Guild Wars 2

I’m pretty sure the nightmare court is as anti-dragon as the rest of the sylvari and as you said, they are even more anti-authority than the other sylvari (except if the source of authority is a sylvari within their own ranks, for some reason).

The interesting thing, to me, is that the two most prominent victims of Mordremoth (e.g. scarlet and aerin) were both soundless, not nightmare court. Which of course is another hint at the fact that it is the dream (and possibly the nightmare) that protects sylvari against Mordremoth. The reason why those pact sylvari fell to Mordremoth’s power was likely either due to proximity to him or due the current state of the pale tree (or a combination of both).

Shadow Blade.1324:

lordkrall.7241:

You will not have access to Masteries,

this is incorrect you have access to the precursor crafting mastery and one other that i cant recall atm

source
: i played it at an event and checked the masteries tab

Even though those masteries are ‘core masteries’ and are thus leveled in non-HoT areas, you still need HoT to unlock them.

My take on this is that most of the updates so far have been aimed at new players.

HoT on the other hand is aimed at max level players with more experience. We’ll have to wait and see if they make true on that promise of course.

About future professions: I don’t expect any more professions to be added after the Revenant. We now have 3 professions per armor class. In addition, Anet said that elite specializations are the way in which they will increase character options in the future.

Randulf.7614:

Future Guardian elite was my thought too, although some have speculated the datamined and unsubstantiated thief/staff combo to be monk-like. I however am sceptical.

There is a difference between a gw1 monk and the monk that is discussed in relationship to the thief. The latter is a monk as in a ‘shaolin monk’.

1. Anet has stated that there will only be one elite specialization per profession.

2. There will be more elite specializations added sometime after HoT (whether that is with live updates or future expansions hasn’t been decided).

3. The terminology makes sense because you have to choose between one of the core specializations and the elite specializations (i.e. either you choose 3 core specializations or you choose 2 core specializations and 1 elite specialization).

but they have said that there will be ES’s that could change existing weapons.

Have they? I can’t say I remember them saying anything like that. Can you give a source?

It has to do with VAT (value added tax) which isn’t included in the dollar price but is included in the European prices.

adormtil.1605:

Obtena.7952:

adormtil.1605:

Obtena.7952:

adormtil.1605:

Well the F2P model is more profitable as I shown they could make profit without charging for the expansion probably even more. People keep telling me that Anet knows best but I doubt that so much.
According to the forum the sales will not be huge.

Could be, but that’s not their business model so whatever you think you have shown isn’t relevant. Anet knows enough to run a game for 3 years, and likely more than that … and that’s enough. If you doubt, you haven’t considered all the factors here; primarily the fact that real businesses like NCSoft are still behind the game.

Furthermore, if you think forums is an indicator of anything, I question your experience with MMO’s in general.

Then check reddit its the second most popular topic the first being about builds.

Here, let me repeat this replacing Forums wtih Reddit:

… if you think Reddit is an indicator of anything, I question your experience with MMO’s in general. I don’t believe a significant portion of the MMO people actual ‘play’ on the forum, reddit, whatever you can think of. Many people just play in game. In addition, people who are happy with the game will be less apt to make a post about it than someone who is not; therefore, you will see the majority of threads and posts being negative. The forum is biased this way. Think about it a minute.

I0 don’t even get the relevance of your anecdote about SWTOR; GW2 has always been F2P and better than how SWTOR does it now. GW2 didn’t have to be reborn to F2P to survive like SWTOR; it had a sound business model right out of the gate and will continue to do so because reasonable people understand how cheap it is to play and like the content, the mechanics, etc…

Do you have any idea how many people do you need to be significant from lets say 3 million players that play the game?Its not even 1% its that small even smaller. do you think all those studies for all kind of crap like how many adults pick their nose are made to millions? no they are made to a couple of thousands actually 1000 and only hundreds of answers could be used from hundreds of millions.

That is only true if the sample you use has about the same demographic composition as the population you are studying.

Like ronpierce said, it has already been confirmed that the Revenant will also be getting an elite specialization, with the speculation that it will be Glint-themed.

