Skimpy heavy armors (at least what fantasy games call ‘heavy’ or armors for ‘warrior’ professions) did exist in real world (pit fighter karma armor is very close to roman/gladiator, gladiator is more akin to tribal warrior armor and barbaric is a blending of roman/gladiator and tribal), so again reality is probably their excuse for armor designs for the professions. So I wouldn’t call those a more accurate comparison, I’ve seen chain mail pants in other games that looked good (which should be the first priority designing armor for pixels).
Eh? I’m not saying skimpy armor didn’t exist in real life, I’m saying:
[…]a more accurate comparison is that we can have skimpy heavy armors that still offer maximum protection[…]
It’s an accurate comparison because both skimpy armor and chainmail crotch guards don’t offer much protection in real life, yet skimpy armor offers full protection in games, so the same should be true for chainmail pants.
Comparing flying structures to chainmail crotch protection isn’t a good match because a) it’s different forms of technology and b) we actually have flying structures in real life (space stations), yet we don’t have chainmail crotch protection, so that only serves to validate the lack of skirtless chainmail pants in the game.
There are gremlins that build flying pyramids, but making a chainmail crotch is too tall of an order.
Well, a more accurate comparison is that we can have skimpy heavy armors that still offer maximum protection, but making a magically reinforced cup is too tall of an order.
That being said, chainmail pants would be useless in protecting the crotch. It’s good against cuts because it helps distribute the force across a larger area (so you’ll get bruised instead of cut), but that just means a sword to the crotch will “only” feel like a two-pound steel pole to the crotch.
The server does manage the players’ position. What I meant to say, more specifically, is that when a character is knocked back, launched, pulled or downed, the initial position (before they are moved) is not sent to the clients. This causes minor position desynchronization (after they are moved).
If the initial position was sent, we would no longer have any bugs causing players to appear where they shouldn’t be (like the popular bug where a downed player can’t be revived/finished off), but players would seemingly teleport every time one of these conditions apply.
It’s a bit stranger than that, if the client of the person being knocked is significantly lagged it potentially ignores knocks/pulls/etc. I’ve experienced this first hand (have two accounts, one is connected via cable and the other on a dodgy wifi) where knocking a lagged client will cause the client doing the knocking to see the target fly away, but the client being knocked won’t actually move; if I attack the target’s old position I will see damage numbers pop up, but if I attack the new position nothing connects; if I move the “knocked” character a little the server will correct the reported position and send them “gliding” to where that client says it’s supposed to be.
I have to say my impression of the NPE actually got worse after I snagged a new account during the 75% off sale. Something about seeing all those account-wide locked content in addition to the whole “first 30 levels of every character is a tutorial” thing just made the game feel much more more restrictive and less enjoyable.
Maybe it’s just because I already knew what I was missing, but I honestly don’t think I would have stayed (much less made 8 characters) in GW2 if the NPE was my very first experience – and was my experience every time I deleted and remade a character (which I did a lot when I started).
Druids fit the jungle nature theme of the expansion and people been wanting Staff rangers for a while now.
If the choice of specializations is to match the theme of the expansion, then a Hydro or Geomancer would fit the bill (and if the Crystal Desert comes out as an expansion then I could see Pyro or Geomancers being good candidates).
Not only that, druid doesn’t have anything to do with the traitlines, it’s literally a subprofession that’ll fill a niche ranger doesn’t already. that’s why i’m doubtful they’d go a specific element.
Wouldn’t Druid be a specialization of the Nature Magic trait line?
It’s possible that you’re experiencing a similar problem that popped up about a year ago, but ANet is actually receiving your report due to how the system is set up. There’s also an in-game function to report bugs which has a little tickbox for “Exploitable Issue” and the ability to take a screenshot too.
the problem with that is, we’re only going to get 1 specialization at first, so the most likely one, if they were to go that path, would be arcanist
Depends on which one the dart landed on, I guess? I have no idea what reasoning was behind choosing Druid for Rangers, as it doesn’t seem to target the most or least popular mechanics of that class, so I can’t imagine which specialization they’ll go for first for the Elementalist. If they’re avoiding the most commonly used feature it’ll rule out Pyro and Aeromancers, at least.
