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Guild Wars 2 - Heart of Thorns |OT| Welcome to the Jungle...

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Freeman76

Member
Finally made some wise investments, bought hundreds of superior sigil of generosity for 20s, they are already up to 90s now that wintersday is over. Got a few minis (50 skritt and 50 ho ho tron) as well. Playing the market is really fun
 

LiQuid!

I proudly and openly admit to wishing death upon the mothers of people I don't like
I can tell I'm not deep enough into the GW2 ecosystem by how little sense all of the patch notes makes to me. I've got 2 level 80 characters, but there's so much I haven't done.
 

Proven

Member
Sorry to hear about all of the stuff, Retro. Bowie on top doesn't help.

If I didn't have a gem card from the holidays, I'd be passing on the inventory slots. Or maybe just buying 2...
 

Retro

Member
Ugh, I want the shared inventory slots but it's just too expensive. Anet pls.

I really is absurd;
  • 700 gems each, or 2800 for five (a savings of 700 gems). That's $35, which is only $2 less than the entire Heart of Thorns expansion from some official retailers.
  • They squat at the top of your inventory. You cannot change the position of these slots (say, below a main bag, or at the bottom of your inventory).
  • Permanent Gathering tools still need to be equipped and unequipped to work; so you still have to constantly remember to shuffle them off characters. Not exactly a convenience.
  • People have already paid for account-bound items like Airship / Queen's Terrace passes and Salvage-o-Tron, which is what people wanted these shared slots for. It would have been considerate to throw a free one to people who had previously bought these items.
  • You can't buy more than 5, so if you like your inventory to be neat and tidy with no gaps in it, you're fucked (I keep my inventory 10 slots wide, for example).
  • Wouldn't need these slots at all if...
    • Harvesting tools were account wide unlocks and you picked them from a drop-down menu
    • Currencies like Pry Bars, Chak Acid, Machetes, Exalted Keys, Bandit Skeleton Keys, Zephyrite Lockpicks, Silverwastes Shovels and all of the other non-currency currencies that tend to clump up were in the wallet. If you have multiple alts in the HoT zones, you need to keep shuffling them between characters.
This sort of thing, a year or two ago, would have been included as a QoL update during a Feature Patch. Now it's another fucking cash shop option. Getting really sick of this, and I can't think of any way in which this is justified except "HoT didn't sell as much as we want, so let's kick more stuff into the gem store."

That is NOT a good sign for Build Templates, by the way.

Sorry to hear about all of the stuff, Retro. Bowie on top doesn't help.

Thanks. I kinda grew up listening to Bowie so this one really hit hard, more than say, George Harrison who I listened to a bit as a kid (thanks to Cloud 9 in the 80s) and then got into the Beatles more later.
 

Ashodin

Member
Hell, I would want those slots to be alongside the inventory, just so they would stand out. You've got all this space underneath the 8 bagslots, use that. Or something.
 

Retro

Member
Hell, I would want those slots to be alongside the inventory, just so they would stand out. You've got all this space underneath the 8 bagslots, use that. Or something.

I honestly can't see why they aren't up top next to the gear icon, quietly kept apart from the inventory. Of course, this way, they can keep expanding the cap so you buy more and more.
 

Ashodin

Member
I agree with you Retro that gliding in Central Tyria means jack unless they add support for it in some small way. Give us things to glide to, tweak some of the stuff in the game. Add hidden JPs (Gliding Puzzles?) that exist in the old world.

Stuff that makes you feel like if you don't own Heart of Thorns, you want to own it to gain access to this cool stuff.
 

Retro

Member
I agree with you Retro that gliding in Central Tyria means jack unless they add support for it in some small way. Give us things to glide to, tweak some of the stuff in the game. Add hidden JPs (Gliding Puzzles?) that exist in the old world.

Stuff that makes you feel like if you don't own Heart of Thorns, you want to own it to gain access to this cool stuff.

The whole old world needs fine tuning, bug fixes, and narrative updates (there are still NPCs that think it's 2012). Seems like the kind of stuff they wanted to do with the Living World, but they can't monetize it so I guess it'll only happen when they pull a "Cataclysm" on everybody.

I think I may end up going back into my self-imposed exile until Season 3 starts, I feel like I'm just shitting up the thread for people. Looking at what's coming next week, I'm not sure it's worth logging in. What the fuck happened to this game vs. a year ago.
 

Ashodin

Member
I think the best the game ever was, was when Living Story 2 (or hell, even ONE) was going on. At least there was new interesting things to log into nearly every 2 weeks, and even if it was kind of similar in nature, at least it got bundled with other fixes and changes. It felt like the game was evolving at a rapid rate.

