Guild Wars 2

Well that’s what I said in my first post, that it would only work on NPC’s right?

Heck yeah this would be great if that is the case. More actual interaction with the races and ability to use those racials would be nice.

Exciton.8942:

Runiir.6425:

Frankly if you are in a group with someone, it should hold that slot on the map for you, period. Untill every last person in the group leaves the map or is kicked or DCs…the entire group’s slots should be considered “reserved”.

This alone would save many headaches.

It’s not ‘reserved’. You still have to spam your way in just like anyone else.

You really did not read what I wrote did you? “it should” being the part that flew over your head.

A system that, if you are in a group that manages to enter the map, those not yet in the map get reserved placement would solve so many current problems in doing these huge fights.

Yeah but raids/dungeons/fractals are all PvE and suddenly reviving other players faster? To make challenging content they will have to balance against it atleast in end room raids and higher fractals.
And doubling boon duration sorta will break things…like extreme protection durations.

The champion level is for NPC’s only right? Otherwise this’ll become mandatory for any progress pushing and especially for WvW.

I do love the idea though cause…yeah…no one uses those skills.

Frankly if you are in a group with someone, it should hold that slot on the map for you, period. Untill every last person in the group leaves the map or is kicked or DCs…the entire group’s slots should be considered “reserved”.

This alone would save many headaches.

Shoe.5821:

of course gold cost should be a factor.

since legendaries ARE available on the TP gold equivalency is always going to be A Thing

if its cheap as balls to make a precursor doing the collection then it literally devalues the precursor.

Precursors built via the mastery method cannot be sold, they are bound. Legendaries made after HoT went live are bound upon making them. So only precursors you find, and Legendaries made prior to HoT can be sold on TP.
There was a post about this leading up to release…anyone have it handy?

ShiningSquirrel.3751:

There was a dev post (may have been on the blog) stating there was a problem with the way the megaservers where distributing players in HoT and you could very easily end up on an empty map. Supposedly this has been fixed.

It has NOT been fixed, you still see people landing in the PvP lobby complaining of empty maps regularly.

Tommyknocker.6089:

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”

Now all you need to do is tell all the others this gem. I have been trying all day to tell players that it is not intended to make you a god of the <insert X class here> but it seems many still call it an elite thinking it is so.

I still think another term would have been better though. I just call it your specialization now.

Edit: also what Bhima said.

Oh I KNOW it is just another way to play your class. My problem is the nomenclature “elite” means the highest tier, the alpha level, limited in number. As they have repeatedly drummed us about them not being any stronger or more powerful than other specializations, they are not elite. Using one doesn’t make you elite.

The reality is, that this alternate specialization (seriously, alternate, advanced, enhanced, or additional would have worked so much better than elite) is horizontal in theory. Meaning it doesn’t add any actual power to your character, just more options. Seeing as while you level up you get more options that always cost the same, there is no reason or point for these ones to cost any differently, or even be handled any differently. They grant you access to a weapon while they are equipped, Alright, for THAT yes, sure, lets have the first unlock cost more. The skins and runes? These should cost more (hell make them cost 100 for the skins (weapon/armor piece) and 100 for the set of runes. The actual skills and such though? Are just more options theoretically with no real power boost/increase and thus should cost the exact same as every other spec line/utility line IMO.

We already have the mastery (linking this to map was a horrible choice, if the new maps were truly better/more interesting we would do it there anyway so no reason to lock this) as unlocking things others don’t have access to without doing the same thing, so little reason to gate things even more.

Mind you, I despize gating content anyway, I like to alt and experiment with builds, gating things harshly destroys the ability to actually try out things under various circumstances. 400HPx9? Extremely ridiculous. 250HPx9? A whole lot more manageable. Especially when you add in how little people will be doing those group HP challenges in HoT after the initial zerg is done. Something every MMOer has learned regarding open world content in ANY game, not just GW2…counting on other people to show up and help is horrible game design unless those people will be rewarded for the effort. HPs only reward you once. Frankly the events in HoT don’t even reward you that well. You are rewarded better in Tyria for staying and completing an event than you are in HoT. HoT events need tuned so if you only tag and run on, you get rewarded almost nothing, if you stay and fight till the end you are rewarded well. Currently you get more exp if you run around the map tagging events and moving on to just let them fail. You earn more exp/hour for your mastery this way and that is quite a problem I would like to be looked at next.

