Guild Wars 2

The new LA will be able to transform into super robot defence macross.

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/facebooknations/images/8/8b/Macross_city_3.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20120129012528

Donari.5237:

I admit it’s been a little grindy working on skill challenges on my alts, especially the ones that leveled without a lot of map exploration (hi there, Mad King events). I have 2 at world completion, 11 at 100 challenges done per the map (could be a few more if they got some in DT/SW/etc), 1 in the upper 60’s that I’ll work on next, and a level 43 that will get them over time. Otoh I’ve gained waypoints, unfogged maps, and made sure all my alts can get to at least the start of the DT and SW zones so as to be ready to push further into HoT.

I have a lot of skill challenges available to boost them further, especially in Orr. One thing that has just occurred to me: the WvW maps are changing. Would it be wise to grit my teeth and go get the skill challenges from the current maps on my 13 alts that don’t have them? Or with those removed from the world when the maps change, will they no longer give credit towards Hero Points? Will the new WvW maps have hero challenges in them?

they probably will, however why rush out? you will likely not have any need for more hero points. 155-165 will probably be all you need for elite specs, and by the time elite spec available, you will have skill challenges in the new zone.

overall i would say needing a ton of skill challenges is a bit tedious, but leveling to 80 is actually a lot more tedious.

selan.8354:

it looks like eotm and eotm is very very pve heavy and ai dominated.thats why i think this map should be optional. if people like the map after playing it and i mean the wvw core player base then yes implement it. otherwise leave it like eotm optional

eotm’s current state has nothing to do with AI, every npc melts on contact with the zerg. eotm is the way it is, because nothing is at stake, and there is no server identity. No one has any reason or desire to defend anything.

anyhow, play the maps when they do the beta before you go crazy.

Daddar.5971:

Hyperbolic? No, not at all. I’ve decided that I I totally agree with you. I need to do my ABC’s again on all my characters. Besides, reciting your ABC’s for hours on end is just plain fun. I’m really glad you’ve shown me how wrong I was to think that progress already earned in WvW should count for anything. I mean, it’s not nearly as valid a method of earning progress as reciting your ABC’s ad infinitum. In fact, I think they should make Barney a world boss. Wouldn’t that be cool?!

i already told you that i dont disagree with grandfathering, but you were also talking about skill challenges as progression, so my posts were about that.

and you only have to do your skill challenges once per charachter. much like you only had to level from 1-80 once per charachter. Anyhow, sounds like you ve lost it now. Go ahead and go crazy, when you are not even sure they dont already have a plan for grandfathering/wvw.

selan.8354:

Daddar.5971:

If we just do enough hero challenges on all our characters we’ll all finally see their true value and learn to love them. Communing with places of power and ingesting random food and drink just can’t be matched by any other gaming experience. I know the challenge of doing those things will make me feel like a hero who’s really earned the right to get my skills and traits back. Silly me, I deserve to have my progress reset for dinking around in WvW instead of PvE, where the real challenge is!

pve a challenge.?yeah bashing a mob by spamming 11111111 is sooo challenging right hahaha

and yet you dont want more challenging AI anyhow, so why do you even bring it up?

Daddar.5971:

If we just do enough hero challenges on all our characters we’ll all finally see their true value and learn to love them. Communing with places of power and ingesting random food and drink just can’t be matched by any other gaming experience. I know the challenge of doing those things will make me feel like a hero who’s really earned the right to get my skills and traits back. Silly me, I deserve to have my progress reset for dinking around in WvW instead of PvE, where the real challenge is!

This post seems too exagerated and hyperbolic, it doesnt make you seem to be someone you should take seriously.

anyhow, as i have told you before, skill challenges are not supposed to be challenging content. They are the ABCs of playing a charachter. Just like getting level 10 is no huge achievement or a symbol of anything challenging. Its just progression.

selan.8354:

Safer Saviour.9685:

I always got the feeling that WvW was supposed to be a bridge between PvP and PvE, hence players being able to keep their PvE equipment. This new map definitely has elements of that, but I think the real idea behind it is for players to use the environment as a weapon against other players.

As someone above said, there’s only really one place where players can fall to their deaths, so it’s less like EtoM’s do or die. It just gives players a few more ways to hurt their enemies.

erm plus all the lava plus all the random keep jumping stuff petc. u havent played the actual map yet but from the look of it it is mainly pve. and no wvw is not a bridge between pve and pvp. it is pvp and if u would be in a true wvw community u would know that. wvw is about battles not environment pve stuff. we dont need ai to do the kills and work for us. we wanna do it ourselves! we dont need a pve boss nor do we need pve jumping puzzles. all im asking for is to make this map optional so the pve community has their little playground to pretend to do pvp and we can keep the real pvp in wvw.

i think you need to play the map first. From what they said, the stuff that you refer to as jumping puzzle type stuff is optional paths.

And i think you are overestimating AI, only the lords seem to have any real mechanics.’ It does seem to be mostly about players controlling points to get advantages in the conflict, which can be eliminated by controlling the points.

selan.8354:

phys.7689:

selan.8354:

if this was another eotm like map i wouldnt mind it so much, but this pve map is replacing our borderlands….please make eb bigger and increase the map cap cause once this map is forced upon us every true wvw guild will queue for eb. we hated eotm we wont like this map.

to be honest, the main problem with the eotm map is that it isnt wvw. Its not server based, the score doesnt matter.

i think people will enjoy playing with their groups and servers in new maps. The npcs, and buffs wont stop people from playing.

it will push everyone and his mother to go to eb as it will be the only real wvw map. if eotm was pushed to replace a current borderland map i would have quit a long time ago. this new map is horrible and nothing more than a jumping puzzle circus for pvers. its plain stupid form a wvw persepctive. it will not be fun and will push everyone that loves wvw away….cant wait for camelot unchained as it will be pve free!

