn. Some of the particle effects look good but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re just tooting on a horn.

Drayos.8759:

Stop with the “OMG IT ISNT A SWORD QQ” trains, jesus, ur complaint was a lack of a Melee Weapon, the Warhorn is OBVIOUSLY a melee weapon, 180 Range on singularity, The fact ALL the overloads are based Around you, shows that this is a melee weapon,

Ur getting your Melee weapon for all the Melee action you want, this is just pure QQ over aethetics, but at the end of the day Sword Wielding Mages would look stupid anyway, Swords are for Precise attacks and Elementalists are about Setting everything on Fire and Blowing kitten up with Electricity, Nothing to do with Precision. Warhorn fits the proffession better in every fashion and Nothing will change that.

Even Hammer would fit a Elementalist Before a sword.

Oh boy a “melee” weapon where every skill has 20+s cooldowns!

SO much better than having a melee main hand weapon where you’d have chain skills and low cooldown skills to work with!

I might use the spec but not the warhorn, I’d probably use it with staff.

biggest improvement to scepter would be ground targetted dragon’s tooth but with it and shatterstone being delayed hits they’ll still largely be inferior to other weapons.

rapthorne.7345:

Given that we have precident of ANet utilising weapons differently on different classes (Necro Axe, Mesmer Greatsword, Ranger Axe, etc), why is there so much hate for Wh when we don’t even have a clue what it will do yet, and Anet said any class that just gets an offhand will also be getting new mechanics added.

Because we don’t need another offhand with 50s long cooldown skills.

We need a melee main hand. Dagger is a mid range skirmish weapon, scepter is also a mid range skirmish weapon, and staff is long range artillery.

Ayrilana.1396:

He’s just upset because he wanted to use a sword like Gandalf.

Let’s be honest, who didn’t want that?

From the lowest dungeon to the highest peak, I fought him, the Balrog of Morgoth. Until at last, I threw down my enemy and smote his ruin upon the mountainside.

penelopehannibal.8947:

Sekai.2987:

well , gj at kittening it up anet , cant belive we get such a useless piece of kitten , majority of ppl i talked to wanted the sword so bad and new we get that junk

and not to mention that fantasy wise it would make more sense that an ele can create a sword from fire or lighting to fight and a kittening warhorn belongs to the warriors , who the kitten thinks of a warhorn when you talk about elementalists

i was looking so much forward to the new weapon and new we get that junk , im incredible dissapointed and i think you have made a huge mistake anet

i simply lost any to motivation to play ele at all, guess i will spend my time on thief/mes from now on

Oh, you already know what weapon skills and utility skills the Tempest Specialisation will get? Please share us your inside knowledge!

He doesn’t have to know exactly, he already knows they’ll have 25s+ cooldowns. Every offhand skill has longer cooldowns than main hand or 2 hand weapons.

Plus offhand dagger and focus are already really good for offhands. But scepter is trash for anything but stacking might, and MH dagger is mediocre outside of small scale PVP because it’s not really a melee weapon (staff does more damage than dagger because both are considered ranged weapons where for most classes, a true melee weapon is their hardest hitting weapon)

Conncept.7638:

Welp, looks like we’re getting the warhorn after all. I was rooting for the sword personally.

Lame. I also wanted sword, I had made gift of lightning tenatively for bolt, there goes that idea. I’m pretty disappointed. Offhands are junk, I’ll just keep using staff. Why care about an offhand when I dislike both of our main hand options? Not to mention offhands have the longest cd for skills.

doubt it, but offhands are disappointing.

I mean, ele already has dagger and focus with a pretty solid skillset on each,

We have a 450 mid range weapon, a 900 skirmishing range weapon, and a 1200 range artillery weapon, what we need is a true melee option that doesn’t have to be recast every minute, without dropping half the charges on the floor where someone else will probably pick them up, and that isn’t going to be nerfed into oblivion.. oh and having more than just air attunement for it would be nice too.

I was hoping for main hand sword.

Mantras sound like they could work for ele though.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/pre-purchase-community-address/

See, this is what we needed. Transparent communication

A fair value for both veterans and new players.

An honest refund policy for those who bought between the expansion announcement and misleading FAQ posting and now.

A clear statement on their future vision for expansions (now, remember to commit to this statement Arenanet.)

ReiCH.6273:

they don’t much care about the goodwill of the people as long as they keep buying stuff. which is what you did. so we have this situation here were folks are complaining but they still get the product. thus there is no need for change. in 2 weeks time everything will be forgotten.

it’s a shame really. instead of achieving a positive change for all of us, we’re rewarding them with a purchase and then come into the forums to complain. a shame really.

