Guild Wars 2

They literally just announced the guild hall features maybe 40 minutes prior to this post. It was part of the PC Gamer E3 show. They sent out a press package to various people/sites at the same time.

Gergrin.6594:

You guys need to READ WHAT YOU ARE BUYING. Those prices INCLUDE a NEW activation key for a BRAND new account. That means with those prices you are not only getting heart of thorns, you are paying for a new account and heart of thorns. They havent released any prices for JUST a Upgrade.

Quoting for emphasis. While I agree that having to buy the core game again to get HoT, this is coming with an extra account-creating key. It remains to be seen what it will cost to just upgrade, if that becomes an option.

feelingood.2106:

I have 500 skill points in my bank. So should i use them, like buying eldricht scrolls or there is no difference, because anet gonna change them to spirit shards and they can be traded to Miyani. So looking that way its like same thing?

There is no advantage to keeping scrolls saved up.

Fire!
Turn the tide.
Now you’ll feel my turbulence!
Rocks and stones will break your bones.

Asura elementalist checking in.

Tim.6450:

Honestly since the specialisations have to be ‘cool’ (it’s one of their main selling points) and signets are incredibly boring, I think they have to make them a bit special. What if equiping a signet creates a drone(s) that have varying effects which also can be use a detonating move?
examples:
medibot: grants health and can be detonated to heal yourself for burst and maybe an additional effect.
Shield bot: toughness increase andcan be used to deploy a wall (projectile block).
…

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.

Some current solutions, though I’m not saying they are good:

- Use karma to buy cloth armor in the desired level range, mystic forge it to something salvageable.
- Use an alt in the desired level range in PvP. The rewards are level-scaled
- Farm humanoids in the desired level range. Loot bags will give scaled cloth and you will get some lower level armor.
- Silverwastes chest farm. You can get 1-2 of any tier cloth from each(?) chest. A good chest train will hit up to 100 chests in an hour.

If Super Speed isn’t increasing run speed by 100% as the tooltip indicates then this should really go in the bug reporting forum.

Darkwolfer.7819:

I also thought maybe signets. The drones flying behind could be from popping a signet, much like Ele for elemental.

Elementals are summoned from the Glyph of Elementals skill. It’s not a signet.

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

That is in my opinion a good list of things to do in a 3yo game compaired to the former MMO I played where this was/is the content after max level after 7-8 years.

- “Dungeons”(10 raids, 35 3-6-man)(Instances).
- Scirmish (19 of them)(Challange mode thingy).
- Crafting.
- Exploring.
- Main Story.
- Festival Events.
- Quests.
- Mounted Combat.
- Housing.
- PvP.

Found the LOTRO player

GreyWraith.8394:

Palindrome.8904:

GreyWraith.8394:

Palindrome.8904:

With respect to keeping unlocked things unlocked, it would require them to allow your account to have negative hero points, since there is an exact number of them available in the game. You couldn’t have 400+total skill challenges+whatever you have unlocked now available to you. Future elite specs would be trivial for anyone in this circumstance and would result in a permanently unfair arrangement as a result.

All my characters are pre-NPE so I’m only worried about skills unlocks via scrolls on my PvP/WvW leveled characters, but this is an issue for anyone who leveled primarily in those game modes.

Negative hero points? Silly. There are any number of other ways it could be done. For example: they could award a proportional number of hero points based on what you have unlocked at the time it changes and cap the max number of hero points a character can have. Yes that would make the remaining skill challenges pointless on those legacy characters (except for map completion), but the alternative of re-locking PvP/WvW leveled characters that have been fully unlocked for years is far worse.

Negative points would, in theory, not require extra implementation effort. Or at least minimal. What you describe is a significant addition to the system. Engineering something for a one-time conversion just isn’t resource-effective.

It’s a major expansion. There are quite a few things being engineered for a one time conversion. Including skill/hero/spirit points. ‘Negative hero points’ is nonsensical.

Engineering something for a one-time conversion is a waste of resources when it ultimately has no significant impact.

dszteina.4058:

dszteina.4058:

Palindrome.8904:

Retaliation shouldn’t work with condition damage, as the attacker has zero control over whether they take the damage or not once the condition is applied. Direct attacks can be stopped as soon as retaliation pops if you want to avoid the damage.

Protection against conditions? Not sure that’s necessary since resistance 100% nullifies them for its duration. That said it seems much harder to get than protection.

