Guild Wars 2

If a Trait line gets switched out, I’d guess it would be the last one, as for a lot of classes, like Elementalist, it seems to be the “special” one. That would be one way Specializations would both be a trade-off and reflect Secondary Professions.

It’s hard to say about the F skills. During the reveal, they said that “most importantly” Druid will give Ranger “new profession mechanics” that “fundamentally change the way that Ranger plays”. To a lot of people, that would imply the pet is being replaced, but we’ve seen a pet. On the other hand, that doesn’t mean the pet is the same. It could be made into a more temporary pet. It could just be a fancy animation. It could not be part of Druid at all and was just in the trailer to send the message that this character was a Ranger (I’d say that’s the least likely, but it’s possible).

A lot of people are concerned about only getting one new weapon because we’ve seen Mesmer with “just” a shield. I think it’s likely that other weapons will get affected. Depending on what happens with existing profession mechanics, that could be exactly why. If illusions are replaced, and the Illusions Trait line is replaced, then a lot of weapons will have to be tweaked, but the F skills could stay the same and just shatter something new.

Forgive me if this topic already exists somewhere, but I looked around and used the search function. It seems a bit buggy though. The closest I am aware of was a thread about Outfits, but I can’t find it now.

What kind of new armor does everyone want to see, especially things themed to the Maguuma Jungle that might not get a chance in another situation? Any pieces you want to finish a look you have in mind, that doesn’t require a whole set?

I want to see more stuff like the Sylvari cultural armor. Optimally, I’d love to see cultural armor as a whole expanded at some point, but I figured with this expansion’s theme, it’s the best chance to get stuff with an explicit Sylvari look.

One of the reasons I made a Sylvari when the game launched was because of their design, and that included their armor. I thought the idea of a plant race whose outfits were essentially part of themselves was pretty neat. I didn’t initially really think about the fact that it would have to be limited to cultural armor though. It’s really disappointing to me, because it severely limits the number of options I have. As it is, I feel like I only have one choice, because my Sylvari only has access to Light Armor, and each of the Light Armor sets has at least one thing that just isn’t my style, so I’ve mixed and matched from all of them the create the “one” set I like, and it’s not perfectly optimal.

I’m not asking for Arena.net to psychically know my particular preferences and introduce that, but just a few more options would be really cool. While I don’t have a problem with the race wearing other armor (and made one set I really liked myself), I feel like them wearing more plant growths is too iconic to the race to just leave as a handful of launch sets never to touch again, and right now is a good time for it.

Moldur.6275:

I still think the strongest evidence is this mysterious character, (E?!), we see in the ep 8 cinematic standing on top of a ledge, watching the pact fleet shattering into pieces, while wielding a spear. And it is a lot of npcs in that cinematic and the following easter egg one who are using spears I mean come on guys those are major hints, sure if they had spears hung up on some weapon racks that wouldn’t be such a big deal, but this time they are used for combat, and not only once.

I actually went through and counted when we were waiting for PAX. Between the two cutscenes and the patch wallpaper, there were 19 almost definite polearms. 12 of which I’d categorize as spears, 6 that were more like halberds, and 1 that really looked like a trident to me. And that was only the ones that you could see the tips of. There were tons more of poles being held in crowds or sticking out of bodies that really wouldn’t make sense to be staves. Frankly I was shocked that they weren’t announced. You don’t saturate a cutscene that much with a weapon that you can’t actually use in that context unless your artists really just think they look best in that situation. In which case, maybe you should think about adding them as their own full type. ;P

I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a plot point about one of them being dead when we get there, but we’re certainly going to meet up with them again. You don’t kill off major characters essentially off screen between a patch and an expansion coming down the line. It’s just such a waste. The destruction of the Pact fleet is enough for the plot to tell you how serious this threat is.

Trahearne doesn’t seem to be corrupted yet, and I assume he’ll resist it initially, but it might happen for a time (Mordremoth trying to find a way to corrupt him would be an obvious plot). I just hope we don’t get a Snake Man-at-Arms situation where we’re just forced to kill a corrupted Trahearne without even considering potentially endless numbers of cures. If Trahearne dies, I want it to be appropriate to the character, not some spiteful deus ex machina.

dekou.6012:

I don’t think this has anything to do with the expansion, as the issue affects the entire game. It’d have to be solved in a universal balance/engine update. They’ve been quiet about it, so it’s safe to say nothing is being done anytime soon.

An expansion would be one of the best times to do a universal balance/engine update though. Usually that’s when you slate some of the biggest quality of life changes.

That’s not to say I’m assuming it will come, but I wouldn’t say it’s any safer to say it won’t, just because they haven’t said anything about it. A quality of life overhaul may be major, but you aren’t going to put “Made Condition Damage Work Right After 2 Years” in a trailer.

I’m not sure what all of the problems are though. I haven’t been on the forums much other than right now for the expansion and I don’t do any theorycrafting.

I’ve been playing a Sylvari since the beginning, and it bothers me as well. One of my favorite parts of Guild Wars 1 were the distinct and fleshed out cultures. Shifting the focus to one-note fantasy races was a big issue for me, but the treatment of the Sylvari was the biggest example of this. Here’s this new race, as in, actually new, even in universe. Yet, they’re somehow ingrained in everything. I don’t mind Trahearne as a character, but telling me that a twenty-three year old is the foremost scholar on a faraway land, is really hard to believe. I wouldn’t mind him being the leader of the Pact and doing as much research as he could on Orr to complete his Wyld Hunt, but I don’t buy that he’s going to know more than some old Priory scholar who’s been studying it for eighty years and had ancestors from there. It’s not like Trahearne could have absorbed any knowledge from previous generations of Sylvari.

All of that is why I will forgive them for this expansion though. This expansion not only makes sense to be about Sylvari, but finally came up with an explanation that ties them into the world. They’re no longer just the cool new race that seems to be in everything for no other reason than they want to show off because the design work they put into them.

Hopefully though, it still gives the other races something to do though, and reasons for doing what we do other than because they’re just tagging along (right now the Pact’s fate and the dragon itself are relevant to most, but that will only go so far).

