a) blindly jump in with a solution that could anger more players?
b) take the time to gather feedback to come up with a solution that is less likely to anger more players?
I would c):
take the time to gather feedback, while also maintaining at least a minimal amount of dialogue with the players.
not promising anything until it’s been worked out, but assuring that issues are being considered,
1) What dialogue? Outside of ‘we are discussing these issues’ there’s not much they can say in terms of what they are discussing internally for the reason in point 2.
2) Anet has done this in the past – not promise anything – and yet people have always brought up that they haven’t delivered what they promised, even when they’ve added on the blog posts that things are subject to change. Also, Gaile has stated that they’re passing issues onto the team. Just look at some of the responses and you’ll see why it’s a mostly pointless exercise.
You have a point with the other two though.
1)
there’s quite a lot of ambiguity surrounding HoT, for example, some people say the inclusion of the core game is a pre-purchase bonus, while others say it’s a permanent thing (anet sources aren’t clear, but seem to imply the latter
sometimes just acknowledging that you’ve read or understood something can be a huge help. for example, I can see that there are a number of issues being raised on the forums right now, it would be nice to know that the Anet teams sees this and is considering the issues individually. I don’t want to think they’re treating two or three separate issues as one, which would lead to more confusion, more mistakes, and less trust.
for my part, I’d like to see Gaile – or someone else – talking to the players, not promising fixes, but clarifying what the issues are. passing on the issues is fine, but I think it’d be nice to make sure that the issues we’re trying to raise are the ones being passed on to the team.
(also, nice reformatting of my original post. I think I’ll go for that style in future)
Touche, although I’d argue that they need to pass the feedback on first before they can understand what the issues are, in which case then would be the time to start the whole ‘these are the issues we’re seeing brought up:’.
Yeah, sorry. I just find it easier to address multiple points if they’re separated like that >.<
Life is a journey.
Time is a river.
The door is ajar.
Eye Of the North for example expansion introduced:
41 new armor sets, including rare, stand-alone pieces Unknown
100 new profession-specific skills (10 per profession, none of which are elite) Each profession will be getting a *minimum of 8 new skills (2 offhand weapon and 6 6 – 10 skills)*
50 new PvE only skills including 3 elite skills Masteries are the GW2 equivalent of this – for example, gliding, poison making, lore etc
10 new heroes Irrelevant for GW2
18 Dungeons We don’t even know if the game has any instanced content yet
124 new quests We don’t know how many story quests of dynamic events the game will include
a) blindly jump in with a solution that could anger more players?
b) take the time to gather feedback to come up with a solution that is less likely to anger more players?
I would c):
take the time to gather feedback, while also maintaining at least a minimal amount of dialogue with the players.
not promising anything until it’s been worked out, but assuring that issues are being considered,
1) What dialogue? Outside of ‘we are discussing these issues’ there’s not much they can say in terms of what they are discussing internally for the reason in point 2.
2) Anet has done this in the past – not promise anything – and yet people have always brought up that they haven’t delivered what they promised, even when they’ve added on the blog posts that things are subject to change. Also, Gaile has stated that they’re passing issues onto the team. Just look at some of the responses and you’ll see why it’s a mostly pointless exercise.
You have a point with the other two though.
Life is a journey.
Time is a river.
The door is ajar.
No…really didn’t put much thought into it when I was typing that…more focused on the relevant lack of content.
What are we getting altogether then?
Really not following your reason for continuing these questions, as you seem to already be aware of what we are getting, but I’ll bite. I’m assuming this is an attempt to be snarky/condescending and test my knowledge, but okay…
We are getting changes to the trait system and leveling system in the upcoming patch like you said. I believe we are getting a pvp/wvw map of some sort also in the patch..I may be wrong about that part as I pretty much ignore that stuff. They are updating the wallet to free up bag space…pretty much a fix.
The expansion will include elite specializations…essentially fill-ins for holes in existing character design. It will also include at least one new pve map. It will include the mastery system…essentially a reputation grind to keep us busy and make the new map more interesting. We are getting one new profession…that they aren’t even giving us a default slot to use…after nearly 3 years of filling our existing character slots up from the first time we purchased the game. That’s about it…undoubtedly I overlooked something though.
Oh yeah…I did forget something…guild halls.
Nono, no snark or condescending.
My point is, as you’ve said yourself, is that we don’t actually know all of the specifics of what’s in the expansion.
