Guild Wars 2

You’ll have to wait until all the blog posts are out for a definite answer, but the way I know Anet, I’d guess no, no, and no. They might have messed up a bit with ascended gear, but I trust that they’re going to stick to their philosophy of avoiding the gear treadmill. But as I said, make sure to wait until all the blog posts are out.

Also, we’re getting new traits, and all of the sigils and runes are being reworked, so it might be wise to wait until after the patch anyway

Honestly, I don’t think it’s something as big as new weapon sets. I think it’s more something along the lines of fixing account-/ soulbound issues. The dye thing is probably the “Colorful Outlook”.

This is so true, and apparently it needs to be repeated, because we have seen practically no improvement. I really hope that one of the upcoming blog posts are about a change to this system… But I won’t be surprised if that isn’t the case.

Lion’s Arch really did feel too “human” for the main city of all races. I like the idea of having it in the sky, but I can’t see that happening for story-reasons. I do agree with that it should have distinct features from the other cities though, and that would make sense too, because I assume everyone is going to help rebuild the city.

They won’t stack with the same type anymore, I believe, so you’d have to kill 25 enemies.

Tumult.2578:

“Any character that was created before the feature pack build will be grandfathered into the system; meaning that they will have traits 1 through 12 of each line unlocked. The new 13 traits will need to be unlocked by everyone. Any character created after the build will be required to unlock all of their traits via content or purchasing trait guides.”

You used the word required so, sorry but I have to ask.

How are you going to force players to unlock or buy traits? As a current character, I don’t expect to see any new traits that I will use, yet I’m required to get them???

It’s going to work like this: All characters you have now remain the same. They still have the “old” system, except when you want to get the 40 new traits.

All characters you make after the patch will start at level 1 (obviously), and then they don’t have any traits at all. That’s how you’ll be required to follow the new system by either acquiring through doing the events or buying them. Unless you want a character without any traits at all.

Hahaha, wow, I’d love a backpack like that!

Flytrap.8075:

I’m disappointed that “The Art of Combat” turned out to be about the Rune and Sigil changes that we were made aware of a few months ago.

I feel like the title they originally gave us was very misleading.

Agreed. Now that I look at the list again, it’s all probably very small changes, such as account-bound dyes (which I really, really want, don’t get me wrong, and I know that I’m not the only one). I do think that they match the community’s wishes though, and we really need some of these fixes, such as the two sigil slots on two-handed weapons and the improvements of the runes. It still feels a bit “hyped”.

Now that I backtrack though, it makes sense somehow to call sigils and runes the “art of combat”. They can really make (or break, with poor choices) a build, especially if we’re going to have more interesting and viable options now. All I know now, though, is that I’ll wait with buying some of those more expensive runes.

Clear.8512:

I guess we can proactive and make a forum topic stating how the changes are going to ruin the game. You don’t need facts for those. /sarcasm

The forums in a nutshell!

But… It’s afternoon here!

xD

Just kidding… But I’m just as curious as you!

Xyonon.3987:

they mentioned to make the downscaling hitting harder.

Really? I’m glad to hear that, where did they say that? I must’ve completely missed it.

Sirendor.1394:

Sounds like I’ll be bored to death being forced to go PvE.

Or you can just buy the traits you want. There’s no forcing here. Of course, we don’t know the prices yet, but I’m pretty sure that they’ll make sure that the amount of effort involved in playing for the trait vs. playing for the gold for the trait is roughly equal (as equal as it can be with some people claiming to be able to get 10 gold in 45 minutes… that’s pure magic to me).

I’m afraid I have to say that I’m not terribly thrilled about them making PvE even easier though. If they have to do that, please scale high-level toons down more strongly.

Tom Gore.4035:

Here’s hoping for saveable templates too, but this is a good start anyway

Me too, I loved that option in GW1. It’s one of those small things that make the gameplay smoother and more enjoyable.