Then conditions shouldn’t work with Vulnerability. They already have lots of additional effects. Poisons reduce healing, torment does double damage when you move, confusion deals damage when you use any attack. Then there’s 2 more damaging conditions, burn and bleed which only require condition damage stats to do reasonable damage. Leaving two more stats to be used defensively. So super dire tank condition necro with 100% crit chance from traits and 25% vul nearly all the time is unaffected by protection and retaliation? Pleaaaase

Retaliation affecting condis would insta-kill almost any condi build, or close to it. You have zero control over taking that damage or not.

Experience at level 80 progresses masteries.

It read like you meant “buy 1 pristine relic for 15 normal relics”

ELF.8496:

Unless you want to purposely keep an Alt at a lower level to farm certain items. (I am looking at you Silver Doubloons)

Don’t need traits or utilities to log out at the end of a jump puzzle

Off topic: the new map rewards are supposed to give materials (repeatable rewards). This could be a fix for giant eyes and silver doubloons, e.g.

Retaliation shouldn’t work with condition damage, as the attacker has zero control over whether they take the damage or not once the condition is applied. Direct attacks can be stopped as soon as retaliation pops if you want to avoid the damage.

Protection against conditions? Not sure that’s necessary since resistance 100% nullifies them for its duration. That said it seems much harder to get than protection.

We know that they will be part of HoT. So you’re as in the loop as anyone else.

Elitejelly.7462:

Since this is the case the best route to take is to add to the fractal vendor 1 pristine relic for 15 normal relics, or at least i hope they do this.

Pristine relics are a way to time-gate items that require them for purchase. I doubt we’ll see a 2-way conversion because of that.

Elitejelly.7462:

I doubt this condi/core specs/la comes next week because in the condi blog post it said “While I can’t reveal that number today because we’re still doing performance tests…” still doing performance tests. how long will that be? who knows.

To be fair, performance testing is one of the last phases of software development. It means all functional/system changes are in place and they are playing with the numbers.

Most likely case:

All skill points you have now will become spirit shards.

Hero points will be awarded based on what you have done with no connection to your current skill point pool.

"
Hover your mouse over a currency to display its details—some of which you can click for extra functionality, indicated by an icon appearing to the far right.
"

From the blog post. Presumably this will let you convert them. That or I expect a vendor for conversion.

If you never plan on using the Pristine Relics as they are, why bother saving them now anyway?

Skill points you have now will become spirit shards. Leveling to 80 will give a total of 400 hero points. Each skill challenge will give one hero point. Hero points are used to unlock skills/traits. Spirit shards are a currency for Mystic Forge materials. They are two totally separate things.

GreyWraith.8394:

Palindrome.8904:

With respect to keeping unlocked things unlocked, it would require them to allow your account to have negative hero points, since there is an exact number of them available in the game. You couldn’t have 400+total skill challenges+whatever you have unlocked now available to you. Future elite specs would be trivial for anyone in this circumstance and would result in a permanently unfair arrangement as a result.

All my characters are pre-NPE so I’m only worried about skills unlocks via scrolls on my PvP/WvW leveled characters, but this is an issue for anyone who leveled primarily in those game modes.

Negative hero points? Silly. There are any number of other ways it could be done. For example: they could award a proportional number of hero points based on what you have unlocked at the time it changes and cap the max number of hero points a character can have. Yes that would make the remaining skill challenges pointless on those legacy characters (except for map completion), but the alternative of re-locking PvP/WvW leveled characters that have been fully unlocked for years is far worse.

Negative points would, in theory, not require extra implementation effort. Or at least minimal. What you describe is a significant addition to the system. Engineering something for a one-time conversion just isn’t resource-effective.

Soval.3206:

Palindrome.8904:

Most likely case:

If you have 100 skill points on your level 80 and 50 finished skill challenges:

You will get 100 spirit shards.
You will get 450 hero points.

Nothing lost and no worry. Spending no or later makes no difference.

Palindrome.8904:

Also it isn’t a conversion from one to another. You are awarded hero points based on level and challenges. They aren’t magicking one thing to another.

Interesting. So the assumption is you will receive lvl 1-80 worth of Hero Points, however many Skill Challenges completed worth of Hero Points, and THEN any Skill Points you may have on your character, regardless of source, will be converted to shards? That’s best case scenario—I hope it’s true.

Does that mean the flip side of this is…. don’t unlock unnecessary skills with Skill Points right now, as it’s ultimately a waste… unless there is a refund.

That’s my assumption, in part because it’s technically easiest.

All non level sources will still exist. Tomes give a shard and presumably champion bags will give them live they do scrolls today. With that alone I swim in points.

Also it isn’t a conversion from one to another. You are awarded hero points based on level and challenges. They aren’t magicking one thing to another.