I’ve been in a MMO with a Public Test Server and it really isn’t useful. Builds that get pushed to PTS tend to be ones that are about to hit the live server, so only really minor bugs can be addressed, which causes the community to get a little antsy when massive bugs/flawed features get pushed despite multiple posts and reports weeks before the release.
Then people stop bothering to test anything on the PTS, because they’re tired of being ignored.
Then the community turns on people who complain about bugs in the live server by telling them they have no right to complain if they didn’t go to the PTS to catch the bug before it went live.
Honestly, having a “dressing room” would be better than the tiny preview window in the wardrobe. I can’t tell you the number of times I found a combination I thought looked nice in preview, only to find it was disappointing when up close and in action.
Maybe I’m just boring, but five of the most obvious specializations for Elementalists are Pyromancer (uses axe as per Flame Axe), Cryo/Hydromancer (uses bows as per Ice Bow), Geomancer (uses shields as per Earth Shield), Aeromancer (uses hammers as per Lightning Hammer), and Arcanist (torch, maybe?).
I mean, really, it’s in the name of the feature: specializing. We’re focusing on a particular feature of a class and elementalists have the most clear-cut features of all the classes, complete with alternate weapons already associated with each of the feature (well, except for the arcane tree).
If specializations will introduce as extensive a change to the playstyle of a single class as ANet claims, then the effort it will take to balance it for PvP/WvW will probably be comparable to balancing a new class.
Sounds like a quantity vs. quality issue here. Either we can be drip fed a single, well developed specialization at a time or have a whole slew of shallow specializations that are “just a new set of a couple of skills.”
TC was already a T1 server when I first started, but I had absolutely no problems getting in because I tried around 3pm my time (which would have been 3am EST).
If the story does shift to focus on the other races’ dragons, then humans might have to deal with Steve/Bubbles as soon as Orr starts/finishes being cleansed.
Or maybe we’ll deal with Steve/Bubbles as a part of another story with the focus on humans being the return of the Six – and whatever calamity that brings with it.
How do I feel about the time and effort I put into getting the stats and looks of all my characters to my liking not getting flushed down the toilet every time an expansion comes out?
Let me answer that by throwing some more money at ANet.
I’ve only found the classes in GW2 to be interesting enough to have two builds at most, as such I can get away with just one character of each class with an alternate set of armor and weapons in their inventory to satisfy all the builds I could possibly ever want. If specializations are actually good enough for me to explore third or fourth options I might just start doubling up on classes.
I tried searching for similar posts but nothing came up. Hmm.
I read it, but the problem with that is that it digresses from the nature of condition damage, which is basically damage over time.
Also, in that same post, Frost Spectre pointed out the problem with it as well:
“Should it prioritize conditions applied by players with high Condition DMG and Condition Dur. That high powered conditions are more likely to burst.
Should there be a threshold for burst, that prevents lower stat player’s conditions from bursting.
Should it keep the condition stacks still on the target, while weaker (As in, applier has below the trigger threshold cond dmg and cond dur) conditions will never trigger burst, but maintain the stack, and any additional condition with high cond dmg + dur will always burst over them, dealing “direct damage”.”
There’s just too much stuff to deal with and its kind of weird how your stacks just blow up for something that is supposed to be sustainable damage.
What I’ve tried to do is make it as simple as possible without destroying any mechanics and keeping all limits and issues in mind, save the replace old stack effect.
Yeah, search function on this forum is nonexistent, you can’t find other posts unless you’re already aware of them (and even then you’d be using Google to do the search).
That being said, any modification to condition damage does need to have a lot of restrictions on it, because PvE shares its mechanics with WvW: what seems like a reasonable buff to conditions in group PvE events easily turns into broken mechanics in WvW zergfests.