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.

Preserver.8457:

CuteLilKittenHugz.2064:

I really think you guys are so grateful for a change – any change – that you’re missing a few things that point to this not being much of a compromise.

1) Hero points are still account bound.
2) They are still gated behind some masteries.
3) You are still forced to spend Hero Points on ALL your skills and utilities before you can even unlock the elite spec.
4) The elite specs are all earned in a linear fashion – which means you MUST spend your hero points on traits AND SKILLS that you may never even use.

As it is, 250 HP is easier to swallow versus 400 HP, true…if you only have 1 or 2 alts to grind. But once you hit 4-5 alts and up… this is still a HUGE amount of grind.

I very much agree with this. I feel like the number 250 was chosen as a trap, such that Anet can say they “compromised” and anyone who is still unhappy must be “unreasonable.” However, I have yet to hear anyone satisfactorily explain why providing an instant elite unlock (e.g. via a Story quest) would be detrimental to players. Concerns about “progression” are disingenuous because the mastery system is still there.

Perhaps Anet is telling me (and those like me) that their game really isn’t for me. That would make me sad, because I felt GW2 really was for me compared to the other MMOs I’ve played.

No, what they are saying is they backed themselves into a wall and can’t toss the failed system out without admitting they royally screwed up. Game developers are rather notorious for never admitting they totally screwed up. Even the blog/release is more of downplaying the outcry rather than a real apology for hiding this from everyone till days before it went live.

Ewer.1850:

So what happens if I spent 240 hero points already and am 1/2 way through the elite. Will I now be almost complete or still only 1/2 way?

You should be nigh fully unlocked then according to this so, yay.

The one to Rule.2593:

Meh, casuals win again

Go take a look at their manifesto, their marketing strategy, their stated goals through all 3 years of bas GW2…casuals are the target demographic, always has been.

The only place casuals are ignored is sPvP…that’s where you go if you don’t wanna be “casual”. Assuming you are good enough o get your MMR out of the casual pool.

For the record, you aren’t even CLOSE to being casual if you had your spec remotely close before this.

Anyone who has gotten their elite spec…you’ve been following the trains. Hop on a new character and port in and see how it looks…VB is empty. 9 times out of 10 people are reporting zero help for HP attempts (a huge problem) and often no one actually stays to do an event because you get more exp running from event to event tagging and letting them fail then you get for staying and fighting and succeeding. It is bass ackwards.

…and seriously? 3 years and the number of armor skins we have in the expansion is…2? That’s it? NEW skins should be dropping all over as random loot. We should have 10 new armor skins per weight class for crying out loud. Less gem store items, more loot/drops. You can run around Tyria right now and get more loot than you get from anything in HoT right now…no, this doesn’t mean nerf Tyria…it means buff HoT and get to work on more bloody skins that aren’t gem shop.

Sytherek.7689:

Skye.4983:

Hurry up Anet, time is running out. Either come out and say how you’re going to improve this mess or just tell everyone that isn’t singing your praises to go away. I will accept either outcome, but it would be nice to have some certainty. Original Sin Enhanced Edition is coming out in an hour and then Fallout 4 in two weeks, you’re going to have a hard time getting my attention after that.

They already got your money for HoT. Do they care if you stop playing?

I was spending 20-50 bucks in the TP every month. I’m not doing that now. That, they might notice, if people stop frequenting the cash store.

What Anet is failing to note is that gamers with money are older and have vastly more options in gaming. Delay leads to people finding other diversions.

Pretty much this. The primary market for gaming companies is no longer the kid, it is the 25-35 demographic that have jobs, families, responsibilities. We also have the money. Delays = we go somewhere else and don’t bother returning. Gamers have long memories when it comes to companies that break trust. The only way to earn that trust is to act quickly and decisively when players have a problem on such a scale.

Yes, this means you annoy the ones without the problem. As the only ones currently defending things are either groupers/zergers or are the hardcore crowd that definitely play far more than the manifesto and marketing targets.

