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Guild Wars 2 |OT4| The only subscription you need is this thread.

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Levyne

Banned
90 minutes at the main theater. Hmm.

Now not to think about it until late January.

Edit: Weird schedule has had me meet some faces in the guild I haven't really talked to before during typical na primetime. Good to meet everyone.
 

Zeroth

Member
So we are getting Cantha+Elona, playable Tengu and Lavos, 5 new dungeons, 8 new classes and better fractal rewards.

Anything less and we reddit will be disappointed.
 

Vinci

Danish
So we are getting Cantha+Elona, playable Tengu, Kodan and Lavos, 5 new dungeons, 8 new classes and better fractal rewards.

Anything less and we reddit will be disappointed.

Fixed. Would love to have Kodan as a playable. Not expecting it, though.

EDIT: I really hate the new trait system now that I'm trying to build up some of my new characters. My favorite thing in GW2 is WvW. Period. I simply don't care overly much about the rest, though I'm not against doing them. It's one thing to be locked out of the legendaries and the other benefits associated with the wider array of activities, but to also have all these traits locked away? That's nonsense. Traits are basic components of the game - they are a central piece of building your character. I shouldn't have to pay gold and skill points in order to unlock them just because I find running through the achievement system to be arbitrary and grinding.
 

Morokh

Member
So we are getting Cantha+Elona, playable Tengu and Lavos, 5 new dungeons, 8 new classes and better fractal rewards.

Anything less and we reddit will be disappointed.

Yeah, basically everyone will assume some type of expansion content, and they'll just show up and announce something like 'SAB is back !' or 'New legendaries !'

Prove me wrong Anet !!
 

Retro

Member
Anything less and we reddit will be disappointed.

Fixed that for you. They could announce a free expansion going live in a month with every feature everyone has ever asked for and some drippy shitbiscuit would scream about how some minor feature someone who left the company mentioned 7 years ago in an interview with Luxembourg's third most popular Guild Wars 2 blog wasn't being added "like they promised."

Also, I'm always surprised at the number of people who jump onto the Reddit hate bandwagon and say something along the lines of "I quit this game two years ago and...".... and... you lurk at the subreddit for a game you haven't played in two years? How sad is your life?

Traits are basic components of the game - they are a central piece of building your character. I shouldn't have to pay gold and skill points in order to unlock them just because I find running through the achievement system to be arbitrary and grinding.
likegjsts.png

Traits are absolutely my least favorite part of the game right now, and the latest changes definitely made them worse. The fact that they're unlocked through such a wide variety of events chosen seemingly at random does not help (I sometimes do an event on an alt and get the "Trait unlocked" notice without even realizing there was a trait tied to it).

I would have much preferred something relatively quick but lore-heavy; pick five thematically significant locations for each profession (Necromancers go to graveyards, Rangers go deep into the wilderness, Engineers go to centers of learning, etc.) and when you get there, an NPC gives you a little personal objective nearby that is tied to the type of traits you want to unlock. When you're done, all of the traits in that given line unlock. Make it fast, interesting (this is one of the few places they could have profession-specific lore, what a missed opportunity) and done in big chunks rather than on a per-trait basis. Something like a mini-dungeon, for example, where you go down into a crypt and defeat the ghosts of ancient Necromancers to learn their death magic, or as a Ranger you go into a lost grotto and track down some mythical nature spirit or whatever.

As far as WvW goes, I feel like with the game up-leveling you to 80 already and it being PVP-oriented, the game should just treat it like sPVP and give you traits, skills and pre-set gear / upgrades and let you mix up your stat distribution with accessories. That way new players don't get ganked or have to PVE to unlock stuff and existing players can stop blaming up-levels for being nothing but rallybots.

/shrug

Yeah, basically everyone will assume some type of expansion content, and they'll just show up and announce something like 'SAB is back !' or 'New legendaries !'

Prove me wrong Anet !!

I don't think they could pad 90 minutes out with something small like that, even if they spend half of it doing the usual gaming convention bullshit (talking about the business side of things, congratulating themselves on pointless statistics while showing pie charts, etc.).

The duration, location and the fact that the company president is there all point to this being something bigger than anything we've seen before. They haven't had much of a convention presence since the game launched.
 

Quenk

Member
Traits are basic components of the game - they are a central piece of building your character. I shouldn't have to pay gold and skill points in order to unlock them just because I find running through the achievement system to be arbitrary and grinding.

