Guild Wars 2

ZeftheWicked.3076:

I mean i want option to make more balanced middle ground builds. Ones that have tanky stats from amulet, with bit precision and ferocity + boon duration from traitlines from example.

How are they gonna make me get my 300 stat i choose on top of amulet ones, especially if i’m aiming for one that the amulet does not provide, that is what i wonder.

Nobody gets the 300 stats on top of the amulet any more. With all baseline stats being bumped up to 1000, this takes care of about 25% of those stats. The amulet choices might change depending on what you want to do. They have more than just the Berserker, Soldier, or Sentinel amulets. You can take a tanky amulet and take runes that give you precision and power, and traitlines that boost your ferocity and boon duration through the minor traits or traited slots. They might even update the PvP amulets to reflect these changes too, since there is little gear customization within PvP aside from the amulet and runes.

You will still be able to build middle-ground builds in the new system, I have absolutely no doubt.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

What i’m questioning is how we’ll get those missing points and do we actually get a say in what we get? I don’t like them forcing their “view” on how i build my character.

Polarizing builds mean that one guy will get easily wrecked by another because his build, forced by specialization’s limited choice and now these stats gone is by default prone to condies/burst/slow/whatever. Loss by build, and not by skill. I thought that was to be avoided.

If you want to have a build that has literally no defensive options, you can make that choice. Similarly you can make a build that takes hits like a tank but deals no damage. These already exist, and they aren’t going away either. People also tended to take traitlines for their traits, not the stat boosts. The stat boosts were perks but, like I said, are often re-implemented into the traitline in some way.

I hear a knock on the inn door; it’s a little progeny scout selling cookies. I ask her what type of cookies she has. She says,
“Sugar cookies, omnomberry cookies, peach cookies”, etc. I say,
“How much for a peach cookie?” She goes,
“I need about tree fiddy”
It was about that time that I noticed this cute little progeny scout was about 500 Kasmeers tall and from the Pre-Giganticus Lupicus era.

Baldrick.8967:

phys.7689:

Baldrick.8967:

my current necro build is :

6,2,2,2,2. Using 5,7,13, then 6,5,6,2.

Knights set, condi foods, earth runes, combination of trinkets, sig of corrupt.

How many points will I need to replicate the build?

Guess what? It’s ‘sub optimal’ according to the meta, but guess what? When I use it it’s remarkably effective in wvw as well as very survivable.

How close can I get in the new points system, especially given the loss of the trait line points into gears, etc etc?

Gear is FAR from irrelevant, given that they seem to be taking the points out of the trait lines and putting it in to gear. In fact, gear will be more important to achieve the balance of stats that is my preferred play style.

But maybe we should just be forced into spvp style with one trinket and one type of armor, or just go that one step further and just have everyone only able to select from gw2 guru approved builds?

im not saying gear serves no purpose, im saying it has little to do with trait/skill aquisistion.

you cant do 5 specialization traitline builds anymore. Some traits got merged and juggled.

also as far as i can see many of the traits you liked no longer exist.
spite V retaliation when enetering death shroud, kind of changed, now it does two things
spite VII marks deal more damage, dont see it anymore.
spite XIII far as i can see it doesnt exist anymore
curses VI is baseline now, wells are ground targeted no matter what
death magic V got merged in to soul reaping

http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgQBqAXkBLg~

this is probably closest to what you had

you would use 160 points in specializations to unlock the build i just linked.
what skills do you use.
assuming you unlock every skill it will probably be about 320 hero points.

So my build is dead and I’ll have to restrict myself to some pigeonholed build instead.

So can i make that build with the 400 I got for being 80 or do you mean I have to find 160 points (which sounds rather more than 65).

Probably use the elite line, which will be more points again?

I’m not looking forward to the incoming restrictions – most games expand build choice as they develop, GW2 is ground breaking in the sense with every update they restrict it- first the NPE (No Players Ever) and now restricting builds to three badly constructed lines.

Phys is saying that you can make a very similar build with far fewer Hero Points than you might think. You will only need to use slightly more than half of all of the HPs you get just for being 80 to make a build that was like what you had before.

There was a time shortly after the 4-hour livestream where they had a sticky somewhere (with hundreds of replies) of builds that would be damaged by these changes. They took those posts into account and have made some changes to the traits to try and accommodate the heavily-affected builds. They stated it was never their intention to permanently destroy builds, but if you’re not even willing to try and build what you had back up then that’s your prerogative. You might even be able to build something better than what you had.

This might just make more polarizing builds. Don’t forget too though; just because the baseline stat increases are being removed from the traitlines doesn’t mean that damage modifiers and stat increases from traits themselves won’t be there. The Elementalist gets big stat increases depending on their attunement and traits, almost adding up to the same levels as before at times. That’s just one example.

There are also the runes that add stats, so you may start seeing people running different rune sets to balance out the stats.

Pino.5209:

Coulter.2315:

The traits are all more worthy of taking now, they have made every choice valid and have cut the pointless rubbish. You have more valid choices now just less pointless choices. Its a better move for diversity not worse.

This not entirely true. You have less choices and flexibility now. Less pointless choices, which you can’t avoid while being lock into a line, just because you want to get a specific useful trait in that line. I wouldn’t call it better move for diversity. It’s a better move to dumb down the traits, less complicated for the simple minded. Just like when they dumb down leveling, NPE. Not only this, the nerf bats that come with this new system is enormous, just to poor salt into the wound.

