HoT Price Feedback + Base game included [merged]
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Diovid.9506
Or did Anet just pull a whole “he’s really dead this time” thing?
The exact quote was “he’s gone for good this time” I think.
So are they not revealing anything this week? As in any specialisations?
We have known that since monday. If there is no teaser on monday then there is no specialization reveal that week.
HoT takes places in the Heart of Maguuma (a new region) and possibly in the Maguuma Wastes (the same region as Dry Top and the Silverwastes). Both of these regions are in the same continent as the regions we were already in but of course new zones will be added.
1. There is still a difference between F2P accounts and accounts with which have bought the core game: https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/95982157?_ga=1.200758702.1436656858.1439561729
2. As others have said, when HoT releases there are some features which will come for free for all players, not just for HoT players. Mainly the new WvW borderlands map, various changes to WvW mechanics, the new SPvP map, various changes to Fractals, map bonus rewards and some (but not all) of the new guild features.
Well, you can all point out the few differences that still remain, but the point of the OP was that HoT seems like Arenanet admitting that they have no clue how to change the MMO formula so they rather just fall in line. And however much it may hurt your feelings or i don’t know what… OP is right.
No one can be truely creative, everyone builds on what came before so you’re right in that regard. However, Anet never tried to reinvent the genre, they tried to evolve it. In fact, Anet seemed to have moved away from the genre too much in alpha, but based on feedback they moved back a little. The way they implement raids is no different. Whether it actually works remains to be seen but that is the aim.
Guild teams and guild leaderboards are already coming when HoT releases.
With limited numbers of participants. I think 30-50 is max in a battle right? What happens if you have a 500 person guild and want the whole guild involved?
I’m pretty sure guild teams are 5-man teams since the maps they play on are the SPvP maps.
If you want to do pvp guild content with larger teams then WvW is the place to be. Guild claiming in WvW is also getting various updates.
Anet is very much against dividing the playerbase too much so I very much doubt that there will ever be yet another pvp mode specifically for guilds when SPvP and WvW will already offer guilds with all kinds of opportunities to shine.
Guild teams and guild leaderboards are already coming when HoT releases.
after the pact fleet being destroyed, and the lion’s arch rebuild, and before the events of HoT
Live events have always been in linear order in GW2, and in real (earth) time, with releases officially happening on the date they were released and stretching a questionable amount of time up until the next event or release which could be interpreted as a couple days or the entire stretch of time between events/releases.
The problem is that Anet has stated on the one hand that, as you say, time in tyria is synched with time in the real world, while Anet has stated on the other hand that HoT happens immediately after the destruction of the pact fleet. This creates a complicated situation, unless it took the pact fleet months to get from the Silverwastes to the jungle (i.e. the time between the ending of season 2 and the release of HoT) which seems highly unlikely. The events that are happening now, such as the rebuild of Lion’s Arch and the Modrem invasions are not even neccesary for creating a mess but they do make the mess even worse.
Good point
I suppose it’s possible that technically the destruction of the pact fleet hasn’t happenned yet though, right? As in the video that we got was a teaser which is technically the intro to HoT.
So I suppose this event takes place after the building of LA, but actually before the destruction of the fleet?
Right but the fleet left during Point of no Return, thus, as I said, the pact would’ve traveled for months to get from the Silverwastes to the jungle, which also seems unlikely.
after the pact fleet being destroyed, and the lion’s arch rebuild, and before the events of HoT
Live events have always been in linear order in GW2, and in real (earth) time, with releases officially happening on the date they were released and stretching a questionable amount of time up until the next event or release which could be interpreted as a couple days or the entire stretch of time between events/releases.
The problem is that Anet has stated on the one hand that, as you say, time in tyria is synched with time in the real world, while Anet has stated on the other hand that HoT happens immediately after the destruction of the pact fleet. This creates a complicated situation, unless it took the pact fleet months to get from the Silverwastes to the jungle (i.e. the time between the ending of season 2 and the release of HoT) which seems highly unlikely. The events that are happening now, such as the rebuild of Lion’s Arch and the Modrem invasions are not even neccesary for creating a mess but they do make the mess even worse.