I really want all of the old classes to feel like themselves as much as possible. If we get a “Monk” Guardian Specialization, but all it does is give them a new weapon with some extra healing skills, then I’d rather them just be a new class, but if it instead retools the class to be more of a caster and bring back some old playstyles and skins, then I think it could work.

Monk: I really can’t say. This one might be better off being its own class, unless there’s something I’m forgetting about them and missing about a current class. Guardian sounds obvious, but it really depends on how the Specializations are handled.

Assassin: Thief – This is one that can definitely be done through a Specialization, at least from how they currently sound.

Ritualist: I’ve been saying Revenant because of their connection to the Mists, but that depends on how much Specializations can change. I don’t want a heavily armored guy running around chopping things up with a huge sword calling himself a Ritualist just because we wanted to check them off. Guardian might work better because of the Spirit Weapon thing, if we’re using an existing class.

Paragon: Guardian – Paragons were originally fairly warrior-like from what I remember, but their light warrior theme seems more appropriate for Guardian now.

Dervish: Revenant – It remains to be seen exactly how they play out, but with their current description, all this Specialization really needs to do is switch “channel legends” with “channel gods.” Well, it also needs access to “whirling” attacks and outfits, but they were certainly fighters, and AoE ones at that, like Rytlock zipping around in the trailer.

Chronomancer: Mesmer – Really just saying it because of the clock. Don’t really know enough about the old class or the clock scene to really make a solid judgment.

Summoner: No ideas. As far as I’m aware, we have no details on what this was going to be. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the name reused, and some of the concept might be, but I certainly wouldn’t know who it would be attached to. By process of elimination, I’d say it probably wouldn’t be Warrior, Thief, Engineer, Ranger, or Mesmer, because it sounds too castery for the first two, it sounds too magical for the Engineer, we already know the Ranger’s, and even ignoring the Chronomancer speculation, it doesn’t sound fancy enough for the Mesmer.

Yeah, the Guild Wars necromancer doesn’t quite fit the typical fantasy theme. It sucks if you really wanted it literally, but the bright side is you get a choice of different interpretations once Revenant comes out. Just save up some Tomes of Knowledge or something, most things are cross account in this game so an alt isn’t so bad. ;P

It wouldn’t really make sense to have a water specialization, unless everyone got one in a water expansion. If water stuff is touched at all by specializations, it will be along with everything else. I know you’re being silly, but it’s really separate enough that it would be pretty baffling.

This may not exactly be the place for it, but while we’re on the topic, I want to discuss the water content. I was really happy that Arena.net wanted to make it interesting in a way other games don’t, and wanted to make it fun by removing breath and stuff. I still find it pretty obnoxious, but I feel like they’ve got a pretty solid foundation, and only needs one or two more iterations.

Here are the problems as I see it:
Spatial Awareness
This isn’t something you can really fix, but it is a problem for some people. Having all three dimensions being relevant just doesn’t work for some people. I know several people who are incapable of translating that a 2D monitor is portraying a 3D space in their head, and have trouble in underwater or flying games. Ground content is mostly fine, even in 3D games, because only two planes ever tend to matter. You can’t do anything about this really, but it’s something to note.

Three Dimensions of Enemies
This is a bit tied into the first, but actually solvable. Even if you can intuit three dimensions in a video game, it’s still a lot to pay attention to, and sometimes there’s just nothing you can do. There are several places in the game (I’m getting horrible flashbacks to some place in Orr I think) where the enemy density is simply too high in the underwater content. On land, it might just take some careful planning, but with the extra dimension, it’s often not even something you can do anything about thanks to the placement of enemies and objectives. You very often get way more aggro than you can handle.

The solution to this would just be to be a lot more careful with enemy placement. Don’t place enemies three dimensionally all the time just because they physically can in water. Be careful as well not to over-saturate an area. A two-dimensional cross-section of the water shouldn’t look like a land encounter, because there are enemies above and below as well.

Nature of Enemies
In my opinion, most of the enemies encountered in or by water, by complete coincidence, happen to be some of the most annoying and frustrating in the game. One word: Krait. This is going to lead people into avoiding water content for reasons that have nothing innately to do with the water content itself.

Simply be more diverse with water enemies. Don’t make them all annoying to fight, and cut back a bit on the ones that are. There’s a difference between challenging enemies and just plain annoying ones.

Underwhelming Underwater Skills
I have no problem with underwater having its own set of skills to really make it feel like you’re fighting underwater. My problem is that underwater skills tend to feel awkward, unintuitive, or just plain ineffective. Two of the Mesmer spear skills take control away from your character and pull you in a straight line for a good amount of time, and you can only cancel one of them. I feel like someone had a little bit too much fun trying to come up with creative, watery things, and didn’t bother to make sure they felt fun and powerful. This is exacerbated by the above points. When you’re fighting more enemies than normal and they’re all annoying to fight, the last thing you want is a skillset that seems ill-equipped to meet that challenge (like an attack that attacks in a straight line when enemies are coming from all directions).

The first solution to this is to solve the previous issues. Cutting back on enemy density and making them less annoying will do wonders for the feel of the combat. I think doing a pass on everyone’s underwater skills to make them more exciting and intuitive should be done regardless, though.

I ended up writing more than I thought, but I really don’t think it’s that big of a deal. There are problems with the system right now, but I don’t think they would be that hard to fix.

Yeah, doing something like the Elementalist really matches what we know, but I’d be shocked if it was such a close copy, considering how distinct they’ve tried to make the classes.

Perhaps the channeling will be less choosing a legend over an element, and more like the Dervish. A temporary change leading to a more notable alteration/buff.

Lazaar.9123:

Zealot seems like an interesting name for a longbow guardian spec.

At first I thought this was weird, as zealot is not exactly a positive word, but then I realized it might actually be pretty good for this expansion. If we imagine it as a spec inspired by White Mantle zealots, whose idea of a Guardian might not exactly match up with ours, it’s pretty good.