Less choices, yes.
Less flexibility, debatable.
Less pointless choices, yes.
Dumb down, yes; Simplified, yes. From a balancing standpoint, this is far superior
“For the simple minded”, ad hominem, no.
NPE’s effectiveness is weird, but debatable. Leveling 1-20 is very fast. Leveling alts is easy with tomes.
Nerf bats, no, this is only an opinion.

Ardid.7203:

I don’t think I saw that sticky :S . It isn’t there anymore?

Hmmm, I can’t find it any more. There was a sticky somewhere that was posted not long after the huge livestream where they were taking input from players about concerns with losing a build they had due to the trait rework. They may have removed the post, but they stated their intention was never to destroy a build and they would try to get some community input on what we felt was going to do just that and make some changes from there.

As it is, they’ve said they are making modifications to some Mesmer traitlines, Necro traitlines, and some other things like switching Elemental Attunement to a minor trait for Elementalists instead of an adept one.

Ardid.7203:

My favorite build is already going to be destroyed, but, IF it’s true that with my 50 leveling I can unlock all the skills, I’m relieved. Not having the gold invested in traits refunded is still unfair, but in my specific case, is something I can deal with.

Good luck with the Hero Point chase.

Did you post about how you think your build won’t be viable any more over in the sticky on GW2 Discussion? They were taking into consideration a lot of peoples’ builds that were losing something integral and may have even made some significant changes since the 4-hour livestream.

Spartacus.3192:

MiniEquine.6014:

Spartacus.3192:

Wild speculation you say….How about Guardians actually get a movement speed buff and a better shield.

Ooops that should have been posted in Wishful Thinking thread instead.

Guardians are one of the most mobile classes in the game

Seriously? I wonder why then my thief and warrior feel like they can move around the map and disengage soooooo much easier than a guard.

Because they are more mobile than the Guardian. I said “one of the most”, not the most. Try moving around a map or disengaging from a fight faster than a Guardian with a Mesmer or Necromancer for example.

Regardless, Guardians are not lacking mobility outside of combat for sure. Within combat the idea of a Guardian is to not leave and not need to, though it can be done. I have no issues at all traversing maps very quickly on my Guardian.

You seem to be making a lot of claims about certain things that they either haven’t released _any information about or they have released very little so far.

I think you should wait a little bit before you give up. There’s still a lot for them to go over, and you left out a lot of stuff they mentioned in your original post, so it almost sounds like you’re hoping the expansion is bad.

eduardo.1436:

Sadly I believe the only ‘friends’ we have are Kasmeer, Marjory, Canach, Rox, Braham, and Taimi. Though it would be cool if we saw those characters again.

Technically, Destiny’s Edge is considered among our friends too, or at least that’s what I gathered from the way Logan talks to me.

Spartacus.3192:

Wild speculation you say….How about Guardians actually get a movement speed buff and a better shield.

Ooops that should have been posted in Wishful Thinking thread instead.

The shield needs a major rework, but Guardians are one of the most mobile classes in the game with leaps, their versions of teleports, and potential for 100% swiftness uptime. There’s also a thread on the Guardian forum discussing why Guardians don’t have a 25% movement increase ability/trait.

AlexanderFalkor.4765:

has anyone ever thought that they planned to announce the release date at ea 3 as a total surprise that’s why there’s been no indication?

There’s been many mentions of it being possible. We all hope they do, but either way most companies will not announce the date of when they are going to announce a date.

Preacher.9526:

My main has 100% map completion so if I understand everything correctly I will be able to unlock everything again when the patch goes live. I also have 1,000+SP leftover on my main which will become MF currency which I rarely use. This will be a huge problem for my alts that I crafted to 80 for WvW and unlocked everything with scrolls. Guess I’ll stick to my main and one alt that I finished my map completion on.

You don’t need map completion to play your alts. You don’t even need 10% map completion to play them. You main will have literally everything unlocked when the patch goes live, yes, and then some. Right now there are 189 or so skill challenges around the map that will give some number of Hero Points (a number we don’t know right now) and there is a maximum number of these a character can have. Since these elite specs will not be the last elite specs (probably around 5 E.specs) that would mean you would eventually need 100% map completion of skill challenges only to get all core traitlines and utilities and all elite traitlines and utilities.

We don’t know what, exactly, the Spirit Shards (converted currency) will or will not be able to buy. Likely they will be able to buy what they currently do, but there’s nothing preventing Anet from adding things.

It will not be a huge problem for your alts. Do you have all traitlines fully unlocked on all of your alts?

Raziel.4216:

1) You implement’em the current way, you simply grandfather current characters by providing enough hero points to unlock all the core stuff. If that character does the rest of the hero challenges available and reaches the cap then the rest of the challenges will simply provide the new skill point currency.
You also implement more than 1 way to obtain hero points, 1 related to pvp and 1 to WvW.

I could see them doing this except instead of getting Spirit Shards you just get the skill challenge towards Map Completion (like you do now). If they grandfather it through, this is the only way I could see them doing that still incentivizes doing the challenges but doesn’t reward you extra for having used skill scrolls for skill points.

2) They could provide a free 1 time ascended armor stat change, after all, re-making it would take way too much gold nowadays, specially for light armor users.

I’m all good for this, but they haven’t said this isn’t what is going to happen. They have yet to address this and they know that many people picked certain gear stats because they could get up to +300 per stat (1400 stats in total) in stats that were tied to traitlines that people no longer have access to. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve seen anybody think this is a bad idea.