In which case, how can you say there’s a lack of content without knowing what’s actually in the expansion?
Also, the wallet change is also coming in the Tuesday patch, whereas the new PvP and WvW maps are coming with the HoT launch, but don’t actually require HoT as far as I know.
Life is a journey.
Time is a river.
The door is ajar.
The meat of this “expansion” appears to be a rework of the trait system, legendary system, leveling system, and flawed designs for the original professions…essentially fixes to the original game that they apparently were intentionally withholding to sell to us instead.
The trait and leveling changes are coming Tuesday, not with the expansion.
It does strike me as a little strange that they’d open pre-purchasing before reveling what the expansion has in total.
No skin of my back to wait though.
Okay, that just means there’s even less content included for the $50.
Did you expect them to use two different trait systems? Just curious.
Life is a journey.
Time is a river.
The door is ajar.
The meat of this “expansion” appears to be a rework of the trait system, legendary system, leveling system, and flawed designs for the original professions…essentially fixes to the original game that they apparently were intentionally withholding to sell to us instead.
The trait and leveling changes are coming Tuesday, not with the expansion.
It does strike me as a little strange that they’d open pre-purchasing before reveling what the expansion has in total.
No skin of my back to wait though.
Life is a journey.
Time is a river.
The door is ajar.
I hope Guild Halls are one of the features that does not require the DLC and gets added to the main game, since it will isolate members of the guild that dont have $50 to blow.
I think I read somewhere that those without HoT can be invited into the halls.
I wouldn’t quote me on that though.
Life is a journey.
Time is a river.
The door is ajar.
I’m happy you all are satisfied with your purchase
I’m not an Anet employee and never will be. I’m happily self-employed. However, thanks for understanding that I’m pleased with my purchase.
Uh huh sure. You know only certain types of people defend HoT. Since you say you aren’t an employee I’m sorry for your situation and only wish you success in life.
Why would you feel sorry for someone that’s a self-made person?
Life is a journey.
Time is a river.
The door is ajar.
Thats not an answer. its them saying we are reading, not doing anything about it
Which brings me back to my first point.
Given the backlash this has received, would you:
a) blindly jump in with a solution that could anger more players?
b) take the time to gather feedback to come up with a solution that is less likely to anger more players?
Life is a journey.
Time is a river.
The door is ajar.
We were supposed to have guild halls with the original game. GW1 also had guildhalls, so why would GW2 be different? The game is literally called Guild-Wars. And the emotes are also clearly missing. Just type existing emotes from GW1, and you’ll notice that they are recognized. So that’s missing content that was supposed to be in the original game.
It’s also quite obvious that a lot of explorable areas are missing in GW2. Rata Sum for example, is completely isolated from all the other explorables. And there’s even a gate towards the south in Ebonhawk. The portal to Drytop was visible since the release of GW2, and only recently this zone was added with the Living Story. These are all signs of scrapped content. GW2 was clearly meant to have a lot more landmass, than it ended up having. GW1 had these areas, so why are they missing? And are there no elite endgame areas, such as the Underworld, or Fissure of Woe? Will these be expansions too? Because GW1 shipped with them, and we’re paying full price here.
So is that what we can expect from future expansions now? Missing content from the original game?
Ahhh, so it’s a perceived “it should be there because GW1 had it” rather than Anet saying “we promise it’ll be in the original game”.
Life is a journey.
Time is a river.
The door is ajar.
Secondly, a lot of the features being brought with HoT are things that were consistently promised but never released since the beginning of the game. First example: Guild Halls. This was a fundamental part of the first game and for some reason, disappeared in this game. Was this purposely done?
Where were these features ‘promised’?
Life is a journey.
Time is a river.
The door is ajar.
In terms of expac development, I imagine that that will be decided after they see how well this one does. After all, if they spend more on developing the expac than they recuperate from sales of it I can’t imagine them doing another one.
I’m also pretty sure that I read in an article that the LS3 will deal with the run up and fighting Mordy, but I wouldn’t quote me on that one.
Life is a journey.
Time is a river.
The door is ajar.
Dai Bish, u arent satisfying my question.
How does the ultimate version with 4000 gems faire towards the standard edition? We practically pay for the gems as well!!!
Nobody seem to notice!!
And all the rest of the goodies….its just not there…the value isnt there….i can pay 50 euros now and get the full WoW experience..i can pay 50 euros ang get the full ESO experience….why bother paying 100+60 that i paid in the past just for a stupid mmo???