I can guess that their new weapon will be ranged, since all current weapons we’ve seen have been melee so far.

Actually, both the Hammer and the Axe are ranged weapons.

Fenom.9457:

He said right now, and that this xpac was different as it was adding the building blocks.

True but that doesn’t in any way confirm that new races are coming in the future. In fact, his remark that all a new race does is bring in ‘a racial skill or two and a little bit of story’ seems to point to the opposite.

Also, it was at least confirmed Revenant was last profession, unless something changes, which is unlikely.

I haven’t read anything of the sort. Can you give a source?

Fenom.9457:

Though it has been confirmed in future xpacs playable races will take the spot of new professions

No it hasn’t, at all. Neither the fact that we will get more races nor the fact that we won’t be getting more professions is confirmed. That said, I consider it far more likely that we will get races instead of more professions.

The latest Anet has said on the topic is the following:

Shacknews: You’ve added a new profession, however you did hold off on adding a new race. What led to this decision?

Johanson: For this one, we looked at what we would get out of adding a new race and what benefit it actually brings to the players from a gameplay standpoint. It’s very limited in Guild Wars 2. A new race adds a racial skill or two and a little bit of story, but it doesn’t give that much meaningful gameplay in the grand scheme of things. The race is more context for the early story that you experience. So we wanted to focus things that would provide a lot more gameplay and address parts of Guild Wars 2 that we felt like we really wanted to be able to make a better experience and grow. So right now, we didn’t feel that a new race was a key need for the game, whereas the other things that we’re adding really provide fundamental building blocks for the future.

The answers are here:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/specializations-part-one-a-primer/
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/specializations-part-two-reward-tracks-and-elite-specializations/
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/ready-up-core-specializations-summary/

MCHarris.5648:

I thought each class was getting a different weapon with their specialization, so ranger has been confirmed to getting staff so wouldn’t thief get something else?

That’s based on speculation, not on anything Arenanet has said.

sevenDEADLY.5281:

Everyone keeps acting like elite specializations are supposed to be the same class as the original. When you spec for an elite you are NO LONGER whatever the original class was. Your class even changes in game. A ranger specing druid is no longer a ranger. Druids and Rangers are two entirely different beasts. The same goes for Monk and Thief (assuming it actually ends up being staff monk type elite). You’re not a thief anymore. No one seems to understand this. If you choose the elite in game you have a completely different class icon and it will say “level 80 monk” or “level 80 druid” not ranger or thief anymore. So elites can be whatever anet wants them to be.

To a large degree I agree with the sentiment. However the elite specialization still has to fit to some extent with the core profession. For example. the elite specialization has to work with all core weapons and all core specializations. Thus probably all thief elite specializations will have access to stealth and steal. Just like probably all ranger elite specializations will have access to pets. This to some extent limits what an elite specialization can be.

Tobacco.6815:

Diovid.9506:

Tobacco.6815:

Snip

So, basically you judge the Charr purely based on their looks, got it. To you all big animal races are the same. As if WoW Tauren and GW2 Charr are anything alike.

Well, I have only been playing this game for a week, so there is not much else for me to go on besides looks. lmao I am not a master of GW2 lore yet. Going off of looks is what I imagine most new players do when selecting which race to play. I don’t think anyone studied the lore of each race in-depth before choosing which race to play.

Sorry, you must have misread what I typed. I never suggested all large animal races look alike. Some are much cooler and unique than others. The Charr look extremely generic and especially stupid in armor. I’m sorry if my opinion offends you. I can tell you must play Charr.

Sorry if I came off a bit strong. Yes, I do play Charr (well, I actually play all races). What I was getting at though is that there is a lot more to a race than what appearances and superficial lore alone. Norn are more than tall dwarves, Sylari are more than wood elves, Charr are more than giant cats with horns (and ugly armor, I agree there). And if you really look at what’s underneath then I would argue that Charr are the most uniquely guild wars race there is.