3) This sounds apologetic, you shouldn’t be forced to grind.
Game was advertised as grind-free, with a “play how you want” philosophy and they claimed they wouldn’t set us back in an interview when they announced the game.
We have to demand that they keep their word, not justify’em when they don’t.

And you don’t consider what we have to do for traits right now a grind? Right now it takes a LOT of skill points and a decent amount of gold or a LOT of time to unlock all traits, much more time than it takes to get the skill points we are going to need to get to unlock every thing in the new version. However, leveling to 80 is not a grind, especially in this game. If they really want to make it “play how you want”, why have any levels at all? Shouldn’t we have everything unlocked on every level 1 character we make? Frankly, that seems pretty unreasonable. It will not affect sPvP at all, and you level in both WvW and PvE.

Raziel.4216:

What happened to all of that? Why does every reply that supports this sound so apologetic like “it’s no that bad” “the grind won’t take that long” ?

We don’t know because they didn’t say they decided on anything yet. One of the biggest complaints about the complaining going on is it’s based on speculation and mentions of how they system might work, not based on literally what’s going to happen. Nobody knows how it’s going to work yet, and the fact that there has not been a dev response to any of the threads about this is a sure good sign they might still be working on it.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

TheDaiBish.9735:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Gern.2978:

Masteries are literally the definition of horizontal progression. You do things in the world to level them, and they give you different benefits.

Well except they aren’t horizontal they are vertical. You can’t complete the maps without them.

But yes, as of now the only announced progression is the new rep grinds.

Just because you need them to complete maps, it doesn’t make them vertical progression (although I will concede that some of the Masteries are vertical progression.

Horizontal progression is the opening up of options (gliding and mushroom jumping), whereas vertical progression is an increase in power (reduced condition damage and increased damage Masteries).

How is that any different then WoW’s progression then?

In WoW you need to gain levels in order to complete higher level zones. In GW2 you need to gain mastery levels in order to complete many areas of every zone.

In WoW you need to gain gear in order to complete harder challenges. In GW2 you need to gain additional mastery levels in order to complete harder challenges.

It seems to be exactly the same progression just under a different name. I don’t really mind, I always liked progressing, but pretending it is something completely new is kind of odd since it is exactly the same with a twist.

I do think some masteries are more horizontal progression though. Unlocking vendors, finding hidden resources/areas (that aren’t required for anything), those are pure horizontal progression. But things like gliding longer, further, higher, those could have been horizontal, but they seem to have locked many of the areas/events in places that need those masteries to access.

In both games they are both forms of progression. GW2 does have some vertical progression to it, but it’s mainly isolated to the base game. Every expansion in WoW has an increased level and gear cap that makes all of Legendary equipment completely useless by green level gear 2 levels later (the “gear treadmill”).

You don’t actually gain new abilities in WoW, unless they change the core ability mechanics. What you get in WoW is a new set of challenges to use your abilities against, with the new gear you grinded out.

In GW2:HoT, you unlock new abilities like gliding, jumping mushrooms, and lore stuff. Like they used examples of in the explanation, it’s like a Zelda or Metroid game where, as you play, you unlock new skills that allow you to do more.

Really, when “Veritcal Progression” is used, it means “No new skills but new gear and levels (passive)”
When “Horizontal Progression” is used, it means “No new levels or gear but new skills (active)”

The idea is that it’s opposite of the other.

Baldrick.8967:

It’s the fact that it has to be done before you can use an alt that irks. ’I’ll play my ranger today’ Oh wait, first I need to redo the armor, change trinkets, work out a new build, calculate how many hero points I need (including elite line no doubt), then run through every map from LA to Orr, THEN I can start the ‘about an hour per character’ (read 4+ Hours). Then go to several other maps (running- no waypoints opened) and grab at least 21 more- and that 44 assumed no events in the way, no aggro, no champs/bosses/blocked points.

A few things about this:

1) How do you implement the elite specs without an overhaul of the system? Don’t forget, the new system is affecting traits too. They could have just added them in exactly like the other traitlines, but there’s enough complaints about the trait system as it is right now that it should be changed.

2) Every character you have will need to check their armor, trinkets, build, and calculate HPs needed. There is no exception to this rule and it is required every time any game updates a system through an expansion. WoW did this 4+ times (though their system is arguably much different).

3) Finally, no, you do not need all of the HPs unlocked to play an alt. The fact that you get a clean slate with the ability to unlock every single trait line and a good number of utilities with just the 400 points for being 80 is significantly better than what we have now, where you can unlock every utility but either need to shell out ~50G and 470 skill points for the traits or go hunting for them for literally days worth of playing time.

MattyP.6954:

I wonder: Why do you need full unlocks on 20 alts? Honestly, do you play your alts often enough as to where you’re changing up your builds on them?

Especially when you’re talking about having multiple characters of the same profession, why wouldn’t you use your 400 points on each character to make sure all of the builds are unlocked between the two characters?

Heck, I only have 4 level 80s (and a 5th on the way), but I never play my alts enough to need to change their builds up on a regular basis. They each fill a niche, and, when I need to play a certain role (usually in WvWvW), I hop on the corresponding alt.

This is what I don’t understand from the complaints. Yes, you will no longer be able to give your alt 200 skill scrolls and unlock every skill at level 2 (31 for elites). But do people, honestly, use all of their alts’ skills, traits, and abilities? Maybe the most hardcore of players do, but then they probably already have enough skill points unlocked to get the HPs right away.

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Have they confirmed 1:1 hero challenge to hero points ratio?