Now the game feels like it's just trying to prison its audience in a never-ending loop of Outfits, repeated events, cash shop QoL-that-should-be-frees.

Nothing new or original (how about more dynamic events in both areas? Make things random again, instead of on timers?) added to the game, whole content paths thrown to the wayside for favor of what the loudest but smallest segment of the game yells for, their desire to curb what other people think about the game ("Is this game dead?" "No raiding?" "Where's the PVP support?").

What gets me is that there's not dedicated teams working on this stuff and their experimentation cost them a lot of development time up until Heart of Thorns. We've heard that they like to shuffle around teams like it's musical chairs - the problem with this approach is that you get people who get sit down into some well-worn developer's shoes on a subject - say, mini-dungeons or something - and it takes either longer or it comes out at a subpar level than usual.

We're just starting to now (after 3 years of the game!) get dedicated teams on content platforms (Fractaldungeon team), but the content that is being developed will be rapidly devoured and/or unsatisfy the majority of the playerbase that has been wanting to just recapture the magic of the original launch where the game was about exploring.

It makes me wonder what the game would look like if it had continued the update cadence where they added new and random things to the game for players to find, and piece together ARG-style, instead of this focused, directed approach they've been doing.
 

Retro

Member
Well said, Ash. I think the fact that there was an expansion at all shows either a lack of faith in the Living Story or a sense of greed that it wasn't generating enough profits. It honestly feels like when Season 1 ended and the big pre-expansion drought began, that's when things started to change for the worse.

I'll stop harping about it now.
 

hythloday

Member
I think the best the game ever was, was when Living Story 2 (or hell, even ONE) was going on. At least there was new interesting things to log into nearly every 2 weeks, and even if it was kind of similar in nature, at least it got bundled with other fixes and changes. It felt like the game was evolving at a rapid rate.

The end of Season One was the best for me. I understand why they moved away from temporary content, but nothing tops the Battle for Lion's Arch and the final battle with Scarlet for me. It kept things interesting and there was a new reason to log in every two weeks. It really was like an ongoing TV series.

It makes me wonder what the game would look like if it had continued the update cadence where they added new and random things to the game for players to find, and piece together ARG-style, instead of this focused, directed approach they've been doing.

What would the game look like? It would still have me in it, for one. That seems harsh, but LS was the main reason I kept playing. MMOs don't have staying power with me anymore - once I've accomplished most of what I want and explore the map and finish whatever story there is, all the rest just meshes into one giant To Do List and I lose interest.
 

Ashodin

Member
Well, they want to balance it. They figure that enough people liked both the expansion* and the Living World so they want to do both so there's not a drought of content.

Making it every three months is okay, so long as there's actually things to do and participate in.

Now, my fear is that there's NOT another expansion coming at the end of this year, meaning we might have to wait another 2 years (2018?) for one. Which would be ridiculous IMHO, considering the game will have some hot-and-upcoming contenders to face off against shortly (Black Desert Online, et al).

It really gets me thinking. Like what the fuck are they working on? Do they have a lack of programmers or something? What could possibly take them so long, and continues to take them so long to create.

The WVW "Big Game Update" is proof of this. They're taking supposedly a long time to adjust what they've already added to the game, and are removing "server factions" to better promote gameplay. Soon "server identity" won't matter at all.


*NCSoft
 
Sounds like very few GAFers were invited to that NDA survey.

You guys wouldn't be as pissed based on some of the questions they were asking there.
 

Retro

Member
Sounds like very few GAFers were invited to that NDA survey.

You guys wouldn't be as pissed based on some of the questions they were asking there.

If you're under an NDA I know you can't say anything, but I'm guessing the tone was more direct (and maybe even conciliatory?) and self-critical? Because for me, we've gone from a hopeful "I can't wait to see what's next!" to a dread-filled "I can't see what's coming next" and that's a direct result of poor communication and lack of clarity. What used to feel like a brave attempt at trying something new has quickly taken on the aura of alarm, trying desperately to get anything, even things that are the complete antithesis of the game, to stick.

So, yeah, you can't say anything, but if the tone was apologetic or seemed to genuinely ask respondents to question their decisions, that'd be nice to know.
 
If you're under an NDA I know you can't say anything, but I'm guessing the tone was more direct (and maybe even conciliatory?) and self-critical? Because for me, we've gone from a hopeful "I can't wait to see what's next!" to a dread-filled "I can't see what's coming next" and that's a direct result of poor communication and lack of clarity. What used to feel like a brave attempt at trying something new has quickly taken on the aura of alarm, trying desperately to get anything, even things that are the complete antithesis of the game, to stick.