Probably at the same moment in time as when Lion’s Arch was restored.
GW1 is a very different game though, at least in terms of mechanics. Some people who love GW1 hate GW2 and vice versa. Of course in terms of lore it takes place in the same universe (but 250 years earlier).
I think you mean GW1 is a better game. OP wont regret giving it a go
That is highly subjective. I enjoy both GW1 and GW2 but for very different reasons. There is no guarantee that the OP will enjoy GW1.
Open world events, personal story, living story, mastery leveling, adventures and fractals I’d imagine.
Are you sure about guild halls though? Didn’t they say the instance you need to do to unlock guild halls would scale?
There is no telling when or if we get to visit the lands and capitals of the other two legions. The two dragons closest to the Charr are Jormag and Kralkatorrik so if we get to expansions dealing with them then there’s a chance we get to see more of the Charr.
Consider playing the Guild Wars 1 expansion Eye of the North if you want to see part of the Blood Legion lands. I hope we go back there. They’re pretty.
GW1 is a very different game though, at least in terms of mechanics. Some people who love GW1 hate GW2 and vice versa. Of course in terms of lore it takes place in the same universe (but 250 years earlier).
(edited by Diovid.9506)
I assume, just like in player guilds, there are no minimum/maximum limits on size?
Not that I’m aware of. Of course there is a limit on one’s ability to coordinate between one another in any organization so that puts some sort of limit on the size of guilds.
Other than that though, in lore guilds have been so large and powerful that their conflicts caused continent-wide wars: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Guild_Wars. Note that the Guild Wars take place before the events of GW1 and that GW1 in turn takes place 250 years before GW2. The guilds have greatly declined in importance since the guild wars (although that depends on whether one sees present day organizations, like the orders, as guilds or not), with the possible exceptions of Ascalon’s Chosen (in GW1) and Destiny’s Edge (in GW2).
They are HoT-only. However, the aim is that they are not stronger than core specializations thus people without HoT should be as strong as people with HoT. To what extent that is true is something that is difficult to predict.
Raids: Well, nothing to say about that. Hard content for bigger groups offering the fanciest rewards. We have seen this before in other games.
Except there is no gear treadmill, which makes raids hugely different in GW2 compared to other MMOs where raids are needed to get the best gear.
Trinity: Tank/Healer/DD, Control/Support/Damage, it is actually hard to see a difference. People will be locked into a role to make raids work. Replacing one trinity with a different one is just a camouflage. The fact that ANet is actually talking about a trinity is slightly irritating in the first place.
There is a big difference actually. In GW2 characters do not specialize in Control, Support or Damage, all characters are expected to do all three (although different characters do these three things in different ways and to different extents).
Gated Items: The fanciest items will be locked behind raids (legendary armor) and difficult group content (legendary backpiece). While people will tell you that you don’t need them, it is still a fact that the nicest, most convinient and most prestige items are locked behind raids and high level fractals. They are for the elite, which is being established in the process of creating raids btw.
The important thing is that legendary items are not stronger than ascended items and that ascended items in turn are only somewhat stronger than exotic items. In addition, currently pretty much all content can be completed with exotic items. This is again different from most other mmos.
There are more additions, but I think you get the point. We are moving into the direction of most other MMOs out there.
With rep grind, raids and trinity as well as raid gated items being actually promoted as new core mechanisms of GW2, the game has moved away from it’s former image of being made for a more casuals crowd towards an elite audience. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing – and only time will tell.
The point of most of these additions (and HoT in general) is to provide us with endgame content and endgame progression, in other words they are meant to promote retention which was something that GW2 was severely lacking according to many people.