My original burst suggestion shares the same problem as your overflow idea in that it’s good against the massive health pools of mobs, but player health pools can’t take the nearly same abuse; Frost Spectre raised good points about there being a need for some sort of priority or threshold that only allows people built for condition damage working in tandem on specific target(s) to trigger the extra damage. Theoretically that should make it viable for people to trigger the extra damage on PvE mobs while making it difficult enough to not be worth the effort in WvW.
That being said, condition bursting doesn’t have to wipe the stacks. A relatively simple solution would be to steal borrow inspiration from your idea and maintain the 25 stack cap for conditions, but every 25 stack thereafter causes a burst (which doesn’t wipe the original 25 stacks) in the form of some thematically appropriate organ failure associated with the type of condition in question.
Well, if a Guardian is called such because they protect and buff people near them, then someone who does the same at range could have a title like “Bestower” or “Altruist”.
I tend to notice people ask for longbows on guardians more than anything else, which seems appropriate since it’s one of the spiritual weapons they can summon but not actually wield.
Maybe some kind of archer guardian who transfer their passive AoE boon ability to arrows? Instead of granting boons to nearby allies, they grant the boons to allies near enemies they hit?
Probably a male human. I’ve wanted to mix and match the phalanx with human cultural armor for a while now, but couldn’t since I made both my warrior and guardian norns. Thought I could mix and match glorious armor with phalanx instead, but… a knightly norn just doesn’t look right, I prefer them with a dash of savagery and intimidation.
The NPE is slows down progression (get your first trait point 10 levels later than before, traits unlocked individually now instead of by tier like how it used to be, etc.) in order to give new players more time to absorb and process what they’re unlocking, but for a number players it makes the lower levels even less rewarding than before, which in turn makes the leveling grind feel longer and less enjoyable.
People who speed level aren’t going to have as good a grip on the class, and especially not as good a grip on the more unusual skills.
That’s only true if you’re comparing a “natural” level 80 and a speed-leveled 80 while assuming they reached 80 at the same time; in this case if you spend 40 hours (completely arbitrary number here) leveling your Revenant to 80, I would have spent 40 hours playing with a level 80 Revenant with all of its traits and skills unlocked, so I would actually have a better grasp of the class than you would.
I mean, really. Do you honestly believe that having two sets of horns is something original to DA2? Or that the head shape of both creatures depicted couldn’t, y’know, be inspired by king cobras?
The main reason is that specializations and new weapons will most likely fill the profession holes – such as mesmers lacking AoE, or necros giving nothing to dungeon parties. Because it makes sense and because adding weapons which do exactly the same is pointless. Like AoE attack shield mesmer, full melee Hammer engineer, power GS necromancer. If no one ever wanted a necro in a dungeon, they might need GS necros now; a chronomesmer could actually support a party better than a guardian in certain scenarios, and so on.
That’s provided they’re actual skills, and not useless gimmicks like racial skills which got overnerfed because E-SPORTS!
That’s a fair point, but I don’t believe all of the specializations are made to fill the missing roles most desired in dungeons; they’ll be filling roles, yes, but the roles that ANet believes should be filled, which doesn’t always coincide with what players believe need to be filled.
For example: the hammer engineer looks like it will be more efficient in dungeons than vanilla engineers, but is that really true? Guardians and warriors don’t use hammers in speed runs because their associated traits are generally in toughness/vitality lines, are slow in DPS, and have knockbacks; if ANet follows this trend with hammer engineers then a vanilla engineer traited and geared with berserker stats and armed with mines/grenades would still be more efficient in dungeons.
I do agree that a power-based GS necro would have a better time than a dagger or axe necro though.
Regardless, the semantics of the scenario isn’t the players problem. Don’t likewise become a victim. It’s a scam. Report for scamming, screenshot it, delete it, and ignore.
Oh, aye, I’m not saying don’t report it, just pointing out that the real owner of said account isn’t the scammer (which is what the post I replied to seemed to imply).
Specializations and Masteries will only be available to those who buy HoT, so if you want a staff on ranger, precursor hunting and an efficient dungeon build, go buy it!