No, not yet. If skill challenges give even 2 or 3 HP per channel/Veteran kill, the argument against it can be heavily diminished. As far as I know, they were still working on the system, which is why we haven’t heard much new about it at all.

Raziel.4216:

^ So in other words, it’s either don’t use all your skills/traits or go thru the grindfest?
I could swear this game was advertised as grind-free when it comes down to character progression, did they change that? Can anyone give me the link for the quote?
Because what I can find is
““We have a lot of fans who feel abused by the process of other MMOs. MMOs have the assumption that you’re supposed to dedicate your life to it. Each expansion pack is going to invalidate all the work you did before. It’s going to be a constantly moving goal post. Because we have a lot of people coming to Guild Wars 2 who have done that kind of thing before, they don’t want to be doing it again.”
And that quote pretty much says we’re not going to screw your progress, quite the opposite of what this system will do (aside from taking a big dump on the progression grind-free philosophy)

We have to “grind” all of our traits out right now. It’s currently no different for traits right now in the sense that you have to either hunt for the random trait challenges scattered throughout the world or you gotta dish out hella gold to unlock all the traits you want. My main barely only has enough traits unlocked to fit one or two builds, both of which have some overlap. With the new system, I could get literally every single trait and all the utilities I use with just the 400 points, never mind the Hero Points I’ll get right off the bat for what skill completion I’ve already done.

PorceleinEve.2973:

And since i don’t want to be all negative, here’s a proposal. make hero points just like mastery points. common for all characters and be done with it. In fact, make an effort to streamline world exploration to be shared across all alts or at the very least make it so that the second time you’ll have to world explore, your alt will have an advantage of sorts. Or don’t, but make up your mind anet, alt friendly or not for the game and commit. Commitement is nice. Makes the world predictable and nobody feels cheated

I don’t see anything wrong with this. Ultimately, when they release more E.specs, they are going to require more Hero Points to unlock everything up to the maximum obtainable Hero Points. That would essentially mean world completion on every character and I do think that is ridiculous. But right now the system is sort of broken. It should have never been implemented the way it is, in my opinion.

I, too, want to hear what Anet has to say about all of this. Many people say you can get those extra 67 Hero Points in “an afternoon”, but frankly that is utter BS. It’s going to take literal months for some people to get their alts up to the level of Hero Points required for everything + E.specs, and most of it is repetitive stuff. If they are implementing a system for masteries, maybe they are going to implement a system for Hero Points. Heck, there’s a huge thread on it that they have never responded to yet, which makes me think:

1) they are deliberating their options and haven’t concluded anything yet on how they do this for alts or
2) they already have a decision about what will be done and are waiting until their reveal schedule allows them to talk about it more.

nightblood.7910:

MiniEquine.6014:

nightblood.7910:

MiniEquine.6014:

nightblood.7910:

Yeah but what people seem to forget about is that, you have to do more to open current functionality of your toons. Everyone seems to be putting this into a perspective of having to do 65 challenges on ONE toon.

Nah now its all my alts. Having to do the same crap over and over and over again on each one to get the same functionality I currently have.

Then on top of that, I still have to do more for elites as there are 220 hero points after the 400 they give you from leveling.

So if its going down to zero. To fully open a toon I have to do 220 X 9 hero skill challenges? Screw you. 1 toon yeah whatever I would probably do it anyway, but after that WTH?

Part of the problem with this argument, though, is that you technically didn’t do anything to get most of those skill points on your alts. Skill scrolls are found passively; they just sort of stockpile from random stuff if you don’t use them. If you spend all of them on a level 2 alt that has done nothing then you could buy (nearly) every skill possible. But that isn’t doing anything. You aren’t losing actual progress. You are losing skills that you currently have unlocked, but that’s because of the system change. You’re still going to get those Spirit Shards from the non-Hero Point skill points, unless they’ve said something contrary to that.

Yeah I would just stand in LA and my inventory would all of a sudden get full of Tomes and Skill scrolls while I did nothing. I dont know how that would happen.
Its great because I could just leave for work with the game on and come home with enough in my inventory to level a toon.

Get real dude, actually I did work to level that toon. Just on another toon. No it wasnt passive, it required action to accomplish it.

No I didnt PvE to do it, I WvW and PvP’d to do it. And from a perspective of challenge, I would personally say both of those game modes are by far more challenging than PvE.

Strawman much? I didn’t say you get them for standing around and you know it. You get them passively by playing the game. Fact is, if your character is level 80 you will have almost everything available to you to begin with. If it’s not, Tomes still work and provide a large amount of the points. PvP is irrelevant because there’s literally no need for scrolls or tomes in PvP. The only issue is with WvW, and I agree that something should be done about that, however the only real solution I could see is making WvW have “instanced” skills and traits similar to PvP. Maybe you have to earn these by doing WvW instead (like unlocking “WvW Hero Points” according to your rank or something). I know of many players who almost exclusively do WvW (I’m in a WvW guild) and I don’t think it’s fully fair to have pure WvWers not be able to unlock all the skills for WvW when PvP doesn’t have to touch either game mode at all.

Well youre not getting what Im saying. Your arguement is saying that I earned them passively and did nothing to earn those things and your only idea of progress in this game is centered around PvE.

Yet Ive played 1000’s of PvP matches, Ive got a toon for every aspect of WvW from roaming to zerg busting to whatever. Ive opened all my WvW points. To say Ive done nothing and have put no time in the progression of my toons is BS just because I bypassed story progression to do it and did it in the mode of the game where I enjoy the most.