I rather go hung myself afterwards….
I’m not sure of the price points in euros, but for the UK:
Standard is £34.99
Deluxe is £59.99
Ultimate is £79.99
If I were to buy the deluxe version (£59.99) and 4000 gems separately (£42.50) it would cost me £102.49. In other words, buying the Ultimate addition (which has everything the deluxe addition has plus the gems) would save me a little over £20. That’s how they compare, at least in the UK.
At the end of the day, I can’t tell you whether it’s worth it or not. if you don’t think it’s worth it, just get the cheapest priced option if you intend on buying it.
As for the other games, with WoW you still need to buy all of the previous expansions (which comes to a total of ~£45 in total for the standard game) plus subscription costs to get the full WoW experience (I doubt very much anyone could complete everything in WoW in a month). In ESO it costs £49.99 for the standard game (not taking into consideration any of the paid DLC it’ll release in the future).
Life is a journey.
Time is a river.
The door is ajar.
If Specialization was added with say ideally 3 branches to choose from it would’ve been a major hit and big crowd puller including bringing back the massive amounts of players that have left the game or on long breaks. Its not specialization if its the only option you have because it becomes a further advancement instead.
Except with Specializations, you have 5 branches to choose from (6 when HoT launches and more in the future).
Unless you mean Elite Specializations, in which more of them will be added in the future.
Life is a journey.
Time is a river.
The door is ajar.
Cosmetics=Horizontal. Game Progression=Vertical Progression.
Not entirely true.
Horizontal = Options and Tools that aren’t straight-up better than one another.
Vertical = Straight up stat increases.
For example:
The Gliding Basics Mastery and the Updraft Mastery are examples of horizontal progression. They don’t make you more powerful, but they do give you options for traversing the map and using your glider differently.
The Thick Wings and Stronger Bindings Masteries (increase gliding time) are examples of vertical progression, since they’re a straight-up stat improvements.
Life is a journey.
Time is a river.
The door is ajar.
Masteries are literally the definition of horizontal progression. You do things in the world to level them, and they give you different benefits.
Well except they aren’t horizontal they are vertical. You can’t complete the maps without them.
But yes, as of now the only announced progression is the new rep grinds.
Just because you need them to complete maps, it doesn’t make them vertical progression (although I will concede that some of the Masteries are vertical progression.
Horizontal progression is the opening up of options (gliding and mushroom jumping), whereas vertical progression is an increase in power (reduced condition damage and increased damage Masteries).
Life is a journey.
Time is a river.
The door is ajar.
For example, I have this little feeling that some of the ‘challenging group content’ will have something to do with Guild Halls – not helped by the “In this presentation, Colin will reveal how Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™ will create new ways for you and your guild to play, battle, socialize, and progress together through the guild hall system” in the announcement post – in which case I could see them covering that if it is the case.
Life is a journey.
Time is a river.
The door is ajar.
The main reason it’s unlikely to happen is our unique number 3 property. Unlike other professions, our number 3 is a dual weapon skill. Which means, if we get an offhand weapon they’ll have to create a number 3 skill for every 1 handed combinations available.
So we’ll get a two handed weapon, because it’s easier for them to make.
No, its not a problem. Just look at Ele. It wont happen cause dagger/sword would be silly.
Ele’s number 3 isn’t a combination. It’s only a thief feature. When you unequip off hand with thief, number 3 changes, if you unequip off hand with ele, number 3 doesn’t change.
I think what they were implying is that any time an Ele will get a new weapon, assuming the Attunement mechanic doesn’t change that weapon will have anywhere between 8 – 12 new skills.
Taking into consideration the Dual Wield skill:
a new main hand weapon would have would have 6 new skills (1 skill from stealth, 1 auto-attack, 1 second slot skill and 3 dual-wield skills for the current weapons (dagger, pistol, empty),
a newoff-hand weapon would have 5 new skills (3 dual wield skills for the main-hand weapons (sword, dagger + pistol) and 2 normal skills in the 4 + 5 slots)
Life is a journey.
Time is a river.
The door is ajar.
Expansion to me is new class, another playable race, new skills for all classes, and another FULL continent to explore.
HoT is giving us what 35% of that. Three years later…
You mean aside from a new pvp gameplay mode, new WvW maps and a totally reworked trait system? All I see is lacking is the least important which is a new playable race.
Still doesn’t change that the expansion is anemic. Heck the trait re-work shouldn’t be included as part of the expansion since they screwed up the trait system.
