Guild Wars 2

Apocalypse.5289:

But I’d like to read a summary.

http://dulfy.net/2015/04/24/gw2-specializations-ama-livestream-notes/

Of course it is possible. But should they really have focused on rebuilding the whole profession from the ground up, rather than giving it some new stuff? It is highly unlikely that they would do both after all, seeing as that would mean putting way more time and effort into a single profession, which isn’t really all that smart.

Posting multiple tickets will just slow down your process.

And even when they respond they will most likely just say: “We can’t do anything” simply because that is standard procedure. They don’t replace items or such that you have knowingly deleted.

shadaux.5192:

For a main yes, but it sux for peeps like me who have a ton of other chars sat at under 10% map completion who are used heavily but only in wvw and pvp (not that the latter is affected). It’s kinda bs force feeding us 2 year old content before we can do what we enjoy… But hey ho it’s a few hours I can endure that but having to put up with necro and it’s useless traits still around and the only good ones now in the same spots? No ty

But do you actually NEED every single trait/skill in the whole game? Most people having one or two builds, not four or five.
The HPs you get for simply being lvl 80 will be enough for multiple different builds.

Indeed, but that is just the thing. The Ranger in Guild Wars 2 is built completely around having the pet. Therefore they would need to completely rebuild it if they go with the suggestion here.

Ok I Did It.2854:

I was STUNNED you have to run YET again threw old content to get mastery points ( old skill challenges ) 2 1/2 years and they still want us to recycle old content, this is not the same team whom made GW1.

Except that you don’t.
If you have already done them before the system goes live they will be given retroactively. So if you have done 65 skill challenges (and are lvl 80) before the update you will have enough HPs to unlock everything of the core specializations.

Zoid.2568:

Example
The first minor trait in Beastmastery could be something like: Sacrifice 5% of your damage and gain the ability to use a pet.

So basically make the profession extremely weak unless they trait a specific line?
The ranger is built around having access to the pet. Locking that behind a specific trait would require a complete rebuild of the whole profession.

They can’t really have two different trait/skill systems existing at the same time. So yes, even if you don’t buy HoT you will still get the new trait/skill system.
In fact, we will get the new system BEFORE HoT is released.

But it would still leave them with an overflow of HPs, seeing as you would need much less HP to unlock the traits/skills compared to a new character. You would still be able to get just as many HPs from skill challenges, but you would need less of them, since everything would basically only be unlocked.

And that still doesn’t address the fact with combined and/or removed traits.

The problem is that people could easily vote for stuff that will simply either not work in the game or won’t fit the way ArenaNet are going with the game. And then they would just refer to those votes and shout and rage about how ArenaNet “never do anything that the community wants” and so on.

It would simply create more issues than it would solve I would say.

Aye, have one of those as well.
The problem however would be that by grandfathering everything in, people with older characters will have a clear advantage over those that don’t (such as an overflow of HPs and such). It is also an issue with certain traits being changed and/or combined and so on.

mrstealth.6701:

The characters I’m concerned about are the ones that don’t have map completion, but do already have everything unlocked. Those unlocks were still earned, and it would be pretty crappy if they did take them away.

You will have 400 HPs at lvl 80. You will need 465 HPs to unlock everything currently available (except for those things that are removed). That means that if you have completed 65 skill challenges (which is rather few) you will have enough HPs to unlock everything you currently have.

They didn’t have to have any prices with monetary values at all, they could simply have given away a special mini or title in game.

If you don’t like the value of the prizes simply don’t enter the contest. It is really as simple as that.

Your existing lvl 80s with full map completion will have more than enough HPs to unlock everything.

pickpocket.2071:

It’s a contest with a total price pool of $250 not really a big deal, my work throws out bigger prizes, tbh i find it insulting that they would even hype it up n call it a contest/prizes

Oh but it is. The fact that the prizes actually have a monetary value (as opposed to for example something digital in a game) makes all the difference. Especially when it happens from another country.

And this just shows why we can’t have nice things. Whatever they do people complain.
There is no reason to complain about this. They are giving away stuff for free.
Would you complain if you got a letter with $25 for free as well, because it was worth so little?

pickpocket.2071:

$250 worth of prizes? Are you guys going broke or just really cheap

Yes, of course they should spend millions on a single contest rather then spending those money on resources for the game…

This is why we can’t have nice things. People will complain about every single thing.