But with all these additions, GW2 starts to feel way less unique, and that’s the part that sort of irks me.
To an extent you’re right but as I pointed out, the way these additions are implemented is done in a typically GW2-y way.
Thanks, do you mean a guild as in what I am in as a player or a ‘phantom’ guild they are in in the course of the game?
I’m guessing Aaron means a guild in terms of lore, not in terms of gameplay (these are similar but not exactly the same).
There is this lore blib from the Movement of the World
The guilds of Tyria have grown and expanded, despite the destruction of the Battle Isles. Balthazar helped raise a new temple in Lion’s Arch, stepping on the hearthstone of the construction and opening a gate there to the Mists, so that heroes of each world could compete in contest. But these guilds are not racially aligned as they were in the past—no longer restricted merely to humans, they accept heroes of all societies into their halls.
The Asura easily fit into the guild system, using guilds as they would any other krewe designed for a task. To the Charr, the guilds are like warbands. They do not replace the loyalty the Charr hold to their legion but instead allow them unique opportunities to display the strength of their race and increase their own personal reputations as ferocious combatants. Norn are always eager for a fight, and their loyalty to friends makes them a blessing to any combat force. Sylvari bring unique and unpredictable strengths to a guild, and are eager to enter into any danger simply for the experience of it.
Guilds are a prominent force in Tyria, taking on challenges that individual adventurers fear to face, and braving even the most dangerous opponents. It is said that if there is any hope for the races of Tyria to find peace, it will come from the guilds and their atmosphere of cooperation and unity.
I mean build diversity would be insane and fun only class that would need complete rework is thief due to initiative thing .
This is the exact reason why they didn’t do it (and why they didn’t have a dual class system in the first place). Build diversity was ‘insane’ in GW1 due to the number of skills and the dual class system and this made balancing quite difficult. This was further troubled by the exponential increase of build options with Factions, Nightfall and EotN. This caused some options to be overpowered, others to be bugged and many many others to be very underpowered. They want (and wanted) to prevent this situation with GW2.
Sometime between now and the last BWE.
Hi, I have only one problem concerning HoT. First and the most important thing in this text is that I play only PvP nothing else. So as you can see there’s nothing that comes for me from purchasing HoT as it is.
Things that are of interest to PvP players are: Elite specializations, the Revenant and Mist Champions (for Stronghold). Some pvp guilds might enjoy guild halls, I don’t know. New skins and new runes/sigils/stats might also be HoT-only (the latter is unconfirmed though).
So the last thing that concerns me are the Specializations I have read that you will be able to play them in PvP and that aplies only the ppl who gave 50$ for HoT. I get that you want ppl to pay what you created, but, look at it from my perspective. Is it really worth it for me to buy a new prof for 50$? Have you a solution for me? If not I have a suggestion, make Stronghold a paid map. Then make it with the specs purchaseble as a pack for PvP and indeed please lower the price. The HoT is HEAVILY PVE oriented and I am sure you see that asking for 50$ for this pack would be a bit overpriced. In conclusion, I will not buy HoT as it is, but I think that my suggestion is a win-win situation/solution. Have a nice day
I agree that there should be an option to just buy a PvP pack which includes the elite specializations, the Revenant and mist champions. I don’t whether Anet will ever do that however. They did do something similar with GW1 though, so who knows?
What if only the leader has heart of thorns and makes a guild hall will the members have acess to it
From what I remember several members have to have HoT in order to claim a guild hall (you have to do an instance where you clear the guild hall of modrem). After that is done, other members of the guild, even those who don’t have HoT, can visit the guild hall. However people without HoT might not have access to all features of guild halls.
Razah is one of the GW1 characters that might indeed still be around, together with characters like M.O.X., Livia and Lazarus the Dire.