Perhaps, but eventually once their customer base no longer trusts them, those purchases will stop. For some people, they already have stopped. I’m not completely out of goodwill yet myself. I’m just saying I can understand why some players are burned out and no longer trust the company. I still think consistency and commitment to prior statements is important, and I think transparency is also important for maintaining trust. Eventually, if the current practices of attempting to dupe and swindle the playerbase continue, I’ll be burnt out too.

am I, or any other customer wrong for wanting transparency and commitment?

MiniEquine.6014:

It’s interesting seeing something that isn’t exclusively about HoT’s pricing structure for once during this past week.

That said, I don’t really have too much sympathy for portal farmers (myself included) for a couple of reasons:

1) The fact that the beta times weren’t specified – People were farming for beta access that they neither knew the time nor date for; what do they expect? It makes sense (especially in hindsight but eh) that it would be during Anet’s business hours or some time around them. They could have done it differently, but they never said anything about what time it would be held; we had no reason to assume everyone would be able to play during those times. I farmed a good bit for it and did not find one, but I ended up being busy that day anyway.

2) They were willingly farming for it – There was no requirement to farm for the beta access. Yes, it’s cool to get into the beta, but if it’s information you want, then there will be and have been tons of videos and reviews that will be posted. Your primary purpose for the beta is to hunt for bugs, not to play like normal. You also don’t get anything particularly special for doing the beta like a title, pet, or armor skins (exploits excluded) so you technically don’t miss out.

3) They were still farming Dry Top or Silverwastes – Ultimately the goal of this endeavor was to get a portal, but my wife and I farming these places and doing chest runs with the map netted us well over 200G for the amount of time we were doing it, which really wasn’t too much time. Also, your chances of finding a portal are greater as you spend more time playing, so this would cause a larger percentage of players who played a lot to get portals relative to the amount of people who also got portals but played less often.

The HoT pricing, I believe, is a much larger question to consider rather than that of the portal. There are valid points for and against it for primarily completely different aspects of it with regard to one or the other. For this, they should have been more transparent and consistent, so I agree.

The main issue I had with the portal farming was the lack of transparency. A company doesn’t improve Goodwill with its community by “duping” them into doing something with vague hints and promises of rewards for doing so.

Is it legal? Sure. Is it excusable on technicality? Sure.

But do people perceive it as dishonesty? Absolutely. Are people going to continue to trust a company that continues to deceive them? Probably not.

Arenanet ultimately is a successful company due to its customer base, and maintaining the goodwill and trust of those people is paramount to continuing success.

So Colin talked about the GW2 community being the nicest online. But instead of fostering that community, the marketing at Arenanet has made two serious blunders recently, one stacking on the other that may be burning up the company’s goodwill with its playerbase.

First: having players farm for portals for a 6 hour total beta, without announcing the details of the beta. Some players farmed in excess of 60 hours to get a portal (I’m not one of them, I don’t even think I spent a third of that, but hey, gotta stand up for those who did), hoping for a lengthy beta test, or at least a weekend. We got tons of complaints about how much farming people were having to do and how much people hated the system … and then… we learn it’s only 6 hours long, split into 2 hour chunks, in the middle of the week… during a time inconvenient for Europeans. I already said that was a blunder on Arenanet’s part for hyping a beta event that you earn your way into without giving details, resulting in upset people before the beta details were released, and more afterward. Transparency from the getgo would have resulted in a lot less people upset. People would have decided “well I can’t do that beta anyway because I’m working” and not farmed, or “well I farmed for 6 hours, didn’t get a portal, it’s not worth getting frustrated over for a 6 hour test, I’ll go do something else”

Discussion of that led to "well what if this portal gets you access to other beta events aside from this one? Yet another thing Arenanet could have been transparent about, but wasn’t, then they drop blunder #2: HoT presales.

The only presale bonuses for HoT, are a title… and access to all future beta events. So the portals were really just for one 6 hour event.

Another factor in HoT presale marketing being a blunder, was price. People are in their head comparing HoT’s announced features to other MMO expansions, namely Guild Wars 1 expansions, and not seeing the $50 value. Then to add into this, they announce GW2’s core game being included in this price. This of course confuses people because if they’re selling HoT + GW2 as a package for $50, that means the expansion alone for GW2 owners should be $40, which many saw as a more reasonable price for what we’re being offered.

Now mind you, I purchased it for $50 right away because I see a game I’ll be playing for thousands of hours so it’ll be worth $50. But I’m still understanding how some people don’t see it that way.