You seem to be the type who doesnt really like change much. I think for most WvW players it will be fine.

Mostly it will be tricky when its new, after awhile people will know it pretty well, and it probably wont be that big a deal

selan.8354:

if this was another eotm like map i wouldnt mind it so much, but this pve map is replacing our borderlands….please make eb bigger and increase the map cap cause once this map is forced upon us every true wvw guild will queue for eb. we hated eotm we wont like this map.

to be honest, the main problem with the eotm map is that it isnt wvw. Its not server based, the score doesnt matter.

i think people will enjoy playing with their groups and servers in new maps. The npcs, and buffs wont stop people from playing.

Softspoken.2410:

As an aside, forcing yourself to level all the way to 80 in Queensdale alone sounds like a misery, and isn’t really well supported since you run out of renown hearts. But I’m betting you weren’t serious about that example.

Edit for this section:
WvW is absolutely a separate entity from PvE, and has been from the start. The maps do not connect with the larger PvE maps any more than sPvP does, and the goal of the game is very different from PvE. It’s not as much about exploration and satisfying quests in an area, it’s about conquering and keeping territory. Your opponents are different too: PvE’s NPC opponents are drastically different from the enemy players of WvW. And even WvW players are different to fight against than PvP, because of how rules like small local capture points and even teams no longer exist.
Edit over.

But really what we’re trying to get down to is: should WvW be able to fully develop a character in terms of Hero Points? I think it should, because I think WvW is big enough to supply that unobtrusively.

there used to be a number of people who champ farmed queensdale till they were high enough for frostforge.

WvW was designed with exploration goals, like skill points, vistas, and poi’s. It has dynamic events, and npcs/jump puzzles.
I have actually gone in there and farmed enemies at some times. It really was designed to be a combination of pve and pvp. Problem is, the pve elements werent compelling enough to feel like it was really pve/pvp mix. People mostly ignored the pve design.

Anyhow, original design intents aside, the problem with WvW based hero points is multi faceted

basically WvW based aquisition while the modes are connected skill wise would ruin the things the new system is trying to accomplish.

1) simple system
2) easily expandable system
3) bring value to hero challenges
4) lower numbers for progression going forward

there are a couple of solutions that dont screw it up that much, aside from making it more complex/less intuitive, but they would probably have to have already been working on them for awhile, to be ready before hot ships.

Softspoken.2410:

I’d agree more with the notion that PvE and WvW were considered a combined entity if they didn’t have different communities, styles of gameplay, daily categories, subforums, and if WvW didn’t take pains to let you start and progress a character to 80 and still be relevant while doing so. I mean, WvW even has its own experience tracks and levelling that represent progression in that specific mode.

Getting the points from PvE wouldn’t be the most arduous chore, admittedly. It isn’t too difficult to gather about 50 skill points in PvE for 100% unlocks. (Based on current hearsay). Really I think it would be appropriate for WvW to be capable of providing those hero points itself, possibly through something as simple as increasing the amount of skill challenges in the maps, or for taking part in something big like capturing Stonemist Castle.

uhh, everything has different communities, are fractals and dungeons a sperate entity now? What about TP economy? Living story?

like i said, perhaps they now want it to be a seperate entity, but that was not the intent before.
they have the same rule set, gear from one goes to the other. You can even use a bunch of consumables you can only get from karma vendors
being able to level 1-80 in wvw isnt that crazy a feat, you can level 1-80 in queensdale , or level 1-80 in fractals.

anyhow, perhaps they should fully seperate it, and have different unlocks in each mode, however i think most people like the idea of having them be part of the same mode.

Devildoc.6721:

lordkrall.7241:

Or maybe people should stop thinking about betas as preview events and accept that they are actual tests and as such doing short burst is logical and makes sense?

Okay, look.

They HIRE, and PAY people to do serious testing, that’s what the QA department is for. That’s how a lot of their developers actually start their career, get hired on as QA and then they eventually get promoted to designers, like Mike Zadorojny.

Beta tests with playtesters find things that only occur when there’s high volume on the servers, so that’s one purpose, the “payment” for doing this for Arenanet is that people do get to see content early.

That’s pretty much the understood relationship, across multiple developers, and multiple games.

So while trying to trumpet “it’s a test, not a preview”, you’re basically wrong, we’re not hired Arenanet staff, it’s not our job, it’s an exchange, we test things for them in high volume and find issues they might not be able to find with the lower volume they have using only internal QA, and in exchange, we get to see something early.

It’s both a test and a preview, in that sense. All beta tests with volunteer playtesters are both tests and previews.

Otherwise if this is just supposed to be our job and we’re doing QA work for them, they’d better be cutting us a check.