So, yeah, you can't say anything, but if the tone was apologetic or seemed to genuinely ask respondents to question their decisions, that'd be nice to know.

On a second thought I think you would be as pissed but you would have higher hopes that they are on the right direction where as right now you really have very little to be happy/hopeful about for the future.
 

Spyware

Member
I'm annoyed at myself for being hopeful about today's info. For me that's basically nothing, nothing and more nothing. I feel like I'm done with what used to be my fav game ever and it's a feeling that makes me very sad.
 

Zeroth

Member
I'm annoyed at myself for being hopeful about today's info. For me that's basically nothing, nothing and more nothing. I feel like I'm done with what used to be my fav game ever and it's a feeling that makes me very sad.

It's fine to take a break. The game will still be here, and the world and characters too. Maybe playing other games and seeing different things could help things ease up until the content you enjoy is around the corner.

I myself have been enjoying Undertale, it's a nice break from GW2 and such a unique experience*.

*
RIP Retro un-hypeness
 

Proven

Member
Even if I'm hopeful of the future, there will always be a black mark in my heart starting from 2015 as the era where ANet made Retro mad.
 

Spyware

Member
It's fine to take a break. The game will still be here, and the world and characters too. Maybe playing other games and seeing different things could help things ease up until the content you enjoy is around the corner.

I myself have been enjoying Undertale, it's a nice break from GW2 and such a unique experience*.

*
RIP Retro un-hypeness
I played (finished) over 80 games last year so there's no lack of other experiences. ;P I've just always had GW2 there in the background. The one game I could always play a bit even if I felt like shit. It pains me to feel like I do now. I guess I could probably just go back to the usual leveling and pretend that HoT doesn't exist. That might actually help.
 

Mxrz

Member
Those surveys are NDA? I always skip past the jargon, but never had to agree to anything. Think there was something about not plastering it all over the Internet.

I'd say ANet's bigger issues is giving people glimpses of how they operate but not the entire picture. So people fill in the blanks with with all sorts of notions and then get the feels about it. Could argue that carries over to future plans and things too. When people are left to wonder they just assume the worst and get all vocal about it.

Anyway. Charr thief & pvp all night. No meta, no grind, no gold farming. No pips. Just fun. Good stuff.
 

Proven

Member
Back when I was waiting for balance patches and PvP updates, I did everything I could to keep my interest up in the game anyhow. I played other game modes, found what fun I could in PvP and WvW anyhow, and took copious breaks from the game. Getting obsessed for a time with Heroes of the Storm helped a bunch too.

Basically... the game you all love will be back. But, in ANet fashion, it will take a comically long time to get there. Minimum 6 months from expansion to Living Story Season 3 is an awfully long time to wait. WvW overhaul that has taken over 12 calendar months to complete and still has a number of months to go before it even gets a beta.

They are, however, attempting to keep festival cadence up. Currently we're at pace for a festival every two months; there likely will be something new come late March/early April. That could be prime time for the Queen's Pavilion
(or Super Adventure Box)
to return. Once they get that, then the Living Story should start up by summer and last us until fall. They probably also want to finish the three wings of the raid to get that story out there before S3, since they even said that the raid's story will lead into S3. However, optimally, we'd get two or even three seasons before the next expansion, which I'm predicting will arrive in Fall 2017. Assuming S3 starts by June, then it should end in time for Halloween again. Of course, they've shown that they're willing to overlap story with festivals, but I'm starting to think they may stick to this sort of cadence throughout the year. Which would mean S4 wouldn't arrive until next year around the same time, maybe earlier. PvP is pretty much set as long as they can stick to schedule, so WvW tournaments would likely happen about 3 times a year and likely start or end during the "off season" of every PvP League. So one possibility is a cadence of 8 weeks of PvP, patch, then 4 about weeks of WvW, followed by another 8 weeks of PvP, likely with some overlap.

There... aren't enough days in the year for their slow pace... Maybe if they could tighten up Living Story seasons to be 3 months long, ignore festivals, and then have the 3 months after every Living Story be Raid and Fractal releases, things would be better.

They pretty much have to reach GW1 levels of content creation at this point to cover all of this at once, however. Okay, enough rumination.
 
Really bummed out to hear that so many of you guys are having such a bad time.:(

I think the game has problems, and I think it's a shame that HoT Raid took focus away from supporting the other aspects of the game, and that WvW overhaul are still ways off, but I also think that HoT brought a lot of cool stuff to the world.