I was thinking the same thing the other day! I was wishing for a more regal look for my sylvari ele… I would love designs like these in GW2, and see a wider variety to the shapes as well (such as non-trenchcoat medium armor, my thief wants more sleek stuff, or more slimmed down heavy armor).

Edit: And I love the green flowery armor set.

I agree wholeheartedly. We have so many amazing dyes in the game, why can’t we use them on the hair accessories? That feels like an outdated system.

I love this, I just wish that this system was on the low level characters I still haven’t leveled yet to motivate myself. x) Looks like I’ll have to buy a new character slot!

Thank you for bringing these little gems from GW1 back, keep it up! Looking forward to the next blog posts!

I wouldn’t mind that they add so many skins to the gemstore, if they added more full armor skin sets and weapon skin sets to the game itself as well. The amount added to the gemstore just feels a bit lopsided. I want to get more armors through crafting, or possibly drops, because I think that crafting or by surprise getting a nice skin from a drop is much more fun than farming money and then converting gold to gems (though I’m grateful for this feature). As long as the crafting isn’t time-gated and the drop rates abysmal…

Melanie.1240:

You can do the last part of the event without having to do the Knight/Hologram events. You can skip to the part where the big thing happens and you get to see all the cutscenes (I’m being vague to prevent spoiling the story).

Go to the Diverse Ledges waypoint (lower left corner of LA). There is a purple portal there. If you have the Advanced Spinal Blade backpiece on any character you can enter the purple portal and get into the drill. You don’t need to use the character that has the backpiece, you just need that achievement.

Oh, I wasn’t aware of that detail. Thank you. (I wanted to give the backpack to a lover level character, but play with my main.)

I like the idea of a one-time large fee, like 10-20g. I’d be willing to pay it too, even more so if Anet decides to make different builds viable and not only max-damage output.

Nyel.1843:

Black Dragon.3784:

Can I just ask why do so many people want new maps when we have not even finished with one? why not let Anet finish unlocking all areas in this map? Instead of giving them tone loads more to do whilst realistic content now( unlocking areas such as eye of the north) is lacking

My opinion too.

We need no Cantha and we need no Elona.

We have got:

• Magus Falls
• Maguuma Desert
• Ring of Fire
• Janthir Isles
• Home of the Blood Legion
• Deldrimor Front
• Wooland Cascades
• Scavangers Causeway
• Far Shiverpeak Mountains
• Crystal Desert

Hell only with the Janthir-area they could fill a complete expansion. Every of this regions is big enough to contain 3-4 zones at least. That are more than 40 zones within the map we got NOW. That is incredibly huge.

I think with LS 2 we will go to the Magus Falls and get some story about Malyck and the other pale tree and that will for sure take +1 year to finish ( with Mordremoth ). Hell, I never saw a game with so many potential like this. There is enough space for them to add zones in the visible map for 10 years.

I do agree with you, but part of the purpose of this thread is to show that there is continued interest in these areas. We only have a chance of getting them in the future if we keep showing that we want them, because apparently Cantha and Elona are very, very far down on their priority list.

I like that they added Tormented weapons to the game, it’s a nice nod to the old game. I do however not like that it’s another gemstore addition. Instead I want to see more armor and weapon skins added to the gameplay itself, such as new craftable skins and quests for new recipies. And with that I don’t mean ascended-style endless grind+timegating, I mean like the exotic armor we can craft now. That’s what I like, that’s what I’d love to see. I don’t really care about making old GW1 elites exclusive in GW2 though, and I say that as a GW1 veteran.

I think that they need to start thinking differently. Instead of only max-damage-output, they should think of what each class does best, or should do best, and model both the class balances and the events after that. Thinking back to GW1, for example when doing dungeons with heroes, I chose the classes based on what they could do and what kind of enemies there were . Of course, there you had to choose because the party size and the variety of heroes were limited, and that game was based on the trinity, but the class really mattered, and the build varieties were the core of the game. Minion bombers, mesmers for interrupts or hex removal, etc.. That’s lacking in GW2. There are husks in the great wurm events which are more vulnerable to conditions, which is an improvement, but other than that interrupts, crowd control, health degen, confusion, blindness are often useless, because champions are immune to controls and have huge health pools.