But that’s beside the point. The point is, there were a lot of people upset at how beta invites were distributed this time and there would have been a lot less people upset if they’d known the details of the test ahead of time, because many people would have said “oh well, I can’t be on then anyway, guess I won’t farm” or “oh well, it’s only 6 total hours, so it’s not worth farming for more than 6 total hours” Some people farmed 60+ hours, for this 6 hour test (I’m not one of them I spent maybe 20? I don’t know, 2 hours a day tops for the duration and not every day), that’s a staggeringly disproportionate amount of time, and some of those people farmed that long for a beta they won’t be able to participate in due to irl obligations.

Of course, Arenanet may have had trouble getting enough testers for that “high volume” part of what actual testing we do consists of if they had been up front. But then they would have done as they did before, randomly select accounts that are on the newsletter subscription.

So what makes me angry is that Anet was not up front about the details and wasted a lot of time for some people and in fact deceived people to do what the REAL purpose of the portals was, not to get testers, but to get people back into farming Dry Top and Silverwastes. Their deception is what makes me angry about it.

testing in a controlled dev environment will never be the same as testing with players, also the numbers arent there.
No company hires enough people to playtest an MMO in a realistic fashion. They have like 250 employees at arenanet, even if everyone in the company was a playtester, it still wouldnt equal what happens when the game is live.

Daddar.5971:

Just look at the daily achievements. They can be earned equally in 3 categories: PvP, PvE and WvW. This strongly implies that these are the three co-equal branches of GW2 gameplay. Of course, it is natural for PvE players to think that their preferred mode is ‘the one that matters’ or the ‘one that the others are based on’. That doesn’t mean that they are correct.

daily achievements have changed multiple times, and will likely continue to change.

Really its not about a prefered mode, or one that matters. The devs, in the past have considered wvw and pve to be part of one whole. They felt no qualms making you go to WvW for certain things, and pve for others (the current trait system for example)

The focus of the new design as far as they have told us is focused on skill challenges as the defacto skill earning mechanic outside of leveling,

if they feel like WvW should have its own system, they probably have already designed it into the system.

laokoko.7403:

Please Anet, I’m in a very casual laid back guild.

And this thing have been going on for a while. People simply dont’ accept necro in a guild dungeon group.

And people are not even doing hardcore speed run. Just laid back casual runs.

Will necro be buffed so it’ll be accepted in groups?

while necro is not optimal, it is more than capable of being useful in any dungeon. This is mostly a perception issue.

Eponet.4829:

phys.7689:

Eponet.4829:

RabbitUp.8294:

It’s not fair if you get hero points for playing your preferred mode. PvE doesn’t get hero points for doing dungeons or fractals.

Could we be more constructive about this, like, say, arguing that they should as well.

is it good for the game as a whole, if there is no incentive for doing different facets of the game?

Very much so. It encourages the developers to make content that people want to play because it’s fun to play, rather than because they have to to get the most out of the parts of the game that they do.

If people wont play something without having a carrot dangled in front of them, it’s probably because they don’t enjoy it. If they don’t enjoy it, it fails as recreation, and forcing them to do so is just going to make them hate the game.

There is some merit to minor incentives to try something the first time, as they might simply have never given it a try, but I don’t think that applies here. If they had stated that hero challenges would be unlocked for every character on an account after being acquired once I’d understand it under that logic, but given that they’re something that need to be repeated over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, that kind of falls apart. After the first time, doing them a second or third time isn’t going to make you come to revelation that you love skill challenges.

I disagree, some things should be rewarded for specific types of gameplay. Somethings should also be tied to specific charachters progress.
By offering all incentives in one small facet, you decrease the value of the game as a whole. Some things should be in specific places, the game needs to make doing content feel valuable. Many people primarily value charachter progression, over money, cosmetics, etc.

Some poster said skill points are a waste of their time, because they dont give rewards, and thats exactly the point, due to the game giving out too many skillpoints for doing anything without any actual specific method, they look at skill points as not being a valuable item to pursue, and that was never the intention.

exploration, killing a monster, exploring a cave, in an MMO much of its value is decided by what types of progress you get for doing it. They need to have skill points feel like something worth doing/obtaining. Thats part of why they did the redesign. If the game was designed differently, with special drops from certain enemies, or special resources, they could use those as incentives, but its not, and getting skills is, for me, one of the most valuable things to do in the game.

Now, i might alter the implementation, but the idea of having go adventuring in order to get your skills is far from a bad one imo.

And its something you shouldnt be able to circumvent because you played another proffesion a lot.

Daddar.5971:

phys.7689:

is it good for the game as a whole, if there is no incentive for doing different facets of the game?

Exactly the point! Skill progression should be possible in every valid game mode. Your character should be able to unlock basic traits and skills via fractals, dungeons, WvW, etc.

Under the new system all traits and skills (beyond the ones granted by leveling) are locked behind PvE content. The only people who can stay in just 1 game mode and unlock everything are open-world PvE players.

From anets standpoint, wvw and pve are the same world. WvW is another map in the world. They may change this concept, but thats the concept they started off with. You have the same things in a wvw map that you have on any other map, vistas, waypoints, dynamic events, enemies, nodes, skill points, POIs, teleports.

and there are somethings you can only get in WvW.

Mirage.4536:

But please please why?

Most people work on weekdays, some of us for those hours and more… One would assume that a weekend would be better for your customers.

Can’t believe I got a portal and now won’t be able to play anyway cause of the extremely limited time, 3 × 2 hours on a Tuesday.

I’ve played this game since start and put so much money into it and just once I win something, and then Murphy just waits around to slap me in the face….

I hate you Murphy!

The real key factor of these betas is testing they need to have.
They are basically scheduling them during work hours when they have people available to handle/study problems.