Linken.6345:

why should he/she get spirit shards for the skillpoints thats converted into hero points?
thats like having the cake and eating it to.

Nothing differentiates skill points based on source. As a one time conversion to a currency for account bound items it seems like a waste of resources to check if someone has points but locked skills to subtract the value of those skills from the points etc.

funkyfuzz.9142:

so working with my logic…that would seem to indicate (to me at least), that the points would be available for the OP to use on their new Rev, and thus they don’t have anything to worry about. Am i close to the mark here?

Not quite. The shards will only be a MF currency. You can’t use them for skills or traits.

funkyfuzz.9142:

Thanks for the correction. edited my original post, noticed that at the same time you posted

Are the spirit shards going to be used for the same thing? My impression was that they would be…so scrolls wouldn’t be lost, you would just click on the shard instead of the scroll…

Edit: seems like I’m playing catchup. Sorry. other threads have discussed that the points may become account-wide, this could open up possibilities.

If you take a look at today’s wallet post, they said that all current methods of getting the currency (skillpoints today) will still exist except for the shards on leveling beyond 80. Scrolls or whatever the new drop item is will still be a thing. Spirit shards will be used at Miyani for Mystic Toilet materials. The shards will be a currency, so yes, they will be account-wide.

funkyfuzz.9142:

I could be off on this, but i distinctly remember reading in one of the recent blogs that they would be converting the scrolls to the Shards. let me see if i can find it.

Edit: Just found it, in the release today on 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. "

Towards the bottom, bullet point in, “What about Skill points?”

So it’s good news. you won’t lose all those scrolls you’ve been accumulating.

The OP is complaining that he won’t be able to use the scrolls for points to unlock skills, not losing the scrolls entirely.

Most likely case:

If you have 100 skill points on your level 80 and 50 finished skill challenges:

You will get 100 spirit shards.
You will get 450 hero points.

Nothing lost and no worry. Spending no or later makes no difference.

Skill scrolls are wholly incompatible with the new system for unlocking things. There is a set, finite number of Hero Points in the new system whereas now there is no limit to the number of scrolls you could have. Enabling a scenario where someone could have more Hero Points than normally obtainable would be game breaking when future elite specs are released.

Also, the new currency is account-bound so allowing scrolls to be used for unlocking stuff would further break the progression scheme.

Given that ANet doesn’t release much information until very close to it going live, I would expect the fairly near-term. The 23rd isn’t unreasonable, but within a month from yesterday is probably safe.

Most likely:

You will have 300 spirit shards for your 300 unspent skill points.

You will have 400 (if you are level 80) hero points plus one for each completed skill challenge. If you have fewer than 65 skill challenges completed you will not be able to unlock 100% of skills and traits, but almost certainly everything you plan on using.

I don’t understand the problem. Skillpoints on level at 80 are basically nonrewards as it is. Compared to points from scrolls they aren’t even a quarter of my skillpoint gain. I find it hard to imagine a significant number of people see that bar at 80 and think “Awwww yeeahhh about to snag another skill point.”

For all we know, the masteries will be a long-term goal. Heck, we don’t even know more than half a dozen or so of them. Standard XP at 80 has always seemed like a lost opportunity for something meaningful anyway.

With respect to keeping unlocked things unlocked, it would require them to allow your account to have negative hero points, since there is an exact number of them available in the game. You couldn’t have 400+total skill challenges+whatever you have unlocked now available to you. Future elite specs would be trivial for anyone in this circumstance and would result in a permanently unfair arrangement as a result.

It’s unlikely that there is any data to track who spent gold and who unlocked traits via events/etc. They either have to refund everyone gold, even if they didn’t spend any or they refund nobody gold.

Hero points only come from leveling and skill challenges. You must have the 65 skill challenges complete to unlock all core skills/traits.

Most likely approach will be to convert all skill points on each character to the currency.

100 skill points saved + level 80 + 50 challenges complete = 100 spirit shards + 450 hero points.

It is a good point though. Unless they intend on implementing a temporary state where leveling beyond 80 gives the spirit shards, it would be wasted xp.

Kury.8210:

All specializations I see as alternate play styles. If they are not, then they are improved versions of what we already have (only unlikely exception being a future spec that sucks so bad it detracts from the original). So, not buying HoT means we lose or miss out on the best of over half of all potential play styles if we have no access to specializations. Forgive me if it’s a bit presumptuous, but this sounds like it will hurt competitively.

Not that I wouldn’t buy the expansion. I’m not spending $60 cuz I’m a college going Scrooge, but I love this game and the work being put into the expansion. Moment I find it a decent price I’ll be joining everyone else.