KryTiKaL,
If they wanted it to not be a grind, they would have allowed us to select he mastery we wanted to work on, and then go out into ANY sectionof the game (HoT maps, Tyria, WvW, sPvP, crafting, etc) and any exp gained would go into that mastery. THAT would make it not a grind as people could do anything, anywhere, and enjoy the time.
As it stands you have to do the same events on the same map, over and over and over again…That is the very definition of grind. I cannot make progress by going somewhere else. Even a crafter getting mats has multiple places to choose from for just about anything/everything. Doing hearts in Tyria was NEVER a grind as you can complete them however you wanted mostly…human 1? The first heart I completed by doing the event at the barn. Human 2? I watered plants. Human 3? I killed thieves. You had options and could always push forward solo. Skip to HoT and if you have no zerg/large group nearby you aren’t really going to get a lot done. Even if you do, you have only one option…do the events ad infinitum to build mastery.

I miss the hearts.

My problem is with the NAME.

A revenant is an undead focused on a single goal (nigh always justice/revenge against a single individual or group) and it fades away into dust upon completion of it’s objective. None of the skills have a death theme, justice theme, or revenge theme. What we have is mostly a melee shaman of the mists.

I also have a problem with having my utilities locked…they could have at least given each legend extra utilities so you could choose and shape the character/build better.

I also severely wish Herald wasn’t an elite spec so I could enjoy it…as a casual player it’ll take me a looooong time to unlock it.

tracysilva.7231:

I agree with OP that the developers should have advertised that the content would be challenging. It sure misled a lot of us casuals.

I feel really silly because I actually went on a couple of betas and the last one saw me in the jungle testing the advanced classes.

I totally disregarded the difficulty of the game play as I was so focused on trying to get to grips with the different class specializations.

I totally didn’t expect the problems I have had since release.

I am pretty sure there will be a lot of adjustments to be made to the expansion yet though and that eventually I will be able to return and complete my tasks more easily

NB.
I never group if I don’t have to, I have 99% completed my personal story on at least ten characters and never done the final story just because I hate the stress of playing in a group.

The last mission is now solo-able, they retuned it specifically because it was impossible to find people to do it. Quoted you so you’d have a better chance of catching the reply/info.

As for all of this…yes they bait and switched. Wanna know WHY people hated BW3 tuning? Everyone was stuck in one map with a hundred + other players…the enemies needed to be stronger to deal with the zerg. Here is the problem though…at week 2 there won’t be much of a zerg left…and the megaserver algorithym is total crap right now too with a lot of people being stuck on empty maps. HPs with any kind of fight against anything more than a single vet need to go away, everything int he open world should be solo-able outside of HUGE meta events and world bosses.

Your group content? oh, right, meta events, world bosses, dungeons, fractals, raids, wvw, spvp (high tier). Open World belongs to the soloer, keep the dang over tuned crap out of it.

Sylent.3165:

Runiir.6425:

Casual – you have all weekend to play, and maybe get 2 hours in because of other things needing done around the house.
THAT is a casual player.
If you spent 10 hours or so this weekend playing…you aren’t casual. You devoted quite a lot of hours to it if so.

Casual is a term for those that only play occasionally, if you are playing every day…or playing for long stretches at a time…you aren’t casual.

Right, as a casual player who works I generally can play 2 hours a day tops. I took a vacation this week to play herald. Only half way to herald and half way done unlocking it with spending a ton of time on it. It’s frustrating

It is so much worse for Herald than any other elite too, you need ALL of it to really use it thanks to locked utilities. It drives me crazy seeing as Herald made me want to switch my mains.

Casual – you have all weekend to play, and maybe get 2 hours in because of other things needing done around the house.
THAT is a casual player.
If you spent 10 hours or so this weekend playing…you aren’t casual. You devoted quite a lot of hours to it if so.

Casual is a term for those that only play occasionally, if you are playing every day…or playing for long stretches at a time…you aren’t casual.

Tommyknocker.6089:

Page 65?

Could someone please tell me at what point in the new “forum mastery” line we will unlock the “dev response” trait?

Right?

If they don’t understand how fail this is yet, they don’t deserve to be in business.