The other major issue with the presale blunder, could almost be considered blunder #3. As was said earlier, giving GW2 Core Game with HoT purchase. Seems like a nice bonus for new players sure, while making Veterans who’ve been here since the beginning feel like they’re getting a raw deal, and perception is everything, I’m finding it hard to believe that Arenanet’s marketing team couldn’t forsee that one. But here’s what could be considered blunder #3:

When HoT was announced, on the FAQ page it said that GW2 would be necessary to play HoT, with no mentions of any intent to make GW2 come as a free bonus for purchasing HoT. There were then sales for the GW2 base game, and people bought it and began playing it for the first time, excited for the expansion. Some people even bought it for full price between sales. A little transparency about any plans to release GW2 base game as a part of HoT would have saved those people some money, or, if the intent wasn’t there at the time, another thing would have helped… committing to your prior statements. If you say “You will need to own Guild Wars 2 to play Heart of Thorns” stick to that, and I don’t mean some hand waving “well if they’re giving away GW2 as part of HoT they’re still fulfilling that statement”. Not from most customer’s point of view. They feel lied to.

2 things Arenanet marketing needs:

Transparency
Consistency

Deceiving your community, even unintentionally, does not foster the “nicest MMO community” it creates a bunch of salty people who feel betrayed. More so when your deception costs people money, they feel most deceived and betrayed. The people who bought GW2 between HoT announcement and HoT presales probably feel ripped off, because if it hadn’t been for Arenanet’s prior statement, they probably could have just waited.

The real kick in the junk with the beta access is for those of us who farmed portals. We got.. 1 6 hour beta staggered into 2 hour segments, for dozens of hours farming, and now.. pay $50 or more if you want beta access.

This prepurchase fiasco just makes me mad about the portals all over again.

New Players get HoT + GW2 base game for $50

Veteran Players who have GW2 already should get 1 extra character slot (same value as buying GW2 when it’s on sale recently) for that $50 for the rev class. That’d probably calm most of the complaints.

New players get additional value, Veterans get additional value. Everything balanced.

Right now, new players get additional value, Veterans get no additional value, things out of balance.

rapthorne.7345:

I truly am surprised that seemingly overnight veteran players have totally forgotten the sheer amount of love and passion that ANet employees have pumped in to the game and are pumping in to HoT.

Never before, in over a decade of MMO gaming, have a come across an MMORPG with such attention to detail, quality and charm as GW2. It’s clear the game has been crafted as a child of passion and love, not as a money making tool. I’ve fallen in love with GW2 and the people that makle GW2 happen, and will gladly support them for years to come if it means the game I love keeps getting bigger and better.

it boils down to 2 things.. when people compare HoT to other MMO expansions, or even GW1 expansions/campaigns, they see less, but feel they are paying the same amount (not counting subscriptions)

GW1 campaigns were $50, and they were standalone games with a new continent with over a dozen new zones, 2 new professions, hundreds of new skills, at least 13 more missions, MULTIPLE new PVP modes , new end game areas.

GW1’s expansion was what, $30? or was it $40? It included 4 new regions (at least 3 new maps for each region), 11 major primary quests that were comparable to Missions from the campaign, , over 100 new skills, 40+ new armor sets, 18 new dungeons including a new elite dungeon with 4 wings

HoT is including 1 new region with at least 3 new maps (compared to 4 new regions with at least 3 new maps each in EotN), 1 new profession (compared to 2 new professions in Factions and Nightfall), no announced new dungeons or end game elite areas (only vague promises at “challenging group content”), the mastery system (at least the HoT masteries, the Tyria Masteries might be core game?), elite specializations and a handful of new skills that are coming with elite specializations, Guild Halls (with only 2 options compared to the over 1 dozen options in GW1), 1 new PVP mode, 1 new borderland map. $50 pricetag base.

Seems a bit small. If there were more areas, announced dungeons, more than 1 new PVP mode, more choices of guild halls, I think people would be stomaching $50 up front easier.

The other major issue is that it feels like new players who’ve never gotten GW2 before are getting a better deal than veterans, since veterans have had to pay for both the core game at $60, and the expansion at $50. New Players get both at $50, and furthermore, there are people who bought the core game at $10 or $20 at some point after the expansion was announced, that now learn they didn’t need to buy the core game, it’d have been given to them freely with just the expansion price

Does an artist, or writer, or systems designer who happens to work at Arenanet and tag up in the Arenanet guild from time to time deserve to get chewed out over it? No.