Tobacco.6815:

Snip

So, basically you judge the Charr purely based on their looks, got it. To you all big animal races are the same. As if WoW Tauren and GW2 Charr are anything alike.

scerevisiae.1972:

Feirlista Xv.1425:

Looking at what is in the expansion so far the price is well worth it. Just the guild hall stuff alone is worth the $50 the guild halls are amazing all the other stuff is just gravy

You don’t need to expac to enter guild halls.

Not to mention they were originally going to be part of the core game.

Someone in your guild still need the expac to unlock the guild halls. And not all features of guild halls are useable if you do not own the expac.

Juclesia Elcritian.8410:

No Mordy fight in an xpac about Mordy is a deal breaker for me.

You do know that this is speculation right?

Fenom.9457:

Fenom.9457:

Exactly, and I’m glad to hear the Mordy WILL be killed in the xpac, as it’s MUCH more logical.

You are wrong. Mordremoth is NOT in the expansion (as far as we know). This has been said in an interview. Whether we’ll fight him in a new season of the Living Story, or yet another expansion, remains to be seen.

You may have noticed the silence surrounding Mordremoth.

Ask yourself:

Why is Heart of Thorns not broadly being advertized as containing a battle with the elder dragon? Because that would be a good selling point. I think we all know the answer.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Kadsik.9281:

don’t make me regret it.

I’ve seen a similar sentiment before. People who say “if my profession gains an elite specialization that does x and y I will stop playing”. I do not understand that position at all. The elite specialization that a profession gets has zero influence on how the core profession plays so you can just keep playing without the elite specialization as you have for the past years. Furthermore, in the future there will be more elite specializations. As a final note, them getting staffs is far far from confirmed.

Tobacco.6815:

Man, that is a real bummer. I think the other races are great, except for the Charr. I really think playing as a frog-person would have made up for the unimaginative, generic Charr race. lol Maybe in the future…

How exactly are the Charr generic? I can kinda see how the Norn are generic (them kinda sorta being big dwarves) or the Sylvari (them kinda sorta being wood elves) or the Asura (them kinda sorta being gnomes*). I actually think the Charr are the least generic of GW2’s playable races.

*In fact the guy who came up with gnomes for one of the dnd worlds also came up with the asura (Jeff Grubb).

SpeedFiend.4521:

But then it turned out there won’t be any dungeons and thief spec won’t be rifle, so I’ve pretty much gone from waiting for a half price sale to not caring at all.

Concerning dungeons: We know that there will be ‘challenging group content’ and that Anet hired a raid designed a while back. What this content will be however is unknown. We do know that the Wyvern is not part of this content however. So challening group content might be dungeons or raids or open world bosses (similar to the Vinewrath and Tequatl), we just don’t know.

Concerning the thief elite specialiation: Them not getting rifles is speculation based on datamined artwork. Although, to be fair, them getting rifles was only speculation based on a thief-like character holding a rifle in the HoT trailer, which could’ve been an engineer. Either way, there is no conclusive evidence.

scerevisiae.1972:

Inexplicable.4165:

“Oh, I’m not buying the expansion. What can I do with my free time now? I’ll let everyone know.”

You realise the new PVP, WVW map, and guild halls aren’t in the expac, right?

Guild Halls are actually part of the expansion. You need the expansion to unlock the guild hall. Although members of the guild without the expansion can still go there and use some of the features of guild halls.

Paulytnz.7619:

Thief – There was one that made deceptions have a quicker cooldown, that’s gone.

That one still exists actually. It’s an adept trait in Shadow Arts.

For me it’s definetely Ricochet. I know Pistol/Pistol wasn’t strong or anything but Ricochet sure made it fun for me.

Can we also have seperate builds for on land and underwater?

zorokai.1486:

Ouch so then expansion could be said to be Pve only

To some extent, yes, HoT is focused more on PvE. Of course the Revenant and elite specializations can be used in PvP and WvW and those are HoT-only. In addition various guild features which are related to PvP and WvW are HoT-only.

The new WvW map will be the WvW map for all players, whether they bought HoT or not.

The same goes for the new Borderlands map in SPvP.

Kitsune.1902:

Sarie.1630:

Am I missing something?