IE this beta is not about marketing and promotion, its more for tehnical reasons.

Quells.2498:

I can agree with that. I really do enjoy the conversation I just think it’s probably a little too far fetched to expect Anet to prioritize making every class “meta” worthy.

meta worthy isnt exactly the objective they should try to reach, but they balance wise it tells you something about them. Also keep in mind they want to start evolving the game content to make more use of the actual game mechanics. Most of the things people are talking about are things classes bring to pve gameplay in groups.

In group content being able to provide a lot of blasts will always be valuable
being able to give people might also valuable
being able to protect groups is valuable
being able to help transport them is valuable
which fields your class has access to,
how much control you can do
type of DPS you can do
etc.
right now, most of the game mechanics do not meld well with necros. Once they design content that is more accessible, where what players can do for a group is valuable, people will be looking at classes in terms of what they can bring to the table.

lordkrall.7241:

Or maybe people should stop thinking about betas as preview events and accept that they are actual tests and as such doing short burst is logical and makes sense?

i think the point is the method of aquisition was not in balance with the beta.
Im not really surprised about that, As you say they test what they need to test. However, once again developers miss the full implications of random distributions, especially with low rates.

Its a good concept to have something like beta access be obtainable due to ingame methods, but the execution of that, was ehhh.

Eponet.4829:

RabbitUp.8294:

It’s not fair if you get hero points for playing your preferred mode. PvE doesn’t get hero points for doing dungeons or fractals.

Could we be more constructive about this, like, say, arguing that they should as well.

is it good for the game as a whole, if there is no incentive for doing different facets of the game?

Nemitri.8172:

It’s really simple, I hate the randomness of the zone selection, fun fact, ever since I started doing fractals for 20 relics, I got about the same fractals nonstop (namely the colossus one, yuck, this should be a dungeon in on itself) I haven’t done the aquatic one nor the one where you have to carry the torch to keep yourself warm (the name escapes my mind).

How about a simple solution? Once you are done with a fractal, a pop up shows letting you choose a variety of fractals you can go to, people vote on them, and we proceed as normal, that way we aren’t so hardly subjected to RNG.

Thoughts?

the random nature of fractals, imo extends their life dramatically by offering more variety, and unexpected outcomes. While i annoyed when it seems like get certain ones more often than others ( which seems to be the case) the trade off would be bad. People running the same easy fractals over and over, no surprises, and negation of most of the content within fractals

bug
edly

fixing

Daddar.5971:

I’m not sure which statement by A-net you are referring to regarding their reason for creating WvW. Please direct us to the official source of your many statements about A-net’s design intentions. Clearly, they meant for a character to be able to level up and reach full-unlocks in standalone WvW, because that’s exactly what I’ve done within the system they created. I’m just asking to keep the progress I’ve made.

im not talking about grandfathering, im talking about design intent.
And they designed WvW with 15 skill challenges versus 189. They had no skill point scrolls, or skill tomes.
They required WvW for map completion, and they connected WvW with PVE progression based systems.
In every single way, it is clear that wvw was seen as an extension of the general world, rather than a seperate entity. It was basically designed as being 2 extra maps(3 clones), designed to have pvp take place in.

yeah you can level 1-80 in wvw, the same as you could level 1-80 in queensdale. But thats not designed to be how you progress, though it is possible.

Softspoken.2410:

lordkrall.7241:

Daddar.5971:

I’ll just say that if PvE players had to go into WvW and clear every sentry point (or capture every camp, or every tower, or every keep, or SMC 65 times) we’d hear a lot of whining. I’m sure you’d be able to do it, but you’d resent the requirement.

You mean a bit like having to do WvW for world completion?

They’re pretty comparable. As a generally PvE player, I’m hoping they can come up with a fitting way to acquire the necessary Hero Points in WvW. It seems like the current availability of skill points won’t be enough.

wvw was never meant to be a stand alone experience, it was concieved within the framework of pve. Its where your charachter you built, leveled and created fought other peoples progress based charchters.

Are you saying this was a bad idea?

The premise of WvW, was to take your PVE progression, and use that characher you built in order to play in these large pvp maps.

Are you guys saying that this is no good? do you want an spvp system in place for wvw? The real reason you cant get full progress in WvW is simple, its small, and doesnt have much content. If they wanted to have more skill challenges there it wouldnt really be balanced in terms of effort.

Do you guys actually want wvw to represent the work and efforts of a tailor made charachter?
skill challenges are basically a low level, basic charachter building excerise. What you are really saying, by saying you should be able to skip it, is that wvw should not be about charachter building.

import all spvp stats/rulesets/amulets for wvw?

and what about people who like progression based pvp? taking the charachters they built up in pve and fighting other players who built their charachters? wvw was built for them, but you guys are implying thats not what WvW should be. Where should they go?

morrolan.9608:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

You’re complaint isn’t that you don’t want to do them. Your complaint is that they are boring. That’s entirely different than most of the others’ complaints, which simply boils down to they just don’t want to do them at all….period.

Thats a mischaracterization of those who are objecting which is that we don’t want to have progress we earned via a different system lost merely because they are changing the system and have to spend hours re-earning them when we could be doing an activity in game that we actually want to do.

For new toons going forward I think its fine.

he was talking about that specific poster, which was bringing up a different point, not “you” meaning everyone he was talking to.