Does a community coordinator like Rubi or Gaile? No, not really, though they should be a person you contact POLITELY about your gripes because they can get that feedback to the right people in a constructive way. Particularly Gaile, I mean it is her job to be the liason between the community and the development team, you just have to remember she’s the messenger, so don’t kill the messenger.

Now if you manage to know the exact person responsible for the marketing? Yeah they probably deserve an earful and PROBABLY deserve it not being in the most polite way.

But since most of us won’t know those really specific people, our best option is to politely tell Gaile why we think the marketing people jacked up, what we think are better options, and she’ll give that feedback to them in a way more likely to receive a positive response (do they deserve getting chewed out? probably. Will it result in positive response? Probably not)

Zok.4956:

Devildoc.6721:

IMO I find it pretty boring and soulless to grind out xp bars at this point. I was actually getting quite fond of just plain ignoring the xp bar.

what I thought masteries would be like would be almost like a zelda/metroidvania like system where you had to find upgrades to get to new places (or in our case mastery points to upgrade our masteries and go new places) but that xp grind between acquiring a mastery point and being able to do something with is yawn. It feels like a chore rather than fun.

In “most other games”, when an expansion launches you get an new max-level and new max-level gear you have to grind XP for. With the HoT expansion, that max-level does not change but you grind XP for masteries.

So this way in HoT is kind of better than in “most other games”, but you can still call it a grind.

They seem only to implement the zelda/metroidvania idea, that you need special abilities (masteries) to master the new content, but not the way how you aquire those abilities/masteries.

It is better than most MMO’s that keep increasing the level cap but it could be even better.

Just the idea of masteries has me interested in the prospect of a metroidvania/Zelda like progression in an MMO, where finding tools and upgrades and hidden skills is how you progress and advance rather than just killing mobs over and over or doing quests over and over for xp.

That’d be combining two of my favorite things in games really.. progression through finding tools and skills, and being in a big open world to explore with lots of other people.

Too bad the genre is filled with nothing but soulless xp grind.

Can we at least get a hookshot?

IMO I find it pretty boring and soulless to grind out xp bars at this point. I was actually getting quite fond of just plain ignoring the xp bar.

what I thought masteries would be like would be almost like a zelda/metroidvania like system where you had to find upgrades to get to new places (or in our case mastery points to upgrade our masteries and go new places) but that xp grind between acquiring a mastery point and being able to do something with is yawn. It feels like a chore rather than fun.

I’m saving as many writs of experience as possible at this point to skip the suck part of the mastery system when I can.

the animations are just a bit too fast to really see.

Mo Mo.1947:

Ninjakittee.7681:

lordkrall.7241:

Ninjakittee.7681:

Beta testing isn’t a ‘privilege’, it’s a legitimate JOB that none of us are getting paid to do. We will have to purchase HoT. It isn’t our responsibility that it runs – that falls exclusively on ANet.

And yet you still complain like mad about being unable to join the beta-test due to the time….

Yes. Which I have the right to do. I am a customer and I am unsatisfied. The amount of time and effort I put into obtaining a portal, not to mention the fact that I bought and have continued to spend money on the game, means that I have the right to complain. This isn’t some service ANet is doing for me out of the goodness of their heart. This is a transaction. I don’t get paid for testing their product and I will still have to purchase the final version. So yes, I am going to complain.

Actually it IS a service they are doing you giving you a chance to be in a beta. If it wasn’t a service you wouldn’t feel so upset about the “bad service” you feel you’ve received.

And they’re really recruiting YOU to do a service for THEM. The betas aren’t on the weekends for that reason. They want people dedicated to the game in the beta, not just casual weekenders.

No. external playtesting is not a privilege for us. It is an exchange between anet and us. We do them a favor in identifying bugs that either slip through the cracks or only appear during high volume, and we get to preview something that otherwise we’d have to wait for.

It’s a quid pro quo, not a one sided bargain where anet is giving us everything and we should just be thankful.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Devildoc.6721:

Before people farm for hours and hours on end for portals, you should have told people the test was going to be a grand total of 6 hours, split into 2 hour blocks.

People would have had a lot less frustration in farming had they known it really wasn’t going to be worth the effort.

Or maybe you should keep in mind that they have stated that the beta portal you farmed will work for all subsequent betas. Not just this one.

Link to where this was ever declared by anet.

Renkencen.6127:

What make you think this will be the ONLY HoT beta testing?

Before GW2 was release, there were several pubic beta testing which starting of playing only three races and the last two were follow after a test weekend or two.

Yeah it suck some will missed the first one next Tuesday but so what? Just wait for the next one and hopefully the next one will be more convient for you?

