Guild Wars 2

nekretaal.6485:

The real concern:

I have a guardian that I leveled to 80 with Pvp Tomes. The guardian did almost no skill challenges, but opened enough scrolls to unlock the skills and traits.

Will I lose stuff I have now because this character doesn’t have map completion?

You don’t need completion, just the skill challenges. Unless ANet announces some miraculous way to grant unlocks to people that haven’t done the skill challenges without breaking the system that needs to give you only as many points as you can get from the challenges (so you can’t go “double up” and get more than max points by doing challenges later), then yes, you will be at less than full unlock though just being 80 will let you set up several builds.

I personally want full unlock because it looks to me like once you spend the Hero Points, they’re gone, so you can’t re-spec them. There’s no way I’ll know in advance which build I want to use so I want my options open.

Yes they will count towards shards if they are extra past your first time to level 80 + your 187 skill challenges. If they came from leveling and challenges and you just never spent them, then I think they won’t count.

I saw another poster make a suggestion that you spend such points on MF materials now if you are confident they didn’t come from post-80 levels or using scrolls. You should be able to do the math: X skill points from leveling + Y points from skill challenges = pool of skill points that won’t become shards. Compare that to the points already spent on traits. I could be off on this but it seems to me that if you have spent less on traits than you’ve earned via leveling and challenges, then that difference is the amount of skill points you have that won’t turn into spirit shards and that is how much you should preemptively spend if you really want to squeeze out every bit of value.

They said in the very first announcement at PAX South that they intended Revenant to be something new players could start at HoT launch and be at parity with veterans. It’s meant to be new for everyone. Vets will still have the fast track to 80 if they want and will only need 65 challenges to have all core specs for their Revenant. 65 challenges can be done in one afternoon, with bonuses such as wp unlocks.

The spirit shards will be a usable currency, not a complete waste of your time (depending on how much you care about MF materials).

You won’t have shards subtracted. You will have 400 points from leveling and 187 points from challenges. Any skill points still banked on your alt past that will turn into spirit shards.

ekarat.1085:

Given that these changes weren’t in yesterday’s patch notes, does this mean these changes are for a future patch? Would this likely be in 2 weeks?

“When you log in after the update,” from the wallet blog.
“I’m here to tell you about changes to our combat systems that’ll be arriving alongside the new specializations.”

Both in future tense. When it’s coming, who knows? Could be in the next few days (not every big change has to be on a Tuesday, right? And they might want this in place before E3), could be Tuesday, could be the week after that, could be in a month.

The thing is they don’t have to know what came from where. Your level and your skill challenges completed are data already attached to the account, which is why you know what your level is and can see completed vs uncompleted challenges on the map. We’re not getting a conversion, we’re getting a replacement and it will be calculated on that data.

A concern does suddenly rise naggingly in my mind, however. Support told me in regards to the Portal snafu:
“I’ve heard back and the method we used to determine who received the portal stones was not 100% accurate. We used the game records to verify that the item was looted. However, it appears that those records are a bit inconsistent. While the error rate was very small, it did result in a few dozen accounts not being invited, one of which was yours.”

I have to hope the records of level and challenges done are not “inconsistent.”

Prototypemind.4026:

They can’t come back too soon. They need to make you salivate so that you’ll buy extra when they finally return, just in case you roll some new alts.

Well, that makes no sense. You only need to buy them once and then you have them forever for all alts on the account. Even if you buy a transmute charge from the store rather than accruing them freely in game, that’s still cheaper than rebuying the whole skin.

It doesn’t need to. You get as many Hero Points as you’ve earned via leveling to 80 and doing skill challenges. If you’ve done world completion, that alt is more than set. All skill points banked past those sources get turned into the spirit shard currency.

What makes you think there won’t be progression? It’ll just go to masteries rather than pseudo levels.

As I understand it:

We will have a full trait and skill reset. We will re-purchase traits and skills (which will be changed and shuffled around, there won’t be any direct analogs to the current setup) using Hero Points.

We will have Hero Points from leveling (around 400 points by the time we are 80) and from completed Hero Challenges (currently called Skill Challenges, the blue chevrons on the maps). Each alt must do its own challenges. 65 challenges out of the 189+ currently available should be enough to fully unlock all traits and skills.

