Guild Wars 2

TESLA.7415:

kylania.6924:

One main guild and another smaller guild of some RL friends just to stay in contact. It’s awesome that we have this option that’s missing in many other games.

What is it you can accomplish being in multiple guilds that you can’t from being in just one? Why can’t you and your frinds be in the one guild and still do everything?

The whole point of the multiguild system, originally, was that people could have more granular and focused communities as an option.

For instance, you like to play PvP and PvE, but the people in your PvP guild hate PvE, and the people in your PvE guild hate PvP. Thus, you’re allowed to be in two guilds and switch tags based on who you’re playing with/what you’re doing at the time.

With the guild hall system is also adds some other nice features. I have a permissionless “honored guest” rank in my guild for the people outside my guild that helped us claim the hall, which allowed them to use our vendors, or just visit without having to find a taxu.

Also, repping isn’t really tied to advancement any more. You now only gain favor from completing guild missions, which are content you would logically tag for. Outside of guild missions, tagging no longer gives that guild any benefits whatsoever, as that sort of contribution was moved to the treasury system so that guild advancement is less passive and generally more about teamwork. You donate mats to any guild you’re a part of, and do guild missions with them if you want to help them out. Not repping them doesn’t hurt them any more. You can easily rep your “main guild of close friends with no hall” while being part of a much larger guild that many small groups contribute to just to have access to guild hall benefits. You only need to tag if you want the benefits, so the situation is reversed. In stead of punishing a guild by not tagging, you’re punishing yourself by not tagging if that guild has passive benefits unlocked like WP cost reduction and other such things.

Bhima.9518:

PopeUrban.2578:

Bhima.9518:

PopeUrban.2578:

The fact that it does add so much in terms of a different way to play your class is exactly what makes it elite.

That is functionality that core specs simply don’t have. Core specs slightly alter the core class. Elite specs radically change it and offer options that are simply not there without them.

Gotta take all of this in context because, there are a lot of things here to parse. First, there are PLENTY of core specs that play drastically different from one another. I gave you the example of a staff ele spec versus a dagger/dagger ele spec. They play very differently, using different traits, weapons, heals and utilities. As does a bunker guardian versus a zerker meditation one. The reason why its easy for us to disregard the diversity we already have available is because we’ve had this exact same diversity for the past 3 years. That is a VERY long time to have played basically the same specs for, and the balance patches have made some changes here or there over the years, but have not fundamentally changed how the classes play.

I mean, take WoW as an example. There was a 2 year gap between Vanilla WoW and the Burning Crusade. Right before the xpac dropped, Blizzard fundamentally changed a hell of a lot of things about how each class played. In GW2, we’ve been playing with the same mechanics for about 3 years… that is a VERY long time to be playing the same systems. This I think is the reason you and others feel these elite specs are so special. And they are special simply because they are a long overdue, much needed injection of gameplay diversity. That doesn’t mean the older specs aren’t already diverse, they have just been played to death for the past 3 years is all.

Right, however a staff ele doesn’t need those traits to simply equip a staff, use utilities, use an elite, or use attunements. Those things all work exactly the same with minor buffs to extra conditions, effects, etc. no matter what three core lines you take. You don’t need to trait fire attunement to use fire attunement, or even for fire attunement to be decently effective on a given build. You don’t need to trait for staff for staff to be decent at doing the job it does.

Taking those traits to build a staff or d/d ele doesn’t fundamentally change the elementalist playstyle. You can run d/d on a staff trait build and you still get, aside from the staff trait itself, a completely usable package of benefits.

They make it more efficient, but it’s still only a slight alteration compared to "now you have these new mechanics, a new weapon, and new skills, but the catch is you can’t combine them with other such packages.

It has a much larger effect on the build than taking an existing spec, as existing specs, once learned, are either traits or lines of skills, not both plus a weapon.

The mechanics of dagger/dagger gameplay are VERY different than zerker staff. While you CAN play dagger/dagger even with a zerker staff build, it will feel extremely clunky, as you will not be able to swap attunements easily and you won’t have the Evasive Arcana mechanic (which, I would argue is just as fundamental to dagger/dagger play as Overload is for Tempest). Likewise, you can play a zerker staff with a dagger/dagger build, but it will feel VERY suboptimal since, for the most part you just camp fire with other attunements used as extremely situational.

Again, I think most of the same-y feel of the original core specs is simply a casualty of the amount of time we’ve already played them.

I understand your viewpoint, but it is from a backward-looking lens, while what I’m saying is more from a forward-looking one. I feel that once there are two choices for elite specs, the overall goals of the system will be much more clear to people. When you have to choose between overloads or, say, attunements being replaced with “aspects” of only one element with out of combat selection between them and maybe a sword, the impact of the elite spec system will be more apperant.

Tempest, and to some extent Daredevil are weak examples of of the elite spec system. They aren’t really build-defining specs. Looking at something like dragonhunter or druid however gives a much clearer picture of what separates an elite from a core spec. These add not only builds, but entire playstyles unavaliable to the base class without them, meaning that the next spec options will be a very meaningful choice compared to their core trait line choices.

Honestly I feel like the expansion would have been better if they simply had spent the time to develop revnant better and released with no new classes and two elite specs per class. Rev is really only a grab bag of mechanics that would have worked mostly fine as elite specs for existing classes anyway, and It’s my personal opinion that releases intended to “expand” a game should be less about requiring you to start it over again and more about actually expanding upon existing characters and content.

Bhima.9518:

PopeUrban.2578:

The fact that it does add so much in terms of a different way to play your class is exactly what makes it elite.

That is functionality that core specs simply don’t have. Core specs slightly alter the core class. Elite specs radically change it and offer options that are simply not there without them.