We get it, you put the mastery system (also fail, read on) to gate things and force people to spend more time rather than make an expansion that is actually expansive. Would it really have been so hard to make 4-6 maps of shiverpeaks size? You know…legitimately large and expansive, allowing you to roam all over for hours? What we got were these small maps that are maze-like with multiple tiers that are gated behind masteries.

Masteries themselves are so full of fail, it SHOULD have been exactly like the sPvP reward tracks: you select your mastery and play ANYWHERE (including sPvP for that matter) and your experience gain goes into that mastery. Yes, frankly this means a lot of people would play in Tyria (better to make the f2p seem better as the maps would be populated making buying the full game seem like a better offer) as the event chains there are done better. The event chains in HoT are horribly done. Some of them have way that trolls can easily cause them to fail…and others require so many people that if the map zerg isn’t nearby you will fail regardless of how well you and your little group is personally doing. Of course this leads right into another huge fail…

Open world content is meant to be built, designed, and balanced for solo play. This means those hero challenges (should be renamed to heroes challenge as you aren’t doing them solo and thus makes them less heroic as a mob is not heroic) need down tuned, and much of the event chains need better scaling or the enemies themselves need down tuned for solo play. Group play has the epic event chains (ostly the last boss and the step before it), world bosses, dungeons, fractals, raids…wvw and high level sPvP. Frankly there is enough being balanced for pure group play.

The HP cost regarding elite specs…if after 65 pages people don’t get just how unhappy the consumers are…nothing will.
Mastery system and just good ole exploration is enough horizontal progression, elite specs should have been 85-ish to unlock full functionality and another 200ish for the unlocks of the skins and runes. You still would have to work for it but you could never call it a grind.

Shoe: I almost spit my cereal out at reading that I laughed so hard.

Simplicity: That’s a kitten good point, and it amuses me that they penalize movement speed (which everyone takes a ton of) in gliding.

Coulter.2315:

Bhima.9518:

Coulter.2315:

Guys you literally CANNOT grind for Hero Points; they are unique, in different locations and cannot be repeated. Elite Specs cannot be achieved with grind (why do people keep saying they are grinding for Hero Points?).

Except: Many of the HP’s are hard locked behind Masteries, therefore… grind out that XP to get the mastery to get the HP.

And you can unlock the full spec with access to Gliding, Updraft and Bouncing Mushrooms – this does not take long and you can get the experience from brand new event chains repeating nothing for a grindless Elite Spec.

Anyone telling you that you need to grind is lying or forcing themselves to do something silly.

If you need a group at any of the HPs, then it is still fail. Open World is supposed to be the Soloer’s playground. Group content should stay relegated to world bosses, epic event chains (where as the map will naturally be funneled to the conclusion of anyway), dungeons, fractals, and now raids. Needing groups for a hero challenge (emphasis on hero…not heroes) is rather dumb design, as is gating them behind masteries.

Puck.9612:

Runiir.6425:

Oddly, my ranger seems to have no pets available to him in sPvP (literally, cannot select or call out any pet at all). Not sure how that happened.

It’s a bug that anet is in no hurry to fix since it doesn’t benefit rangers. Try spectating a hot join match with a ranger in it and then open your pet menu. This workaround fixes it for some people.

I’ll have to try that, thanks. I managed to do pretty good in a match when it first happened to me (was on autopilot joining then noticed I had no pet with me).

Oddly, my ranger seems to have no pets available to him in sPvP (literally, cannot select or call out any pet at all). Not sure how that happened.

something between 2 and 3 would work well for everyone.

You do realize that according to everything they have said, exp boosters will not function for masteries right? So your bonus exp for mastery is +/- 0% regardless of what you use. They allowed them to be used in beta so we could speed it up and test some of the higher masteries more quickly.

Though we haven’t had any word saying it was purely for beta, they have also chosen o not come out and state anything against the statement that experience boosters will not function on masteries that was given to us when they first showcased the mastery system.

My advice? Don’t count on the boosters to function, but be hopeful that they will.

Sorean.5379:

You only need 60 points to play the Specialization,is that too much ?