Actually, I’d say it’s safe to say you won’t need the expansion for the WvW map. Could you imagine that? Sorry, you can’t play during this rotation, when it was totally free before. That’s bad business.

I’ll eat my hat if I’m wrong, but I’d imagine this is going to be like how WoW handles expansions. Most of it comes in an expansion patch that upgrades the game for everyone, and only the new progression stuff is gated by the box (level cap, new areas, etc. for WoW). Revenant and Specializations might be locked out, along with Maguuma, but I’d be very surprised if they required you to buy it for quality of life upgrades. That would be horrible business.

As for WvW, maps were never my problem with it. That’s a nice bonus, but it’s really just the mechanics. An interview mentioned how people felt the offensive rewards were better, so people focused on that. For me, it’s not just that they were better, it’s that I’d get literally nothing from defense. The number of times the game would simply not give me credit for doing a defense objective caused me to pretty much give up on them.

This isn’t something I really have any belief is true, but just to throw some speculation into the mix, my guess is that the F-skills are still Shatters, but instead of shattering illusions, they shatter “clocks.” Instead of being pseudo-pets, they will be ground effects used to control the battlefield.

Based on the shield and the clock, I’m guessing like most of you that the Mesmer Specialization grants access to the shield, and probably will be called Chronomancer. For a less obvious guess, I’m going to go with the idea that Chronomancer summons “clocks” as ground effects instead of clones, and the shatter skills shatter the clocks instead, dealing more with quickness and manipulation than condition damage.

I’d love to see something really bizarre, like a mainhand torch. Realistically speaking, I think we can expect something like a mainhand pistol. Shield will probably emphasize lockdown, pistol could be power shatter.

Torch is one of my favorite weapons in this game purely off the idea that it’s so logical, but so nonstandard. Torches used to be a staple in an adventurer’s toolkit before the whole pop culture fantasy trend took over the genre. My only complaint is that is seems so underused right now. The Mesmer torch skills don’t really make me feel like I’m using a torch.

I’d love to see a Specialization in the future that allows main hand torch. It could be called Performer or something (the name sounds potentially underwhelming, but I just want to get across the existing Mesmer theme it could capitalize on). The skills could allow you to breathe fire and, I don’t know, juggle torches. ;P

I’d also really love to see a Magician one, as in real life magician, just because it’d be hard to imagine them justifying a “cards” weapon unless it’s somehow class specific, but I think it would be awesomely perfect for Mesmer.

They seem to be overly secretive, but I don’t even think it’s intentional. It just seems to be a certain naivete about about what they know and they don’t realize we don’t. Almost half the reveal panel was them essentially repeating themselves and insisting things were simple to explain, without any real explanation, but I don’t think it was the usual PR runaround. It’s bad, though, when they let a few hanging threads (like how many Specializations there actually are) not get clarified right away (well, it got clarified fairly quickly for once, but on third party sites).

Some might say, that’s the community’s fault, they shouldn’t jump to conclusions. And maybe they shouldn’t, but that’s like saying starving people shouldn’t have eaten the banquet you put in front of them. In the end, the one who’s going to get hurt most by confusion and over-hype is Arena.net themselves. If everyone starts building this impossibly amazing expansion well before the details come out, then the details are going to disappoint. And when they disappoint, that misconception isn’t going to hurt the community much, because they can simply leave, but it will hurt Arena.net.

I don’t think anything is that bad right now, but it’s definitely something Arena.net really needs to keep an eye on. It’s one thing to keep details close to your chest until you’re ready, but misconceptions need to be cleared up as soon as possible.

butch.8136:

I liked that interview. The only thing that has me worried is the rage that will come of their approach on masteries and the content.

The biggest thing that bothers me about Masteries at the moment is more of a nitpick. They talked about Mastery Points being used to unlock a collection, and then the collection being this really epic journey. In general, I just find the idea of unlocking collections silly, even from the ones we already have. It makes it grindy to me that you can’t just collect naturally before you’re ready. It’s not like you couldn’t just have the unlock item be changed into an item that’s part of a collection so you still need the mastery points or whatever to finish it.

We certainly won’t be getting races right now, because it wasn’t announced, as per their statement about announcing the new features, but that’s not surprising. I just hope it means that aren’t too conservative about introducing them in the future. As much as I don’t have “the” race I want unlike other games, there are still plenty of Guild Wars 1 races that I feel have been asking for a playable slot long before the Guild Wars 2 ones that came out of nowhere. I’m not really picky about how elaborately playable races are introduced as long as they are.

Bristingr.5034:

If the trailer was awesome, don’t say it fails in the title.

To be fair, the trailer can be awesome and still be so misleading that it’s ultimately bad press. That said, the original poster seems to be jumping to quite a few conclusions themselves.

For instance, we have no idea what the scene with Rytlock approaching the Mursaat means. A lot of people keep thinking it’s some endgame raid, but based on the New Allies scene, I’m guessing it’s more representative of us meeting with them early in the expansion.

Gulesave.5073:

1. For people still confused, I think it’s all easier to digest if you think of the current versions of each profession as Spec#1, and the HoT versions as Spec#2. It’s not so much additional abilities, as it is different abilities.

Well, that’s what I assumed at first, but the MMORPG.com interview is worded as to imply the Ranger is locked out of Druid stuff, but the Druid isn’t locked out of Ranger stuff. It could easily just be vague wording though.

Just to continue the discussion here I saw someone post on their thoughts and they came up with the fact that each trait line can lead to a spec..now would you like a profession to have 5 specs in total?

Well, they aren’t going to right now. Personally, I much prefer how it looks like it’s going to be. Each new Specialization is a new idea, not tied down to something current. We don’t have very many details, but just consider the idea of the Ranger getting a Staff all on its own. That will not be affected by any current Traits, thus can easily do something divergent from what’s currently established. That’s much more exciting to me than a finite checklist tied down to the initial class ideas.

As for using non-stabby staff skins to beat people with: who cares? Most of the staves still look like they would hurt to get smacked with, as much as most of the other weapons in the game. Who am I to tell people what they can and can’t use as a beating stick?