I bypass certain things in game because I get insanely bored with PvE. I dont have legnedaries because well Im probably not going to spend my time running around mindlessly for world completion.

My very sarcastic argument is really to shut down the idea that if you dont do the work on the toon in the story modes and story progression that you “didnt do anything” to achieve that.

To say that you passively earned those things while playiung the game, wouldnt that be in ever aspect of the game? You passively leveled your character while playing the game, you passively gained skill points while playing the game even if they are not scrolls. Thats every game mode and every possible way to level and open things on the toon.

You cant even argue intent.

Two things: You, personally did stuff. Your alts did not. The system is changing for that. However…

I agree there is still the issue of WvW. I am not only looking at this from a PvE perspective, and I hope they address WvW. You don’t get skill points from PvE story mode, you get them from skill challenges and leveling up. There aren’t anywhere near enough skill challenges in WvW to have players who only do WvW to be able to get all of the builds. The strawman comes about because you think I’m only talking about PvE, which I am not.

ekarat.1085:

Gibson.4036:

All signs currently point to ArenaNet not caring whether they erode player trust by setting back progress and requiring that we earn it over again.

History also shows that they are not firmly committed to their early statement that WvWers could completely progress their characters without leaving WvW. Some design choices over the last three years have taken steps in that direction, others have taken steps away.

I think they do care, and I am not ready to give up hope that they will have a solution for WvWers other than “get Hero Points in PvE”.

I’m hoping they have the traits and skills appear in WvW like they do in PvP, and I think that might be the only way to salve the issue: Keep Hero Points out of WvW.

There are plenty of people that only WvW just as there are plenty of people who only PvP, so why have one game mode where everybody gets everything unlocked (for fairness) and another where nobody does unless they do a completely different game mode?

Darkwolfer.7819:

Whoever said signets are magical made me laugh since Warrior has signets…

Anyways, I wanted to provide the definition of signet, just so there is no confusion:

noun
1.
a small seal, as on a finger ring.
2.
a small official seal for legal documents, contracts, etc.
3.
an impression made by or as if by a signet.

verb (used with object)
4.
to stamp or mark with a signet.

Now can Engineers have signets?

A warrior has signets, yes, but if a signet is only a seal or a piece of metal, how does it “do” anything? Warrior signets are mainly no different than other class signets. They are not mechanical objects either; they just sort of exist. In existing, they heal you, prevent damage, increase your power, etc. If that isn’t magical, I don’t know what is.

However, that isn’t to say that an engineer E.spec couldn’t use magical stuff ever. It’s mostly all mechanical gadgets and the sort, but the E.specs are there to allow us to expand what the class does and how it functions, including general goals.

nightblood.7910:

MiniEquine.6014:

nightblood.7910:

Yeah but what people seem to forget about is that, you have to do more to open current functionality of your toons. Everyone seems to be putting this into a perspective of having to do 65 challenges on ONE toon.

Nah now its all my alts. Having to do the same crap over and over and over again on each one to get the same functionality I currently have.

Then on top of that, I still have to do more for elites as there are 220 hero points after the 400 they give you from leveling.

So if its going down to zero. To fully open a toon I have to do 220 X 9 hero skill challenges? Screw you. 1 toon yeah whatever I would probably do it anyway, but after that WTH?

Part of the problem with this argument, though, is that you technically didn’t do anything to get most of those skill points on your alts. Skill scrolls are found passively; they just sort of stockpile from random stuff if you don’t use them. If you spend all of them on a level 2 alt that has done nothing then you could buy (nearly) every skill possible. But that isn’t doing anything. You aren’t losing actual progress. You are losing skills that you currently have unlocked, but that’s because of the system change. You’re still going to get those Spirit Shards from the non-Hero Point skill points, unless they’ve said something contrary to that.

Yeah I would just stand in LA and my inventory would all of a sudden get full of Tomes and Skill scrolls while I did nothing. I dont know how that would happen.
Its great because I could just leave for work with the game on and come home with enough in my inventory to level a toon.

Get real dude, actually I did work to level that toon. Just on another toon. No it wasnt passive, it required action to accomplish it.

No I didnt PvE to do it, I WvW and PvP’d to do it. And from a perspective of challenge, I would personally say both of those game modes are by far more challenging than PvE.

Strawman much? I didn’t say you get them for standing around and you know it. You get them passively by playing the game. Fact is, if your character is level 80 you will have almost everything available to you to begin with. If it’s not, Tomes still work and provide a large amount of the points. PvP is irrelevant because there’s literally no need for scrolls or tomes in PvP. The only issue is with WvW, and I agree that something should be done about that, however the only real solution I could see is making WvW have “instanced” skills and traits similar to PvP. Maybe you have to earn these by doing WvW instead (like unlocking “WvW Hero Points” according to your rank or something). I know of many players who almost exclusively do WvW (I’m in a WvW guild) and I don’t think it’s fully fair to have pure WvWers not be able to unlock all the skills for WvW when PvP doesn’t have to touch either game mode at all.

nightblood.7910:

Yeah but what people seem to forget about is that, you have to do more to open current functionality of your toons. Everyone seems to be putting this into a perspective of having to do 65 challenges on ONE toon.

Nah now its all my alts. Having to do the same crap over and over and over again on each one to get the same functionality I currently have.

Then on top of that, I still have to do more for elites as there are 220 hero points after the 400 they give you from leveling.

So if its going down to zero. To fully open a toon I have to do 220 X 9 hero skill challenges? Screw you. 1 toon yeah whatever I would probably do it anyway, but after that WTH?