Gotta take all of this in context because, there are a lot of things here to parse. First, there are PLENTY of core specs that play drastically different from one another. I gave you the example of a staff ele spec versus a dagger/dagger ele spec. They play very differently, using different traits, weapons, heals and utilities. As does a bunker guardian versus a zerker meditation one. The reason why its easy for us to disregard the diversity we already have available is because we’ve had this exact same diversity for the past 3 years. That is a VERY long time to have played basically the same specs for, and the balance patches have made some changes here or there over the years, but have not fundamentally changed how the classes play.

I mean, take WoW as an example. There was a 2 year gap between Vanilla WoW and the Burning Crusade. Right before the xpac dropped, Blizzard fundamentally changed a hell of a lot of things about how each class played. In GW2, we’ve been playing with the same mechanics for about 3 years… that is a VERY long time to be playing the same systems. This I think is the reason you and others feel these elite specs are so special. And they are special simply because they are a long overdue, much needed injection of gameplay diversity. That doesn’t mean the older specs aren’t already diverse, they have just been played to death for the past 3 years is all.

Right, however a staff ele doesn’t need those traits to simply equip a staff, use utilities, use an elite, or use attunements. Those things all work exactly the same with minor buffs to extra conditions, effects, etc. no matter what three core lines you take. You don’t need to trait fire attunement to use fire attunement, or even for fire attunement to be decently effective on a given build. You don’t need to trait for staff for staff to be decent at doing the job it does.

Taking those traits to build a staff or d/d ele doesn’t fundamentally change the elementalist playstyle. You can run d/d on a staff trait build and you still get, aside from the staff trait itself, a completely usable package of benefits.

They make it more efficient, but it’s still only a slight alteration compared to "now you have these new mechanics, a new weapon, and new skills, but the catch is you can’t combine them with other such packages.

It has a much larger effect on the build than taking an existing spec, as existing specs, once learned, are either traits or lines of skills, not both plus a weapon.

HtFde.3856:

joric.1042:

250 HP is reasonable.

The amount is – in my oppinion – immaterial. It’s the way are are gathered – that method still sucks. I’d have much preferred to have a flat XP curve that would give you a HP once the bar is filled and have the HP (just like in the pre-HoT game) be a means of speeding HP acquisition up and a means for map completitionists.

So, like a “General heroics” mastry that basically did what the wvw books do every time it rolled over, and just repeated level 1.

I can dig that. Choose to either put your xp toward masteries or hero points. I would limit it to core hero points though, as after the change those 5 remaining masteries are now the intended “minimum HoT requirement”

That would give people the ability to do a short stint on 10 point challenges, and get enough through “general heroics” to unlock one elite spec, which seems reasonable ina world of multiple elite specs where you have an alt that you don’t really care about having more options than one build.

Zaoda.1653:

Would be cool to have some lighting decorations too – like a ‘glow bug’ lantern for example.

Also it would be nice to have a way of showing some weapons you’ve unlocked like in GW1 hall of monuments. Perhaps have legendaries you’ve unlocked on display? Or for example, with Bifrost, you could unlock a painting that you can hang on a wall, and the picture is actually animated, like you’re looking into another world. It could have a day and night cycle and everything!

The guild I’m in is only a very small guild but it’s nice because it’s more 1 on 1 conversation than some of the bigger guilds, but anyway what I’m getting at is the decision we’ve come to where we’ll all decide on a piece of land/area in the Guild Hall (gilded hollow in our case) that will be our own personal space. So things like this would be perfect for setting up your own weapon/armor display case/s, showing what you’ve accomplished etc.

I like the idea of weapon and armor stands. Just a recipie for the stand itself, and a recipie of stand+item for the decoration.

This seems like some more easy to implement re-use of existing assets for great effect. How cool would it be to have a “legendary armory” to encourage people to craft legendaries they can’t even use, or an epic shrine to raid completion with the boss statue surrounded by every skin her drops. Heck, how about little terrariums for minis too? than you can toss the minis in there.

Or, wait… what if minis could just plain be “set free” in the hall as decorations and added removed from an anchoring “food bowl” object?

Bhima.9518:

PopeUrban.2578:

Runiir.6425:

As has been said multiple times, don’t call it elite. It is not “elite”. Elite is a title given to an alpha class, as in…if you are a reaper you will slaughter every single individual in PvP that isn’t also an elite of some kind without even trying. THAT is elite. This is nothing more than another option, that frankly shouldn’t cost a single HP more than any other spec line.

It’s not elite because it makes you OP. It’s elite because of the level of what it grants you compared to core specs. It’s elite because you would be OP if you could take two of them at the same time.

It’s an “elite specialization” not a “specialization that makes you elite”

Again, this doesn’t make any sense since, well… we have no idea what future specializations will look like, nor do we know if, when they do come, we will be able to take the new spec and a spec from HoT. I ask you, what does the new spec grant you compared to the core specs BESIDES just another way to play your class?

The fact that it does add so much in terms of a different way to play your class is exactly what makes it elite.

That is functionality that core specs simply don’t have. Core specs slightly alter the core class. Elite specs radically change it and offer options that are simply not there without them.

We do know, exactly that the reason for making the distinction between core and elite specs was because we can’t take two at once, as it allows them to add mechanics or weapons that would be unbalanced if you could take two, and means they are much easier to balance and add interesting effects to future specs.

For example, take the dragonhunter’s traps. If a future elite spec grants guardians a series of shadowstep utilities, allowing the guardian to have both traps, a 1200 range weapon, and shadowsteps on their bar would be a balance problem, effectively creating a combination of effects that would be completely unbalanced and preventing them from adding that sort of mechanics in a guardian spec.

The single spec system is also part of the reason elite specs can make changes to core mechanics. You couldn’t really design two elite specs that both replace death shroud.

It’s very similar to the elite skill slot in many ways. It is a balanced, but powerful option. Powerful enough that stacking it would be OP, but not so powerful that taking only one would overshadow all other options.