Do we actually know that Glint will be an Elite Spec? I didn’t think so, I rather assumed that Ventari, Jalis, Mallyx, Shiro and Glint would represent the 5 core specialisation lines of the Revenant. Isn’t it conceivable that a sixth legend will be brought to the table when they finally get on with announcing the elite specialisations?

Unlikely. It would make sense to build it similar to elementalist, where there are four elements and four traitlines which each represent an element, plus fifth traitline basically representing the class mechanic and general utility. And then of course the sixth for elite.

Ventari, Jalis, Mallyx and Shiro would be similar to elementalist’s elements, and could each be more or less tied to a traitline, with fifth as of yet unknown traitline for representing energy management and general utility.. and the elite would be Glint in that case. If you consider the figures represented in legends – Ventari, Jalis, Mallyx and Shiro – all certainly important figures. But Glint is on class of it’s own when compared to the other four, and would be very good representative for elite legend.

The ‘fifth’ traitline is not unknown (as I said above).

Mallyx = Corruption
Jalis = Retribution
Ventari = Salvation
Shiro = the unrevealed traitline
The energy/legend swapping line = Invocation

Kitsune.1902:

Getefix.9150:

will revenants be able to use racial skills?

That’s surprisingly good question. The answer should be trivial, but at the moment isn’t. I really believe revenants will be able to swap their skills, even if the set per legend would be more limited than the pool of all skills of other professions. And in that case it would be natural that they could use racial skills. On the other hand the more common view seems to be that their skills are locked in place based on the legends – so.. yeah, that would count out the racial skills. That’s pretty interesting point.

We already know that Revenants are able to move around their utility skills. In fact I think remember Anet saying Revenants can use racial skills but don’t quote me on that.

Don’t game companies temporarily hire additional developers during crunch time (i.e. the last couple of months of development)?

Knighthonor.4061:

Why do some of you assume Revenant is only getting 4 baseline legends instead of 5?

Because each legend seems to be linked to a spec, except for Invocation which is linked to legendary swapping and energy in general. So 5 core specs minus invocation equals 4. And a total of 5 legends were datamined thus people concluded that the elite spec would add the 5th legend. It’s not fool-proof or anything but it makes sense.

Jaxom.7310:

i mean, u got wvw and guild missions and soon guild arenas. that’ll have to do for now.

Not to mention the upcoming guild leaderboards.

Vayne.8563:

I don’t see anything in HoT so far that would affect solo players.

I see it to some degree. If HoT is similar to the Silverwastes and Dry Top (and that seems to be the case) then most events are group events meaning that individual players stand little chance of completing them. On the other hand, as Belzebu said, the fact that one requires other players to be present does not mean that one is required to interact with them.

AegisRunestone.8672:

Miss Lana.5276:

AegisRunestone.8672:

I personally think Hero Challenges should give more Hero Points depending on the type of challenge. If it’s fighting a vet and two mobs, it should give like… 3? 4? If you’re just communing, one is fine.

But only getting one hero point per challenge is a little irksome.

Then what would we spend them on? At the moment I have about ~202 points on my 80 mesmer that has world completion, and has already unlocked every trait and skill. After elite specs come out I’m wondering if there will be a change to how we obtain/spend them.

Looking at it now it’s kind of odd. Of my world completion 80’s, my thief has 199 unspent points (after unlocking every skill and trait), my mesmer has 202 and my necro has 212.

I believe excess Hero Points are for masteries in the expansion.

Nope. There is a clear difference between mastery points and hero points. Both resources are finite resources but they come from different activities.

Galen Grey.4709:

Even in the beta people who feel down got teleported up not landed on the ground and then had the ability to go under ground like you’d expect if each map had all 3 biomes.

I’m pretty sure that is because the underground biome was not included in the beta.

unless I missed some post by arenanet actually we dont know that each map has all 3 biomes in it, thats something people came up with as far as I know not Arenanet.

I’m not sure, it seems to be implied though:

Initial map design coalesced around the concept of “biomes,” or levels of terrain, each with its own flora, fauna, and gameplay opportunities. From the towering heights above the jungle canopy down to the root-riddled depths below the surface, each map in the Heart of Maguuma focuses on vertical as well as horizontal exploration. […] Every biome is loaded with content and incentives to explore the levels above, below, and beyond, providing unprecedented levels of gameplay density.