As it pertains to grandfathering;

• whatever techniques they use should be short term, and only effect the current situation.
  • the last grandfathering was really bad, in that people with level 1 charachters, basically cheated the second system, which was designed with skill points being easy to aquire in mind. while a new charachter created in it needed to do specific content or gain 360 skill points, a grandfathered level 1 charachter had to do like 1/5th the work.
• the total available needs to be limited, without creating situations where you dont get credit for doing something
• the total available should also be limited so that new progression doesnt become even more onerous based on an excess build up
• the system should be able to grow with expansions.

Eponet.4829:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

morrolan.9608:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I’m sorry, but it’s NOT 11 hours on one character. I have 15 characters currently and I’m working through challenges on them presently. The vast majority of them have very little world completion done, a lot of them have nothing open beyond the first few waypoints in their starter zone. Yet, you don’t see me kittening about this.

Edit: And I only get to play an hour an night if I’m lucky!

Even at 5 mins its around 5 hours for 1 character let alone if you have multiples. It may not bother you personally but how about having some understanding that others may not like having the progress that THEY EARNED reset.

The ones that EARNED it leveled to 80 and did the challenges. They won’t be affected.
I don’t consider champ training and clicking through scrolls EARNING anything. And yeah, I did it too to unlock skills. Ive spent gold to unlock traits with the new system. I’m going to lose all of it too, its not the end of the world though.

By that logic, you shouldn’t consider skill challenges earning them either. It’s just running to arbitrary points and completing a task that has absolutely no difficulty, it’s tedious, not challenging, just like champ trains.

If you’re going by that metric, the only people that earned them would be the people that paid for them via WvWvW kills/objectives, High level fractals or SPvP and they should be tied exclusively to WvW rank, Fractal reward level, and PvP leaderboard ranking. All of these are far more challenging, and deserving than skill challenges are. Up the difficulty on them, and give them interesting mechanics that result in every class being forced to approach each of them differently while using their full suite of mechanics, and it’ll be both earning them, and keep them from being tedious. Two to three minutes of running across a map followed by a trivial encounter that doesn’t require any actual skill doesn’t seem like it would appeal to anyone.

People like to simplify it to clicking scrolls, but that’s only the last step. It’s like saying that Skill challenges aren’t earning them because you’re just given skill points. Skill challenges are pretty much just brainless tedium.

Make the skill challenges both actually challenging, fun in and of themselves, and either make them account bound, or varied such that they’re a unique experience with each class and I’d be okay with it. But as they are now, they’re just a waste of time.

Skill challenges should not actually be challenging content( for most levels) they are designed to be small tests that show what level your charachter is. Its basically like taking tests.
The old system was flawed charachter progression, people who never played a charachter a day in their lives were somehow fully unlocked in everything.

Daddar.5971:

And this is yet another reason not to give a further advantage to PvE players who have racked up silly ‘skill challenges’ to ‘earn’ the advantage.

sorry man, your thinking is incorrect.
Skill challenges are not supposed to be hard, they are a basic test for your charachter.
in a sport they would be like learning to dribble a basketball or pitch a baseball. The content you want to do is designed for upper level charachters. Why encourage people to go into this content kitten?

The devs messed up by allowing too much charachter progression to be done without actually playing a charachter. They also messed up by inflating charchter progression currency to the point that it was worthless, which lead them to needing insane skill point sinks for new skill progression

Skill point challenges are boot camp for your charachter, it represents a minimum progression that everyone has to do on their charachters. Every doctor has to go to college.

Now you are an old school doctor, who existed before they had these requirements, Your argument is you have been practicing medicine for years, before they even needed college.

That may be valid, but it doesnt mean that requiring college going forward is a flawed system.

As far as grandfathering fully unlocked charachters, they may have a plan for you, or they may not, but focus your feedback on wanting to be grandfathered, instead of mocking the concept of skill challenges. Its a fair concept.

Daddar.5971:

Simple questions:

1) If a player has level 80 characters that have all skills unlocked without doing any PvE skill points, will those characters need to obtain PvE skill points (65 or some other number) to reclaim the core traits which they had already legitimately earned?

2) If so, why?

I’m posting this because I’m tired of the trolls in other threads and hoping for an official answer.

they are most likely not 100% commited to anything yet, but i wouldnt get my hopes up.

Eponet.4829:

CorrynnStarr.7942:

Daddar.5971:

spoj.9672:

Except i dont think its fair that someone is able to work on unlocking their elite specs if they havent done enough hero challenges to completely unlock the core specs. Thus a debt is needed. Its essentially saying they never have to complete those extra skill challenges (they arent complete on the map but they may aswell be because you got free hero points).

And you are completely misunderstanding me on my other points. Dont really know how to explain it any other way. I know exactly how they want things to work. You repeating those to me has no relevance.

AGAIN, the point is that the system announced will privilege PvE world completion over other forms of gameplay. I’m not asking that others reach my number of WvW ranks, so why should I be asked to reach their number of ‘skill challenges’?

Not that it matters a whole lot now cuz they recently changed it, but it used to be we were FORCED to go into WvWvW to get our 100% map completion to make legendary weapons. also to fulfill all the achievement for jumping puzzles we had to brave through getting ganked at puzzles choke points to get credit for a PVE reward. We are all sooooo sorry you have to experience a different aspect off the game to get the content you want. /sarcasm off

Legendary weapons were never a PvE reward. It was both a PvE and WvW reward, it had a badges of honor requirement built into it from the very start.