I agree 100% with this. After getting the traits I wanted for my ranger, it's been hard to go through it again for my mesmer.
 

Vinci

Danish
Traits are absolutely my least favorite part of the game right now, and the latest changes definitely made them worse. The fact that they're unlocked through such a wide variety of events chosen seemingly at random does not help (I sometimes do an event on an alt and get the "Trait unlocked" notice without even realizing there was a trait tied to it).

I would have much preferred something relatively quick but lore-heavy; pick five thematically significant locations for each profession (Necromancers go to graveyards, Rangers go deep into the wilderness, Engineers go to centers of learning, etc.) and when you get there, an NPC gives you a little personal objective nearby that is tied to the type of traits you want to unlock. When you're done, all of the traits in that given line unlock. Make it fast, interesting (this is one of the few places they could have profession-specific lore, what a missed opportunity) and done in big chunks rather than on a per-trait basis. Something like a mini-dungeon, for example, where you go down into a crypt and defeat the ghosts of ancient Necromancers to learn their death magic, or as a Ranger you go into a lost grotto and track down some mythical nature spirit or whatever.

Or just tie them in with completing chapters in the Personal Story or something if you're going to go the unlocking route. That said, I think it's idiotic to have to unlock them at all. It creates definition where there should only be inclusion. Traits are not optional - they fundamentally change / create who your character is. I don't want to go to some random location, even if it's thematically pleasing, and perform some arbitrary action to have something basic and central to my character become available to me - especially when it forces me to do engage in an activity that I do not enjoy.

Isn't it enough that my affection for WvW means I will never get a legendary? Isn't it enough that I'll probably always be at a disadvantage versus those who are willing to jump through the hoops and grind like hell to fully outfit themselves in as many pink/purple gear possible? I've accepted that. I don't want to grind. I want to run out, beat people up, capture territory, and do the one activity the game provides that I find rewarding.

On that note...

As far as WvW goes, I feel like with the game up-leveling you to 80 already and it being PVP-oriented, the game should just treat it like sPVP and give you traits, skills and pre-set gear / upgrades and let you mix up your stat distribution with accessories. That way new players don't get ganked or have to PVE to unlock stuff and existing players can stop blaming up-levels for being nothing but rallybots.

Bingo. Thank you. WvW should be about strategy and skill, not about somebody being able to grind 10 hours a day in order to get a statistical advantage versus someone else. Don't get me wrong: I take some sadistic joy in occasionally soloing a warrior carrying one of those fancy greatswords, but it's still silly that a contest of skill (1v1 combat, in whatever form) should place either side at a disadvantage because one of those people doesn't like (or can't) waste time doing things he or she deems to be unsatisfying.

It's a game, damn it. Don't force people to do things. Don't turn it into a job. Provide the best content that you can and allow people to self-select what works for them, rather than trying to coerce them into liking things they don't. Or, you know, have legendaries and such that are specific to different parts of the game. SPvP legendaries. WvW legendaries. PvE legendaries. Whatever. Be inclusive of people's choices and tailor the game to satisfy them.

Why is this so hard?
 
It's a game, damn it. Don't force people to do things

I hear ya. This is an issue every MMO has faced post-Ultima Online, where there is more "game" and less "sandbox". I suspect it really boils down to sandbox just being plain harder to do, balance, keep stable, and to keep all the millions of player-need spinning plates spinning. I've yet to see another game, other than perhaps Runescape, even attempt UO's style.

As for GW2, it's design is very smack dab in the center of "this is a game, not an alternate reality for you to inhabit". Players do have choice, but those choices are along very clearly defined rails. Some of the rails aren't designed well, or lack systems to make them more meaty, WvW being a good example of that. There *should* be WvW specific legendaries (though of course, that'd make the PvE crowd scream bloody murder, that they're "being forced" to play WvW if they ever want that legendary). It's a sad fact that every time something tries to be more inclusive, it creates a scenario where someone is feeling excluded. (For example, I'm jelly that because I don't play WvW, I don't get to earn as much karma as doing PvP content - nor do I get access to as many champ bags per hour. Yes, I could go Silverwastes chest-farming, but that is then forcing me to do something I don't want to, and we're back at square one).