It is not necessarily a bad thing. But when it basically goes against the whole core of the game it seems like “wasted” feedback, seeing as it is more or less impossible for them to change stuff based on said feedback without completely redoing the game.

So you basically want the old trinity system back and force people to team up?

That is simply not what Guild Wars 2 is about.
It is about people being able to choose how to play.
If they want to team up they can (due to scaling) if they want to solo, they can do that as well.

It is also rather usual that you actually do stuff together with people but simply not having formal parties.

Scoundrel.2139:

I won one of their “Twitter contests” and I live in Australia. Not sure if it differs, it was the llama one.

I wonder if they have a social media loophole?

Llama is a digital code.
This contest is about physical prizes.

wildcode.5403:

Australia tax expanded. I am sure we have law firms here that could of informed them of any changes to comp rules they would of needed to make …

But what about the other 200+ countries then?
Are they really going to have to spend weeks if not months for every single contest just to make sure that all those countries are eligible?
It would probably be impossible, seeing as it is rather likely that laws in different countries more or less contradict each other and as such it would always end up with some countries not being eligible.

Consumer law != contest laws however.

UlanX.2143:

Well they clearly know enough of our laws to retail the product here and make a profit.

Selling a product in a country is not even remotely close to having contests though.

FlamingFoxx.1305:

I understand the point that you guys are making. But it isn’t helpful to shut people down and simply tell them to wait for a response. Arenanet has a duty to support customers who have paid for a service, it really isn’t acceptable for people to be waiting months for any kind of assistance.

But how long?
Some people bought the game 10 years ago. How long should they be allowed to demand swift support?
And with which money should said support be paid?

And to be fair, the service people paid for was access to the servers, nothing else. It is also written rather clear that they can shut down an account for no reason whatsoever whenever they want if they choose to.

There is nothing in the agreement you singed that says that you will have access to swift support (or support at all for that matter) forever.

UlanX.2143:

Wow, I’ve played quite a few MMO’s and this is the first time I’ve come across Australia being excluded. Poor form but guess it is what it is.

Huh?
I keep hearing people from Australia always complaining about not being able to enter things like these.

It is also quite funny that it is always Australians that complain, yet the vast majority of countries in the world is also ineligible, but apparently it is always worst for the Australians.

It is not really bad form either. It is logic. If you don’t know the exact laws and regulations of a country, it is better to not include them in contests and such rather than risking there being issues if one of them wins.

Yes. Australia, and the vast majority of the countries in the world.

The explanation can be found here:

ach contest and tournament is bound by specific eligibility rules as outlined in the official announcement of the event on our website. Contest and tournament rules are reviewed by legal counsel in various regions in which we have access to such professional reviews. Residents of countries in which we do not have legal counsel are not eligible to participate. In addition, residents of a country, state, or province that has legal restrictions on such events likewise are ineligible to participate. If you are ineligible to participate in a contest or tournament, please check the rules for future events, as eligibility may change with an upcoming event.

https://help.guildwars2.com/entries/28147436-Contests-and-Tournaments

Dawdler.8521:

Except WvWers dont have one build. We can have the roaming power build, roaming condi build, zerg build, raid build, commander build, gvg build, focus build… on the same kitten character. Across all professions. Hell I know people that are constantly changing traits between engagements depending on the situation. “Multiple builds” is not enough. A real WvW player will need all the builds, just like a PvP player will have them automatically.

Have they confirmed that PvE will at least have the possibility to get everything unlocked and changed at will? Because last I read it, it sounded like the fire-and-forget WvW skillpoints with an upper limit. Which would ruin everything GW2 stands for. I’m fine with doing PvE (have world exploration on 4 chars anyway, used to it now) if it unlocks everything.

Yes, there might be some cases that feel the need to have every single possible build on the very same character, but usually people bring different characters for different purposes. It is also rather unusual that the same character would spec BOTH for power and condition, simply because of the fact that most classes are only really viable in one of the two.
And if that happened they would still have rather major issues to get the gear for those builds in the first place, without doing PvE. Sure, they could get it by only doing WvW but it would take months if not years.