Rainbowsand.2438:

3 maps, a new class, new talents and – YAY!!! – completely free character slot!!!

Correction: An unknown number of maps (but at least 2), each with 3 biomes.

Also, you forgot: adventures, masteries, new skins, future living story updates, guild halls and ‘challenging group content’ (whatever that turns out to be).

What I fear is that conditions are being nerfed because mobs are dying too fast now. I have the feeling the balance between conditions and direct damage is finally in a decent place now. The problem, I think, is not the strength of conditions relative to direct damage but the combined strength of conditions and direct damage relative to mob health and armor. Which makes sense if condi damage is buffed without mob health and armor being buffed.

Leon Heart XIII.4609:

From what Anet has revealed that the expansion will be feature rich rather than content rich

That is most certainly true since that is something Anet themselves have also said.

I can’t help but feel that Anet took the cheaper and lazy way out with this expansion, I mean whats cheaper adding more features or adding actually content like several maps, quest, dungeons, armor, weapons and classes, etc.

To be honest, I’m not sure. I’m no game developer and have no idea how long it takes to develop either features or content. And I think the same is true for most people on this forum. What I do know is that while it takes a long time to develop a certain system (say, the dynamic events system or the upcoming adventure system or the specialization system) that is then relatively easy to add content to such a system.

As a person who has been spoiled by the massive expansions from WoW, Final Fantasy, and GW1, I have a high expectations when it comes to expansions content as I don’t want so little content that last like a month or two.

Agreed. However features can make gameplay more enjoyable and repeatable, even if they are not content in the strict sense of the word. In addition, things like the size of maps and the number of maps are not directly related the hours of enjoyment you get out of it. Maps can be large and barren or small and content-packed (personally, I’m hoping for something in between).

This is the only thing that has been eating me sense the news of HoT, and I will wait patiently until Anet reveals more later on(if they decide to after the out roar from the community) before I can make my final judgement.

A very sensible position.

What do you guys think is more important to an expansion, features, content, or both and please keep your comments constructive.

As I pointed out above it’s not very black and white. It also comes down to company resources. Of course I want as many features and as much content for as low a price as possible (as would any consumer). However Anet is a company who wants to make a profit and which has a limited number of people working on features and a limited number of people working on content. I can imagine that it would also be relatively difficult for Anet to simply shift some developers around to focus more on content or to focus more on features (since those take different skills and thus different developers).

I’m not sure what point I’m making besides: It’s complicated.

The answer (as far as I understand it) is VAT (value added tax), which does not exist in the US but does exist in Europe. Even though VAT varies across countries, a single percentage is chosen which applies throughout Europe. I think this is common practice amongst game companies.

RIP ricochet thief. Richocet was the sole reason I enjoyed playing a thief. Oh well.. Overall I’m quite happy with the changes.

Ravezaar.4951:

so in other words u dont know, yet u felt u needed to make that answer

No need to be rude. No one knows except Anet and Anet is very unlikely to provide you with an answer.

Toxsa.2701:

But does that mean my 8 alts who doesn’t finish map completion will now need to redo the whole map completion and skill challenge kittens before I have access to all skills? I already finished that with 2 characters, I seriously don’t want to do that 8 more times…

It was said that in order to unlock all non-HoT skills and traits, level 80 characters will need to do about 65 hero challenges. However, more than likely, you do not use all skills and traits so you can unlock everything you actually use without doing any hero challenge (i.e. by only using the hero points you get from leveling up).

They will reveal them when they are ready to be revealed. Be patient.

Toxsa.2701:

I heard that from this Tuesday, out skill points will be converted into a new currency called: spirit shards

Skill points not gained from leveling up (before level 80) or skill challenges will be converted to spirit shards. The skill points gained from leveling up (before level 80) and skill challenges will be converted to hero points.

1. Can we use spirit shards to unlock skills like we currently do with skill points?

No. You use hero points to unlock skills (and traits).

2. If not, how can we unlock skills from now on?

See above.