Runiir.6425:

As has been said multiple times, don’t call it elite. It is not “elite”. Elite is a title given to an alpha class, as in…if you are a reaper you will slaughter every single individual in PvP that isn’t also an elite of some kind without even trying. THAT is elite. This is nothing more than another option, that frankly shouldn’t cost a single HP more than any other spec line.

It’s not elite because it makes you OP. It’s elite because of the level of what it grants you compared to core specs. It’s elite because you would be OP if you could take two of them at the same time.

It’s an “elite specialization” not a “specialization that makes you elite”

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

PopeUrban.2578:

Gotchaz.7865:

Mastery you can work on anytime, there’s no bouncy mushrooms in WVW lol

I’m actually pretty sad that they didn’t add glider and mushroom mechanics to WvW.

They should really tie those in to the wvw ranking system at the low levels or something so they can design maps around cool new mechanics like that. I’d love to see, once they have enough borderland maps to have each borderland be a different one, a floating islands style BL with gliders, anti-air cannons, rank buffs to allow bombing from gliders or air vehicle upgrades from the new guild tactics system etc. Gliders would make a EOTM style map a lot more fun and tactically interesting.

Well, in reality something like that could gate WvW from not HoT players, particularly a floating island map.

Mainly though, a flying TC blob is the 2nd most terrifying image I can imagine.

You misunderstand. I’m saying that in stead of masteries, stuff like that for use in wvw maps is tied to wvw ranks.

So, glider upgrades and such things in WvW would be from early wvw ranks (which were the original masteries really), not HoT masteries. That would mean players with a lot of WvW under their belt would have them already, and new players would spend a little time without them to better learn maps and core WvW mechanics.

That would allow them to design WvW maps when they add new mechanics like gliding, and use those mechanics without requiring people to go do hefty amounts of PvE to use them in WvW.

BeardRex.6739:

A better solution would have been to have the training unlock utility skills first, then traits. That would have fixed Herald’s issue as well.

It would have been extremely uneven for some specs (like daredevil) that lean way harder on their traits than their utilities.

There’s no way, given the diversity of the specs, to make it fair aside from adjusting the point costs.

I was okay with the 400 point cost (as a daredevil that couldn’t really use my build without getting the GM traits) but I think the 250 is a nice compromise. it awards and requires effort, but is more respectful of previous accomplishments without completely becoming a trivial task on a per character basis.

It’s absolutely still not an instant gratification system. It just rewards existing accomplishments better and shifts future ones in to a “bank” for future rewards so they feel less gated and better paced to do on your own time.

Honestly, I don’t understand why the mastry system isn’t simply unlocked by being level 80 and owning HoT.

HoT masteries require play in HoT zones, so they’re already effectively “locked” until you progress that story to where you’d actually use them.

The other mastry lines aren’t, however, tied to story progression or any lore at all, so it doesn’t make sense, especially for new players that might want to do their personal story, LS2 (which, as new players they had to pay for) and possibly a reworked LS1 if they ever get around it it, before HoT in order to not spoil the story for themselves.

It seems like a bad idea to require new players to “skip ahead” in the storyline before they’ve even killed zhaitan just to avoid wasting their XP.

Akath.2650:

I know that many people is excited for that, because they want their Revenant running around as Herald or even a new player/character wants their hands on the elite spec, but for those who completed Central Tyria Hero Points, 250 points means almost full elite specialization unlocked… Which means that for those who explored the Core Guild Wars 2, unlocking the elite specialization will no longer be a challenge or even feel like an accomplishment. Thanks all

It’s more about awarding your previous accomplishment (all those otherwise useless core hero points) by giving you a much larger head start.

It’s still totally about character accomplishment, it’s just much more about choosing how you prioritize that accomplishment now. More elite specs are coming, and the next spec will also serve as your reward for doing all those HoT hero challenges.

This means when specs are released they reward your previous effort, rather than putting you in a place where your previous efforts feel less rewarded. Now in stead of feeling like you have to do a bunch of hero points in HoT, and feeling like a gate for highly accomplished characters, it feels much more like a reward for previous accomplishments, meaning you feel like the remaining hero points you’re putting in to the bank for the next one feel like a journey rather than a race, as you know they’ll pay off well, but that the payoff will be far enough in the future you don’t feel incentivized to rush them. This makes them feel much more natural as things locked behind masteries, which are also much longer term and less rushed progression systems. Now in stead of being mad you have to grind nuoch mastery, you’re happy when you get a nice HP bonus a a result of getting the nuoch mastery because you wanted the line rather than needed it much faster than you actually wanted to level it.

For new characters or those who haven’t accomplished much, they still have a hefty amount of work in front of them to achieve that spec, but they have more options as far as what heriocs they want to undertake to reach it.

Legendaries are, and always have been, intended to require you go go all over the game, and spend lots of time and money to acquire.

That’s why they’re completely optional equipment that isn’t technically better than the much easier to acquire ascended equivalent in terms of raw character power.

Gotchaz.7865:

Mastery you can work on anytime, there’s no bouncy mushrooms in WVW lol

I’m actually pretty sad that they didn’t add glider and mushroom mechanics to WvW.

They should really tie those in to the wvw ranking system at the low levels or something so they can design maps around cool new mechanics like that. I’d love to see, once they have enough borderland maps to have each borderland be a different one, a floating islands style BL with gliders, anti-air cannons, rank buffs to allow bombing from gliders or air vehicle upgrades from the new guild tactics system etc. Gliders would make a EOTM style map a lot more fun and tactically interesting.

Tommyknocker.6089:

Can we just stop calling them "elite specs " FKS (for kittens sake)!

They are alternate play style, they are no more elite than any other extra trait line with a new weapon. Continuing to refer to them as elite is a misnomer and propagating the fact is just getting asinine at this point. Unlocking them should be an accomplishment yes, but no more so than unlocking your other trait lines/weapons/utilities IMO.

They are elite specs specifically because you can only ever take one at a time, and unlike core specs the actually confer more mechanical changes and grant skills and weapons you can only use when equipping them.