I love map completion and I agree with you that it is a pity that the new zones can not be completed in the same way as old zones, however hearts have no place in the new zones. Hearts weren’t meant to be in the game at all (because of dynamic events), however from testing Anet learnt that people needed the guidance hearts provide. The idea is that in high level zones (such as Orr, Dry Top and Southsun Cove) people have learnt to focus on events instead of hearts making hearts redundant in those areas.
I can’t recall whether avatars were actually different beings from the gods or if they were merely local manifestations of the gods. If the latter then Abaddon’s avatar would be no more of course (or perhaps it would better to say that it got replaced by Kormir’s avatar). If the former, I could imagine that Kormir (and the other gods) would see to it that Abbaddon’s avatar would be either destroyed or locked away.
In general, I’d say that some professions had to be last so it might as well be the Druid and Forge.
In addition, balancing will continue after launch of HoT.
unless you can hold a staff and bow in one hand each…..
Come again? Neither staves nor bows are in any way wieldable in one hand. You’re joking right?
shoulda went with pistols or Rifle. would seem more modern anyways.
The theme they want for the Ranger is the technology vs nature or civilization vs nature trope. That’s why the Ranger doesn’t have firearms. Of course, an elite specialization might change that but still. I kinda like it that Anet is sticking to their guns (pun intented) in this regard.
XD not really. ranger has far too little AoE attacks. just kinda thought it would be more normal to use ranged weaponry as the name “Ranger” suggests.
The name ‘ranger’ does not come from ‘one who attacks at range’ but from ‘one who guards/patrols a range of land’ or something of that nature.
(edited by Diovid.9506)
Again, that is called power creep, not vertical progression. It is an issue of the skills themselves being unbalanced/more powerful, not an indication that more options equals more power. Having more options only gives you more possibilities. It doesn’t make those possibilities inherently better. It does increase your chance of finding a particularly powerful combination, but that is the result of more possible combos being more difficult to balance.
Power creep that is the consequence of something that is supposed to be horizontal progression, is de facto vertical progression.
TLDR: Is there any insight on what Challenging group content will be?
Be patient for 2 more days.
In the BWE2 announcement the following is said:
we look forward to sharing the expanded version of the night experience in future beta events.
This implies that there are still multiple beta events to come.
You’re assuming that because the druid hasn’t been announced yet it will suck. On what logic are you connecting those facts into that conclusion?
I guess the logic for some people is that elite specs which are announced later will be tested less because they will be available in fewer beta events.
If i remember correctly didn’t Anet mention some Elite Specializations may be released as part of updates?
What they said was that the elite specializations system and the mastery system are set up to be expandable and that the way these systems could be expanded could be either through expansions or through updates but that they would have to see how exactly they would do so.
Unless they add new weapon types. Even before GW2’s release they mentioned possibly adding polearms at some point.
You do understand that each new weapon they add is one more weapon that engineer needs an elite spec for :p So the net result is the same.
Except I do not take their statement about giving all professions all weapons literally. If only for the fact that 17 elite specs would have to be added to get there. I don’t think GW2 will live that long. I also think Anet will sooner add new weapon types than giving two elite specializations with the same weapon type to a profession.
Oh well, for now it’s all daydreaming anyway.
This is a horrible reason.
While I disagree with you and others have pointed out why, I can give you another reason.
The range of weapons available to some classes (and the restriction of weapons available to others) is a part of class balance. If they were to add more and more weapons to all classes, the ones with the larger starting pool of weapons would soon run out of new weapons to gain, and then slowly lose that advantage as the other classes catch up to them. (And the more limited classes would slowly lose that disadvantage.)
By limiting the new weapons to being tied to an elite spec, they avoid this problem while still being able to bring new weapons to all of the classes. Engineers will never have all the weapons at once, they’ll have their current three picks plus one from the elite. The “plus one” can change, but they’ll never be on par with warriors or thieves.
Anet has stated that they’re working towards making sure all classes can use all weapons. Therefore, this reason is as flawed as your first. And, unlike Nike, I’ll actually give a direct source.