Yes, yes it is. A revenant cannot mix utility skills like everyone else meaning the entire skill line needs unlocked just for Herald to be playable.

sharkswithlazers.7632:

I hear your argument, but I don’t think grinding hero points “skips” content. That’s actually precisely what I want to avoid. I want to enjoy the Elite spec I’ve been hyped about for a year while enjoying the story and new maps etc. I put time in to achieve just that goal. Let’s face it, finding 20 hero challenges won’t take long and if I didn’t have to do that, I wouldn’t be “skipping” content.

That said, I realize I was hasty with the Gift of Mastery. I also realize that I should play the xpac to reap xpac rewards. It’s just I could swear I’ve read somewhere, (I’ll look it up when I’m not so tired) that people with map completion should have access to their elite specs from the get-go. I realize this was too early and that plans change. No biggie. I still am frustrated that I put in so much time because I wanted to have the aforementioned instant access to the elite specs just to find out that I only finished half of what I need in the most inefficient way possible.

Technically, if you look at everything they said, they did NOT lie. You will have ACCESS to your elite specs if you have map completion. Access is not ‘everything’. Access is, technically speaking, just having the door open.
You will be able to unlock half the elite spec wheel, which…looking at the daredevil screen cap is enough to have your new weapon, new class mechanic, the first section of traits, and the unknown is most likely the elite runes, with hopefully a utility (your new heal) and one regular utility unlocked.
Which is enough…as long as you aren’t a revenant to at least be able to use the elite spec. Rev’s are just screwed as they are only allowed to use utilities that match their attunement, meaning they cannot make use of herald until they have all 3 utility skills, the heal, and the elite for glint.

While I mention hat technicality, it still annoys me to no end that the elite specs cost so bloody much and they slow down skill acquisition and trait acquisition with runes and skins not being placed firmly at the end of the line.

Invictus.1503:

Kotte.2460:

minions should be meta for pvp. espically for necromancer, hence the name. those of you who say otherwise must not know the definition of necromamcer

Hmm, rather strong accusation for one who apparently hasn’t researched the topic much. Necromancy is just magic that specializes in working with the dead. Sure, creating minions is an aspect of necromancy, however by no means the only one. Communicating with the dead is actually more prevalent in the “history” of necromancy than raising them. Also, manipulating life/death is a large part, such as stealing life force from other to prolong ones own life. Weakening others by disrupting their life force (think debuffing) is often more prevalent as a necromancer.

Overall, in games some of your more recent ones have chosen to focus on the minion piece of it, but if you go back to the roots (D&D) and even beyond up to only just recently you’ll find that minion creation just became populerized with a few recent additions to its long history.

Necromancy has it’s roots in the Necronomicon, a book used by a type of shamanistic/prophetic priesthood that glorified death. The first thing they taught to inducties? How to summon the spirits of the dead to serve as spies, informants, and guardians. They fully believed that if they summoned an undead spirit during a ritual that anyone outside the ritual would be torn apart by the spirit.
So yes…Necromancy goes hand in hand with summoning and controlling the dead, minions.
THAT is the root of necromancy, including the word itself as the high priests were called necromancers.

When one talks of roots, they always go beyond games. However, since you brought up D&D and I own the original rulebooks… D&D the highest spells a necromancer can do is create golems and undead minions…the highest spell in the original D&D rulebook? Army of Undeath, you literally raise an entire legion of undead.

So yeah…kind of a big deal to make minions viable in ALL gameplay if you have necromancers.

Fernling.1729:

I was worried until I saw that the jungle zones will offer hero points 10 at a time. I’m not really seeing this as a huge problem. That is unless the hero points are blocked by other grinds like gliding etc.

Oh, they will be locked behind those masteries for sure, I expect you will have some locked behind higher tiers of gliding for certain.

Mightybird.6034:

Runiir.6425:

Say that to revenants that are only allowed to use specific utilities for their attunements.

Ya I’m actually going to be one of those rev mains and am confused how that will work exactly..

You and me both…

acies.7843:

There seems to be a case of the Stockholm Syndrome going around.
Yes, the base game is going F2P. Yes, they will have fewer perks than existing core game owners.
In this, there is also a marketing trick to make it appear as if core game owners are dealt a better hand, between the two lower tiers, when, instead, they get a slap on the wrist.

The expansion is presented as an upgrade, yet there is no initiative to thank faithful players or welcome back retired players—many of which have not only bought the core game, but pumped money into it through micro-transactions.