They may not feel particularly elite now, but once the second spec is released that term will make a lot more sense. Their power is extreme enough that taking two would be OP. That’s what makes them elite.

They’re elite not because of any raw mechanical power they add, but because of the level of what they add to a character compared to core specs. They’re simply “better” than core specs because of the shift in playstyle they can add to a character, a thing that core spec lines don’t do.

I was okay with the 400 point unlock, but a whole lot of people weren’t, so I can unerstand why anet went this direction. It’s a compromise that keeps the progression element, but adequately addresses the percieved lack of reward for doing all those old world hero points, and gives people the option of getting in to Hot and playing it with a fully functional elite spec on their belived and most accomplished characters.

It’s a good half measure. They’re still retaining the idea that the elites require significant play investment in a character, but better rewarding preparation and giving options.

I would have been sad to see them go account bound or permanent unlocks, but this method is pretty alright. You still have to put in a good amount of effort on a character to hit that unlock, but if you already put in a lot of effort it’s better rewarded now, and if it isn’t you have good options for the current and future elite specs. Get them fast by doing more challenging content, or get them slow by doing a lot of core points and a few easy 10 point challenges.

This means, as we move forward and more and more elite specs are released, you have good options for alts, and good long term progressions for characters you care about having every single one.

250 is a pretty nice sweet spot for still keeping it a meaningful amount of progression, but not making that progression feel like a lengthy gate with not much choice in how to accomplish it.

CuteLilKittenHugz.2064:

As someone with 4 accounts and 22 alts, 250hp per alt still gated behind masteries is barely a compromise. I’ll reserve my “thank you” for when it goes account-bound like access to PvP, WvW and dailies.

It’s a perfect compromise IMO. It still requires significant investment in a character (which is the point) but better rewards preparatory action. The major problem with 400 wasn’t that it didn’t let you instantly unlock an elite for characters who hadn’t spent any time collecting hero points. It was that it really made the effort of collecting hero points over the previous cap (playing that character and completing content) unrewarding.

This change still requires/rewards hero point progression, but it does a better job of rewarding players that had significant amounts of hero points “in the bank” from doing otherwise unrewarding content in core tyria, and sets a precedent for further elite specs. You still have a compelling reason to get the rest of those HoT hero points now as you know you’ll have done so preparing to very quickly unlock the next elite, so it feels less like a gate and more like a choice.

You chose to roll 22 alts and not actually progress them along the metric that you’ve known for months was tied to unlocking them. Requiring people to put in effort to progress a character is not a broken system. Allowing people to subvert “endgame” progression completely would be. 22 Alts is the very definition of repetitive content, which you opted in to of your own accord. Complaining that your repetitive play pattern remains repetitive is silly.

I thought the way it worked was that is “freezes” your participation, but if you tag another mob before the event ends you still get your full gold reward.

Other than that, I think maybe freezing the timer when you are dead/extending it when you waypoint while dead would be a good adjustment. Overall I haven’t run in to problems where I’m not getting event credit I feel i should be getting.

I like the change for the trait lines and skills, but honestly think the final skin and rune unlock should remain at 400.

I think they could leave the damage and effects alone, but for PvE give it bonus break bar damage so it’d have a unique use.

Like, double the break bar damage from its 2 CC hits and add a stun-level breakbar hit to the end.

This would allow it to be used in PvE to basically insta-break normal mobs, or deliver a massive break bar spike to champs+mobs, giving thieves a good reason to take it in PvE.

recipie is account bound. It’s sort of like the LS2 achievements adding stuff to the SW vendors. You level a scrapper, and you can now get the recipie from the vendor for anyone on your acct, same for all the other elite spec runes.

Also, scrapper runes are great. I’ve started using unicorn in PvP again, and with lotus, scrapper runes, and that evade buff they added to deathblossom I can really stand toe to toe with other builds now by just playing defensively. It’s a much more fun build to play now, as you make openings and do 2 or 3 deathblossoms when you land a stun, and save some init so you can react to their attacks with a db, evading it and stacking more bleeds, while the lotus daggers give you some passive pressure, increase your damage and keep them crippled to keep fights close while the scrapper runes compliment the extra HP from carrior runes and top off your white damage so you can get some decent numbers from heartseeker to finish off low HP guys.

TheSwede.9512:

Sniper’s Melee Knockback is a bit overtuned in terms of damage, considering it also does CC and has a 1/4s activation time. That is the only thing that needs to be taken down a notch, and not necesserily damage. I’d rather it had a lengthier activation time so that IF it hits me, it’s my own fault.

On another note, Stalkers do need to be looked at. I believe they can’t be interrupted during their Flurry Channel, even Normal and Veterans, but that might be a mistake on my part. Aside from that, their flurry is what deals damage and as long as you see it coming (Always after a Shadowstep) dodging through them is a solid 1-2 seconds of free hits.

Meanwhile, Punishers could use some come-uppance, they pale too much in comparison to their peers in term of threat. Their slow attacks are almost impossible to miss, and they’re not all too powerful even when they do hit. Give them an Immobilize or a Stun to make them more dangerous while you’re at it.

I think the punishers are alirght, similar to the corruptors they’re really much more dangerous in packs of mordrem. If they were tuned much shorter they’d nearly lock out the ability to melee in larger mordrem fights. As they are now, the wind up with groups of them gives melee fighters enough time to find reposition and stay in the fight, even when there are 7 or 8 of them, but it doesn’t simply force range like corruptors as much as it makes you remain mindful of positioning and punishes you for not getting your footwork right in melee.

Mordrem guard seem designed to fight in groups, and in that context they compliment each other really well and make fights interesting.

I feel like the pacing of masteries, hero points, the content and all is totally reasonable progression pace, I also kind of agree with this.