Part of the problem with this argument, though, is that you technically didn’t do anything to get most of those skill points on your alts. Skill scrolls are found passively; they just sort of stockpile from random stuff if you don’t use them. If you spend all of them on a level 2 alt that has done nothing then you could buy (nearly) every skill possible. But that isn’t doing anything. You aren’t losing actual progress. You are losing skills that you currently have unlocked, but that’s because of the system change. You’re still going to get those Spirit Shards from the non-Hero Point skill points, unless they’ve said something contrary to that.

Weylin.6478:

I’m sorry, what?
And the grenadier trait will just increase velocity and blast radius?

If this is the case, then I really hope the rework of the mortar into a kit fills that long range bombardment role.

Honestly, as far as the mortar is concerned, I don’t think 1500 will cut it. The projectiles are (currently) slow and painfully easy to predict and avoid, so if it’s going to be long range, it needs to be long enough that a player or mob doesn’t just close the distance in 2 seconds rendering the thing useless.

Grenades are only really effective at closer ranges anyway. The only times they can be useful at 1500 range is if you’re world boss farming or if you’re in WvW. The grenades throw really slowly and are easy to avoid. It is currently a very stupid idea to take grenades and to not take Grenadier, but this change will allow you to take grenades if you want without it, you’ll just have slower grenades.

1500 range will probably be enough. The mortar is getting the huge rework of being able to move around with it, so it is essentially going to turn into the new long-range “field” kit. I just hope they remove the minimum distance for it, but even if they don’t, you could run a bomb/grenade and mortar build (or all three) for close, mid, and long range.

Ardid.7203:

Palindrome.8904:

The issue is the tool belt. Each signet would have the passive effect, the active effect and the tool belt skill. They would be strictly better than any other class’s signets in terms of functionality.

Toolbet skills are Engie’s Class Mechanic. It doesn’t matter what kind of skills provides them. Do signet use cancel Guardian virtues? Or they make any Elementalist attunement unusable? Why should signets behave different for Engineers?

IMO signets could be ok. The mechanic is not very fun, but a little rest for the fingers should be good for Engies, specially for newcomers to the proffession. We can always use 2 or even 3 kits to compensate for the “boring” options, and as long as the passive effects of the signets are good, we’ll be fine.

As I said on the Engie’s forum, I would be glad if they add the passive effect as a choice into the toolbelt: whenever I equip a skill, the system let me choose if I want the active or the passive toolbelt option. When I equip the passive one, it appears as a drone that surround the character.

Since Engie is already the most fun class to play, I don’t think a few passive options would hurt the playstyle too much. After all, the other classes have had to receive whole new Elite Specs, just to bring them a little closer to our level of enjoyment…

This point is interesting. The class mechanics change somewhat or a lot depending on the elite spec. What if the tool belt skills become like “attunements” for the engineer? I have no idea what it would do, but this could be pretty neat.

Ardid.7203:

My first question stand.

If I earned a number of skills with skill scrolls and NOT with “skill/hero challenges”, what is the NEED to take those skills from me? They can perfectly leave the skills we already have alone, and just reset the traits.

I have a char at 50 with all the skills unlocked and almost no skill challenges done, that I don’t want to use right now, but I want to use after HoT is released. I really think it IS MY RIGHT to go back to that character later and see it keep all the skills I already earned ready for me to use.

First of all, you don’t have any “rights”. The ToS has language in it that you technically don’t own anything aside from your personal information. You signed that to play.

The reason they can’t leave skills unlocked is because of how they are changing it. You need to unlock skills of the same type in sequence to get to the higher-level skills. Say you only have the Elite skill unlocked for a particular type of skills, say traps, but no other traps unlocked. The new system is made so that you had to get the other traps first, like a progression system, so that you are “specialized” in traps, and your reward is getting the best one.

Draknar.5748:

DresdenAllblack.1249:

They make us PVE because that is the heart of their game.
They can polish it up, streamline it however they wish, Anet is simply making it more difficult to level.
Call it what you will.

How is it more difficult to level? Tomes of Knowledge will still level you. I have a full stack in my inventory so I can level a few chars to 80 instantly once HoT drops. Leveling 3 characters to 80 in a matter of 10min is about as easy as it gets…

Because it’s easier for people to attack a strawman than to objectively look at the changes. I just broke 100 ToK myself from doing daily PvP class wins, coupled with daily logins. You get 10 ToK every 28 days for merely logging in, and I get at least 1 ToK every day from the PvP experience boosts for completing levels of reward tracks (since I started doing them every day). So, 38 ToK a month at a minimum. In two months that’s a level 77 for doing literally no PvE. There is no real complaint that can stand against this.

Edit: If you take the 6 ToK for the Ascended chest on the 28th day, that brings the total to 44 ToK per month, but I recommend taking the 20 Laurels anyway.

Curring.9752:

I’m probably the only person to think this but what about mantra-esqu skills?

Like they build these little robots (The charge phase) and then they activate it and a little robot does something e.g fly towards the enemy and explodes, I’m sure they could add more flavour to them.
This is what I thought since I saw it anyways.

I honestly doubt minions just for the fact they already have turrets, I don’t think they want to add even more AI… I hope.

Signets could be interesting due to having the tool belt too like someone mentioned.

I’d wager physical or my mantresqu idea.