Besides, it’s nowhere near as important as traits. Legendary weapons aren’t a mechanical advantage outside of changing stats, which mostly just compensates for the cost of crafting it (as opposed to one weapon of every stat combination).

Lacking a legendary weapon wont give you a disadvantage in completing content. Lacking the traits needed to use reflection to the best effect in content that calls for it, will.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

lol I hope they triple the requirements and make it 100% world completion just so I can see these entitled whiners explode…

I’d love that. It makes no difference to me personally, because I’m only going back to skill challenges once it’s time to make a third legendary regardless, and it’ll only cause even more backlash if that happens.

the truth is, you werent really meant to never leave WvW. they always envisioned WvW and PVE being tied together. This is why they shared skills, traits, gear, map complete etc. As time went on they made it easier to progress in WvW without going into PVE, but they generally before thought of them as being a shared mode.

RabbitUp.8294:

phys.7689:

at the current rate, some wont be enough to complete it.
IF they keep the same rate as base core, it will use 90-100 to complete a specialization and the associated skills.
that means 155-165 used up. leaving you with about 65 left if you do wvw/other maps, etc.

100 seems a lot. You need 465 points to unlock 5 traitlines and 30 or so skills (I’m not sure how much that number varies between professions, to be honest). Elite specs are only a single traitline, 6 skills, 1 armour skin and 1 weapon skin.

In any case, the issue raised was that some people will get a head-start for the next elite spec. Regardless of whether you can unlock it fully or partly on launch, any amount of leftover points offers some advantage.

And I don’t really see the issue. It’s the same as how some will be able to use Tomes to get a level 80 Revenant on day 1.

based on the video, it was 60 points for a full specialization unlock, and 35 for a skill pack, or something like that.

It offers an advantage in that skill points still have value, but it offers no advantage in that, the other player will have to do X amount of skill challenges to get to the same level as you.

My guess, is their goal is to keep skill challenges relevant and something you want to find/do as content. When you take a look at orr, most of the content direction is based around dynamic events and skill challenges. the tome skillpoint book thing they did basically invalidated skill challenges except for the purpose of map completion.

So yeah, even if they allow you to get half of the points you need for the next specialization, as long as skill challenges are the main means of skill/trait progression, it will always feel somewhat valuable to get them, and when the new content comes, maybe you will only have to get 10-20 more skill points over what was there before, but those skill points will feel valuable and worthwhile.

RabbitUp.8294:

MaXi.3642:

Neox.3497:

MaXi.3642:

Neox.3497:

I don’t understand why hero points should be “limited”

…

Uhm people with 100% world completion will be able to do that already.

but they will be able to do it this time (IF they have world completion which isn’t that common as you see so many people cry here), the resource will be limited and there wont be any way how to get more… so when they introduce another content which requires hero points and at the same time content which award hero points, people will need to earn more hero points from new content (instead of having it farmed already from just leveling up or scrolls)

According to what we know, unlocking all base specs and skills requires 65/189 challenges. Unless the elite spec uses up all the rest, it means that those with world completion will have some hero points left for the next elite spec.

at the current rate, some wont be enough to complete it.
IF they keep the same rate as base core, it will use 90-100 to complete a specialization and the associated skills.
that means 155-165 used up. leaving you with about 65 left if you do wvw/other maps, etc.

Bettik.4982:

On my first character – created at launch – I unlocked all the skills, including the racials (on an asura – we were all newbies then), exclusively via PvE and has world completion. Legit, right? No problem come the patch. My second character was also mostly PvE and has 42% world completion with 76 skill challenges, spent around 140 skill points on the core and elite (non-racial) skills. Still good.

My third started out in PvE, has 32% completion and 57 skill challenges, but then clearly made some poor life choices and got into WvW. Worse, my next 3 characters were leveled almost exclusively there (and EoTM when it was released) – sometimes even with the help of tomes and experience scrolls (I call hackz) – and I unlocked just the skills I needed for my WvW guild’s builds using scrolls. These guys only really completed their racial PvE starting areas with key waypoints into all the cities. So they have a handful of challenges each, excluding the dozen or so from the WvW maps they got that no longer count.

Will ANet force me to re-unlock all those skills via PvE hero challenges or leave me with four lvl 80 unplayable (or at least non-meta) WvW characters come patch day? Of course they wont.

if you only unlocked key builds, it is highly likely you will have enough points.
if you only unlocked one elite, that will save you 10-20 points.
if you didnt unlock a family of skills, (like traps) that will save you 35 points.
if you didnt unlock a trait line? (because you only used 3 lines) you will save 60 points.

you may even end up with more skills/traits, and since wvw has 15 skill points, you would have only needed 50 anyhow.

only people with near complete/complete charachters, with minimal skill challenges complete will end up behind.

and this is part of the issue, how do you figure out how many existing 80s actually deserve to be grandfathered? someone who didnt unlock like 20% of their skills will actually end up with more skills unlocked under the new system, just for being 80.

a guy with even one traitline they didnt bother with under the current system, will be like 5 points from completion. If he didnt bother with two lines, or only unlocked up to majors, he will be ahead.

Daddar.5971:

spoj.9672:

Except i dont think its fair that someone is able to work on unlocking their elite specs if they havent done enough hero challenges to completely unlock the core specs. Thus a debt is needed. Its essentially saying they never have to complete those extra skill challenges (they arent complete on the map but they may aswell be because you got free hero points).