I think, perhaps, there should be incentives to gain mastry in the proper places, but not a hard lockout. Like, to progress HoT masteries, you can go and get full XP in HoT maps, or half exp everywhere else since you’re more “practicing” than “learning”

They’re fine (even the champions)

Their big hits, like like the trolls, give you a very noticable icon that says “prepare to get defensive” and their smaller attacks have obvious tells.

Like many of the HoT mobs, they punish poor play and not paying attnetion but have a number of easy counters.

Thread should be about mordrem bombers. Those things are nearly uncounterable. they go spawn>superspeed rush> explode with no wind up. If in stead theier rush had a knockdown and then the exposions had a windup it would make them counterable (stunbreak)

They could also be vulnerable like the mini-shadows in LS2, and just take knockback from normal attacks, which would also balance them.

I’ve had the battle for tarir music stuck in my head for days now. I hum it while driving to ward off road rage and pretend the stupid other people in cars just have 15 slime stacks so I have to go around them.

Got our hall last night, and looking through the options I was a little dissapointed with the lack of hut/housing assets. The tents are cool, but given the, quite frankly, MASSIVE (great job arenanet!) amount of usable decoration area I think it would be great if some of the smaller hut/house assets could be repurposed to function as decorations.

Seems to be right up there with the kind of stuff the scribing notebook (did that make it in? haven’t started scribing yet) can cover. There’s a lot of water in the gilded hollow and I’d love to spruce up some of our beaches with those southsun assets.

In fact, I think a great way to go about suggestions at the moment is just to address the same sort of “low hanging fruit” just by looking at assets already in the game. The art on those is already done so they’d be faster to implement, mostly needing design of crafting interactions.

With regional assets, maybe even tying them in to regional currencies/items could give another shot of vitality to core tyria alongside the map reward system? E.G. map reward tracks for, say, the shiverpeaks rewarded shiverpeaks badges needed to produce any norn style shiverpeaks decorations?

Guild xp is awarded as you unlock things, and that xp progresses your guild level.

Your guild level controls what upgrades you can choose from next, so if there’s an upgrade you want, and you can’t get it yet, you’ll need to first finish one of the upgrades avaliable to you.

Bonus guild xp and unique statues were awarded to guilds who leveled the various things in the old system, so they will start at a higher guild level, but all guilds can only access the anvil and merchant upgrades until a guild hall is claimed.

All upgrades beyond those two require your guild to first claim a hall. You’ll need to complete one guild mission for the favor (or trade is spare influence for it if you have enough) and a hundred gold to fund the expedition, then you’ll have to take the place from mordrem.

Once you have your hall, you can progress with upgrades, starting with the tavern.

Oh man, they made a sequel to project wumpus!

The central tyria masteries can only be progressed in central tyria, but as “core” masteries, their effects apply everywhere.

The Hot masteries don’t apply in central tyria because their effects mostly address things that don’t exist there, and it would have broken old content to allow gliders to function there.

You should be able to wear your mentor tag and run your loot vaccum in magumma

There is most certainly crafting, and as luck would have it if you enjoy crafting, it is also the most reliable way to get best in slot gear!

Neural.1824:

If I run past a dead person, it’s usually because I’m running from the reason they are dead.

I make an effort to run towards where a downed player is, and will make an effort to keep them from becoming fully dead.

This is a major problem with GW2 though. For all this “wonderful community” we’re supposed to have, the majority won’t even stop to rez a downed player. Never mind issues with scaling, etc. in regards to fully dead players, but people are so intensely selfish they won’t even stop to help a downed player that isn’t even being attacked.

Keep in mind that the massive unselfishness inherent in the design and community of the game is the only thing that makes this sort of thing suprising.

In no other game would you bat an eye at a player running past you and not assisting you, but because you’re so accustomed to people actually doing so, you now equate “busy” with “intensely selfish”

This is still the friendliest community I’ve ever encountered in an MMO. The problem is that that friendliness has bred an expectation of behavior above and beyond that which is actually reasonable by some people.

Nobody ever owes you a favor. That’s why it’s called a favor. They aren’t being selfish. You’re expecting too much of them.

Lord Kuru.3685:

PopeUrban.2578:

if you could get hero banners or whatever cheaper from the initiative than from your own hall, who would ever do the upgrade in the hall right?

Previously, you had guild bounty trainings which gave a decent amount of influence. That’s no more.

As for the quoted portion above: you want people to build guild halls? Give them positive incentives to do so. Don’t take away what people previously had in order to force them to build the halls.

Previously you could buy influence with gold, and got it for people just logging in.

It isn’t that things were taken away in a relative sense. It’s that they redesigned the entire system to award guilds for working together to achieve objectives rather than rewarding size and a fat pile of gold.

They didn’t take away anything you already had, but they did put existing guilds in the same boat as brand new ones in terms of what kind of effort is required to get new unlocks or continue to produce consumables.

Expecting to retain the easse of production or upgrading from the old system when that system does not in any way exist any more would create a massive imbalance between legacy guilds and guilds started by people new to the game, and that’s just plain not fair to new players.

As it stands, the systems were equalized, and legacy guilds still have some slight bonus features in comparison in the form of spending excess favor on consumables.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

As a non HoT guild owner, any discussion on long term effect of the Guild changes would be a moot point for me. I have been removed from them.

I’ve tried to be “non political” on this thread, but honestly, I am mad enough and stubborn enough never to purchase HoT. Having my Guild functional again would have been the sole reason left to buy it. Sorry.

If, as the leader of a guild, you don’t find enough value in the expansion to buy it, perhaps it’s working as intended?

Arenanet has been pretty clear that the majority of the new systems in HoT were the groundwork for where the game is headed in the future. That doesn’t just mean new systems, but a re-affirmation of the buy to play model.

It sounds like you’re a person that doesn’t like the future direction of GW2, so it begs the question: Should you be leading a guild going forward if you’re unlikely to lead players in GW2’s new progression model?