“What’s more is that the team is also working very kitten finding a way to make it so that every profession has access to every weapon and their own weapon skills for those previously locked weapons.”
That quote is actually from Anet and not some random player making suggestions on the forum.
But this quote is BS anyway. By the time the Engineer has all the weapons, the warrior will have had nearly twice the full weapon set in elite specs.
It is highly likely that sooner or later the warrior will receive an elite spec that actually changes the skills of an already existing weapon of his instead of adding a new one. Just cause that class is very close to have all the weapons in the first place.
Unless they add new weapon types. Even before GW2’s release they mentioned possibly adding polearms at some point.
I hope that Anet is willing to do another class beta soon, the game is getting terribly boring and people are leaving again.
My guess is that the next beta will run when all elite specializations are announced, so at a minimum it will be another 2 and a half weeks.
Not just that, there is litterly no new content and we are still waiting for the release date.
I think it is probable that the release date will be announced this saturday at Pax.
i have heared it like a lot of others by now that there is 90% chance it will be around xmas by an insider on an gaming event.
Cool story bro.
I hope they don’t just do the predictable thing and have 1 dragon per expac. It’d be cool if one of them was about pitting 2 dragons against each other, or 2 dragons at war with each other for some inexplicable reason.
Or a Crystal Desert expansion dealing with a war between Kralkatorrik and Palawa Joko.
Currently picking the Elite Spec unlocks the new profesion mechanic , new weapon and new utility skills, why?
The answer is that doing so prevents the number of combinations of skills from growing exponentially with each added elite specialization (as happened in GW1 with each added expansion).
I really dont get what is taking so long on this exspansion, dosent seem like there will be that much anyways, there was more in the exspansions in the first game,
Although I think it is indeed likely that HoT will have less than GW1’s second and third campaigns (which are not actually expansions, only EotN was an expansion), we just don’t know. We don’t know how long the story is. We don’t know how many new zones there will be, how large those zones will be and how long those zones will remain fun/rewarding to play. We don’t know how many armor and weapon skins are added. We don’t know how many adventures are added. And so on, and so on. So saying that it ’doesn’t seem like there will be that much anyways’ is based on an absence of information, which is not information about absence. Granted, Anet could’ve done a better job at giving us information but that is no reason for baseless negativity.
They should of waited to annouce the exspansion, you know when they have more of the major things ready, so we dont get hyped then lose it then get hyped and lose it.
Then we would have had months without any updates to the game and not knowing what Anet was working on. That would’ve been a lot worse.
Whether something is worth it or not is subjective in the end. Other people can provide information and various arguments but you are the only one who can make that decision for you.
I guess the logic is that Warhorn, Shield and Torch are off-hand only weapons (not just for the Warrior but in the game in general). Furthermore, they aren’t really weapon-y.
Now, if an elite specialization were to add an off-hand dagger or off-hand pistol then I would fully expect the trait to apply to it.
The only elite spec that seems like an upgrade to me is the Chronomancer. The rest seems either about equal to core specs or less useful than core specs.
Tempest, I feel also seems to fall into the upgrade territory BUT where it currently sits number-wise puts it behind standard Ele. The thing that makes it an upgrade is purely the fact that that is exactly what it does, it upgrades your profession mechanic to do more. But to take advantage of the upgrade hits a numbers speedbump. Whatever you can accomplish as an Elementalist, you can do the same as a Tempest.
That’s simply the wrong way of looking at it. As many elementalist players will tell you, the weakness of the Tempest is not just in the numbers. Everything from the warhorn skills to the shouts to the traits to the overload mechanic is not better than what an elementalist can already do. But you still have to give up one of your precious core specs to get access to all of that.
Berserker, plain and simple, is an upgrade. I see no alternative. Even if your Berserker can’t provide as much support as you could with a set of core specs, you can still do it and you lose nothing, only gain more and better burst mechanics. Sure, there might be niche builds aimed a super-high max PvE dungeon speedrun DPS that requires pure burst and Berserker sounds more hybrid at best, but a level of DPS hardly seems a different playstyle (so long as the gap isn’t huge).