The expansion is not a separate game, so pretending that the years of gameplay—which people have paid for—make up for being ignored (read: screwed over) at this juncture, is a good ol’ case of kidding yourselves.

Micro transactions are extra, you are on your own there. No one forced you to it, your “thank you” is extra stuff people who didn’t do that can’t have. No, Stockholm Syndrome would have you saying you would like to pay 250 bucks for what is only 50 bucks of game. So many do not understand that syndrome and use it so foolishly, nigh always in conversations that aren’t even have tertiary involvement.
How have you been ignored? Oh, forget all the updates? The living story seasons? Right…free content you didn’t have to pay for (living story came about AFTER event tweaks and attempts at changing events to keep interest which was all they originally had planned as it was all the living story was supposed to be, dynamic events that changed rather than a true continuous story…so many forget this). You haven’t been ignored…you either chose to ignore the living story content (by not playing at all or staying in sPvP/WvW) or you chose to play it and felt entitled to it.

As for GW1 talk, this is EXACTLY like GW1!!
GW1 had expansion you HAD to buy if you wanted access to new classes, or new skills. Otherwise you would end up fighting against these new classes and skills with only your old skills available (which typically meant you lacked proper counters for the new classes too). The base game for GW1 actually did go down severely in price when they released their first expansion, went down even sharper when the second hit, and by the 3rd you could buy the whole bundle of them for the cost of the original game.

So referencing GW1 shows you don’t know what you are talking about in referencing past business practices. Yes, it never went free, but the base game cost so little it was as good as free…something you could grab without even a thought to cost. Before the last expansion GW1 cost the same as a pack of cigarettes for crying out loud.

Mightybird.6034:

Exciton.8942:

Enough of hearing people saying you have to WORK to just play the basic game content. This is not work, this is a game for fun!.

Sure you need to grind for cosmetics and that’s totally fair. But have to grind for the basic content we already paid 50 dollars for? Hell no.

Except its not basic content. Its an optional spec.

And for all we know with the first 200 points we have access to the full traitline + weap and the remaining 200 pts is the utilities (who cares right away, just as effective without in almost all cases) and the skins.

Which means its possible people with 200 pts can unlock a fully working elite spec on day one, minute one of logging in.

Say that to revenants that are only allowed to use specific utilities for their attunements.

Aye.8392:

And now instead of the emphasis being on playing the content, enjoying the game, and loving the scenery the emphasis is on getting to that next hero challenge as fast as humanly possible to unlock new skills and traits. Sad.

Basically this.
They failed horribly on the “is this fun?” question.

People getting elite specs day one would not have been bad, horrible, or even problematic. They would play what they wanted to play and been happy, the point of any game.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Runiir.6425:

Doesn’t matter what the rate is when you take into account you need every single point in the old maps as well. That x9 is too much.

Except you don’t! There are enough hero challenges in the jungle you don’t need to do any in the core tyrian world – those simply speed you up on day one if you already got them.

Wait, so there are enough points in HoT to unlock the entire elite spec. Everything, runes/weapon/amor skin/etc?

totallyTim.9041:

I loved GW1 and was super hyped for GW2, which turned out to be a huge disappointment for me, since it wasn’t even close to what I expected. So I haven’t really played much of it, and mostly endured for as long as I did because a friend was really into it.

Now it seems like HOT might address some of the issues I had with GW2, like the action camera controls, so maybe I should jump back in. Cool… Whelp, the core game is now f2p and all the features I would ever need are now available for free.

Why exactly did I waste $50 and bought this thing again? Not to mention the game includes a cash shop and is selling the episodic story to you separately (I haven’t logged in for over a year for obvious reasons). And now they’re expecting me to cough up another $50 without even acknowledging my purchase 3 years ago. My account will be worth jack kitten in three days. Yay.

Perhaps it’ll be better to wait for the second expansion and buy it on a sale, so I wont feel like I’m wasting my money again.

Wasted your money how exactly? You have had 3 years of playing this game. You chose not to play it yet you could still log in and play it at ANY time free of charge, and can even continue to do so!

Let us put this in terms these complainers can understand as they seem to lack a grasp of MMOs.