HoT was designed around longevity for the game from Anet’s perspective. The guild hall, masteries, elite specs, and virtually every system in HoT is the blueprint for everything that follows. It makes sense that they would expect anyone leading groups of players going forward to be on board with that model.

Some people don’t like the new model, and I doubt Anet was unaware that with changes of this magnitude that they ran the risk of alienating some portion of their player base. That’s just inevitable when implementing something the size of the guild mechanics revamp. Their metrics likely indicated that catering to players unlikely to continue to play the game under that new model was simply not worth the design problems it would cause for the new systems.

I think very soon here some portion of the community is going, like when they implemented ascended in 2012, to have to internalize that this is not going anywhere, and going to have to make the choice to adapt or go find another game.

If anet is prepared to stay the course (and every indication is that they are) then they were also completely prepared to lose the players they know that course would alienate.

Didn’t they change the commander tag to require wvw badges when they upped the price and made it account wide, kinda specifically indicating it was intended for WvW purposes?

I understand that people bought it before that change, and many people used it for pve “commanding” in the absence of other options, but stop a moment and consider that the mentor tag being easier to obtain is intentional. Consider Anet doesn’t want people to have to go get a bunch of badges and toss off 300 gold just to coordinate teq, or run a champ train, or bounty, or whatever.

If you’re upset because you wouldn’t have bought a commander tag if mentoring had been avaliable to you, it’s understandable, but that commander tag has a specific function and abilities the mentor tag does not, and they justify its price point.

Just because you don’t use the dvd player, power windows, and aftermarket stereo in your car doesn’t mean the car should sell for cheaper.

Mentor tag was specifically implemented to fill a gap that the commander tag was never really designed for in the first place.

Honestly, I think they should just give the current owners the option of refunding them to the NPC. Problem solved!

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

PopeUrban.2578:

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

If you are non HoT there is 0 that you can do to progress your guild or even get back the upgrades you already had. You will have a guild bank, if unlocked before, and whatever banners/consumables you had built (with no means to build more).

Do non-HoT guild leaders not have the option to register with the guild initiative and get the NPC that seels banners and other such unlocks for favor?

I’m asking because I honestly don’t know. I preordered HoT, and on release day I registered with the guild initiative, and in the guild initiative office there’s an NPC that sells everything I had unlocks to build for favor. I can still get banners, yak banks, catas, etc. even though we haven’t claimed our hall yet. Can non-HoT guilds not use their previous upgrades from the old system the same way?

Yes, a non HoT guild can buy unlocked consumables.. not upgrades. At 300- 500 favor each, 10k influence = 50 favor, it isn’t a viable option for many guilds.

Honestly the price has to be compared to scribe crafting rather than old influence costs.

At work now, but IIRC basic banners were what, like 200 favor, which is half a guild mission. That seems pricey, but only in comparison to the old influence cost. Anyone have scribe and upgrades enough to see how that stacks up to scribe crafted banners?

Also note that you can still get all the things via commendations, and commendations are far easier to come by in the new system, since there is literally zero resource cost to mission failure or starting a mission there’s really no reason not to run 3 missions a week for 3-7 commendations per person. Fail the mission? just run it again. Missed the guild run of the mission? Run it again later. They don’t cost anything.

All in all Anet seems to have gone out of their way to stop the free ride on guild stuff, making those items more valuable across the board. You can’t just build banners because people logged in any more. You have to do stuff, either materials, guild missions, etc. to get anything out of the new system, guild hall or no guild hall.

I’ll admit it does kinda suck that those without a hall can’t upgrade further but I understand why they did it. It would have been kind of impossible to tie guild halls to all the upgrade advancement while simultaneously allowing those upgrades to continue to happen without a hall. Nobody would build a hall, even with HoT.

Similarly, the favor cost of banners and stuff is likely unattractive specifically to make investing in the hall upgrades worth it. if you could get hero banners or whatever cheaper from the initiative than from your own hall, who would ever do the upgrade in the hall right?

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

If you are non HoT there is 0 that you can do to progress your guild or even get back the upgrades you already had. You will have a guild bank, if unlocked before, and whatever banners/consumables you had built (with no means to build more).

Do non-HoT guild leaders not have the option to register with the guild initiative and get the NPC that seels banners and other such unlocks for favor?

I’m asking because I honestly don’t know. I preordered HoT, and on release day I registered with the guild initiative, and in the guild initiative office there’s an NPC that sells everything I had unlocks to build for favor. I can still get banners, yak banks, catas, etc. even though we haven’t claimed our hall yet. Can non-HoT guilds not use their previous upgrades from the old system the same way?

Your morality does not change the EULA you agreed to.

You broke the rules and lost your HoT key.

It doesn’t matter whether you think it’s right or wrong, that’s just what happened.

For the record, key reselling is actively moving developers to raise prices and offer less sales on software because it is costing them full price sales. The kinguin key you got was paid for at retailer price, which is a lower price point than consumer price specifically to compensate the retailer for their costs, or from a consumer who specifically agreed to buying a non-transferable software license, and had no right to sell it in the first place.

If price is your complaint, you’re actually part of the problem. If you don’t believe a developer deserves the asking price for a game, don’t buy the game, and force them to come up on quality or go down on the asking price. Second party sale sites don’t encourage developers to make better games or offer them cheaper. They just encourage them to raise prices and cancel sales to recoup lost income.

I would counter with

“What’s with people lying around waiting for a rez for fifteen minutes in these maps?”

Waypoints are further spaced specifically because they removed repair costs from the game, to make death hurt more. You see this trend from orr onward.

The problem is with people treating a rez as an expectation.

If I see you die in front of me? I’ll probably rez you. If I see you go down? I’ll probably rez you.

If rezzing you means diving in to a situation that would likely kill me as well? I’m not going to rez you until after the threat is dealt with, even if it means watching you go from downed to dead. I can rez you after the mobs are dead. I can not rez you if I am also dead.