GW2 is three children, WvW, PvE and PvP. If just one child is shown more attention than the others, it's a fight. If one gets something the others don't, it's unfair. It's obvious that PvE is the favored child right now, and understandably so since it represents the largest playerbase, by far. PvP feels tacked on, a checkbox they had to check to satisfy the PVP crowd, but they've done a fair amount of work on it since launch and I think it's reaching a good place now, just lacking more game modes. WvW... yeah. The WvW traitlines were a hackjob to add some progression into something that really didn't need it. I honestly don't know how they could "fix" WvW in a way that isn't just a band-aid, or would make PvP froth at the mouth.
 

spiritfox

Member
1 thing that would help WvW would be better rewards. The UI chests you get for ranking up are poor, and you don't get a lot of WXP doing stuff that needs doing. I think adding something like the PvP reward tracks into WvW would be nice, or maybe even just merging the PvP reward tracks into WvW. That would at least make more people play the mode.
 
There's a bunch of sales ending soon so I hope that means the sale I've seen talked about last year is about to start. I could use a couple of character slots.
 

TrounceX

Member
So I came back to GW2 for the Points Per Kill update to WvW. I had high hopes that it would encourage the type of gameplay that I enjoy most, that being open field fighting. Sadly, human nature has struck again to ruin what would otherwise be a decent idea. The incentive now is to combine into the biggest group possible in an attempt to ensure that you win the fight and get the most points. If a group is at a disadvantage (or even a perceived disadvantage as judging an enemy group size is challenging) the strategy now is to not engage. Tower bunkering and siege fights are more prevalent than ever, and I don't think anybody likes this type of gameplay honestly. The gameplay slows to a crawl, rewards stop, and only the handful of people on an arrow cart have any fun. At least that's my take on it.

So now we have the blob mentality in full effect, and I think it's a pretty well understood fact that the PvP combat system in this game starts breaking at about 35-40 people in a group. At that point you can throw all skill out the window and it's whoever has more necros wins...basically. Melee train is dead, necro train is in. The crit damage nerf and AoE limit further ensure this.

I think the idea was to remove white swords on objectives in order to discourage this omniblob mentality, in that a single group wouldn't be able to respond in time anymore. Well, we don't do that in T1 anyways. We have scouts that relay information. With this strategy, one giant float team and a handful of scouts can effectively cover every single map. Nothing has changed. The only real solution I see to this is to increase the size of WvW maps. Make it so we can't respond in time even if we tried. Make waypoints extremely important. Once this is accomplished then PPK and PPT could coexist.


As for the topic about traits I totally agree with Vinci and Retro. I've been leveling a necro (see why above) and I have been nothing but frustrated at how traits are unlocked now. I had to wait until I think lvl 45 before I could get the ground targeting Wells trait. And I have to either buy it or trek across the map to see some random NPC? Bullshit. No thanks.
 

Jira

Member
If Mike is going to be there along with Colin for 90 min at a convention that is not PAX East, you can bet your ass that something big is going down.

I've seen a lot of people over on r/gw2 not understanding the scope of what this presentation will be. The president of a company does not come out for anything short of a big "product" announcement. This will be equivalent to the Gamescom 2010 unveiling of the base game which they have not done one since.
 

Mxrz

Member
I never liked the notion of categorizing players into one of the three modes. A lot of grass is greener stuff pops up when people do it to themselves. I don't think its surprising that people who do it all tend to be a bit more grounded. I know when I favor one mode more heavily than the others my outlook tends to be a bit warped.

Wouldn't expect any new races given the armor issues. Even another human-esque race would require considerable effort. Better value might be sprucing the current races up more.

Anyway. There's a whole big world out there. Much as I dig Elona and Joko, I'd like to see unexplored stuff. Different cultures, places, monsters and the like.

Fixed that for you. They could announce a free expansion going live in a month with every feature everyone has ever asked for and some drippy shitbiscuit would scream about how some minor feature someone who left the company mentioned 7 years ago in an interview with Luxembourg's third most popular Guild Wars 2 blog wasn't being added "like they promised."

Also, I'm always surprised at the number of people who jump onto the Reddit hate bandwagon and say something along the lines of "I quit this game two years ago and...".... and... you lurk at the subreddit for a game you haven't played in two years? How sad is your life?
I say I'm done with that place, but like slowing down at a car wreck, its hard not to look. Seems they're doing the usual thing of making huge assumptions about the worst possible way to do something, and then promptly blaming ANet for it. These folks act like ANet and GW are horrible, and yet they can't move on, or likely even stop playing. What a miserable outlook.
 