I care, because the whole idea of weapon types and weapon skills in Guild Wars 2 was so that each weapon type can feel distinct and echo how different weapons might be different from each other in real life, instead of an overarching set of abilities you slap enemies with no matter what you’re wielding.

That’s not to say I wouldn’t accept some compromises, but this isn’t one of them. I wouldn’t mind swords getting axe skins, because with the abilities I’m used to using, the difference between them isn’t that important. A staff and a spear though? They may both involve poles, but they’re nothing alike. Staves tend to channel magic, or used in martial arts as a blunt weapon at the very least. Spears and polearms are weapons of war wielded by soldiers to stab or chop. Certainly some of the existing staff skins look like they’d be brutal to be smacked by, but they’re distinct concepts.

Not to mention, there’s still a lot of potential for more weapon types and skills just thinking logically, without even having to start getting creative. I don’t want to see the game starting to merge disparate weapon types before it even does obvious ones.

It really depends on how many quality of life changes the expansion will have, and how thorough they will be with them. Orr can get plenty updated simply through quality of life fixes, without having to be a major expansion feature, I just have no idea if that’s on the table.

It’s going to be more like Secondary Professions or splashing colors in a Magic: The Gathering deck. Having the Specialization will add to your current options, but they aren’t strictly “better.”

I don’t think they’re meant to allow you to specialize in a role, but specialize in a new theme, most likely based on the current expansion. We will see more later on, but you won’t innately lose out for not having access.

Aedros.1439:

from a new interview at mmorpg, this should clarify some of the guessing on how specs will work

Well that’s a bit confusing. Druid has everything Ranger has, but you can switch back if you want? Why would you ever switch back if Druid has everything Ranger has, but with added options? Or did they not mean to imply they have access to literally everything?

I mean, once there are more Specializations that would be fine, but right now that seems like a really odd thing to point out if that’s what they meant.

Map Completion
I avoided doing map completion for a long time because I wanted my alts to have new things to do and explore that I hadn’t seen before. Unfortunately, this led to me having huge gaps in my map and waypoints. That’s my own fault, but I really have to wonder why the map is character-specific. It seems like one thing that would really work best as being account-wide, like most of the progression in the game. Character-specific progress could still be tracked for rewards, but it would remove the redundancies of having to re-explore areas and cities you know well.

Small Guilds
This is more of a personal thing, but I’m legitimately not sure if it’s something the devs have considered. When Guild Wars 2 came out, a whole ton of people we knew in real life showed up, and we had a decent sized guild. Not very long in, however, all of them left at essentially the same time, never to return, despite our best efforts. This has left us with a guild that only has one to three people active at a time.

I bring this up, not because I think we should be able to do everything with just a couple of people, especially since you can be in more than one guild in this game. I bring it up because, our guild is for our friends and family, and it’s carried over from Guild Wars 1. We’d really love to personalize it more, but so many things are currently impossible for us to unlock, no matter how much we play.

I don’t think it’s that presumptuous to ask that friends and family be able to personalize a little guild for themselves just because they rarely play at the same time. I’d like to point to Warframe as a psuedo-MMO that scales its guild challenges so that everything is earnable, even for a tiny group. Again, I’m not asking that our guild be allowed to duo Tequatl or anything, I just want the devs to consider that some people have made guilds that aren’t very big, but they’re no less dedicated or committed to each other.

Saved Templates
This one is fairly simple, I think. Add an ability to save trait/skill builds as well as transmutation outfits. For the latter, I’m not even asking that those outfits get some sort of discount, just that you be able to save looks you liked to remember them and more easily switch between them.

I’ve been meaning to talk about some of these things for a long time now, but with the announcement of a new expansion, I thought this would be a good time. Some of these things might even be in development, but I thought it can’t hurt to put out this feedback when they can be slotted in alongside other big changes.

I like Guild Wars 2, but only after two years and without an expansion yet, parts of it feel a bit… bloated, to me. Not that those things are bad, but that more and more things are feeling a bit tacked on, and could use a bit of patching up to weave them more strongly into the rest of the game.

Inventory Clutter
Before I say anything else, I want to stress that this is different from Inventory Space. The issues overlap, but Inventory Space has several outlets at the moment, and I don’t want to get into those.

Inventory clutter is not fun. It may be subtle, but inventory clutter saps the fun from away from a game. No one likes fiddling around with things that you’re not sure if you can drop, seem redundant, or otherwise seem unnecessary to be sitting in your bags, when you could be out playing the game and finding loot you actually want.

New currencies continue to sit in our inventories instead of the currency tab. I don’t really understand why this is. If they’re worried about the currency list getting too long, just let us hide ones that aren’t relevant to us anymore.

I have a variety of boosts and such that don’t stack. Some of them I understand, as they don’t literally do the same thing, even if there are so many close variants that it seems ridiculous to have them all. But I have at least two items that don’t stack, despite being identical in every way except one says “Binds to Account” and the other says “Binds to Account on Acquire.”

Living Story Clutter
The obvious problem with this, is that the Living Story has handed out countless items that were primarily relevant to their chapter, but didn’t remove themselves afterward. Some of these are almost certainly droppable, although it would be nice if the game would remove doubt by doing its own cleaning in this respect, but some of these items have some uses. There’s Marjory’s Journal, for instance, which plays a cutscene. Something like that should probably just be part of the Story Journal.

More than that, though, are the items that have been permanently added as content. Back items and other things that often use the Mystic Forge. These items often require one-of-a-kind items, but have long collections associated with them. When doing all of the content when it’s new, this isn’t much of a problem. However, for new players, or anyone who might not have been playing the whole time, many of these items pile up together, and will be there for a long time, each of them competing for inventory space with each other, but you can’t just drop them.

The solution I imagine would be a neat kind of trophy collection in your home instance, where these items have a special storage and blueprint system. However, it seems to me that the Mastery system might actually be a solution for some of these going forward. I just hope old stuff gets included, for consistency’s sake if nothing else. Otherwise simple things can get complex fast if they all start playing by their own rules.