In short, it’s plain useless to bring anything but pure damage, because the champs are immune to everything else. What I’d like to see instead is more variation in each fight of group event scale, to make all classes unique yet viable, for example with bosses and boss minions which have some of the following attributes (these are all suggestions which I came up with just now, so they’re not really thought through, it’s just food for thought):

- more vulnerable to conditions
- need to be controlled with cripples or blinds
- dish out loads of conditions
- target minions and phantasms first
- make a vital point inaccessible without stealth (maybe the enemy knocks away any intruders it sees, so you have to use shadow refuge or mass invisibility to bring in a group instead)
- different vulnerability levels to elemental attributes (such as vulnerable to water, it would be interesting with a skill that makes other players deal cold or earth damage for example)
- vulnerable to machinery (turrets, non-magic guns)
- high attack rates to make confusion viable
- have healing skills with clear animations which can and need to be interrupted

As I said, just suggestions, but I think that this would make each profession more fun and rewarding, and it would take away the focus from pure dps and make use of your class’ specialities more important. To make this work in-game, it would maybe be wise to have npcs shouting things that draw attention to this and encourage the “right” gameplay, at least until the general player community realizes that there are changes to the “dps” system.

(This got a bit longer than I originally intended… Ups.)

Traveller.7496:

Linnea.5146:

I loved the Kasmeer/Jory scene. Period. I couldn’t care less about their genders. It’s nice to actually see something happen, so my next request is Queen Jennah harshly rejecting Logan, which makes him seek solace in alcohol and brawls.

I thought the consensus was that Logan is under her charm. Or that’s how it was depicted in the novels. She has really no reason to dismiss him, since she’s got him by the bal…. leash.

That’s probably true. To be honest, I haven’t read the novels… I haven’t even finished the dungeon storyline yet xD Then how about a drunk Logan proposing to her? Ok, ok, I’ll stop, it’s getting off topic.

I loved the Kasmeer/Jory scene. Period. I couldn’t care less about their genders. It’s nice to actually see something happen, so my next request is Queen Jennah harshly rejecting Logan, which makes him seek solace in alcohol and brawls.

I loved the instance! I loved the emotion, I loved that it felt like a movie (thank you for not making it with those boring backgrounds from the personal story!!!) I loved Kasmeer and her hiccups (Bandidas, anyone?), I loved how you actually animated the Kasmeer/Marjory scene and how you saw Jory’s burns, I loved to drive a stake through Scarlet’s heart, and I loved the last movie clip WITH A DRAAAGOOON!!

And dead Scarlet looked so creepy in that movie clip. o.o

gazerose.7510:

does the final event go on for the whole day on Tuesday? or is there a certain time for it?

It’s most likely like the other LS installments. Next update on Tuesday, events stay around for two weeks.

notabot.3497:

Linnea.5146:

I heard that high toughness draws aggro, is that true? I don’t want to make my ele a high-priority target…

It can draw aggro depending on the fight and the RNG and proximity. Other factors are also part of it (like ressing a player is a huge weighted aggro draw). If you build for survival you will often (but not always!)grab initial aggro, but you will quickly lose it because you aren’t doing any damage. A build with much more than token defense will do very poor damage so you aren’t likely to hold aggro unless you are doing the FGS rush trick or know how to get the most out of might stacking or use LH.

So…. If you go with knights/valk (not bad for learning your class/rotations) or god forbid celestial (which is crap despite its many defenders, and is going to be hit hard by the incoming crit damage nerf).