And you are completely misunderstanding me on my other points. Dont really know how to explain it any other way. I know exactly how they want things to work. You repeating those to me has no relevance.

AGAIN, the point is that the system announced will privilege PvE world completion over other forms of gameplay. I’m not asking that others reach my number of WvW ranks, so why should I be asked to reach their number of ‘skill challenges’?

so lets say all skills are unlocked while you are in WvW, would that make everyone happy?
If your in PVE you need to do skill challenges, while in WvW everyone gets access to all skills.

spoj.9672:

Yeah i havent seen any working solutions in this thread either. Grandfathering wont work because people will have different maximum possible hero points. So ill give a few working ones. But i dont think anet will do any of them because they still have issues.

They could make 400 hero points be the requirement for all core stuff. Or they could unlock everything for you and give you a 65 hero point debt. But this would mean you still have to earn those extra points before you can even attempt to unlock the elite spec. Or they could auto complete 65 hero challenge but that would likely upset people who like doing map comp but havent gotten round to it on all their alts. Only other solution is to have WvW have everything auto unlock like in PvP.

dunno if they could do it, but wvw full trait/skill unlock would probably solve most beefs

Astralporing.1957:

spoj.9672:

Thats exactly how i feel about it with most of my alts. But i can accept it because logically its the only choice they have to provide a better system for the future.

Except, it is not true. Several good suggestions were already made that didn’t necessitate removing stuff from players.

Apolo.5942:

You do know this discussion is pointless right? people hated the change to the current system and Anet did not back pedal

Except they did backpedal. The whole new trait system is being introduced mainly because people didn’t like the current one.

i didnt see many workable solutions, unless they change the idea of having the maximum amount of skill points be skill challenges + leveling.

its tricky because as long as skill points are involved, if they add any other source, it will always lead to possible scenarios where skill challenges cant award skill points, either that or make players work much harder to get skills/traits, or create another overstock of skill points like they had before.

they could auto unlock 65 specific skill points on every charachter that is currently fully unlocked, but people who arent fully unlocked wouldnt be happy. Also, they may not have the back end built to do that.

penelopehannibal.8947:

phys.7689:

penelopehannibal.8947:

I seriously hope thieves don’t get rifle because if they did they’d have more ranged weapon skills than melee

what would you want them to get?

anyhow, its fairly likely it was a theif in the promo video with a rifle. It could theoretically be an engineer, but they dressed it in a style that is more thief like than engineerish

+ though they have ranged its all short range.

The biggest thing I would hope for, for thief specialisation is Melee Staff (like a bo) weapon. Perhaps the monkey king tonic is a teaser to it?

Secondly, probably greatsword.

Thirdly, probably axe if it’s to be one handed. Though that would also probably have some sort of ranged skill among there.

id love a bo staff as well, better yet, i would love a martial artist proffesion, unfortunately i highly doubt they will duplicate what weapons they give out.
they already gave out staff to ranger, and GS, so seems unlikely to me, but who knows.

morrolan.9608:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I don’t particularly consider 65 skill challenges to be “a lot,” but that’s just difference of opinion.

65 skills challenges is probably around 11 hours to complete for 1 toon. Add in multiple toons and it is a lot of time to regain what we already have..

no it is not.

Eponet.4829:

ThanatosAngel.8024:

Surely that’s a better alternative to having to complete group events and/or purchasing traits with gold, right?

No, it isn’t. You get gold and skill points from playing every part of the game that involves mechanics in some way. You only get skill challenge completion from skill challenge completion. It’s a huge step back for anyone who isn’t a world completion player.

its not a step back when you are talking about earning something like 400 more skill points and 43 gold, versus earning 65 skill points.

65 skill points averages at an average of 1 per 5 minutes in pve
vs
400 skill points with an average of 1 per half hour in WvW.
and 43 gold, at an average of 8? gold an hour in WvW.

and, even under the old first system, you actually had no skill point scrolls,
the math comes down to like
30 extra hours to unlock all skills
versus
3 extra hours in pve doing skill challenges.

If you want to argue for progress lost thats fine, but lets be honest, this system is easier than either previous system.

lordkrall.7241:

One sees patterns where one wishes to see patterns.

pretty sure the GS being rereleased is not a coincidence. If you hype people up on greatswords, you want to make sure your greatsword is available for purchase. That said, no reveal was planned for this week, soo i dunno bout the dagger meaning that much.

Daddar.5971:

PlatinumMember.5274:

Maybe a single player game but MMORPG are jammed packed with random crap design to waste your time as much as possible and not necessarily for fun.

…and this has not exactly been a formula for success. Most MMOs are struggling at best, and this is a large reason why. GW2 strives to be better than the others, so copying their failures would be a poor business plan.

what games actually let you get anything you want by playing the game in anyway posible?
not just MMOs, i mean most games.

In Metal gear solid, if i wanted certain weapons, i had to go somewhere specific to get it. In dark souls, if i wanted a fancy greatsword, i had had to go to the fancy greatsword place. In NBA live, if i wanted to get the championship, i had to play the playoffs.

It really isnt crazy that a game asks you to play the game to make progress in the game, and its not crazy that different types of play reward progress differently.

people who talk about progress lost have a point, and people who say WvW needs some ways of obtaining skills, may have a point.

However the idea that you might have to do something in the game to progress in the game, is not evil.