If I have already rezzed you three times in the fight, and you’ve gone down within ten seconds of the last time I rezzed you? I’m going to stop rezzing you. It is a waste of my time and your armor durability. Your build obviously doesn’t have to tools to get back to fighting shape and continue this particular encounter, and it’s going to be over faster for both of us if I just keep fighting.

If you’re just lying there when I show up? I’m going to assume you died soloing and either went AFK, or are the type of person that finds your 3 silver more valuable than my time and has been lying around for 10 minutes harassing people rather than just taking the failure and waypointing.

I’ve never had problems catching a rez in situations where I died actively contributing to an event or helping people. I also haven’t had problems catching a rez after I fell off of something or bit off more than I can chew in a fight because I don’t assume it is everyone’s sworn duty to rez me when I make a fatal mistake. I see if anyone is around, and if it doesn’t looking like they’re clearing mobs to rez me, or coming over to do so, I assume that they have better things to do and own my mistake.

Ataraxis.6098:

Devildoc.6721:

A lot of people hate begging for help with things and dragging people, even their friends, out to the middle of nowhere to help them do something they can’t do on their own.

It’s one thing if it’s mutually beneficial, but it’s another entirely when I’m asking someone to go out of their way to help me.

But hey, who you are as an individual doesn’t matter. You should just be like the Pope there and suck it up and your life will be cake.

Btw, maybe I’m a little slow, but where is the S in MMORPG? You know, S for social, the Pope tells me that all those words that have nothing to do with being social still means social somehow. I’ve never understood why some people think the words multiplayer and social are synonyms.

In general, the word multiplayer assumes the base design of the game requires multiple players for the design to work. That doesn’t mean expecting people to sign blood pacts, but, honestly, if making even temporary friends (or having friends from your life outside of the game) feels like a chore for a person, I don’t see how primarily multiplayer cooperative experiences of any sort appeal to that person.

The primary lesson Arenanet learned from GW1 was that when you give people the option to completely ignore multiplayer interactions they do so, often to the absolute detriment of your design. When you encourage them to work together, that design tends to have a lot more longevity simply due to the social factor.

People have become used to this idea of other players in GW2 as resources rather than people specifically because of GW2’s over the top cooperative design. When you know a group of people showing up near you is a ticket to a free ride even if you’re being outright hostile to them, it removes any incentive to actually interact with them in a positive manner. The fact is people have adjusted to this assumption that a faceless pile of other people will always show up to cover them.

HoT’s event and hero point designs specifically subvert that by spreading out the player base significantly, removing the certainty that things will just get done through sheep force of numbers to loot efficiency. Things will get done, but in any given cycle there are so many things that need to be done there is never a guarantee that the thing you personally want to get done will happen.

If the idea of having people on a friends list, or guild roster, or asking around to see if anyone else needs to do the thing you also need to do or whatever feels like something you have to “Suck it up” to do, I can understand why that design is disappointing.

It’s my personal belief that that kind of social interaction is what makes MMOs different than other sorts of games, and that at some level it’s integral to the DNA of the genre, no matter how wild or different the combat, gear, or whatever other systems are.

You are obviously of a different opinion, and that’s completely valid. I just don’t empathize with or even quite understand that point of view.

Devildoc.6721:

PopeUrban.2578:

Devildoc.6721:

The only problem I have with this train of thought Anet has taken.. is that what happens when the zones are less populated and you can’t find people to do them with?

Will everyone just have to train through wvw/eotm to get their elite specs?

Or people could make friends in a social game and help each other.

When you say “everyone” what you’re really saying is “people who insist on treating a multiplayer game like a single player game”

It’s good to have friends, it always has been, and doing anything with some like minded others is pretty much always more fun.

MMOs generally revolve around the assumption that you bring or make friends. GW2’s systems were made as cooperative as possible to make sure it was easier to make friends, by removing most of the stress points where other players could interfere with your play. At worst they can ignore you, at best, they help you out.

I know people don’t want to hear this, but really, try talking to people, saying thank you when they help you, and forming social ties with other players.

A lot of people hate begging for help with things and dragging people, even their friends, out to the middle of nowhere to help them do something they can’t do on their own.

It’s one thing if it’s mutually beneficial, but it’s another entirely when I’m asking someone to go out of their way to help me.

I suppose we have very different kinds of friends. Usually my friends are happy to help get the entire group on the “same page” even at the cost of their personal advancement, so we can then advance together.

I think a lot of the disappointment that certain people have with HoT really is that sense of rush. Like, they don’t really enjoy the way GW2 expects people to actually enjoy running around maps, stumbling in to things, etc. and would rather be led on a more direct course with a clear progression.

That’s valid, but, at least to me, the advancement systems in HoT feel like a natural extension of how the pve already operated. Masteries are more useful achievements Hero points are more useful skill points. Both are generally paced longer, but short enough that you make meaningful progress per play session in terms of map completion, hero point advancement, mastries, etc. With increased difficulty befitting the expections of people that have exhausted the core content.

What would have really been a disappointment would have been a paid expansion that simply offered more of the same. I like that HoT pushes social interaction more. Core GW2 could be a very lonely game even with all the people running around. The game naturally encouraged people to help one another when they stumbled in to each other, but it did nothing to encourage them to actually adventure together as the design simply funneled everyone in to these big faceless zergs where any individual player’s contributions to your success were completely unnoticable, and thus everyone around you sort of became this ever present blur.

Devildoc.6721:

The only problem I have with this train of thought Anet has taken.. is that what happens when the zones are less populated and you can’t find people to do them with?

Will everyone just have to train through wvw/eotm to get their elite specs?

Or people could make friends in a social game and help each other.

When you say “everyone” what you’re really saying is “people who insist on treating a multiplayer game like a single player game”

It’s good to have friends, it always has been, and doing anything with some like minded others is pretty much always more fun.