Now if you are playing wvw none of my advice really matters, as you will be in the safe hug box of the zerg and don’t need to do anything other than provide token damage and not die. Yeah, its more complex than that but survival is the key thing about wvw zergs (so you don’t provide rally targets if nothing else) and you wouldn’t be asking these sorts of questions. Dying in open world/LS events doesn’t actually matter. In LS just leach for bags like everybody else does and practice your dodges to avoid being bored or losing skill (I don’t do LS on my guard or mesmer because I don’t want to get into bad habits with my best classes).

Thank you very much for the elaborate answer!

Teniz.5249:

5 things? Pretty easy!

1 BRING
2. GW1
3. kitten
4. INTO
5. GW2

I agree 100%. More kittycats! The lore feels a bit disjointed and lacking when so much of GW1 is missing…

My best tip is to start your own LFG and write something like “first time”, maybe also “help appreciated”, and of course specify if you want story mode or explorable. That way you make it clear that you’re not an experienced, fully decked out speed clearer. Has worked for me so far.

I agree with everyone here. The NPCs reacting to what’s happening is SO important, I’m happy to see this going in the right direction!

1. Changing the background of the login screen to match the current LS update. On a related note, change all dialogs to include the actual surroundings instead of a flat 2D background.
2. Include more core updates and permanent stuff in LS updates, for example new areas and dungeons, new skills, lots of bug fixes, camera angle fixes, guild halls, gvg, all that stuff that makes the game system itself fun to play and isn’t temporary story content.
3. Elementalist weapon swap.
4. Cantha.
5. Elona.

These all are things I wish for but think are highly unlikely, thus they would blow my mind if they were done.

Ah, I see your point about the big changes. And I have to agree with everyone on the “Guild Wars”, I mean, the title doesn’t have anything to do at all with the content. I’m not even in a guild now, but I’d still like to see GvG and guild halls.

I heard that high toughness draws aggro, is that true? I don’t want to make my ele a high-priority target…

You could try guesting to a more active server. You can check their statuses here: http://www.gw2state.com/temples.html

I saw this thread earlier today, it feels closer to what the community wants. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/suggestions/Future-Content-All-Suggestions/ Sadly, it got lost in the now archived suggestions forum.

I’d be happy no matter which dragon it is, to be honest.

I see it more as an experiment, which they have been trying to improve over the course of the whole arc, which is very good. I’m sure that they have learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t with the LS. But yes, it was dragged on for too long, and the story could have been better. For the next arc, I hope that they 1. frequently include new permanent gameplay content and fixes (new weapons and skills, guild halls and wars, QoL updates, just things to the core structure that make the gameplay itself more entertaining, and more new permanent areas and dungeons), 2. make a story based on the original storyline and expand on it, instead of tacking on a new random villain that feels irrelevant to the gw universe, and 3. don’t drag it out as much as they have, I just lose track of everything when it’s this slow!

I didn’t even hang on to them, I just couldn’t play any more before the new patch came out.

Concerning the safety of kids: I noticed how Ogres, Dolyaks and Lighthouse workers had a “x alive” counter during events, but only the children had a morale meter. That means that only the children won’t actually get slaughtered during the event. Also, all the citiziens we need to encourage and safely guide out are adults too.

That doesn’t prevent Anet from just mentioning little raisin face’s demise in a dialog though… I tried to find a screenshot or video with his name in it to see if his name actually was Rollan, but I haven’t found any yet.

Edit: About the representation of the “true size of LA”: To me LA is as big as I see it. Even if they do representative scales the size I see is the scale I feel.

The title… I thought the discussion was about the players’ characters making odd noises, not the citizens? I remember the title being different yesterday, did a mod change it?

I support the fundraising idea! I’m just wondering how it’ll work if it’s put in the gem shop, because you can still buy gems with gold, and there’s no money raised from that. :S

I’m tearing up here… sniffles Who am I kidding, it’s a waterfall.

Amidst all the discussions about game mechanics and whatnot, it’s easy for most of us to miss these gems that mean so much to players like you! This thread made me remember what I really like about Anet; the heart behind the game.