Again, you are looking at it wrong by only focusing on the profession mechanic. Yes, the Berserker gets more profession mechanics than a normal Warrior (i.e. it has normal burst skills plus primal burst skills plus berserk). However, again, the core specs are so good and so essential to the Warrior’s playstyle that most players who want to run the ‘best’ builds (either in PvE or in PvP) will likely stick with the core specs. The Rage skills and the torch skills are not good enough either to give up those core specs.
That all said, even if the Reaper and the Berserker are suboptimal, they look like a lot of fun and I will be playing them (I might even play an aura-share Tempest).
Bears are the quintessential bunker. They are the apex predator for North America and most of Europe because of their immense size and protective layers of fat, muscle, and fur that make them incredibly difficult to actually kill.
Bears really aren’t that aggressive. Their diet consists of primarily foraged plant matter and only rarely meat. They are territorial and will protect their territory, but they don’t roam around beating up other animals for food. They find a location, claim it, and chase off other predators that try to take it. They bunker.
Naturally they have strong offensive potential, but they don’t excel at it. They use their powerful arms and sharp claws to kill less armored opponents who trespass in their territory. Just like a lone burst profession jumping a bunker on point and being out-sustained by the more resilient bunker.
I’ll add to this that part of the imagery of bears in GW2 is that of mother bears protecting their cubs.
I think Wolf represents your DPS variant more.
I always felt that wolf represented small group tactics, flanking, that sort of thing.
I think it is quite possible that many (but not all) modrem were grown, rather than corrupted.
This was actually in development before Guild Wars 2 was released. For one reason or another, development was ceased.
I might’ve read somewhere that this might be possible with a future version of the API, I’m not sure though.
I’m pretty sure it will work the same as Season 2. For season 2 you only need characters that are level 80, those characters don’t need to have completed the personal story to play season 2. Likewise, I think that in order to play the expansion, you only need level 80 characters. They don’t need to have completed the personal story (nor season 2).
There was actually a discussion in one of the CDI’s on making the orders more relevant later on in the game, for example through daily quests and/or through reputation grind. Whether or not something along those lines ever makes it into the game is something only Anet knows.
Why do we need a reputation grind? I am the Pact Commander. They should respect me for bringing them together and leading them.
You’re not leading them. Gixx leads the Priory, Almorra leads the Vigil and Riel leads the Order of Whispers. Trahearne leads the pact. You are just one of many pact commanders (although you are the first commander and trahearne’s right hand).
Besides, I’m not saying that reputation will be added or that it is a good idea, just that it was discussed.
Can we expect a delivered product by Christmas this year or early Next year at this point?
They’ve stated pretty strongly that HoT will release this year so that means christmas at the latest.
Many people seem to expect that Anet will announce the release date next saturday at pax.
As for the next BWE, I don’t expect it will be here before all elite specializations are revealed (so they can be tested).
Eotm only option for old player? But i have done that so many times.
There are multiple options, such as:
- EotM
- Frostgorge champ train
- World bosses
- Silverwastes
The real reason the QDale champ train was killed was some players not being able to shake the idea that they were entitled to those champs and entitled to spew resentment towards anyone who happened to slow them down.
That’s hardly the ‘real reason’ because that problem still exists, for example in Frostgorge where people can behave very toxic.
The problem is the combination of that behavior and the low level of the area (and thus the presence of new players).
No, because they ruined the experience for new players in low level areas (although daily event completer also does that to an extent).
In a sense HoT is entirely ‘end-game’ since it is focused on players with characters which are max level and it’s not adding any new vertical progression.
Let’s just hope it’s the best thing of the entire expansion :P
I’m actually hoping that the story and the open world are the best things of the expansion. However, I’m hoping that this challening group content is also very good.