I can certainly understand the sentiment that "this should have been in the base game", but isn't that always the case? I don't remember playing a ArenaNet game or a MMORPG game in general where that wasn't the case?
I didn't expect them to work on S3 and expansion at once. To me that is a big deal, and a big change in content strategy, when you consider that expansion and living world releases have been at odds with each other for the first 3 years.


I hope you guys find something else to do that makes you happy<3 I've never seen GW2 (or GW1) as a game that could sustain people daily for years and years. By taking the high road in terms of lack of gear and levelling treadmills, it has always lend itself to exhaustive content faster, and I think that's great.
When you reach that point, it's time to stop playing, or just login for your reward and logout again. Until something new comes out.


To me, it is important that the content is good, and less about the frequency of the content. A rushed Living World Season 3 in the end of jan or in early feb, would do little to make me like the game. I have 100+ games I haven't played on steam, so it is not like I don't have any other games to play.




EDIT; Listening to this video by Dontain from early 2013.. holy fuck; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3F_ZcvR-pg < He goes on a rant about a lot of stuff I don't agree with. Some of what he says just wasn't true, but it does remind me of the troubles and problems with living world. Flame & Frost was not a strongpoint of the living world content, but I think the sentiment is echoed throughout the entire delivery system in all the living world updates.

That doesn't mean expansions is the correct path. Neither system is good. People are really upset in WoW over WoD, in FFXIV over heavensaward and in SWTOR over KOTFE. There is no way a developer can deliver a satisfying and soothing amount of content to the players. Which means, MMOs are set up to fail. Which means that we should all just play MOBAs and bask in its beautiful toxic swamp!
 

Wanderer5

Member
Finally got around going through a tier 4 day and night Verdant Brink, getting myself a pretty neat looking bladed medium coat. If I get a couple more bladed medium pieces, think I got some ideas of a new look for my engi.

Well with that, I have seen all 4 meta event through now.
 
Even though there hasn't been Living World updates, ANET has still consistently updated the game every other Tuesday.

These first 3 months hopefully they will sneak in little bits of story which will give us a better idea of where LW season 3 will be going.

My worry is that Living World Season 3 is not in a section of the blog post that says "After March", it is in a section described as "later in 2016" which could mean even later in the year. Without 2nd "sate of game" for rest of 2016 we don't actually know that LWS3 will pick up right after March.

Also I know a lot of us would be fine with LS3 of it was exactly like LS1 and LS2 but they also got a lot of flak about it not being enough content and that they aren't putting their whole team behind it. If they really believe in the LSW3 strategy they have to broaden its scope and do a lot more than what they did in LS1 and LS2.

In my opinion LS3 should be used to give us back stories about current and future elite specs, new races, continue to expand the world with new maps, update current maps with new events, introduce new guild missions based on something that happens in the story...if it doesn't start doing more ambitious things, ANET will think it doesn't work and probably abandon it for just traditional expansion because that is guaranteed money from who ever wants to continue playing.

I'm not too upset yet because I have very little play time available and as far as HoT is cooncerned, I've just completed the story on my main and that's it. There is lots of stuff I want to do in the game that I should be ok till after March for LWS3.
 

MikeDip

God bless all my old friends/And god bless me too, why pretend?
I've been so busy with work and also where are my golden wings have they showed up yet?
 

LiQuid!

I proudly and openly admit to wishing death upon the mothers of people I don't like
Doing the final story mission with guardian, zero problems. Doing it with elementalist, 2 hours of struggle.
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
Hawkian will buy this
jHNp0fL.jpg
they actually put them in the game for me
 

Not Spaceghost

Spaceghost
Oh man so I had one hell of a good night in maguuma last night.

Basically finished up every important thing in verdant brink, only really have PoI's left. It took my elite spec to be almost completely filled out, I only need to unlock the elite skill so I'm gonna need just a few more points from another zone.

Man though it took a lot of effort to get into the swing of things in Maguuma. It really threw mf off how after you finish the quest that unlocks mastery tracks it only takes you like 60% into the glider so I was dreadfully confused on what to do since the glider is required for so much stuff.

Anyways though, Maguuma is built in a really awesome and unique way but geez man it's difficult. I switched to a cavalier reaper tank build half way through because my full zerk gear was just getting my blown up. It was getting to the point where enemies were chain charging me while I was in shroud and in 3 charges my shroud would just disappear and since I am in melee range with light armor as a reaper I had to change something there.
 

Morokh

Member
Now, my fear is that there's NOT another expansion coming at the end of this year, meaning we might have to wait another 2 years (2018?) for one. Which would be ridiculous IMHO, considering the game will have some hot-and-upcoming contenders to face off against shortly (Black Desert Online, et al).