That depends on if we get an elite spec reveal this week. If we do get one then I also expect a teaser.

I think their stance is the same as it has been for a few years: We have looked into creating a console version but determined that the resources would not be worth it.

Jornophelanthas.1475:

Tengu are a possible tie-in to Cantha, since they are exiles from Cantha.

Not really, only a part of the tengu living in the dominion of winds come from Cantha, the rest come from Tyria. Besides, not only did the Canthan tengu leave behind a very anti-Tengu nation, they made the conscious decision to all go to the Dominion of Winds. They do not want to go back and their ties to Cantha are severed. If anything I believe the Tengu will be related to either Primordus (who’s minions are actively attacking them) or the Deep Sea Dragon (who could easily attack them).

By the way, Maguuma does not introduce a new playable race, because Mordremoth is the sylvari’s Dragon. Besides, we could learn a few secrets of the Mursaat or the Druids while we are there. And I have a nagging suspicion that the abandoned fortresses in Silverwastes were occupied by White Mantle until Mordremoth’s awakening.

Heart of Thorns did not introduce a new playable race because for now Anet wants to focus on adding gameplay/features instead (as they clearly said in an interview on the matter).

Anet has said the following about adding new races:

Shacknews: You’ve added a new profession, however you did hold off on adding a new race. What led to this decision?

Johanson: For this one, we looked at what we would get out of adding a new race and what benefit it actually brings to the players from a gameplay standpoint. It’s very limited in Guild Wars 2. A new race adds a racial skill or two and a little bit of story, but it doesn’t give that much meaningful gameplay in the grand scheme of things. The race is more context for the early story that you experience. So we wanted to focus things that would provide a lot more gameplay and address parts of Guild Wars 2 that we felt like we really wanted to be able to make a better experience and grow. So right now, we didn’t feel that a new race was a key need for the game, whereas the other things that we’re adding really provide fundamental building blocks for the future.

Basically, they want to want to focus on gameplay/features for now but they might add new races in the future.

Quaggan and Centaurs don’t stand a chance of ever being added and I am not interested in playing them either. Largos have some appeal due to how mysterious they are, which also gives them some potential of being playable (i.e. there is a lot that can be added to them for the sake of being playable). All that said, no race comes close to Tengu. Neither in terms of how likely they are of being added nor in terms of how much I’d like to play them.

Celtic Lady.3729:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Nike.2631:

Because “we’ve revealed all major features” and “they’re hiding a dungeon from us” go together so well…

One of them major features was challenging group content, which they haven’t gone into detail about.

Why would dungeons be excluded from that?

Challenging group content could just as easily refer to guild hall acquiring and new DEs in HoT maps. Since these items are the ones revealed, that’s exactly what I expect challenging group content to mean, not dungeons, fractals, or raids.

Since Anet stated that challenging group content had not been revealed yet but it is mentioned as a seperate major feature aside from guild halls, I’d say there is a good chance that it is unrelated to guilds.

skowcia.8257:

3 biomes = in reality 1,5 of current maps. Thats a marketing speak, who was in “beta” should know that. Yes maps are vertical but the actual usable terrain doesnt match old maps.

As far as I could tell at least the roots/underground biome was missing from the beta. I don’t know how much of the other two biomes was included, but I got the impression those were included fully.

When it comes to the Asura it is rather pointless to try to distinguish between technology and magic. This is what sets Asuran technology apart from Charr or Dwarven or Dredge (or real-life human) technology.

Gray.9041:

I’d love to get my facts right.

and when Anet provide some, I’ll make sure to keep them in mind.

for now, we know almost nothing about how many maps we’re getting, so you can’t argue we’re getting to few or too many. you can argue we_might_ have too few or too many, but we still don’t know either way.

We don’t know much, that much is true. However we do know the people saying it is just one map with 3 biomes are wrong. We know that there will be at least 2 maps, each with 3 biomes.

we get maybe 1/3 a region, maguuma jungle is not as big as you think and i have played GW1 from the start…i should know…

Looking at this map makes it appear like there is room for about 5 maps I’d say. I’m expecting at least 3.