Before you asked on my stance, I can played a little at 11.30 but I working in the afternoon so I will missed the 3.30 one but I’m all clear at 7.30 especially when I’m not working on the next day.

as far as we know, the portals are only for this specific test. Until anet clears up the confusion and says otherwise, that’s all we can know for the time being is that it gives us access to this one beta stress test.

I’m sure anet won’t be transparent with us on this issue either.

They may do another portal drop event for the next beta test.

No, what’s done is done, all we ask for is transparency and honesty.

Mordeus.1234:

I don’t think this will be the only Portal related beta testing but I do agree that they should have been up front with the details during the Portal event. I happened to get my one from casually playing, but I do feel for those who heavily farmed their one.

Without any information on the kind or scope of the Portal beta access, I don’t blame people for thinking it would be as grand as the exclusivity of the Portals itself. When you have a void in any information, it’s only natural for it to be filled in by the players. That’s the time when the devs should have stepped in to quell that sort of speculation. They didn’t have to but it would have been prudent.

I have hopes that this is the first of many Portal events. Culminating in a Beta Promotional Weekend exclusive for the Portal owners. Something of a sneak peak to the sneak peak.

The problem is, I expect this portal to only get you invited for THIS test, and anet will probably do another event to give invites for the next.

If this portal gets you invited to not only this test but future tests as well, that’d be handy information to know. Here’s another place where transparency from the developers or the community team would be appreciated.

Honesty is met with appreciation.

Deception is met with hostility.

As of now? It feels like Anet deceived us, in order to get more people farming Dry Top and Silverwastes, and I hate being tricked like that.

lordkrall.7241:

Or maybe people should stop thinking about betas as preview events and accept that they are actual tests and as such doing short burst is logical and makes sense?

Okay, look.

They HIRE, and PAY people to do serious testing, that’s what the QA department is for. That’s how a lot of their developers actually start their career, get hired on as QA and then they eventually get promoted to designers, like Mike Zadorojny.

Beta tests with playtesters find things that only occur when there’s high volume on the servers, so that’s one purpose, the “payment” for doing this for Arenanet is that people do get to see content early.

That’s pretty much the understood relationship, across multiple developers, and multiple games.

So while trying to trumpet “it’s a test, not a preview”, you’re basically wrong, we’re not hired Arenanet staff, it’s not our job, it’s an exchange, we test things for them in high volume and find issues they might not be able to find with the lower volume they have using only internal QA, and in exchange, we get to see something early.

It’s both a test and a preview, in that sense. All beta tests with volunteer playtesters are both tests and previews.

Otherwise if this is just supposed to be our job and we’re doing QA work for them, they’d better be cutting us a check.

But that’s beside the point. The point is, there were a lot of people upset at how beta invites were distributed this time and there would have been a lot less people upset if they’d known the details of the test ahead of time, because many people would have said “oh well, I can’t be on then anyway, guess I won’t farm” or “oh well, it’s only 6 total hours, so it’s not worth farming for more than 6 total hours” Some people farmed 60+ hours, for this 6 hour test (I’m not one of them I spent maybe 20? I don’t know, 2 hours a day tops for the duration and not every day), that’s a staggeringly disproportionate amount of time, and some of those people farmed that long for a beta they won’t be able to participate in due to irl obligations.

Of course, Arenanet may have had trouble getting enough testers for that “high volume” part of what actual testing we do consists of if they had been up front. But then they would have done as they did before, randomly select accounts that are on the newsletter subscription.

So what makes me angry is that Anet was not up front about the details and wasted a lot of time for some people and in fact deceived people to do what the REAL purpose of the portals was, not to get testers, but to get people back into farming Dry Top and Silverwastes. Their deception is what makes me angry about it.

Before people farm for hours and hours on end for portals, you should have told people the test was going to be a grand total of 6 hours, split into 2 hour blocks.

People would have had a lot less frustration in farming had they known it really wasn’t going to be worth the effort.

What kind of lunatic idea was this?

After Southsun you’d think the Consortium would be run off entirely, but no, we’ve given them the contract for restoring the same city they almost got destroyed a few years ago!

They’re already doing everything ENTIRELY wrong too, building alchemy knows what while leaving gaping holes in the bridges that span across the water. Only a bookah would leave these accidents waiting to happen while focusing on the “grand” towers and walls first. Workers may be carrying heavy loads of building materials across and unable to see and suddenly they fall into the bay, ruining lumber with them. Everyone knows you fix the infrastructure and ensure public safety first, THEN build aesthetically pleasing architecture.

Rym.1469:

Roll a Charr Necromancer. Problem fixed.