If they announce (or release) a new expansion at the end of this year, their support of HoT until then better be stellar, or I'm not jumping-in.

Don't get me wrong I actually like a lot of things about the expansion and I don't share half of the negativity, or complaints made here or in other less reputable places, but if there is something I'll gladly agree with, is that HoT came with really little content overall, and I was kind-of counting on the live updates to fill the gaps.

From that first preview, it's a rather bad start.

Jumping on the Shared Bag slots train, realizing it was an 'inventory' slot and not a 'bag' slot was definitely an unpleasant moment.
But thinking about it I still purchased one for my copper-fed, simply because I always carry around 10-15 basic salvage kits on my alts, so it freed quite a lot of bag space on my account, wayyyyyy more than two bag slots which is what this thing costs.

Also my Elementalist is finally 80 ! Yay !
Here ! Have some revealing light armor :troll:
My Norn Trio is finally complete :p

I'm considering investing in some Celestial gear for this one, does it still work well for Ele ?
 

Hedge

Member
I'm so happy the Maguuma mastery will carry over. Otherwise they'd had to add a ton of new mastery points to central tyria and I'd have to start all over with the xp garnering.
I'm still missing three mastery points for fractal masteries, before I can unlock the last mastery track.
 

Retro

Member
It would have been very time consuming to redesign all the Central Tyria maps to add verticality, updrafts, and ley lines, and we wouldn&#8217;t want to. Each Central Tyrian map has a great story and design of its own, and we have no desire to turn the entire game into the Heart of Maguuma. We love the freedom that comes with gliding and wanted to bring that feeling to maps we already love. We&#8217;ve made some small changes here and there, but for the most part, you&#8217;ll find Central Tyria just as you left it&#8212;but you&#8217;ll have a much greater ability to explore and move through these familiar zones. These new freedoms might allow you to get to places in these maps we did not originally intend you to see. As long as your explorations remain harmless, it&#8217;s all part of the fun!

So... they don't care enough to do it right, but go ahead and break all the maps, who cares? That's just "part of the fun!" ¯\_(&#12484;)_/¯
 

Morokh

Member
Them not wanting to alter old Tyria is the lamest excuse I've ever read if I ever read one.

Put some updraft platforms here and there, like there is in the guild hall and you can create and implement new map areas that are only accessible for level 80 people that have the expansion, and it doesn't mess with the zone itself or the people levelling in it.

Seriously we didn't need gliding in the old world if it's just to be able to take a few shortcuts,

Once again a missed opportunity to devellop actual content around.
 
So gliding with no purpose...so now i get to jump off high areas in Tyria and wait for the last moment to test my latency, opens on time low ping, good ping, opens late shit ping, splat dead...
 

Proven

Member
If Gliding is apparently pointless without content built around it, then I wish they hadn't put it in Core Tyria and hope it doesn't get put into WvW either. Seriously guys, this is how we're going to be about this?

I've heard good things on Reddit about the latency alterations but as usual ymmv.
 

Mxrz

Member
Its been jarring to have gliding in HoT but not core map. I'm fine with it. Face planting to your death has become a stale punchline. Also a pretty good selling point for HoT to anyone that hasn't upgraded.

Seems like there a good chance we'll see it in the future maps too, especially if/when HoT becomes core/free.
 

Hedge

Member
Seems like there a good chance we'll see it in the future maps too, especially if/when HoT becomes core/free.

I wonder how this is going to work for people with the base game, but no HoT. They're not F2P but not "paying" either. Will there be restrictions? No elite specs, maybe?

So gliding with no purpose...so now i get to jump off high areas in Tyria and wait for the last moment to test my latency, opens on time low ping, good ping, opens late shit ping, splat dead...

I thought gliders now work client side to combat ping-difficulties? Haven't been to the HoT maps in a while, so haven't tested it.
 
Well I for one am absolutely thrilled with gliding in core Tyria, who cares that they didn't add any gliding-specific content or anything to the old maps? Gliding just feels like part of the game now, and jumping around in core Tyria and not having my glider deploy feels like something is missing. There's plenty of high places to jump off in the old world and plenty new views to see. Yay for gliding

I feel like people are going to be upset with anything ArenaNet does from here on out. If they *did* add new glider-specific content to old maps people would be like "anet what the fuck where is the living story/SAB/new events/whatever else" and if they didn't people would still be upset that gliding in core Tyria hasn't happened yet

I can agree that they are making some weird decisions and I don't like most of them but I'm going to thoroughly enjoy jumping off things
 
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