1) ANet stated that the goal is for elite specializations to be different, not better. If they do this successfully then there’s no worry. So far the elites don’t seem to break anything, as there are distinct benefits and drawbacks.

2) Personally expecting 30-40$ based on absolutely nothing. Charging the same price as the base game is absolutely silly to expect though.

If the elementalist elite is a melee-range fighter, I could see a defiance bar on that simply because they would otherwise melt easily on CC.

Numbers are subject to change and productive discussion will only involve the mechanics. They said during the Ventari stream that the numbers need tweaked, likely toned down.

The right way to farm obsidian shards in SW is to actively participate in events until you have 3-4 stacks of crests, then buy 50 keys, get on a chest train and replenish keys every time you pass through the main camp. The chest train itself is not self-sufficient for crests. If you go to SW expecting to just stay on a chest train forever without gathering crests from events, you’ll be disappointed.

The positive is that doing the full event chain through Vinewrath and Hidden Depths is fantastic loot.

Cyninja.2954:

Not sure what you mean by mandatory. None of WoW’s expansions were mandatory.

They were mandatory if you wanted to participate in the expansion content, but there were enough people who played vanilla WoW without upgrading to BC and so on.

Mandatory expansions are ones were you lose access to the game due to server version and your version being different.

“Mandatory” would be an expansion that puts you at a significant disadvantage to everyone that buys it. WoW expansions were like this, HoT will not be. ANet has said multiple times that HoT will give more options, but not better or more competitive options.

KaosNinja.4967:

that doesn’t help the toons people have now that don’t have enough to buy theyre skills/traits. meanwhile they’re mains have 500+ and nothing to do with them.
and its really not alot of work. just throw them into the wallet like the other 90 currencys.

I’m guessing you don’t have any programming experience. Nothing is that simple.

The skill point changes as we understand them are as follows:

-Skill points from leveling and skill challenges on the map will be “Hero Points”.
-Utilities and specializations will be unlocked with Hero Points.
-Upon reaching level 80, with no skill challenges completed, you should have enough points to unlock most (but not all) utilities and core specializations.
-The only points your characters will have when the change hits will be those gained by leveling and skill challenges.
-There is no expectation that anything unlocked will remain unlocked. That goes for both traits and utilities. People want traits to stay unlocked, but we have no reason to believe that will happen.
-All surplus skill points (from leveling past 80, e.g.) will convert to a Mystic Forge currency.

Making skill points account bound now would ultimately accomplish nothing other than enabling you to spend gold to unlock traits sooner rather than later.

Is this to make imaginary stuff for the future or predict the first specs? We know engineer gets a hammer. We are pretty sure thief gets a rifle.

Engineer utility? Going by the video, engineers may be getting minions (the little drones). That seems a bit iffy, since they already have turrets and the combination of them would be a headache. It’s possible that the drones actually are turrets after a reworking. Different from minions in that they don’t stray from you. That said, it would make the reflector shield trait for turrets incredibly OP. It would also make it extremely easy to aoe turrets.

Eh, probably minions after saying that.

IndigoSundown.5419:

The idea of farming that event chain and its few champs for bags seems pretty pathetic, if you ask me. Sure, the event resets reasonably quickly on failure, but farming SW offers a much better return on one’s time.

I thought about this, but they may want the specific type of champ bag risen drop. Certain Exotic Hunter weapons only drop from certain champ bags. That’s why Arthropoda is very expensive but Bonetti’s Rapier is one of the cheapest exotics (bandit coin purses from SW).

Foefaller.1082:

If you can afford it, get Perplexity runes as well for wuv roaming, and take joy as roaming thieves used to being effectively unkillable kill themselves with confusion.

With the apparent changes to confusion from the videos we’ve seen, this will be less effective. The bulk of confusion damage seems to be a DoT effect with bonus damage when skills are used.

As far as I know, nothing of any significance is known about guild halls. In fact, I don’t think we’ve seen any screenshots of them or have heard information to answer a single one of your questions. We’ll probably have to wait until they throw the guild hall PoI between the class specialization weeks.

They are still a thing. The new skins you see on the characters in screen shots/videos of the elite specs are the rewards (I think at least some of them). If I’m wrong, I’m sure someone will correct me shortly. As far as I know, Chronomancer is just the only one they gave specific attention to. I believe the screenshot here under “Another Arrow in the Quiver” is the Guardian weapon/armor:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/meet-the-dragonhunter-guardians-elite-specialization/

Krypt Prince.8349:

Ah I see. Thank you!

Please note, I didn’t mean to imply that I have any real facts on this. My guess would be that if anything notable did change, it would be based on the response from the first event with this map.