I wish you all the best, Christina, and don’t let people born without a heart get you down.

I agree, despite all the complaining you see on the forums, I think that the LS has improved, and it makes a difference that they’re actually trying to learn here. No game is perfect, but with this one they’re trying to improve.

sorudo.9054:

RaM.8523:

Zera Allimatti.2541:

I think I even heard that the reason is because ‘Asian/African/Middle Eastern’ themes are offensive, and NCSoft wants no part of that. If that really is the case, then that’s just said. Political correctness has overtaken creative expression and sensible moral judgement.

I’ve heard that too and maybe as a generic white caucasian guy I should feel offended too by this generic- caucasian- renassaince style the pulled out for humans..

it’s actually not the case, the reason why not is because Korea and China can’t accept their architecture to be mixed together, that’s the reason why Anet can’t make cantha anymore.
childish i know, i don’t think they can stop Anet when they only use what they already have.

That’s definitely not enough of a reason, they can just make everything Chinese (or Japanese, or Korean), or split the groups up lore-wise. It shouldn’t be hard to justify a relatively small change like that with a time-gap of 250 years, I’m sure they can write a passable story to justify that if it’s too obvious. (Actually, I never noticed anything Korean, just the sometimes crude mix of Japan and China. xD) I like the pan-asian setting though.

I experience this a lot. I can run through whole maps without seeing anyone at times, and all events are in a disheartening state. It would have been better if there was an actual “takeover” by the enemies instead of having events lying around half-done saying “Revive the escort”. It doesn’t feel like we’re fighting against the enemy NPCs, but against depopulation.

I used to do the events alone, but when I came back a few minutes after completing them they were almost always back to the “depopulated” state. It’s like I didn’t matter. All I got was one silver.

As for me, I don’t do champ trains instead, it’s such a different mentality, so I don’t think dissolving them would fix that. Though I wouldn’t mind it if Queensdale became a nice beginner’s area again…

I like romance stuff. That doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t like a better written and scripted story, as has been mentioned already. For example, I’d love it if they remade the two-persons-with-a-background-style dialogs and speech bubble conversations to movie-style scenes like in GW1 for better immersion, or like we have seen a number of times in the LS (I think at the Queens Jubilee). I mean, they voice it already, why not make movies out of it instead more often? I’d also love it if they tried to write it a bit “smarter”, it feels like things are being dumbed down and simplified a lot of the time, sadly.

I must have missed something. Where was it stated that Scarlet is someone we know?

I think that one of the purposes of this installment was to focus more on story and getting somewhere with Scarlet, and recapping for new players (though they could have added a bit more juice to the story, but that’s another topic), the other being the introduction of the EotM map. I personally am glad that they didn’t put more LS in WvW, because I’m not a big fan of the latter, to be honest, and I think a lot of WvW players would have been upset to have PvE content in WvW. I mean, look at the hate many PvE players face in the EotM when they try to complete the little content they have added, imagine the sh-storm if they had crammed in more…

Edit: And I agree with the poster above me, “calm before the storm” is exactly the feeling I get, and if the reduced amount of content in this installment means a great LS update next time, I’m all for it.

Bel Geode.8129:

ViralVarda.2739:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Nah, we had this Asuran father and son relation drama already in GW1, Anet would not recycle that for GW2 with a father – daughter thing would they…?

Oh, heavens, no. ANet would never recycle ANYTHING from their previous game to use for this game. EVER. Perish the thought.

LOL!

cough most of the music that plays while we walk around cough

But honestly I would not mind if her motivation ultimately became revenge. It’s an old tale to be sure, but it’s ok for me.

But then I am a scorpio… we live revenge.

That’s the only “recycling” I don’t mind, I always feel a bit nostalgic hearing the old soundtrack (making me think I should just go back to GW1 every time I hear it, but I never do).

Also, I like that these characters have diversity. It’s not like everyone is straight, born without illnesses or deformities, has an intact family and as a nice bonus has flawless looks.