Salvage Kits
On top of these more general suggestions, I have a more specific idea. Salvaging has been a core part of Guild Wars since the beginning. It seems really strange to me that such a core feature is still done through consumable items just sitting in your inventory like any other random item even in the sequel. Now, I’m not suggesting that all the levels of salvage kits should be removed (they could, but that’s not the core of my suggestion).

My idea is simply that “Salvage” becomes a button on your backpack. It could still have charges and maybe multiple buttons for the various stages of salvage kits, but this core part of the game would no longer be taking up inventory space, and would become a part of the UI as befits its integral nature.

I really want to suggest something similar for the gathering tools, where at least it would automatically use the minimum required tool in your possession for what you’re gathering, but with all of the strange cash shop variants and such of the tools, it might be harder to consolidate.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. My guess is that the Specializations will be a way for Arena.net to give us classes flavored to each new region without having to justify a pair of entirely new classes each time like in Guild Wars 1. That’s why we’re getting Druid, because we’re going to Maguuma. That’s also why we’re only getting one right now. They’ll be different enough to give a new feel that you might prefer over the base feel, but not so different that they’re making entirely new classes every time.

I find it a bit of a shame as well, as someone who always loves seeing new races and such, even if I don’t really play alts, but I wasn’t really surprised. Nothing really quite felt right with where they’re taking things right now. As much as I’ve been waiting for Tengu, they definitely didn’t feel right to introduce right now. Centaur was the only thing that really would have fit I think, and I would love to see have seem them tackle that challenge (and I really think they could), but obviously it wasn’t to be.

Thinking about it though, I think new races will be saved for a different kind of expansion, if you know what I mean. Heart of Thorns seems a lot like Eye of the North. Now, Guild Wars 2 already does enough things differently that I don’t mean this literally, but I think we might see more Campaign-like expansions in the future, and that’s where races will be introduced.

Imagine, for example, an expansion that adds Tengu. When you create a Tengu and choose your backstory, you get a whole new Personal Story. Even after you’re done with the backstory stuff, you get thrown into a new plot, about Cantha or the Deep Sea Dragon or Primordus or whatever.

But, like Guild Wars 1, when you finish your backstory stuff, you also get directed to a guy who wants to introduce you to Tyria proper. That quest puts you on a boat or something that gets attacked by Risen ships, and at the end, you get approached by the three orders and they ask for your help against Zhaitan, and then you pick up the Zhaitan plot from there. Likewise, the existing races, after they do their backstory, can get directed to the new story.

The timeline wouldn’t be perfect, but it wasn’t in Guild Wars 1 either. Just put a little disclaimer, and I think you have a really great way of bringing new races in that does as little damage to the timeline as possible while still leaving all the content open and giving the new races a feel that’s properly distinct for them.

It’s hard to say. Based on the trailer and the current information about Specializations, it can be inferred that the Mesmer Specialization is what gives access to shields, and that’s all it will give access to. This may not be as underwhelming for the Specialization as it sounds, though, since they claimed that the most important part of Specializations are new profession mechanics that will fundamentally change them (well, they said that about Druid, so it presumably will at least apply to some of the others). In other words, it’s possible that it might change some of the other skills, or at least how they’re used enough to not make the shield feel underwhelming on its own.

Also, that doesn’t mean the base class won’t be getting new options. I wouldn’t get my hopes up over it, since they didn’t say anything about it, but it’s always possible, and wouldn’t contradict the website, since that only talks about what the Specialization changes, not what the base class has.

I really hope some more options are added. There are several currently unavailable options for multiple classes that seem obvious, and might help to round some things out. Really seems like something they at least would have said they’re doing, even if they didn’t give specifics though, unfortunately.

Terrahero.9358:

My experience with arenanet so far would suggest that is exactly what it would be. Hoping that it is more than one more weapon, and a few more skills and traits is a good way to get seriously disappointed.
Of course I wouldn’t mind being proven wrong.

Later I dug up the quote that I was thinking about, where, at the reveal, he mentioned those things, before saying that the “most important” thing were new profession mechanics that fundamentally change the class. That’s almost certainly an exaggeration, but it’s why I’m talking about it the way I am.

I actually think we might agree with each other more than it sounds. A lot of people seem to be upset about the implication that there will only be one Specialization, because they see at as you being able to “specialize” deeper in an element of your class, drastically upgrading it and giving you all sorts of new stuff along that line.

Remember, though, that Masteries are touted as the new progression, not Specializations. That, along with the quote about profession mechanics and the flavor of a Druid, leads me to believe we’re only getting one Specialization because it’s not about upgrading your class, but altering it. It’s like adding a Secondary Profession in Guild Wars 1. Some people might still want to play a pure version of their class, but if you dip into the Secondary Profession, you’re going to have to make some trade-offs.

This will almost certainly be underwhelming for some people right now, because most people probably chose their current profession for what it is now, but it’ll offer up alternatives to things you might not have already liked, and they can build on it in the future. I don’t think it will be big, I just think it will be a choice.

I could imagine Arena.net temporarily disabling Tomes and such for Revenants, but I don’t think it’s necessary. Leveling in this game is very similar to Guild Wars 1, in which it’s more of a tutorial than any kind of main element of gameplay. A tutorial is nice for a new class, but for a veteran who has enough Tomes to bypass that, it’s probably unnecessary. It’s going to take awhile, even at max level, for people to find a good niche for a new class anyway.

I normally spend most of my time on a forum providing feedback through constructive criticism, but something hit me after the reveal today, that I really want to share.

When Arena.net first promised that Guild Wars 2 would be about the journey and not the destination, I was more than a bit incredulous. Lots of people claim that as a goal, or at least claim it’s a possible perspective on their game, but I have rarely, if ever, seen it delivered, to the point where I didn’t really believe it was possible. In this day and age, it feels like our access to information will always funnel people into an “endgame” regardless of how much time you put around it.