That’s still not spooky.

Needs to sound ghost like.

Donari.5237:

I like the idea of a touch of reverb!

I however disagree as to the scythe. Usually I prefer weapons to look “real.” In this case, though, it’s a magical part of a magical shroud and to me the size is perfect. If it were thick as a tree trunk I’d be less pleased but the proportions seem very nice to me.

I’m more concerned with it being so long that it’ll clip through the ground when you death’s charge.

I’m a little bit disappointed in hearing this spooky looking reaper shout in a normal character voice. They should have some sort of ghost/wraith/monster voice filter that makes the shouts sound more creepy.

also the scythe is a little large and too unwieldly looking.

Just some aesthetics feedback.

JonPeters.5630:

Hey all. Here are the Chronomancer traits from Robert! Keep in mind, all numbers are a work in progress.

Minor

• Time Splitter – Gain access to continuum split/shift which allows you to revert to an earlier point in time.
• Flow of Time – Gain alacrity when you shatter. (1s)
• Time Marches On – You move 25% faster. The duration of incoming movement-impairing conditions is reduced by 25%. (Cripple. Chilled, Immobilize)

Adept

• Time Catches Up – Activating a shatter gives your illusions Super Speed
• Delayed Reactions – Interrupting a foe slows them. (3s of Slow)
• All’s Well that Ends Well – Wells remove conditions from allies when they end. (1 condition)

Master

• Illusionary Reversion – Gain a clone after you activate a shatter skill.
• Improved Alacrity – Alacrity applied to you lasts longer. (33%)
• Danger Time – Gain additional critical hit chance against slowed enemies. (30%)

Grandmaster

• Lost Time – Every 3rd critical hit will slow your target. (2s of Slow)
• Chronophantasma – Your phantasms respawn the first time they are shattered.
• Seize The Moment – Gain quickness for each illusion you shatter. (1s of Quickness)

Alls well that ends well is a good concept but do look at the number of conditions removed. Many mesmers have very poor condition removal because their condition removal is tied to spec lines they don’t take for say shatter builds (inspiration). Their options are generally a mantra which many won’t take because of the ease of interruption when charging it, or null field.

If all’s well that ends well removed 1 condition each pulse.. well, that might be too strong, but somewhere in the middle might be right.

As for Danger Time, I find gaining crit chance against slowed enemies to be a bit meh, I usually have quite high crit chance as it is.

Instead I’d like something along the lines of gaining a few seconds of quickness when striking a slowed target, with an ICD or some effect that limits how often it can proc against a single target.

Just thinking along the lines of a chronomancer transferring time, speeding up themselves and slowing down enemies.

Or maybe instead of quickness, alacrity.

arakkune.1429:

guild wars is doing really good but who would expect other than that. From the report all i can say is poor wildstar people were so scared of free to play/buy to play but when i look at the numbers now I think they should be afraid if the game has any future since ncsoft doesnt mind closing a game within its first year if its not profitable enough
edit: B & S got such a boost because of the taiwan release right?

Yeah with numbers that low I don’t expect Wildstar to even go F2P or B2P, I expect Wildstar to just get canned by NCsoft.

Anet thinks they’re keeping us occupied by watching esports tournaments on Twitch.

oxtred.7658:

I’m seriously tired of those zerker elitists teaching me how to play. My build I created is great at support ( it’s a minion master/signet necromancer build focusing on healing with deathshroud, and I’ve enough condi damage to take advantage of my staff’s damage) but people don’t care about it and just want dps. Sure, my dps isn’t the best like a warrior would be, but I’m contributing and I’m always ressing those “pros” that keep dying to the boss while I safely range the boss with conditions and keep myself alive with heals. My propositions are:

-make berserker deals less damage than every other gear. It’s obvious that a single gear stat is the problem to everything, and people supporting others while not getting any personal survivability in the process disgusts me.

-make support a part of gear. This will allow trinity again and make the game better.

-allow people to craft items to help skipping hard bosses. Not everyone is a tryhard and has time to learn hard bosses like spider queen. This would also make crafting rewarding and give new ways to complete dungeons.

-end stacking. The zerk meta exists because of that single exploit.

-make mob reveals you if you reach a certain point without killing them to prevent skipping.

Also, they could add some nice stuff like having a legendary allows you to get more rewards, or rewars tied on AP to reward their high level playerbase.

That spec just does not have value in this game currently. Healing is undervalued because mobs attack slow and hard, meaning you either dodge everything, or you get downed in 1-2 hits. I’m not talking about trash here I’m talking about elites, champions, and bosses. Trash doesn’t matter.