MMOs generally revolve around the assumption that you bring or make friends. GW2’s systems were made as cooperative as possible to make sure it was easier to make friends, by removing most of the stress points where other players could interfere with your play. At worst they can ignore you, at best, they help you out.

I know people don’t want to hear this, but really, try talking to people, saying thank you when they help you, and forming social ties with other players.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Pink Ninja Man.4375:

DeceiverX.8361:

You can’t spend it; influence has been completely retired as a system.

Incorrect there are ways to spend it but you can no longer earn it. I believe there are mine upgrades or you can purchase favor with it. These are limited by so much per day or week.

You cannot spend less than 10k, and the OP is pointing out that this useless amount of influence will stay on your guild panel, perhaps forever.

This. if less than 10k is unspendable, it would be awesome if it just went away from the panel for the sake of clarity.

It is worth learning to craft bags if you’re in a guild however. bags are one of the many, many weird and esoteric things required in the new upgrade system. But for personal bags? go candy corn or fractals.

DeWolfe.2174:

PopeUrban.2578:

In general you don’t need to buy as much stuff with the map rewards system in place. you can actually go earn your own stuff and skip the TP altogether now.

LOL, this advice is basically a “Can I haz ur stuf?” as it’s not at all correct. I really can’t even believe you’d mention map rewards. They are next to worthless in this game.

Look, if you did not like the economy before, do yourself a favor and not even install again. I’m telling you flat out straight, they screwed the economy today and it’s going to take some time to unkitten it.

They fixed the economy for everyone that isn’t a massive hoarder or serial speed runner IMO. They nerfed outliers and buffed general play.

The OP seems to be in the section of the population that they buffed.

Glad to hear it’s a bug, even though I’m pretty bummed you can’t hotfix it.

As such, there is no trader in the initiative office any more.

My remaining influence, however, is still listed on the guild panel.

We’re probably not running our expedition until next week, so I’m going to ask anet or other GMs:

Can I get rid of this influence with mine upgrades and stuff, or will it just sit there on the panel for eternity now, annoying me as a completely pointless number?

Palleon.1657:

Ive put 100 points into Dragon Hunter, and was sent a Bow in the mail. But I cant use it, it just says that my class does not allow it. Ive learnt Longbow Proficiency and the one after that – so do I need to get all the skills in Dragonhunter unlocked before I can try the class?

Elite specs are specializations AKA trait lines.

You need to switch the bottom trait line (the elite slot) to drangonhunter to use dragonhunter features like the bow or dragonhunter skills.

Amante.8109:

I seem to recall hearing some dev chatter about 4s revealed in PvP potentially being unnecessary these days, but I can’t remember from who.

To be fair it was always unnecessary, but if they revert it I might actually play p/d in pvp again. with 4s revealed the rotation timing is way too weird to play right without having to constantly eyeball revealed.

With 3s it’s sneak attack>3 autos>revealed over

With 4s it’s more like sneak attack>3 autos>cancel your auto with a stealth like halfway after the last one but before the next one

It totally screwed up the internal timing and I never played it in sPvp again, despite it being probably my favorite pvp build.

Menadena.7482:

PopeUrban.2578:

Devildoc.6721:

Yeah but doing events we’ve done hundreds or thousands of times before already just isn’t fun.

Well, I mean, that’s part and parcel for the genre unfortunately. in a perfect world game developers could put out content faster than we could eat it up, but in reality that’s just not possible, so at some point you’re gonna be repeating stuff

They have content they can use but are not though. There is absolutely no reason why the xp from the Halloween events can not be used.

Totally agree with this point. Halloween content should totally progress core masteries, or its own set of masteries. I could see festival masteries working for recurring temporary events like halloween, so you’d have maybe better loot next halloween or whatever. The mastry system pretty much necessitates that all content be handing out some form of mastry XP, or it becomes a really uneven system.

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

I can’t honestly think of a way to do that that doesn’t also make old content obsolete as new content and masteries are added. L

Possibly if it was done well. But it wasn’t. What has ANET done to populate Southsun ?

What is the value in pushing lots of people into repeating living story instances ?

Dungeons are going to be pretty dead as ANET killed the reason people did them and didn’t give them any mastery points.

What’s the harm in letting old content become obsolete ?

It makes ever larger portions of your game world literally a waste of time and development effort, and generally means there is less overall content players want to do.

Content obsolescence is a huge problem in themepark mmos specifically for this reason. There’s nothing fun about having a world that is 80% completely devoid of other players, or having zones that literally get “used up” and never returned to again. It’s makes it very difficult to get new players in to the game the longer the game has been around, and generally makes the experience more grindy by basically shoehorning vereran players in to very small sections of content and encouraging them to avoid most of your world and just do only the one newest zone, dungeon, raid, or whatever.

I don’t agree with the treatment of dungeons and would have preferred to see them fixed rather than abandoned, but I understand from an economic standpoint why they felt it was better to focus on fractals, since the fractal system tends to let them make smaller chunks of content that tend to scale far longer in terms of player interest. Dungeons are exactly the kind of content obsolescence that needs to be avoided, and that the region locked mastry system is actually trying to avoid.

AzureWolf.9150:

Hopefully this is something ArenaNet will address in the future. There are a lot of “personal” guilds out there. Mine is also a small one of “real life” friends and having to get enough of us together to “storm” a place to get a guild hall is…disappointing.

They already specifically states that it is not somthing they intend to address as the concept of “personal guilds” or calling less than five people a “guild” is not something they want to continue to support systemically.

They made conscious decisions in the redesign of the system to actively discourage the idea of guilds composed of less than a group’s worth of players that can play together at once.

It may not feel great, and you may not agree with it, but they were pretty clear that they wanted to define the concept of a GW2 guild as “at least a group’s worth of players that regularly does content together” and purposely redesigned the entire guild upgrade system to reward playing together rather than just having more people logging on, or more money to burn.

I don’t think they’re going to address it because from their perspective what they’d done is a fix to the guild systems.