They are likely not an AI, since they follow the character in the video almost perfectly. I imagine they are more likely a form of passive buffing device, which is essentially what a signet is, but it could even be it’s own variant. Standard passive effect while not on CD, Tool Belt skill always available, passive goes away when you use the active ability for it to “recharge”. Maybe the “mantraesque” idea is implemented for the tool belt skill.

I am excited for it regardless, and I’m probably making my Engineer’s PvE build focused on whatever it might be.

iSmack.1768:

I’m excited for it, but at the same time, kinda not, cause I know the engine is staying the same and I hate this games engine. MMO that can’t handle a lot of people on screen…

The only way around this right now is to have a relatively good processor. This game has poor resource management and, as such, relies on the processor for a lot of its graphical tasks. Quad-core i5s with >3.2 GHz seem to work pretty well, but them changing their game engine is obviously the best option to take in the long run (even if it takes years yet). If they wait too long, they will continue to be stuck with turn-of-the-century technology, and that’s no good.

I imagine they will be relatively inexpensive to get, but to get a maxed-out GH will take insane levels of influence. They’re toting the horizontal progression still, so it would make sense that the GH is a way that your guild could “level up” per se, and that it wouldn’t happen all at once.

steveway.3167:

Actually the writs are the ones that can be traded at 20:1. The scrolls are being converted directly into spirit shards.

“•Writs of experience can only be used if you’re under level 80, and they can be traded in to Miyani for a tome of knowledge at a rate of 20 writs per tome.
•Any scrolls of knowledge that you have in your possession will automatically be converted to spirit shards, and any source that used to award scrolls of knowledge will now grant spirit shards.”

Oh…why? The Writs are already 1/20th of a level each. Is this just for consolidation? I must have misread it as the scrolls.

Also, have they said anything about what Spirit Shards can buy aside from what skill points can already buy?

Iason Evan.3806:

Right after the HoT announcement, I went out and grinded a bunch of skill point scrolls to go along with the metric ton of leveling tomes. I got more than enough so that I would have a level 80 Revenant with all of the skills unlocked. All of that has been completely done away with. Sure, I can use the tomes and that part is great.

Because the system is messed up as it is. They didn’t have the elite specs before, and now is a perfect time to fix that.

All ArenaNet would need to do for WvW or PvE players to honor time already put into character progression is allow us a way to convert skill points to hero points. That’s it.

So, literally change nothing then. They can’t do this because there are a fixed number of Hero Points that you can only get from leveling and from the skill challenges but there are tons of skill scrolls. It’s not like they’re getting deleted; they’re getting converted into a currency that they already are anyway. The system is more streamlined and is going to be separated as it should have been in the first place.

The issue is they don’t want us to level like we used to be able to level. Before, I could earn tomes and scrolls in PvE whilst playing say, my Mesmer. Then I could use said items on a new Thief if I wanted to. All that bathwater is being thrown out with the baby. We don’t get to progress like we want to anymore and it’s a shame. The poor communication on the subject is a shame as well. All they had to say with the announcement to HoT was that the system was changing. “Don’t run out and try to level like you have been leveling for months. We are changing the system.” That simple announcement would have saved me hours of progression.

You still get tomes of knowledge, and through those tomes, by getting to 80, you essentially unlock nearly everything. You can also trade your skill point scrolls in for tomes at 20:1. Ignoring any tomes you have, 1580 skill scrolls will get you from level 2 to 80 instantly, with 400 Hero Points to work with. And like I said in your other thread, do you really think they are going to say “guys, do not farm skill scrolls for 9+ months because the expansion will eventually be out some time after that and we don’t want you to be disappointed.” You never responded to that, probably because it’s a silly thing to think they would do. You have the scrolls now, and the expansion is still easily 2+ months out yet; you can still use them.

nightblood.7910:

It sounds like they need some new reward tracks in PvP to gain said hero points then.

This wouldn’t work with the new system. There is a fixed number of Hero Points out there: 400 from leveling to 80 and the remaining number from skill point challenges throughout the world. Nothing else gives Hero Points. The reason is, when you have a completely maxed build, you will have 0 Hero points remaining.

There technically isn’t an abundance of skill points in PvE, because it will add up to the total number of hero points one needs to get everything unlocked after all of the specializations are released (years from now, obviously).

Though, since WvW does share skill unlocks with PvE, I wonder if they have something in mind for it since there are some people that almost exclusively WvW.

They might be able to incorporate a way to have what condis do in PvP differ from PvE, but WvW is tough because it is both PvE and PvP. It could still be possible though…We’ll see what they end up doing. Roamers are always going to be a completely different balancing issue than the zerg armies, so if they balance one then the other will be unbalanced.

A full condi build can eassily top this, so we will see definetely all Condi Builds gettign buffed and Condi is already in its current state extremely powerful for requiring basically 0 player skills, because all those mind numb damage over time mechanics that you only need to spam like crazy do the job for you

So, your reasoning for thinking this is a bad idea is because players can mindlessly stand there and spam their skills, letting their skills do damage for them? Your argument is no different from a full power build just standing there and pressing 1,1,1,1,1,2,4,3,1,1,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,11,3. You’re being intellectually dishonest if you think condition builds don’t require skill. A good, skilled player is able to keep all of their maximum levels of conditions rolling on as many enemies as they can. This takes balance and understanding of your skill options, cooldowns, and appropriate traits/utilities to get the max duration on as many conditions on as many enemies at the same time. This isn’t just “push a button and forget”, conditions take more active play than power builds, they just aren’t strong enough right now to make it reasonable to play.