Also your suggestion on zerker gear “just make it deal less damage than every other stat combo” is hilariously bad, please rethink it.

The problem is not zerker gear itself providing the highest damage. If you nerf berserker and make some other stat combo be the highest damage, people will just migrate to that and you still have the same stale problem, no diversity.

The problem is other stats aside from direct damage are devalued because of things I mentioned before, primarily, toughness and vitality and healing power just don’t really do anything when you should be dodging all the hits from bosses and champions, because you CAN dodge virtually everything as a glass cannon zerker, that means anything that makes it so you can take hits or heal through hits is just worthless. If you’re dying while being a glass cannon in the game currently the problem is not your build it’s your timing on dodges/blocks/invulns.

I don’t know about you but my male staff user will sometimes twirl his staff above his head

Thaddeus.4891:

Devildoc.6721:

Thaddeus.4891:

So you want that a DPS character can’t support and a Support character can’t DPS?

essentially yes, I mean they’ll contribute some damage but their primary role is to do something else.

Well there is plenty of MMO like that. GW2 is build around another concept. Both are good, they just don’t target the same public. GW2 sprend the responsability to the whole party. Everybody need to participate to the support and dps side of PvE.

On the plus side, you don’t rely on other to complete a specific content. You don’t need to wait for a tank and won’t wipe because your healer is a noob. But if everybody do their part you can do incredible things.

On the minus side, you don’t rely on other to complete a specific content. Everybody feel less important and special.

Personnally, i prefer this way and GW2 is good for me. Other ppl prefer the other way and other games are for them. I don’t go on the forum of other game and push to change the game at its very core.

and the result is this zerker all dps meta that we have now which is stale and boring and makes dungeons a chore to get done as fast as possible for loot rather than having fun.

The game I keep referencing is Guild Wars, you know, the game that GW2 is supposed to be a successor to.

It’s not about “feeling special” it’s about teamwork, rather than just soloing next to 4 other people soloing.

Thaddeus.4891:

Devildoc.6721:

“plenty of support” yeah right. Stacking might and fury, reflects, and maybe spreading Aegis is the only support of note. everything else is just stack, whack, and dodge. All those “support” boons and reflects are also done perfectly well while in zerker gear while dps’ing at the same time too.

So you’re not support, you’re still DPS.

This is every profession’s role in every dungeon in GW2:

So you want that a DPS character can’t support and a Support character can’t DPS?

essentially yes, I mean they’ll contribute some damage but their primary role is to do something else.

In GW1 a minion master’s primary role was to raise a minion army and buff it. I mean they could wand attack too but they didn’t carry any direct damage skills and generally did not carry anything but skills to support their specific role. They could autoattack with their weapon I suppose.

A healing monk’s primary role was to heal their group and perhaps provide other supportive buffs and condition/hex cleansing maybe. They could also autoattack with their weapon but they did not bring any damage skills.

An Imbagon build Paragon’s primary role was buffing the group. They still autoattacked with spears, but that was more to keep their adrenaline up so they could use shouts to buff their group.

It’s division of responsibility for the group, making you dependent on your groupmates, where in GW2, it’s like you’re soloing next to 4 other people who are all doing the same thing. You’re responsible for your own heals, your own damage mitigation, your own damage, and the only support you’re getting from your teammates is might stacks and more damage.

I suppose a large part of the problem is that most of your skill bar is predetermined. Half your skills are determined by weapon, 1 of the remaining skills MUST be a heal, and 1 of the remaining skills MUST be an elite, from a realistic choice of 3 options of elites (racials don’t really count)

So since 5 skills are determined by weapon, they’re generally going to be DPS oriented, at least 3 of them, usually all 5.

pandas.9450:

There is plenty of support, it is just another excuse to bring back a trinity or people to lazy to make lfgs

“plenty of support” yeah right. Stacking might and fury, reflects, and maybe spreading Aegis is the only support of note. everything else is just stack, whack, and dodge. All those “support” boons and reflects are also done perfectly well while in zerker gear while dps’ing at the same time too.

So you’re not support, you’re still DPS.

This is every profession’s role in every dungeon in GW2:

Warrior: DPS, Might/Vuln Stacking (if PS, stacking might by doing dps and getting crits), Banners
Ele: DPS, Might/Fury Stacking, Conjured Weapons (all while primarily doing dps)
Guardian: DPS, Reflects, Aegis, Vuln
Mesmer: DPS, Reflects, Time Warp (and very rarely boon stripping)
Thief: DPS, trash skipping (and very rarely boon stripping)
Engi: DPS, Might/Vuln stacking, trash skipping
Ranger: DPS, spotter
Necro: haha just kidding people don’t bring necros.