Well, when you get to lvl 80 you will have 400 points. In order to fully get everything (except the specialization) you will need 465 points. There are quite a bit many more than 65 skill points in the game. So yes, a PvE player (especially with map completion) will very much be able to get everything unlocked quite easily.

fellyn.5083:

Stress test? Beta? You’re referring to the new pvp game mode we got play a few weeks ago?

We had an invite only stress test a couple of weeks ago (don’t remember exactly when) and then we had the 24 hours open beta of Stronghold quite recently.

fellyn.5083:

If I had to guess I would say it probably won’t be out before August but much more likely the end of the year and maybe even early next year.

They did say we’d get a beta test for it before release and they haven’t even said when that is going to be.

We have had one stress-test and one open beta though. Yes, there will be more, but we have seen them already.
We also know that we will get the first specialization information next week (and it will not be Druid) so the information flow might start to speed up.

I would guess we will have a couple of betas in May and then some open ones during the summer, with release in August (unless something major turns up).

Arcadio.6875:

I watched the stream.

You will need 465 hero points to get all the traits and skills for a character. That number doesn’t include elite specializations like druid.

Getting to level 80 will give you 400 hero points which means you will need to get 65 points from hero challenges (currently skill challenges). I somehow doubt there will be 65+ skill challenges in WvW. The few skill challenges in WvW already feel out of place.

It’s disappointing that we have to do boring skill challenges to fully unlock all traits and skills for a character. The way of acquiring traits pre-April 2014 was the best.

And how likely is it that you would be using every single trait/skill in the whole game? In 99% of the cases people go with one build, and then stay with that build. Which 400 HPs would be more than enough for.
In fact, 400 points should be enough to get multiple builds.

BunjiKugashira.9754:

Nope, planning ahead doesn’t seem to be ANet’s strong point. They’ve announced a lot of stuff that didn’t come afterwards. A lot of stuff that was announced sometime in the past is now announced for HoT again. I wonder how many of the announced features we’ll actually see in HoT.

BTT: Sadly I doubt we’ll see a SAB-release before HoT. This is one of those moments I wish I could just walk into ANet’s office, take a computer and do their job for them…

What are all these “lot of stuff” that were announced and is not announced to be with HoT?
As far as I am aware there is only a single thing. The precursor hunt.

pelle ossa.9705:

so they can’t even plan their stuff with logic (btw that change didn’t even was connect with precursor drop…)? i think they delayed a lot scavenger precursor , because precursor was connected with a lot of stuff in game economy and they had to find a way to balance it without destroy economy….

Of course they can. But that doesn’t mean things can’t get changed or delayed. In fact releasing something despite they know there are better ways to do it just for the sake of releasing it would be stupid.
And yes, the changes to the reward systems are very much connected to the precursor hunt. Have you not read the blog? It is rather clear that it is heavily integrated with the Collections system, something that didn’t exist back then (but was probably being built around the time of the delay).

Do we really want a rushed release?

I also find it rather unlikely that you have done everything in the game. Have you completed all non-WvW achievement? Have you done all collections?

Antivvius.3796:

Your Guild Wars 2 account has neem sispended for inappropriate language. Access will be restored in approximately 6hours/. Its to long for me i have holiday and i wont play so im very sorry for my language and i will never do that again.

This thread is not about appeals.
You broke the rules, you pay for it. Simple as that.

Apparently we are getting information about the first specialization next week (not Druid) according to the stream, so should be plenty of information coming over the next couple of weeks.

pelle ossa.9705:

i remember that…. if that was a real reason im a pink quaggan….

See?
Even when they announce reasons for delays people simply claim that they are lying.

It is also rather silly to completely ignore the fact that the reward system is vastly different now compared to that announcement.

But that is just the thing. The community have shown rather clearly that they will not accept any sort of delay, no matter if it is announced or not.
People keep bringing up the Precursor Hunt as an example, and yet they told us long before the deadline (before the end of the year) was over, and they gave us a reason for the delay. People simply refuse to acknowledge it. (The reason was that they are changing the reward system and thus the planned Precursor Hunt simply wouldn’t work in that new system.)

Or people accept reality and understand that it is simply not feasible for a company of ArenaNets size to keep releasing stuff every 2 weeks while working on an expansion, if they want the expansion out in a timely manner.

It is also worth pointing out that those of us that preferred the Living Story model warned everyone demanding an expansion about this very thing.