You bought this game when it was released. So like buying any stand alone RPG. Only you got to interact with others and receive free content (living story seasons 1 and 2) so long as you logged in and continued to experience it. It cost you nothing beyond that first purchase.
Now the base game is going f2p, but the f2p crowd gets far less, you who bought the game get to keep all your perks they don’t have (such as extra free bag slots, more initial character slots, larger initial bank, access to guild banks, etc).

Now HoT, think of this as a MASSIVE DLC like every modern RPG has these days to expand on the story and content. It is extra stuff, with some pretty good content and perks, changes to the classes, etc. If you want access to it, you have to buy the DLC, or you make do without it. This also means not being able to access new areas and new content with friends.

PlatinumMember.5274:

Runiir.6425:

Frankly, yes WvWers got the better deal here.
They need to just come out with the number already, we already are well aware anything over 100 will be met with HUGE threads in the forums demanding change, quickly followed by ANY “unlocking” requirements to be thrown in the trash bin by the WvW crowd. Of which I support both things being dealt with quickly and immediately and will support both groups.

Look, I am completely for having the elite specs gated behind an unlocking feature in the story…with a caveat: the exact second your ACCOUNT unlocks that step all characters can now freely access elite specs. Anything else is asinine and only drives players away from the game as the entire point of getting the expansion is to have these new options in our builds. Gating it behind a relatively early on story step isn’t a huge deal if it unlocks account wide. Even the most hardcore of the WvW crowd can go do 2-3 story steps without much grumbling to unlock elites across the entire account.

Too early to be claiming that. Mostly because you don’t know the rate at which you gain hero points.

Henahax.1706:

Does spending the very first point on the line give me the ability to wield the new weapon?

If you only care getting the weapon unlock traits first. Which is what you should be doing anyways.

Doesn’t matter what the rate is when you take into account you need every single point in the old maps as well. That x9 is too much.

Frankly, yes WvWers got the better deal here.
They need to just come out with the number already, we already are well aware anything over 100 will be met with HUGE threads in the forums demanding change, quickly followed by ANY “unlocking” requirements to be thrown in the trash bin by the WvW crowd. Of which I support both things being dealt with quickly and immediately and will support both groups.

Look, I am completely for having the elite specs gated behind an unlocking feature in the story…with a caveat: the exact second your ACCOUNT unlocks that step all characters can now freely access elite specs. Anything else is asinine and only drives players away from the game as the entire point of getting the expansion is to have these new options in our builds. Gating it behind a relatively early on story step isn’t a huge deal if it unlocks account wide. Even the most hardcore of the WvW crowd can go do 2-3 story steps without much grumbling to unlock elites across the entire account.

Edit: I see while I was typing posts went from a Dev finally…yeah that is beyond ridiculous. People enjoy alting…most EVERYONE has all kinds of alts and all that for what is SUPPOSED to be an addition to the classes that only change things but doesn’t make them leaps and bounds above the rest? Ridiculous. Completely and totally ridiculous to expect people to do this 9 times (once for each class). The point is to make it fun and rewarding, there is NOTHING FUN about trecking all over the map to get every single hero point. Not one thing.

Amazing how people cannot grasp that this is an MMO, they have to pay bills people. 50 bucks every 3 years is CHEAP for an MMO. If you are seriously that cheap for the constant updates (we had 2 seasons of the living story for free, which caused changes to the map that are NOT cheap to make). The original game was already more than any one off title had. You cannot PvP/WvW or the like in a sRPG…and they cost more.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

Runiir, you are missing the point, Anet did this too themselves, they saw Noone especially thieves were not using traps, so they added Trapper Runes, still thieves did not use traps, so they removed the direct damage application of them, well aware of the Synergies they had implemented previously.

People complain about stealth instead of fixing the issue they give thieves reveal on hits, and give other classes to reveal thieves, people don’t use the reveal utilities, skills and items given to them because there are better ootions to use, they still complain.

Hell even now if you take out the Trapper Runes all together Thieves can use this build without any issues. Yes this is an abusive build yes it’s a stupid build, but it’s effective and has been around for quite a while.

Now they can fix this and have had 3 years to do so, either redesign stealth completely and not just band aids like revealed, Redesign the Thief Completely and spread out the Survivability into more traitlines, make more builds viable, but even then people have complained when thieves didnt use stealth outside of SR which resulted in unnecessary Nerfs.