Once Elite Specs come with HoT, we will need more challenges done to open the Elite line. How many is unknown. I have guesstimated 35 and made sure all my alts have 100 challenges unlocked. That will either be enough or I’ll have to do a pickup run to get more.

Right now you will be wasting your scrolls if you unlock anything because it’s all about to change as described above. After the change, any skill points you have beyond leveling to 80 and doing skill challenges, and any scrolls, will turn into spirit shards and be in your wallet.

- 189+ is because 189 is how many show on your world completion chart, but the ones in Dry Top, Silverwastes, and WvW do not count towards the 189 yet should still apply to your completed challenges for purposes of Hero Points.

That gave me pause as well, Lord Kuru. I’ll have to see how fluid it is in practice, though, as apparently the inventory will toggle to the wallet and in that view you’ll be able to see everything. Hopefully the button to toggle will be at the bottom in the area where we currently mouse to get the numbers list (which I use exclusively, I generally forget the Hero Panel Wallet view even exists).

A screenshot would have been nice, but given that Roy’s placeholder line [ screenshot here ] made it to the blog about combat, I’ll settle for the verbal description

I suppose “spirit shards” is a much safer name than “djinngots.” And they did say that “djinngots” was an internal joke that wasn’t going to be used. But I shall hold it in my heart for purposes of amusement.

Because I love a good pun.

Here you go:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/updating-your-wallet/

Lots of details on the skill point item conversion.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/updating-your-wallet/
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/combat-changes-dotsanddashes/

I think this is imminent, not HoT-linked. Though the bit about “along with the new specializations” could mean either the new spec system or the elite specs, and the latter won’t come until HoT. But I lean to this being in the next week or two.

You can’t judge an armor by its color

People can dye pretty much everything and even if the same color dyes differently on different materials, one can generally find a hue that will end up matching.

They have somewhat upped the scrap drop rate in chests. I wanted the hammer skin badly enough to drop caskittens. 25 keys got me 12 scraps (so I got the skin) plus a few gold worth of things like dyes and minis. A lot of gold had I sold the crimson specialty dye I got rather than using it myself. RNG, though.

While MF has zero effect, I do superstitiously pop MF food and a booster before I order my keys and I open the chests while still under the effects. It has empirically seemed to work out that I get neater stuff from the chests when I do that. I’ve never gotten any permanent item or resource node, however, beyond the raven and parrot couriers.

I believe Rubi said in Twitch chat shortly before a live stream that HoT -will- have guild halls. It was sort of a teaser: “Do you want to hear about guild halls?” Twitch reply YES YES YES, Rubi: “There will be guild halls in HoT!” /smirky face

I made five of them in headstart weekend. Then I added more as needed to test out all the professions. Then more for RP purposes, or to have different armor look options. Bit by bit I got them all to 80, other than the ones deleted in their first few levels once their RP purpose was complete. Only one of my 80’s was created after the NPE/trait revamp hit, though. That game change sort of put the breaks on my using leveling as a fun way to go through the game.

One of my 16 slots is only level 42 or so. He’s an RP shill that I’ve leveled now and then for something to do, not because he’s meant as a permanent character. Another is level 1 because I made him in the last few weeks as a name placeholder.

Yep, I’m an altoholic. To me there’s no reason not to make more alts before you “finish” with one. The more you have the more options you have for each type of content you enjoy.

Indeed. Those things you list are among the “number of other factors” I mentioned. But with the amount of crying wolf that third party predictor has been doing, you’re not going to find many people happy to see that old tired financial prediction used as a “see look this is when!” support.

It means the next content update. That could be tomorrow, or next week, or two weeks away on the 23rd, or a month off.

All the names had merit. I liked the Beacon one as being more generally applicable and suggesting hope offered to all who sail into the harbor, myself, but I don’t think a single one of my voted choices made it.

Though I can’t remember if I voted for Lion or Festival, as I dithered so much on that.

Ranatoa’s point is that the same prediction has been made every year, including this one. While a number of other factors make me personally feel that the end of August is a solid possibility, that earnings prediction has no weight whatsoever beyond “if we say it every year, we’ll look smart the year it actually comes true.”