And yes, some people will lose interest. But that happens in every single game ever. Nothing is stopping anyone from taking a break and come back when the expansion launches and so on.

And as said: The vast majority of other MMOs don’t release stuff nearly as often as Guild Wars 2 did, and especially not around expansion time.

This is basically standard when it comes to MMOs.
When a company is getting close to release an expansion, other content releases are not really released.
Just look at WoW. There was about a year between the last content patch and the launch of the latest expansion. And they forces you to pay each month if you want to be able to even play.

There are loads of stuff that you probably haven’t done in the game. And even if you are not interested in anything of that, why not take a break? The game will still be here when you come back. You don’t have to play it every day.

Do the game make any distinction about traits being bought and traits being earned?
If not, this wouldn’t even be possible.

And even if it is possible it is very unlikely that they would do it. They can go around refunding everything every time they make a change.

Einlanzer.1627:

This is a silly conversation. The Norn are a fantasy race inspired by Nordic culture. Their naming conventions don’t have to match the real world any more than Arenanet wants them to.

I’m more bothered by the persistent mispronunciation of the word “golem”. It’s supposed to be “goh-lem”, not “Gollum” like the LotR character.

The OP kind of just sounds like a whiny chauvinist.

Isn’t this rather silly though?
You claim that ArenaNet can do whatever they want with the lore, and yet you are bothered by them having a specific pronunciation of a certain word?

They are not ignoring it. But a game that is basically in maintenance mode will not have more than a very low number of people working on it.
There was this one guy that spammed the forum about his ticket and he got the issues fixed after 85 (or 84?) days, so they do fix issues, it just takes time.

They can’t really afford to have a full dedicated support team for a game that is basically costing more than it earns.

And if they gave no hints whatsoever people would complain about that as well.

In fact, plenty of people LIKE getting hints and speculated/discuss about them before the full reveal, especially if they are not ready to make the full reveal yet.

As I read it you would get the new trait changes but not the Elite Specialization things (those that changes the professions), if you do not have HoT.

phys.7689:

hero challenges are skill challenges
there will be some in WvW because there already were.
there wont be enough to unlock everything though, that requires having done most of the skill challenges already.

“Hero Points will be limited, and they’ll be earned strictly through what are currently called skill challenges (these will become known as hero challenges) and leveling up.”

“A single character who’s done a fair amount of the hero challenges should be able to unlock all of the core specializations, skills, and traits.”

To be fair we don’t actually know how many there would be in the new map seeing as we haven’t really seen a complete version of it yet.

But yeah, it might be hard for people to get what they want in WvW. But then again on the other hand they do seem to imply that you will be able to get a decent enough build by just leveling up to lvl 80. And most people in WvW don’t go around changing traits all the time, so shouldn’t be much of an issue.

Probably nothing.

Games (especially MMOs) change all the time. If they were to refund stuff every single time they changed something they would have to hire a whole office just to handle refunds.

Phosphia.7813:

Because map completion is no longer a part of WvW. And I wouldn’t imagine all hero challanges to be inside WvW, wouldn’t make much sense.

Which is why I’m asking in this thread.

And yet there were still skill points in WvW last I checked.

Phosphia.7813:

Have you read the new blog posts? There’s a lot of talk about stuff like hero challenges required to progress your class specs and Spvp being exempt from having to do this.

This implies that WvW players will be forced to do PvE content unless they provide an alternative like with the trait book merchants.

Why assume there won’t be hero challenges in WvW?

phys.7689:

that still means the gap will likely increase.
10% more stats with a higher amount of total stats, = bigger gap.

That depends on how the increase is calculated.
If they based the higher tier on the lower tier and so on.

Mattargul.9235:

How will the new specialization, and really all the changes in HoT, affect people who do not buy HoT? Or did I misunderstand and HoT is not a B2P expansion, but it’s free?

The elite specializations (the things referred to as specializations before these blogs) will require the expansion. But the standard traits and such will not.
As far as I understand it at least.

tramwajarz.2369:

I’m very disappointed that some professions are getting two-handed weapons and some only offhands. kitten , eles with their swords are getting 12 new skills. Why some professions are getting too much love while others are unwanted kids?

Yes elementalists might get more skills than others. But what if they only get that? While lets say mesmer might end up getting “only” a shield but also a bunch of new mechanics and such (such as new shatterings or new clone/phatasm creations or so on).