I agree, stealth needs re-designed, and yes thieves need something other than stealth as a defensive.

Thieves, I feel, they assumed would function as the stealth in combat, get in position, burst out then do what they can to finish them off style. However, it hasn’t really worked that way for them and they need to redesign the thief to simply fight “dirty”. More interrupt/disable based with stealth as a side thing rather than the only thing. Besides…their schtick isn’t stealth anyway…it is supposed to be initiative and stealing…so making them so reliant on stealth seems even farther counter productive to me.
Daredevil adds some options, the extra dodge is nice, and the effects while dodging are interesting. I didn’t get much time with DD, but I did find myself enjoying thief for the first time for once. I didn’t feel like stealth was as needed.

MUDse.7623:

maybe coz a condi nekro applies constantly conditions while a trapper thief doesnt? yes hes visible. but if u can fight condi nekros with the condi removes u have then u also can fight or ignore trapper thieves.

edit : if ur only remaining arguments r now about a line u call offtopic in my post- then i guess i cant be that wrong about trapper thief

The necro is visible and thus directly attackable. This is why thief abilities (ALL OF THEM) should reveal the thief from stealth. Stealth is only to set up, reposition, or run away, it should not be an entire combat style of staying in stealth an entire fight.

If I was balancing I’d of made it so even a single point of damage would reveal a thief instantly (conditions included). No one should be capable of remaining hidden in front of you while bleeding out/burning alive/etc…

A simple reason to increase stability….the pirate ship meta…

Hell a map that forced you into tight places to fight could be interesting, negating mobility builds entirely in various sections of the map (that you HAVE to go into/through) would be great. As, again, it creates new builds and current meta builds get destroyed as half of them rely upon mobility.

Jackalrat.5493:

Runiir.6425:

Orangensaft, you just highlighted my primary problem with hotjoin as it stands…you get to pick your team. Hotjoin should be just that, hot join. Meaning you click join and it throws you on a team, you get no choice. And frankly if you leave the match you should be locked out of spvp AND wvw for an hour. Don’t want the lockout than play to win regardless of what team you are with.

In…in hotjoin? You should be locked out for an hour if you leave before a hotjoin match is over?

Nooo…no thank you.

AND ranked…
AND unranked….

Basically…if you aren’t there till the end for any PvP you just shouldn’t que up for anything, period IMO.

style.6173:

Really not a fan of CTF. I’ve seen it done two ways in GW2. The first is on spirit watch and that is just an unbalanced mess between the classes.

The second is the wintersday CTF event. In that event, it is balanced, but you don’t get to use anything related to your profession. I don’t enjoy it.

The classes are NOT supposed to be balanced, your class and build determines your job. Suddenly you need a bunker to carry the flag, anything squishy won’t do. A squishy assisting by granting speed tot he bunker is how you help.
It actually creates needs for different builds.

I vote for a huttball style map.
It is kind of like CTF…except you have to runt he ball across your enemie’s goal line…and you can pass it to teammates/have it be intercepted.

I tend to prefer necro myself, play everything from minion mancer to well mancer and everything in between…and REALLY looking forward to more brawls as a reaper in the big team fights.

Hardest to play as? Thief for me, I hate relying on stealth as the only real defensive option. I tend to prefer tanks in MMOs…give me a class that takes hit after hit, laughing in your face as your best attack just dents the health pool a little…which may explain my love of necromancer…have 50k+ hp allows you to just tank the hits and keep right on coming…add to that the ability to put conditions on enemies and downright turn their buffs into debuffs with this current condition meta? Is just good times.

I have trouble making good use of eles for that same reason, they just can’t take a good hit without crumpling, so I just can’t use them no matter how hard I try.

High tess fishing line or just whatever is cheap/handy?

Also, you can make use of the elite specs from HoT even in the old world. So while you may not be able to venture into it, you can make use of the new elites and skills in old tyria, spvp, and current wvw maps.
But that’s a steep purchase just to only use those till you upgrade the comp.

cillard.3986:

Oh and dont worry about tempest …because it blows in just about every way.

The pun here amuses me greatly.