I wasn’t really that fond of Guild Wars 2 when I first started. I was actually pretty hyped, despite what I just said, but my enthusiasm ran thin fairly quickly. I pushed myself to level 80 though, and stopped playing for awhile. I came back every once and awhile, but never really stuck.

While hearing the rumors for this expansion though, the first revelation hit me. I don’t feel bad about taking breaks from Guild Wars 2. That may sound bad to some, but it actually makes me feel really good about the game. Too many MMOs nowadays are such a grindfest. Even when it’s not a grind in the traditional sense, there’s a certain expectation that you’re constantly around, and if you’re not, even for a holiday, then you fall behind and don’t get to do anything fun. It creates this constant, low level stress the whole time you’re playing, and even when you’re not.

Guild Wars 2 doesn’t really have that for me. I feel like I’m not missing anything I’ll regret missing. That I can wait for things I want to do without being woefully behind when they come around, which I think actually fits the buy-to-play business model very well.

Waiting for the reveal, however, I had to admit that I was expecting some compromising of the original vision. I’m used to that from pretty much every other company, and as much as I had a hard time imagining how it would be justified, I wouldn’t have been surprised by an announcement of a level cap increase or new gear tier, with some really heartfelt justification.

It was nice to hear that the level cap and gear tiers were staying the same, and very pleasantly surprised to see a continued commitment to everything else as well, including the spirit of cooperation and wanting to see other players.

My final revelation about the journey being more important than the destination, though, came when I considered the new zones. At first, as much as I wanted them, I worried that more zones will just stretch the playerbase thinner and thinner, and was wondering how long that model could sustain itself. But then I realized, the philosophy of this game makes that problem irrelevant.

While leveling to 80, those zones might end up barren, but leveling is largely soloable (though some quality of life tweaks if that became a problem would still be nice). Since there’s no level cap or gear tier increase though, once you hit 80, you can immediately join in on the “active” content, whether that be in the Silverwastes, Maguuma, Cantha, or Elona.

And unlike most other MMOs, those other zones, while they might end up empty, will never end up obsolete, and that’s because GW2 has been working on horizontal progression this whole time. Wardrobe skins, achievement challenges, jumping puzzles, collections, you name it, there’s always something unique. Zones will never become fully obsolete, because they’ll always have their own unique rewards. Even if the playerbase gets spread thin, all of the content will nevertheless remain relevant.

I want to see this keep working.

He said that Druid will fundamentally change the way Ranger is played. I’m guessing there will only be one per class, as they seem to be major playstyle and theme variants, not simple trait specs. Furthermore, I’m guessing that these Specializations are Guild Wars 2’s replacement for new campaign professions. In other words, instead of getting Assassin when we go to Cantha, Thief would get an Assassin Specialization. When we go to Elona, Paragon would be a Guardian Specialization. I think we’re only getting one right now, because they’re going to be the Maguuma Jungle themed variants. He made a big deal about the location being why Ranger gets Druid.

Meglobob.8620:

Here is EXACTLY what specialization means (from limited info so far):-.

At about 37:54 in the reveal, he says that “most importantly” Druid will give Ranger “new profession mechanics” that “fundamentally change the way that Ranger plays”.

Well, in Guild Wars 1, they talked about how they wanted each campaign to do something different. I wouldn’t expect the same kind of vertical zone design to the same level anywhere else. They’d come up with something new. I’d really love to see Kaineng City use the vertical gameplay though.

Stormbolt.7293:

I think it’s safe to say that we’re getting two or more mutually exclusive specializations per class. Otherwise, the system wouldn’t be much more than a weapon addition.

Maybe not. We only have one solid example so far, but Druid to me seems more of a re-themeing of Ranger than just a new weapon. My guess is that Specializations are something to be built on in the future, not to come out with a full set out of the gate. They sound more like an expandable list of sub-classes than a static talent tree.

If that Rifle guy really is a Thief, then my guess for Thief is Corsair/Pirate/Swashbuckler.

— as well as a new profession mechanic

Did he? I swear I remember that at least being implied somewhere, but no one else seemed to have heard it.

Edit: It’s at about 37:54 in the video.

Terrahero.9358:

I’d think a bit more simple than a lot of people seem to hope.

I don’t think they will be game-changing, but it doesn’t seem to me that they would just be a new weapon and some new options.

Why? Because it really seems like there will only be one at the moment, and it would seem silly to have everyone “specialize” the same way. I admit, I could certainly be wrong, but I’m not trying to build it up, I just see a different goal with it.

They don’t sound like strict upgrades to me, but flavorful trade-offs. Druid is the Ranger Specialization we’re getting in Heart of Thorns because we’re going to the Maguuma Jungle. I see it as a way to flavor the basic archetypes that are our professions, without making culture-specific professions each expansion like Guild Wars 1 did. It’s something that they can and will expand in the future, but starts small right now.

From the other perspective though, it would seem weird to just make them a handful of new options. People are picking Ranger right now because they want to be an archer with a pet, not a Druid with a staff casting vine spells at people. You could say, just don’t use that weapon, but if a single weapon is all that makes a Druid a Druid, then it really seems like you don’t need a “Specialization” system, just more weapons. Also, there’s the “Mesmers only get two new skills?!” issue some people are worried about with them being seen with a Shield. If that’s all the Specialization was, without some other Specialization-specific tweaks (again, still not assuming anything major, but enough to create a theme), it would seem extremely underwhelming for some classes.

To put it another way, I’m imagining “Specialization” not to mean you’re just delving further into something the class already does, because that’s what Traits already are, but a way for you to “Specialize” in a unique cultural twist on your profession based on the area of the expansion. It still wouldn’t be a major reinvention, but it at least would put a new perspective on things.

There are so many I’d love to see. For now, I’m limit my list to two:

Master Togo (if he’s not stuck in Tahnnakai Temple)
Koss

Smitty.9432:

I’m still not understanding the similarities people see with the dervish class. I can see the relationship to the ritualist as it’s wearing a blindfold and the description of “Channel legendary and otherwordly powers.” Plus it looks as though it’s holding some sort of scepter, although it may be a sword.