I took a go at it, though I don’t think I nailed it. It’s hard given a small screenshot view from the front only and with a hood obscuring the sides of the eyes and the cheekline. Anyway, maybe you can tweak from here. (I debated the freckled face but couldn’t tell if your subject had freckles — mostly I was going by lip color to pick the face — I ended up using the far right top one). I used basic creation, not a kit.

I’ve seen some threads saying norns were taller than the screen. I’m looking at norn creation now and when in Head Options she’s at the bottom of the screen, though her chin does clear the bottom edge.

You can manually input any level range you wish. It’s slightly more cumbersome than a quick “match level” button but it works.

Click the little cog wheel to get a drop down of custom options such as rarity and level.

Can you screenie what they look like? I still had hexagons in my trait lines after the patch so I don’t know where this change is.

If you’re doing a script of one of your own RL compositions that jerk was extra-wrong. Keep on being creative!

I could see this coming right before E3 so they have things to show off there. Though I’m reining myself in on E3 expectations since they don’t have anything akin to the PAXSouth announcement that I know of, ie, no premium block of time on a main stage. Just a bare listing that they’ll be there.

Whoa, slow down there! I’m glad you’re enthusiastic but LA and specs are in an upcoming patch, not the one we just got. So far today we get an outfit, a mail carrier, and the streaming client out of beta.

Iason Evan.3806:

Donari.5237:

I don’t see this outfit being IC for any of my alts except the one who constantly gets jobs that make him dress strangely.

I can’t say as I understand what you are saying.

I RP. So anything I put on an alt has to be something s/he would wear either socially or in combat. I’ll don other things for fun or a joke but won’t run around in them for long if they don’t ICly (in-character’ly) suit the alt. Thus I have one alt that I RP as being a long-suffering guy who makes ends meet by wearing whatever his employers want him to to suit their party themes. The more outrageous outfits are only IC on him of all my alts, and only for a little while during one of his “gigs.” I hope that makes it more clear.

Testing further, female charr get the male version and that helm is … huh, it’s growing on me. There is allowance for the tail, a fabric flap runs down the top of the tail a good bit.

It’s a little bit out there for everyday wear but does dye interestingly … well hmm. I said that based on first impressions but now I am testing the dye channels and this is another where the 4th channel has no effect, at least on the male version.

However, the upthrust metal wings from the male pectoral are a bit … odd. I don’t see this outfit being IC for any of my alts except the one who constantly gets jobs that make him dress strangely.

(Also available — Scientific Weapons, which might be too fancy to have staying power but I do like the hammer and will work to get it).

edit: the 4th dye channel does have an effect, it colors the head cap part of the helmet on the male version. It lightens up any tone you put on it considerably. Even Shadow Abyss isn’t very dark on it.

cocowoushi.7150:

Donari.5237:

Jaqen H’ghar — Necromancer

Maybe Revenant? :x

Ooooh good one. I hadn’t thought about shoehorning in Revenant to this but yes, that works very well for him.

I’ve had No Valid Path kill me a few times as well, notably in Silverwastes. I can’t move out of aoe when downed, and I can’t Steal or Shadowstep over a tiny stone step atop the Amber Fort walls when dealing with Mordrem attacking the east cannon.

I don’t mind when there really is no valid path (eg the old way to sneak through the iron gate into uninstanced Salma), but anywhere one could legitimately jump to either with a simple jump or with a leap skill should be considered a valid path for blinks and shadowsteps.

Interesting, though one has to stretch for several of them because the world systems are so different. Let’s see.

Daenerys — Elementalist, focus on fire
Tyrion — Mesmer (he is so good at manipulating people)
Samwell — low-skill warrior who’s leveled up by crafting
Littlefinger — Mesmer
Ygritte — longbow warrior (no animal affinity at all to make her a ranger)
Stannis — Guardian
Varys — Thief (just not on the acrobatic side)
Jaqen H’ghar — Necromancer
Ramsay Bolton — Necromancer

When in doubt, add “dulfy” to your google search for gw2 matters. It almost always leads you to something good.

From the original soundtrack, I’m partial to “Raven Speaks” (epic music for a Claw Island fight), “Snaff’s Laboratory,” and “The Seraph.” The latter is my phone’s ring tone.

But I really love the newer stuff by in-house people. Battle on the Breachmaker, the Marionette fight, and the pure whimsy of the Wintersday pieces all call to me.