Karisho.3058:

So, I’ve been playing Gw2 since the release, mostly PvE. My problem, and I think, it’s a problem, that a lot of PvE players have, is, that the dungeons became really boring. The only reason for me to run them, is the gold. I was thinking about some ways to change that. The first thing would be, to add new dungeons. Now, the problem with that is, that they will also become boring after some time.
What I was thinking about the most was to add something to the dungeons to make them attractive again. Just an item, that can only drop in this dungeon. It shouldn’t be something game changing that gives advantages over players, that don’t have the items. Rather should it be something collectible, something that adds a bit prestige. For example a miniature or a special skin.
Now, I want to know, what do you think about this idea?

The problem with dungeons is they scrapped the multi-role group of GW1 (Minion Master, Tank, Heal, DPS, Protection, Interrupt, Debuffing, Battery, not all roles would be used in a group at all times, you might not have interruption, you might not have a tank, or a minion master, but they were all options for roles that were valuable in some places) for the singular role of GW2, DPS. All “support” options are done just as well in glass cannon dps gear and specs basically the only real “support” is stacking might and fury, dropping banners and conjured weapons, and pulling or punting mobs into a stack to whack down.

It’s very stale and boring.

What kills any attempts at having actual support builds or control builds as GW2 manifesto envisioned as a “soft trinity” is 2 things.

1. Mobs hit too hard and too slowly. Making it so that you can dodge almost everything, and if you don’t dodge, you just die. There’s no real value to healing or defensive boons, when people are good enough to dodge everything, or bad enough that they’re just getting one shot.
2. Defiance. Why bother with trying to interrupt mobs and coordinate your CC’s to line up to where they have no defiance stacks left and nobody uses a CC effect until you need to interrupt.. when it’s just easier to expect everyone to dodge the big hit instead of trying to interrupt it? Break bars are okay I guess but that’s a gimmicky way of implementing control role into the game.

To solve #1, mobs need to hit faster but for less damage, you shouldn’t expect to be able to dodge 100% of their attacks, only the most important telegraphed attacks. With more moderate damage over time that you can’t just avoid 100% of it, you’ll need to heal, and you’ll need defensive stats to mitigate damage to make it manageable.

To solve #2. First off, defiance sucks, yes it rewards really organized teamplay if everyone is on voip doing a cycle of CC effects and NOBODY uses a CC effect out of turn, but that level of coordination is something you should expect from raids, not normal PVE dungeons, not from PUGs, not from people not in voice communication with each other, and not for just 1-3g, that kind of effort people need something more to reward them for. So that needs fixed first and foremost, but secondly, there needs to be aoe effects that you just cannot dodge or block through, you need to interrupt them. I’ve always found it silly that a boss can lay out this huge aoe field, and people just do a little roll, while still inside the AOE, and be invincible to the damage. You should have to be outside of the effect to not get hit, not just getting invulnerability frames. This would also solve stacking if you can’t just dodge inside the aoe to avoid damage.

Ferik.3127:

Hey,

So I was asked this by a friend today. We both PvP with our thieves and he saw that my thief was a girl and asked this question: “Why would you play a girl if you’re a dude?”. And I was not able to answer that because I truly have no idea

I only know that as a straight guy, 18 of my 36 characters in Guild Wars 2 are female and the other half male. As for why I am quite confused as well. So here’s to you who might have done the same thing. Why do we do that?

Same reason you make characters other than human. Just some diversity in your characters. I know women who play male characters too. For me it also depends on things like if I like the armor better on a male or female version of a race, animations they do (including /dance in Guild Wars 1, I usually decided female or male of a class based on /dance, you had to do female necro because of the Thriller Dance, male Paragon for the “Beat It” dance etc), and in GW2 and SWTOR in particular, I make choice based on which voice acting I like better, like I can’t play a male human in GW2 because I don’t like Nolan North’s performance (sorry Mr. North, it just doesn’t fit the characters I want to make!).

Ultimately I don’t find it weird at all if a person has characters of many races and both genders. Seems well balanced to me.

It’s weirder to me if a person only makes one race or one gender for all their characters, or weirder still, something like all their characters are female Asura when they’re a male irl. Even weirder if they’re all the same profession… knew one dude in LotRO who made all his character slots male Elf minstrels, all level capped, all looked almost the same too. I just didn’t get it.. maybe something actually pathological there.

At least then people could have a chance at having fun while farming them if they’re tired of the 2 PVE zones.