Is there any particular reason why you believe specializations will automatically translate to being an “efficient” dungeon build? It’s a specialization, not a level cap raise, a level 80 Druid won’t be more powerful than a level 80 Ranger, they’ll just be level 80 Rangers with different skills and waving staves.
That being said, unless the Druid has lots of support and boon powers, parties looking for optimized/efficient Rangers would still be asking you to bring a Frost Spirit and Spotter; if the Druid turns out to be control-heavy with weaker DPS than a GS ranger they might not even get to see the inside of a dungeon unless with a casual group – in which case it wouldn’t even matter if you’re specialized or not.
I never cared for the Tengu in GW1 or GW2. But I laughed my butt off during the Scarlet invasion of LA when I wandered too close to their doors and a rain of arrows dropped me like a hot potato. For that one moment, I loved them. They finally had some character.
… I didn’t know about that at all. I missed an opportunity to be murdered by paranoid Tengus.
You should have received a title for that, something like “Murder of Crows” or other suitable pun.
The original GW did it with EotN albeit it wasn’t playable characters, but they still did it. plus plenty of different Tengu armor from the original GW and GW2. I think they have the hang of the tengu.
But they didn’t? Talon didn’t have access to all the armors, he had two different sets from each campaign. That’s only, like, eight sets of armor. If ANet had to remodel all of the current armors in GW2 for Tengus that’s around 100 sets.
Armor Sets: Other MMORPGS manage to fit existing armor pieces perfectly for new races, I can give you a list of all the games that can do that if you want. Of course it would be a big effort for ArenaNet to do so, but if you want to sell an expansion (something big!), probably new character slots and gem shop costumes that would look best on the new race, that should be doable.
Actually, could you provide a list of MMOs that do that? I’m aware of a few (AoC, FF14, WoW), but those don’t really count because the new races use the same kittenigging as existing races, so converting armors would have been an automated process with minor tweaks to address UV deformations. ANet can do this with the Largos (human body type) and Kodan (norn bodytype), but Tengu would require far more work than that.
As far as the armors are concerned you are quite right. However as far as story is concerned I must disagree. If they went with a new race, which I suspect they will, the story will not be related to Zhaitan but Mordremoth, with an entire new story specified for that race.
Problem with that is if you run through the LS S2 with the new race, it will frequently refer to you as the commander of the pact who took down Zhaitan.
You mean Specializations. Masteries is a different mechanic that isn’t class-specific, Specializations is the one that lets you turn your Ranger into a Druid.
so in short, report said email sender as scammer and that person can say goodbye to his/her account.
It’s a stolen account. Only person being banned here is someone who somehow got their account compromised (by falling for this scam, signing up on the wrong sites, or trusting the wrong people).
More information will be coming out as HoT approaches beta, which – as others have pointed out – will be in six weeks. Beta testing takes a variable amount of time depending on how polished developers bring a product to beta testing stage, but I would say don’t expect it until maybe second quarter of 2015 at earliest.
This is not really accurate, in 6 weeks there will be a playable demo on a convention showfloor, but that does not mean that the expansion is in “beta” status.
Who knows there might already be internal builds which are referred to as betas, but as far as we know there will be beta events for the public of some description at an indeterminate point in the future (as per the faq). The timeframe of 6 weeks however has nothing to do with that.
True, but developers generally don’t put alphas up as (playable) demos, it’s usually in the beta stage or later that they feel the product has just enough polish to show off, hence my assumption it’ll at least be a beta build.
However, I see it more based around Dervish now that I think about it. The difference is, the player uses the power of the mist instead of the gods for their skills and form. If Revenant drops Jalis-turrets, then I would agree that it is based around Ritualist.
Why not both? The “spirit attunment” (for the lack of a better term) mechanic will likely occupy the F1-F4 keys like the elementalist’s attunment does, so if spirit turrets were a Revenant thing they would be deployed from the utility skills much like how Guardian and Ranger spirits are used.