Cathcart

Member
This announcement is going to be the greatest event in the history of the universe. Oprah is gonna come out and give everyone an expansion. Or bees. But hopefully expansion. Then bees.
 

Retro

Member
you sir, are my new favorite person of the day.... way to end the year! Thank you! LOL

Happy to be of service, I guess
JUWnj.gif


90 minutes of SAB ? Count me in !

Maybe if they were playing through all of it live on stage...

Or just tie them in with completing chapters in the Personal Story or something if you're going to go the unlocking route. That said, I think it's idiotic to have to unlock them at all.

I agree that having to unlock them is tedious, but I also get that it's a way to encourage players to explore. The problem is that there's nothing telling you "Go here and do this" unless you wade into the Trait menu, then check every single trait, then go where you need to. Personal Story unlocks wouldn't work because they're not only tied to your level but not everyone wants to do the Personal Story (or do it again).

If they were set locations, at least then you'd only have to travel to 5 places and do 5 "Trait quests", at least it would be over fairly quickly and still have that cool exploration element.

Unlocks are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my dislike of traits, however... but that's a long post I've already made, so there's no point in going through it again (we can take this to PMs if you want though).

Anyway. There's a whole big world out there. Much as I dig Elona and Joko, I'd like to see unexplored stuff. Different cultures, places, monsters and the like.

I was thinking earlier today that if it is an expansion (which I doubt it will be, but we'll get to that), it would make sense to go in all directions at once. The Living Story is doing an adequate job of moving the story further into enemy territory, and I imagine that we'll unlock bigger and bigger swaths of Maguuma as we go. We don't need an expansion to unlock that area because it's happening during the Living Story.

On the other hand, there are places to expand all over the map that are not being sufficiently handled by the Living Story:
  • The Deldrimor Front (between Ascalon and the Southern Shiverpeaks).
  • The Far Shiverpeaks (North of Frostgorge).
  • Woodland Cascades and the Isles of Janthir (north of Divinity's Reach).
  • The Blazeridge Mountains and Charr Homelands (north of Ascalon)
  • Tarnished Coast (West of Rata Sum, though that may technically fall under Maguuma).
  • Ring of Fire Islands (south of Rata Sum)
Not to mention places we've never been, like east of Ascalon into completely unknown territory. I mean, it's a pretty big map. And I know Elona and Cantha are fan favorites that everyone wants to see, but from a developer standpoint they might not feel like re-treading that ground right away in favor of something new that is less creatively constrictive. Maybe there are stories they want to tell that don't fit the existing narratives in Elona and Cantha.
 
Word on the street is they are about to unlock all the weapons for each class? That should be interesting.

A few months ago while I was searching for something I came upon a thread on the official forums where people were talking about how that's something they said they wanted to do at some point. That would be really neat.
 

nataku

Member
Word on the street is they are about to unlock all the weapons for each class? That should be interesting.

Is this based on the reddit thread where a guardian exotic equipment box gave a warhorn?

Seems like a stretch for something that could easily be a bug.
 

TrounceX

Member
Is this based on the reddit thread where a guardian exotic equipment box gave a warhorn?

Seems like a stretch for something that could easily be a bug.

I don't know about any threads. I've been out of the loop. I'm friends with some people who seem to get this information way ahead of time though. They knew about the bloodlust and EOTM quite a bit in advance as well, so I guess I've no reason to doubt.
 

Mxrz

Member
Word on the street is they are about to unlock all the weapons for each class? That should be interesting.

Not happening. Expect to hear all sorts of crazy stuff between now and the event.

Maybe there are stories they want to tell that don't fit the existing narratives in Elona and Cantha.

This is part of what cooled my jets on Elona. We know what the story would be. I want new stuff. Preferably without Elder Dragons, too.

But ANet doesn't get enough credit for doing unique things. Given how more of the same isn't working for any MMO, I imagine they'll change things up a lot. Who knows what we'll get.
 

Retro

Member
A few months ago while I was searching for something I came upon a thread on the official forums where people were talking about how that's something they said they wanted to do at some point. That would be really neat.