PlatinumMember.5274:

Astralporing.1957:

PlatinumMember.5274:

^Doing what you find fun, isn’t really a valid excuse.

Doing what you find fun is always a valid excuse when you are talking about playing a game – a medium whose sole purpose is entertainment.

Maybe a single player game but MMORPG are jammed packed with random crap design to waste your time as much as possible and not necessarily for fun.

single player games are rarely play as you want, most games have specific ways to get things, and if you dont want to do it, you dont get it. The whole concept of getting anything that is in a game, via doing anything is relatively new.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Looks like the special surprise is that we get to watch NPC’s work on LA!!!

i wonder if thats what they meant, not a big news story though

lordkrall.7241:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

That’s not hard it is just tedious. People want challenging mechanics that require organization, teamwork and quick thinking.

And how long will that stay challenging?
A week?
A month?

All in all it will take way more time to develop it than it will take for the players to no longer find it challenging.
Without something that is constantly changing randomly people will learn how to do it, and it will no longer be challenging. Simple as that.

challenge can exist even when you know how to do something. Surprising is something different.

and even in your case, the game should still be engaging.

rapthorne.7345:

To me, Reaper looks bloody fantastic.

But that’s all it does. It looks cool. But when you look at the numbers, and what the skills actually do, it does nothing for the necromancer in general (a class that’s been left in the dust for a long time in terms of what it needs to be on par with the other classes). All of the core issues with the class are still glaringly present. Chronomancer got a skill to make them key to party content, as well as a 25% speed boost in their kit (something requested for a long, long time), dragonhunter (crappy name aside) gets powerful long ranged attacks, something they were sorely lacking.

Reaper? All reaper gets is what we’ve always had. damage. Necro still has no decent party utility and will still be an outlier of the metagame. On top of that the greatsword skills look so sluggish that to be viable in pvp as a reaper would require almost 100% shroud uptime (chill doesn’t mean jack with the about of condi cleanse available).

I’m still holding out hope for the mentioned blood magic trait line rework, but don’t be blinded by aesthetics, people. Look at the numbers and what the specialisations actually bring to the table

reaper is fairly well designed, except for the shouts, and maybe some dps tweaks. The things you want are things the base necro is supposed to provide, not really the reaper. The specs are not supposed to fix the class, just add some new/different playstyles. The core is where basic class fixes should be..

necros main problem is the meta, not so much that they bring nothing.

The things they are good at, have low value, however, some of the changes to the game may change their position.
If enemies attack faster/have more abilities
If enemy skipping is less meta
changes to conditions

and yeah, necro needed a melee style, 2 targets on dagger wasnt going to be enough/DS was boring

Behellagh.1468:

carabidus.6214:

GIVE US HARD MODE!!!

USE WHITE GEAR!!!

thats not hard mode, thats slow mode.

BattleCat.2098:

I just reached lvl 29, so I know I’m not too experienced yet as a mesmer. So much more to learn. But for now, the thing I wonder about is why the enemies are ignoring my clones. The problem is that I’ve been usingthat skill that gives us two clones that attack the target quite a lot, as well as a greatsword. Greatswords can be thrown and bounced between enemies, and it’ll leave behind a clone that attacks the enemies.

Up until lvl 26ish, this worked quite well. Most enemies would go for the clones first, then after me. Though for whatever reason, if they don’t go after the clones immediately, a “force push” (GS skill 5) towards the clones usually does the trick. But lately, the enemies have started ignoring the clones more and more. Why do they do this, and how cam I make the clones more attractive for the enemies? It’s not a huge problem, just a bit annoying. Considering the class is build entirely around clones and phantasms, it would be nice if they were more reliable. ;-) They do some decent damage, though, so there’s that.

most enemies attack based on toughness, and proximity. Clones have your same toughness, so basically its a proximity problem. If you want them to focus your clones, make them be the closest targets.

Sytherek.7689:

I don’t believe ANet is as evil and insensitive as most posters here think. The pessimism here is so… internetish.

My main has had map completion since soon after game release. My other level characters range from 1 to 65% with between 0 and 90 skill points above everything unlocked. I’m working the characters I enjoy toward map completion, but am not panicking and inventing unsubstantiated theories.

Do you folks honestly believe that ANet is going to screw over PvP and WvW players? If your opinion of ANet is that low, why do you even play this game? Lotsa stuff to play if GW2 goes south, ya know.

its not a low opinion type thing, its a question of what anet thinks is fair and within their game design.

First of all, as far as SPVP anet never intended SPVP people to be able to fully progress their charachters in pve. That came later, when they decided to unify the armor systems and what not.
There is no requirement that spvp people be able to fully progress their charachters for PVE mode, in fact it is imo a very bad idea. PVE is mostly about progression, your levels, experience, and skills are awarded as per the game design to encourage you to enjoy what pve has to offer.

Now, as far as WvW, that is problematic, they do actually need the skills and traits to progress. This essentially comes down to whether they see WvW as an extension on PVE, or its own separate thing.
As it is now, i would reccomend that they do allow people to progress their charachters skills/traits in WvW, or at least minimize the effort, however if they decide that WvW is supposed to involve some amount of pve, thats their decision.

basically what this thread actually shows, is stats aside from DPS dont really matter.
Yeah he is running the dungeon well, he can do everything just as well as anyone else with no stats, except DPS.

Which i say means they should either get rid of stats, or change the way they function, but thats a debate for another thread.