Because the Dervish also channeled legendary and otherworldly powers, that of the gods, and was more of a fighter. This really does feel, based on this early impression, like a blending of the Ritualist’s connection to spirits, with the Dervish’s channeling and fighting ability.

In fact, I wouldn’t even be surprised if Revenant gets a Dervish Specialization that trades channeling heroes with channeling gods, and in Cantha gets a Ritualist Specialization that gives them more casting capabilities.

DeceiverX.8361:

I really hope the “rifle proof” on thief isn’t a thief and is just an engineer or something.

The animations and style are so unsuited for how the class plays.

Well, the new weapons are tied to the Specializations, and the Specializations seem to re-theme the class slightly, if Druid is any indication. Rifle may not fit for “Thief”, but it might fit for how its Specialization plays. The website says Specializations also have new skills, traits, and unique mechanics, so they’re not going to just be a weapon upgrade.

The description about the Specializations implies only one new weapon is added to each class, and there’s nothing really to suggest they will be new weapons. It looks like spears might be added as a new, land weapon, but it might just be for Revenants and maybe the new weapon for a Specialization, like Warrior.

If so, it’ll be a bit disappointing. The Specializations seem really cool, don’t get me wrong, but there are still so many neat weapon ideas or obvious-seeming weapon options that I still want to see. I hope it’s just that they didn’t feel it was major enough to talk about with the other major features.

Snowball.3497:

I think that is a limited view of what the torch could be.

Torch is one of my favorite weapons in this game because there’s so much potential in something that most games ignore. Elementalists, out of any class except maybe Mesmer (which don’t do enough with it), could do some really crazy stuff with Torch, changing drastically by element. You could make it change to each element, or make each element react to the base torch. Fire creates an inferno, water makes it a steam weapon, earth makes it a lava weapon, air creates a wildfire, or whatever.

I wouldn’t count it out.

This is kind of baseless, but with if Thief is Pirate/Corsair? It was a popular idea for a class before launch, and it seems like it could fit as a Specialization. It would also fit with the potential Rifle Thief.

The Mursaat abandoned the rest of the races to fend for themselves against the Elder Dragons the first time around. They sacrificed swathes of innocents just to keep themselves alive. They killed lots of other people for no known reason. Lazarus saved himself at the cost of people he tricked into thinking he was blessing.

Most of it isn’t malicious, and I might even be hard-pressed to call it evil, but they did plenty of bad things.

Yeah, no reason why every individual of a race has to have the same goal. Lazarus would be an obvious antagonist.

Well, considering almost every bad thing the Mursaat did was in their own self interest, it makes sense that we might work together when one of their biggest enemies is threatening us both.

Chronomancer for Mesmer? Not that it’s the Utopia class, but there was a giant clock. ;P

What I find most interesting about this system, however, is what it might mean for the future. The one named one we were given, Druid, allows the Ranger to specialize in a theme appropriate to the expansion.

Perhaps Thief will get Assassin in Cantha and Guardian will get Paragon in Elona, for instance?

I really like your analyses on these. The only thing I’d disagree with is your last point. While some more variety would be nice, some of your suggestions would potentially mean that huge chunks of the playerbase would be arbitrarily gated from the story because of their varying playstyles.

I really want to talk about your seventh point though, because it’s central to what has been my biggest issue with Guild Wars 2 since the beginning. Guild Wars 1 didn’t have any kind of masterful storytelling, but I paid attention because it was really good at worldbuilding. Cantha and Elona really felt like distinct areas with their own distinct nations and cultures. Guild Wars 1 only had one playable race, and humans might as well have been the only sentient race in the story, and you wouldn’t have noticed because of how much time they spent on making each nation unique.

Then Guild Wars 2 comes along and replaces that all with a set of fantasy races with generic stereotypes. Humans are the “diminished but plucky” race. Char are the “proud warrior” race. Asura are the “tiny smart guy” race. Norn are the “big norse legend” race. Sylvari are the “mysterious sylvan” race. There’s no culture anymore, just clashing stereotypes. It’s to the point that Guild Wars 2 has implied that tengu from around the world decided that racial unity is enough to completely ignore cultural and historical divergence and just move in together.

The hero groups we’ve interacted with seem to be the same problem. I want it to be more like Guild Wars 1, where there isn’t a checklist, and the primary connecting thread being the player’s perspective. That’s not to say that there can’t be some variety, but that variety needs to revolve around what’s relevant, and what’s appropriate to the history and culture of what we’re dealing with.

Not to sound completely negative, I actually feel like the sylvari revelation is a huge step in the right direction. I’ve always liked the sylvari aesthetics and design, and a sylvari has been my main since day one, but the race was the biggest symbol of this issue to me at launch. They were new, even from an in-universe perspective. They had no history, and no deep culture to draw upon. They were just a fantasy cliché. With the new revelation, they finally feel like part of the world.

Kazimeras.3420:

I too play at 1920×1080, usually fullscreen, and I am clearly experiencing this issue.

Here are before and after examples. You can see just how much higher the camera seems to sit than it used to. It is now pretty hard to take good screenshots of my Norn characters.

Edit: Added a better comparison picture, taken in a more similar location to the original screenshot, without my helmet on.

Oh wow, that’s a huge difference. You can barely even see your character now.

Seras.5702:

As for an indicator, yes, every targeted skill has one. You’ll notice a little red line on every one of your skills that disappears when you’re in range of your target. Admittedly, iLeap’s range isn’t far, but you’ll get used to it.

Oh, wow, now I feel like an idiot. You know, I think I might have known about that before, but I completely missed that the other day, and I was even looking on the abilities for some kind of indicator. >_<

Take traits for the traits, not the stats in the line. You can make up for that with gear.

I remember someone saying something like this in the past, but I wanted to hear it again because… some of those stats sound so useful. ;P

Thanks for all of the feedback. I’m going to experiment with a few of these things.

I’m a pretty casual player, so I haven’t read up too much on builds and it hasn’t really mattered for me either. I only recently read some guides on this forum and some of them helped, but others made me feel even more hopeless.