It was a reference to an interview Colin gave during PAX 2013 (right around the 4:00 mark);

"... and we still have a little bit of work to do on that front before we bring the game to other regions, but when that stuff is done our next step is gonna be looking at things, how do we grow and expand the features and the core gameplay that we have today and new weapons are gonna be things that are very high on list of things that we consider, along with taking weapons that already exist and expanding them out to other professions as well. We'd like to do both of those things."

I don't remember seeing an interview where they said they'd bring every weapon type to every profession, but there's been so many interviews it's hard to keep them straight sometimes. This was the only one I could remember being along those lines.

Personally, I think that way leads to madness; an Elementalist would end up with well over a hundred different skills. Making sure each is unique and isn't just duplicating the function of another skill (which was a big problem with GW1) is impossible, and we know this because they've said balancing Guild Wars 1's huge amount of skills was impossible;

We need to be careful not to add too many, or else the game spirals out of control where we cant maintain a strong sense of balance. We did the math and there's a reasonable rate we can do where we can keep adding skills on a regular basis for the next ten years and we wouldn't come anywhere close to the skill combinations that Guild Wars 1 had. By the end that was almost impossible for us to balance. We can't go too crazy with it or we'll get to the point where we can't keep track of all the options.
(Source)
 

spiritfox

Member
It was a reference to an interview Colin gave during PAX 2013 (right around the 4:00 mark);



I don't remember seeing an interview where they said they'd bring every weapon type to every profession, but there's been so many interviews it's hard to keep them straight sometimes. This was the only one I could remember being along those lines.

Personally, I think that way leads to madness; an Elementalist would end up with well over a hundred different skills. Making sure each is unique and isn't just duplicating the function of another skill (which was a big problem with GW1) is impossible, and we know this because they've said balancing Guild Wars 1's huge amount of skills was impossible;

I could see them adding 1 or 2 weapons per class. Besides, it'll make the classes less unique, especially War, who is about having lots of different weapon options.
 

Retro

Member
I could see them adding 1 or 2 weapons per class. Besides, it'll make the classes less unique, especially War, who is about having lots of different weapon options.

Exactly. For example, I don't think Elementalists should get melee weapons, ever. Their "flavor" is full-on magic user, so their weapon choices should reflect that; even daggers function more as a channel for magic than actual stabbing weapons. Of the current weapons, I think Warhorn or Torch actually make the most sense as a casting "device." Eles can also gain new weapons via Conjured weapons (a pure "Arcane" conjured weapon could fit into the current four-elements concept, for example).

Likewise, it would make little sense for Warriors to gain Focus or Scepter. I feel like Torch and maybe pistol is really the last of the current weapons for warriors that wouldn't be redundant (no need for shortbow with longbow and rifle, for example). Even pistol is a stretch.

Introducing new weapons is actually going to be hard unless they release multiple weapon types at once in a thematic package. For example, if they added whips, not every profession should be able to use them, but they can't just give whips to a few classes and ignore the others. So they'd need to add something like Meteor Hammers (big, spiked two-handed whips) and a flail (as an off-hand casting device) at the same time. Very few weapon types could be universal (Fist weapons would be a good one though, as it can be used for various forms of martial arts or to channel magic).
 

Jira

Member
Word on the street is they are about to unlock all the weapons for each class? That should be interesting.

This really isn't unexpected. If you think about it, all they have to do is make new skills versus new skills and new weapon models across MANY skin types. This is essentially the least amount of work while opening up a ton more weapon types for players.
 

Thorgal

Member
Man What a great night it was today

Truly a day worthy to begin the new year with.


First on the SBI teq run we popped fireworks at the same time creating a spectacular fireworks display .



Then on EB they decided to make things colorful in a different way .



I then spend the next 4 hours with the zerg and am witness to the slow decent into Madness as people on TS got more drunk by the hour .

The final charge i was a part of against CD's keep was the crown jewel of this night when this drunken mob stormed the upgraded keep with 10 golems and had a massive battle on the bridge and into the tower where we had a standoff with neither side giving way at first . while on the bridge multiple hammer guardians where punting reds of the bridge , bodies where flying everywhere .




Truly A GOAT night .
 
Pretty sad that by this time in gw1s life they had released 2xpacs.

We got scarlet and sand.

Ain't it awesome, as long as people are spending money in the cash shop we gonna get Living Story shit, why waste a ton of resources to make a expansion? when we can sell skins and make money...continue to give them money and we continue to get more fucking sand..
 
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