The trait rework isn’t part of the expac; it’s something we’re be getting before the expac even launches:
The new system will come to the live game before the launch of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™, allowing players to experience the changes to core specializations and stockpile Hero Points for their elite specializations.
It’s NOT ok to have it just cost energy, meaning fast recharge, and it’s not ok that only revenant gets such option, while everyone else is for major part stuck with far inferior solutions.
There is another cost though: versatility.
In order to provide that high upkeep projectile block, you also have to take all of the other utilities that come with it which may be less beneficial than another Legends utilities in a situation, whereas other professions only need to give up one skill slot.
Even if it’s just an upkeep skill as well, other skills aside from your autoattack cost energy too. Given how your energy will constantly be draining, I don’t think the upkeep will be all that high without it having negative consequences (running out of energy and being unable to use other skills, for example).
Life is a journey.
Time is a river.
The door is ajar.
The leaked third AA chain description states that it is a whirl finisher, but the weapon doesn’t seems to have any dark field so far, so you may be right. Even ventari’s field will probably not be a dark field.
It was in the blog post though, what the third auto-attack chain skill was:
“Cleave foes around you with your staff, creating healing orbs for you and your allies.”
This skill is the third part of the autoattack chain. When you strike foes with this skill, shards of energy will fly off onto the ground around the target. You or your allies can walk over these for a small amount of healing. This encourages strafing around your target to pick up the orbs as you attack, and it creates more interaction between you and your allies. We wanted to promote healing through offense rather than as a passive effect.
Life is a journey.
Time is a river.
The door is ajar.
Focused around damage prevention rather than offense
Rejuvenating Assault – Cleaves foes. Final attack in chain scatters healing orbs that players can pick up to gain a bit of health.
Surge of the Mists – Charge forward, knocking back foes in your path.
Ventari
Focused almost entirely on support.
Core of the Legend is Ventari’s Tablet – skills modify the function of the tablet.
Players need to position the tablet.
Players start with one skill that summons the tablet. This then changes five of the skills to manipulate the tablet.
Ventari’s Will – Command the tablet to go to a location, healing all allies it passes through.
Protective Solace – Summon a protective barrier that destroys projectiles. This is an upkeep skill and can be kept active while moving the tablet around.
Energy Expulsion – Knocks back foes and leaves healing fragments, similar to the staff skill Rejuvenating Assault.
These skills will be available in a future beta.
Life is a journey.
Time is a river.
The door is ajar.
1. In one of their posts or videos, they stated that all major content categories have already been revealed. That includes stuff like Masteries, Elite Specs, new WvW map, new PvP map/game mode, Guild Halls, Adventures, Outposts, Revenant, and “Challenging Content”. I’m trying to find the video of where I heard it, and I’ll keep looking (I’m at work so it might not be right away), but this “challenging content” was said to be in lieu of instanced dungeons because they wanted to provide open-world challenging content instead.
2. The official Wiki (above) doesn’t have a category for dungeons, per se; heck, it doesn’t list anything for fractals either outside of the mastery track. What I think might happen is that the “challenging [group] content” might be something like the guild challenges that take place in the open world but require a party or something. Hopefully this week is the reveal for this stuff, because so far we haven’t received much information about it at all.
It might not be satisfactory for what you’re looking for, but it’s all I can provide right now. If you happen to find something that says they might add it, I’d like to see it too. They indicated they already revealed everything major though, and dungeons aren’t in that list.
Why would there be information on instanced content on the Wiki if they haven’t announced it yet? The Wiki is actually run and added to by the community, if what it says on the Wiki is true.
It’s entirely possible I missed a video though. Don’t worry about it too much though. I’ve finished uni for this year so I can trawl through them at my leisure
Personally, I feel they used the term ‘challenging group content’ as an umbrella for multiple types. I got a gut feeling, and I don’t know why, that Guild Halls is going to have something to do with group content.
Life is a journey.
Time is a river.
The door is ajar.
I don’t know where people keep getting the assertion that HoT won’t have any instanced group content – Dungeons, Fractals etc – when we know nothing about the ‘challenging group content’ that’s been mentioned and we know that the Wyvern fight isn’t what Anet considers as part of the ‘challenging group content’.
Given how there’ll be a Fractal Mastery line I’d be shocked if there weren’t additions to the Fractals.
Life is a journey.
Time is a river.
The door is ajar.