I played Mesmer in the original Guild Wars, and… honestly, I wasn’t that fond of it. I mostly played it because I invested a lot of time in the character before I accepted that it just wasn’t for me, and I wasn’t about to replay so much of that game (not that I hated it, but for someone like me it took a lot of time and effort without a ton of compensation). It took me pretty much my entire career in that game to finally stumble on a build that I liked. It was a combination of interrupts and other punishing moves.

On a quick note, I feel like I’m a fairly decent player once I get into things, but I’m really bad at the whole “deckbuilding” thing, no matter what I’m playing. I can make great use of the connections if they’ve been pointed out to me, but I have a hard time noticing them on my own.

So, anyway, my career in Guild Wars 2 started off pretty rocky. I knew to expect a lot of differences, and was looking forward to most of them. But I felt pretty literally useless as Mesmer for a long time. Eventually, I settled on using the Staff because it was the easiest for me to wrap my head around while I tried to get everything figured out.

I actually figured out a fairly decent build all on my own for it. It was split between keeping the Staff Phantasms up while trying to throw up as many Conditions as I could. I’ve used that build until this patch.

I’ve actually been meaning to drop it for a long time, but I just can’t figure out what else to do. My problem with that build is twofold. Firstly, it has some major weaknesses. If I can’t keep my Phantasms alive, or if I’m attacking an object, I’m pretty worthless. The second problem being that it’s just so passive.

One thing I’ve tried on and off that I decided to try to go all out on after this patch is a Shatter/Confusion(now /Torment) build. Right now, it feels pretty crazy in theory, and I’m seeing other threads about similar builds, but in practice it hasn’t felt that useful. I really have no idea what I’m doing wrong, but even if I stack up a ton of Confusion and Torment, my opponents maybe take a respectable initial burst, but then they kinda just laugh, heal it back, and destroy me as I desperately try to set up another wave.

I think I still may be onto something though. I think I do enjoy it more than the Staff/Phantasm/Condition build. It feels more active, and being able to throw around Confusion makes me feel pretty powerful, but I’m still not sure exactly what to do with it.

So, onto some questions. I don’t want to get into my specific build numbers or gear at the moment because it’s very much in flux right now. Also, keep in mind, while I’d prefer a more active build, my reflexes and improvisation aren’t the best. There’s a reason I tend to run with as many Signets as I can justify.

1) Right now I’m using Mirror Image + Decoy to start off a fight with a full Shatter wave. Everything else feels too slow. Is there something I’m missing?

2) I keep hearing people recommend Deceptive Evasion. I admit, it looks pretty neat, but with only two dodges exhausting your Endurance, I feel like I’m either going to not have the Clones when I want them, or not have a dodge when I need it. Also, there’s not a lot else that looks appealing to me in that Trait line, passives, minor, or major.

3) I put my Sword away for a long time because it just felt really awkward to me. I pulled it out for the first time in awhile today and was wondering why because I really like the feel of the autoattack, but then I ran into why: Illusionary Leap. Everyone seems to love this ability, but it drives me nuts. Is there any indication when I’m in range? I feel like 90% of the times I use this ability it fizzles due to range, and then it goes on full cooldown.

4) Right now I’m focused in Illusions for all the Illusion stuff, and Inspiration for the Scepter stuff. Should I worry too much about passives and minor traits? I like some major traits in Inspiration, but every single minor one is worthless to me in this build. On the other hand, Domination doesn’t have a lot of major traits I want, but it does Condition Duration, which seems like it’d come in handy with Confusion and Torment.

Khisanth.2948:

I wonder if that has anything to do with them basing some resets on PDT. That would make the resets happen 8 hours later than expected.

It hasn’t reset anything for me since the day of the patch, which has been well over 8 hours. Plus, I’m Pacific Time anyway. The timers keep resetting, telling me I have another 24 hours to do my daily and such, but it’s the same categories and it remembers which ones I’ve done, meanwhile the node in my house has also yet to respawn since I mined it the day of the patch.

The appearance system in Guild Wars 2 has always bothered me, especially after how much they bragged about how much cosmetics were a key feature of the game. You can’t say visuals are your primary progression, you’re not pay-to-win, then rely on the cash shop for the appearance system. If visuals are a major form of progression, then putting visuals on the cash shop is pay-to-win.

I’m an extremely casual Guild Wars 2 player, but I still log in for the Living Story and I’ve been max level for a long time now. I still have no Transmutation… whatever the level 80 ones are called. I run around in sub-optimal gear instead, to show my customization, and only switch into my good gear when I’m doing something serious.

So in other words, I’m really excited about the Wardrobe system. I really don’t understand why this isn’t the way the game was designed from the beginning, but that doesn’t stop it from being awesome now. It’s ridiculously simple and absolutely brilliant at the same time.

The only concern is the acquisition method of the Transmutation Charges. Please make these something you can earn relatively simply in-game. Am I asking for them to abandon their business model? Absolutely not. The best way to make money isn’t always to slap the biggest price tag on something.

Look at it this way. In the old Transmutation system, people had to destroy items left and right. It’s not really going to encourage you to do it very often, which means you’re not going to be buying very many stones on the cash shop or outfits to Transmute to begin with. Opening up the Transmutation system like this is already going to bring in a whole ton of business from people who might as well buy every outfit now since they don’t have to worry about wasting their money by destroying something, not to mention people who are going to change their outfits more often than any reasonable system of earning Charges could keep up with and people who are just too impatient or low on time to earn them manually.

It’s a well known fact that free-to-play business models are supported by a minority in the population. Most players buy nothing or very little, while others buy so much they make up for the rest. You don’t need to gate basic fun and choice behind a pay wall to justify running the game, and in fact it risks turning people away from your game who either feel it’s dishonest or simply feel there are better ways to spend their money. Besides, Guild Wars 2 isn’t free-to-play, it’s buy-to-play. Functions that they claimed are foundational to their game (like cosmetics) should be primarily supported in game.