More information will be coming out as HoT approaches beta, which – as others have pointed out – will be in six weeks. Beta testing takes a variable amount of time depending on how polished developers bring a product to beta testing stage, but I would say don’t expect it until maybe second quarter of 2015 at earliest.
To be fair, from your perspective their fixes may be five months overdue, but there are also people who feel that an expansion has been overdue for more than a year. If we weigh both issues as equally important, I’d argue the people who have been waiting longer could do with some love first.
I thought we already had Ele’s and Engi’s. Maybe it would’ve been good to explain what makes Revenant so different from these two professions. Because everything they’ve said so far sounds like a theme-swapped Engineer.
It’s not a matter of making something that’s unique to all other classes (because all the classes share mechanics to some degree, just slightly different implementation and flavor), it’s about making a new heavy class that’s unique to other heavy classes; of all the various shared mechanics, kit/attunement swapping is one of the mechanics that heavy classes don’t have at all.
That sort of restriction on playstyle based on your weapon choice already exists in the game though, it’s just specializations appear to make them more formalized that before. For example if you want your necro to wield an axe or main hand dagger with a focus or warhorn, then you’re kinda obligated to make a power or minion build – you could make a condi build instead, but that wouldn’t be viable given those weapon combinations don’t deal condi damage.
Also we don’t even know what the other ranger specializations are. For all we know there could be a melee-oriented ranger specialization that uses staves as melee weapons, complete with a different set of weapon skills.
Old system you couldn’t, feature pack 2 came out after S1 ended (and thus the spinal backpieces became available in game). So the tooltip is probably a bug.
I stand corrected, that tooltip message is just leftovers from the old system that shouldn’t exist anymore.
Yep. See below. I did this intentionally as this was the last version of the backpiece I wanted. Since I changed the skin, it says “Transmuted,” as well as “Cannot be used in the Mystic Forge if transmuted.” I lack the ingredients to confirm this, but the tool tip is pretty specific.
That tooltip is definitely wrong, like I said: I’ve tossed transmuted spinal blade backpieces into the MF to upgrade them without any problems. Transmuting an item doesn’t change the base item ID, there is no reason why the MF would be checking anything other than the base item ID against possible recipes, and you can also see for yourself that the MF will recognize what your transmuted gear actually is.
I’m not even sure why that tooltip about transmutation not working with the MF even exists, because at no point was I ever not able to use transmuted spinal blades of any quality in the MF.
Yeah, I was refining a bunch of materials and hit “deposit all” right before I disconnected, popped back in to find everything I refined magically became unrefined again and had to sit through it again.
Still a garbage reveal. “We came from the jungle dragon cause my Dream said so! Not like dreams can be misinterpreted or anything! Also awfully convenient that no other sylvari ever got this dream either! Meh.”
It’s not without precedent though, we know that only a small percentage of Sylvari have a Wyld Hunt and that not all are "kill X target: Niamh’s Wyld Hunt was to establish the Grove’s defenses and Trahearne’s is to restore Orr (not necessarily kill Zhaitan, which is Caithe’s – and presumably the PC Sylvari’s – Wyld Hunt).
Wynne could have been on a Wyld Hunt to discover the origin of the seed that Ronan discovered – and since she did succeed in finding out its roots (no pun intended… okay, it was intended), no subsequent Sylvari would have been tasked with a Wyld Hunt to redo a completed task.
If Anet is fast enough with the bans, the bad guys will eventually go out of business.
How would you propose they go about that? On one side you have gold sellers using bots to spam indiscriminately and on the other side you have people checking every report (not just gold selling reports) against the logs to make sure it’s not a false/accidental report. They can only work so fast.
I suppose someone could write a script to automate the process, but you really don’t want bans to be issued automatically.
It would definitely take some work, but I don’t believe it would be as huge of an overhaul as you think.
It would, actually. Leveling system is a core mechanic, touching that means you’ll have to make sure everything else that’s associated with it doesn’t break (which it will, something always breaks, it’s the law of programming). That’s pretty much everything except the Wardrobe and PvP.
It’s not quite reinventing the entire game, but you might as well be asking for it.