(I am not a musician. I am a listener. If I try to be a musician, people scream as sanity dribbles out their ears. Thus, I speak from the viewpoint of what’s fun to listen to, not what’s fun to play).

When you’re at the Eastern Ward WP you can see all the city portals in an enclosure next to you. Each city portal has two guards in front of it that are the race of the city to which it leads. Also you can mouse over them on the minimap to get a popup as to which purple spiral leads where.

Going via PvP means you came out by the PvP portals, so you need to head north over the bridge to the PvE portals.

Of course, you probably figured this all out already, it’s been a while since you posted Have fun in Metrica!

/laughs

The point I was making wasn’t that you can’t sell an Oscar, but that you can’t sell being the one honored with getting one. With Oscars, we all know who really got them, it’s extremely public knowledge. With a tonic, it’s a visual marker “this person wrote a great app!” but unless they are account bound, that recognition will be aimed at people who merely dropped some gold.

I’m not one to argue for exclusivity of game items as a rule. However, I do think that a prize given for merit (as opposed RNG luck) should remain in the hands of those who earned it.

Whether a really cool tonic like this one should be made as a limited prize only is another issue. Perhaps they can make variant looks otherwise obtainable, but only the app developers can ever have this particular golem. But as long as it’s the prize for creative effort, it needs to remain exclusive to the creative people that won it.

I’d be highly surprised if it were. It looks like a limited item made especially as a prize for people that made good apps. Though on a much lesser scale, having it be tradeable would be like letting Oscar winners sell their trophy to someone else who could then claim to be the Oscar winner him or herself.

The Chronomancer teaser was Monday, April 27. Dragonhunter Monday, May 4. Reaper Monday, May 11. You can check the dates Dulfy posted the released teaser images.

http://dulfy.net/2015/04/27/gw2-mesmer-elite-specialization-teaser/ for example.

So all four class reveals have had Monday teasers.

It seemed implied to me that the tonic makes you into the hovering golem in the screenshot in the blog.

Thank you, that makes sense. I’m used to “OP” not “TS.” Also as I am not the “TS,” and if anything I use far too much “interpunction,” they weren’t telling me a darn thing.

Ah, the CE is a valid point. For that reason it might be nice to get a short heads up that pre-orders are about to start and which retailers will have box copies, so people have a chance to pounce right away. Maybe a day or two? There’s still no need to find out well in advance.

Though whenever they announce it, be it “Tomorrow you can pre-order!” or “Pre-orders are now available, go for it!” that will be the moment people flock to the stores to lock in their place in line for the box.

Bartender.1674:

TS ought to buy some interpunction before anything else.

I am helplessly confused by this post. What is TS? What is “interpunction?” What does either have to do with HoT pre-purchase?

CodeHavoc.7926:

Kinda hurt themselves in the foot when they announced something that wasn’t even close to finished.

On the contrary. Players were angry for a long time that ANet never told us anything until moments before release so we had no chance to give input on possible errors of implementation. They listened, and they have told us a great deal about HoT (not nearly as much as I want to hear, but far more than dead silence) well in advance so that we can help them with the iterative process. They’re showing us work in progress so we can be part of that progress.

Delayed gratification has a lot going for it, y’know.

On topic, why worry about when we can pre-order? It’s nigh certain we will be able to; keeping an eye on the forums will mean knowing about it almost as soon as it’s announced. Once it is announced, there’s not any particular need to rush, as ordering it won’t make the launch date come any sooner.

One caveat to that: in GW2 betas ANet did take the highly ethical step of occasionally shutting down game purchases on their site when they were getting too many players for the servers. So waiting until a beta weekend to place your order in the hopes of playing that weekend might be unwise.

Uh, no? At least not in the “new maps” count. They aren’t new maps added with HoT, we already have them.

Well, you can’t really run while playing complex tunes, maybe, unless you have mad skills … but several of the instruments do let you move around while playing them. Otoh I move with my mouse mapped to the arrow keys, so I could still left-hand play the instrument, had I any musical skill whatsoever, and not need QWERTY to move.

I do support the idea of converting more keys to instrument use for those who are actually good at making music. I’m lucky enough not to be tone deaf so I can at least enjoy what others do.

Did you do all the skill challenges? Those are part of map completion as well.

Check out what WoodenPotatoes had to say on the matter way back when: