Guild Wars 2

There’s no way to know just yet if the name will fit or not. The only thing we know about the E.spec is that it has a staff and we can only speculate that it is based on acrobatic stunts and the sort. We have no idea about the heal, utilities, elite, or updated mechanic, so it is quite folly to be complaining about the name just yet.

Besides, a lot of the names people keep bringing up are poor choices with the weapon being a staff (though there were some interesting ones). Just hold tight and see what happens Friday.

Probably none of the elites, sadly. However, I do believe they might reveal something in preparation for this weekend’s announcement about “the future of GW2 and challenging group content”, which is more or less what most people have been waiting for (i.e. why some people still will not pre-purchase the expansion).

spartan.9421:

Test.8734:

Jinsei.5702:

I am not looking for an argument just understanding what i am spending my money on.

Sure. We will get:

• An overglorified DLC pretending to be an expansion and priced as if it were a new game
• A handful of new maps, most of which will consist of repetitive copy-&-paste events like the Silverwastes
• Half a new profession (the revenant has less skills and less customization than the other professions in the game)
• Specializations, of which only the mesmer, the necromancer and the warrior ones appear to have been well developed among those we know of
• Only 4 legendaries, despite how those have been promised since 2013. ArenaNet is promising to add more, but when, considering (again) the 2013, remains to be seen.

And little else. The other changes – like the change to WvW – are available even to those who won’t buy HoT.

Really, it’s not worth prepurchasing. Wait until after release so you know what you are paying for – the fact ArenaNet won’t tell us about it by itself is a bad sign, but worse comes to worse you can buy HoT for cheap in the recycle bin some months from now.

it leads to this EVERY TIME! people just cant be happy no matter what. anet could give you 1000g and you would still ask for more! keep in mind that they will be adding more stuff in after the expansion… but instead of thinking about that you would rather complain cause that’s all people know how to do anymore. no one is ever happy with what they have till it’s gone i suppose.

Test is also being extremely subjective (and incorrect) about what they are saying too:

An overglorified DLC pretending to be an expansion and priced as if it were a new game

Subjectivity bolded.

A handful of new maps, most of which will consist of repetitive copy-&-paste events like the Silverwastes

Handful is subjective (and uninformative). We actually don’t know the full number of maps and no amount of lying that you do will change that fact, yet.

Repetitive events perhaps (as this is what all GW2 events are like) but copy and paste? I saw variety in the last BWE. Not sure which are copy-pasted.

Half a new profession (the revenant has less skills and less customization than the other professions in the game)

Objectively incorrect saying “half”. It is an entire profession with weapons, traits, and elite spec. It does have less customization on the utility side, but this does not make it “half” a profession. It offers a new mechanic not yet seen before in GW2. It’s like saying Elementalist is “half” a profession because it doesn’t have weapon swap.

Specializations, of which only the mesmer, the necromancer and the warrior ones appear to have been well developed among those we know of

Aside from the name, the Dragonhunter seems to be liked well enough. We don’t know about the other 3 professions fully not yet revealed.

Only 4 legendaries, despite how those have been promised since 2013. ArenaNet is promising to add more, but when, considering (again) the 2013, remains to be seen.

This has nothing to do with 2013. We will get a full set of legendaries, just not at launch.

Hoaxintelligence.4628:

Small question:
Can we use torch without selecting the elite specialisation line?

No, and this has been consistent with every elite specialization. The base class will only ever be able to use the weapons they already could, and each elite spec weapon will require the elite spec trait line to be selected while wielding it.

Iason Evan.3806:

Well at least they answered my legendary question. Only 3 new legendaries at launch and two of them are backpieces. Ine youg et in PvP and the other is Fractal based. That would lead me to believe the other is a backpiece as well earned by the new challenging group content or WvW maybe.

Terrible.

Don’t forget too though, they will be adding pre-cursor crafting for all existing Legendaries as well (with the same restrictions as the new ones).

Iason Evan.3806:

I asked the same thing over a month ago. No response. I have made threads asking honest questions like, “If we are getting 3 Legendaries at HoT launch and you’ve announced 2 legendary backpieces, is the 3rd Legendary a weapon?” No response. How many maps? Nothing.

Here’s one of the handful of threads I have made addressing this exact thing.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/ArenaNet-Try-Harder-to-get-me-to-Pre-Order/first#post5310179

They want me to give them money without even knowing what i’m getting? That’s laughable.

The Legendary Backpacks are rewards, and the “3 Legendaries at launch” are the craft-able pre-cursor legendaries. Edit: apparently at least the PvP one is counted.

Iason Evan.3806:

I feel like such an idiot for thinking it was coming on the 3 year anniversary of GW2.

It was wishful thinking from all of us for sure, but at least we’ll be getting some important information around that date. That’s supposedly when the Challenging Group Content is coming.

Fred Fargone.3127:

Ranael.6423:

I have a good news : since 6 nCr 3 = 20, when HOT releases there will be a 100% increase of accessible builds for each profession!
Enjoy the future !

Yes, that is good

Edit: It’s important to not just use the 540 you have because almost half of those are repeating trait combinations. A I, II, III trait combination is the exact same as a III, II, I combination in different slots. Thus, it must be disregarded.

Fred, not sure where you got your numbers exactly, but you’re off by factors of hundreds. The actual total in the old system was 66,713,226 total combinations, which included all the variations of non-repeating trait combinations (6/6/2, 6/4/2/2, 6/3/3/2, etc.)

Your number about the total traits now being ~196,000 is correct though.

Please refer to this Google doc I made a couple of months ago. It has all the calculations built in already.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1H9KAc7ghxmrxsq0bkWNALddKMkETmdQ1dW-eS7Xa8Hc/edit?usp=sharing

Donari.5237:

I have no problem with the price, I paid it happily and have no regrets. I expect to get full value for my money; I’ve already gotten hours of beta fun for the price of a moderately nice dinner out with my husband.

I’m chiming in because of the current sway of the discussion towards pricing it lower for people who bought earlier. I disagree with this idea, but in the bizarre hypothetical world where it might be implemented, I suggest that it should be based on hours played, not date of purchase. Again, I disagree with charging less for people who’ve already had more fun, but it’s just not right to call someone a veteran because they bought the game at launch, played a week, and skarkered off. Want to give preferential treatment? Give it to those who’ve been an active part of the community and kept the game feeling lively for others playing.

I had an idea at one point where they could have benefited those who are actually their top customers. After all, the best customers are those that pay the most, no? If, say, for every 800 gems you bought with cash ($10) you would get $1 off of the expansion. That means that somebody who bought 40,000 gems (for $500), you could get the expansion at no additional cost. There are people who actually do this, but there are people who buy a few 800 gem packs here and there (like I do). Knocking a few $$ off of their expansion cost for directly supplementing the game through the gem store could have possibly worked. This would also show direct appreciation to the best customers with, possibly, the most invested time.

Serious.7083:

MiniEquine.6014:

Since release, they have added 9 additional maps. They have also released two Living World story seasons free of charge if you logged in for them and included additional events like the Karka invasion, SAB, holiday events, etc.

They have also completely ruined several maps from a storyline perspective, damaged the storyline itself and produced numerous glitches in the process.

Rather than massively buff the Tequatl event as they did they could have introduced an entirely new dragon lieutenant to fight elsewhere. Try fighting it with an on level toon. To be honest I miss the old Teq.

The Karka invasion added very little to the game and nothing to the base storyline, if anything it was a distraction from core events. The Living World stuff at least led you to find a new dragon, but was this necessary to the core game?

Necessary or not, if the question is about whether or not content has been released post-launch for free, GW2 has provided a lot of that for any player who has been around since the beginning. And aren’t content additions just that, distractions? It’s meant to keep us playing the game in one way or another.

It’s only of your opinion that things are ruined as this is a subjective statement. Some people actually like where they’ve gone with it, though I’ve only played for the past 8 months or so in earnest, so I wish I could have been around for everything I missed.

Could they have done a better job? Perhaps. There’s always room for improvement sure. I just won’t take people saying they haven’t released a lot post-launch when they clearly have, and none of it was at cost to the player.

DarkSyze.8627:

fysorda.7501:

Ayrilana.1396:

fysorda.7501:

Hi , i dont play gw 2 a long time ago and i was thinking of playing again to see the expansion but why i have to pay the full price game again? i understand that for a new one that price is good because you get all at once but what happen to the old players? the logic think to do is to give us the option to buy only the expanson for 20 or 30 bucks. Is not fair that you punish the old players for only getting new players for more easy sells.

Read the post at the top of the page from Anet.

i already read that , i was trying to give my opinion how unfair is this for old players. I think is important for a game developer to keep the old players happy and to bring new people but in this case they only focus to get new people. well that is my point of view.

I agree with you. This remind me of membership model: members get discount price while regular customer pay full price. Old Players should be treated like this model while new players like me should pay full price.

My suggestion:

Players who are 2 years+ pay= discount price— $20
Players who are 1 and 1/2 years- 2 years pay= discount price— $30
Players who are 1 and 1/2 year to 1 year pay= discount price— $40
Players who are 1 year and -under pay= Full Price

What do you think?

(Old Players= Old Accounts= Pay Discount Price)
(New Players= New Accounts= Pay Full Price)

This is great and all, except the core game itself is no more than $10. Anet is still pricing the expansion at $50, so the very least that would happen is the oldest day 0 veterans would get the expansion for $40. We can’t pretend the core game is worth any more than $10. I bought my copy of the core game for $10 back in January, so is it fair that I should get to pay $10 for the same game (minus all the events and story that came before that date) when you had to pay no less than $60 3 years ago?

Yes, it is fair. The game value depreciates with time.

If you’re arguing the expansion is overpriced, then that’s a completely separate and legitimate concern, but then new players would still get the expansion for the same price as you. This ultimately boils down to a “somebody else is getting something for the same price as me but I deserve more!” argument.

Przemek.6835:

MiniEquine.6014:

If you really don’t enjoy it, why do you play? Your last statement is truthful though. Finding a group of people to play with will make your experience far more fun. Again, this is the same with all MMOs.

Don’t ask me. I got bored of WoW and I can’t find anything good so I lurk around here.

All of your “counterarguments” could be rephrased as “ANet decided it’s gonna be like that, so it is like that and there is nothing left to say”. The fact that they designed the game in a certain way doesn’t mean it should be left without criticism.

Downstate ruins pvp for me. It empowers massive blobs of players to a point of ridiculousness. It makes killing people harder for range characters cause they can’t come close to finish them off. It strongly pushes me to pick stability or stealth just for the finisher. It makes 1vX much harder, even if the opponents are not doing much besides auto attacking you. Lastly, I feel it’s just unnecessary and doesn’t bring anything into the game. 9/10 times I get downed, I am dead anyways.

If they wanted to give more diversity they could’ve just removed stats from trait lines. As it is now I can’t make hybrid specs. Feels like they are trying to set the meta in stone so it’s easier to balance for their e-sport dream.

Didn’t see the courtyard map. What I’ve seen is rank farm all over the place wnich I forgot to mention in my previous post. This should not be a thing.

I know you CAN survive in pvp. But the thing is that I don’t think that with fully defensive build I should be getting crit for >30% of my total hp.

Anyways what I’ve said is my personal opinion about few points in the game. The fact that you, or someone you know didn’t share my problems doesn’t change my point.

My counter-arguments were only for things that you weren’t fully truthful about. Anything I didn’t directly respond to I don’t necessarily have anything to say about it, though I was tempted (mostly because they are opinion-based).

Downstate has always been a core aspect of GW2 combat mechanics and it is not just applied to PvP. Certain classes have a much easier time returning to life from downstate (Necros with unlimited life drain, thieves with their stealth and teleport, elementalists with their mist form, guardians with their healing symbol). The other classes don’t have great escapes while downed and will often die more quickly.

As for hybrid specs, you are absolutely incorrect. It is objectively easier to make a build that focuses on doing multiple things very well now compared to before. I don’t know what hybrid builds you were running before, but there is almost certainly a way to make something similar to what you had with something more added in. Maybe the new system isn’t intuitive for you, is all. I could possibly see that, even though it is mechanically simpler.

Przemek.6835:

Also tried to get into it, yet again.

- downstate still here lol (forcing me to pick stability or stealth in pvp)

What’s wrong with downstate? That was never up for being removed; it’s a core combat mechanic…

- wvw empty, and even when it isn’t there is hardhly any pvp in there

This is not true if you are tier 1, 2, or 3, at least. Tier 5 and 6 do have this issue though.

- reduced build diversity (no hybrid builds anymore)

Actually, with the most recent update to traits and armor stats there is more diversity and hybridization. You are not forced to take certain traitlines because they no longer give you stats you don’t necessarily want or need. All of your stats come from your gear now.

- still forced to pick healing and elite skill, why for gods sake?

Again, this was never something that wasn’t intended. Why would they remove that?

- spvp still only capture the point, no deathmatch so far and no plans for it…

The Courtyard is a Team Deathmatch map. This has been in game for a long time now. There is also a new game mode coming with HoT call Stronghold which is different from both Conquest and TDM.

- chest reward spam, getting like 5-10 chest rewards with useless, non salvagable crap that is flooding my bags

This is still a problem, but it’s fairly easy to clear your bags out anyway.

I also dislike the community. It’s a mix of ex-WoW players that now hate everything that reminds them of that game, white knights that keep saying the game is perfect, role players, and tryhards that flame you for no reason. Tho that’s quite typical for MMOs.

SO many people are saying the game is good and all, but I got no idea where is that coming from.

If you really want to get into it, despite all that, find some people to play. Anything can be fun with the right bunch of people.

If you really don’t enjoy it, why do you play? Your last statement is truthful though. Finding a group of people to play with will make your experience far more fun. Again, this is the same with all MMOs.

Sylent.3165:

Warrior can run around with all there signets as can other classes. But if you do it in dragon stance you can’t do anything but auto attack. Upkeep skills do not work well with the class.

Just imagine having thief list initiative every second for using a signet. It does not make sense

This is why they need to make sure the Facets are balanced to not destroy your energy in 3 seconds. 6 facets essentially means you would likely run out of energy before you even got to click any of them on. That is, of course, unless they have something within the traitline that reduces energy consumption of upkeep skills. We’ll have to see.

One aspect to this game is that it does not have a direct path of progression. You can do pretty much whatever you want in any order and still be “progressing” in one way or another. This was hard for me to get my mind around when I first started playing because I was used to WoW: Grind dungeons to get enough points to buy gear, then grind raids to get enough points to get full raid gear, then grind heroic raids until the next expansion hits.

Give yourself a goal and work towards it. For example, find all of the jumping puzzles and accomplish them. Or try to get the dungeon achievements, or do World Boss trains and try to get those achievements. Get at least one character to 80 and do the personal story along the way. Maybe level up in both PvP (through Tome of Knowledge rewards) or through Edge of the Mists. Try to get your crafting to max levels, and try to make ascended gear. Work towards collecting armor/weapon skins, getting cultural armors unlocked, getting faction armor and weapons unlocked, etc.

It may take some time, but the biggest thing is that there’s almost too much to do without much direction. I recommend a plentiful mix of all game modes. I PvE, PvP, and WvW about equally, so gameplay is always fresh.

Azathoth.2098:

Maybe at first sight.
But no!
There are huge differences between the Mesmer and the Stage-Illusionist!

And also huge similarities. The two ideas do overlap way too much. Like I mentioned, this would be a perfect E.spec addition, but as a standalone class there would be no reason for it. It would be like making an entire “Tinkerer” class that made little gizmos and robots to help fight instead of just adding something to the Engineer, or making an entire “Wizard” class that casted fireballs and other magical missiles instead of just adding to the Elementalist.

Azathoth.2098:

In my opinion the Mesmer definitely is NO Stage-Illusionist!
Or where are his Cards and things like that?
Nevertheless I love playing the Mesmer.

Cards are largely unrelated. The Mesmer fits the very definition of an illusionist though, as seen through its various abilities and traits. The ability to go invisible, the dazzle opponents, manipulate opponents, create clones and phantasms, etc; these are all examples of combat illusionists. Whether or not these are fit for a stage doesn’t matter much since the battle is far from a stage.

Azathoth.2098:

There is always reason and room for new classes or other kind of expansions!

There could be, and that’s why they’re adding the Revenant. However, adding an entirely new class requires an idea that is wildly different from all the existing classes. In your opinion this is different from the Mesmer, but objectively it is not very different and there is little reason why this couldn’t be added as an elite spec instead of a new class.

Fred Fargone.3127:

MiniEquine.6014:

Since release, they have added 9 additional maps. They have also released two Living World story seasons free of charge if you logged in for them and included additional events like the Karka invasion, SAB, holiday events, etc.

9 additional maps? Southsun, Dry top, Silverwastes… what am I missing?
But yeah, I know, they’ve updated the base-game quite a bit. I was just focusing on what was there at the launch, as the price of the base game was $50 at the launch.
Y’know, it’s just for the sake of the comparison.

Sorry, ya, 3 new maps. You saying they released 25 threw me off so I just subtracted that from the total 34 in game. Also, my point still stands that there has been a lot that happened in game with temporary content through the Living World S1 and the various events associated with it. None of this was “included at launch”, so it can be used to at least speculate that they would continue to add content as the expansion progresses. If they do not do this, then we have a problem.

Fred Fargone.3127:

MiniEquine.6014:

And an additional traitline, 4 utility skills, 1 heal, 1 elite, 1 new F# mechanic for the remaining 8 classes

Yeah, I meant to mention that to illustrate how little that is compared to the hundreds of skills the base-game had. Or, like 20 utility skills for each class.

And what would be acceptable? Doubling the amount of skills? Doubling the number of professions? There is no game that does this; not even GW1. The expansion is supposed to expand on the mechanics of the game, not just to add an equal amount of mechanics as the previous iteration. Ultimately, you feel the amount of skills and weapon abilities added are negligible, but they are adding at a minimum 131 new skills or mechanics to the classes (including Revenant) and this number could even be as large as 160 depending on what the Warrior, Thief, and Engineer E.specs actually get. This is not really a small number.

Fred Fargone.3127:

MiniEquine.6014:

Speculated through datamining, with unknown levels of size, some with and some without the 3-tiered verticality, and only at release. This is ignoring anything they might release further down the road.

I left down the road updates out for the specific reason, that we’re now comparing the price of something at launch, vs something else at launch.
Also, I’ll admit I was wrong when they release 25 huge new maps for the expansion. How likely do you think it is that I have to admit I was wrong?

25 new maps? Let’s take this into consideration then: which maps provide continual content for “end-game”? We have Orr, but that is primarily to be fore the personal story line, though we can certainly count it because of the events that take place. Cities don’t count. We have 3 maps for Karka and Dry Top/Silverwastes, but the Karka map content is primarily just for the Karka Queen at this point. And we have 22 low-level maps that are primarily used for leveling or for the world bosses in them, which are mainly just killed and then the players leave right after.

So end-game maps are a total of 6, and that’s if we are generous in counting Southsun Cove still as well as the Orrian maps. At one point they were considered the end-game, which is why they should be included. Do you really value the leveling-up maps with the same weight as a level 80 map?

Fred Fargone.3127:

Assuming GW2 was worth $50 at launch. The game had 8 professions, 25 huge maps, 19 weapons, hundreds of skills, rather long story, 9 dungeons…

Since release, they have added 9 additional maps. They have also released two Living World story seasons free of charge if you logged in for them and included additional events like the Karka invasion, SAB, holiday events, etc.

Fred Fargone.3127:

HoT has 1 new profession,

And an additional traitline, 4 utility skills, 1 heal, 1 elite, 1 new F# mechanic for the remaining 8 classes

Fred Fargone.3127:

4 maps,

Speculated through datamining, with unknown levels of size, some with and some without the 3-tiered verticality, and only at release. This is ignoring anything they might release further down the road.

Fred Fargone.3127:

no new weapons but every profession will have access to one more weapon (or off hand),

See above for everything else you missed about that.

Fred Fargone.3127:

quite a bit shorter story,

You have no idea about the length of the story, as we all don’t know. I wouldn’t suggest using this as a reasoned argument point unless you actually know the story length.

Fred Fargone.3127:

no new dungeons?, quite a bit shorter story…

No dungeons is potentially an issue, but we will see after PAX Prime (I think that’s the name?) on August 29th what the Challenging Group Content is supposed to be. From what I’ve gathered, this was what they wanted the game to be more like from the beginning, but we have no idea what it will actually be. Also, don’t forget about the Mastery system, legendary pre-cursor crafting including crafting for all of the existing legendaries as well as new legendary weapons.

Fred Fargone.3127:

How is that worth $40 then? Can’t be inflation, since the GW2 is now worth $10, the price of a character slot.

Tbh, I think we’re being ripped off. Still, I shelled some $100 on the ultimate edition. I’m a bit miffed, but hopefully that will pass.

You still bought it any way, so you must not have thought it was much of a rip-off after all. Would I have been happier with it being $40 instead of $50? Yes, but I would have loved it to be free even though that’s not possible. I still also bought the expansion. If they screw this one up though (this being GW2’s first expansion), they will have to really impress a lot of people with the next one or else they will lose a lot of old players.

New class? The Mesmer is already a “stage-illusionist” class. Look at the torch skill “The Prestige” where you disappear in a cloud of smoke that blinds, then reappear with a burn.

Making copies of yourself? This one is self-explanatory. Teleports, temporal alteration, morphing, confusion, etc.

However, I could see this concept becoming a good idea for an E.spec. Probably dagger main-hand, use torch off-hand, kits could work nicely for the utility skills where they cycle through their bag of tricks. But I guarantee you they are not going to add another class to the game that is already so similar to one that exists. You wrote out a lot though and have clearly put a lot of thought into it, but this would sooner be an entire rework of the Mesmer class itself rather than a new class added in.

Yeah, they’re not gonna change the Revenant’s name. Besides, Revenant is actually kinda nice.

Basaltface.2786:

Lightsbane.9012:

a whole raft of information on how the profession will fare underwater?!
i thought that bit was funny, mainly because theres hardly any aquatic combat left.

after all that pestering they just had to do it to shut the “muh undawota cumbat!” crowd up.

They were reasonable complaints. A good deal of world exploration and storyline quests as well as some dungeon and fractal locations take place under water. Not having the weapons or skills to deal with those would make it impossible to progress through certain places on your own.

Menadena.7482:

Whoot?

At the moment we know nothing about it. For all we know, they could consider VB the ‘challenging group content’

Verdant Brink itself is absolutely not the challenging group content. The wyverns aren’t either. They have already explicitly stated that they have yet to reveal any of the “challenging group content”, so this would include already revealed things.

…and introduce something like the vinewraith there. I will hold off on my applause until after I see what they are hyping.

Maybe, but every indication is that it is something different from what we’ve seen. I agree though about holding applause. Obviously this has the GW2 team very excited, but the fact is we, the players, simply know nothing about it, so we don’t have much of a reason to be excited ourselves just yet.

Dex.6139:

So this proves that two elite specs (of different professions) can very well get the same weapon.

Which we already knew about anyway. Glint datamine and shield art has been known for quite some time at this point and artwork is a greater indicator of reality than mere skill tooltips.

One draw back to going this route is that at some point assuming that there more specializations it would be possible that you would have build that is just using the Elite trait lines and none of the original professions unless the game places some sort of restriction on multiple Elites at the same time.

There are restrictions with the elite specs. You cannot use two elite specs at the same time. You must either use 3 of the 5 base specs or 1 elite spec and 2 of the 5 base specs.

This is the basis for the system in the first place and allows these weird weapon, utility, and trait line restrictions for each individual elite spec.

Regardless of how the GS hits, I haven’t ever had this much fun playing on a Necromancer before. For reference, I specialized into shroud as much as I could (+50% crit in shroud, LF drains slower, increased LF, etc) and into wells/life siphoning. I couldn’t get much into the shouts except for “Rise!” and the elite shout.

Rushing in with a Shroud #3 to #2 and popping #4 for 100% critical whirling damage, then hopping out of shroud to a GS #4 into #3 and 2-3 wells led to some fun times. I was siphoning around 500 health per second sometimes. The GS itself could use some work, but I had my OH weapons as Dagger/Warhorn (for the siphon and mobility) and that worked quite nicely in 1v1 scenarios.

Having all this AoE damage though is something tremendously wonderful!

Rain.9213:

^ This. What’s the point of being able to isolate a player and burst them with Unrelenting Assault if they will just interrupt you or deal the same or more damage to you while you’re stuck in a long animation?

GOOD players that I fought today on my Revenant knew when to dodge my Unrelenting Assault. With just one dodge, you mitigate quite a bit of damage from it. So there’s really no reason not to give it evade frames.

Even in PvE, there’s nothing like engaging a veteran and having them instantly knock you down at the start of your RA completely cancelling everything. My jaw dropped when that happened and was about to report it as a bug until I looked at the tooltip and it didn’t have an evade…

This skill is by far the riskiest and least rewarding skill of sword Revenant now. I couldn’t imagine even trying this in PvP, and Shiro S/S is supposed to be the legend that could do this best (lore-wise).

If you pre-purchased the standard edition, the loyalty slots come out on Fridays like others have said. At this point, this will only happen if your account was created prior to Jan 23rd, 2015, since players who bought the game after that point needed to pre-purchase by July 31st, 2015 to get the loyalty slot.

Also, character slots sometimes take a little longer to show up. They have a clause in the purchase page that states it may take up to 3-4 hours, or something like that. It usually never takes quite that long though.

Darrel.2809:

my clan has already started quitting. talked it over the fb groups. prices are absurd. old members dont get any perks for playing since the betas… Anet should take care of their old players. goodluck finding people to continue playing your game though.

Prices are not actually absurd. Regardless, GW2 is not the only option out there if you no longer enjoy the game (even though you could still continue to play the core game regardless of wether you buy HoT or not).

Also, obligatory “If you’re leaving, can I have your stuff? Thanks”.

Wolfric.9380:

Well now i get different opinions. Some say WH is bound to tempest but shouts are not..
Confusion :-)

Shouts are most definitely bound to Tempest. This is not an opinion. However, there is no requirement to use either shouts or warhorn, even if you do take Tempest.

I think this suggestion overall is going to be the next big push on the forums. Gear-swapping is a huge QoL improvement and would make our lives a lot less hectic; especially when there are multiple sets of gear.

It would also encourage different builds to be played because it wouldn’t be such a hassle to swap between specs/gear.

JoshuaRAWR.4653:

Buy an invisible bag and put them in there, now you know where they always are.

This doesn’t address the issue though. Firstly, a generally useful way to have your inventory open to is to combine the bag space because it better utilizes the inventory area. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but it is useful if you have a lot of space and not enough computer screen to hold it all.

Secondly, it is still a pain to not have access to key items that need to be activated to use. There are more than just food/utility items that could have extreme QoL improvements from this:
- Food/Utility slots
- WvW Siege Equipment slots
- Quick out-of-combat weapon-swapping slots
- Tonic/Transform slots
- etc.

For as much as I like this game, there are certainly issues I find with it and the UI is one of the greatest. I don’t want to bring up WoW because its toolbars were very customizable, but you could put food or items into them and even bind hotkeys to them. Maybe even just inventory slots with specific hotkey binding capabilities would solve this issue.

blackoil.2673:

Pifil.5193:

Well, if you ignore the OR there I can see how you’d get confused. All the words are important.

Their use of “A game serial code” should make it obvious that don’t get two separate serial codes. Similarly their use of OR should make it obvious you can either create a new account which will have both the base game and HoT OR upgrade an existing account to HoT.

Anyway, lots of people have already pre-purchased the expansion and there was only one key.

Yup, now i’m sure we don’t get an extra account…. I still have to rethink if I should or not buy the expansion then ;p

However, let’s analyze their text. The thing that really gets to their balance is that “A game serial code”, but even that “or” and “and” mess that up:

(A serial code for account creation or upgrade for HoT) and (the award-winning GW2 core game)
- Then I choose the serial code for account upgrade (and i get the core game as well)

If you put the parenthesis the other way… it’s still wrong
(A serial code for account creation) or (upgrade for HoT and the award-winning GW2 core game)
- Then I chose the upgrade for HoT and the core game.

Maybe I can buy it and ask them to give me as well the core game, because their purchase page it says it includes both? =D
I’m just not taking that risk

There’s a third way to read it, which is:

(A serial code for account creation) or (upgrade for HoT and the award-winning GW2 core game)

Since they are packaging HoT and the core game together (and will do this for all subsequent expansions as well), HoT is GW2. In that regard, it is still the award-winning core game but as the expansion.

So no, you don’t get a core game serial code for upgrading to HoT and it isn’t implied anywhere that you should. If you have an issue with the price as a whole, that’s a different issue, but they are not handing out free core games.

It’s the warhorn.

For all players who purchased the Guild Wars 2 core game from our website and registered it between January 23, 2015 and June 16, 2015 in anticipation of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, we will automatically refund what you paid for the core game should you decide to pre-purchase Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns from our website or in-game store any time through July 31, 2015. If you take advantage of this refund and pre-purchase Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, all of your current account progress will be kept intact. We’ll provide further details on when refunds will be processed in the next couple weeks as we set up this process

If you pre-purchased HoT, bought the game between Jan 23 and June 16 and intend to keep the game, you do not have to contact support. The refund is automatic and will probably roll out after July 31st so that they know exactly how many refunds need to be done.

Therodin.2970:

Thanks for finding that! But that is disappointing… The only thing i have really done lately is go for achievements and even though i did not rightly earn those achievements i had gotten use to that higher point number. It will be harder to get into earning points just to get back to where i was :/

Not really sure what the complaint is here. You didn’t actually earn them, and achievement points by themselves don’t mean much if anything at all. What would be disappointing is if they let you keep them.

Or you could get regular ascended backpieces like Mawdrey by just doing the LWS2 story and select your stats (same stats as a legendary, I might add).

I don’t understand why there is a notion that it is crazy to lock certain rewards behind certain content. I don’t think there has ever been a game that hasn’t done this. It’s not like GW2 doesn’t offer similar rewards.

Xillllix.3485:

MiniEquine.6014:

Xillllix.3485:

Ele getting Warhorn is like a bad dream. Why would we need a third close-range weapon? Makes me regret pre-purchasing the expansion

Someone wake me up, the dev made a mistake and forgot to give us 1200-ranged-sword skills.

You don’t believe you would have gotten 1200-ranged sword skills, do you? You would likely see a couple of 900-ranged attacks, but the AAs would almost certainly be short melee range or 300.

Revenant hammer is 1200 range, so I don’t see why not. The Elementalist could raise is sword in a storm calling gesture and a bolt could fall from the sky on the blade and be redirected towards enemies.

It’s not impossible, but it’s still not likely. A vast majority of weapons are used in their conventional sense. Only the Mesmer Greatsword and Revenant Hammer (to a much lesser extent the Revenant Staff) do something different than what the weapon is intended for. And while those could be abilities of the sword, the auto-attack is still most likely going to be some form of melee-ranged strike, not dissimilar to what the Mesmer has.

Believe me, I want a sword-wielding Elementalist, but it doesn’t make much sense with this current iteration of E.specs. Warhorn fits the “storm-calling” Tempest perfectly thematically, even if it is not necessarily the most exciting thing. I would have to imagine that a spell slinger (pistol) or spell sword (sword) is a future E.spec, where the theme will fit it a lot better.

Genesis.8572:

Treetoptrickster.4205:

Genesis.8572:

It could use a rename that makes it sound like a proper heroic e-spec and not just a furnace.

First thing: Lol.

Second thing: Forge sounds pretty heroic. Wouldn’t mind at all if that really does turn out to be the name. Other acceptable names are Tony Stark and Eggman.

“Forge” sounds like an ‘it.’ An object or a location, but not a person, an archetype, or a playstyle.

It might fall more in-line with the “Tempest”, in that a tempest is a thing rather than a person. However, despite the clunky-ness, I could see it being pretty cool:

“I’m not just an engineer; I am the Forge. I create the weapons and machines that drive innovation and war; I am the source of power".

Still, something like “Forgeman” would make more sense.

Xillllix.3485:

Ele getting Warhorn is like a bad dream. Why would we need a third close-range weapon? Makes me regret pre-purchasing the expansion

Someone wake me up, the dev made a mistake and forgot to give us 1200-ranged-sword skills.

You don’t believe you would have gotten 1200-ranged sword skills, do you? You would likely see a couple of 900-ranged attacks, but the AAs would almost certainly be short melee range or 300.

I have an idea for a compromise, though I bet it’s far too late for them to consider it.

As far as I’m aware, the game keeps a record of gems that you paid money for. Maybe they could have implemented a way where your expansion costs 1% less for each $10 of gems you buy, or something. This would mean the “whales”, otherwise known as their best customers, get the expansion for free as they would have bought >$1000 worth of gems. Suppose you only ever bought $50 in gems, well that’s 5% off the cost. It’s not a lot, but it’s something.

Gwalchgwn.1659:

Ghin.1653:

$50 = expansion + core for new / expansion + 1 char slot for vets.

Not exactly
$50 = Expansion + core for new players
$50 = Expansion + 1 character slot for vets who prepurchase
$50 = Expansion for vets who don’t.

The extra character slot (which came afterwards) was a reward for vets’ loyalty who buy the expansion. Why exactly don’t vets get that compensation if they do not prepurchase? If it’s because of the price drop if you wait, you’ll still need to wait a year for the price to drop with $10.

Personally I’ll probably buy the prepurchase 1 or maybe 2 days before the release for this reason. I want to know what I’m buying and read up on reviews/recommendations before throwing my money blindly.

Are you arguing that veterans who do not intend to purchase (or pre-purchase) the game are in fact loyal? It’s a bonus to people who know they are going to be playing the game anyway or who want to continue to support the company.

Don’t forget, a “loyal customer” is one who patrons either consistently or pays a lot of money. They don’t actually get anything else from you if you don’t invest in the gem store, and even that you can save up gold and convert it. Loyal doesn’t simply mean “I’ve played for a long time”.

flipyap.5789:

But Revenant has been data-mined to get shield for the Glint elite spec.

This is where the crux of it all is. Making weapon attack tooltips is actually quite easy on their part; slap some words on a default text box. However, making animations, static artwork, or weapon/armor models is not a small task and takes considerably longer to do. We have seen artwork for the Glint shield, Glint’s abilities, and the Glint legend artwork, but also we have some datamine about the shield abilities. Those may have changed some, but It would be incredibly odd for it to not be Glint and the shield for the Revenant E.spec.

As for the thief, there has neither been artwork for the rifle nor datamined rifle skills. What we do have is a piece of colored artwork of a medium-armor character wielding a staff and using the signature thief colors of red and black. It’s pretty cut and dry. They likely don’t finish artwork until the basic idea about the content has already been settled on.

lucadiro.4519:

Really? If i dont spec on tempest i cant use warhorn or shouts???

This isn’t news. Anet has stated that this is how E.specs will be working before they even revealed the Chronomancer.

Activating the Elite traitline also allows you to equip the E.spec weapon and utilities through the minor traits.

Dracocyborg.5049:

so you’re telling me to accept they get a free game for which i paid 60 euros. yeah… really makes sense. that’s a lot of money, guys

We’re telling you a number of things.

1) Next time, please post this in the relevant thread. You can’t miss it as it has ~6000 replies and ~66,000 views.

2) You are not getting ripped off because other people got something for less money at a later point in time. I bought this account in January for $10. Do you think this is fair that I should get to play this game for $10 over 7 months while you had to pay ~$60 1, 2, or even 3 years ago? I have yet to see anybody respond to this argument.

MattyP.6954:

Not going to lie, for a lot of folks depicting lesbians (or gay people more generally) merely as people that exist amounts to “shoving it in their faces.” That’s sad and definitely says more about them than about the content.

It’s a sad reality. If one looks at a gay or lesbian couple depicted in a form of media (or real life), then they should pretend, hypothetically, that the couple is straight. If they don’t have a problem with that, or think the couple is not shoving their relationship in the player’s face but a same-sex relationship is, then they really need to re-evaluate their positions as it is quite hypocritical.

I can sympathize a bit with people who just don’t care for any relationships to be mentioned, but that’s often not the reality of the narratives and people do fall in love, even in the worst of circumstances (sometimes because of them).

username.4932:

Don’t get mad, i stopped playing a bit after the ascended armor were introduced (the forced crafting was part of the reason).

I am asking to know if i should come back or not, i am not requesting something.

(WvW only player FYI)

Ascended gear can drop from killing players in WvW and possibly in reward chests. Also, there is a way to put a piece of ascended armor, 5 globs of ectoplasm, an exotic insignia with the stats you want, and a Mystic Coin (I think?) into the Mystic Forge and you can convert ascended armor stats.

If you pull a Nomad’s Ascended gear piece, you can convert it to Berserker for not much more than 10g, but likely less if you have any mats sitting around already.

Also, it really isn’t necessary. The stats are a mere +5% on exotics, so skill will still be the deciding factor in most all fights.

Gibson.4036:

Arcadio.6875:

Is $50 way too much? Compare it against the games closest to it. The recent WoW expansion is $50. Requires a subscription. The FFXIV expansion is $40 and also requires a subscription which immediately puts it over $50 just to play. ESO is going to release dlc every quarter which will end up being over $50 throughout a one year period.

The big question here is, will HoT add as much to GW2 as those expansions do to their games? I guess only hindsight will tell us.

While I personally don’t mind if Anet gave me the expansion at a lower price or even free, I’m being realistic here. $50 every few YEARS to stay up-to-date with a great MMO is fair.

If that $50 isn’t for a specific amount of new content, and only to stay “up-to-date”, then it’s a lot closer to a (albeit relatively cheap) subscription than B2P.

If every game expansion and the costs accrued during the expansions are isolated only to “expansion costs”, then a WoW expansion, over the course of 1 year, costs $230 ($50+12*$15).

If GW2 expansions are released every year, this would be $50 per year. Could GW2:HoT’s content be slightly more than 1/5 of the quantity/quality of a WoW expansion (21.7%)? I would say this is not too difficult to imagine.

If GW2 expansions are stretched out every 3 years, and WoW expansions are also stretched to 3 years, then GW2 expansions still cost $50 and WoW expansions ultimately cost $590 (GW2 is 8.47% of WoW cost).

Even if this is classified as “subscription” (more akin to a pseudo-subscription because you can keep playing regardless of paying, you just don’t get new content) then it is EXTREMELY inexpensive comparatively.

Zsigmond.8073:

This! I agree. As someone who has been playing since launch/beta, I find this completely ridiculous. I had to pay $59.99 for the core game + now I need $49.99 for the expansion. That’s $109.98 for the core game and the BASIC Expansion! BASIC!. Meanwhile the new player pays $49.99 and gets both. What the actual hell? How is this fair? This feels like a giant slap across the face of everyone who purchased the game from the start.

Thank you Anet,
Good to see how you don’t give two sh**s about your long-standing loyal customers.
Sincerely,
A p***ed off customer who has been with you from the very start.

Just because you don’t value your years of time spent playing this game doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value. If you feel you are getting literally $0 in value while playing the game, then why do you play the game or why don’t you start a new account?

Things cost less over time. I bought this account for $10 back in January. Are you upset that I have only been able to play this game for 6 months but I got the game for a sixth of the price that you had to pay for it?

Your math is incorrect, as the multi-thousand-reply thread already covering this topic shows over and over again.

Veteran player: 1-3 years prior to now
Purchase core game, standard edition: $60
Content: Core game, Living World S1 (if logged in), Living World S2 (if logged in, repeatable), All holiday events, SAB, Tequatl (when difficult), TTW (when more difficult).
Bonus: 1 extra character slot (added later): -$10
1-3 years of being able to play the game at will.
Purchase GW2:HoT, standard edition: $50
TOTAL: $100, 1-3 years gameplay time

New player: 1 month ago to present
Purchase core game with GW2:HoT, standard edition: $50
Content: Core game, NO Living World S1, Living World S2 $20, No holiday events so far, no SAB.
Bonus: GW2:HoT does not need to be purchased separately
1 month of being able to play the game at will.
TOTAL: $70, 1 month gameplay time

Veteran players essentially paid $30 to get a 1-3 year head start. If you do not place any value on the time you are playing this game, why do you play it? Either that, or you are perfectly allowed to start a brand new account with nothing on it if you really think you are getting a raw deal. After all, it is more worth it to you for a new player, so become a new player, right?

NapTooN.6283:

MiniEquine.6014:

MauricioCezar.2673:

In other hand, we got repetition of profession skill – Shouts.
In other hand, trough the ele warhorn we got confirmed that those ascended skins datamined are the elite specs weapons skins. There was a glint shield there, and a pole staff there. This is 2 repeated profession weapons right there.
In other hand, Seens like the chances of thief getting pole staff, actually rose to 90%.

In Other hand, Staff thief seens much more amazing than WH ele. Don’t complain, or I’ll curse you to get a off hand torch.

Seriously this. Imagine a melee AoE thief class focused on martial arts. Melee staff could have some amazing animations worked in with the most acrobatic class in the game (even has a traitline named for that too!). Maybe Thief will get stances? Martial arts commonly have different offensive/defensive stances that allow for more efficient combat.

Thief will get Shouts:

• THIS IS AN ASSASSINATION!
• I AM OVER HERE!
• I AM COMING FROM BEHIND!
• NOW YOU ARE DEAD!
• I AM PLACING A TRAP FACE-DOWN AND END MY TURN!

!http://i.ytimg.com/vi/H4fKfz5rcx8/maxresdefault.jpg!