Condition damage builds are objectively weak compared to power builds, even in PvP. They can be effective against certain classes and builds, but for the most part they are less useful. Outside of PvP, condition builds are useless, save for some very rare encounters. All of these changes will make it viable in the rest of them game.

skowcia.8257:

What if i dont have a guild? Am i doomed?!

t3h P3ngu1n o0f D00M! LOL _^

but seriously, you might be able to benefit from it to some degree even if you have a personal guild with no one in it but you.

Oh good. I hope there’s either enough content within Guild Halls to host your info exclusively about it, or they also reveal a lot more at E3 too.

Iason Evan.3806:

Solori.6025:

Iason Evan.3806:

I see in the blog post that, and I quote from https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/updating-your-wallet/ , “Any scrolls of knowledge that you have in your possession will automatically be converted to spirit shards, and any source that used to award scrolls of knowledge will now grant spirit shards.”

When I was still playing I had spent many, many hours farming skill point scrolls specifically for my Revenant. Is all that time spent getting skill points for my Revenant wasted time? If so, I am pretty ticked. If not, then no harm no foul. I put time into getting those.

They annouced the skill point change maybe a month or two ago.

SO yes, skill point scrolls wont be a thing, hero points are the future.

As far as you being ticked..

Read the blogs next time?
I dunno what to tell you besides that really :I

Like I said, I quit playing. Wasn’t paying too much attention. I farmed those months ago. They should have said that skill points would not be viable to use for the Rev back then to prevent this kind of thing. I was putting time into acquiring these preemptively. When vets have little to nothing new to do at the current time they spend time doing things prior to changes. I put my time into getting my Revenant where I wanted it to be and it’s really disappointing that my time isn’t being honored.

I’m failing to see how it’s their fault and that you deserve compensation of some sort. They might not have known that they were going to overhaul the skill point system back when they first announced it, and what were they going to do, tell people “don’t farm skill scrolls because in 9 months from now it won’t matter!” We’re still a ways out from the expansion.

What will work is using Tomes of Knowledge on your Revenant. Leveling to 80 will get you almost all of the hero points you need to unlock everything (right now). They also said in the blog post that you can exchange skill scrolls in for Tomes, so if you have a mountain of these things you can theoretically cash in and rush to 80.

I could see changing retaliation to being based on a percentage of damage dealt per attack. Right now it scales off of the power of the one the boon is on, so 100 1-damage strikes will kill the attacker dead while 1 15000-damage hit will do almost nothing to the attacker.

Maybe that’s just it though. Most super bursty combos rely on a lot of hits coming in all at once, and retaliation is a sure way to counter that. Nobody has a 15k damage single-hit attack though.

Look at it this way:

Currently, skill points take the role of what should be two different things. Now, you get Hero Points from leveling up and doing skill challenges (you will have the absolute maximum if you are a level 80 with world completion) and anything else that gave you skill points gives you Spirit Shards instead.

MattyP.6954:

I think the goal of removing Spirits Unbound was similar to that nerfing engi turrets. Spirits were something that could just be dropped and forgotten about (except for occasionally activating their secondary effects). That doesn’t promote active play, and it’ll be interesting to see what changes they make to compensate for the lack of mobility.

Like the turret engineer, running a turret build (especially now) is incredibly laughable.

Anet needs to adjust these skills to promote active play while at the same time not nerfing the things into oblivion. Right now it’s on track to just become yet another set of utilities on top of the “DO NOT TOUCH” pile.

Donari.5237:

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 suppose so, but this time it’s actually different. We know they are working on the expansion, we have some semblance of how far into it they are, we know of the anniversary, and we heard their developer’s somewhat erroneously speak of a potential release time period of “this summer” (which they said not to pay any heed to, but why exactly would they say that if it was only speculation?)

Ranatoa.4869:

MiniEquine.6014:

skullmount.1758:

Diovid.9506:

All we know is: 1) “when it’s ready” and 2) 2015.

A lot of people are expecting a release on august 28th (based on pretty much nothing).

You sure about the 2015 thing? I don’t think I’ve read anywhere that Anet has said that.

Their projected earnings for Q3 of 2015 were almost 5x greater than any other quarter surrounding it. This would be indicative of the expansion being released in Q3.

Please stop bringin this up like it’s fact, it’s old and baseless information that has been copied over every year since GW2 was released. It’s not even provided by Anet, it’s a third party.

It came out this January…

It’s not at all baseless. Just because it doesn’t list an actual release date doesn’t mean that Anet does not intend to try and get the expansion out by that time. I’m not saying this is definitely the case, but with how far they are in showing us what the expansion will have, coupled with that report, in addition to that developer’s meeting they had a couple of weeks ago?

The only thing that would be surprising is if it did not come out this fall.

skullmount.1758:

Diovid.9506:

All we know is: 1) “when it’s ready” and 2) 2015.

A lot of people are expecting a release on august 28th (based on pretty much nothing).

You sure about the 2015 thing? I don’t think I’ve read anywhere that Anet has said that.

Their projected earnings for Q3 of 2015 were almost 5x greater than any other quarter surrounding it. This would be indicative of the expansion being released in Q3.

Also, if they don’t release it this year they are going to be in a lot of hot water with the community. There is little to no content being released until the expansion hits. Almost a year of no new content is not acceptable.

ForeverAway.5948:

do u pug?

evry PUG group i join kicks me unless i ping the gear in my bag insted

Sounds like you need to make your own groups stating “All welcome”. You literally do not get kicked if you don’t join zerker/speed runs and you’re at least half decent.